jeffcrom

Golden Monkey

Marian McPartland - Interplay (Halcyon). Wow - I had forgotten how good this one is. It's a duet with bassist Linc Milliman, who inspires McPartland to play at the top of her game. Globe Unity Orchestra - Improvisations (JAPO)

Elvin Jones - Poly-Currents (BN). Mid-80's "new" BN pressing.

Steve Lacy - Capers (hat Hut)

Kind of shock, although it shouldn't be. She seemed like one of those people who would just live forever. I admired her very much; although her music seldom touched me deeply, I always enjoyed it. One exception to that caveat is her 2007 album Twilight World. There are a few moments of rhythmic uncertainty, but there is an emotional depth to her playing that I seldom hear in her earlier work, fine as it is. She was part of Alec Wilder's "inner circle" - her taste and respect for melody led Wilder to write pieces such as "Jazz Waltz for a Friend," "Homework," and, well, "Inner Circle" for her. This Alec Wilder fan is grateful. The sum of her contributions to jazz were far greater than just her piano playing. RIP.

I've seen Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers quite a few times in New Orleans, and at least twice I saw trombonist Corey Henry walk in late, while Kermit was into the second song. Both times, as soon as he had his horn out of the case, he was "rewarded" with a long solo, without having had the chance to warm up.

I've had that one since back in the day, and enjoy it very much. Side one is surprisingly straight-ahead; side two is freer.

Yesterday and today I played a bunch of records featuring the early New Orleans clarinetist Alcide Nunez. Nunez is best known as the lead voice in the trumpet-less Louisiana Five, but he also made a dozen records or so as a member of the Harry Yerkes dance band empire. I played a bunch of 1919-20 records by Yerkes' Dance Orchestra, Yerkes' Novelty Five, Yerkes' Southern Five, and The Happy Six. On many of them, Nunez is buried in the ensemble, and he may not even be present on some. But these two were the winners: Yerkes Southern Five - Railroad Blues/Happy Six - Shake Your Little Shoulder (Columbia, 1920) Novelty Five - Barkin' Dog Blues/Laughing Hyena (Aeolian-Vocalion, 1920). "Railroad Blues" is really excellent for 1920; it's a Lucky Roberts tune, and there's no trumpet, so Nunez shares the front line with fellow New Orleanian Tom Brown on trombone. The Aeolian-Vocalion titles look pretty grim, and "Laughing Hyena" is as bad as you would think. But there is some excellent jazz between the animal imitations in "Barkin' Dog." This stuff would not be to everyone's taste, but I like it.

Get Yourself a College Girl soundtrack album (MGM mono). This choice was inspired by the album above - it includes two tracks by the same Jimmy Smith Trio, as well as two tracks by the Stan Getz Quartet with Gary Burton. The rest is 1964 rock and roll; mostly valuable as a reminder that The Animals were a pretty bad-ass band of British white boys; they make The Yardbirds sound like wimps. I have this movie on VHS tape; I need to transfer it to DVD; it's stupid and entertaining..

Jimmy Smith - Live in Concert (Metro mono). The first issue of 1965 Paris concert that has been subsequently issued in more complete form on CD. I just found this, and snatched it up, since I didn't have many examples of Smith's trio with Billy Hart in the drum chair. I'm glad I did - I'm not sure there's anything else on record quite like the frightening clusters Smith plays in these versions of "The Sermon" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."

You don't have the bootleg Ornette/Cecil version of that? The one where Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd walked onstage halfway through? Dude!

There's no tune I hate so much that some great musician won't come along and show me that something great can be made from it. (I've read that sentence a few times now, and am not sure I have the wording/syntax right, but you know what I mean.)

My responses to Murray's writing are less than totally positive, so I thought I would just keep my mouth shut. But I'll say it - RIP, Mr. Murray.

Bud Shank - New Groove (PJ stereo)

Gary Burton - Passengers (ECM). Picked an old college-days favorite for my first vinyl in nearly two weeks. Nice to have my amplifier back.

