.com Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown's tough-minded approach to the blues, country, Cajun, and jazz insures a minimum of nonsense and a maximum of variety, while his virtuosity on the guitar and fiddle insures the highest standards. Nonetheless, Brown's 1997 album is a landmark for the 73-year-old picker who won a Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer Award. All 13 tunes on Gate Swings find Brown working with his regular road quartet plus a 13-piece horn section, enabling him to prove that Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Lionel Hampton have been as important to his music as any bluesman or Creole fiddler.Gate Swings includes tunes by all three of those big-band leaders as well as compositions by Buddy Johnson, Percy Mayfield, Louis Jordan, and Brown himself, and they all swing with the massive force that only a big horn section can muster. Brown has leaned in this direction before, but Gate Swings is special, because it features the horn arrangements of Wardell Quezergue, an alumnus of the Dave Bartholomew band who arranged many of the best New Orleans R&B hits in the '60s and '70s. Quezergue creates big, brassy riffs and thick, sliding harmonies, but he's sympathetic to singers and knows how to clear out space for Brown's vocals and guitar solos. Brown's voice isn't as strong as it once was, but his playing is sharper than ever. He phrases his guitar solos in long, legato phrases like a trumpeter, with few parenthetical embellishments. His solos have never sounded more at home than they do in the context of Quezergue's New Orleans big band. --Geoffrey Himes
E**N
A real delight
Gate Swings says it all, Mr. Brown, while many define him as a blues artist, to me he has always been an Artist of American Music, done up in his own way. Much as Willie Nelson has tried a bit of everything. Some artists keep evolving, as they should, for it is always the artist's that are the Avante Garde of culture. This is just music, when you put it in the machine and your not smiling, something is wrong with you, call 911.This being said, every one of Mr. Brown's disc's is going to touch you a bit different, but it will touch you. And I believe you will find yourself a bit different afterwords. Your time will be well spent.While I never had the pleasure of meeting the man, he sounds like a man worth meeting. So many artist's become detached from what they are doing regardless of the medium they are working in, you need to have a direct contact with the audience and not pay to much attention to critics. I doubt if Mr. Brown ever did.In my opinion we lost one of our stars, and our nights will not be as bright, but his discs will live,in our hearts as long as we do.
J**S
Gatemouth Rocks !!
I'm familiar with Gatemouth Brown for his blues but this is by far some of the best swing music I've ever heard !!Hearing hundreds of swing/blues songs at dance conventions these songs go to the top of my list of favorites. Not all are dancible for West Coast Swing, but Midnite Hour and Toughen Up get my feet going, and for a slower blusier groove try Take Me Back Baby. A couple of excellent Lindy Hop songs are Honey Dew and Caldonia. I bought this along with American Music Texas Style and they make a great combination (a lot of the same musicians on both cd's). Both cd's are full of great dancing music, so get them both. If you're a fan of big band jazz and swing this is guaranteed to make you very happy, these are two of the best cd's in my collection, and if my house was on fire I'd run inside to grab them !
F**X
Not enough guitar
He is an amazing guitarist and there is not much guitar work But it does have some nice music
D**Y
Buy this music!
This artist is fantastic and introduced me to an entirely new genre of cool.I'm sorry I didn't discover "Gatemouth" while he was still alive.
P**T
Five Stars
If you like Classic Texas roots blues swing + horns, you will love this!
E**J
Five Stars
very fine swing music
A**X
Five Stars
excellent service and quality
B**L
Bad judgment by Gatemouth
Gatemouth Brown is a terrific guitar player and blues singer. I heard him live at the Bangor, Maine annual summer folk festival in 2002. Great show! So why the low rating for this CD? The reason is that I want to call attention to my disapproval of the lyrics of the song, "Caldonia." Gate describes how he dragged his ex-girlfriend behind his pickup truck until her body fell apart. Fiction, of course. But it isn't funny. It shows a cruel, primitive, controlling attitude toward women. This CD was released a year before the racially-motivated murder of James Byrd in Texas in June, 1998. Three white men murdered Bryd by dragging him behind a pickup truck. What apalling curelty! Of course Gate wouldn't approve of it, but he shouldn't have put a similar incident in his Caldonia song. Cruelty is cruelty, whether motivated by race, sex, or religion. Aside from the lyrics, Caldonia is a pretty good song. Gate should eliminate the murder part of the lyrics, or do it as a pure instrumental. If it weren't for the Caldonia lyrics, I would have given this album 4 stars. (In comparison to 5 stars for Gate's album, "American Music Texas Style.")
A**M
Alles GUT!!!
Alles GUT!!!
E**O
Five Stars
One of Gatemouth's best
L**3
ジャズとR&B
クラレンス・ゲイトマウス・ブラウンは1924年にルイジアナ州で生まれたアーティスト。Rate Your Musicでわかる範囲では、1947年にシングルを発表している。2005年9月にハリケーン・カトリーナからの避難先だったテキサス州で亡くなっている。曲のクレジットはあるが、ライナー・ノーツはない。本作は1997年発表。クラレンスは当時73歳。13曲入りでクラレンスの自作曲は共作を含め4曲。他はビリー・ストレイホーン作曲で、デューク・エリントンで有名な“Take The “A” Train”、カウント・ベイシーらの作曲の“One O’clock Jump”と“Take Me Back Baby”、ベニー・グッドマンらの作曲の“Flying Home”、クレジット上はフリーシー・ムーア作曲（実際はルイス・ジョーダン）の“Caldonia”、パーシー・メイフィールド(R&Bシンガー)の“River’s Invitation”、バディ・ジョンソン（ジャンプ・ブルーズ・シンガー）作曲の“Since I Feel For You”などを取り上げている。本作の内容は正にタイトル通りで、スウィングしている。クラレンスのギター他、ベース、ドラムス、ピアノ、サックス、トロンボーン、トランペットの入った豪華なバンドである。
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