Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant – Stratosphere Boogie: The Flaming Guitars of Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant / Jimmie Rivers and the Cherokees – Brisbane Bop, Western Swing: 1961-64

In just a few carefully crafted studio sessions in the early 1950s, Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant transformed western swing with an infusion of jazz and a rejection of traditional pace and structure. Their brilliant defining work paved the way for gutty practitioners like Jimmie Rivers, who, over the following decade, developed loyal local followings while taking this style of music to the people.

With the release of Stratosphere Boogie, Razor & Tie has given us something to celebrate. This record collects 16 dueling guitar instrumentals recorded in L.A. studios from 1952 to 1956. The tracks feature Jimmy Bryant on Fender six-string and Speedy West on pedal steel guitar.

Bryant’s guitar playing is a revelation. His picking is fast, precise, and complex, featuring chord combinations and fretboard work that are clearly jazz-inspired while retaining an unmistakable country/boogie groove.

If Bryant’s intricate picking is way out there, West must come from another planet altogether. Just try not to break into an amazed grin when you hear the way he changes speeds, now lingering on a chord, now picking and sliding like mad, and all the while bending and distorting the sound with full use of the pedals.

Together, these players created something special and, well, stratospheric. The tracks include a few traditional tunes (“Arkansas Traveler”, “Old Joe Clark”), but most are original boogie compositions (“Bryant’s Bounce”, “Speedin’ West”, “Stratosphere Boogie”) that successfully showcase the guitar combination.

They also play “Blue Bonnet Rag”, a tune written by Bob Wills’ steel player Leon McAuliffe, on which you can hear just how far Jimmy and Speedy were able to advance the state of guitar art over the traditional ensemble form invented by the Texas Playboys in the 1940s. Not only were these guys ahead of their time when these sessions were recorded, I see little evidence that time has caught up to them yet.

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One of the first releases of the San Francisco’s newly formed Joaquin Records, Brisbane Bop, Western Swing: 1961-64 chronicles a great house band at work. Here, the house is the 23 Club in rough and tumble Brisbane (just south of San Francisco) and the band is Jimmie Rivers and the Cherokees. The mood of the club is perhaps best set by Jimmie himself when he calls out from the stage, “the dancing starts at 9 and the fights start at 10.”

Over several years of weekend nights at the 23 Club, steel guitarist Vance Terry captured these nineteen tracks on a small portable tape recorder. On this record, all the tracks have been remastered with impressive quality, which allows us to hear progressive jazzy swing music at its best without losing the care-free spontaneity of the room.

At center stage was Jimmie Rivers on a custom Gibson solid-body 6/12-string guitar. Many of the tracks feature the brilliant steel playing of Terry, and all are backed by the Cherokees — pictured on the case as a bunch of clean-cut guys in shirts, ties and Indian headdresses who look like something out of the Dick Van Dyke show. But these guys knew how to mix things up out on the dance floor, over at the bar, and out in the alley at closing time.

Their brand of western swing is a tradeoff between the traditional sounds of Bob Wills (Jimmie turned down an offer to join the Texas Playboys because the pay was too low) and the wildly complex ensemble work of Bryant & West. The guitars are out front, but this fine band also featured twin fiddles, bass, drums and the occasional horn. The playing is progressive, often with Jimmie using strange new tunings for his 12-string.

For true swing fans or history buffs, this record is a must. For others, it’s an hour of live instrumental swing music from a bygone era that may never rise above the level of an interesting diversion, unlikely to be played much outside of the cocktail/dinner party evening setting.