Saturday, May 19, 2007

The Magnificent Seven Live at Johnny Yee's Cape Cod Records #3


The Magnificent Seven "Featuring" Dave McKenna and "Presenting" Lou Colombo and Dick Johnson. A jazz album recorded on Route 28 at a Chinese restaurant? The cover is a classic. Check the sideburns! What is a bigger surprise is the opening track a rare groove cooker called "Yum Sing" -an "original jazz rock blues" according to the boys. I figured my Cape Cod records series would be a labor of OCD love rewarded with very little good music, but this album might change that opinion. 4 originals and 5 covers make up this set. "In a Mello Tone", "Wave", "Yellow Bird","Noboby Knows the Trouble I've seen", "Yellow Bird"(which was Johnny Yee's favorite song!), and "Stormy Weather" are the covers. All well done.
"Soul Street West" is another original. That has an Oliver Nelson feel to it. The liner notes call it a "an original soul,rock tune" and I'm not going to argue. Lou Colombo reels off a hell of a trumpet solo and Sonny Cain is no slouch on the trombone either.
"She's Gone" opens side 2 with a bluesy swing that again calls to mind Mr.Nelson. Dave Mckenna steps out on the electric piano and again the liner notes strike gold with this observation, "Dad's Wurlizter never sounded like this). Genius.

This is the kind of record that 1.might legitimately be called private press and 2.should go for big bucks amongst those who can find it. The good news is if you ever see this it will probably be in a box at a yard sale somewhere on the Cape for a couple quarters. If you are lucky enough to see it grab it. Sadly Johnny Yee's is gone replaced by a comedy club if I remember correctly. Rik Tinery Productions appears to be the label out of Cohasst Mass. Catalog number is RFT#1001. Happy hunting!
Norm Nathan's liner notes let you know that Lou Colombo played with both Perez Parado and the Brooklyn Dodger's farm system.
I almost made it through this without a juvenile comment about Dick Johnson. So close.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yee's is now Cape Cod Super Buffet.

Ur Trommler said...

Put some mic's in the Crab Rangoon, we're FIELD RECORDING NOW!