For someone with the career of Lou Donaldson, spanning
some fifty years and more than forty studio sessions as a bandleader, his live
recordings are surprising thin on the ground. Worse still is the fact that
those that do exist are disappointingly weak, the saddest and truest case in
point being the oddly-titled ‘The Scorpion – Live At The Cadillac Club’.
Made up of extended funk and R&B grooves, the bulk
of the music sounds nicely repetitve to shuffle along to in a club, but
nothing really happens beyond the rhythms, which themselves start promisingly
but quickly run out of puff. Guitarist Melvin Sparks, organist Leon Spencer and
drummer Idris Muhammad keep the groove solid and tight, but even they aren’t
able to hold it from simply becoming tired.
The little known Fred Ballard surprisingly emerges as
a partial star here, possessing a bright tone and playing with enthusiastic
abandon. His likeability however shows up his boss quite badly, with usual alto
player Donaldson choosing during this time the baritone saxophone, which
unfortunately gives him a completely indistinct sound and with a mostly hard
to like harsh tone.
Nothing really occurs over the course of the record.
Fans may notice the presence of Donaldson favourite ‘Aligator Bogaloo’ in the
mix, but it’s not the cooking title track from the album of the same name; rather
it’s an extended dragged out meander though the theme. The sound recording is
good, but that’s only a minor saving grace in not only one of Lou Donaldson’s
weakest outputs, but also his frankly his dullest.
**
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