Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson - Blues, Boogie & Bebop: Meat's Too High (1998)

A powerful vocalist and a wickedly expressive alto saxophonist, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson is celebrated with this JSP reissue compilation containing 15 choice cuts recorded in London, England, in May 1980 and March 1982. The earlier of the two dates yielded an album with the title Fun in London; unfortunately, an eight-minute jam called "The Theme" was excluded from this reissue. Vinson never ever fit into anybody's pigeon holes; a formidable improvising instrumentalist who excelled both as a balladeer ("Roxanne," "That's All") and as a straight-ahead hard bopper ("Travelin'," "Somebody Else Has Taken My Place," "Cleanhead's Thing," "Fun in London," "Straight Away"), Vinson's worldly command of the sax and his hormonally charged astringency as a blues shouter constitute two of the great dependable forces in all of blues and jazz. The words he puts across on "Meat's Too High" touch upon inflation, taxes, groceries, and human sexuality. ~arwulf arwulf