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Tom Storer

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Everything posted by Tom Storer

  1. I saw Charlap with the Washingtons a couple of years ago at the Village Vanguard and they were exceptional. All three of them were absolutely top-notch - in this kind of music, I don't think you'll find better than Peter and Kenny Washington, and Charlap was playing beautifully. Ballads as sweet as you like, blues and mid-tempo tunes that swung like crazy, and I think they hit the upper limit of fast tempos that can still be controlled: when they were flying at such high speed I kept expecting things to fall apart from the sheer momentum, but they never lost their grip on that beat. It was exhilarating. So if you get a chance to see them live, don't miss it!
  2. Tom Storer

    Jack Bruce

    Is it the very idea of organ transplants you criticize, or something about the way it's done?
  3. Purchase? Well, in a way. I'm an emusic subscriber, and after Blindfold 2 I downloaded *many* albums by Jack McDuff, Don Patterson, Red Holloway, Gene Ammons, etc. - greasy tenors and organists. I probably downloaded 40 albums along those lines! Nothing, I think, from the actual albums represented in the test, but very much based on the general style, which I had previous not favored as much. *And* I'm listening to them!
  4. This one pretty much had me stumped all the way through, but the selections are top-notch! Thanks for a great listen, Jim. Here goes with my comments and guesses (when I even bother guessing): 1. Swinging! Pianist is awfully familiar, makes me think of Ahmad Jamal with his shifts to very soft dynamics. Bright, full... great stuff. 2. Sounds like Milt Jackson. I'd guess the MJQ but the piano doesn't sound like John Lewis. Is this "Taking a Chance On Love"? 3. Brisk rhythm; nice, puckish trumpet solo. Reminiscent of early 60's Miles but I think it's more recent. 4. Gently swaying Braziliany thing with two guitars. Tasty. Won't even bother guessing. 5. Great tenor player. Great quartet! Can't identify any of them, except the rough-and-ready arco bass solo could point to Paul Chambers. 6. The pianist seems tantalizingly familiar. Fancy, flutter-style upper-register bass solo. Nice. 7. This is my preferred kind of guitar sound. No clue who it is. Peter Leitch? Adam Rogers? Joshua Breakstone? Wild guesses. As usual I recognize the tune but can't think of the name of it. 8. I'd guess Stan Getz and one of his Brazilian records. 9. Nice arrangement. The dashing bebop alto player is probably the leader but the baritone has the best solo. I'd swear I recognize the alto player, but naming him is another matter. 10. Solo guitar, Brazilian rhythm. No idea. 11. Piano/bass duo. Another tune I recognize but can't think of the name of. Tommy Flanagan? 12. Very nice. Similar to number 8. No clue. 13. "I Mean You" (at last a name I remember). No idea. I like this guitar sound too - close to Jim Hall, but not his phrasing. 14. At last an easy one! Sarah Vaughan, Jobim's "Double Rainbow." This is a gorgeous tune. 15. The soprano sound often reminds me strongly of Steve Lacy, but this isn't his style of music. Another great tune! I'll be looking for this once I find out what it is. Odd that it fades away during the piano solo - I guess it was too long and only the relevant blindfold portion was included? 16. "The Good Life"? Once again, no idea who it is.
  5. This morning I sent out the six "rest-of-the-world" CDs of Blindfold Test 3, to: couw White Lightning mikeweil Gary Gray Daniel A mmilovan That's two Germanies, a UK, a Sweden, a Serbia-Montenegro and an Israel. Depending on the postal system, they should arrive over the next few days!
  6. European residents, take heart. The zero-second intro strategy has worked, enabling me to copy Blindfold Test 3 successfully. I'll be sending them out on Friday.
  7. Monk's music is pretty much sui generis, and Rouse fit that unique rhythm-melody space perfectly. Coltrane used that special Monkness to blast off towards outer limits, Griffin as a springboard for his spirited displays of virtuosity. Rollins was Rollins, perfectly compatible with the Monk universe but of comparable individual distinction. Rouse was the one who mined the groove in an easy but perfectly pitched way, his melodies spinning along with relaxed swing and just the right flavor. Listening to "Live at the It Club" is like a Zen experience for me, such a source of serene energy. But Rouse didn't end with Monk. Don't forget Sphere! That was a beautiful, beautiful quartet.
  8. Thanks for your input, guys. Daniel, I did try to burn a copy - that's when I realized it was no go. The software (Nero) said "Sorry, not enough room" and aborted the burn. I'll try mmilovan's overburn strategy - maybe that'll do the trick... If that doesn't work, I'll try eliminating the 2-second lead-ins, that might just do it.
