Big Al

The link for track 21 has been sent. Let me know if there are problems with this one.

JIM!!!! What a pleasure to see you again!

I can almost guarantee that one member will ID this, if my memory serves me correctly. And if he doesn't ID it, I'm gonna give him SO much grief!

Sent!

I don't know which is more frightening: that the Ventures tune got ID'd so quickly.... or the fact that someone besides me would readily admit to KNOWING the Ventures track! Great guesses! You nailed each of those!

Links have been PM'd and discs will be mailed out tonight. 24 tracks in all, just shy of 90 minutes. Kinda like an old-fashioned double-LP, where each record was about 45 minutes long. With that in mind, I've come up with some titles for this Blindfold Test: The Whitebread AL-bum Big Al's Brew Al, and Other Assorted Silly Songs Ex-Lax on Al Street Goodbye Allo Brick Road Mellon Collie and the Infinite Al Chicago Transit Al Blonde on Al on Blonde Al Portrait QuadropheniAL Big Al Fever and on and on and on..... Enjoy!

Thanks Valerie, Jim-Al, Tim, and Chuck!

Groovy! Just a little more tweaking, set the order, fix the volume levels, and it's ready to go!

Thanks to all youse mugs! I'm sorry it's taken me two days to thank all of you! Old age slows a guy down, I guess! You guys are the best, and I love being a part of this community/funktionally-dysfunctional family! Thanks Ghost, but if you happen to talk to my favorite Commie, tell him I am hurt, HURT I tell you, that he wished Johnny E a happy birthday but not me! Yes I know I'm a dirty rotten conservative capitalist, but deep down I'm really a nice guy.

Hoping for more stragglers to sign-up and putting the finishing touches on the project. I promise, it will be worth the wait and is nothing like no other BFT that's come before. All kindsa fun, games, & groovy tunes for ya! I hope to have it ready by Friday, for download no later than Saturday. FOR THE FOLKS WHO WANT DISCS: At this point, the BFT runs slightly longer than 80 minutes. I've been trying for two days now to find that one song to remove, and I sure didn't help my case this morning when I remembered one more song that I *ABSOLUTELY* wanted to add and couldn't believe I'd forgotten about it until now. SO, assuming I leave everything as it is, would it be alright if I loaded the CDs with the mp3 files instead of the WAV files? Most players these days play mp3 CDs anyway and even if yours doesn't, you can always create your own regular CD from the mp3s.

What he said. What they said! Wait a minute..... (They're coming! No later than Friday, I promise. We got a long month ahead of us!)

WAIT A SECOND!!! Johnny can't be 40! He's only a day younger than me! And I'm only..... only.... ah, shit! Happy 40th, Johnny!!! :party:

Bump up for stragglers (*koff* mikeweil *koff*) and also cuz I ain't done yet. Almost, though!

I never noticed that before, but now that I think about it, you're right! Way cool!!! Thanks, Fel "Z"! I'm used to being in the minority when it comes to my boring tastes. So our dialogue concludes with the recognition that certain components of your initial post were made in error (though not the oblique condemnation of Joe Chambers' compositional abilities), most likely because of some possibly age-related mental happenings . HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!! My mind is a spiral now!

Hmmmm.... Steeeve....

Nine folks signed up so far: Thom Keith alex. Bright Moments jeffcrom Chas Bill Barton The Magnificent Goldberg Hot Ptah (note to self: make a disc) thedwork Come on all you BFT old-timers! Come celebrate with me! Well, if nothing else, you can use this in case you have trouble falling asleep at night!

Man, I'm all kinds of lost. Let me try this again: I made a disc consisting of the first four tracks of OBLIQUE and all but the last track of HAPPENINGS for a nice disc of Hutch/Herbie! I also did something in a similar vein with DIALOGUE and COMPONENTS, for a nice disc of Hutch in a more free-bop setting. That wasn't so hard, was it?

Of course you mean Components not Happenings , which I assume you like all of except for the last track . Correct on all counts. D'OH!!!

Completely agree!!!! Completely DISagree! Seriously, I think this is probably my favorite Webster album (a tough call for me, since I love 'em all) and it has everything to do with Jimmy Jones. And Les Spann. And Papa Jo! Maybe I've been mistaking frustration for sheer excitement, but I can live with my illusions if necessary.

:tup :tup But I'm gonna go out on a limb and very likely be in the minority with this: I reeeeeeeeeeally can't stand the Joe Chambers tracks. They just seem too noisy and outta place for my taste. So I take the first four tracks from OBLIQUE, combine it with the non-Chambers tracks from HAPPENINGS, and I have one helluva pleasurable listening experience!

One disc crammed with the usual swinging fun, silliness, and easy pickins to give your mind a break after a couple of enjoyably challenging BFTs. The fact that I'm being a selfish bastard and commandeering the month of March JUST BECAUSE I'm turning 40 WILL be worked into the theme of the BFT! :party: When you sign up, indicate if you want downloads or discs. Happy birthday to ME, dammit!!!

Yes! Is that the same moment when the bass player doesn't realize the chord has changed and is still playing the I? That's my favorite part of the song!

Many of the members of that forum were booted off the Hoffman forum. Among others, I'll bet.....

