The Mad Hatters – The Monkey Children
The Mad Hatters
Listen/Download – The Mad Hatters – The Monkey Children
Greetings all.
The end of the week is here, and as usual, I am just about tapped out.
Things have been busy hereabouts, with all the bloggish stuff, and all of the real world stuff that keeps the old datebook stuffed full of commitments.
Next week will see the arrival of the 2010 Funky16Corners Pledge Drive, and as I’ve mentioned a few times in the last week I have something very cool lined up for he occasion (the main thing that’s been keeping me busy).
Also, this Friday sees the long awaited return of the Asbury Park 45 Sessions at the World Famous Asbury Lanes. The whole crew will be there, and will without a doubt be packing some serious heat of the funk and soul variety, so, if that sounds like a bag that you’d like to be in, and you’re withing driving distance it would be a very groovy thing if you were to fall by and check out the doings.
The tune I bring you today is something I picked up off of a sale list a while back, mainly because it looked very cool. I’d never heard of the group – The Mad Hatters – but one look at the combo in the picture above, and a glance at the song titles on the album convinced me that it was more than worth my while to unfold a couple of dollars and grab the disc.
I’ve gone on at length in this space (and elsewhere) about my love for, and definition of soul jazz. I am without question a huge fan of the genre, as well as a connoisseur thereof, in that I’ve spent way too much time putting what might be described as ‘too fine a point’ on what I consider true ‘soul jazz’.
There are those that will lump pretty much everything with an organ on it into the genre, or similarly anything with the slightest leaning toward rhythm and blues. Much of the music so defined is – at least nominally – soul jazz, but this says more about the omnipresence of the sound between the late 50s and the late 60s, than it does about the people making those sounds.
If there’s a point I’m trying to make, it is that while many people were including soul jazz as part of their own musical bouillabaisse, there were others who devoted themselves to, and specializing in this particular sound. The music of the Mad Hatters would suggest that the group fell into that latter category.
I haven’t been able to discover anything about the group. My instincts (and the jacket photo on the record) suggest to me that the Mad Hatters were a working outfit, as opposed to some anonymous grouping of studio heads.
The music on the album, represented here by the track ‘The Monkey Children’ is pure soul jazz, bluesy and swinging, never overplayed or taken too close to the edge, ultimately the kind of music with which to nod your head (and tap your feet) between sips of a cold beer or the cocktail of your choice.
Groovy stuff, and the kind of thing I can still listen to for hours on end.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday with the Pledge Drive extravaganza.
Peace
Larry
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Themocracy
Is it just me, or does this tune sound familiar? Art Blakey’s Moanin’ ?
Still cool though!
The guy on the plinky vibes (xylophone?) was definitely deep into his cocktails on this one. Gives it a complexity, though–worth bottling.