GOT YOU ON MY MIND: REMEMBERING THE NEARLY-FORGOTTEN R&B SAXOPHONE ACE BIG JOHN GREER.

 

Big John Greer blew some ferocious jump saxophone, and in some small way, contributed toward the thumping ruckus that both hurtled toward—and was itself—rock ‘n’ roll. If you believe that Roy Brown cut the first rock record, or Jackie Brenston, or Chuck Berry, very well then; Mr. Greer honked his tenor sax throughout the stretch (roughly 1947-1956) when those gentlemen changed American music forever. Big John backed hit-makers as a sideman and recorded as a leader. He sang, too; above average.

Today, we’re celebrating John Greer’s only hit as a leader: not a bar-walker but a ballad that will compel us to long for someone we dearly miss. The large ensemble—the Rhythm Rockers—demonstrates a tight, occasionally ironic affection for the content. The pain in the song, though, is real, and in fact, a bit bright. And isn’t that truest, sometimes, the brightness of emotional torment?

Officially, “Got You On My Mind” was recorded in 1951 by John Greer and His Rhythm Rockers, and was released in 1952 on RCA Victor, bundled with “Woman Is A Five Letter Word.” As to the B-side, its tongue-in-cheek lyrics accompany a medium cooker with dance floor potential. While the B-side failed to chart, the A-side magnificently did the opposite. It rose to #2 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1952, and charted in various positions for 22 weeks. The song was penned by Howard Biggs and saxophonist Joe Thomas.

The likely personnel for this New York session included: John Greer (tenor saxophone and vocal), Red Solomon (trumpet), George James (alto saxophone), Joe Thomas (tenor saxophone), Stan Webb (baritone saxophone), Bill Doggett (piano), James Cannady (guitar), Sid Block (bass), and Jimmy Crawford (drums).

[For those of you audiophiles out there, you’ll know that “Craw beats on them drums / In the band / In the band!” But I digress.]

Greer’s big professional break came when he joined the Lucky Millinder Orchestra in 1948, replacing Bull Moose Jackson, who’d left the group to pursue his solo career. In replacing Jackson, Greer did so in a tenor-for-tenor, voice-for-voice switch. Thus, he blew whopping jumps on numbers like “Clap Your Hands” and sang with bouncy mischief on steaming tunes like “Let It Roll Again.” He backed Bull Moose Jackson on pieces like “Nosey Joe” as well as the blues shouter Wynonie Harris on “Bloodshot Eyes,” among other hits. He was often teamed with such female vocalist partners as Annisteen Allen and Dolores Brown.

Big John’s career began to wane in the late 1950s, after recording songs like “Come Back Uncle John,” a worthy rocker that appeared on the King label. By all accounts, the dip in his fortunes owed to his struggle with alcoholism. He retreated to Hot Springs, Arkansas, the town of his birth, where he gigged with local musicians, until he eventually faded from sight. And here’s where it gets sorrowful. John Greer passed away in 1972, at 48 years of age, largely forgotten.

I’d like to think that, collectively, Dear Reader, we’ve got Big John Greer on our minds, and certainly, Dear Reader, I’ve got you on my mind. I’m wondering why you had to go. . . .

 

other songs worth a listen

John Greer & His Quintet “Rockin’ With Big John” (1948)
Lucky Millinder Orchestra “Clap Your Hands” (1950) Big John Greer tenor sax
Lucky Millinder Orchestra “Let It Roll Again” (1950) Big John Greer vocal
Wynonie Harris “Mr. Blues Is Coming To Town” (1950) Big John Greer tenor sax
Wynonie Harris “Bloodshot Eyes” (1951) Big John Greer tenor sax
Bull Moose Jackson “Nosey Joe” (1952) Big John Greer tenor sax
Big John Greer “Bottle It Up And Go” (1954)
Big John Greer “Come Back Uncle John” (1956)

