november 17th extract

Louis Jordan-I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You

There’s an awful lot to be said for any song that uses the word “cabbage” in the lyrics. If it is then rhymed with the word “savage” then you’re getting close to perfection. If you then combine it with someone like the great Louis Jordan then you’re even closer. What’s needed to top it all off, to put the cherry on the icing on the cake is to have someone such as Louis Armstrong duetting with Jordan. That’s what you’ve got with this song-all those elements combined together to produce something that’s probably up there with one of my favourite songs of all time. It only lasts three minutes but it’s impossible to hear without tapping your toes and wishing you owned a really crisp sharp suit in a coulour that would be impossible to wear in the street without fear of ridicule-bright pink say, or maybe an especially lurid shade of green. Purple would do as just as well. This is as close to rap as any record recorded in 1956 could be. The two Louis’ exchange verse for verse in a sort of call-and-response manner. What works particularly well is the contrast between Armstrong’s well known gravelly tones and Jordan’s undoubtably smoother performance. (Actually, anything would be smooth in contrast to Armstrong on this record-he could make Howling Wolf sound like Andy Williams.) Half way through the Jordan’s first verse Armstrong shouts “Talk about it, Jordan, talk about it” and at the end of the first verse Armstrong is chomping at the bit, “Let me talk about it for a while”. Within the middle of Armstrong’s verse, Jordan literally raps over Armsrong’s line about ”There ain’t no point in running, you old rascal you” with “Run,Satch,run!”. It’s fantastic. This is all before the horns and drums kick in big style and Jordan tells them to, “Blow it out, blow it out!”