onurblues: Bloodest Saxophone - Texas Queens 5 (2019)

May 28, 2022

Bloodest Saxophone - Texas Queens 5 (2019)

The Texas belles and the Sa(x)murais

An incredible album born from the improbable reunion of a Japanese horn-led retro jazz band, Bloodest Saxophone (just their name is a promise !), with the great soul voices of five Texas-Louisiana blues belles ! Something you wouldn't even dare imagine. The producers who took up this crazy challenge had a brilliant idea : the result is astonishing !

The saxophones samurais and the soul ladies jump and swing like hell. This album, by its intensity, its wild swing and the ladies' soulful vocals, is perspiring eroticism. You can feel the sweat moistening the girls clothes and plastering them on their bodies in a highly sexy way.

Bloodest Saxophone

The instrumental “Pork Chop Chick” is the only original piece of the album, written by... tenor sax player Koda Shintaro. A great piece of jump that sounds fully at home among the album's typically American jump blues oldies dug out from the 1950s & 60s repertoire from musicians like Louis Jordan, Willie Dixon, Johnny Adams, Rufus Thomas, Amos Milburn, Lafayette Thomas, Roscoe Robinson, etc. It's jazz, it's soul, it's blues, it's rhythm'n'blues, it's God knows what, and past the first songs you don't care anymore because all this swing fills your entire self with a huge load of almost animal satisfaction.

Jai Malano

Apart from the jubilant jazzy jungle shuffle “Pork Chop Chick”, some outstanding tracks knocked me out : “Walking the Dog” and “I Done Done It” sung by the exciting Jai Malano, the calypso-tinged “Run Joe”, “The Grape Vine” with its special vocal texture, or the bonus "Cockroach Run" featuring an intense guitar duel… But let's be honest, all tracks are fantastic.

Lauren Cervantes & Angela Miller

Our five plumpy queens ― Diunna Greenleaf, Lauren Cervantes, Angela Miller, Jai Malano and Crystal Thomas ― are truly great singers, lead or background, radiating soulfulness from head to toe. Behind them our Japanese swingers are incredibly inspired and let out an impressive explosion of saxes and jazzy blues guitar (Shuji's), leaning on their top rhythm section duet. On a few tracks, they receive the welcome help of Nick Connolly on keyboards, Kaz Kazanoff on tenor sax, and Johnny Moeller on guitar. The whole gang is rolling down the swing like clockwork. It's high voltage stuff !

Hats off for our Japanese. If you know what traditional Japanese music sounds like, you'll understand what I mean ! ■

Bloodest Saxophone

→ Koda “Young Corn” Shintaro : tenor sax
→ Coh “Colonel Sanders” : trombone
→ Osikawa Yukimasa : baritone sax
→ Shuji “Apple Juice” : guitar
→ The Takeo “Little Tokyo" : upright bass
→ Kiminori “Dog Boy” : drums & congas

http://bloodest-saxophone.com/

Live videos
● Jai Malano & Bloodest Saxophone, Austin, 2017 : https://youtu.be/Y32-cbt932A

Crystal Thomas with Bloodest Saxophone

● Crystal Thomas & Bloodest Saxophone  :
→ https://youtu.be/AkMbEsn4POE
→ https://youtu.be/l0zuf8yEgU0
→ https://youtu.be/0cg1gZtCjOI
● Bloodest Saxophone's "Pork Chop Chick" : https://youtu.be/Y5_VjkXU4IY
● Bloodest Saxophone & Big Jay McNeely : https://youtu.be/JRCZwXzXk7o
● Bloodest Saxophone & Jewel Brown :
→ https://youtu.be/-hfTFaXhPv4
→ https://youtu.be/YkGYPXeJgWI
● Bloodest Saxophone (a playlist) : https://youtu.be/YkGYPXeJgWIh
● Diunna Greenleaf & Lurrie Bell : "Queen Bee", Denmark, 2015 : https://youtu.be/hMzwt_oBNSg

Diunna Greenleaf

● Diunna Greenleaf & Mike Goudreau Band (1-hour show), Montreal Jazz Festival, 2018 : https://youtu.be/vgz9EKeXjMo
● Diunna Greenleaf & her Blue Mercy Band guesting Bob Margolin (78-mn concert), Italy, 2009 : https://youtu.be/ExPetcVd3Jk