jeffcrom

Wow - your birthday falls right in the middle of this important festival!

Gary Burton & Stephane Grappelli - Paris Encounter (Atlantic promo mono). I like this record a lot.

Pamela Des Barres Frank Zappa Edgar Varese

Walt Dickerson - Impressions of A Patch of Blue (MGM mono).

Black California (Savoy). Disc two - Helen Humes (with Dexter), Harold Land, and Art Pepper.

I have this now out-of-print Yazoo collection, but they have a newer collection. And I see that JSP has put out all of his sides here.

Walt Dickerson/Richard Davis - Divine Gemini (Steeplechase); inspired by NIS's blindfold test. JATP All-Stars at the Opera House (Verve mono); 1957 JATP concerts.

Great BFT, NIS. I missed the Maupin track, although I have the album. I haven't listened to it for a long time - that's my excuse. I wondered if that was Alexander Hawkins on track one, but I was scared to make that guess. I like the Clusone 3 a lot, but don't have that album, and didn't know that they had recorded a Steve Lacy tune. And I love the fact that Walt Dickerson is your favorite musician - that's unusual and kind of impressive.

Murray Lehrer with Dave Tarras - Freilachs for Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and Other Celebrations, Vol. 2 (Request). Great 1960's klezmer.

Happy Birthday! You've almost caught up with me. (Wait, that's not the way it works, is it?)

I'm probably eccentric, even for a 78 collector: I frequently listen to classical music on 78s. It's usually the great artists of the acoustic recording era that I turn to, but I sometimes listen to later recordings. And I don't often listen to longer works that require changing records in the middle of a movement, but I make exceptions in the case of hard-to-find pieces or 78s featuring outstanding performers. This morning I played: Edward MacDowell - a 1947 Decca album (two 12" records) of short piano pieces, play by Rudolph Ganz. Two pieces fit nicely onto each record side, and the performances are excellent and sensitive. Three 10" Columbias from the late 1930's by a group billed on different records as the Saxophone Quartet of La Garde Republicaine or the Saxophone Quartet of Paris - but it's the Marcel Mule Quartet, in any case. They play short saxophone pieces by French composers - Pierne, Francaix, Bozza - and transcriptions of string quartet movements by Haydn and Mendelssohn. These are beautiful performances and great-sounding records - better than the Clarinet Classics CDs on which most of them have been reissued. Pierne's "Le Veillee de L'Ange Gardien" doesn't appear on those CDs, or on any others, as far as I can tell. Then some Debussy: Premiere Rhapsody for Clarinet, played by Benny Goodman and the NY Phil. on a 1940 Columbia 12-incher. Sonata No. 2 for Flute, Harp, and Viola, on a European recording issued by U.S. Victor. The great flutist Marcel Moyse is on this, which is why I got this album and put up with changing sides every four and a half minutes. I'm not sure when it was recorded, but the style of the labels indicates that this pressing is from the early 1940's. The Children's Corner, arranged for orchestra by Andre Caplet with Debussy's blessing, played by Stokowki's studio orchestra in 1949 and issued on three records, one movement per side. A really great performance, and 78 surfaces had gotten much quieter by the early 1950's, when my copy was pressed.

Johnny Littlejohn - So-Called Friends (Rooster Blues)

Bud Freeman - Satin Doll (All Life). Bud in Paris, 1979, with George Arvanitas on organ.

Happy Birthday, Jim! Thanks for letting us play in your yard.

Art Pepper Select, disc 3. Carl Perkins!

Artie Shaw - Modern Music for Clarinet (Columbia). A 1950 "third stream" album. The most interesting tracks are two pieces by Alan Shulman.

