Joe Mooney - "Lush life"

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Picked this up in Cardiff this afternoon.

Have to admit, it was the sleeve that attracted my attention. But also the fact that it's a mid fifties (actually 1955) Atlantic album and that as well as singing, Mooney played the Hammond organ on it.

This is very nice stuff indeed. Mooney is kind of a Nat Cole singer, but not an imitator, and perhaps an influence on Mel Torme, I guess (he got started in the late 1920s). He started playing organ in the late '40s. His main influences were Fats Waller and Milt Buckner. There's a very obvious Buckner influence in this album. Apparently he died in 1975.

Anyone else got any interest in this?

MG

[ghost of miles]

What label is this on? This the mid-1950s Atlantic? I think a cut or two show up on the NY CABARET collection... I love Mooney's late-1940s accordion quartet; previous discussion here.

[Ken Dryden]

Koch reissued this music, Atlantic was the original label. Koch also did another Mooney CD, a compilaton: The Happiness of...the Greatness of... Joe Mooney. Music from Columbia/Sony.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Thanks Ghost.

Yes, this is Atlantic 1255, issued in 1957 but, according to the sleeve notes, recorded in 1955. Reissued in Europe in the Atlantic Masters series. Cheapo.

It's certainly loungey - but with the Buckner-style organ accompaniment - and some good guitar solos from Lee Robinson - and a rather quirky deliver of the vocals, it's a good deal more interesting than most of that kind of thing, I reckon.

MG

[JSngry]

...some good guitar solos from Lee Robinson...

Wow...I wonder if...no, I'll bet that that's the same Lee Robinson who was a "local legend" of the older, white, Dallas jazz scene when I first discovered same in the early 1970s. Lee Robinson was a player!

Also in that scene was drummer Jimmy Zitano (aka JZ), a certified CHARACTER if ever there was one - and there most certainly was.

[Larry Kart]

Zitano was one of THE drummers in the Boston area in the mid- to late-1950s. Among other things, he's on Serge Chaloff's "Boston Blowup," with his frequent rhythm section partner pianist Ray Santisi. I beleive Zitano was the drummer with the Herb Pomeroy small group and big band as well.

[JSngry]

Oh yeah, I knew who JZ was right away. Back in high school, ca. 1972, I had found a Capitol 45 EP of some of of Boston Blow Up in the back racks of a Kilgore, Tx (home of Van Cliburn) newstand for something like $1.25 & popped it up pronto. So when I got to Dallas, where nobody my age knew about Serge Chaloff or Boston in the 50s or anything etc., not only knowing who Jimmy Zitano was but having an actual record with him on it, a 45 at that, hell, that got me more tail than Sinatra, as any young jazz record collector/aspiring tenor player will tell you with confidence.

[Stereojack]

Oh yeah, I knew who JZ was right away. Back in high school, ca. 1972, I had found a Capitol 45 EP of some of of Boston Blow Up in the back racks of a Kilgore, Tx (home of Van Cliburn) newstand for something like $1.25 & popped it up pronto. So when I got to Dallas, where nobody my age knew about Serge Chaloff or Boston in the 50s or anything etc., not only knowing who Jimmy Zitano was but having an actual record with him on it, a 45 at that, hell, that got me more tail than Sinatra, as any young jazz record collector/aspiring tenor player will tell you with confidence.

I love Joe Mooney. Several years ago, there was nothing by him available, but with the reissue of the Atlantic and Columbia LP's, and two very fine sets on Hep which contain all the Decca sides plus a number of rarities, just about everything recorded by this great and underappreciated talent is currently avaiable, as it should be!