caithiseach Learns About Video

Aha! I finally doodled around enough with this blogging concept to figure out how to add videos. Next, I'll move my writing from wax tablets to digital letters, an upgrade I plan for October 2008.

What you have before you is an off-day addition to the Red Holloway posts, a video from June 7, 1995, with Red playing sax on Shawnn Monteiro's version of "Black Coffee." Now you can see what I've been hearing since 1963.



The regular post will be up Wednesday (Tuesday night). See you then!

Belly Up to the Buffet

Today, May 31, jazz saxophonist James “Red” Holloway turns 81. About 45 years ago, I got hold of his debut single, “Simple Steps” (Mad 1297). This time, I’m going to examine the flip side of that single, “Ala Carte.”

First, in case you haven’t had a chance to check out the bio on his website, I’ll summarize it here. He attended DuSable High School in Chicago, and he was a classmate of saxophonist Johnny Griffin. When he was 16, Gene “The Senator” Wright, of Dave Brubeck fame, hired Red. After serving in the Army, Red played with Dexter Gordon and others. When he was 21, Roosevelt Sykes asked him to join the Sykes band. Later, Red played for Willie Dixon, Bobby “Blue” Bland, B.B. King, Lloyd Price and John Mayall, to name just a few.

Other musicians he backed include Billie Holiday, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Lionel Hampton, Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt. From 1963 to 1966, Red played in Jack McDuff’s band, along with George Benson. Beginning in 1969, he held a 15-year gig at the Parisian Room in Los Angeles, where he also served as talent coordinator.

Though his associations gave him a lot of work as a blues saxophonist, his solo work leans toward jazz. If you check the last post, you’ll see what he can do in that idiom.

And when you listen to today’s song, you see just what a range he has.

The two rockers he released on Mad (part of an album’s worth of material he recorded, according to Robert Campbell’s Mad page) are extremely accessible tunes musically. The lyrics of the chorus to “Simple Steps” are a dance call, a precursor to the laid-back calling on “The Madison Time” by the Ray Bryant Combo. “Ala Carte,” however, is a different creature altogether.

A solid sax groove drives this tune, as it does “Simple Steps,” but Leon Hooper, the drummer and likely vocalist on this cut, added some gut-wrenching lyrics. The premise is odd food, and the food is odd: fried elephant lips, pig knees (better than pygmies, I presume), grasshopper toes, and the like. Hooper lines out a many-course meal for us, and considering how he starts to gargle at the end of the song, you get the feeling he sampled everything on the buffet line. At last he capitulates and asks for some baking soda.

Three-year-old caithiseach found the song’s menu very amusing. I wondered what some of these items would taste like. I didn’t turn up my nose at many foods. Once, my dad was eating something with horseradish on it. I asked to try it, and he refused. I persisted, and finally he decided to shut me up by giving me the horseradish. Now is when I’m supposed to say that I loved it, to his amazement. But he got the reaction he expected, and I didn’t eat horseradish again until I started using Chinese mustard. And then I discovered prime rib and horseradish sauce. Oh, my. I’m getting hungry.

The song talks about a lot of “foods” that are obtainable from animals, but not necessarily the parts one would eat. For example, I suppose that most people would eat elephant steaks rather than elephant lips, which are normally relegated to elephant hot dogs. Why eat just the toes of a grasshopper when the entire insect creates such a satisfyingly mouth-filling crunchiness?

Sure, you’ll say that we should not eat elephants. I agree. I never have eaten an animal that could be anywhere near the endangered list. No shark for me, no . . . elephant. But I have eaten ostrich, alligator, iguana, bison, squirrel, rabbit and, I suppose, a few I’ve forgotten. Among those options, I suggest the iguana, if you can get it baked and barbecued. Make sure they share the tail with you.

One time I tried to eat something unusual and failed. When I lived in Mexico, my favorite food was pozole, a soup made of pork and dried hominy. A good pot of pozole required a pig’s head, as well as loin and perhaps shoulder meat. The brains were cooked in foil separately from the rest of the head, and as for the pig’s eyes . . . my future sister-in-law Lupe always got those.

Being the adventurous eater I was, I asked once if I could try one of the eyes. She agreed, and I took the spoon. I was about to pop it into my mouth when I realized that the eyelashes, as black and even as those on a child’s doll, were still attached. In fact, they were fluttering coquettishly in my direction. I gave back the eye.

My cowardice aggravated me, and a year later, I had another chance. For the very same reason, I begged off again. Now I was really annoyed with myself.

About ten years later, a student of mine who lived on a farm mentioned that her family was going to slaughter a pig. I got her to promise to bring me an eye, and she did. I took it home and cooked it. Overcooked it, in fact; it didn’t look like the Mexican pigs’ eyes. But I popped it into my mouth and started chewing. It reminded me of a golf ball made of chicken gizzard. (Now you don’t have to try one.)