 
sources of information

45cat page for “Got You on My Mind” 
All Music Guide to the Blues, entry for Big John Greer
Be Bop Wino page for John Greer R&B in New York City
Black Cat Netherlands entry for John Greer
Discogs page for “Got You on My Mind”
Rate Your Music page for “Got You on My Mind”
Wikipedia page for Big John Greer
 

this post is part of a triple issue. also see:
open the door, richard!
roughshod

JUMP AROUND: THE 25 GREATEST JUMP BLUES SONGS (+5 EARLY JUMPS) (+5 NOVELTY TUNES) WHICH YOU MUST LISTEN TO BEFORE YOU CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH ME ABOUT MUSIC THAT REALLY ROCKS.

Roy Brown: the greatest jump musician?

In a previous post dedicated to exemplary American musicians, I shied away from determinations of greatness, and opted, instead, to establish importance. It felt sturdier to crown Louis Armstrong as the most important American musician than to propose a greatest American musician, who, in all likelihood, would be John Coltrane. I need not recite the many arguments in favor of Armstrong’s enduring influence on trumpet, cornet, dixieland, swing, gravel-sweet singing, scatting, composition, ensemble playing, band-leading, ambassadorship, typewriting of letters, collaborative recordings, in-public performance, and most substantially, the virtuosity of the soloist. The essence of Armstrong spreads out amongst many players of many instruments. Armstrong informs one generation, and that generation informs a subsequent generation, adding elements of Armstrong, either tacitly or in plain view. “Really?” you say. Even Cypress Hill’s joke about “[hitting] dat bong” the way that “Louis Armstrong played the trumpet” in their 1993 pop hit “Insane in the Brain” demonstrates that the man’s legend appeared generations later, in hip hop and rap. (Louis, too, happened to be fond of weed.) One would have to present a mountainous argument—over many months of intense negotiations—to chip away at one corner of one brick in the Great Wall of this proclamation. Satchmo’s greatness is considerable, too, but he’s probably not the greatest American musician.

As America’s popular music for many decades, jazz underwent numerous transitions. In one change, the central instrumentation in many recordings switched from brass to reed, from trumpet (and perhaps clarinet) to saxophone. Coleman Hawkins, by no means the first jazz saxophone player, nevertheless has been credited as the first jazzman to endow the instrument with significance. Numerous followers—Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane, to name three—would build their own idioms upon this foundation. Coltrane, in particular, can batter a listener to rubble, if we can define “batter” as (Coltrane’s) relentless invention across many forms of voice, and if we can define “rubble” as the shocking moments of (the listener’s) emotional realizations. At the beginning of Coltrane’s career, before he appeared as a sideman on several monumental Miles Davis records—including the Workin’, Steamin’, Cookin’, Relaxin’ series, as well as Milestones and Kind of Blue—he played with rhythm and blues groups in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Lewis Porter’s masterful biography, John Coltrane: His Life and Music, describes R&B gigs in the early to mid-50s with bandleaders such as Johnny Hodges. According to Porter’s book, the Hodges band toured with several rhythm and blues stars, including Billy Eckstine, Ruth Brown, and the Clovers. Benny Golson, a sax player also retained by Hodges, “marveled at the things [he] heard [Coltrane] play” on the tour. Trane famously entertained a number of influences throughout his career but where did this R&B sound originate?

Illinois Jacquet's solo on "Flying Home" inspired other horn players.

