Grease, Groove, and the Gator
Donaldson stripped jazz down to its funkiest bones and dared you not to move.
By 1967, hard bop was getting squeezed from one side by free jazz and from the other by soul and rhythm and blues. Lou Donaldson answered that pressure by leaning straight into the groove. Alligator Bogaloo (1967) is a soul-jazz record first and a jazz record second, and it makes no apologies for that. The title track is the centerpiece — a rolling, mid-tempo funk line built for jukeboxes and dance floors, with Donaldson's alto riding easy and confident on top. This is not Donaldson stretching out harmonically or pushing any envelopes. It is Donaldson doing exactly what he wanted to do, and he was very good at it.
The personnel are a big part of why this works. George Benson appears here before his commercial breakthrough, and his guitar playing is loose and soulful rather than showy. Lonnie Smith on organ gives the record its warm, churchy undertow — the Hammond B3 is essentially the album's rhythm section and emotional center rolled into one. Cornetist Melvin Lastie and drummer Leo Morris round out a band that locks in and stays there. Nobody is grandstanding. The interplay is relaxed and confident, the kind of thing that sounds easy because everyone involved has done the work.
This is not a challenging album and it was never meant to be. If you come to it expecting the harmonic depth of Blue Note's harder bop records, you will be disappointed. If you come to it wanting something that swings with a streetwise, soulful ease and gets better with each listen, this delivers. It holds a specific and honest place in Donaldson's catalog — not his most ambitious record, but one of his most enjoyable. Put on the title track and the argument makes itself.
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