[Two Dexter Gordon Sessions from 1962]

Dexter recorded two sessions for Blue Note in mid 1962 that were shelved. Many years later, three tracks from each session were put onto a Japanese LP. It was given the inappropriate title "Landslide", because they added the unissued track with that name from the "Dexter Calling" session to make up time. I would have used a title from the two main sessions. 

Today, this music exists, on CD, in a Japanese version, and in the U.S. box set of all of Dexter's Blue Note recordings. I made up a CD from that set. The audio is excellent.

Here are the details

Dexter Gordon Quintet

Tommy Turrentine, trumpet; Dexter Gordon, tenor sax; Charles Thompson, piano; Al Lucas, bass; Willie Bobo, drums.

van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, May 5, 1962

tk.11 Serenade In Blue
tk.12 You Said It
tk.19 Love Locked Out

Dexter Gordon Quintet

Dave Burns, trumpet; Dexter Gordon, tenor sax; Sonny Clark, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.

van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, June 25, 1962

tk.6.  Blue Gardenia
tk.12 Second Balcony Jump
tk.21 Six Bits Jones

[Bob James' One and the problem of jazz critics]

Bob James and C.T.I. quickly became boring for me back in the 70s. The Fender Rhodes was interesting when I first heard it, but I am sick.of its generic sound and I never want to hear one again. Bill Evans disliked it, saying that it lacks touch.

[Jimmy Smith "Plays Fats Waller"]

It is nowhere near the quality or importance of "Satch Plays Fats", of course.

[Have you written for Wikipedia on jazz artists?]

They are horrible when it comes to political things, or the Scriptures. And they have a dominance like Amazon.

To be fair, I find them useful for "neutral" bits of information.

[Favorite Cannonball Album]

It is quite fashionable to attack Orrin Keepnews. I would suggest that, before criticising him, a person ought to have a record of achievements comparable with his. Riverside's recordings were very valuable, and Milestone had an excellent catalog, including a lot of Joe Henderson. He produced the large series of Fats Waller box sets. And Monk liked an essay that Orrin wrote about him in the late 1940s, which led to his being signed by Riverside when nobody else wanted him.

Not a bad record.

[Jimmy Smith "Plays Fats Waller"]

I didn't try to download from Amazon. I have the 1600 series CDs of "Cherokee" and "Lonesome Road". I just clicked on your link to see what is going on. However, I am delighted that Netflix and Amazon crashed.

[Jimmy Smith "Plays Fats Waller"]

I wonder how these Apples and Amazons got their hands on this music. It must be derived from the 1600 series CDs. I doubt that they would have access to the Blue Note vaults. Besides, the Amazon listings show the 1600 covers.

Amazon says that "Cherokee" is available, but "Lonesome Road" is not. I don't know why an mp3 download would cease to be available. Maybe there was a time limit imposed.

[Jimmy Smith "Plays Fats Waller"]

Thanks for posting that. Do they also have "Lonesome Road"? That, also, was only issued on CD in the 1600 series.

[Jimmy Smith "Plays Fats Waller"]

Here are the details of the session with contents issued by Michael Cuscuna in the Japanese 1600 CD series as "Cherokee".

Jimmy Smith, organ; Eddie McFadden, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

Manhattan Towers, NYC, July 3, 1957

tk.3	What Is This Thing Called Love
tk.6	On The Sunny Side Of The Street
tk.8	Laura
tk.14	I'm In The Mood For Love	-
tk.15	Things Ain't What They Used To Be	-
tk.16	Cherokee

All tracks on Blue Note (J) TOCJ-1612   Jimmy Smith - Cherokee  (1996)

I don't think this material has been made available elsewhere. As mentioned earlier, the CD contains the stray track "Somebody Loves Me", from the May 8, 1957 session.

This is a pretty lively session for the most part, and likely to appeal to most Smith fans. The snag is the cost of the CD. It should have been issued in the U.S. RVG series in the late 1990s/early 2000s. I guess they were too busy to fit it into the schedule. There were so many albums being issued back then.

[Tunes that need to be rested]

This reminds me of the time when Lawrence Welk (bless him) introduced the Ellington tune thus "And a-now, we gonna a-play that-a famous Duke Ellington tune, Take A Train.".

Yes, there are a lot of tunes that I am tired of and will never perform again.

But not blues. That is always good to blow on.

[Jimmy Smith "Plays Fats Waller"]

Prompted by Dan's remark, I dug out "Plays Pretty, Just For You". It has only appeared on CD in Japan (TOCJ-1553 and a few later ones). There wasn't enough room on the LP for "Somebody Loves Me", which Michael Cuscuna put on the "Cherokee" CD (again, Japan only, TOCJ-1612). I made up a CD with everything in session order.

The audio is good, of course. This album is a bit less polite than the Waller one. It has a few guitar segments. "Somebody Loves Me" cooks a bit, but the rest of the session is chilled out, and easy listening.

