LOUIS PRIMA AND HIS NEW ORLEANS GANG – 1934-1935 | The Chronogical Classics – 1048 (1999) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Born and raised in New Orleans, Louis Prima came up in his hometown gigging steadily in the clubs and doing his best to emulate Afro-American musicians. His number one role model was Louis Armstrong. After playing Cleveland with Red Nichols in 1932, Prima began recording in 1934 and thoroughly established himself on 52nd Street in New York City the following year. Prima was good looking and sang in a pleasantly hoarse voice. His humor was often heavy-handed, and his bands pushed hard to generate excitement among live audiences and the record-buying public. Prima's 1934 bands had strong players in George Brunies, Claude Thornhill, and Eddie Miller. "Jamaica Shout" is a rare example of instrumental Louis Prima: hot jazz with nobody yelling. "Breakin' the Ice" was the first in a series of Prima interpretations of songs made popular by Fats Waller. Bill "Bojangles" Robinson performed a lively version of "I'm Living in a Great Big Way" with Waller during the last reel of the 1935 RKO motion picture Hooray for Love. Waller never managed to make an actual phonograph recording of this song. Prima had fun with it and with every tune he grabbed onto, sometimes maybe too much fun. During "Let's Have a Jubilee," which was recorded twice during November of 1934, Prima spits out weird nicknames for each bandmember, including "Baboon Face" and "Liver Lips." This sort of talk was not uncommon among Afro-Americans, but it is particularly unsettling coming out of the (big) mouth of a (Southern) white musician. The real gold on this CD lies in the last six tracks, ground out by a band that had Pee Wee Russell as its artistic nucleus. Prima was the handsome leader, Prima sang and blew his trumpet, but Pee Wee was the light, the emulsion, and the pigment in this picture. "The Lady in Red" just might be the very best record that Louis Prima ever made, largely because of the magical presence of a gifted clarinetist with poetic sensibilities and a tone like nobody else. arwulf arwulf  
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LOUIS PRIMA AND HIS NEW ORLEANS GANG – 1935-1936 | The Chronogical Classics – 1077 (1999) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Here's Louis from his first flush of success at the Famous Door in New York City. Backed by his New Orleans gang, Prima's distinctive style was already emerging on material like "How'm I Doin'," "Plain Old Me," "Sweet Sue," "Lazy River," "Dinah," and the original version of "Sing Sing Sing." Although the backing is strictly New Orleans (and thus a long way stylistically from his later Capitol sides with Sam Butera & the Witnesses), most of the tunes boast the highly inventive clarinet work of Pee Wee Russell, and Prima's horn is well to the fore on these sides. One for hardcore Prima fans. Cub Koda
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LOUIS PRIMA AND HIS NEW ORLEANS GANG – 1937-1939 | The Chronogical Classics – 1146 (2000) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

During the late 1930s Louis Prima evolved ever so slightly beyond the New Orleans revival and hot novelty formulas that he'd milked so relentlessly from 1934-1936. Almost everything he recorded during the years 1937-1939 followed the same pattern of small group swing lathered over with Prima's showy vocals. These records didn't sell very well, and neither Vocalion nor Decca felt obligated to keep him on their rosters. The only two instrumentals heard here are a vigorous "Tin Roof Blues" and a neck-snapping "Jitterbugs on Parade" which is played so fast that the band sounds almost tortured rather than enthused. Poor Louis was desperate, his vocals were overbearing, the public wasn't interested, so it seems he figured the only thing left to do was to play so fast that it hurt. On each of the vocal tracks his frantic humor seems rather forced. It's good to have access to these recordings in order to satisfy one's curiosity and get a glimpse of an overview of the man's recording career, but they are certainly not the best of Louis Prima. Greater enjoyment will be derived from the work of the men he so closely imitated during the 1930s: Louis Armstrong and Wingy Manone. arwulf arwulf  
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