  9. Slight hitch on the European side: I bought a pack of blank CDs to make my copies, but I didn't think to check the size of the CD Jim sent me first. Turns out Blindfold Test 3 is 702 MB, and my blanks are 700 MB! So I'll have to get in some bigger CDs to make my copies. With a little luck I'll be able to do this tomorrow. Watch this space! (Lesson to future copiers: first check the size of the Blindfold Test CD, *then* buy the appropriate blanks!)
  10. I received BT3 in the mail this morning! I've listened to a little bit of it and it sounds like a great set of tunes. I'll start burning this evening and I'll probably be ready to post them off to the non-North-America list on Wednesday. I'll post to confirm when they've been dispatched.
  11. So far I have six requests on this side of the world: couw White Lightning mikeweil Gary Gray Daniel A mmilovan If you're not on the North American side of the Atlantic, just send me a PM with your postal address and I'll see that a copy of Blindfold 3 gets to you.
  12. This is fascinating. Here's another naive question: why do Hammonds (or pipe organs, for that matter) have two keyboards (uh, manuals)? I note in the diagram you included that each manual has its own drawbars, so I guess you could choose a different sound for the same note. Are the two manuals in different registers completely or is there overlap? Thanks again for your explanations. You should write a book!
  13. b3-er, thank you very much for that erudite history! I couldn't have asked for better. I'm amazed to learn that Hammond went out of business in the 1970's! All those Hammond B3s are like Stradivarius violins? No longer being manufactured? There must be a roaring market for them now... Surely there must be someone somewhere who can start up the equivalent again? Let me be geeky and ask you to explain some of the terminology. What is: - "chorus"? - a drawbar? - the top manual? (I guess the upper keyboard?)
  14. I've heard Yahel with that trio with Joshua Redman and Brian Blade - the music didn't grab me, so I didn't form much of an opinion of Yahel's playing in itself. Now that I think of it, I also heard an album I liked a lot by - was it Larry Golding? Yes, Larry Golding, with Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart. Very nice! Can't think of the name of it...
  15. Thanks, Harold. I knew about those earlier organ players - in Basie's autobiography he talks about Waller teaching him to play the organ in the orchestra pit of cinemas, playing for silent movies. And didn't Wild Bill Davis make a record with Duke? But what kind of organ did they play? When did Hammond start to monopolize the field? And did Davis and Doggett play the kind of organ music made so popular by Jimmy Smith, i.e. greasy, bluesy, funky-swinging organ combos, with drums and guitar and/or saxophone? (Note: I see on the Jazzmatazz site that Rhoda Scott has a new Christmas album coming out, with Houston Person, called "The Hammond Organ of Christmas." What a title!)
  16. At the risk of provoking the scorn and incredulity of the many fine Organissimo posters, I am here to admit that I've never really listened to much jazz organ music. But I'm beginning! It's all thanks to Dan Gould's Blindfold Test #2 (the theme was "Grease!"). After listening to it and enjoying it, I went back to my Houston Person recordings from Savant, and noticed that he has one on emusic that I hadn't downloaded: The Groove Master Series, Vol. 1: The Opening Round. That record, it turns out, is a very nice and easy session with soft grooves and romantic ballads, some light blues. Joey DeFrancesco is part of the band, and really caught my ear, so I downloaded three of his albums available on emusic, as well as three by Charles Earland, and some B3 anthology album as well. As I type, my trusty computer is downloading albums by Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, and Richard "Groove" Holmes. From what I've read as I set up these downloads, it would seem that Jimmy Smith revolutionized the instrument in the mid-50's, and that there have been several major practitioners with distinctive styles of their owns; Joey DeFrancesco seems to be the modern-day whiz kid, expertly mining the styles of the historical greats and adding his own virtuosity and curiosity into the mix. So far so good? So what I'd like here is more meat: if Jimmy Smith revolutionized the Hammond organ, what the hell did it sound like before Jimmy Smith? Was there even a pre-Jimmy Smith? Who are the greatest organists and what distinguishes them? What's with the focus on the Hammond B-3? Aren't there other manufacturers, or other models from Hammond? Is there any school competing with the B3 crowd? (Is there no one who is "King of the Acme X12"?) Help me die less ignorant, organ fans!
  17. Houston Person's Savant albums are well worth the download, as are the Etta Jones albums on High Note. Weizen mentioned Xanadu, and I second his recommendation, even though the sound is pretty bad. "Heavy Love," a duo of Al Cohn and Jimmy Rowles, is indispensable. In fact there's loads of great Zoot stuff and Al stuff on various labels (not much of them together).
