Shakey Jake - Good Times (Bluesville)

Back in the pivotal 50s and 60s, Rudy Van G’s storied recording studio residence wasn’t just home to jazz musicians. A fair share of bluesmen also made the trek to suburban Englewood Cliffs, NJ to lay down tracks, mostly for the Prestige subsidiary Bluesville. Few featured instrumentation as unusual as this Shakey Jake platter. It’s a configuration that to my knowledge hasn’t been duplicated on disc since. The absence of any sort of conventional rhythm section (no bass, no drums, etc.) definitely absolves the session from the ordinary. Jake’s harmonica and vocals join Jack McDuff and Bill Jennings and the result is a weird kind of chamber blues sound. McDuff and Jennings were a familiar fit, the latter holding the guitar chair in the B-3 organist’s band. Both men stayed musically fit on steady rations of gutbucket blues goulash. All composition credits go to the mouth harp ace’s mild-mannered alter ego Jimmie D. Harris. But it’s a bit of a ruse since most of the selections pilfer blatantly from existing blues tropes. Shakey stamps each with his cocksure signature, but only minor lyrical modifications. His vocal inflections borrow heavily from Muddy Waters (not surprising considering his Windy City digs) on tracks like the opener “Worried Blues” where his whoops and harp breaks ride out a rhythm of chugging guitar and well-endowed organ swells. “My Foolish Heart” a barely camouflaged retread of “Mannish Boy,” is even more conspicuous in its borrowings. The trio also tackles a handful of instrumentals like the slowly smoldering “Sunset Blues,” which features killer relaxed fretwork by Jennings and a molasses-paced groove from McDuff built on plush sustains and staggered trills. These numbers reveal fascinating collisions in styles and levels of experience between the leader and his ‘sidemen’. Despite the differentials Jake’s reedy blowing and spirited singing dishes out instant charms. From its field holler beginnings the blues has depended on creative appropriation. Jake just does right by the long-standing custom and in so doing crafts one of the singular records of the idiom.