Nope - dude got his wagon stuck on the railroad tracks. Smack!

I have Mr. Reed's "Fate of Chris Lively and Wife" on a Victor 78, with the West Virginia Night Owls (of which he was a member) on the other side. Good stuff.

Thanks for the rec. But on that cd I wrote about I have a Jackie Brenston version. I meant the tune. But I like Ike Turner and will sure dig deeper into him. You've got the Ike Turner Kings of Rhythm version. Jackie Brenston was the vocalist and Chess released the record under his name. Ike didn't sing on records in those days, and some of his records were released under the names of the vocalists, like Billy Gayles, Brenston, or Clayton Love. Others appeared as Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm.

MS Word used to "correct" my last name, Crompton, to "Corruption." Not too far off, really.

If you commented on this in other posts, I missed it but what are the flaws in the other discs? I learned from others here, confirmed by other sites - the first four discs, the Hot Fives and Sevens, are the same as Columbia's original Hot 5/7 CDs from the mid 1980s. Not only has the sound been surpassed by subsequent reissues, the tracks weren't speed-corrected, so that some of them aren't in the right key. I bought this set anyway, to have the Okeh big band sides complete. The sound is fine on those discs.

Louis Armstrong - The Okeh, Columbia & RCA Victor Recordings 1925-1933. Now spinning disc eight of the flawed-but-wonderful set. The Okeh big band sides on this disc sound better than any other issue I've heard - reason enough to be glad I have this set, in spite of the flaws on other discs.

The Battle of Atlanta started a few blocks from where I live, so once a year I awaken to the sounds of cannons. I will say that the Civil War reenactors seem to be folks who love history, not guys who have Confederate flag bumper stickers on their pickup trucks. (Stream-of-consciousness digression warning!) For the most part, I've said little here about being a southerner. It's a strange thing for a thoughtful person. Every day I look at my state and my region and am horrified by what I see. But at the same time, it's in my blood. When I'm away I miss it - the barbecue and greens, the plants, the heaviness of the air, the flat-out weirdness you encounter every day here. My wife has family in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; on one of our visits, she was indulging in a luxury for her - watching cable TV. (We don't have it.) She was watching the Food Network, or something like that, and they had a feature on a restaurant in Memphis that specializes in fried chicken. The camera panned the dining area, which was filled with folks who were very different from each other, but who all appeared to be manifestly southern. There were weird old guys (like me), African-American matrons, and good old boys with big bellies and bandanas. Sitting there, as far away from the south as I could possibly be in the continental United States, I blurted out, "Those are my people!" I hadn't planned on saying that - it was a reaction from somewhere pretty deep. I hate it here sometimes, but I love it more than that. I think that all Southerners are, in one way or another, haunted by the past in a way that most Americans aren't. Try that last sentence on your wife, Paul.

Yep. The vast majority of 78s aren't worth anything, although I own and enjoy some of the worthless variety. Twice, while searching antique stores for 78s, I've come across albums with 10 extremely common 78s - Bing Crosby, Glenn Miller, etc., with a price of 90 - 100 dollars for the album.

Not his earliest - his Parrot sessions came after his first two Epic sessions, so he had already made iconic records like "Surrey With the Fringe on Top" and "Billy Boy." Then he made the (apparently unreissued) four-tune Parrot 78/45 session in 1954, followed by the Ahmad Jamal Plays LP for Parrot in 1955 - it was later issued as Chamber Music of the New Jazz on Argo. (Thanks to JSngry for pointing out the origins of the Argo LP to me a while back.) So the Parrot 78s are very much in his mid-50s style. They're good.

"Tanglewood Waltz" is one of the songs that earned Almond the scathing remark by Lillian McMurry I quoted in post 689. Jamal had two 78s on Parrot (I've got them both); they also came out on 45. I don't think they've ever been reissued, but someone will correct me if I'm wrong. They represent Richard Davis' recording debut. It's also on an Alligator CD,Strange Kind of Feeling, with Trumpet tracks by McCain, Tiny Kennedy, and Clayton Love.