  18. Fascinating interview. I studied clarinet at the IACP for a year in the early 80's. This was during a period when I decided I had to at least give music a try or I'd regret it later. As it turned out I spent a couple of years trying, then gave it up for the good of all mankind. As a beginner, I felt Silva's pedagogical approach might have been interesting if I had had any native talent to speak of. As it was, I got nowhere. We had no exercise books, but with our teachers developed our own personalized exercises - which were rather random and unplanned. I don't think the teachers had any training as music teachers, at least mine hadn't! There was a class where we all sat in the dark and held hands and hummed OMMM together, trying to achieve unison. The attempt was unsuccessful, but nothing was ever done to correct it. We had a rhythm class, where we would learn rhythmic notation and beat out the rhythms with sticks. Again, the experience was rather chaotic, since not everyone was progressing at the same rate. My impression was that they had all kinds of utopian notions about teaching music but not enough experience; they didn't seem to know what they were doing as teachers, although their sincerity and dedication was undeniable. After a year, I didn't go back. Instead I signed up at an old-fashioned classical conservatory, with lessons based on centuries of experience. I wasn't interested in classical music but learned the basics of the instrument and solfège much better and faster than at the IACP. But that's just my experience. Other people's mileage no doubt differed. Silva was a kinetic, excited, impatient kind of guy, loping about the school with a cigarette in his mouth, his hair in a long pony tail. I heard him play a few times, once in a trio with David Murray and the late Oliver Johnson on drums - I confess I never much liked the Celestrial Communication Orchestra, though. I saw him not too long ago in the audience for some concert, and he was clean-shaven with short hair, looking good. I didn't actually have much personal contact with him at the IACP, but the interview certainly shows an intelligent, curious, dynamic personality.
  19. I blush to admit I had no idea who Fred Jackson was. AMG has this to say: In the list of records he appeared on they mention "Best of the Gap Band," Norman Connors' "Romantic Journey" from 1977, and albums by Terry Callier and Carole King--but it seems they might have been confusing him with a Fred Jackson, Jr., who is described in his entry as an R&B/soul tenor saxophonist, also appearing on "Romantic Journey" and working with King and Callier.
  20. I use an electric razor but couldn't tell you what brand unless I had it in front of me. It doesn't give as close a shave as a manual razor, but I just got fed up with the shaving cream mess. Being able to shave away from the sink also helps solve morning sink-access conflicts - my wife can put on her make-up as I shave while reading my email.
  21. World Scrabble Championships?? Damn! It's amazing the number of unusually talented people one meets on these boards. By which I mean both more talented than usual and possessing a talent which is unusual... I have Scrabble at home in the French edition. Weird. The French use all these obscure verb forms which would never occur to me, and I keep instinctively wanting to use English words, but can't! It's so frustrating.
  22. Amazingly, that does seem to be the only GC Octet recording. At least, I couldn't find any others... I saw that band, although I'm not sure of the exact personnel, back in the late 70's, at Carnegie Hall, I believe. It was a wild triple bill, probably part of the Kool Festival or however it was called at the time: Coleman's octet, Ted Curson's septet (with Chris Woods and Nick Brignola!), and a similar sized ensemble led by Muhal Richard Abrams and including Dave Holland and George Lewis. I was a teenage avant-garde buff at the time, although not exclusively, and went because I had been listening to Dave Holland and had recently discovered the AACM and wanted to hear Muhal. I was thrilled by the whole concert, though. After the concert a friend of mine and I snuck backstage and talked to Holland, who made my day, hell, my year!, when he saw someone he needed to talk to, said, "Excuse me a minute, could you hold my bass?", handed me his bass and disappeared. I stood there holding Dave Holland's bass for a couple of minutes trying to look hip and blasé but with a goofy grin I couldn't get off my face. As we were leaving I saw Brignola checking out with his baritone and recalled how impressed I'd been by his burning solos. It was the first time I had seen or heard of him, so I went up and told him how great he was, and then blithely said, "What's your name?" Deadpan pause, Brignola no doubt thinking "Should I slap this young pup?" But he just said, "Brignola, B-R-I-G-N-O-L-A. Glad you liked it," and walked off. I didn't see Coleman backstage but that was only the first of many times I went to see him, usually with his quartet. And once, in Paris, with a tribute-to-Coltrane quintet featuring Tommy Flanagan, Coleman, James Moody, George Mraz and Jimmy Cobb. Ah, memories...
  23. Chris Anderson?! Is my face red! I was confusing him with Hans Christian Albertson.
  24. While I guess we can all agree that too exact an emulation of one's influences can be a hindrance, deciding where the line is is highly subjective. On the one hand, one wishes to reward originality, regardless of technical accomplishment; on the other hand, technical accomplishment in itself is something one doesn't want to be so blasé as to dismiss with a wave of the hand on the grounds that it's derivative. To paraphrase a famous anecdote (can't remember the principals but it's in Bill Crow's "Jazz Anecdotes), one can imagine Jsngry saying to Eric Alexander, "Man, you're playing just like George Coleman!" and Alexander handing him his tenor and replying, "Here - *you* play just like George Coleman!"
  25. There was definitely swing banjo - Chris Anderson produced a Riverside album by Elmer Snowden called "Harlem Banjo." Here's the site to consult: Jazz Banjo.
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