Choo Choo Ch'Boogie

Louis Jordan

En 1946 Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five lanzan al mercado la grabación Choo Choo Ch'Boogie con un éxito arrollador, presagiando el desarrollo del rock and roll unos pocos años después. La canción resume el sentimiento de excitación seguido de desilusión cuando los hombres regresan del frente después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Louis Jordan fue popular entre los ´30s y ´50s, se mantuvo al frente de su banda por más de 20 años e incluyó a cantantes como Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald y Louis Armstrong. Pueden comparar la performance de Louis Jordan con la de Manhattan Transfer más abajo, en 2005. En vocabulario: epitomizing y knack

"Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" is a popular song written by Vaughn Horton, Denver Darling, and Milt Gabler. The song was recorded in January 1946 by Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five and released by Decca Records. The record was one of Jordan's biggest ever hits with both black and white audiences, peaking at number seven on the national chart and provided an important link between blues and country music, foreshadowing the development of "rock and roll" a few years later.

Although "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" is now seen as epitomising the style known as jump blues, it was written by white songwriters whose background was in country and western music.

Louis Jordan, New York, 1946

The song summed up the feelings of excitement followed by disillusionment felt by many who were returning from serving in the Second World War, in lyrics such as:

You reach your destination, but alas and alack!

You need some compensation to get back in the black

You take your morning paper from the top of the stack

And read the situations from the front to the back

The only job that's open needs a man with a knack

So put it right back in the rack, Jack!

Vocabulario

epitomizing: Typifying, illustrating and exemplifying.

knack: talent and ability.

Jordan´s Tympany Five, 1946

Para saber

Louis Thomas Jordan (1908 –1975) was an American musician popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Jordan was a talented singer with great comedic flair, and he fronted his own band for more than twenty years. He duetted with some of the biggest solo singing stars of his time, including Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Jordan was also an actor and a film personality, made numerous cameos in mainstream features and short films, and starred in two musical feature films made especially for him. He was an instrumentalist who played all forms of the saxophone. He also played the piano and clarinet. A productive songwriter, he wrote or co-wrote many songs that were influential classics of 20th-century popular music.

Bing Crosby, Perry Como and Arthur Godfrey, 1950

With his dynamic Tympany Five bands, Jordan mapped out the main parameters of the classic R&B, urban blues and early rock-and-roll genres with a series of highly influential 78-rpm discs released by Decca Records.

Louis Jordan - Choo choo ch'boogie

También

Sound Bazar Choo choo ch'boogie

Sound Bazar in Choo Choo Ch'Boogie by Manhattan Transfer; live in Rome at Classico Village June 2005

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