I’m over that particular challenge, but I still love unusual good food. Just not the stuff Leon Hooper suggested in the song, like baboon eyeballs. Check out his menu and the intense sax.

Next week, I’ll lead from Red Holloway into the most obvious segue of the year. See you then!

Red Holloway, Ala Carte

Ala Carte label

Simply a Jazz Legend

For several years, I have known that today’s artist is not the obscure entity that his 45 on a small Chicago label would imply. When Uncle Tom brought the 45s to me (he gave me two copies, bought on different record runs), they came from the usual bargain bin. The single didn’t chart. Three-year-old caithiseach cranked it a lot, though, and the two sides broadened my horizons plenty.

First of all, the A-side, “Simple Steps” by James “Red” Holloway (Mad 1297), set the tone for many caithiseach favorites: growly baritone sax, an energizing 1-4-5 progression (think “Why Wait” with a rockier beat) and a clean guitar solo that has a tinge of jazz to it. During the sax solo, the bass line is distinctly jazzy, but I didn’t notice that when I was three years old.

It’s a good thing Uncle Tom picked up two copies of this gem: one died in the Great Meltdown. The Survivor hasn’t fared all that well; it’s nearly Ground to Dust, and there are parallel cracks, one across the entire playing surface, and another halfway through, close enough to the first crack to make losing a chunk of the styrene a serious threat. I have transferred the song to my hard drive, of course, and a search will show you where you can get both sides of this 45 on CD. I don’t have the CD yet, so I can’t tell you how good it sounds. Even with the option of acquiring the songs on CD, I would hate to have my 45 break, so I am being extra careful with it.

The label has one of the busiest logos I have seen on a 45. I liked it when I was a kid, but I also couldn’t see it very well until I entered the first grade, when people figured out that I needed glasses. See the label here.

There are little man-faces with huge noses peering over the letters, with music notes weaving behind the letters. I can describe the logo, but I can’t tell you what it means.

About four years ago, I decided to look for a cleaner copy of the 45, and I found something even better: a website devoted to Mad Records. Professor Robert Campbell of Clemson University is responsible for this excellent labor of love, and I am proud to have contributed both the label scans and the sounds of this 45 to his research. You can see the site here. There is a lot of information there, so you’ll have to scroll partway down the page to find today’s song.

I scanned the label of my 45, then Professor Campbell cleaned it up, and I took the jpg from his site, so consider that a statement of credit.

What I have learned about James “Red” Holloway is that he has, over time, become an intensely respected jazz saxophonist. He’s an Arkansas native, born in Helena on May 31, 1927. Yes, I chose this slot and the next to discuss his music in order to honor his birthday. He is still active; you can book him via his website. But good luck finding an open slot in his schedule; he’s performing constantly throughout 2008, including the Red Holloway Jazz & Blues Festival in his hometown on July 26, six weeks in Europe in September-October and a Thanksgiving trip to Japan. Nice.

When three-year-old caithiseach was playing Red’s 45 regularly, there was no way of knowing that the singer/sax player had performed with Dizzy Gillespie, would later cut a couple of albums with Sonny Stitt, and could play “clarinet, flute, piccolo, piano, bass, drums, and violin,” according to his site bio. There is so much to say about this varied and exciting career that I would do well to step aside and let you peruse the two websites to which I have linked.

Professor Campbell’s page states that Red recorded enough tracks during the Mad sessions of late 1958 or early 1959 to make up a complete album, but only the tracks on this 45 were released. I really liked this double-sided caithiseach hit, so I am hoping the tapes are sitting somewhere, waiting for some motivated investigator to rescue them.

Red Holloway wrote “Simple Steps.” On the recording, Leon Hooper plays drums, and McKinley (Mac) Easton most likely provides the baritone underpinning. The organist and the guitarist are unknown. A lot of research has been done, so the missing information may well never come to light.

Mad Records was set up in Chicago in 1957 by a jazzy saxophonist, Tommy “Mad Man” Jones. He kept the label and a companion, M&M Records, going until 1991. Jones was responsible for the debuts of a number of significant artists, including Red Holloway and Oscar Brown Jr.

Over the course of this blog, I’ve discovered that I owned some famous songs (“Midnight Sun”) and early work by people with great futures (Marlin Greene) or amazing connections (Bob Keefe). I don’t think anyone in my collection can top Red Holloway’s musical range, contacts or longevity.

To show you what this man is capable of, I’m including a cut from a 1964 LP, Brother Red, which shows his prowess as a jazz saxophonist in a setting where he is in charge.

After this first taste, I’ll share more about him Saturday. See you on the flip side!

Red Holloway, Simple Steps

Red Holloway, Brother Red