Search - Claude Bolling :: Original Boogie Woogie

All-time Great!

03/17/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am very excited to relocate this album. It was my favorite boogie album as well as my favorite playing style. I lost my original cassette and have been seeking it for years. It is a treasure that I never tire of. A great mood-lifter!"

Six pianos caught on fire during the taping of this album

Kerry T. Givens | Lancaster, PA | 08/30/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I think it was Fats Waller who hatefully described boogie woogie as "sixty four bars of nothing" or words to that effect. Well, he was right. Mindlessly repetitive and painfully short on melody, boogie was simply not stimulating for an inventive pianist and slick pop composer like Fats.



But for the rest of us, this disk is about an hour of pure piano adrenaline, delivered with unbelievable panache on a great-sounding piano by Claude Bolling. The opening piece (Death Ray Boogie) is an electrifying show-off number in his hands, all three of them. If that tune alone doesn't have you pounding out some air piano while you're driving to work, then you do not have a functioning circulatory system. Simply find a quiet, dark place, and wait to be buried.



The remaining tune list is eclectic, including some contemporary pieces by Claude himself which more than prove that the genre still has some legs. "Cow-Cow Boogie" has a nice, leisurely mosey to it, and is a welcome diversion from the numerous break-neck numbers. "Dardenella" really shines in its clever boogie translation, and the seemingly endless right-hand tremolo in the "Boogie on the St. Louis Blues" will make your forearm ache just listening to it. And then he throws in a death-defying set of scaling arpeggios on the way out. Too hot.



Some minor grumbles. A few of the pieces stretch the definition of boogie (Louisiana Glide comes to mind, a piece I simply find tedious), but that's a minor ding. Moreover, even Claude can't help but hum along to the ferociously catchy beat in some of these tunes, and his murmurs get annoying at times. Wish the sound guy could have cleaned that up a bit. Finally, the rather lengthy liner notes are in French, unless they've been updated. I appreciated that they included a few bars of some of the bass lines in the notes---at least I could read those. Whatever else the booklet says, well, it sure looks interesting. In French.



Despite boogie's admitted lack of nutritional value, no disk in my library has been listened to more often than this. And I first got this in LP form in 1982! And it still sounds great to me. This is simply a very talented pianist at the top of his game, having an enormous amount of fun. You will too. Go listen."