LIKE MONET, ANOTHER ONE OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS

Oh, Will Jordan!  Your record eluded me for so many years.

Until today. Cost me $2.16 with tax.

Ill Will by Will Jordan (Jubilee JGM-2032, 1960)

Hugh Hefner wrote the liner notes, but the album never really caught on, never really sold.

"We've known Will as a close personal friend for several years, since before our friendship with either Mort (Sahl) or Lenny (Bruce) began, and long before either of them had clicked nationally with their own highly personal style of hip humor."

. . .

"We venture that Ill Will will go far in the Land of Hippies. We like the sound of his patter, the cut of his jib. Most of all, we like his way with curates and bishops. Vox Vobiscum."

I know Jordan wasn't thrilled with all the material included on the album, and Hefner alludes to Jordan's "sick" humor more than once:

"I remember Twenty-Thousand Leagues Over the Sea, a parody of marijuana aboard a submarine, and a Liberace satire that will never be heard on record . . . "

Jordan is a gifted mimic and offers impressions of everyone from Eisenhower to Sammy Davis, Jr., from Robert Montgomery to Ralph Bellamy.

His German instructor starts quietly, with gibberish and a heavy accent, then quickly launches into a Hitleresque tirade.  

Jordan also does an extended Frankenstein parody and a riff on Lindy's delicatessen starring his version of Ralph Richardson.

Maybe not one for the ages, but still entertaining.