jeffcrom

Has anyone else tried the download? I prefer to listen that way, but the zipped folder seems to only have one track in it.

Allman Brothers Band - Live From A&R Studios, New York, August 26, 1971 (ABB). A fine performance; very well recorded. Ornette Coleman/Joachim Kuhn - Colors (Verve). Haven't listened to this one in I don't know when - fascinating music.

Ringing in the new year with some blues 78 - many leaning toward hokum: Blind Boy Fuller - Truckin' My Blues Away/Babe, You Got to Do Better (Conqueror) Blind Boy Fuller - She's So Sweet/Step It Up and Go (Okeh) Bessie Jackson - Seaboard Blues/Troubled Blues (Perfect). Walter Roland on piano. James "Stump" Johnson (as Snitcher Roberts) - The Duck's Yas-Yas-Yas/Heart is Right Blues (Okeh) Norfolk Jazz Quartet - Jelly Roll Blues/Southern Jack (Okeh). A 1921 record by a vocal quartet who also recorded spirituals as the Norfolk Jubilee Quartet. A kind of amazing record. The Hokum Boys - Selling That Stuff/Beedle Um Bum (Paramount). Georgia Tom Dorsey and Tampa Red, with additional vocals by Alex Hill. Memphis Mose - Pig Meat Mama/Hear Me Beefin' at You (Brunswick). As above without Alex Hill. Jim Jackson- Jim Jackson's Kansas City Blues, Parts 1 & 2 (Vocalion)

Oscar "Papa" Celestin - With Adolphe Alexander (American Music). By the time these 1950 & 1954 sessions were made, Celestin and his band were considered kind of "touristy" and lightweight by jazz purists. This CD sure sounds good to me tonight, though - good-natured, non-doctrinaire, eclectic New Orleans music with enough grit to add some depth.

All my 1926-27 King Oliver Vocalion/Brunswick discs tonight: Someday Sweetheart/Dead Man Blues (Vocalion) Someday Sweetheart/Wa Wa Wa (Brunswick) Jackass Blues/Deep Henderson (Brunswick) Showboat Shuffle/Every Tub (Brunswick) The same take of "Someday Sweetheart," with guest soloist Johnny Dodds, is on Vocalion and Brunswick; I just spun that side on my Brunswick disc, since it's in better shape. Oliver plays a great 12-bar solo on "Jackass Blues," despite one flubbed note.

Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia 2-eye mono)

Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet - Pastorales (Columbia LP). Mostly shorter works by Grainger, Wally, Persichetti, Schubert, Stravinsky, Pierne, Jolivet, and Milhaud.

Andrew Hill - Dance with Death (BN)

Louis Armstrong - Vol. 2: Jazz Concert (Decca 10") Jimmy Yancey - Pure Blues (Atlantic)

Barry Harris - Stay Right With It (Milestone). Record one of a Milestone two-fer compilation of tracks from four of Harris's Riverside albums. I'm using this to test a Christmas present from my wife - a record weight/clamp. My otherwise wonderful turntable has a noticeable degree of flutter when playing LPs. It's not apparent on many records, but it bothers me when playing LPs featuring instruments of absolutely stable pitch, like piano or vibes. The clamp seems to help a lot - I'm not hearing the flutter, even on side two, which features Harris playing solo.

Some of my favorite music ever. Anthony Braxton - Quartet (Santa Cruz) 1993 1st Set (Hatology) Louis Armstrong - The Nightclubs (Dot Time). 1950-58 performances by the All Stars. Later: The Louis was a Christmas present - this was my first spin, and I didn't realize until reading the liner notes that these are recordings from Armstrong's personal collection, made by him on his tape recorder, which was brand-new at that 1950 gig.

I'll be glad to do so tomorrow.

Young Louis Armstrong as sideman (1924-25) tonight; Fletcher Henderson - How Come You Do Me Like You Do / New Orleans Jazz Band - Copenhagen (Regal) Fletcher Henderson - My Rose Marie / (Sam) Lanin's Arcadians - Some Other Day (Silvertone) Maggie Jones - Good Time Flat Blues / Screamin' the Blues (Columbia) Bessie Smith - Nashville Woman's Blues / I Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle (Columbia) Clarence Williams' Blue Five - Of All the Wrongs You've Done to Me / Everybody Loves My Baby (Okeh) Note on the flip sides of the Hendersons: the New Orleans Jazz Band has at least one New Orleanian - clarinetist Sidney Arodin. He's excellent here, and the record is interesting as an early example of "jazz repertory" - it copies the Bix/Wolverines recording of "Copenhagen" as closely as it can. The Sam Lanin side ain't such a much, despite some good musicians in the band. As for young Louis Armstrong, he's stunning on all these sides. Sometimes I look at all my 78s and think, "This is madness." At other times, as I spin them, I feel incredibly fortunate. Tonight is one of those times.

