Louis Jordan: Films and Soundies (2003)
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Buy Louis Jordan: Films and Soundies on DVD.
Though not very well known today, Louis Jordan was perhaps the first
musician to perform the groovy, foot-stomping sound that became known as
rock 'n' roll. Basically a souped-up version of swing and jazz, Jordan
packed his sound into compact little songs about sex and food and booze.
In the 1940s, Jordan and his Tympany Band made three feature-length,
low budget musicals with the thinnest of plots to hold together Jordan's
songs. MVD's new DVD Louis Jordan: Films and Soundies combines
the 25 songs from the three movies, plus another ten "soundies," or the
equivalent of music videos that patrons could enjoy on primitive "video"
jukeboxes.
Of course, the drawback is that the DVD eliminates the actual
narrative flow from the films, and so some of the backdrops and costumes
may not make much sense. Why is Jordan performing at a college? And why
is he wearing a cowboy costume? It would have been great to see the
entire films, Beware (1946), Reet, Petite and Gone (1947)
and Look Out Sister (1948), which are not available anywhere
else.
At the same time, though the films have been digitally mastered, they
still sound particularly awful. The crackly mono strained my Bose
stereo's capabilities, and I had to turn it way down just to listen. The
films are a bit muddy and washed out, but I suspect that not the
greatest care went into making them in the first place, much less
preserving them.
In any case, Louis Jordan deserves to be better known, and this DVD
is a great way to get to know his irresistible music. Just reading the
song titles -- "Long Legg's Lizzie," "Got an Old Fashioned Passion for
You," "Don't You Worry About That Mule," "Salt Pork, West Virginia,"
"That Chick's Too Young to Fry," etc. -- make you want to get up and
dance.