Definitely not the best of Jimmy Smith for the jazz enthusiast. I won't be spinning this often.

[Jimmy Smith "Plays Fats Waller"]

Re Grant Green's "Am I Blue", I am a big fan of the participants, but this a dull and boring album, mostly at a slow tempo. It was not worth releasing.

[Jimmy Smith "Plays Fats Waller"]

No, Dan, this is not the top Smith album.

I played it a few times while I was working in the kitchen. Its vibe kinda grew on me.

But there is nothing to compare with "The Preacher" at the Wilmington, DE date, or the classic sessions with Stanley Turrentine.

[Jimmy Smith "Plays Fats Waller"]

For some reason, I never got around to listening to this album until a few days ago.

Here are the details

Jimmy Smith, organ; Quentin Warren, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, January 23, 1962

tk.1	Everybody Loves My Baby	Blue Note 45-1851, BLP 4100
tk.2	Ain't She Sweet	-
tk.4	Ain't Misbehavin'	Blue Note BLP 4100
tk.7	'Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do	rejected
tk.8	I've Found A New Baby	Blue Note BLP 4100
tk.11	Honeysuckle Rose	Blue Note 45-1852, BLP 4100
tk.12	Bess, You Is My Woman Now	rejected
tk.14	Squeeze Me	Blue Note BLP 4100
tk.16	Lulu's Back In Town	Blue Note 45-1852, BLP 4100

* Blue Note BLP 4100, BST 84100   Jimmy Smith Plays Fats Waller   1962
* Blue Note 45-1851   Jimmy Smith - Everybody Loves My Baby / Ain't She Sweet   1962
* Blue Note 45-1852   Jimmy Smith - Honeysuckle Rose / Lulu's Back In Town   1962

This is not a normal Smith session, with horns, or trio letting it rip. It is a laid-back session of tunes reflecting the style of Fats Waller. Fittlingly, everything is in 2/2, at slow to medium tempos. Jimmy uses what I call the belch setting on the B3, which I dislike, but the album has a nice, relaxed vibe to it and is quite enjoyable. There are no guitar solos.

Of the tunes, "Ain't Misbehavin' ", "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Squeeze Me" were composed by Waller, "Everybody Loves My Baby" was composed by Fats's friend, Spencer Williams, and recorded by Fats in 1940. "Ain't She Sweet" has no connection with Fats. "I've Found A New Baby" was composed by Spencer Williams but never recorded by Fats. "Lulu's Back In Town" was not composed by Waller, but was recorded by him on May 8, 1935.

Altogether, well worth a listen.
 

[Copy Controlled Blue Note CDs]

I don't know.

Anyway, my computer survived its insertion.

[Barry Harris RIP]

Thanks for posting that, BFrank. The Slimes wants money before you can read their stuff. Gotta be joking.

[Amazing amount of work in these collections.]

I mean that there is one line for each session, on which you can click if you want to see the contents of the session. This makes it easy to get quickly to the session that you want. Herr Fitzgerald makes you wade through pages of everything to reach a specific session.

[Have you written for Wikipedia on jazz artists?]

For the last two or three weeks, Wikipedia has continued to beg for money. They fill the screen with it, and pester you, and it's hard to get to what you want. I don't like them, but it's hard to avoid them when searching online.

[Amazing amount of work in these collections.]

I checked the listings in that discography for Joe Henderson and Andrew Hill. They are pretty good. They do not include the new tracks in the Mobley and Henderson Mosaic sets, but I guess they will update the listings in due course. 

They don't have one-line session indexes, so you have to wade through all the details to find what you need. I think that is a serious drawback that makes it tedious to use.

The discography that I referenced is pretty accurate, and much easier to use. I have found it to be very useful over the years. I have not found many errors or omissions.

Anyway, there is room for both.

[Amazing amount of work in these collections.]

I was not very precise when I commented. I wrote "Discogs", but I didn't mean the vending site: I meant 

https://www.jazzdisco.org/

[Bobby Hutcherson "Total Eclipse"]

Those warning labels in Britain and Europe are ugly, patronizing and annoying.

[Amazing amount of work in these collections.]

Are these printed discographies really needed? The Discogs site is very thorough, and they (usually, but not always) correct or add to their listings if they are emailed.

The only book discograpies I have owned were the old Jepsen ones. They were good, but by no means complete. Now, they would be of little use.

[Barry Harris RIP]

Er war ausgezeichnet.

[Barry Harris RIP]

Sad news.

A favorite track is "One Down", with Elvin, on the "Preminado" album, recorded February 19, 1961.

 

[Copy Controlled Blue Note CDs]

According to that article, when one of these CDs is inserted into a computer, it installs malware. Grrr. That is scandalous. How could the Blue Note owners participate in that?

So far, my computer is acting normally.