Jazz Records

On the imitation-brick siding of the ramshackle frame building is nailed a beer sign with the legend: LUTHJEN'S--DANCING FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY. On the

bandstand of the narrow, crepe paper-festooned dance hall behind the bar ("Ladies Will Not Be Let in at the Door Wearing Shorts or Slacks") sit a pianist, trumpeter, guitarist, bass fiddler. As the evening wears on and the smoke from the wall tables eddies through the room, the band is likely to swing with a pile-driver beat into some old favorites--Big Mamou or Shake It and Break It. The style, as raw and jolting as a shot of bootleg rye, offers the last authentic taste of the music that once helped make New Orleans the world's jazz capital.

Luthjen's is one of the two surviving specimens of an old New Orleans institution that flourished as recently as a decade ago: the neighborhood dance hall. Like Happy Landing, the only other survivor, Luthjen's employs middle-aged jazzmen--the youngsters have turned to rock 'n' roll--and attracts middle-aged customers, who turn up loyally week after week to listen and shuffle to the music they danced to a generation ago. To preserve that music in its raw state, Folkways set up recording equipment in New Orleans, issued an album titled Music of the Dance Halls. The recorded sound is muddy and the selections are uneven, but at its best the album offers a fascinating sample of some fine, forgotten talents (including Billie and Dee Dee Pierce) and an evocation of the smoky nights when the splintery little dance halls used to shiver to the oldtime barrelhouse love laments: "Ah got mah big fat momma/Mah li'l skinny momma, too/Yes, mah li'l skinny momma/She knows just what to do."

Other jazz records:

The Story of the Blues (Delia Reese with Sy Oliver and his orchestra; Jubilee). Songstress Reese is the victim of a saccharine script of interpolated commentary ("You're gonna hear the truth, 'cause that's all the blues is"). But when she is allowed to sing, as in Empty Bed Blues, she belts out some familiar and gutty reflections: "Let me warn you/If you've gotcha some good lovin'/Don't be a fool and go and spread the news."

New Orleans Street Singer (Snooks Eaglin; Folkways). A blind Negro singer in selections from his standard repertory --Let Me Go Home Whiskey, St. James Infirmary. The merit of this unusual disk lies less in the polished, pop-flavored numbers (Rock Island Line) than in Eaglin's moving, soft-burred address to the blues, notably Trouble in Mind.

Lateef at Cranbrook (Yusef Lateef, tenor sax; Frank Morelli, baritone sax; Terry Pollard, piano; William Austin, bass; Frank Gant, drums; Argo). A quintet given to spicing the group sound with finger cymbals, a one-stringed rebab, and a scraped ram's horn turns its talents to exploring Leader-Composer Lateef's oriental-flavored jazz fancies. Morning and Let Every Soul Say Amen may be too exotic for some tastes, but the easy-swinging sax flights of Gillespie's Woody'n You ought to set any pulse to bouncing.

The Real Fats Waller (Camden). The late master of the stride piano wheels exuberantly through some early classics (Carolina Shout), clowns it up in some typically hammy vocals ("I'm da Shook, da Shake, da Sheik from Araby"), and displays flashes of his more filigreed style in his own Ain't Misbehavin'.

Sonny Rollins and the Big Brass (Metrojazz). On one side of this disk, Tenor Saxophonist Rollins silhouettes his dry, spare sax sound against a textured curtain of trumpets and trombones, with striking effect in such numbers as Who Cares? and Far Out East. On the other side, backed only by bass and drums, he noodles his way through a series of willowy inventions (on Manhattan, Body and Soul) as continuously surprising as a meandering country road.

The Soft Sell (Paul Horn, woodwinds; Tommy Loy, French horn; Jimmy Rowles, piano; Shelly Manne, drums; Don Bagley, bass; Dot). A suave and discreet group worries through wistful laments such as Paul's Blues and upbeat numbers such as It's Cooler Inside. Pianist Rowles's feathery acrobatics are a lyric delight, but the real news here is Newcomer Loy, who can cajole his French horn into swinging solos or softly twine it about Paul Horn's alto flute.

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