Amos Milburn: Bad Bad Whiskey (1947-55)

(Vanilla Digital)

RECOMMENDED

The low-key career of the late pianist Amos Milburn is an important link in the rock & roll narrative because it's one of the bodies of work that sits in a nexus point -- encyclopedias remember him as nominally a boogie musician, but it's more accurate to consider him as one of the architects of the link between jazz and blues, of the affixing of blues song forms to musically adventurous, free-flowing jazz arrangements. In this sense, a luminary like Fats Domino owes everything to Milburn, something Domino has always been ready to acknowledge.

This brief compilation of some of Milburn's signature sides is, admittedly, more absorbing as a historical listen than as the pounding, ferocious marathon of immediacy that its excited liner notes might imply. There's no wow factor or spark of latecoming recognition. Without the context, though, the music's simply a lot of fun, and you don't have to know much about Milburn or about where boogie, jazz, or blues were sitting in the '40s to appreciate these songs, their banging piano solos, their suggestively erotic and playful lyrics ("just draw the shades and we'll play a while"), and the ageless joy in something like the killer proto-rock & roll jam "House Party Tonight."

That song along with the title track are the highlights here. The latter is a jewel; for all the swing in its rolling piano, that mischievously muttering vocal is what strikes. The same goes for the semi-sequel "Let Me Go Home Whiskey," on which Milburn mournfully announces that he's "got orders from my baby / not to come home juiced no more." There's a comic enthusiasm to even his sad songs, but one must admit that Milburn is most fun when he sounds absolutely loose. Take the perfect hop-skip of "Down the Road Apiece," a strong case made in two minutes for Milburn's importance in jump-blues, or better yet the dirty sax and proto-rap in "Sax Shack Boogie," all about "a little dance that they call the scrunch." This disc is over before you know it, but in the meantime it's a worthy education on a hotbed of influence, and the songs still cook hot and bright enough for your house party.