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Tenor saxophonist Eddie Lockjaw Davis group gives Al Smith and Mildred Anderson sympathetic backing in these two fine albums recorded for the Prestige/Bluesville label in 1959 and 1960.
Smith, whose bold style was greatly influenced by the Gospel tradition, had the earthy quality often found in the best blues artists. His singing ranges from full-voiced and declamatory to intimate and confidential, but it always carried a charge of vitality that jolts the listener into full awareness. Mildred Anderson possesses a very individual Blues style, neither haunting, nor painful and filled with nostalgia, and certainly not the pretty, dressed up Blues then in vogue. Hers is the rough-hewn, pay-youback, swinging blues, direct, forceful and unsentimental.
Shirley Scott, Wendell Marshall, George Duvivier, and Arthur Edgehill drive powerfully, while on both sessions Jaws brings his huge, bustling highly vocalized tenor to bear with idiomatic authority on the material.
Tracklist
Total time: 63:49 min.
01. Night Time Is The Right Time (Oden-Sykes) 4:16
02. I'll Be Alright (Al Smith) 3:50
03. I've Got The Right Kind of Lovin' (Al Smith) 3:23
04. Never Let Me Go (Joseph Scott) 5:09
05. I've Got A Girl (Al Smith) 4:32
06. Tears In My Eyes (Al Smith) 5:59
07. Come On Pretty Babby (Al Smith) 2:54
08. Pledging My Love (Robey-Washington) 2:27
09. I'm Gettin' Long Alright [Connections] (Sharp-Singleton) 2:41
10. I'm Free (Singleton-Bradshaw) 4:55
11. Don't Deceive Me (Please Dont Go) (Chuck Willis) 4:31
12. Hello Little Boy (Mildred Anderson) 3:43
13. Person To Person (Wally Gold) 3:04
14. Cool Kind Of Poppa [Good Kind Daddy] (A.A. Smith) 2:55
15. Kidney Stew Blues (Vinson-Blackman) 3:48
16. I Didn't Have A Chance (Jack A. Curry) 4:44
Album details
Sources:
Tracks #1-8, from the Al Smith album "Hear My Blues" (Prestige/Bluesville BVLP 1001)
Tracks #9-16, from the Mildred Anderson album "Person To Person" (Prestige/Bluesville BVLP 1004)
Personnel on HEAR MY BLUES (#1-8):
Al Smith (vocals), Eddie Lockjaw Davis (tenor sax), Shirley Scott (organ), Wendell Marshall (bass), Art Edgehill (drums).
Recorded at Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, September 20, 1959
Personnel on PERSON TO PERSON (#9-16):
Mildred Anderson (vocals), Eddie Lockjaw Davis (tenor sax), Shirley Scott (organ), George Duvivier (bass), Art Edgehill (drums).
Recorded at Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, January 20, 1960
Sound engineer: Rudy Van Gelder
Photography & cover art: Esmond Edwards
Original recordings supervised by Esmond Edwards
This compilation produced for CD release by Jordi Pujol
© 2011 by Fresh Sound Records
Stereo · 24-Bit Digitally Remastered
Blue Moon Producciones Discograficas, S.L.
Press reviews
"Blues shouter Mildred Anderson is barely known today. The singer first gained visibility when she recorded 'Doin' the Boogie Woogie' with pianist Albert Ammons for Mercury in April 1948. Singles with trumpeter Hot Lips Page followed in 1951 and with organist Bill Doggett for King in 1953. These latter sessions produced "No More in Life," her biggest hit.
Anderson grew up in Brooklyn and sang at the Antioch Baptist Church choir. After graduation from Girls High School in 1946, she worked at New York clubs, and her nearly three years with Doggett taught her everything she needed to know about organ combos and the blues. In the 1950s, she shuttled between clubs in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., as a single attraction.
In 1959, Prestige Records founder Bob Weinstock launched his Bluesville subsidiary. The fourth album recorded for the label a year later was Anderson's "Person to Person." Producer Esmond Edwards had the brilliant vision to pair her with the most perfect quartet imaginable: Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (ts), Shirley Scott (org), George Duvivier (b) and Arthur Edgehill (d).
All four of these artists were flavorful and tough blues players and, as you'll hear, completely at home on the session. The songs chosen were solid and little known: I'm Gettin' Long Alright, I'm Free, Don't Deceive Me (Please Don't Go), Anderson's own Hello Little Boy, Person to Person, Cool Kind of Poppa, Kidney Stew Blues and I Didn't Have a Chance.
Her vocal approach was all in, with soul, a touch of church and lots of authentic blues feel. Now add the rest: Lockjaw lays it on thick on solos, Scott's organ hammers out one groove after the next, and Duvivier's bass and Edgehill's drums stir it all up. A shame this group didn't record another bunch of albums.
Other than "No More in Life," an album Anderson recorded later that year for Bluesville backed by a group led by saxophonist Al Sears, she never recorded again, at least according to the Jazz Discography. What a shame. "Person to Person" remains one of my favorite jazz-blues albums. And now it will be one of yours."
—Marc Myers (October 4, 2023)
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