jeffcrom

And for what it's worth, Budd Johnson did at least some recording for Atlantic. I've got a Budd Johnson Atlantic 78 recorded a few months before the Clovers record.

First of all, I never would have guessed Dave Bartholomew on "Stardust." And I thought I could recognize him any time! And I'm interested that Jim also thought Budd Johnson on the Clovers record.

Very interesting BFT, as one would expect from The Magnificent One. As you'll be able to tell, I liked some tracks more than others, but I didn't hate anything. I was only able to identify a couple of artists, with a couple of more guesses. 1. Sounds like Charlie Shavers to me. This “Stardust” was fun, rather than heartfelt. The soloist was showing off, playing for effect rather than for depth. Nothing wrong with that – like I said, it was fun. 2. This was okay. Everyone was good, particularly the tenor player and the pianist. I don’t know why I didn’t like it more – I think that there was a sense of predictability that put me off; I felt like I knew what the soloists were going to play before they got there. And I would have preferred a drummer who mixed things up a little more, instead of coming down hard and two and four throughout. 3. Okay, this is weird and cool. The somewhat old-fashioned organ sound reminds me of Milt Buckner, but I really don’t know who it is. Some fine timbale playing later. Good stuff! 4. I like this one (although I hate the stereo separation). Nice, unassuming solos by everyone. The tenor player sounds the most familiar to me, but I can’t place who it is. 5. Well, the soloists are pretty good. The drummer is annoying to me, and I’m not crazy about the tune – it has an air of, “Hey, let’s play a jazz waltz!” (While I was wondering if I was being too hard on the drummer, his fills on the out chorus made me want to shoot him.) 6. Nice! The chords coming out of the bridge are pretty hip. I’m kind of sick of “Misty,” but I enjoyed hearing this. 7. The drummer’s kind of relentless, but otherwise, this is a joy to hear. You get the impression that these guys could play everything from the most basic R & B to the most advanced bop – or mix it up, like they do hear. 8. I kept waiting for something to happen, but not much did. I did like the organ chorus when it finally happened. Check out that distorted bass sound – that, I liked! 9. The vocal would probably be fun to hear in a club, but it doesn’t do much for me on repeated hearings. Some excellent tenor playing, though, by someone I probably should recognize, but don’t. 10. A young Cab Calloway doing “St. Louis Blues.” It’s so early that at first I thought it was Billy Banks – I wonder which way the influence went. This is a hoot. Is it the Missourians, or had Cab taken over the band by then? 11. The tenor player’s opening phrase gave me chills – “I’m a fool to want you.” Really beautiful playing here. I had a few guesses, but I’ll spare myself the embarrassment…. 12. I’m weird, I guess; I respond more to instrumental music than to vocals. But this is beautiful. I particularly like the piano player’s accompaniment, both to the vocal and to the excellent flute solo. 13. Hmmm…. Something’s out of whack here. The clarinet player is trying to play a style older and less sophisticated than he is. It sounds like someone more or less trying to play like an old New Orleans guy, but it’s not, I’m pretty sure. It feels very artificial to me. I like the idea of playing “Memphis Blues” this slow, though. 14. Nice! “Blue Velvet” by the Clovers. Great saxophone playing – is it Budd Johnson? A delicious pop record. 15. More or less the same reaction as I had on track 9. I wanted to like the organ solo, but he (or she) just skated over the wonderful chord changes with blues licks. “You’ve Changed” is a great song, and deserves better than that. Bonus track 1. More raw jazz/blues/R & B. That piano has seen better days, but it fits the mood of the song. Nice vocal – not spectacular, but nice. Bonus track 2. Sounds kind of like Alice Roberts, who sang with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band in the mid 1940s. I like the trumpet obligato a lot. Something about the lyrics makes me think of those blues Leonard Feather wrote in the forties. Good one to end on! Thanks - that was fun. Now to read this thread and see how embarrassed I should be.

Okay - that's cool, worn or not!

