jeffcrom

Max Roach - Jazz in 3/4 Time (EmArcy mono). Sonny Rollins just blew my mind with "Valse Hot."

Chu Berry - "Chu" (Epic/Columbia Special Products mono)

Al Killian Aunty Mame John Hurt (I'm not a violent person, but Halloween is approaching.)

Okay, I got my list down to a baker's dozen. Like Chuck, several of these might be different tomorrow. Bix Beiderbecke and the Chicago Cornets (Milestone two-fer) Charlie Parker - Dial recordings; first on an Everest collection under Miles Davis' name. Louis Armstrong - "Cornet Chop Suey," "Struttin' With Some Bar-B-Q," "Potato Head Blues," "Beau Koo Jack," "Weather Bird," "West End Blues," "That's My Home," "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues," "I've Got the World on a String," and others - all late 20s - early 30s on Okeh/Victor; reissued on various albums. Miles Davis - Miles Smiles Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come Art Ensemble of Chicago - People in Sorrow Olympia/Eureka Brass Bands - Music of New Orleans: The Brass Bands (Jazzology) Duke Ellington - "Concerto for Cootie," "Mood Indigo," "Never No Lament," "Ko Ko," "Blue Serge," "The Mystery Song," "Merry-Go-Round," "Cottontail," "I Don't Know What Kind of Blues I Got," and others from the 30s - 40s. Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch John Coltrane - Crescent Sidney Bechet - Victor sessions George Adams/Don Pullen - Don't Lose Control Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus I guess the brass band album and the Adams/Pullen are the only really eccentric choices here, but both of them were very important to me, and shook my world. Folks who know me might be surprised not to see any Steve Lacy on my list, but there was not one Lacy album that changed my life - the value of his work revealed itself to me gradually. Gil Evans, Cecil Taylor, and Anthony Braxton might be next on the list, but I've got to stop somewhere. Oh, and Albert Ayler - Witches and Devils (aka Spirits). OK, I'll really stop now.

The World of Duke Ellington (Columbia)

After a recording session on Friday, a bandmate gave me a bottle of Dogfish Head Bitches Brew. I'm enjoying it now, accompanied by a certain Miles Davis album.

Started making a list, but it got huge pretty quickly, especially with my comments. Maybe I'll post after trimming it down to a dozen or so.

The first jazz album I bought was Bix Beiderbecke and the Chicago Cornets, a Milestone two-fer. It was an odd choice for a 15-year-old who had been into the Grateful Dead, but I had read Ralph Berton's Remembering Bix, and was fascinated and curious. I still remember my first spin of the record - I didn't get anything out of the first track, "Fidgety Feet," but as soon as Bix went into his solo on the second track, "Jazz Me Blues," I got it. I could tell that he was something out of the ordinary from that solo.

Really enjoyed reading this old thread. Some of it makes me feel really old. And it's interesting to see some names I've never seen before - folks who dropped off here before I discovered the place. The first jazz I remember hearing was the Dave Brubeck Quartet on a Timex(?) TV special - I think I was around ten. (I'm 54 now). The music got to me right away - mostly the sound of Desmond's alto and the minor-key theme of what must have been "Take Five." A few years later, my grandmother gave me a couple of boxes of 78s, which seemed weird and exotic to me in the 1970s. There was all kinds of stuff there - mostly pop, but plenty of big-band swing, and even some small combo jazz. I liked the swinging stuff more than the vocals, but at first I really couldn't distinguish levels of quality - Larry Clinton seemed as good as Benny Carter to me at the time. Gradually, the cream rose to the top. My favorites from that 78 stash were Benny Carter with Coleman Hawkins ("Somebody Loves Me"/"Pardon Me, Pretty Baby"), a Hawk solo disc ("Lost in a Fog"/"I Ain't Got Nobody"), the 1942 Metronome All-Stars disc, and the Benny Goodman Quartet playing "Whispering." I would alternate between playing "Whispering" and Hawk's "Lost in a Fog" before going to bed; sometimes the Hawkins record is still the last thing I play before turning in. I still have three of those 78s - I don't know what happened to the Goodman. Edit: moved the last paragraph to another thread, where it fits better.

I've had the Dogfish Head Punkin Ale. Every beer I've tried by this brewery is fabulous.

