Richie Cole - Keeper Of The Flame

The sleeve of this album has Richie in a classic jazz saxophonist pose, decked out in a white three-piece disco suit, wearing a white fedora. He has a large, red carnation in his buttonhole. Behind him are red theatre-style curtains with mock flames licking up behind him. Kinda like he’s at a disco wedding in Hell.

This album is one of those where only the banger (New York Afternoon) gets played. The rest of it’s nothing to write home about, although I’ve always thought Harold’s House of Jazz should’ve got more dancefloor love than it did. And on this listen I’ve been very impressed by Vic Juris’ guitar playing.

New York Afternoon is just perfect. Eddie Jefferson’s vocals are superb – especially on the fade-out. The sleeve notes say that it was written for the Fifth Dimension, but they split up before they could record it. Cole was planning for The Manhattan Transfer to record it on their next (Cole & Jefferson produced) album, but it doesn’t look like either the production gig or the cover version ever eventuated. More’s the pity, because I’ve had a quick listen to the available cover versions and, fuck me, they’re all cat shit.

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Richie Cole With Eddie Jefferson - Hollywood Madness

I was reminded about this album when reflecting in yesterday's Tom Waits post, on how I'd got into him.

Cole plays competent, chirpy alto sax, but his albums are frequently greatly enhanced by the presence of vocalist, Eddie Jefferson. This album was Jefferson's last studio recording before he was shot dead (in Cole's presence), a crime for which no-one was convicted, although an allegedly disgruntled dancer was tried and acquitted.

The Tom Waits track, Waitin' For Waits has Jefferson on lead vocals, The Manhattan Transfer on BVs and Waits himself on spoken outro. It's fire.

The picture on the sleeve probably seemed like a good idea at the time. It reminds me of Iggy Pop's Lust For Life.

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John Spithead

2025-04-19 05:39:41

And it's a battered old suitcase, to a hotel someplace

Tom Waits - Small Change

This is my first post on my new/old lappy with Linux Mint. Very nice it is too.

My mate Dave (RIP) was wise. Amongst other things he was the first to spot that Morrissey was becoming a wrong-un and would have this discussion with Smiths loyalists over the football, and there were a lot of them in the mid-80's over the Orient. He also liked Tom Waits and would tell me I was underestimating his music by dismissing it. Interestingly, the song that had put me off him was off this album ( [i]The Piano Has Been Drinking[ (Not Me)/i]. They used to show a video of it on the telly a lot, and it just got on my tits.

Waits had popped up in a little cameo on a Richie Cole album I'd bought, and I really liked that, and I suppose my taste for him grew from there. i must say though, I think I got into his later, noisier stuff before I got into this earlier, sing-y stuff.

I like it now, though. I haven't played this for years. It's really good.

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