jeffcrom

Jam Session Featuring Maynard Ferguson (EmArcy). The nominal leader doesn't do much for me; Herb Geller, Claude Williamson, and Max Roach take the honors in my book.

Again. This music really made me feel good.

Dexter Gordon - Gotham City (Columbia). Art Blakey and Dexter weren't well suite to each other at this stage of their lives, but I still like this album.

My ringtone is the opening trumpet cadenza of Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues." My saxophone-playing colleague Ben Davis uses one perfect, isolated note by Steve Lacy as his text message alert.

If you have a lot of spare time or have lost the will to live, you can visit the Charlie Christian Yahoo list and read the long-winded and non-conclusive argument as to where is Christian really buried. At your own peril. F Hey, I've visited all three of Robert Johnson's graves in Mississippi. Really!

I just looked - what's not accurate? In any case, your mentions are positive, or at least neutral.

You're not lying about that score! Any others? The guy who contacted me sent me a list of Lacy albums he had for sale. Some were pretty rare, but I had all of them except Eronel, Follies, Futurities, and Tips. He gave me reasonable prices on all four, but I only sprung for three, since I've been buying a lot of records lately. As he was packing the records, he noticed that the top seam of the Eronel cover had come unglued and felt bad about it, so he threw in the fourth album for free. I told him that wasn't necessary - all Horo covers come unglued - but he did it anyway. Eronel and Follies had been near the top of my want list for some time, and it's nice to have the original double-LP of Futurities; for some reason volume one has been impossible to find on CD, although volume 2 is fairly common. After playing Follies tonight, it instantly became one of my favorite Lacy albums from the 1970s.

Stella Chiweshe - Ambuya? (GlobeStyle). Vocals and mbira from Zimbabwe, with bass, drums, and 1980s-style production added. I would probably prefer to hear a "purer" form of this music, but the approach used here is not without its appeal.

I just started this, and am in the middle of chapter two. I was annoyed by the end of the introduction - not a good sign, and a state of affairs I think that an author would hope to avoid. So far I'm impressed by the research, and exasperated by the writing.

Steve Lacy Quintet - Follies (FMP)

I used to stay up late (I think the show ran from midnight to 2 AM in Atlanta) and record the show at times. I've got the WSQ/Max Roach/M'Boom show, which ran the entire two hours, and some scattered other stuff, but now I wish I had recorded more of the shows.

I'm in the middle of my first spin of an album a picked up a few weeks ago - Knocky Parker and his Backwoods Boys, Audiophile AP-84. I picked this one up mostly because one of my favorite New Orleans clarinetists, Raymond Burke, is present. But the album looked so weird that I've been scared to play it. It purports to be a "skiffle" record, with an instrumentation of clarinet, harmonica, piano, banjo, tuba, and drums. Well, it's kind of corny at times, but it's also a lot of fun - and Raymond Burke (who is not present on every track) wails. It took me about halfway through the first side to realize that the harmonica player, listed as "Del McClinton," was indeed young Delbert McClinton. And Ewing Nunn, who ran Audiophile records, was a recording genius. Audiophile's records are some of the best-sounding I've heard. This probably isn't recognized by most jazz collectors, because Audiophile's output was skewed toward Dixieland and traditional jazz. Doc Evans made many records for Nunn, and the Olympia Brass Band's Audiophile album is still the best-sounding New Orleans brass band record out there. I have one or two colored-vinyl Audiophiles, but my copy of this one is oe black vinyl, not the red swirl shown in the picture.

Steve Lacy - Futurities (Hat Art); disc one.

Steve Lacy - Eronel (Horo) Finally! This has been on my want list for years. A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a collector who saw a blog post in which I jokingly asked for this record as a Christmas present. He offered me a copy, as well as several other Lacy records I didn't have, at a very good price. The package arrived today; Eronel is as good as I had hoped.

Me, too. It's awfully controlled, or smooth, or pretty, or something for an Ayler tribute.

Shorty Rogers - Wherever the Five Winds Blow (RCA Victor).

Agreed, but my favorite W. C. Fields film is It's a Gift, from 1934. The comedy is almost painful at times, and it takes its time in a way that would never happen these days - the famous porch scene, in which Fields' character is continually frustrated in his efforts to get some sleep, runs for almost ten minutes. My second-favorite Fields is the 20-minute short The Fatal Glass of Beer, also from 1934. It's the most bizarre thing Fields ever turned out - a parody of melodramas, and of the film-making process itself. In one scene, the Yukon-dwelling main character (played by Fields, of course) goes out into the snow to milk his elk, Lena. He stands in front of an outrageously bad stock-footage projection of a herd of elk, and when of the animals seems to pause and look at him, he asks it, "Elmer, have you seen Lena?" And what other movie dares ask the question, "Would you consider me rude if I played the zither with my mittens on?"

Interpretations by the Stan Getz Quintet (Norgran). Norgran 1000 - the first 12" LP on the label. Sounds fantastic.

It hit 106 degrees F today in Atlanta - the highest temperature ever recorded here.

Tampa Red - Guitar Wizard (RCA/Bluebird); disc two.

Lars Gullin - Baritone Sax (Atlantic) Pretty wonderful. The cover's a little beat, but the record sounds really nice.

Haven't posted here in awhile, although I have been spinning 78s at times. Today we had hellish temperatures in Atlanta, so I though it was time for some gospel from the late '40s and '50s. Sensational Nightingales - Burying Ground/In My Mind (Peacock, 1956) Sensational Nightingales - Pressing On/View That Holy City (Peacock, 1957) Sensational Nightingales - To the End/The Lord Will Make a Way (Peacock, 1957) Bells of Joy - I'll Work, Lord/Let's Talk About Jesus (Peacock, 1951) Golden Trumpets - Just Like Jesus Did/Down at the Cross (Nashboro, 1955) McFadden Gospel Singers - God Be With You/Richmond Harmonizers (aka Harmonizing Four) - Jesus Gave Me Water (Coleman, 1948) The winner was "I'll Work" by the Bells of Joy, featuring A.C. Littlefield and Clem Reed both singing lead, weaving in and out of each others' lines.

Jim Hall - Jazz Guitar (PJ)

Blues 45s before bed, mostly of the down-home variety: Alabama Watson - Cost Time/My Baby Left Me (Bluestown) McKinley James - Ain't Gonna Pick No Cotton/Tuskegee Boogie (Macon) Baby Tate - Late in the Evening/See What You Done Done (Trix) Roy Dunn - She Cook Cornbread For Her Husband/Tired of Living a Bachelor (Trix) Robert Curtis Smith - Don't Drive Me Away/I Believe We Love Each Other (Arhoolie) Robert Pete Williams - Goodbye Slim Harpo/Viet Nam Blues (Ahura Mazda) Joe Willie Wilkins - Mr. Downchild/It's Too Bad (Mimosa) Little Eddie - Wonder What Makes My Way So Hard/There'lll Be a Day You'll Be Glad to Have Me Around (Big Beat) Henry Gray - How Can You Do It?/Henry's Rock (Sunland) Sam Myers - Sad, Sad Lonesome Day/You Don't Have to Go (Fury) Smokey Smothers - Things Ain't What They Used to Be/Black Cat Girl (Rooster Blues)

Nice! And they cleaned up nicely - most of them sound great.