Jordan, Louis (1908-1975)

US musician. A saxophonist, singer, and show business natural, he was the most popular ‘race’ recording artist throughout the 1940s. He formed his own innovative combo, the Tympany Five, in 1938 and recorded a string of hit records in his irrepressible jump blues style. Other musicians frequently recorded his songs such as ‘Choo Choo Ch'Boogie’, ‘Caldonia’, and ‘Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens’, thus earning him the nickname ‘King of the Jukeboxes’.

He was born in Brinley, Arkansas. He began his career in the mid-1920s with local Arkansas bands and toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels before emerging in New York as a sideman with Chick Webb's Orchestra 1936-38. In the 1960s and 1970s he toured the USA and Europe, but recorded only sporadically. He is widely cited as a seminal influence among blues and rock artists.