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Dave Clark's Blues Swingers
featuring Floyd McDaniel

Switchin' In The Kitchen

Delmark DE 768

Long before the zoot-suited-and-pomaded neo-swing revival took the country by storm a few years back, Dave Clark was a genuine swing disciple. When the tenor saxist/arranger assembled the first edition of his Blues Swingers, the swing movement had yet to coalesce. Nor was the Chicago blues circuit entirely ready to embrace the concept of a large, horn-driven outfit deftly driving through jump blues and jazz numbers as though it was 1948. Fortunately, Dave had an unbeatable musical ace up his sleeve: veteran front man and guitarist Floyd McDaniel. Complete notes enclosed by Bill Dahl.

1. Untrue Woman 2:04
2. How Long Blues 4:25
3. Swing Time 4:17
4. St. Louis Blues 3:44
5. Cold, Cold Feeling 3:22
6. Switchin' In The Kitchen 4:50
7. Our Delight 4:41
8. Caldonia 2:49
9. West Side Baby 5:52
10. High Stakes Woman 3:33
11. Mary Jo 3:05
12. What A Wonderful World 4:39
13. Corner Pocket 3:57
14. Spin, Flip, and Dip 4:13
15. St. Louis Blues (alternate) 3:56

1,2,4,5,8,15 August 11, 1992
Floyd McDaniel, vocal, guitar
Mike McLaughlin, trumpet
Paul Mundy, alto sax
Dave Clark, tenor sax
Van Kelly, baritone sax and clarinet
Donny Nichilo, piano
Bill Yancey, bass
Robert "Hindu" Henderson, drums

9,11,12 June 24, 1991
same as above except Mwata Bowden replaces Van Kelly

3,6,7,10,13,14 January 1999
Jim Donovan, trumpet
Van Kelly, alto sax, clarinet
Dave Clark, tenor sax
Josh Sinton, baritone sax
Tim Barton, piano
Mark Wydra, guitar
Chris Gorcik, bass
Jeff Fortin, drums
Jasen Schrock, vocals 6,10,14


1. Untrue Woman 2:04 (Dave Clark, ASCAP)
2. How Long Blues 4:25 (Carr/Williams, Universal MCA Music Publ., ASCAP)
3. Swing Time 4:17 (Dave Clark, ASCAP)
4. St. Louis Blues 3:44 (W.C. Handy, P.D.)
5. Cold, Cold Feeling 3:22 (Jessie Mae Robinson, MPL Communications Inc., ASCAP)
6. Switchin' In The Kitchen 4:50 (Rudolph Moore)
7. Our Delight 4:41 (Tadd Dameron, Bregman Vocco & Conn Inc., ASCAP)
8. Caldonia 2:49 (Fleecy Moore, Cherio Corporation, BMI)
9. West Side Baby 5:52 (Floyd McDaniel)
10. High Stakes Woman 3:33 (Dave Clark, ASCAP)
11. Mary Jo 3:05 (Tommy Braden, Drake Music)
12. What A Wonderful World 4:39 (Thiele/Weiss, Abilene Music Inc./Quartet Music Inc., Range Road Music Inc., ASCAP)
13. Corner Pocket 3:57 (Green/Wolf, EMI Longitude Music, BMI)
14. Spin, Flip, and Dip 4:13 (Dave Clark, ASCAP)
15. St. Louis Blues (alternate) 3:56

Arrangers
Dave Clark 3,6,10,14
John Meggs 7,13

Album Production and Supervision: Robert G. Koester
CD Production and Mix (’91 and ’92 sessions): Steve Wagner
Recording Engineers: Blaise Barton (’91 and ’99 sessions) and Larry Williams (’92)
Tape Transfer Engineer (’91 and ’92): Devin Davies, The Solid Estate
Photo: Kate Hoddinott
Design: Al Brandtner
Special thanks to Nick Kraska, Carol Rojas and Greg McDaniel


