Louis Prima - The Wildest! [1956] [FLAC]

One of the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.



List taken from then book edited by Robert Dimery.

Artist: Release: The Wildest!
MusicBrainz: 60b684c0-9ee8-3a0f-9d59-9ee833a23d1a
Released: 1956 / 2000-05-16
Label: Capitol Records
Catalog#: 72435-26119-2-8
Country: US
Packaging: Jewel Case
Style: Blues, Early Jazz, Early Jazz Vocals, Early R&b, East Coast Blues, General Unclassifiable, Jazz, Jump Blues, R&b, Regional Blues, Swing, Traditional Pop, Vocal, Vocal Jazz

Tracklisting:

01. Medley: Just a Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody (04:42)
02. (Nothing's Too Good) For My Baby (02:36)
03. The Lip (02:15)
04. Body and Soul (03:22)
05. Oh Marie (02:25)
06. Medley: Basin Street Blues / When It's Sleepy Time Down South (04:12)
07. Jump, Jive an' Wail (03:28)
08. Buona Sera (02:58)
09. Night Train (02:45)
10. (I'll Be Glad When You're Dead) You Rascal You (03:13)

A polular nightclub singer/trumpeter in the 1930s an '40s, initially in his native
New Orleans and then in New York, Prima found work had dried up by 1954.
With new wife and stage partner Keely Smith in tow - he a rugged 43, she w
whitewashed 22 - he called in a favor and landed a gig in the lounge of the
Sahara, Las vegas, hiring young New Orleans saxophonist Sam Butera to drill
the band. Success came immediately; this sparkling half-hour, cut live in the
studio in April 1956, iced the cake.
Jazz hounds often dismiss Prima as just an Italanate Louis Armstrong
impersonator, perhaps because of the three Satchmo hits here: "You Rascal
You", and a medley joining a restrained "Basin Street Blues", to a non-
soporific "When It's Sleepy Time Down Youth". But that is to miss the point:
this is simply irrepressible music that more than matches its glorious cover
shot. Prima is joyous, rumbustious, and irresistible, making even the band
chuckle on "Oh Marie", with Smith in contrast, a delightfully straight-laced foil.
Butera and pals, meanwhile, set them up with some of the fizziest jump-jive
ever recorded. The sound has been imitated often, not least when Brian
Setzer's cover of "Jump, Jive, An' Wail" helmed a GAP commercial. Butera,
whose arrangement it appropriated, grumbled that he was paid three pairs of
pants for the privilege.
Prima dies in 1978, but his legacy lives on through daughter Lena, herself
seen recently performing at the Sahara, and trough his later turn as a regal,
jive-talking orangutan in "The Jungle Book". Truly, the man was the king of
swingers. (WF-J)

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