Ohio-born Myron ‘Tiny’ Bradshaw (1905-1958) was a bandleader, singer, and drummer who started out in New York bands, before forming his own orchestra in 1934, employing many star Harlem sidemen, this continuing well into the post-war period. As his bassist Norman Keenan (later with Basie) once told me: “Tiny Bradshaw’s thing was what they used to call jive, or scat singing. He was very adept at playing shows.”

Alert to trends in black music, and taking Cab Calloway as his vocal inspiration, and the Louis Jordan’s band as his model for style, Bradshaw re-invented himself in 1949 as a ‘jump-blues leader and vocalist’, signing for the Cincinnati-based King label and delivering them hit after hit. All but three of the 29 tracks here were made for King and all did well, helping to make Bradshaw one of the most popular R&B and jump bandleaders of the early 1950s.

Typically, his bands would feature a standout tenor player, well able to outdo Illinois Jacquet for screaming high notes, but equally ready to play a decent blues chorus. The opening track ‘Gravy Train’ sets out the formula, with a riff motif, Bradshaw and band handling the catchy ‘comic narrative’ with its repeated phrases, ahead of stonking tenor (Gore) over Robinson’s rolling piano and pumping rhythm. What’s not to like? Initially, Gore was prominent, his more temperate successors including Austin, Prysock and Watts. All of which made Bradshaw a top attraction, whether at Harlem’s Apollo Theater or in the nation’s ballrooms and on juke-boxes. Still recording for King, Bradshaw succumbed to a stroke aged just 53.