The December Band - Volume II (GHB). Much beloved by trad jazz fans, the December Band was put together for a New England tour in December, 1965. Four New Orleanians - Kid Thomas Valentine, Big Jim Robinson, Captain John Handy, and Sammy Penn - joined with three New Englanders and a Brit (Sammy Rimmington). No less than six LPs were issued from the tour (four under Captain John Handy's name), on Jazz Crusade, GHB, and Pearl. I bought this record on my first visit to New Orleans in 1990.

Karl Berger - Tune In (Milestone)

Not sure why that album is two CDs instead of one, but wow - the music is good.

Chris Barber's Jazz Band - New Orleans Parade (UK Columbia 45 RPM). One more Chris Barber record - a single from 1961. Side one is traditional; the flip is a gospel-ish tune by Joe Harriott. John Coltrane - Kulu Sé Mama (Impulse stereo). On to something more serious - I just picked up an original stereo pressing of the last Coltrane album issued during his lifetime. I've had the music for years, spread over two different CD box sets. I love hearing it as Coltrane originally intended, with the original cover art and liner notes.

That was my first thought.

Chris Barber's Jazz Band - New Orleans Joys (UK Decca 10"). I have previously admitted to a weakness for European trad jazz bands. This was Chris Barber's first LP, from 1954. Appropriately, I picked this up in England (Norwich) this past summer.

Edmond Hall Quartette with Teddy Wilson (Commodore 10" LP). Great stuff. Commodore used the artwork from their previous three-record 78 RPM album, so only six of the eight tunes are listed on the front cover.

Albert Ayler - Vibrations (aka Ghosts) (Arista/Freedom) Steve Lacy - The Complete Jaguar Sessions (Fresco Jazz). Sides 3 & 4, with all the alternate takes.

It is just one album. Lots of 78 RPM action on my turntable recently. Here are some highlights I don't think I've previously mentioned. Most are new-ish finds. Maggie Jones - Screamin' the Blues/Good Time Flat Blues (Columbia "flags" label). An excellent, fiery record, with young Louis Armstrong on cornet. Louis Jordan - Cole Slaw/Every Man to His Own Profession (Decca). "Every Man" has a great tenor solo by Eddie Johnson. John Kimmel - My Partner's Fancy / Patrick Touhey - The Maid on the Green (Victor). I love old 78s of "world music" - the rawer, the better. John Kimmel was a widely-recorded Irish accordion player, and he's good here. But Patrick Touhey plays the Irish uilleann pipes, and his side is weird and wonderful. Enrico Caruso - La Boheme: Racconto di Rodolfo (aka "Che Gelida Manina") (one-sided Victor Red Seal). A stunning 1906 recording, in near-mint condition, like many classical and opera 78s I find "in the wild."

King Crimson - The Night Watch: Live at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw November 23, 1973 (DGM). Good performance by a good band. My favorite Robert Fripp quote from the liner notes: "Tuning a mellotron doesn't." Art Blakey/JM - Buhaina's Delight (BN RVG). Free for All is so good that I neglect the other albums by this excellent lineup of the Messengers. I shouldn't.

Cannonball Adderley - Portrait of Cannonball (Riverside OJC). One of my favorites by Mr. Adderley. Miiles Davis w. Coltrane - Bootleg Series 6: The Final Tour. The Copenhagen concert.

Steve Lacy - Leaves Blossoms (Naked Music). Duet and solo performances from Lacy's "farewell to Europe" concerts in Belgium, summer, 2002; Fred von Hove, Joelle Leandre, Michail Bezverhny, Irene Aebi, and Frederic Rzewski are the duet partners. For at least a year, I wasn't sure that this album actually existed. There were a few references to it online, but there didn't seem to be any way to actually buy it. I finally managed to snag it during the short period when Martin Davidson/Emanem distributed it. Now it appears to be impossible to find again.