Where’s the love for Louie Jordan?
Here’s the man who represents the bridge between big band music and R&B. Jordan’s downsized big band played jazzy instruments in an R&B style, with a lot of saxophone. In other words, they helped create the sound of early rock & roll, particularly the boogie-woogie variety.
Films like this one were shown in nickelodeons, and helped make Jordan the biggest recording star of the 1940s. In fact… he was arguably the first great inter-racial pop music star in the US.
Watch this video and see where Little Richard (openly and admittedly) copped his steez.