The single is cut down to an airplay-friendly 3:13. The flip side, which really is listed as "Butter," runs for over five. I've got Williams' Trees and Grass and Things, but I need to get the others. I love Pullen's organ playing. Just a couple of pickup gigs in Atlanta - nothing to get excited about, but it was cool to play "Bad Sign" with the guy who wrote it. Thanks for posting the picture of your Piano Red EP with personnel - I was wondering who was in the band. Now playing (since the boxes of 45s are still out): Al Cohn - The Natural Seven (RCA Victor); on three EPs.

The R & B portion of the evening took me from Memphis to Atlanta to New Orleans: William Bell - Born Under a Bad Sign/A Smile Can't Hide (A Broken Heart) (Stax). I was fortunate enough to play "Bad Sign" with Mr. Bell, who co-composed it with Booker T. Jones. I offended him by asking who wrote it! James Carr - You've Got My Mind Messed Up/That's What I Want to Know (Goldwax) Jackie Moore - Precious, Precious/Willpower (Atlantic) Piano Red - Comin' On/One Glimpse of Heaven (RCA Victor) Dr. Feelgood and the Interns (the same artist as above) - Right String But the Wrong Yo-Yo/What's Up, Doc (Okeh). Piano Red played "Right String" every night in Underground Atlanta for years. The guitarist on this record is Atlanta's coolest female resident, Beverly "Guitar" Watkins. She was 19 or 20 when this was recorded in 1962, and she's still playing. One more thing - this record was produced by Don Law, who produced Robert Johnson's recordings. That blows my mind a little. From the Vaults of Ric and Ron; Rare and Unreleased Recordings 1958-1962. A ten-record 45 RPM box from Record Store Day 2012. Record Store Day is kind of a racket, but I was tickled to pick up this limited-edition box last year. Among the rarities are the original demo recordings of Al Johnson's anthem "Carnival Time," Eddie Bo's "Every Dog His His Day," and the great Johnny Adams' "I Won't Cry."

When my wife is out of town, I usually pick one night to drag out the boxes of 45s and play them too loud. Tonight's the night. Here's the jazz portion of the festivities: Charles Williams - Please Send Me Someone to Love/Bacon Butter Fat (Mainstream). With Bubba Brooks on tenor and Don Pullen on organ. E. Parker McDougal/Jay Peters - Bitter Lemon/Foxxy Minor (Grits). Two Chicago tenors with Willie Pickens, Dan Shapera, and Steve McCall. Dexter Gordon - Isn't She Lovely? (Columbia). One side mono, the other stereo. Nathan Davis - Slave March/To Ursula With Love (Segue) Bunky Green - Sweet Inspiration/By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Met) Sonny Red - Stay as Sweet as You Are/Bluesville (BN) Leo Parker - Parker's Pals/Low Brown (BN) Freddie Roach - I Know/Googa Mooga (BN) Now on to some R & B.

John Coltrane - Live at Birdland (Impulse)

I feel that I've probably told this story here in some other context, but: Richard Davis contributed greatly to my becoming the person and musician I am. When I was 12 and had just taken up the saxophone, my mother gave me an album for Christmas - Budd Johnson's Ya! Ya! on Argo. She picked it from the cutout rack at a now-defunct department store called Treasure Island and chose it, I'm sure, because it was the only record there by a saxophonist. I was pretty disappointed - I wanted a rock record like my older brother got. But I played the record, and liked half of the tunes right away, including one called "Exotique." My favorite part of that tune was Richard Davis' truly bizarre arco bass solo, which is full of microtones and dissonant double stops. It was a revelation to me - when I heard it, I thought, "Oh! You can do that." I credit that solo with planting the seed that grew into my taste for the unusual and the avant-garde in music. And I still have that Budd Johnson album - but now I like the rest of the tunes, too.

Great record; I have it on an East Wind Japanese pressing. Which has to sound better than the Inner City!

Cool. This is as good a place as any to tell you how much I enjoyed the book.

Masahiko Togashi - Spiritual Nature (Inner City)

Steve Lacy - Eronel (Horo)

Used to have it, hated the saxophone playing, got rid of it. I wish I had kept it, if for no other reason than the incredible prices it fetches these days. After a very satisfying gig, I'm now playing: Art Ensemble of Chicago - People in Sorrow (Nessa) I've had this since back in the day - with the less legible yellow-on-white cover. It has effected me strongly every time I've played it. I don't know if this phrase makes any sense, but this is shockingly beautiful music.

Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt - You Talk That Talk! (Prestige)

Can vary. In most cases listening to new music that I have absolutely no context for just provokes boredom. Japanese court music, for example. But occasionally something can come completely out of the blue and make me go wow! Though I suspect even there my brain is subconsciously connecting things in the new music that relate to music I already know. Interesting example - I discovered gagaku (Japanese court music) in Kyoto and was instantly captivated. But I suspect that the mental connections you mentioned were working, to an extent; I remember telling a Japanese person there that it reminded me of the blues, with the bent notes of the wind instruments. After MG's thread on West African kora players a couple of years ago, I started exploring that music. I enjoyed it right away, but it took awhile to get past the stage where it all sounded alike to me. I'm still not an expert, but I have a little bit of context when I listen now, and it doesn't all sound alike anymore. Your comment reminds me of the first time I heard Albert Ayler, when I was about 16. I had a sampler album from Arista/Freedom with Ayler's "Saints" on it. The first time I heard it, I was just horrified - but also fascinated. I couldn't believe that someone would want to create music like that, but I wanted to know why someone would. So I played the track again. On the third spin, I could hear the structure of the piece - it was an improvised rondo, with Ayler returning to the same melody at various points throughout the piece. Once the piece "made sense" to me, I could start getting into the emotional message - before I "understood" it, at least a little, it was just noise to me.

An old VHS tape with two episodes of The Jonathan Winters Show from 1957.

On the outside chance that one of you Chicago guys knows something about this record (date, personnel, etc.), I'm giving this thread a bump. Chuck indicated to me that Paul's health did not appear good enough to bother him with discographical questions the last time Chuck saw him. Anybody else know anything about this little record, which seems to have eluded the discographers?

I walked a half mile from my house tonight to hear a couple of hours of improvised music headlined by the Wrest Trio (saxophonist Jack Wright, bassist Evan Lipson, and percussionist Ben Bennett). Also on the bill were local boys Robert Cheatham playing saxophone with a guitarist I didn't know, and my buds Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel - an ensemble that is every bit as cool as you would think. I had heard Wright (from Philadelphia) and Lipson (now based in Chattanooga) before, but this was my introduction to young Ben Bennett, and I was very impressed. He's insane, in a good way. He sat on the stage, surrounded by his paraphernalia - a snare drum with no bottom head, several drumheads, bells, sticks, a trowel, a piece of aluminum, etc. He and his equipment were in constant motion, creating a seamless, yet constantly changing web of interesting sounds.

Steve Lacy - The Forest and the Zoo (ESP/Base)

Benny Carter - The King (Pablo)

Sunny Murray - An Even Break (BYG Actuel)

Oh, and I should have said right off - almost all CDr's have a label attached to the disc, rather than printed on the disc. Some silver CDs, like the recent Concords, also have that kind of label, though. But (someone correct me if I'm wrong) - any disc with text, logo, etc. printed directly onto the disc (with the silver disc showing through the blank spots) is almost certainly a real CD. All my "real" Documents have black type printed directly onto the disc; all my Document CDr's have black type on a white label which completely covers the top surface of the disc.

As I explored Nero DiscSpeed a little more, I found that it even knew the manufacturer of the CDr used by Concord: TDK.

It used to be obvious, but it's harder to tell than it used to be. Comparing my new CDr to a recent Concord/Prestige CD: The CDr has more of a purplish tinge. CDrs are generally not as silver as CDs, but they have gotten closer. The CDr is also more refractive - you see more of a "rainbow" than a CD displays when you hold them under the light. The CD has the catalog number laser-etched in the inner ring on the playing side. There are some numbers in the inner ring of the CDr, but they don't have any relationship to any numbers (catalog number, bar code) on the booklet or tray card. One of the etchings in the inner ring of the CDr is "T80-VG-5," which sounds to me like a type of CDr. A little poking around the internet let me know that I already have a program which with identify CDrs - Nero DiscSpeed. It ID'ed it as a CDr. CIH posted while I was writing this - I've repeated a little of what he said, and endorse the bit about the different look of the unused portion of the disc.