[78-L] The Russins Are Coming!

[Randy Skretvedt]

Yup, Taylor, "Waitin' for the Evenin' Mail" is a great later-period Brunswick Nichols.  Wonderful arrangement, swinging rhythm section, tasty solos (soli?) and a hot vocal from Johnny "Scat" Davis, whom I dearly love.  Go watch the criminally underrated "Hollywood Hotel," "Brother Rat," or even "Sarong Girl" to see him as singer, trumpeter and comic par excellence.  Somewhere, and I wish I could remember where, I saw a reprint of a long letter he'd written in the late '70s in response to a fan's questions.  Very cordial and funny--and he revealed that he was from the colorfully named hamlet of Brazil, Indiana.  One of the greats.  The Toast of New York group put together a nearly complete collection of his 78s on a CD compilation which they titled, naturally, "Scatology."

Other Nichols discs I love are "Honolulu Blues," "Alice Blue Gown" and the two-parter of "On Revival Day."

All the best--
Randy