The Uptown Lowdown

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Irene Reid is a survivor, a voice from a golden age of jazz and blues singers. In the 1960s, she toured with Count Basie and recorded for Verve, then disappeared for decades, only to sound better than ever on a trio of CDs with organist Charles Earland before his death in late 1999. Like its predecessors, The Uptown Lowdown is relaxed, soulful, elemental music--roots with elegance. Reid sings in a style at the early intersection of jazz and R&B, with a sweet and gritty voice that recalls Dinah Washington and Ruth Brown. She covers some of their songs here, but she gives them her own spin, swinging mightily with a phrasing as natural as speech. She draws with ease on wellsprings of feeling, from a secure plaintiveness to bawdy humor, adding her own depths to "Me and Mr. Jones" and infusing a gospel spirit into the contemporary R&B of Robert Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly." Earland builds potent grooves with drummer Greg Rockingham and blends his organ keyboards with two tenors and trumpet, creating a lush carpet of sound for Reid's rich voice. Eric Alexander contributes some booting tenor solos, and guitarist Bill Boris adds cutting, soulful blues. --Stuart Broomer

Album Details
Featuring: Charles Earland, Eric Alexander, Mike Karn, James Rotondi, Bill Boris and Greg Rockingham.

Tracks:

The Harlem Medley: Echoes Of Harlem/Drop Me Off In Harlem
Jungle Nights In Harlem
Boys From Harlem
Sugar Hill Penthouse
Blue Belles Of Harlem
Harlem Speaks
Chinatown
Rose Of Washington Square/Broadway Rose
Slumming On Park Avenue
42nd Street
Scrapple From The Apple
Nostalgia In Times Square
Grand Central
52nd Street Theme
Take The 'A' Train

Customer Reviews:

Great concept, great music.......2003-09-28

The idea behind this concert was a sort of "musical tour" of New York City. Note the titles - "Sugar Hill Penthouse," "Chinatown," "Slumming on Park Avenue," et cetera.

The album has a great variety of styles. It has an excellent version of one of Ellington's lesser-known compositions, "Jungle Nights in Harlem" (1930), as well as more modern songs, such as "Scrapple from the Apple."

Good pacing as well. There's not too much slow or fast in a row.

My favorite soloist on the album is trombonist Wycliffe Gordon. Check him out on "Jungle Nights."

Tracks:

I'm Walkin'
Candy
(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean
I Believe I Can Fly
I'll Take You Back
If I Never Get to Heaven
Me and Mrs. Jones
Long John Blues

Amazon.com

Irene Reid is a survivor, a voice from a golden age of jazz and blues singers. In the 1960s, she toured with Count Basie and recorded for Verve, then disappeared for decades, only to sound better than ever on a trio of CDs with organist Charles Earland before his death in late 1999. Like its predecessors, The Uptown Lowdown is relaxed, soulful, elemental music--roots with elegance. Reid sings in a style at the early intersection of jazz and R&B, with a sweet and gritty voice that recalls Dinah Washington and Ruth Brown. She covers some of their songs here, but she gives them her own spin, swinging mightily with a phrasing as natural as speech. She draws with ease on wellsprings of feeling, from a secure plaintiveness to bawdy humor, adding her own depths to "Me and Mr. Jones" and infusing a gospel spirit into the contemporary R&B of Robert Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly." Earland builds potent grooves with drummer Greg Rockingham and blends his organ keyboards with two tenors and trumpet, creating a lush carpet of sound for Reid's rich voice. Eric Alexander contributes some booting tenor solos, and guitarist Bill Boris adds cutting, soulful blues. --Stuart Broomer

Album Details

Featuring: Charles Earland, Eric Alexander, Mike Karn, James Rotondi, Bill Boris and Greg Rockingham.

Customer Reviews:

Right On!.......2002-05-16

Irene has done it again!!! Bringing you into her world with her sassy style. You definitely will not be disappointed.

Average customer rating:

Harlem Piano

Uptown and Lowdown
Dick Wellstood & Cliff Jackson
Manufacturer: Prestige
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Stride Piano | Traditional Jazz & Ragtime | Jazz | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B00005N81B
Release Date: 2001-08-14

Tracks:

Yacht Club Swing
Brush Lightly
Blook's Dues
Old Fashioned Love
Mule Walk
Closed Mouth Blues
The Shout
Toddlin' Home
Alligator Crawl
Oh Baby, Watcha Doing To Me
Liza (All The Clouds'll Roll Away)
The Sheik Of Araby
I Found A New Baby
Wolverine Blues
Blues In Englewood Cliffs

Customer Reviews:

Harlem Piano.......2001-11-13

An entertaining re-issue of two obscure albums, featuring stride pianists Cliff Jackson and Dick Wellstood.

Tracks 1 -3 and 12 - 15 are drawn from the 1961 "Uptown and Lowdown" album from Prestige, and feature two very different bands. The first features "Dick Wellstood's Wallerites", which with typical Wellstoodian perversity, sounds nothing like Waller & his Rhythm. The Waller front-line of Herman Autrey and Gene Sedric is joined by Milt Hinton, Zutty Singleton and Wellstood on one Waller track and two Wellstood originals. All three have a solid mainstream sound. "Blook's Dues" is particularly effective.

Tracks 12 - 15 feature Jackson leading a Clarence Williams - style ensemble, "Cliff Jackson's Washboard Wanderers" featuring Ed Allen, Rudy Powell, Elmer Snowden, Abe Bolar and Floyd Casey. Allen is a little weak at times, but Jackson and Casey drive the band along in fine style. This is joyous music.

Tracks 4 - 11 constitute the re-issue of an extremely rare 1954 Riverside LP "The Stride Piano of Dick Wellstood". Wellstood is in strong form throughout, if not yet scaling the pianistic heights he would reach in the 1980s. His left hand is already producing interesting bass-lines, and he has the characteristic rhythmic tension between left and right hands that identifies top quality stride playing. Sympathetically accompanied by Jelly Roll Morton's old drummer, Tommy Benford, Wellstood demonstrates his mastery of the stride style, and in particular his indebtedness to James P. Johnson. The strongest track is "Old Fashioned Love", given a strongly swinging reading reminiscent of Johnson himself, with an occasional touch of Joe Sullivan. The other highlight is James P's little played "Toddlin' Home", which Wellstood endows with a number of typical Johnson phrases. Less at home on Waller's "Alligator Crawl", Wellstood romps through Tatum's "The Shout" and popular stride showpiece "Liza". Not Wellstood at his best, but well worth hearing.

Tracks:

Echoes of Harlem/Drop Me off in Harlem
Jungle Nights in Harlem
Boys from Harlem
Sugar Hill Penthouse
Blue Belles of Harlem
Harlem Speaks
Chinatown
Rose of Washington Square/Broadway Rose
Slumming on Park Avenue
42nd Street
Scrapple from the Apple
Nostalgia in Times Square
Grand Central
52nd Street Theme
Take the "A" Train

Music:

Music

Music