BOOTS RANDOLPH : PLAYS MORE YAKETY SAX! [MONUMENT - USA 1976] LP

Boots Randolph "Plays More Yakety Sax!" LP

(Monument) 1976 made in USA

cat. num. MC 6602

#jazz

Y'all Come2:05Waterloo2:10Gotta Travel On2:46I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday2:07I'm Walkin The Floor (Over You)2:10The Race Is On2:46You Don't Know Me2:16Last Date2:44(Now And Then There's) A Fool Such As I2:07Here Comes My Baby2:43Funny How Time Slips Away3:10He'll Have To Go2:33

If Fred Foster tossed around Boots Randolph's saxophone case like the exclamation points on their album titles together, the darn thing would be in the repair shop indefinitely. Plays More Yakety Sax!follows Plays 12 Monstrous Sax Hits!, Hip Boots!, and of course Yakety Sax! itself on Foster's original Monument label catalog. While the aforementioned punctuation marks do not warrant being preserved in marble, everything else does: these are infinitely hip, shining examples of musicians making merry. Plays More Yakety Sax!, confining the quicker shuffles to the first side and the ballads to the flip on the original 1965 LP release, may be one of the clearest ever statements of Randolph's artistry, granted that the subject itself is hardly shrouded in confusion. Foster credits not the top-flight session players assembled here, Nashville dudes all. It would be easy to make guesses as to who they are, or who they might not be but are trying to sound like anyway. A harmonica soloist is often used as a foil for the tenor saxophone of the leader, a particularly effective tactic in the matched pairing of "I'm Walkin' the Floor Over You" and "The Race Is On." This set of hardcore country standards, each with its own movement metaphor, provides a harmonic framework that everyone involved digs into neatly, the lyrics and sentiment of the lost love in each case relegated to the deep background of the country instrumental philosophy. It is only a Willie Nelson song structure that pushes Randolph and associates into the realm of the three-minute track, but somehow this is a version of "Funny How Time Slips Away" in which it is the distinct personality of the song itself that slips away. Otherwise, the side of ballads is a thing of beauty and the side of shuffles as much fun as skipping down a country lane with a mouthful of boiled peanuts. "Gotta Travel On" is a majestic version of this standard, Randolph using his reed to print as well as unfold road maps while simultaneously clearing a traffic jam caused by a trucker backing his rig into a giant exclamation point left in the middle of the road by a Nashville record producer. These things happen, even on instrumental albums.