Modern Music: The First Year 1945

Liner Note Author: Tony Rounce.
The title might have you thinking this compilation is a wildly overambitious overview of the year 1945 in all musical aspects. In fact, however, its focus is quite reasonable and manageable, documenting the first year of Modern Records, the Los Angeles label that did a great deal to record and help shape the post-World War II music that came to be known as rhythm & blues. The compilation presents a couple dozen tracks recorded in 1945 for Modern's first batch of 78s, also tacking on the Hadda Brooks' outtake "Rehearsin' the Boogie" (first released on a 2003 CD). At this point, the music Modern artists were making was in some respects almost as close to jazz as blues, with a frequent emphasis on boogie piano. But you can hear the sounds edging close to what would become known as R&B, with the jumping rhythms, exuberant vocals, occasional electric guitar, and at times frivolous lyrics.
As the featured artist on ten of the tracks (and co-billed on another), singer/pianist Hadda Brooks is the most prominent performer by far on this anthology, excelling as both a vocalist and instrumentalist on cuts (some purely instrumental) where swing jazz is starting to give away to nascent R&B. Reflecting the jazzier side of the Los Angeles black music scene in which Modern took root are a couple sides by noted bebop trumpeter Howard McGhee, though the label would not for the most part document the style he was helping to pioneer. Things trail off a little, though not much, on the selections by the far more obscure musicians that fill up the rest of the disc, including the decent jazz-inclined singer Pearl Traylor; Jesse Perry (who makes light of his "Lovin' Lover" as having "a head just like a monkey, and she looks just like a bat"); the boogie-heavy Three Bits of Rhythm, and tenor saxophonist/trombonist Happy Johnson (whose sextet also backed Perry), another of Modern's more swing jazz-grounded performers. Though fitful in its evolution, Modern was crucial to helping innovate a truly new and modern form of popular music on these mid-'40s recordings, and this collection is a good and enjoyable way to hear it, even if its (admirable) thoroughness makes it something more for the committed than the curious. Note that there are more sonic imperfections in the way of hiss, pops, and varispeed on some of the tracks than is customary for the usual Ace compilation, owing to the necessity (as explained in the liner notes) of sourcing some of the recordings from the original 78s. ~ Richie Unterberger