At the very least, jump blues began with a variety of groups active in the 1930s, including orchestras led by Jimmie Lunceford, Cab Calloway, and Lucky Millinder. These early songs featured hopping rhythm, rambunctious horns, and increasingly mischievous lyrics. Just as jazz began to adopt the saxophone as its central instrument—to deliver the fleet or searching or muscular work of the soloist—so did jump blues offer rowdy saxophone solos, “jumps” if you will, in the midst of a tune, and oftentimes, woven throughout a piece. Arguably, the most famous early jump saxophone solo belonged to Illinois Jacquet, a sideman at the time with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. His workout on “Flying Home” in 1942 inspired saxophone players to emulate his honking sound. Indeed, many horn players would dwell in the upper or lower registers of their horns, effecting the kind of chaotic riotousness that drove audiences to crash around and scream. Audience members couldn’t seem to believe what they were hearing; it nourished a need of theirs that they may not have been able to articulate, in advance. I wonder if the musicians ever expressed similar feelings. Jump blues burned brightest from the late 1940s through the mid 1950s. The music would eventually be covered, gentrified, and absorbed by other genres long before Miles Davis affixed the flickering embers of jazz to wailing electric guitar lines in A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and the album’s outtakes, among other jazz-rock material. Still, jump music added shape to rock, R&B, and avant garde saxophone from its wealth of rowdy excess.

White audiences hadn't heard anyone like Big Jay McNeely.

The heroes of jump have nicknames like Tiny, Big Jay, Big Mama, Sugarboy, Mr. Five by Five, Big Joe, Fats, and Bull Moose. They are criminally under-celebrated. Here are, in chronological order by date of recording, 35 greatest hits—25 prime jumps followed by five early numbers and five magnificent novelties:

Eddie Lockjaw Davis: “Ravin’ at the Haven” (1947)

Roy Brown: “Boogie at Midnight” (1949)

Ruth Brown: “Hello Little Boy” (1949)

Freddie Mitchell: “Pony Express” (1949)

Johnny Otis: “Good Ole Blues” (1949)

Wynonie Harris: “Bloodshot Eyes” (1950)

Tiny Bradshaw: “I’m Going to Have Myself a Ball” (1950)

Joe Liggins: “Going Back to New Orleans” (1950)

Roy Milton: “Oh Babe” (1950)

Big Jay McNeely: “Insect Ball” (1951)

Jackie Brenston: “Real Gone Rocket” (1951)

Big Mama Thornton: “Hound Dog” (1952)

James Sugarboy Crawford: “Overboard” (1953)

Jimmy Rushing: “Mr. Five by Five” (1953)

Big Joe Houston: “All Night Long” (1954)

Big Joe Turner: “Shake, Rattle and Roll” (1954)

Bill Haley: “Farewell So Long Goodbye” (1954)

Ray Charles: “I’ve Got a Woman” (1954)

Johnny Sparrow: “Sparrow’s Nest” (1955)

Dave Bartholomew: “Shrimp and Gumbo” (1955)

Amos Milburn: “Chicken Shack Boogie” (1956)

Louis Prima: “Oh Marie” (1956)

Fats Domino: “I’m Walkin’” (1957)

Memphis Slim: “Steppin’ Out” (1959)

Long John Hunter: “Grandma” (1961)

(+5 Early Jumps)

Jimmie Lunceford: “Rhythm Is Our Business” (1934)

Stuff Smith: “Old Joe’s Hittin’ the Jug” (1936)

Cab Calloway: “Do You Want to Jump, Children?” (1938)

Sammy Price: “Monkey Swing” (1939)

Lionel Hampton: “Flying Home” (1942)

(+5 Novelty Tunes)

Louis Jordan: “Caldonia” (1945)

Bull Moose Jackson: “Shorty’s Got to Go” (1945)

Paula Watson: “Hidin’ in the Sticks” (1948)

Lucky Millinder: “Who Said Shorty Wasn’t Coming Back?” (1950)

Big Bob Dougherty: “Bullfrog Hop” (1962)

The great Louis Jordan.

Some may quibble with my placement of Louis Jordan amongst the novelties, but I am as partial to these songs (and Jordan) as to the prime jumps. Jordan, an alto sax player and bandleader, recorded a number of great songs—including “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”, “Beans and Cornbread”, and “Knock Me a Kiss”—but “Caldonia” is a special song. Other jump songs recorded by other artists refer to the character, Caldonia, who, despite her awkward appearance, inspires the singer, Jordan. He tells the listener that he’s “crazy ‘bout that woman ‘cause Caldonia is her name.” Indeed.