jeffcrom

Hope it's been a good one, Paul!

Yesterday I spent a few hours at my favorite record store (not that I get to visit very often), the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago. I bought CDs, LPs, and 78s, including some hard to find stuff: CD - Prince Lasha - Insight (CBS/Dusty Groove) John Tchicai and Cadentia Nova Danica - Afrodisiaca (MPS/Promising) Kidd Jordan - On Fire (Engine) Douglas Ewart and Inventions Clarinet Choir - Angles of Entrance (Arawak). This is the one I was most excited to find. This version of Inventions includes Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, and Anthony Braxton. Most of this album was recorded in the 1990's at the Atlanta Jazz Fest (my trio played right after them), and I only recently became aware that Ewart had issued the concert on CD. By the time I found out about this CD, it was seemingly unavailable, so I was really tickled to find a copy. LP - Ken Colyer - Club Session With Colyer (London) - A nice copy of this 1956 album. Doc Paulin - Doc Paulin's Marching Band (Folkways) - Sealed copy of a great record by one of the rougher New Orleans brass bands. I've had the Smithsonian/Folkways CDR for a couple of years, but I was very happy to find the LP. Willis Jackson/Von Freeman - Lockin' Horns (Muse) 78 - I won't list them all, but the highlights were a 9" Louisiana Five on Emerson (I love that band) and an original Vocalion issue of "Four or Five Times" by Jimmie Noone's Apex Club Orchestra. I frankly bought the latter more as an object than a record - it looks pretty worn. But it's cool to have. And they were playing Warne Marsh's All Music on Nessa on the sound system while I was there.

What I meant was that it seemed derivative to the point of seeming kind of unreal to me. I know that many folks here would have heard this performance totally differently, and would have really dug it.

This is definitely one of those "YMMV" posts. Last night was the final evening of a short visit to Chicago. The original plan was to go to Rosa's for some blues, but I decided that I didn't want to deal with the 20-minute ride on the 'L' and 20-minute walk in the cold that would be involved in getting to the club from my hotel in the Loop. So I walked to Andy's to hear the Brian Lynch Quartet. For the first ten minutes, I was just tickled to hear some jazz played on a level I usually don't get hear in Atlanta. After that, it started to seem surreal. I kept thinking, "Why do they sound just like a late 50's/early 60's Blue Note album?" The music was accomplished, swinging, and almost totally uninteresting to me. And this is from a listener who loves to go to New Orleans to hear young folks play even older music. But most of the musicians in New Orleans sound freer and more contemporary playing 90-year-old music than Lynch and his young rhythm section sounded playing 50-year-old music. I think part of it is that the New Orleans guys know that they can take a lot of liberties with "Milneburg Joys," and it's still going to sound like "Milneburg Joys." They're not trying to reproduce or recreate anything; they're playing old music and turning it into living music. That's probably what Lynch and company were trying to do as well, but it didn't happen, at least to my ears. It was so much like an old Blue Note album that it was just creepy. Even Lynch's original called "Woody Shaw" sounded just like Woody Shaw. This experience reminded me of something Steve Swallow said when interviewed by Martin Williams in 1963 - he said that he'd rather play with Dixieland or free-jazz musicians than to play bop. He talked about the "inflexible idiomatic requirements" of mainstream modern jazz, and opined that Dixieland was more flexible. In any case, the evening gave me things to think about, even if I didn't dig the music.

My wife and I are 600 miles from home tonight - we went ahead with a trip which had been planned for a while. (How's that for another layer of guilt?) But both my sister and sister-in-law visited my dad today, and report that he had a much better day. He went to a community singing, which he really enjoyed, and was generally more "with it." Like I said, for several years now, stressful situations have left him confused and disoriented, and I think this move just knocked him for a loop. I've calmed down, too. I'm hopeful that he'll settle in and begin to enjoy life more than he has for the last several years. Thanks again to all for the words of encouragement.

Thanks to all for your encouraging words. I know I need to give it more time, but I got a little freaked out by my dad's confusion about how long he had lived in his new place. Stress and worry really do a number on his mind and memory, and this has been a stressful couple of weeks for him. This is a good facility with an attentive nurse, so I'm hoping that he'll settle in and start enjoying life again.

Need some deep blues tonight: Okeh Chicago Blues (Epic); disc two. One side has the first commercial recordings of Johnny Shines and Muddy Waters, from 1946, but not released until this 1982 album. The other side is a great 1947 session by Big Joe Williams, with Sonny Boy #1 on harp.

