Al in NYC

And then tells an easily disproven lie to try to explain it away. Typical.

Recorded at her father's church in 1956 when she was only 14 years old. Put out by Detroit record store owner and recording producer Joe Von Battle, whose recordings of her father's sermons had made him a significant recording star (which is why the Rev. gets cited on the label of this record). It was also issued on this J-V-B LP. The single was also later picked up by Chess subsidiary Checker, and much later reissued on this CD of Aretha's earliest recordings.

Sad, sad day. Truly one of the greatest voices in the history of American music. Here she is in her prime, ripping it up at home at Cobo Arena in Detroit on "Aretha Franklin Day", Feb. 16 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the presenters at this event. Often forgotten now is Aretha's work (and, of course, the core work of her father) in the civil rights movement. She also performed at MLK's funeral. https://youtu.be/0L4Bonnw484 I was fortunate enough to see her when she was still close to being in her best voice, in a benefit concert in Feb. 1976 at Masonic Temple in Detroit. It wasn't quite as ecstatic as the show in the clip, but it was pretty damn close. My best friend's mother, who had lived near her and gone to school with Aretha and her siblings as a kid, took us backstage to meet her after the show, and she was wiped out but gracious and friendly with that famous smile.

Mark, nice to hear that Dave is still with us and still doing OK. Back in the late '40s and early '50s he was in a group of jazz-crazed (and otherwise-crazed) young men that included my father. But Dave was the one with enough money to put his passion into action, so while my dad was penning record reviews for little neighborhood shopping papers Dave was in a recording studio with Dizzy Gillespie and many other greats. I later went to high school with his son, and Dave hired on a few of my classmates for part-time work at his company cleaning up ugly messes. I still have a few of my dad's old DeeGee 78s stuffed in the shelves over at our family place in Ontario, and a photo of my 2 year old self shaking Dizzy's hand at a benefit for one of my father's organizations.

I just caught up with this news in the middle of the night last night when I was listening to the end of the Billie Holiday birthday broadcast after my return from Montreal and it segued into the Cecil Taylor memorial broadcast (going continuously until 9:30 AM tomorrow). A massive loss of a completely unique yet deeply and broadly influential, voice in American and global music. He will be missed, and, more importantly, he will be remembered. I was fortunate enough to see him 3 times, in shows that were always bracing, thought-provoking, challenging, and most of all deeply experienced and enjoyed. The most memorable one for me was a massive collaboration/duel with another now-gone great of this music, Max Roach. Goodbye Cecil.

Love the $1.00 tag from Detroit's sub-discount department store Kingsway. Mothers Day at Kingsway:

Armstrong Deccas Baker/Freeman Serge Chaloff Columbia Small Group Swing Desmond/Hall Curtis Fuller Gillespie Hall/Johnson/DeParis etc. JJ Johnson Thad Jones Mingus Candids Blue Mitchell Mulligan/Baker Herbie Nichols Joe Pass Oscar Peterson Stuff Smith Teagarden Roulettes Teagarden Fifties He also had the Andrew Hill and the Mingus Jazz Workshop sets, but I already had those.

Barry is a national treasure and the true living spirit of Detroit's be-bop heritage. Wishing him all the best, and a very speedy and full recovery. We love you Barry!

Well, I'm suddenly the owner of 19 more Mosaic sets (and several additional Selects). Although he died back in April, I finally removed them from my father's apartment last month, and have them sitting in a box in the "office" (read: deductible room full of junk that has no place else to go) in my typically cramped NYC apartment. I was sort of idly wondering what they were worth, remembering the ebay frenzies of several years back, and ended up on this thread. All I can say is that it's a good thing that I enjoy the music in most of them so much that I wouldn't consider selling them anyway.

Dorothy Ashby and Kenny Burrell went to high school together at Cass Tech (as did my mom, with both of them), and almost certainly had some instructors and influences in common, so not much of a surprise really. Cass was known for a long time for its harp classes and harp ensemble, so it should also come as no surprise that another major voice on the jazz harp, Alice McLeod Coltrane, also attended the same high school a few years later.

It doesn't get much more out of character, or stranger, or certainly creepier, than this Freddie Hubbard recording:

Curtis has definitely had some health issues over the years, and really hasn't been the same player since back in the '70s. He spent a number of years in the '70s and '80s in and out of Detroit as a teacher. I know someone well who studied under him and found him to be a very tough disciplinarian (but very helpful one too). A real stickler for practice fundamentals and reading ability. Given his problems with his chops though, he had to be talked back into playing publicly in the '90s, but he obviously enjoyed being back on stage so much that he became a regular performer again.

For oddball Braxton, and Brubeck, (and Konitz, I guess) there's always this one:

Scott! Facebook? Oh no, not me... Out of character Ella? Have to mention this album: Actually, some fun work here:

Very interesting thread. I made something of a weird fetish for a while of collecting such 'out of character' recordings. Of course, this one came immediately to mind: And then there's this oddity (by guess who):

"Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac". I was 7.