DISC TWO Track 1: Somewhere, Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum are smiling. Or, in the context of the name of the song, “bouncing!” Tracks 2 and 3 are nice, but nothing that really grabbed my attention. Track 4: WHOA! Give me a groove like this ANY day of the week! YOW! Love that guitar sound! Peter Leitch? I *MUST* find out where this comes from! Oh this groove could last the entire rest of this BFT and it would become my favorite BFT in a heartbeat!!!! No, not Leitch. Maybe Russell Malone? I’d even go so far as to say Pat Martino or even George Benson, if I thought Benson was still capable of something like this. Track 5: Pleasant enough. Again, nothing too memorable. But I’ll take this over disc one track 8 any day of the week! Track 6: At first, I thought it was a Blue Mitchell Riverside date, but now I’m convinced it’s Miles. But the focus seems to be more on the piano player! And that drummer! Wait... is this one of those tracks that Miles & Gil did in the 60’s (with Shorter/Hancock/Carter/Williams) that never saw the light of day until the Miles/Gil box came out? But that doesn’t sound at all like Herbie on the piano. This one’s gonna be interesting to find out! Track 7: Nice bluesy guitar, I guess. Eh.... Track 8: Oh, fercryinoutloud! I’ve heard this one, too! Drat! Drat! Drat! Gonna kick myself for not knowing this one, too! Track 9: Sounds like they tried to take four or five different unfinished ideas and cram them into one song. Good on them for not making the mistake of trying to stretch out those unfinished ideas into a whole record. Then it’d be just another BS&T album. This still doesn’t do too much for me. Track 10: Okay, I guess. I’m sorry to say that this disc is being uneventful for me. Track 11: Once that guy started yodeling, I stopped caring about the rest of this track! Yeesh!!!! Track 12: Sounds like a Bill Frisell thing. I love electric piano, especially when it’s all reverb-y like this! A violin? So far, I’m really digging the combination of the sounds. (five minutes later) Okay, the screeching coulda stopped a LONG time ago! Do these people not have internal edit buttons? Ow, OW, that’s painful! NEXT!!!! Track 13: MMMMMmmmmmmm!!!!! Another nice closer! Transferred beautifully from vinyl! Gotta love it! Maybe a Konitz Verve thing? Well, once again I’ve shown just what a boring conservative jazz dilettante I truly am. Challenge me and I turn into one of those old curmudgeons who says “You kids! Get offa my lawn and quit makin’ that awful racket!” But this disc would’ve been worth the admission price for track 4 ALONE, and for that, I thank you profusely! Now let’s see what everyone else has to say about disc 2!

DISC ONE Track 1: Well, as someone who has put music of a tenuous connection to jazz on his past BFTs and is contemplating the same for my BFT next month, I really have no room to question anyone else’s choice. That said, what the hell is this???? Did I upload/download the right thing? Track 2: NOW we’re talkin’! Has that great 60’s Miles Quintet vibe that I dig so much! I wanna say this is something from the Bobby Hutcherson Mosaic Select. No, I take that back: that tenor trill is unmistakably Joe Henderson. Sounds too recent to be a Milestone thing, so maybe something from his Verve years? Track 3: A very nice “Night and Day!” Oh, who was that guy who did the soundtrack for the Sean Penn movie loosely based on Django? Yeah, that guy. That’s who it is! Track 4: Groovy little samba! Man, I am enjoying this with each passing track! No clue on the players, but I’m gonna kick myself once I find out who the trumpet player is. I *know* I’ve heard this before! What the heck is that brass combo of Dixieland and samba towards the end??? Track 5: This may be even closer to that Miles groove than track 3. Heck, even the drummer sounds like Tony Williams! Wouldn’t that be something if it is? Trumpeter, if it isn’t Freddie Hubbard, sure wants to sound like him. Track 6: Bill Evans, or a reasonable facsimile! Very nice, nonetheless. When I think of terrific piano trio jazz, it sounds something like this! Track 7: Got off to an auspicious enough start, with that lone trumpet note being reminiscent of the opening to Artie Shaw’s version of “Star Dust.” Didn’t think the tempo would ever get above a rubato but then it started a very leisurely pace. Very nicely done. Maybe it is “Star Dust” after all! Track 8: This is my LEAST favorite.... no, I can’t even give it a favorite tag: tracks that start off with everyone blowing their brains out as loudly and incoherently for as long as they can. I just wanna scream “GET ON WITH IT, ALREADY!!!!” Okay, now that I’ve had my little rant, and now that they’ve finally gotten on with it, I.... I..... ay-yai-yai-yaiieeee. All they did was add a beat. Kinda. Sorta. NEXT!!! Track 9: Okay, terra firma reached. Ooooooooh, I like those Ellington-type orchestral voicings! Dang, that even sounds like Clark Terry! Has a similar late-night feel as track 7. I love a slow groove like this. Nobody overplays it, yet no one allows themselves to be dragged down by it, too. OH wow! That sounds like Ben Webster!!! Oh I can tell I’ll be looking for this one soon! Favorite track so far!!! Track 10: Oh fercryinoutloud! This one should be so easy to identify and yet..... {{{sigh}}} Once again exposed for the know-nothing about the music I love. Aw heck: late Ella? Something from her Pablo years? Joe Pass on the guitar? Here, care for some straws I’m grabbing at? Track 11: The beginning almost got me jumping & shouting like track 8, but then came that irresistible infectious samba/calypso/whatever that just makes me bounce with joy! Fifteen minutes of this stuff? I hope it’s as promising as its beginning would have me believe! (ten minutes later) {{{mega-sigh}}} I’m guessing the piano player was the leader on this date, as it’s the only reason I can come up with that would explain why nobody in the studio that day told him/her to stop with the piano-pounding: who else would’ve thought it would be a good idea to let him/her noodle incoherently and cacophonically for the last 4,000 hours..... Track 12: Very nice! Dare I say: Wynton and father in that lovely duet album that came out as I first getting into jazz. I need to revisit that again. Nice way to close disc 1! Now on to disc 2 and reading disc 1 comments! So far so good, DrJ!