Smoky Joe Combo (FRANCE)
Live At Trinquefougasse
(hot swing, jazz, acoustic)
SJC003
© Smoky Joe Combo 2010
David Costa Coelho : Lead Vocals, electric guitar
Rémi Saboul : Electric Guitar, backing vocals
Martin Jaussan : Contrebasse, backing vocals
Philippe Cauchi Pomponi : Grand Piano, backing vocals
Thomas Doméné : Drums
Dominique Rieux : trumpet, Flugehorn, horns arrangements
Pascal Pezot : Saxophone
Rémi Vidal : Slide Trombone
SMOKY JOE's SOLID SEVEN is the eight musicians stage version of the Smoky Joe Combo (with drums and 3 horns...). This brand new hot album captured live during the 2010 european tour in a jazz club in Montpellier (South of France - near their hometown) is a great testimonial of the band energy and humour on stage..
14 tracks ! A collection of reefer songs, a fine selection of vocal swing favourites (some nice songs from the underground repertoire of Miss Ella Fitzgerald and also a Cats and the Fiddle number...) and also some hot early rythm'n'blues songs from Big Joe Turner and Louis Jordan..
Bet you won't be able to stay in your chair !
The band has toured main europeans rock'n'roll and swing festivals like Rythm Riot, Senigallia Summer Jamboree, Admiral Palast Berlin, Cais Sodre Cabaret Portugal and will be on the next editions of Benalmadena de Blues in Malaga Spain with Nick Curran, HepCat Holidays March 2011 (U.K.) and Rock That Swing festival (Munich).
'SEVEN has always been a mystical figure. It’s the natural figure between six and eight and it is a prime-figure, by the way, nothing uncommon; but in the mystical sense it’s the addition of four plus three, from Body (four) AND Soul (three); that’s exactly the point, when the avid Jazzenthusiast wakes up to real life and might think: “Yeah man, that’s it! - Body and Soul makes seven!” - Hipsters-maths in the best sense as Harry Gibson was the teacher while Coleman Hawkins blew his legendary endless solo with no replays, chorus after chorus!
And here they are, not the seven sons of Kathie Elder or the seven dwarfs; here are Smoky Joe’s Solid Seven with a new very hot waxing from the vaults of musical industries dark side, straight from beyond the hit parades about 70 years ago. As prophetically anounced in my linernotes on their Swing Brother Swing-album, they come with something old, blue and … new. The SEVEN.
First comes Billie Holiday’s Laughing At Life, way back then recorded with Teddy Wilsons band in the mid 30s, a tasty and swinging gem, with very zany inbetween stancas. Just relax, listen and … feel your throat becoming dry. Sweet Marijuana Brown was originally recorded by Barney Bigard’s band for the independent Black & White company … and failed. Probably it were the words with their direct aproach to drugs and that endless … aaaah … weed-smokers sound, smooooth and reeeelaxed. Just do the same and enjoy. Harvest your next tree, smoke it and hear the song, got me? Titles 5, 6 and 7 simply belong together, because you need the time while your reefer is still burning. Hence number 6 with Ella Fitzgerald’s When I Get Low I Get High (a great euphemism) and number 7 with Sidney Bechet’s Viper Mad. Did you know, that guy wasn’t only gay, but also a bigtime smoker? For a short time, he ran a laundry together with all-around-dealer Mezz Mezzrow. Even today, junkies know, what “a mezz“ means, about 70 years later. He knew his stuff and they knew his! Hey, Sister Lucy is an alltime favourite of mine and always a must in my own DJ-programme. Originally by the fabulous Trenier Twins, this gem was also disced by Jesse Stone and his congregation. Kickass, while Remi does the Lucy-part. - “Pump up your lips and give me some … “(what?). Track number 9 belongs more to the uncritical drug-statements, mentioned before. Imagine, Trixie Smith sang about a drug-nirvana in the 30s on Jack, I’m Mellow and that disc was sold under the tables, where else? - Definetively no hit then, but a gem today. Thank you guys, for your version. Let’s close these notes with the statement on track 13, That Killing Jive. Yes, dope (the hard stuff) is not good, definitively, but even simple smoking might kill (or makes an ugly skin), as any pack of Chesterfields tells us today. That’s the moralic message since the Cats and the Fiddle’s waxing from the 30s for Bluebird.
It’s terrific, what 7(remember the myth) guys from France have recorded for me, for you, for the world. The best swinging stuff for dancing, this time not only as a quartett, but blewn up to an octet . Since I have first met the Smokys during a job with my own band about 2 years ago, I lift my head more and more; and those hard-swinging gentlemen do play a lot, hopefully right around your corner next time and hopefully right around my corner tomorrow.
Needlenose
Herford, Germany
July 2010
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