I usually don't post this kind of personal stuff here, but I'm really sad tonight, and I feel that I've got many friends here. My dad is 84. (He shares a birthday with Paul Secor, by the way.) He served in the navy at the end of World War II, but contracted polio after the war. This left him with post-polio syndrome, exacerbated by his stubbornness in continuing to push his physical abilities to the limit instead of conserving his strength, which we now know is the best course for polio survivors. My mom died in 2005, and my dad has not really found any enjoyment in life since then. In the last couple of years, his physical and mental health have declined to the point that my sister and I didn't think that it was safe for him to live by himself anymore. He recognized this himself, and we found a nice assisted living facility for him to move into. In the two weeks leading up to his move, he became very stressed out about the change, and wanted to back out. We pushed back, and he capitulated. He moved in yesterday, and kept talking about how depressing it was to not be independent any more. I had dinner with him tonight, and his cognitive state was the worst it's ever been. He said that he felt bad, and I pointed out that yesterday had been a stressful day with the move. This confused him, and he asked what I meant - it came out that he thinks he has lived there for quite a while. So either we moved him in just the nick of time, or we caused him so much stress that we greatly accelerated his decline. I'm feeling guilty and depressed, but I hope he will stabilize once he settles into a routine. I wouldn't care if he had dementia if he was happy and enjoyed life, but right now I feel like we destroyed his old routine, accelerated his decline, and he's still not happy.

Word is that it's Lester Chambers of the Chambers Brothers.

Phil Sunkel's Jazz Band (ABC Paramount). A truly beautiful 1956 album by Sunkel and a 10-piece big band. Bunk Johnson 1945 (Dan). Six of the 14 tracks here have not been reissued on American Music CDs, and I cherish this album for those six tracks.

I have half of that session on an EmArcy 78 - Straight Ahead and The Fuz. Nice record.

Dang! That's tough. But as Homer Simpson said, look on this as a crisi-tunity. The Off the Record collection of the Creole Jazz Band sides blows away every previous issue in terms of sound - even the Retrieval and the French Musica Memoria, which I thought was pretty good at the time. Get it and don't look back.

Sidney Bechet - King of the Soprano Saxophone (Good Time Jazz). French recordings made between 1952 and 1955. Beautiful, especially the 1954 session with Jonah Jones.

Shirley Scott - Blue Seven (Prestige mono)

Joe Harriott - Abstract (Capitol mono)

All my Bix 78s, plus all the flip sides, just to get the period flavor. Jean Goldkette - Idolizing/Hush-a-Bye (Victor, 1926). "Idolizing" has some nice Eddie Lang as well as Bix. Jean Goldkette - I'm Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now/Nat Shilkret and the Victor Orchestra - Me and My Shadow (Victor, 1927). Not much Bix on "Sweetie," but some good Joe Venuti and Danny Polo. Jean Goldkette - I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover/Roger Wolfe Kahn and his Orchestra - Yankee Rose (Victor, 1927). Steve Brown's bass playing is fabulous on all the Goldkette sides. Paul Whiteman - Lonely Melody/Ramona (Victor, 1928). Great Bill Challis arrangements, even if "Ramona" doesn't pretend to be jazz. Paul Whiteman - Ol' Man River/Selections from "Show Boat" (Victor 12", 1928). The vocalist on "Ol' Man River" is no less than Paul Robeson; Bix has a searing 12 bars in the Show Boat medley. Paul Whiteman - Because My Baby Don't Mean "Maybe" Now/Just Like a Melody Out of the Sky (Columbia, 1928). Bix 'n' Bing....

Edmond Hall Quartette with Teddy Wilson (Commodore 10" LP)

Happy Birthday, Big Al! Oh, damn! I forgot that I'm the guy who stopped talking to you. Oh, well....

Hank Mobley - Mobley's Second Message, from my Prestige Messages two-fer with the "Harold Land" cover.

I can't read, apparently.

I hope you're right, Neal! And I hope Frog will issue a set of Oliver's sideman appearances on Columbia, like they did for Okeh. (And I transposed a couple of letters in the name of the QRS record company - corrected in my post.)

Overall, not essential, but there are a handful of them that I would hate to be without, like "Snag It," "Too Bad," "Jackass Blues," "Wa Wa Wa," and "Someday Sweetheart." Also wanted to point out that one of Oliver's best blues accompaniments is not on the Frog/Okeh CD mentioned by Chuck. It's Sara Martin's "Death Sting Me Blues," recorded for the QRS label in 1928. I have it on an old Milestone album, and it's on volume 4 of Martin's complete series on Document. Otherwise, it's going to be hard to find, except as a download.

The Immortal King Oliver (Milestone). No need to ever play side one again - the Jelly Roll Morton duets and the Creole Jazz Band Paramounts are readily available in better sound. But side two has some rare QSR recordings featuring Oliver as sideman with Clarence Williams and Sara Martin.

I'm sorry to hear this. I love her versions of "Baltimore Oriole" and "How Long Has This Been Going On" from her Don't You Know Me album.

Eric Quincy Tate - Drinking Man's Friend (Capricorn). Stripped-down Southern blues/rock from my youth. During the summer of 1974 I must have spent 20 bucks playing "Brown Sugar" (not the Stones song) over and over on the jukebox.