Had the urge for some Bix today, so I spun all my Bix 78 sides (which isn't a large number): Jean Goldkette - Idolizing (Victor, 1926) Jean Goldkette - I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover (Victor, 1927) Jean Goldkette - I'm Gonna Meet My Sweetie (Victor, 1927) Paul Whiteman - Lonely Melody (Victor, 1928) Paul Whiteman - Selections from Show Boat (12" Victor, 1928) Bix sounds good on all of these, although his solos are short. The last title doesn't sound promising, but it has a hot 12-measure solo by Bix. Then played a couple of new finds. When looking for 78s, I've often come across 7" 78 RPM records on the budget label Bell, from the 1950's. They've always been uninteresting pop music, but I've thought that if I ever found any that looked like they might have good music, I'd get them. I just got two: Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra featuring Jimmy Dorsey - The High and the Mighty/The Man That Got Away (1954). Not that great musically, actually, but it has a nice picture sleeve with the Dorseys. Artie Shaw and His Gramercy Five - Besame Mucho/That Old Feeling (1953). This one is nice, with Tal Farlow and Hank Jones. Bell records sold for 39 cents, according to the sleeves. In spite of the small size, they have three minutes of music on each side; they're microgroove vinyl pressings, not shellac. These two are in nice shape and sound really good. I'll be playing the Gramercy Five record often; the Dorsey not so much.

Thanks! That must have really pissed Benny off.

I bought Of Human Feelings on CD when it came out, back in the day. I never really thought of it as an "import," since most CDs in those early days were made in Japan, but yes, it's the Antilles/Polystar Japanese issue. No bonus tracks. I also bought Tacuma's Renaissance Man on vinyl in 1984. It's pretty good - side one is by his working Philadelphia band, while side two is more varied; Ornette, David Murray, Vernon Reid, Bill Bruford all appear on various tracks.

Mezz Mezzrow - The Many Faces of Jazz Vol. 10 (Mode/Vogue). I absolutely hate Mezzrow's playing, but I love Lee Collins, who is all over this 1951 French album. He and Punch Miller were two New Orleans trumpet players who were about the same age as Louis Armstrong, and who were only a couple of steps behind him. The great Zutty Singleton is also on this.

Thad Jones/Pepper Adams Quintet - Mean What You Say (Milestone)

Steve Lacy - Estilhacos: Live in Lisbon (Guilda da Musica, 1972). The first album by the Steve Lacy Quintet (later Sextet) with Steve Potts.

Okay, sometimes I don't know if my posts here are reports or confessions.... Since I got heavily into 78s a couple of years ago, I have acquired a dozen Columbia records, 1919 to 1929, by the Ted Lewis Jazz Band. I came into possession of most of these without design - they were in a box of records I bought, or Ted Lewis was on the flip side of a selection I wanted. But I did pick up a few intentionally - they looked interesting, or they looked to be the right vintage to have Muggsy Spanier in the cornet chair. (Sadly, only one has paid off with Muggsy's presence.) God help me, yesterday and today I played all of them. First of all, Ted Lewis's clarinet, alto sax, and singing are just awful. That's a given. But beyond that, it was fascinating to hear the music that the general public considered jazz at the time. And Ted usually had some pretty good musicians on board. Like I said, I only have one record with Muggsy, but there are generous doses of New Orleans trombonist George Brunies. And there are two records from 1928 that are amazingly good - mostly because Mr. Lewis is hardly in evidence. The excellent Don Murray takes the clarinet solos, and sounds really good. Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble/Clarinet Marmalade and A Jazz Holiday/Jungle Blues are the pairings; The only Ted Lewis I can hear on them is one vocal, on "Jazz Holiday," and some alto sax ensemble work. "Jungle Blues" is the Jelly Roll Morton tune, and it's a really nice version; I hope Morton got a nice royalty check. Later, of course, Lewis hired folks like Frank Teschemacher, Fats Waller, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Jack Teagarden for his record dates; I've got some of that stuff on LP. But I want to find the 78 on which Lewis interrupts a Benny Goodman clarinet solo with "Play it, Ted!" The two records I mentioned are by far the best of the lot, but there are some nice moments on many of them. And some really miserable ones.

I always think of that fourth bar as B dim 7, which of course consists of the same notes as the F dim 7 given here - but it's funtionally more like the G7(b9) Free suggests.

Abdullah Ibrahim - Soweto (Chiaroscuro). This is such a joyous, moving album, particularly considering that it was recorded in South Africa in 1975, at the height of apartheid.