jeffcrom

I switched the turntable over to play vinyl rather than 78s today, but apparently decided that I still wanted to get up and change the record every three minutes. Pop/jazz vocal 45s plus a couple of Blue Notes: Tony Bennett - It's So Peaceful in the Country / Being True to One Another (Columbia). This "It's So Peaceful" is one of my favorite versions of that Alec Wilder song. Tony Bennett - While We're Young / Cold, Cold Heart (Columbia) Helen Merrill - You Don't Know Me / I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Atco) Louis Armstrong - A Kiss to Build a Dream On / I Get Ideas (Decca) Louis Armstrong - Chloe / Listen to the Mocking Bird (Decca) Louis Armstrong und Gabrielle- Onkel Satchmo's Lullaby / It's All In the Game (German Polydor). An oddity I found in Europe - side one is a duet with a German child star of the time (1959). Louis makes it listenable, as he does "Mocking Bird" above. Freddie Roach - Brown Sugar / Next Time You See Me (BN). Joe Henderson on a 45 is kind of cool, maybe. Lee Morgan - Midnight Cowboy / Popi (BN). I only play this record when enough time has passed that I don't remember how bad it is.

Mary Lou and calypso tonight: Mary Lou Williams - Blues at Mary Lou's / Rumba Bebop (Continental) Mary Lou Williams - Humoresque / Waltz Boogie (RCA Victor) Mary Lou Williams - Oo-Bla-Dee / Knowledge (King) Duke of Iron - One Gone / Big Bamboo (Monogram) Duke of Iron - Coldest Woman / Sally Waters (Monogram) King Flash - Confusion Calypso / Black Bird (Monogram) Gerald Clark and his Original Calypsos featuring MacBeth the Great ;- Man Smart, Woman Smarter / My Donkey Want Water (Guild). The great Gregory Felix is on C clarinet on this one. Russell Henderson and his Orchestra featuring Syl Dopson on his Clarinet - In Ah Calabash / Ju-C Jingle (Sagomes) King Radio - Brown Skin Girl / Fitzroy Alexander "Melody" - McDonald Almanac (Sagomes) Mighty Spitfire - Post! Post! / Pounding Rice Fine (Sagomes) Casablanca Steel Orchestra - Last Train to San Fernando / A Theme for Steel (Sagomes)

Sviatoslav Richter - Russian Piano School, Vol 6 (BMG/Melodiya). Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, and Chopin, recorded between 1948 and 1963.

John Coltrane - Coltrane (Prestige). Not comparable to what he accomplished later, but an excellent, distinctive debut album, in my opinion.

Jimmy Scott - The Source (Label M). 2000 reissue of a 1970 Atlantic album that was in print for about a minute before a lawsuit by Savoy took it off the market, if I've got the story straight.

Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet (Prestige) Mary Lou Williams - Zoning (Smithsonian Folkways) John Coltrane - Black Pearls (Prestige) John Coltrane - Traneing In (Prestige) The Miles and Trane albums I excerpted from the Prestige box sets. I hadn't spun the Miles for a long time; I've neglected it in favor of what came later. But It's gorgeous. I also don't listen to Coltrane's Prestige recordings that often, but I'm enjoying reacquainting myself with this stuff. As for the Mary Lou album - she has such a long and varied career that this might a dangerous thing to say, but I think that Zoning is her masterpiece.

Louis Armstrong - The Great Chicago Concert (Columbia) Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Dog Years in the Fourth Ring (32 Jazz). Disc one.

Honolulu Serenaders - Honolulu Stomp / Mele of Hawaii (Victor). I was going to leave my turntable set up for LPs for about a week, but I went to an estate sale today and brought home some 78s. The winner was this lively little number on side A of only record ever made by the Honolulu Serenaders. Hawaiian music and hot jazz were both popular in the 1920s, and sometimes they overlapped, like there. I know from elsewhere on the internet that there is a community which collects "hot Hawaiian," and is as rabid about it as I am about King Oliver. The flip side is a typicall Hawaiian waltz which does little for me.

Cecil Taylor - Dark to Themselves (Enja)

Lou Donaldson - Cole Slaw (Cadet). Not the LD album I would take to a desert island. It took me awhile to figure out why Bruno Carr's drums sound so horrible and slushy. The drum kit is panned to the right channel, but the very heavy reverb on the cymbals is panned to the left. Once I figured that out, I ran side two mono, and it was at least more listenable.

