Fortunately, I was never blessed with any musical talent. At junior school I was classed as a “non-singer,” which thankfully meant I avoided having to regale parents with “The Skye Boat Song” and “Mairi’s Wedding” at end of term concerts. When it came to learning the recorder, I never progressed further than making weird whistling noises reminiscent of The Clangers. Undeterred, my parents, for some inexplicable reason, continued with their misguided belief I was a budding John Denver and bought me a guitar. I’ll admit I managed a chord or two, just enough to pen such songs as “I Don’t Wanna Go To School,” “I Don’t Wanna Go To Bed” and “I Don’t Wanna Stop Watching Cartoons,” all of which I blame on The Ramones. But I knew this idyll could not last, which I discovered soon enough when forced to tune my guitar. I was tone deaf and could not differentiate E from B or A from G# Minor. My musical career was over, any dreams of pop stardom were cast out along with my 28-inch flares. Deep down, I was grateful, now I could spend my time reading books and listening to people who really had musical talent.

Like Slim Gaillard who was thankfully blessed with an inordinate amount of musical talent, sophistication and charm. Gaillard was an American jazz singer, songwriter, guitarist, pianist, and vibraphonist, a tall handsome man, with these beautiful elongated fingers with which he played the piano—palms up.
 

Slim plays “Cement Mixer (Putti Putti)”
 
Slim wrote and performed such unforgettable songs as “Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy),” “Dunkin’ Bagels,” “Cement Mixer (Putti Putti),” “Opera In Vout (Groove Juice Special),” “Yep-Roc-Heresay” and “Matzo Balls.” The titles were exotic, comedic and inspired an imaginary world of smiling hepcats in flash suits, jiving on crowded smoky dance floors. The summer I started listening to Mr. Gaillard on crackly vinyl was synchronous as I read about him in Jack Kerouac-a-roon-ee, and saw him as part of Slim & Slam in the film Hellzapoppin’—only knowing of his appearance after the fact through Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide.

Slim created his very own “slanguage” called “Vout” that spiced his songs and flavored Kerouac’s writing. For those who wanted to get hip-o-roon-ee, there was even a “Vout-O-Reenee Dictionary” published in the 1950s for all hepcats to learn.

It wasn’t just the language it was his infectious humor that made it impossible not smile when listening to one of Slim’s songs.  When I first heard “Dunkin’ Bagels” I thought I’d located the comedy spark that fired Spike Milligan’s and the Bonzo Dog Band’s imaginations.
 

‘Dunkin’ Bagels’ splash in the coffee…’
 
More after the jump…
 

 
Slim Gaillard was a wonderful jazz performer and inventor of his own groovy dialect he called Vout. He was notably immortalized in the following passage from Jack Kerouac’s On The Road:

‘... one night we suddenly went mad together again; we went to see Slim Gaillard in a little Frisco nightclub. Slim Gaillard is a tall, thin Negro with big sad eyes who’s always saying ‘Right-orooni’ and ‘How ‘bout a little bourbon-arooni.’ In Frisco great eager crowds of young semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the piano, guitar and bongo drums. When he gets warmed up he takes off his undershirt and really goes. He does and says anything that comes into his head. He’ll sing ‘Cement Mixer, Put-ti Put-ti’ and suddenly slow down the beat and brood over his bongos with fingertips barely tapping the skin as everybody leans forward breathlessly to hear; you think he’ll do this for a minute or so, but he goes right on, for as long as an hour, making an imperceptible little noise with the tips of his fingernails, smaller and smaller all the time till you can’t hear it any more and sounds of traffic come in the open door. Then he slowly gets up and takes the mike and says, very slowly, ‘Great-orooni ... fine-ovauti ... hello-orooni ... bourbon-orooni ... all-orooni ... how are the boys in the front row making out with their girls-orooni ... orooni ... vauti ... oroonirooni ...” He keeps this up for fifteen minutes, his voice getting softer and softer till you can’t hear. His great sad eyes scan the audience.

Dean stands in the back, saying, ‘God! Yes!’—and clasping his hands in prayer and sweating. ‘Sal, Slim knows time, he knows time.’ Slim sits down at the piano and hits two notes, two C’s, then two more, then one, then two, and suddenly the big burly bass-player wakes up from a reverie and realizes Slim is playing ‘C-Jam Blues’ and he slugs in his big forefinger on the string and the big booming beat begins and everybody starts rocking and Slim looks just as sad as ever, and they blow jazz for half an hour, and then Slim goes mad and grabs the bongos and plays tremendous rapid Cubana beats and yells crazy things in Spanish, in Arabic, in Peruvian dialect, in Egyptian, in every language he knows, and he knows innumerable languages. Finally the set is over; each set takes two hours. Slim Gaillard goes and stands against a post, looking sadly over everybody’s head as people come to talk to him. A bourbon is slipped into his hand. ‘Bourbon-orooni—thank-you-ovauti ...’ Nobody knows where Slim Gaillard is. Dean once had a dream that he was having a baby and his belly was all bloated up blue as he lay on the grass of a California hospital. Under a tree, with a group of colored men, sat Slim Gaillard. Dean turned despairing eyes of a mother to him. Slim said, ‘There you go-orooni.’ Now Dean approached him, he approached his God; he thought Slim was God; he shuffled and bowed in front of him and asked him to join us. ‘Right-orooni,’ says Slim; he’ll join anybody but won’t guarantee to be there with you in spirit. Dean got a table, bought drinks, and sat stiffly in front of Slim. Slim dreamed over his head. Every time Slim said, ‘Orooni,’ Dean said ‘Yes!’ I sat there with these two madmen. Nothing happened. To Slim Gaillard the whole world was just one big orooni.’

 
So with that in mind here are a handful of clips. He has so many great songs, it was hard to narrow them down !
First a few live clips from his mid-40’s heyday. A young Scatman Crothers on drums:

 
More Slim after the jump…