Rare Finds From the Radio Age Embellish the Legend of a Master of the Blues, Louis Jordan

Too often, the word "link," almost by divine right, is preceded by the word "missing." Then there's Louis Jordan, who is a definite link between many different kinds of music.

In the early '40s, the saxophonist, singer, songwriter, and bandleader was the link between big band swing and rhythm & blues; then, a decade later, he represented the transition into rock 'n' roll from R&B. Above all, he was a master of the blues, one of the few artists equally at home with the female-oriented classic blues of Bessie Smith and W.C. Handy as with the testosterone-driven Delta blues — his version of "Got My Mojo Working" is even better than that of Muddy Waters — and the sophisticated blues of Kansas City and Harlem, i.e., Count Basie and Jimmy Rushing.

Not only that, as Andrew Hickey shows in his excellent podcast series, "A History of Rock and Roll in 500 Songs," Jordan cast a giant shadow across the landscape of country music as well.

So, Louis Jordan has never been "missing." He was a huge star in his day and the subject of a major Broadway show decades after his death, as well as tributes from musicians in many genres. What's more, virtually every note he ever recorded has been made available in the digital era.

Thus the appearance of two CDs of material that mostly was previously unissued is a big deal. This new package consists of 48 tracks recorded in 1944 and '45 that were intended for use by radio stations and never meant to be sold directly to the public.

The set contains nearly two hours' worth of tracks, capturing the band that Jordan called "The Tympany Five" — even though his drummers didn't actually include a tympany in their trap set and the group was usually six musicians total — during their first flush of fame in the late World War II era.

There are fresh, new performances of Tympany Five hits and classics, like their breakthrough, "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?" Also now available are "Caldonia Boogie," "Slender, Tender, and Tall," "Don't Worry About That Mule," and Casey Bill Weldon's quintessential comic blues, "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town."

The latter, incidentally, had to be cleaned up for radio play: The original had a famous line, "If we have any children, I want ‘em all to look like me." It has been sanitized into, "If we have any children, then I'll be happy — wait and see." There's also Helen Humes's hit "They Raided the Joint," sung here as the more mainstream, "They Raided the House."

Those are always welcome, but it's even more refreshing to hear Jordan and company tackle numbers that were hits for other nascent R&B artists, like Cecil Gant's pioneering soul ballad, "I Wonder," and two comic numbers associated with the King Cole Trio, "Fla Ga La Pa" and "If You Can't Smile And Say Yes, Please Don't Cry And Say No."

Among the many radio-only highlights are a new version of "My Baby Said Yes (Yip, Yip de Hootie)," the 1945 hit duet with Bing Crosby, here delivered as a one-man duo with Jordan imitating Crosby on his lines. He also does something of a Crosby imitation on the one traditional ballad here — another unique item in the Jordan canon: a very straight, crooner-style rendition of Irving Berlin's "How Deep is the Ocean?"

There are also four new novelties all related to the war effort: "(My Feet Are Killing Me, Marching In) The Infantry Blues," "Johnny Hepcat PFC," "Get Me To Kansas City," and "Ridin' In An Upper Berth."

The set contains a bonanza in terms of short instrumental riff numbers, meant to be played over the air when stations had a spot of two minutes or less to fill. Most were only documented on this one occasion; the tracks were generally recorded during marathon sessions, like the one of July 18, 1945, that produced 28 tracks heard here.

These numbers show that when Jordan and company weren't busy being the Tympany Five, they could have competed with the best small-group swing units, i.e., Roy Eldridge or Coleman Hawkins. There are a ton of blues, like "ICU" and "I Got Rhythm" variations, such as "Stretch My Shoes." "ICU," which may or may not stand for "intensive care unit," is that rare mid-'40s number to feature a guitar solo, played by Carl Hogan. "Let's Operate" shows off Jordan's tenor saxophone and confirms that he was in a class with Illinois Jaquet, Arnett Cobb, Hal "Cornbread" Singer and all the major extrovert, blues-driven tenor men of the day.

At the time of these recordings, the term "rhythm-and-blues" was just coming into use, but Jordan makes the case that his music could have just as easily been labeled "RB&C," meaning, "rhythm, blues & comedy." Many tracks further illuminate what a master comedian Jordan was, and there is no shortage of examples of the great man, like his namesakes Louis Jordan and Louis Prima, going for laughs.

"Slender, Tender and Tall" is one of many examples of his comically exaggerated braggadocio, in which he goes on at length about how popular he is with "the chicks." He also poses an opposing argument — that he prefers playmates with precisely the opposite body type — in, "I Like 'Em Fat Like That."

One thing that Jordan taught everyone, including his no. 1 rival, Nat King Cole, was how to tell a joke in swingtime – and build up to a punchline in rhythm.