Leo's Five receive credit for 12 of the 21 tracks on this compilation, but the disc -- and, indeed,
Leo's Five themselves -- seem like something of an umbrella name for musicians associated with
Leo Gooden's
Blue Note club in East St. Louis. Listeners get not only sides by
Leo's Five, who had a fluid lineup, but also
Albert King,
Jamie Ross,
Charles Drain, and
Gooden himself, the club owner who was the overseer of sorts for the band, venue, and labels on which this material appeared. Even though some of the same guys appear on numerous tracks (by
Leo's Five and otherwise), it's a kind of stylistically inconsistent roundup of musicians in the early- to mid-'60s St. Louis R&B/jazz scene, almost to the point of being a grab bag rather than a single-artist anthology. By far the most attractive items to collectors will be the four tracks by
King (one of them a remake of his 1962 single
"You Threw Your Love on Me Too Strong"), as these aren't too easy to find on their original 45 releases or reissues. The
King sides aren't great, but they're solid enough representations of his blues/soul crossover sound shortly before he recorded his most popular work for
Stax;
Albert's also heard on the
Leo's Five instrumental
"Hold It" that kicks off this CD. The cuts actually credited to
Leo's Five vary between sock-it-out instrumental club jazzy R&B (
"Hold It") and some pretty hot soul-jazz, particularly when organist
Don James comes to the fore, as he does on a two-part adaptation of
"Johnnie Come Marching Home." Of the other artists,
Charles Drain manages a pretty good
Sam Cooke imitation on
"Stop and Think About It Baby," though
Gooden's 1963 single
"Winkee-Do" sounds a bit like a vanity project in its
Louis Prima-cum-R&B sound. Jazz fans might want to note the presence of a young
Hamiet Bluiett (later in
the World Saxophone Quartet) on some of the tracks, though overall this release falls on the fringes of what serious collectors of either jazz or R&B might want or need. ~ Richie Unterberger
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