John Larkin
by John Larkin

I do remember him from a lot of the euro dance stuff in the 90's after venturing through youtube throught the late 00's. Man that was such a different time for the site. But this is mind blowing. These six songs not only showed how talented John was on the piano as well as the start of his scat singing. But also show how he was able to work in a group capacity. And man it shows. To be honest, the last comment explained how incredible this album was. And now with the internet, this album might get higher views in the coming years. RIP Scatman John.

So I decided to add this album so I could write a review on it.
First of all, it is an extremely rare album. This album was released on the Transition record label in an extremely limited release in 1986. It is the first musical album by the artist who came to be known as Scatman John.

To my knowledge this album was only released in Vinyl format. I have contacted Scatman's family and his wife informed me that she does not know the whereabouts of the master tape, so we may never get a CD release of this album.

Anyhow, the album is amazing and in my opinion is the best work of Scatman John. It's visceral, raw jazz punctuated with John's trademark scat singing. Joe Farrell provides saxophone, Clark Woodard is on drums, Bob Harrison is on bass and John Larkin(Scatman) provides vocals and piano.

This is a completely different Scatman from the one everyone knew in the 90's. Here we see the true jazz side of Scatman, without the electronic dance beats and mixing. I found this gem and was extremely impressed.
To me the tracks Misfit and John Coltrane stand out as stellar jazz pieces. John Coltrane is especially unique for a jazz piece consisting entirely of scat vocals and piano coming in about halfway through the song. The final track is also excellent as a free jazz, instrumental number.
To me this is the final evolution of jazz, John Larkin takes the soul of great musicians such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis and many others and channels it into an amazing album. It's filled with raw emotion as Larkin was dealing with his own issues regarding drugs and alcohol at this time. Larkin, a notorious stutterer, managed to turn his disability into talent through the use of scat singing, and there is plenty of it on this album.

It's a shame this album is so rare, because everyone ought to own a copy.