Album Reviews

It’s easy to understand why a cut-up rocker with one foot in metal and the other in Vaudeville like David Lee Roth would break out of Van Halen and go solo with a faithful cover of Louis Prima’s version of “Just a Gigolo”/”I’m So Lonely.”

After all, like Roth, Prima was a fence-straddler, with one foot in jazz and the other in comedy. Had he a third foot it would be in early rock and rhythm and blues, which can sometimes protrdcing from the double-time walking rhythms. And like Roth who’s Jewish puss exuded shtick with a wink even when he was rocking with Van Halen, Prima struts his Paisano background at every musical turn.

If you’re familiar with that unlikely MTV hit (which you can see at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbXPHiyE7uE) but not this classic Prima album, you’re in for a shock both because you’ll hear from where Roth copped it and you’ll hear an absolutely superb-sounding mono Capitol recording that Pure Pleasure has done a superb job reissuing.

The gravel-voiced trumpeter and his long-suffering wife Keely Smith, the pristine-toned, poker-faced perfect foil were the premier Vegas lounge act for years back when Vegas had its own culture and the big stars came out to play.

Backed by the raucous saxophonist Sam Butera and the Witnesses, the Louis and Keely duo cut up the strip, Tahoe, Reno and wherever people during the 1950’s came to groove and party. Keely is still going strong!

The music mixes Dixieland (the musicians are mostly from New Orleans), hipster jazz, r&b, boogie woogie, fast shuffles, early rock’n’ roll, Neapolitan shtick, Vaudeville and plenty of bump and grind bordello rhythms.

This album, Prima’s first for Capitol and recorded in 1956 attempted to capture, in the studio, a raucous live set at Las Vegas’s Sahara, where Prima, Smith, Butera and the Witnesses were ensconced. The mono recording succeeded brilliantly by layering the musicians expertly in three-dimensional space and adding just a touch of reverb induced brightness and zip that captures a live sound.

There was a time when original pressings of this popular record could regularly be found for a buck or two at garage sales and used record stores and whenever I found one I’d buy it to share with friends. The original was on the turquoise Capitol label reproduced on this reissue but later pressings featuring the early Capitol “rainbow rim” sounded equally good.

That said, this reissue is at least as good-sounding as any of the originals I have and because of the far quieter vinyl is the one I’ll be playing more often than not from now on. The remastering engineer has not softened or toned down the brashness of the tonal balance and its exciting bass wallop, nor has he quashed the recording’s extraordinary dynamic range.

There’s plenty of shtick, with Butera and the boys rollicking on David Rose’s “Holiday For Strings,” and Grofé’s “On the Trail” from his “Grand Canyon Suite” (better known to the audience when this record was made, I guarantee you, by its use in television commercials for Philip Morris cigarettes) but the backing musicianship, particularly that of Butera and trombonist James Blount, that it overcomes any doubts that this is lightweight stuff. It’s not.

I am thrilled that Pure Pleasure has chosen to reissue this gem and I recommend it with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. It’s a classic that has endured fifty plus years without losing its luster and it will go at least another fifty. It captures a time and a vibe long gone and greatly missed. David Lee Roth brought it back with great sparkle and energy for a time and here’s hoping some youngster does it again because right now, damn it, we need it! Meanwhile we can re-live it by playing this excellent-sounding reissue!