NRBQ's Jazz Jukebox

Hope you all had a Terry Christmas, everybody! Can't let 2022 end without completing the NRBQ Jukebox series.

It seems a shame to separate these jazz tunes from the other NRBQ sets (since the Q is nothing if not eclectic), but some of the songs are quite lengthy.  

Terry's idols Thelonious Monk and Sun Ra are present, as well as the Carla Bley composition "Ida Lupino" (recorded by NRBQ on their debut album), and "Things Are Getting Better" by Cannonball Adderly (which NRBQ covered on Scraps).

"South" by Benny Moten's Kansas City Orchestra appeared on Froggy's Favorites; Sonny Rollins' "Valse Hot" was on The Scraps Companion. The Q took on Roland Kirk's "Here Comes The Whistleman" during the Ludlow Garage live set; and "Paris" (a composition from late in Moondog's career) was featured on NRBQ's live album You Gotta Be Loose.

Claude Thornhill's composition "Snowfall" falls outside the chronology of these compilations (as it was recorded by the reformed NRBQ on 2012's We Travel The Spaceways), but I invite you to listen to NRBQ's version here.  

I first heard "Snowfall" as a child, on the Ramsey Lewis Trio's More Sounds Of Christmas LP (1964).  That album (and its 1961 predecessor, Sounds Of Christmas) were in heavy rotation on the family stereo every December when I was growing up, and they are still the first records I put on when I'm ready to get into the spirit of the season.  It was a thrill to hear Terry and the guys do "Snowfall", back when Pete Donnelly of The Figgs was NRBQ's bassist.  Klem Klimek (a frequent NRBQ collaborator) sits in on harmonica.

Here's the Ramsey Lewis Trio's version of "Snowfall".  If you only think of Ramsey Lewis as a "smooth jazz" player, his acoustic recordings from the 60's on the Chess and Cadet labels are a revelation.  Ramsey passed away in September, 2022.  Ramsey was a pianist who could really swing, and I bet Terry was a fan.