SAMMY RIMINGTON & THE RETURN OF THE MOULDY 5
Reed My Lips

Jazz Crusade

The recording session for Read My Lips was done just two days after the full Easy Riders Jazz Band recorded Walking With the King with New Orleans trumpeter Gregg Stafford. That’s appropriate, since the Mouldy Five was an offshoot of that band. According to the liner notes, this five piece was put together by members of the Easy Riders to enable them to play on nights that the Riders didn’t have a gig. The group played at a small bar in Hartford, Connecticut on Thursday nights and was played $8.00 per member.

Bissonnette opines that this session was even hotter than the one with Stafford and the Riders, but I must disagree. Though this session is excellent, it doesn’t always approach the level of the Riders’ recording, at least to my ears. Sammy Rimington is limited to clarinet here, since the Mouldys never used saxophone. While Rimington is an excellent clarinetist and the absence of sax adds to the authenticity of the group’s sound, I personally like to hear a little sax and there just doesn’t always seem to be enough variety of sound here over the CD’s 72 minute playing time since there are no other horns. But there is plenty of energy and the group certainly does create some excitement. Bissonnette plays New Orleans-style drums here, and he provides some real spark on numbers like “The Old Spinning Wheel.” Pianist Bill Sinclair, bassist Colin Bray, and banjo player Emil Mark also keep things lively, driving Rimington along whether he is soloing or offering up a sweet take on the melody.

Rimington is certainly the main attraction here, and make no mistake; he is up to the task. A veteran of Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen, one of Britain’s most outstanding trad jazz outfits, Rimington came to the States and joined Bissonnette’s Easy Riders Jazz Band and, subsequently, the Mouldy Five. Time has not taken away his truly sweet clarinet sound nor dulled his chops, in fact his playing here shows a great deal of maturity as he seems to easily reel off lick after lick as though it came straight from God’s mind to his fingers. If that seems like an overstatement, all I can say is listen to this damn CD.