jeffcrom

A late-night 78 session, in which I spun three recent finds. Two of them were only okay, so I won't even mention them, but the third is fascinating for the B side: Lou Gold and His Orchestra - Magnolia/Deep River Orchestra - Harlem Blues ("American Suite No. 8") (Perfect, 1927). The Lou Gold side is a nice little hot dance side, but "Harlem Blues" is something else. The Deep River Orchestra is the Willard Robison band, and "Harlem Blues" is apparently the last part of an eight-movement suite Robison wrote and recorded for Perfect. The movements were not issued together; they were paired fairly randomly with other recordings. This movement is pretty cool - poised somewhere between Gershwin and Ellington. It's "jazzy," and there's a trumpet solo, but I'm not sure there's any real improvisation. But it's quite good, and so interesting that I now want to track down the other seven sides.

This one - one of Michael's best.

John Carter/Bobby Bradford - Secrets (Revelation) Steve Lacy - Capers (Hat Hut) Duke Pearson - Honeybuns (Atlantic stereo, blue & green label). If I had previously realized that Bob Cranshaw was playing electric bass as far back as 1965, I had forgotten.

Happy birthday, and thanks again for letting us play in your sandbox.

I play "Philly Dog," for all my musician friends who haven't heard the insane Sonny Sharrock solo.

Eddie Sauter - In Germany (Big Band International). I'm a fan of Sauter's writing, and knew he spent a couple of years in Germany, leading the SWF big band. But I was totally unaware of this double album until I ran across it today in an Atlanta record store. The issue is kind of a fright, with its stock-photo cover, incomplete info, and misspelled names (Hans Doller?). But the four sides are full of imaginative, unusual big-band writing, not all of it by Sauter. There is a CD of the same name on the Montpellier label, but it is missing four tracks. Five bucks well spent.

Stanley Turrentine - In Memory Of (BN "rainbow")

Johnny "Hammond" Smith - The Stinger (Prestige stereo, blue/silver label)

I'm not dead yet!

Gary Clark Jr. - HWUL Raw Cuts Vol. II (WB)

The Chicago String Band (Testament). Carl Martin, Johnny Young, John Lee Granderson, and John Wrencher in 1966.

The Hollywood All Stars - Hard Hitting Blues from Memphis (High Water). In the mid 1980s, when these tracks were recorded, the Hollywood All Stars (named after their Memphis neighborhood) were the toughest blues band in that city. Later: But my favorite track is the last one on side one, "Going 'Cross the Bottom." The leader of the All Stars, Ben Wilson, steps away from the band and plays/sings a solo - one of those North Mississippi/Memphis one-chord/no-chord drone blues that just gets all over me.

Red Rodney/Ira Sullivan Quintet - Sprint (Elektra Musician)

Why, yes it is, HP!

Got you beat. My oldest horn is a c. 1920 curved soprano, nominally a Wurlitzer (really made by Beuscher). Or rather, that's my oldest playable horn. I have a Millereau double-octave-key soprano from 1900 or 1901 that I've never even tried to get into playable condition. It's just a cool object.

You're right, of course - I was thinking of the February concert, probably because I didn't know about the other one.

Okay, now I'm starting to get excited. And it's not quite true that "not a second" of the 1947 Carnegie Hall concert has been issued commercially. I've got a CD with a track from that show, and I believe several tracks have shown up over the years. How legal it all was, I don't know.

Yay, Hot Ptah! No, it is on a French label. Our clarinetist is a New York boy, though.

Hank Crawford - Soul Clinic (Atlantic mono)

This 1956 Chicago concert on Columbia is pretty wonderful. But yeah, the Town Hall concert in excellent sound would be nice.

Steve Lacy - Capers (Hat Hut), record one. Then celebrated Sun Ra Arrival Day with some Saturn vinyl. (Now follow closely here): "Hiroshima," an amazing organ solo recorded on the huge Fox Theater organ right here in Atlanta. This is side two of Saturn 10-11-85, Stars That Shine Darkly. My copy is in a plain white sleeve, with handwritten labels. Part one of the title tune is on the other side; part two of "Stars That Shine Darkly" was issued on another album. Except that: Sun Ra collectors are familiar with Saturn "hybrid" pressings, which pair side one from one album with side two from another. So now I'm spinning a hybrid Saturn which makes more sense than the original issues - it's "Stars That Shine Darkly" by the Sun Ra All Stars, with part one on one side and part two on the other - in a Ra to the Rescue sleeve!

Yep - Marion Brown, Porto Novo, recorded in Holland in 1967.

JSngry's link has the line-up, but in case that page disappears, I'll stick it here for archival purposes: Alvin Alcorn (tp), Jack Delaney (tb), Harry Shields (cl), Armand Hug (p), Danny Barker (g (or bj?)), Chester Zardis (b), Louis Barbarin (d) And I badly want to hear about your hearing Chester in person! There's that great footage of his talking on a street corner to some kids, playing his bass. I think it's in some Rhapsody Films documentary, but I don't remember which one. Okay - I'm that weirdo who loves traditional New Orleans jazz, bebop, soul jazz organ, and avant-garde jazz equally. (Sorry about those last three, Alex!) After years of dreaming about being in New Orleans, I finally visited for the first time in 1990, when I was in my early thirties. It was "amazing and overwhelming," as I wrote in my journal at the time. I thought I knew a lot about New Orleans jazz at that point, but I quickly found out that I didn't. I knew about the "classic" New Orleans recordings from the 1920s - King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Johnny Dodds, Armstrong's Hot Five, etc. I found that I knew next to nothing about later New Orleans jazz, but my education started with that trip. Of course, one of my destinations was Preservation Hall, and at the time, there were still a few first-generation (depending on how you define that) and lots of second-generation jazzmen playing there regularly. The night I went to the Hall for the first time, the band was Kid Sheik's. I had at least heard of Kid Sheik, but didn't know what to expect. The band was wonderful, though - Sheik could still play very well, even though he was near the end of his playing career. I'll always be sad that I missed Louis Nelson, who was his regular trombonist until just before I heard the band. Nelson was in a car accident a couple of weeks before my visit; he was still in the hospital and sadly died there a few weeks later. His replacement was either Paul Crawford or Tom Ebbert, but I'm not sure which. The wonderful Jeanette Kimball was on piano - she had recorded with Oscar Celestin's band back in the 1920s. In my ignorance I first wondered if she might be Sweet Emma - Emma Barrett had been dead for several years by that time, but I wasn't sure. The excellent Manny Crusto was the clarinetist - I got to hear him a couple of more times - and young Don Vappie was on banjo. I'm not sure who the drummer was, but it might have been Frank Oxley. But the musician who made the biggest impression on my was the very short man who played the bass while facing the back wall, away from the audience. I guess his idea was that the sound would bounce from the F-holes of the bass off the wall for more resonance. But in any case, Chester Zardis knocked me out with his swing, perfect intonation, and great big sound. And he was one month away from his 90th birthday at the time. I had never heard of Chester Zardis before that trip, but you can bet that I found out as much as possible about him when I got home. I had bought an anthology of New Orleans jazz on the 504 label at Record Ron's in New Orleans before the Preservation Hall visit, and was tickled to find that Zardis played on several of the tracks. He died four months after I heard him. Here's Chester in 1920, at age 20 or so, with Buddy Petit's band. Edmond Hall is the clarinetist.