jeffcrom

My Edgewood Saxophone Trio will be playing a live broadcast on Atlanta's WREK tomorrow night (March 26, 2019) at 10 PM. We swing pretty hard at times, but if you have no affinity for the edgier side of jazz, you probably won't much like us. All the tunes we'll be playing are my originals, including a depressing ballad called "Winter Was Hard That Year" and a James Brown tribute in 7/4 time. Click below at the appropriate time to listen to the music and my awkward comments. https://www.wrek.org/listen/

Art Ensemble of Chicago - Tribute to Lester (ECM) George Russell - The London Concert Volume One (Stash)

I know folks here who have seen lots of them. Me, just a few: Johnny Griffin, Sonny Rollins, Mary Lou Williams, Milt Hinton, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie. And maybe Jo Jones, but I'm no longer sure.

Big Black - Message to Our Ancestors (Uni). A duo with Black Harold on flute.

Gunter Hampel - Jubilation (Birth)

Miles Davis - Paris, France (Moon). October 1, 1964. Murky bootleg quality, but you can hear everything.

Sunday morning Bach: English Suite in A Minor - Wanda Landowska, harpsichord (two 12" British HMV records) Flute Sonata No. 2 In E flat - George Barrere with Yella Pessl, harpsichord (12" British HMV) Suite No. 1 in G - The Danish Quartet (flute, violin, cello, piano) (12" British HMV) Cello Suite No. 3 in C: Prelude/Sarabande - Pablo Casals (12" US Columbia) The 1915 Casals represents the first recording of any part of the Cello Suites, which weren't recorded in their entirety until the 1930s. It's one of those records that makes me love 78s - it seems miraculous that I can hold this disc in my hand and play it on my turntable.

It has moments of incredible intensity, balanced with lyrical passages and some pretty funny musical satire.

I seem to switch my turntable from LP to 78 or vice versa about every four to five days. Back to 78s tonight, with some prime Louis - three original issues and a master-pressed reissue: Heebie Jeebies / Muskrat Ramble (Okeh) Weather Bird / Dear Old Southland (Hot Record Society) Basin Street Blues / No (Okeh) Squeeze Me / Two Deuces (Okeh) The last two records are among the gems of my 78 collection. The last one has a few minor flaws, but my copy of "Basin Street"/"No" is as close to mint as any original copy out there, I suspect. I suspect it was unplayed before I bought it at a suburban Atlanta record and antique shop.

That Eureka Brass Band session is really wonderful, and very different from the Eureka's 1950s recordings. Here they show their hot side, and it's really exciting. And I consider this date perhaps clarinetist Willie Humphrey's best recorded recital.

Kid Thomas Valentine - Kid Thomas and his Algiers Stompers (GHB). Kid Thomas's raw trumpet style is an acquired taste, and as a young man I never really liked it until I started listening to Lester Bowie, in whose playing I found the same kinds of shakes and distorted sounds. Valentine always preferred a saxophone rather than a clarinet in the front line, and his longtime partner Emanuel Paul is at his idiosyncratic best here on tenor. Thomas picked the tunes, and they represent the kind of repertoire he played for dancers - pop songs and ballads as well as New Orleans jazz standards. I'm really enjoying this 1965 record tonight - it represents Valentine's ideas, rather than a producer's.

Quite possibly you should. It's a fine complete concert from their early prime - the first Chicago concert after their long Paris sojourn. Paul Steinbeck devotes an entire chapter to this performance in his book on the Art Ensemble. I can think of several members of this board who were probably there. (One of them confirmed while I was writing this.)

Art Ensemble of Chicago - Live (aka Live at Mandel Hall) (Delmark)

Samuel Baron Plays 20th Century American Music for Solo Flute (CRI mono LP). Music by Wallingford Reigger, Ursula Mamlok, Meyer Kupferman, George Perle, Frank Wigglesworth, Donald Martino, and Alan Hovhaness.

I like that one a lot.

Gunter Hampel / Galaxie Dream Band - All is Real (Birth) Sam Musiker - Jewish Wedding Dances (Tikva). Musiker (what a great name for a klezmer) was a big-band veteran (Gene Krupa, for one) who became the son-in-law of his clarinet idol, the great Russian-born klezmer clarinetist Dave Tarras.

John Coltrane - Kulu Se Mama: a nice original stereo issue. What a great album.

Roscoe Mitchell - Solo: Live at the Mühle Hunziken (Cecma)

Jeanne Lee/Ran Blake - The Newest Sound You Never Heard (A-Side) Followed by a homemade acetate disc I found with a stack of discs all made by the same Atlanta guy in 1947-48. This is 12" 33 RPM disc with 10 minutes or so of the August 18, 1948 Grand Ole Opry broadcast on one side. The other side has the same amount of Atlanta's local country music broadcast, the WSB Barn Dance, from the same date. The local show is actually better than the Opry side, which is mostly silliness and novelty songs.

Steve Lacy - Live at Unity Temple (Wobbly Rail). I've always thought of this as a duet between Lacy and Frank Lloyd Wright. Tonight, with good headphones, I'm hearing it as a trio - Lacy Wright, and the traffic on Lake Street in Oak Park. In any case, Lacy's playing is just beautiful.

Ornette Coleman/Joachim Kühn - Colors (Verve/Harmolodic) Eureka Brass Band - New Orleans Funeral & Parade (American Music)

Bill Dixon - Odyssey: Solo Works, disc 3. I turn to this monumental set often when things feel dark.

Ornette Coleman - The Complete Science Fiction Sessions (Columbia); disc 2, 'cause I wanted to hear "Happy House" and "Broken Shadows."

Sun Ra - Hello Mr. Schimmel (Gearbox 7"). I was so impressed with the quality of the recent Gearbox Monk LP that I looked at their catalog online. This previously unreleased solo piano fantasy immediately jumped out at me. Side B is a wild 1990 interview with London radio host Jez Nelson. After the interview, Nelson showed Ra the studio's Schimmel piano. Sunny said, "Hello Mr. Schimmel," and played the piece preserved on side one.

Le Jazz en France, Volume 1: Paris 1919-1923 - Premiers Jazz Bands (Pathe). The kind of antiquarian archeology that fascinates me, and which won't appeal to too many others here. The actual jazz content is minimal, but this is extremely interesting music nonetheless. There are six tracks by Mitchell's Jazz Kings, who were very influential in France - this is the jazz that Milhaud and Ravel heard. And it's a pretty good band - the trumpeter is Cricket Smith, who had played with James Reese Europe.