Nice to "see" you again too Scott. A little piece of nostalgia for the fractious Jazz Corner crew of old. When I lived in Japan the guy who rant the jazz coffee shop in my neighborhood, who was a Mal fanatic, hipped me to that record. Mal was extremely popular in Japan, where he spent a lot of time in the early '70s after his personal demons got the better of him, and there are actually several recordings of his that were put out there that were never released here. One that's extremely popular in Japan, and considered a central part of his discography, is the never issued in the U.S. solo album "All Alone" on the Italian Globe label. Spanish Bitch is extremely Mal-esque, in much the same vein as the better known Blood and Guts from the same year, or his earlier ECM recording Free at Last. Like those albums it was recorded during his time in Europe. It features the same high velocity trio playing as those albums, but with a bit more lucidity, tightness, and edge to my ears than either of those albums. The record is really helped along by the work of the overlooked Detroit-raised drummer Fred Braceful, who spent his entire career in Germany playing with many European greats and visiting Americans, and in a few experimental art rock bands. To me it is the most 'Mal' of of Waldron's sui generis work of that era (and I realize that the tolerance of some for this playing may vary, but I find it transcendent and often thrilling). Mal really digs into the 4 tunes here, and plays his Mal-lines inhabiting the tunes (if you know what I mean), with some variation in his approach, rather than skipping like a stone across their surfaces as he sometimes seemed to do. This includes a shape-shifting deconstruction/reconstruction of Eleanor Rigby that has to go in the pantheon of jazz interpretations of Beatles tunes. I listen to this album more than any other piano recording of the early '70s, and always end up excited every time I hear it.

I check in here just to catch up, get away from this bad boring horror movie of an election, and what do I find but a Scott Dolan (!!) thread at the top of the list. So, out of respect for our one fleeting, but warmly remembered, evening together, I will give this essentially impossible task a shot. There are so many records and cuts I love, but my thinking here is to list albums of music I've listened to over and over again, but still take deep pleasure from and still grapple with every time I hear them. Of course, this list changes on any given day with any given mood. So, here's where I'm at today (in no particular order): A Love Supreme - Coltrane Thelonious Monk (Trio) - Monk Nefertiti - Miles Unity - Larry Young Blues and Roots - Mingus Honorable mention, since there were no albums in 78 era: Basie/Young Mosaic (Lester Young perhaps my most favorite musician ever, as he was for my father, except dad actually got to see him.) A trio of favorites out of left field: Soul Liberation - Rusty Bryant Impressions of A Patch of Blue - Walt Dickerson Spanish Bitch - Mal Waldron Oh, and James Brown. Always always always James Brown.

I finally saw this last weekend, after some indecision brought on by dread that it would be like the Chet movie. I really liked Cheadle's performance as Miles, and, of course, the use of Miles' music as the score. Those things by themselves lifted Miles Ahead well ahead of Born To Be Blue in the 2016 trumpet player biopic sweepstakes. The "unstuck in time" narrative strategy worked quite well in several spots too IMO, and seems to me a good way to tell the story of an artist with as varied a life as Miles (similar to the recent James Brown biopic). But, overall, I thought the movie was a bit of a mess. With plot elements that mixed together quite uncomfortably, like someone edited together 2 different films about different characters played by the same actor (sort of a mirror image of the recent Brian Wilson film). And I thought the whole Ewan McGregor, conniving record executive, 'Junior' the trumpet player, car chase and gunfire, stolen tape sequence descended into grating incoherent silliness pretty quickly. Maybe it was meant to play as a sort of cocaine fever-dream, showing just how far off the rails Miles' life and mental state had gone, but I kinda like my artist's biopics to at least have something to do with the creation (or lack thereof, in Miles' case) of their actual art. Miles Ahead had a little of that, but IMO it really didn't seem part of the same movie as the main action/comedy/tragedy plot. 'Round Midnight still easily wins the non-documentary jazz movie category in that regard for me.

It's like I can read what you're writing, but somehow the words make no sense together.

Mingus birthday broadcast on WKCR all day today. Still no stream though, so no way to hear it.

Extremely sad. He was a massive talent as a songwriter, instrumentalist, performer, and what I guess you could call a musical conceptualist. Definitely prone to showbiz-y self-indulgence, funk cliches, and noodling, but he was also certainly much more experimental and adventurous than the vast majority of pop acts. Plus, despite being a very small person, he had a hell of a stage presence, an incredible amount of musical capability, and anyone who saw him live will never forget it.

If Colbert is going to have these jazz greats on his show then they deserve the respect of at least being given some sliver of time to play their damn music. Otherwise their appearance is worse than pointless, verging on the downright disrespectful. After staying up though Hillary Clinton and some very long minutes of grating celebrity-babble, with Shorter's only appearance being him sitting in the background in the middle of the band, I at least expected to see Wayne featured in the usual musical spot at the end of the show. I was flabbergasted when he brought on some boring-ass country singer to finish the show instead. WTF?

Those were some halcyon days in music, to be sure. And to think that I was just a couple of miles away and didn't make it (but I was also 7, and thus completely oblivious). Although I do remember what I was doing on that date, because that was the same day as the first Super Bowl. Alas, the picture from the original post seems to have disappeared from that link.