Lamine Konté - La Kora du Senegal (Arion). I bought this in Atlanta, but it has a nice store stamp on the back, from "La Maison du Livre et du Discque" in Dakar.

Gene Ammons - Funky (Prestige mono). 1960s blue trident pressing, with an older cover, I think.

Steve Lacy - Stalks (Columbia Japan)

This afternoon: Mose Allison - The Word From Mose (Atlantic) Miles Davis - In Concert (Columbia)

Hank Mobley - A Slice of the Top (BN Classic). A wonderful session. I assume that it wasn't released at the time due to technical issues - there seem to be weird things going on with Lee Morgan's microphone.

Two very different albums from the Larry Young Blue Note box: Contrasts and Grant Green's I Want to Hold Your Hand.

I spun a couple of the original 78s by Oliver's Creole Jazz Band tonight, and wanted to repeat something I said in an early post in this old thread - listen for the moments when Oliver drops out and young Louis Armstrong plays lead cornet. Those moments happen more frequently than you would think.

Planning to change the turntable over to play LPs for a week or so tomorrow, so I spun some of my real 78 treasures (all from 1923-25) tonight: The Wolverines with Bix Beiderbecke (as The Jazz Harmonizers) - Riverboat Shuffle / Susie (Claxtonola) New Orleans Rhythm Kings - Milenberg Joys / King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band - Sugar Foot Stomp (Gennett). This is the only one of Oliver's sides ever reissued by Gennett; it's "Dippermouth Blues," issued two years after the 1923 original to capitalize on the fact that the same tune had become a hit as "Sugar Foot Stomp" by Fletcher Henderson and other bands. King Oliver's Jazz Band - Jazzin' Babies Blues / Clarence Williams' Blue Five - New Orleans Hop Scop Blues (Okeh). One of the greatest "split singles" of all time! Clarence Williams' Blue Five - Everybody Loves My Baby / Of All the Wrongs You've Done to Me (Okeh). With young Louis Armstrong. Sara Martin with Clarence Williams' Blue Five - Atlanta Blues / Blind Man Blues (Okeh). This is one of my favorite records, period. Bechet! I hope it's not corny to say that I feel privileged to be the current caretaker of these records; I wish them a long life after I'm gone.

Sonny Rollins - The Complete Prestige Recordings. Disc 5 - Sonny Rollins Plus Four and Tenor Madness.

Earlier today: Weather Report - Sweetnighter (Columbia)

The Jimmy Giuffre Clarinet, also from the Mosaic big box, and also programmed in the original track order, which is the only way this album makes sense.

The Jimmy Giuffre 3, from the Capitol/Atlantic box, programmed in the original track order. Just gorgeous.

Benny Carter's big band tonight: Plymouth Rock/Melancholy Lullaby(Vocalion) Sleep/Slow Freight (Vocalion) Babalu/There, I've Said It Again (Bluebird) I Surrender Dear/Malibu (Capitol). "I Surrender Dear" is one of Carter's greatest trumpet features.

Someone elsewhere on the internet directed me to the Discography of American Historical Recordings - which I use all the time, but didn't know they had made it up to 1942. Accorded to their info, Sonny Boy Williams is the piano player on these recordings. I had wondered about that, since I had found some indications that he was a pianist. https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000299335/71222-Reverse_the_charges And I have been speculating about the tenor player, and have an educated guess. I really don't have any hard evidence, though, and the aural evidence is inconclusive to my ears. But I wonder if it's Stafford Simon. He and Webster crossed paths frequently - they played together at various times with Benny Carter, Lucky Millinder, and Louis Jordan. One problem is that most of the few confirmed Stafford Simon solos I have on my shelves are at brisk tempos, rather than the relaxed pace of Sonny Boy's songs. But others can lend their ears, and see what they think. Stafford Simon solos at 2:04 of Benny Carter's "Night Hop": He has a longer solo on Lucky Millinder's "Apollo Jump" (at 1:19). The tune is medium tempo, but the solo is simpler and more riff-based. It seems like a reasonable guess, but I can't say I'm convinced at this point.

They're also on a Document CD of all of Sonny Boy Williams' Decca sides. But they're hard enough to find that I thought it would be a worthwhile post.