Sometimes you just want to put on a disc of music that's a whole lot of fun, good music that makes you want to move and will put a smile on your face. The challenge is to find music played by musicians on instruments instead of pre-programmed electronics behind some teenybopper with a Minnie Mouse voice.
A drum machine and a teenaged girl who sucks helium before singing just isn’t my idea of music or something with which I can have a good time. Then again, I can't see the point in music that only serves one purpose. If I'm not going to want to listen to it for entertainment, then I'm not going to want to dance to it.
I don't have the ability to compartmentalize my musical tastes this way: this is for eating to, this is for writing to, this is for dancing to, and so on. I might say I'm in the mood for something up-tempo or slow at this moment or time, but that's different because it's choosing music based on how I feel at the moment and doesn't start imposing artificial restrictions on my enjoyment.
For me the best "fun" music has always been Blues music with some jive and jump to it. There's probably some name for it but I've never heard it. The best I can do is tell you about a disc that Delmark Records has just re-issued of Jazz/Blues great Eddie Cleanhead Vinson, Kidney Stew Is Fine.
Eddie Cleanhead Vinson was born in 1918, timing it just about right to come of age when Jazz was becoming popular with a wider audience. The Big Band era of the late thirties and forties provided lots of work for musicians of all colours because of the need for players to not just fill the ranks of the formidably sized groups, but be skilled enough to play the music to the standards of taskmasters like Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, and Tommy Dorsey.
Vinson started out playing tenor saxophone in bands, but also took occasional vocal duties. It wasn't until he did some touring with Big Bill Broonzy that he began to feel comfortable in the role of band singer as well as horn player. It was Broonzy that taught him the skills to take him from a sax player who could sing to being a singer and a saxophone player.
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