The Gene Ludwig Trio

 

Listen/Download – The Gene Ludwig Trio – Mr Fink Pt1

Listen/Download – The Gene Ludwig Trio – Mr Fink Pt2

 

Greetings all.

I hope all is well on your end, and that my ramblings this week haven’t put you off your soul.

In programming notes, I will remind you now that the Funky16Corners Radio Show returns to the airwaves of the intertubes this Friday night at 9PM at Viva Radio, where the elite meet to beat the heat. I have lots of classics lined up for you this week, as well as something new and groovy, so make sure to tune in, or fall by this very blog over the weekend to pick yourself up an MP3 copy of the show to dig on your computer or the iPod like device of your choice.

It was last summer that we got the sad news that the mighty Gene Ludwig had passed on suddenly at the age of 72.

You all know that I practically bathe in Hammond organ sounds on a daily basis, and Mr Ludwig created some fine examples of that genre during his five decade career.

He was first and foremost a jazz player – with the chops to back up that designation – but he also soaked his fingers in groove grease as well, laying down some particularly groovy soul jazz.

Gene was also, and this is the most important thing, artistically vital until the day he left us, playing live and recording at the top of his game.

Today’s post is – as is sometimes the case – a celebration of the old, as well as the new.

The record you see above, is one of my favorite two-siders in Gene’s discography, 1962s ‘Mr Fink Pts 1&2’ on Pittsburgh’s LaVere label.

Recorded with the classic Gene Ludwig Trio, with Gene on Hammond, Jerry Byrd on guitar and Randy Gillespie on drums, ‘Mr. Fink’ amounts to a skoshi under six minutes of the finest, smoky tavern Hammond wailing, soulful burning that anyone has ever packed onto two sides of a tiny vinyl record.

Aside from the epic ‘The Vamp’, this is by far my favorite of Gene’s 45s for both its elemental fire, and as a showcase for his keyboard skills. If you’re a stone Hammond junkie – like me – there’s something exceptional about hearing a master’s fingers fly over the keyboard, really making that huge hunk of wood and wires sing, and it doesn’t get much better than ‘Mr Fink’.

What I’m really here to rap about though is the fact that Gene Ludwig laid down one of the finest albums of his career just before he passed, and it has just been released.

The CD ‘Love Notes of Cole Porter’, recorded with a very tight quartet (with two different drummers) is without exaggeration, up there with the finest organ jazz of the classic era. A collection of the finest love songs to flow from the pen of the legendary Cole Porter, many classics of what the cliché machine has designated the ‘Great American Songbook’, ‘Love Notes…’ sees (hears) Gene and his band, Mark Strickland on guitar, Lou Stellute on tenor and Thomas Wendt and Billy Kuhn alternating on drums (all very good), working in the classic Prestige/Blue Note style, and when I say that I’m not just blowing smoke.

The late 50s and 1960s saw a lot of different varieties of practitioners recording on the Hammond organ, from purely soul/R&B based cats working it out on now rare 45s (like Louis Chachere, RD Stokes and Leo Valentine), post-bop visionaries like Larry Young, and the cats running in the mainstream like Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff and Groove Holmes, all of whom were widely recorded with widely varied results.

During the early part of his career, Gene Ludwig didn’t have the opportunity to record as frequently as many of those that I would consider his peers. Whether or not the consistently high quality of what he did record was merely a matter of conservation, i.e. never having been pressured to create more accessible/less inspiring records, or because all he had in him to create was pure class (I lean toward the latter) his legacy is smaller, and dare I say better.

That his final album reinforces that assessment is worth noting.

‘Love Notes of Cole Porter’ is every bit the equal of the best, swinging bop and soul organ sessions of the instrument’s (and Gene’s) golden era.

‘Love Notes of Cole Porter’ is also a gift to remind us that age need not be an impediment to a musicians growth. People do a lot of lip service to concepts like ‘maturity’ and ‘experience’, but listening to Gene wail and swing on this session one is treated to the sound of 70 years of technical prowess, seasoned by good taste and above all soul.

Another great thing about ‘Love Notes…’ is that alongside of well known material like ‘Night and Day’, ‘You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To’ and ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’, bona fide standards, covered hundreds of times by all manner of instrumentalists and singers, Gene works out on less familiar, but also exceptional numbers from Porter’s catalog like ‘I Love You’ and ‘Dream Dancing’.

This is serious, wonderfully played jazz and a fitting final statement from one of the great practitioners of the art.

You can pick up ‘Love Notes of Cole Porter’ directly from Big O Records, or over at CD Baby, where you can get it as a CD or as an MP3 download. You can hear samples of the album at both sites. It’s also available at iTunes, but make sure you search by the title, as a search of ‘Gene Ludwig’ only returns his older albums.

I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Peace

Larry

 

 

 

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