Long before the zoot-suited-and-pomaded neo-swing revival took the country by storm a few years back, Dave Clark was a genuine swing disciple. When the tenor saxist/arranger assembled the first edition of his Blues Swingers, the swing movement had yet to coalesce. Nor was the Chicago blues circuit entirely ready to embrace the concept of a large, horn-driven outfit deftly driving through jump blues and jazz numbers as though it was 1948.
Fortunately, Dave had an unbeatable musical ace up his sleeve: veteran front man and guitarist Floyd McDaniel. “I met Floyd in ‘86, and we immediately started having rehearsals and jamming, and then slowly put the band together,” says Clark, who initially found obtaining engagements frustrating. “We couldn’t buy a gig,” he recalls. “They thought it was too jazzy, or too sharp-sounding. Finally, Bill Gilmore at B.L.U.E.S. Etcetera gave the Blues Swingers a once-a-month slot. Delmark bossman Bob Koester soon caught one of their shows, and in 1994, Delmark released their debut CD, Let Your Hair Down! (Delmark 671)
Besides bringing his honeyed voice and crisp T-Bone Walker-inflected guitar to the Blues Swingers, McDaniel brought intangible qualities that could only derive from decades of onstage experience. “He was just the sweetest guy,” says Dave. “Floyd was from the old school, where he wanted to teach and help the younger guys.”
Floyd’s legacy was truly amazing. Born July 21, 1915 in Athens, Alabama, he moved to Chicago as a youth, and before long his entertaining skills made him money. “We took to the streets, played on the street corners,” said Floyd in 1995. “I was a teenager. That was like ’31.” He played the World’s Fair with the Rhythm Rascals in 1933 and journeyed with the group to New York mid-decade, where they spent four years at the fabled Cotton Club and toured with Cab Calloway. “All of us danced,” he said. “We had everything--singing, dancing, acting a fool!”
Returning to Chicago, Floyd joined the Four Blazes in 1941, switching to electric guitar the same year. The Blazes debuted on Aristocrat Records in 1947; five years later, the Four Blazes sat atop the R&B charts with the jumping “Mary Jo” for United Records with Tommy Braden their lead vocalist (available on Mary Jo, Delmark 704). But for the decade-and-a-half prior to his coming aboard the Blues Swingers, Floyd anonymously toured in one of the myriad groups billing themselves as latter-day Ink Spots, so few folks knew of him on the local blues scene prior to his celebrated return.
The nine tracks featuring Floyd on this album were demos cut in 1991 (when Clark's combo included AACM mainstay Mwata Bowden on baritone sax) and1992, predating the Delmark sessions. “We recorded it as a demo, not really planning on releasing it,” explains Dave. “We just did it to get gigs.” Dave wrote the incendiary opener “Untrue Woman,” which swings with a vengeance, while Louis Jordan’s “Caldonia,” Leroy Carr’s “How Long Blues,” and W.C. Handy’s immortal “St. Louis Blues” (here in two takes) were fine vehicles for Floyd and his fellow swingers. The Blazes' "Mary Jo" proved as enticing as ever, and McDaniel's T-Bone allegiance came to the fore on faithful treatments of "West Side Baby" and "Cold, Cold Feeling," both sporting Floyd's deliciously concise guitar solos straight out of Walker's bag. McDaniel even managed to pull off Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World".
When the swing revival took root, the band was perfectly positioned to take advantage of it. “It just seems to be one of those types of music that just won't go away. I guess it sounds like the big bands. too,” Floyd noted. “That's what I tell the people in my performances: ‘You know, this might sound like jazz to you, but the blues was here before jazz. They stole a lot of stuff from the blues.”
From all outward indications, 1995 looked to be the Blues Swingers’ year, their itinerary at last loaded with local club bookings. But it didn’t turn out that way. “We were scheduled to do the Chicago Blues Festival and the Chicago Jazz Festival, which I don’t think any band had ever done, because we covered both bases,” says Dave. “We went to Ireland in May, and then we played the Blues Festival in June, and then Floyd passed in July.” The band’s jazz festival set that autumn turned into a Floyd McDaniel memorial tribute. Then it was time for a hiatus.
“I just kind of stopped the band for a while and cleared my head. Then I saw this swing thing that was coming back,” says Clark, who reformed the group in 1997. “We did a lot of work on the swing scene. We were doing corporate gigs and festivals and playing ballrooms. I never worked so much in my life! Good paying gigs! I used to tell everybody–Floyd would have loved it!”
By the time the Blues Swingers laid down the rest of the material on this disc in 1999, the lone holdover besides Clark was saxist Van Kelly, who moved from baritone to alto (he doubled on clarinet). “He’s got that old Benny Carter, Marshall Royal first-alto kind of sound, which none of the young guys really have,” says Dave. “Van really brought a nice sound to the section in that respect, and gave us that vintage kind of sound.” On guitar was Windy City blues vet Mark Wydra, while young Michigan emigre Jasen Schrock handled the vocal duties.
“Jasen moved to Chicago to do acting,” says Clark. “I ran into him and told him my thing, and he was willing to do anything. He had never been in a band. It was a first thing for him. But he worked out. He’s a nice-looking guy, and all the girls liked him on the swing scene.”
Born April 25, 1955 in Jackson, Michigan, Dave arrived in Chicago in 1975, guitar in hand, aiming to break into the competitive Chicago blues circuit. He didn’t have to wait long for gigs: he played with harpist Scotty Bradbury’s Bad Boys and joined pianist Bob Riedy’s band in 1976, backing Johnny Littlejohn and Carey Bell. “We’d do some road trips, and Otis Rush would come with us,” he says. “I’m riding down the highway, riding around with Otis Rush. I got a kick out of that!” Clark’s resume from this period looks like a Who’s Who of Chicago blues: sideman jobs with Kansas City Red, Eddie Taylor, John Brim, Sam Lay, and several valuable years behind Chicago legend Jimmy Rogers.
But playing guitar eventually lost its luster. “Frankly, I was getting tired of the same old Chicago-style blues stuff,” he says. So Dave cured his malaise by purchasing a sax. “I just went out one day and bought a used horn. It turned out to be a really nice vintage Conn like Lester Young used. I bought a book and just started playing along with records,” he says. “After I thought I was good enough, I just started trying to sit in with people. But when I really started trying to play onstage was with Floyd.”
The last incarnation of the Blues Swingers broke up in 2001. In January of 2002, Dave relocated to Los Angeles, a perennial hotbed of jump and jive. “I’m out here trying to put something new together,” he reports. “It’s going to be the same style stuff as the Blues Swingers, and it’s going to be some great players and a great singer. It’s going to be a good thing.”

And you can bet it’ll swing.
–Bill Dahl

Other Delmark albums of interest:
Floyd McDaniel & The Blues Swingers, Let Your Hair Down! (671)
Floyd McDaniel, West Side Baby (706) Live in Europe with Dave Specter
The Four Blazes, Mary Jo (704) with Floyd McDaniel
Delmark Records, 50 Years of Jazz & Blues • Boxed Set (050)
For Jumpers Only! (909) with Cab Calloway, Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet
Barkin' Bill, Gotcha! (672)
T-Bone Walker, I Want A Little Girl (633)
Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Kidney Stew Is Fine (631) with T-Bone Walker, Jay McShann
Honkers & Bar Walkers, Volume 1 (438) with Jimmy Forrest, Tab Smith
Honkers & Bar Walkers, Volume 2 (452) with King Curtis, Willis Jackson
Honkers & Bar Walkers, Volume 3 (542) with Eddie Chamblee, Wild Bill Moore