jeffcrom

Arthur Blythe - Bush Baby (Adelphi)

Jazz Mission to Moscow (Colpix). Recorded just after the Benny Goodman Russian tour mentioned above. Great playing by Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, and Eddie Costa, among others.

Benny Goodman In Moscow (RCA Victor). A great band which was probably prevented from living up to its potential by the musicians' difficult relations with the leader. I know it's been linked here in the past, but Bill Crow's article about this tour is unbelievable.

Happy Birthday, Tom. Pretty soon you'll catch up to me.

That's the second cover - it replaced a pic with Rudd and Tchicai. I was wondering which cover was earlier. I bought my copy around 1976.

Another old favorite: Archie Shepp - Fire Music (Impulse)

Martial Solal - Himself (PDU). Solal solo, at the top of his form, on a 1974 Italian LP - close to mint condition. Life is good.

Most of the music I've been listening to lately has been relatively conservative/conventional. Tonight I felt the need for something radical. So: Dave Holland/Derek Bailey - Improvisations for Cello and Guitar (ECM). Pretty amazing, in my opinion. Then, I listened to a classic that I haven't listened to for awhile: Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder (BN Liberty - with the Van Gelder stamp, for whatever that's worth). Also amazing, especially after not spinning it for several years.

I know what you mean, I think. But the best of them also put me in mind of an explanation of Zeno's Paradox delivered by an inspired math teacher I had in high school: A young man walks toward his girlfriend across the room. He can never actually reach her, since he will traverse half the distance to her, then half of that distance, then half of that, etc. But even if he can't actually reach her, at some point he's so close that it doesn't matter. Those HH Blue Note albums may not be great, but the best few are so close that it doesn't matter.

Captain John Handy - Introducing Cap'n John Handy (RCA Victor mono). The first of two Captain John Handy albums for RCA. This one puts him in a mainstream swing context, rather than in a traditional New Orleans-style band. In the band are Claude Hopkins, Doc Cheatham, Bennie Morton, and Gus Johnson, among others. It works really well.

Pete Rugolo - Reeds in Hi-Fi (Mercury mono). I've been a fan of this 1956 album for many years. It was apparently intended for middle-class folks with nice hi-fi systems, rather than for jazz fans. But it's excellent music, and never far from jazz. Bob Cooper, Dave Pell, Barney Kessell, Andre Previn, and Shelly Manne are on board, and Bud Shank gets lots of solo space.

Max? Or did you just listen to Sonny? Wow - that was some sort of Freudian slip. I dug Sonny, but also the rest of the band, especially Max, of course. I thought pianist Billy Wallace was pretty interesting. And as I was enjoying Kenny Dorham, I was lamenting that a musician friend of mine has a blind spot when it comes to Dorham - he can't get past what he considers KD's "bad" tone. To me, it's just individual - and that's what jazz is all about. I'm going to semi-correct my original post....

I can't believe I left out one of my favorites. When Duane Allman was just a studio guitarist at Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, he played a hair-raising slide guitar solo on Clarence Carter's "Road of Love." An obviously impressed Carter spontaneously sang/spoke "I like what I'm listening to right now" in the middle, and they left it on the record. I've always loved that moment. (And thanks, Bill.)

A thoroughly trivial and unimportant topic: Plenty of jazz and blues recordings, especially older ones, have spoken exclamations to encourage the soloist(s), like "Blow, Fats!" on at least one Fats Navarro record. Some of these encouraging exclamations are pretty odd. Two of my favorites are: "Joue guitar la, Danny!" - spoken by clarinetist Albert Nicholas in Louisiana Creole French to Danny Barker on a 1947 recording of "Salee Dame," a New Orleans Creole song. "Honk that thing, Fats!" - spoken by Alberta Hunter to Fats Waller, who was accompanying her on pipe organ on "Sugar" in 1927. What are your favorite encouraging exclamations from jazz or blues recordings?

Sonny Rollins - Jazz in 3/4 Time (Emarcy mono) Edit: Max Roach, of course! Although Sonny sounds great here.

Muggsy Spanier - Hot Horn (Decca 10" LP). A really nice 1954 date. I see to my surprise that this is now available as a download from Amazon and iTunes.

Like Mike says, it seems to be. The link in my original post leads to Amazon. Kenny Garrett is indeed excellent here; just after this he quit the Messengers to join (rejoin?) Miles Davis, and Blakey was reportedly pretty pissed.

I've said before around here that my favorite later Blakey/Messengers album is Feelin' Good on the Delos label, from 1986. It's not very well known, maybe because Delos was a classical label that dabbled in jazz. I guess it could be said to be in the "retro" bag Jim mentioned (it's half new tunes and half Messenger classics), but the level of playing is so high that it transcends any sense of nostalgia. The horns are Wallace Roney, Kenny Garrett, Jean Toussaint, and Tim Williams; Donald Brown is the pianist, and Peter Washington is on bass. I think this is Garrett's only appearance on a Blakey album, although I'm too lazy to look that up. Anyway, I like this band more than the Wynton band or the Blanchard/Harrison band.

Haven't heard any Spanier after the classic 1939 tracks, but I saw Hucko the year after your disc in a touring show jointly led by Jack Teagarden and Earl Hines and also including Cozy Cole, Jack Lesberg and Max Kaminsky. Well, you've heard what Muggsy sounded like - his style never changed. And Hucko sounds really good on this LP.

Muggsy Spanier - Rare Custom 45s (IAJRC). 1956 sessions for Seeburg jukeboxes, with George Brunies and Peanuts Hucko, among others. According to Spanier's biographer Bert Whyatt, these were extremely relaxed, casual sessions, since the records weren't intended for regular distribution, just for jukeboxes. Nobody even cared when Brunies sang that he wanted to "sister like his shimmy Kate," which I had never noticed until tonight. In any case, this is really nice stuff.

Earlier today: Muggsy Spanier's two Decca big band sessions, on a British Ace of Hearts LP.

Allen Lowe - The Blues and the Empirical Truth (Music & Arts) Eric Dolphy - Complete Prestige Recordings; the Five Spot session.

Have the Robert Pete Williams and may still have the John Littlejohn - there's a box of 45's waiting to be cleaned sitting in my garage. Didn't think that anyone else here would have or even know about those. I got the Robert Pete Williams record at the Louisiana Music Factory in New Orleans, where they had a bunch of them in a box - they probably still have some. Don't remember where I got the "Johnny Little John," as the label says. But I have three boxes of 45s - one, which is packed to the gills, is all blues. Another is all jazz, and it's almost as full. The third is a variety of stuff, but mostly R & B.

Okay, apparently I wasn't quite ready to go to bed, since I played three more blues 45s: Taildragger: So Ezee/My Head is Bald (Leric) Baby Tate - So What You Done Done/Late In the Evening (Trix) - with the great Peg Leg Sam on harp on side one. Hop Wilson - Broke & Hungry/Always Be In Love With You (Goldband)

Before finally going to bed, one more single by each of the above blues guys: Robert Pete Williams - Goodbye Slim Harpo/Viet Nam Blues (Ahura Mazda) Johnny Littlejohn - Kitty O/Johnny's Jive (Margaret) Tabby Thomas - How Many More Years/Goin' to New Orleans (Maison de Soul)