I must admit though, a personal preference for the $15 single CD "The Gentle Jazz," which features James Campbell on bass, and Norman Meyer on clarinet. I was not familiar with Mr. Meyer's work, although he is a New Orleans veteran reedman. He played for many years with Leon Kelner's Blue Room Orchestra at the Roosevelt Hotel and also played with such musicians as Sharkey Bonano, Freddie Kohlman, Tony Almerico, the Assunto brothers, Clive Wilson and the Original Camellia Jazz Band and in various house bands at the Maison Bourbon. Here is a true New Orleans clarinetist with a style, though familiar, that is still his own. He is a pleasure to hear and the tunes on this disk tend to be more traditional. Rhodes still manages to get in a lick from Thelonious Monk's "In Walked Bud," on "Blue Skies," the chord progression on which hte Monk tune is based. Norman's solo is strictly traditional, but Rhodes sounds something like Thelonious would have sounded if he spent alot of time in New Orleans.
It is unlikely that members of the New Orleans Jazz Club of jazz fans in New Olreans in general haven't heard Rhodes Spedale in one venue or another over the years. For as long as I've been around, he's been playing jazz or cocktail piano or both in most of our better known watering holes. Now, though, that he's taken up chasing rainbows full time instead of chasing ambulances, it's an appropriate moment for all of us to add some of his special brand of music to our CD libraries. You can't go wrong with any of the sets that are currently being offered.
Rhodes Spedale: The Man and His CDs cont.