No connection with this, and don't know anything about the seller, except that he's located in Brazil and has a 100% feedback score. But for those interested in classical saxophone (and who have a turntable), I can't recommend this never-reissued 1953 album A Classical Recital on the Saxophone (with the great David Tudor on piano) enough - it's the best playing Rascher ever put on wax. Even with the $15 shipping to the U.S. and $16.50 shipping to western Europe added to the $30 price, I doubt you'll will ever find a decent copy of this cheaper. Anyway, it's here.

Happy birthday to one of my heroes.

Others have joined you, but were Gary and Keith the other two you originally thought of? Well, their moms probably liked it.

Curtis Amy - The Sounds of Broadway/The Sounds of Hollywood (Palomar mono). There's a whole thread here about how this 1969 album is not as good as Amy's other albums. And it's not, despite the presence of Horace Tapscott and arrangements by Onzy Matthews. But it is what it is, and I like what it is, and I don't mind what it's not.

Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett (Atlantic). I get the impression that I'm one of the three people in the jazz community who like this album.

No, I don't have that one. Dammit.

See, this is one of those records that I just like. It's not like a Charlie Parker (or Steve Lacy or Louis Armstrong) session. I don't have to have it "complete." I just like it. But now.... Strozier's on Autumn? Didn't know that. Now I have to get that one. Thanks, Sangrey. "Haven't got a reed? McVouty's got a reed...."

I seem to recall that album had an interesting discographical history, with a few different songs replacing others on subsequent pressings. Had the CD for a while, which had a nice version of "I Remember Clifford." Yes, I found out about that when I Googled the album. Ellis selected the tunes, edited the album, and sent the tapes to New York. When it came out, he discovered that Columbia had re-edited some tracks and replaced others. When he complained, the company agreed to a second pressing more in line with his wishes. I have the first pressing, according to the track lineup.

Don Ellis - Shock Treatment (Columbia two-eye). Probably opening myself up to some scorn here, and it's not my usual fare, if I have usual fare. But I became interested in this album after reading Max Harrison's praise of it. It kind of reeks of 1968, but that doesn't really bother me; I mostly like it, and some of it I like a lot.

The Charley Patton Revenant box has a disc of interviews - not with Patton, of course. But the interviews with Patton's associates and with H.C. Speir, who discovered Patton as far as as the record industry goes, are pretty interesting. The Charly/Chess Complete 1951-1969 Howlin' Wolf box has 10 minutes of interview material. Milt Hinton's two-disc Old Man Time has almost as much interview as music - about an hour. I love the 13-minute segment of Cab Calloway alumni reminiscing; Doc Cheatham, 50 years after the event, tells Cab for the first time about the night Cab accidentally paid Doc his week's salary twice. To his credit, Cab laughs uproariously when he hears the story. I think Jelly Roll Morton Library of Congress recordings might have some interview material. (Insert wry emoticon here.)

Mickey Katz Plays Music for Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, and Brisses (Capitol mono). There are plenty of klezmer clarinetists I like more than Katz, but this has got to be his best album - very little of his usual jokey, silly approach shows up here; this is solid klezmer, for the most part. The silliness shows up mostly in the cover, which I kind of like. Edit: I should have added that no less than Ziggy Elman and Mannie Klein are the trumpeters on this album.

They're at the Barking Legs Theater in Chattanooga tomorrow night (Friday, 10/10). I can't go, but might try to anyway, if that makes any sense.

As I said in another thread, I only buy downloads of music I can't get any other way. Well, after buying a warts-and-all iTunes-only Louis Armstrong session including all the outtakes, I decided to check the iTunes store to see if there was any Steve Lacy I didn't have. Yes! So now downloading: Steve Lacy/Barry Wedgle/J.J. Avenel - Live From Lugano. I love the Lacy/Wedgle duo album Rendezvous, so I didn't think twice about buying this download-only album. Steve Lacy/Tony Rusconi - L'Aventura. I'm unclear if this 1981 concert with an Italian percussionist was ever issued in physical form. but this Lacy fanatic thinks not. In any case, I had never heard of it before tonight. Steve Lacy (actually Joe Puma was the bandleader) - "Indian Blanket." The only early Lacy track I haven't heard. I have the other tune from this 1956 session, "Give Me the Simple Life," on a Harmony LP, but this one was only issued on a European Jazztone anthology back in the day. I was reluctant to pay for a pirate CD to get one track I didn't have, but somehow it doesn't bother me as much to pay 69 cents for a download. I hope that Puma's estate got a few of my pennies, but I kind of doubt it.

That's kind of what I thought - out of print, but easy to find.

(Hangs head in shame....)