jeffcrom

Wilbur Wright Mr. Ed Hoss Cartwright

What a great dream, though.

I'll have to give that one another shot. Always seemed like "something like that" to me. Don't get me wrong - it's not a masterpiece; it would have benefited from some organization. But as someone who likes noisy music sometimes, I enjoy spinning it occasionally. Now playing: Steve Lacy - Raps (Adelphi). The bass player on this 1977 album, Ron Miller, is not well known, but he's excellent. I had never made the connection, but I noticed last night that he was the bass player on the CeDell Davis album I was listening to.

King Oliver Prince Lasha Lash Larue

Good one. Words to live by: "Eat where you slept last night."

New York Eye and Ear Control (ESP/Base). A joyful noise, or a glorious mess, or something like that.

Al Grey - Snap Your Fingers (Argo stereo)

Mose Allison's The Mose Chronicles - Live in London, Volumes 1 & 2 on Blue Note were recorded at the Pizza Express in 2000. Never had British pizza. Maybe the most disappointing pizza I ever had was in Copenhagen. Had one a few days later in the little Swedish coastal town of Strömstad that was one of the best I ever had; the restaurant was run by a Greek family.

One other example I can think of off the top of my head is the version of Chico Hamilton's Ellington Suite with Eric Dolphy. Three tracks were issued back in the day in edited form (one only on a promo sampler). The master tapes are gone, apparently. The only reason we have the CD of the full session is that a test pressing somehow ended up in a record store in Brighton, England in 1995. The CD is mastered from that test record, and it sounds remarkably good - I'm listening right now.

Okay, talk about "less celebrated".... This morning I listened, for the first time in awhile, to the two albums which came out of AA's last Impulse sessions (August 26-29, 1969). Music is the Healing Force of the Universe and The Last Album are often ignored, and when not ignored, reviled. And not without reason - Healing Force is pretty bad, for the most part (although I've always liked the blues/rock energy of "Drudgery"), and Mary Maria/Park's contributions mostly make me want to stick my head in an oven. ("Again Comes the Rising of the Sun," which she recites on The Last Album, is one of the most inane poems I've ever heard.) But as I said in the vinyl thread, The Last Album came across as one third painfully bad, one third okay/listenable, and one third excellent. The excellence is found in the last two tracks, "Birth of Mirth" and "Water Music." "Birth" builds to one of those high-energy, atonal, climactic solos that had become rare in Ayler's output by 1969. And "Water Music" is deep and elegiac - it reminds me of "For John Coltrane," another favorite Ayler track of mine. Much of the rest of these albums is hard going. But I would hate to be without "Drudgery," "Birth of Mirth," and "Water Music." And did Mary Parks really compose (or co-compose) every single piece from these two albums, including tracks that were obviously improvisations? Please.

Inspired by ep1str0phy's Ayler thread: Albert Ayler - The Last Album (Impulse). My take: one third painful, one third listenable, and one third excellent. The "excellent" consists of the last two tracks, "Birth of Mirth" and "Water Music." YMMV.

Great post, not surprisingly. I agree with almost all the above. Since the Holy Ghost box set came out, the 1967 Newport set is the music I turn to most often - it catches that band at a peak. The session called Witches and Devils in the U.S. and Spirits in Europe was the first Ayler I heard, and it's the first Ayler album on which he totally abandoned song forms and regular pulse. I actually first heard just one track, "Spirits," on an Arista/Freedom sampler LP. I was shocked and horrified - why would anyone want make music which sounded like that? But the same question intrigued me, so I kept playing that track. After about half a dozen listenings, I realized that it was a semi-improvised rondo - Ayler kept coming back to the melody between improvised passages. It made sense to me after that, and I actually started enjoying it. Witches and Devils is tentative compared to Spiritual Unity and the next few recordings, but I love the atmosphere; Ayler and the band are feeling their way into a new way of making music. A one-off track is one of my favorite Ayler recordings: "Holy Ghost" from The New Wave of Jazz on Impulse. Incredible focus and intensity here, along with a great cello solo by Joel Freedman (Friedman?). To me, that track marks the end of an era, for better or worse. With the next recording, Bells, the simple melodic material Ayler used started taking on more importance; the composed melodies got longer and the solos started getting shorter. That was a change which was apparently important to Ayler, but whatever was gained, I feel that something was lost.

Clifford Brown/Max Roach - Live at the Bee Hive (Columbia) (Recorded on Paul Secor's tenth birthday!)

And I wanted to point out that the Tuxedo Jazz Band must be one of the oldest bands in the world with a more or less continuous lineage. Oscar Celestin was the leader beginning in the 1920s; Papa French took over in the 50s. Bob French led the band from the 1970s until last year, and now his nephew leads the band.

I've just learned that New Orleans drummer, disc jockey, and character Bob French died on Monday, November 12, at the age of 74. Like most New Orleans musicians of his generation, he could play just about any style. His "specialty," if he had one, was traditional jazz, but he also played and recorded with R & B artists like Fats Domino and Earl King. (That's him on "Trick Bag.") He was the son of banjoist Albert "Papa" French, who played with Papa Celestin for years. Papa French "inherited" the leadership of the Tuxedo Jazz Band from Celestin; Bob French took over the band in turn when his father died in the 1970s. French also hosted the traditional jazz show on Tuesday mornings on WWOZ for years, starting promptly at 8:00 AM in spite of his regular Monday night gig at Donna's. He was a hoot to listen to when I was in town. One night in 2000 I heard him at Donna's; Henry Butler was supposed to be playing piano with the band, but didn't show, so Davell Crawford was ably filling in. The next morning on WWOZ, Bob played "How Come You Do Me Like You Do?" and dedicated it to Henry Butler.

Rusty Bryant - Plays Jazz (Dot) Paul Bley - Closer (ESP mono) Herb Pomeroy - Life is a Many Splendored Gig (Roulette)

Isn't Ornette Coleman just melody (+ swing)? Or is he not considered "free jazz" anymore?

The Art of Rahsaan Roland Kirk (Atlantic two-fer). When I owned fewer than ten jazz albums, this was one of them. It hasn't gotten pulled off the shelf for awhile, but I was in the mood tonight. It still seems like a pretty good anthology of Kirk's 1966-71 Atlantic recordings.

James Newton - Water Mystery (Gramavision). 1986; no CD issue, I don't think. It ranges from "third-streamy" to swinging. John Carter tears it up on "The Crips."

The version of La Creation Du Monde on this CD is just fabulous. I'm too lazy to get up and look at my copy, but I think it's from 1932. I've often wondered if Marcel Mule was playing the saxophone part.

Enjoyed reading your account of the Winwood show. As a teenager, the first song I remember learning to play (on piano) by hearing it on the radio was "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys."

Look at the left column on the screen, under "By time period." Change "Content I have not read" to "New since my last visit." Thanks - figured it out while you were posting.

But after I posted above, I clicked on "View New Content" again, and this thread had disappeared from that list. Weird. And it looks like I'm in trouble - if the new version has spell-check, I can't find it. That's a problem for me, because my spelling is atroshious atrotious really bad. Just figured out the first part of the above. When I changed the option from "Content I haven't read" to "New since my last visit," it showed back up. Now if someone finds spell-check capability, let me know.

That's not the case for me. For instance, I came to this thread from "View New Content," and when I clicked on "Today, 12:27 PM" under your name (to the right of the thread title) it took me directly to your post above.

Keith Jarrett - Life Between the Exit Signs (Vortex stereo)