jeffcrom

If the Jamal single is still available, I will gladly take it - what do I have to do? I'll cover for shipping, if that's the custom (Haven't been looking into this thread for some time, so please give me instructions). I was in Europe when this was posted, and just saw this post. All you have to do is send me your address - I'll cover postage.

Charlie Parker - The Complete Dial Sessions (Stash); the December, 1947 session with J.J. Johnson.

I love Bird. I also love Fats - to me the greatest of the bop trumpets. I have heard people say something like the quote above before concerning Fats, but I have never really heard it myself in his playing. I know the Prestige date with Lanphere pretty well, which has take after take on the same head, but to me each of Fat's contributions are different. Again with the well known "Nostalgia" on Savoy, there are 2 superb variations on the same tune which are profoundly different. I'm not trying for a putdown, but I am genuinely interested as to what you had in mind when you say that ... Q No, I don't take this as a putdown, and I didn't mean my comment as a putdown to Fats. It's just a different way of approaching a solo. What I'm talking about is probably best heard in the Blue Note recordings with Tadd Dameron's group. For instance: The Chase - Fats starts both takes with the exact same phrase, and several other phrases show up in both takes. The Squirrel - Fats' first two choruses are very similar on both takes - obviously from the same mental template. Lady Bird - Fats starts both takes with the same phrase; after that the solos go in somewhat different directions. There are other examples, but that's the kind of thing I was talking about. Let me be clear that I in no way think there's anything "wrong" with this; it's just a different approach than Bird usually took. I just listened to Bird's Dial session with J.J. Johnson, and Johnson played more or less the same solo on different takes of some of the tunes. When you've got some good melodic ideas, no sense in wasting them. Hell, think about all the Ellington soloists who played the exact same solos every night for years. Fats is also one of my favorite trumpet players, and the fact the he sometimes repeated melodic ideas on different takes in no way detracts from his brilliance.

Errol Parker Tentet (Sahara)

Happy New Year to all! It was a strange year. At dinner last night, my wife told me that she knew what the worst aspect of 2010 was for me - my forced retirement from teaching public school band. Then she asked what the best thing about the year was, and without stopping to think I said, "Same thing."

Happy New Year to all. I'm looking forward to your comments about the BFT #82 selections. Some of them are pretty obscure, so don't get hung up on identification, unless that's fun for you. I'm more interested in a good discussion about the music.

Another yes. Bird was an improvisational genius; he generally didn't rework the same ideas from take to take like, say, Fat Navarro often did. The master takes were often selected as the best overall group performance, not the best Parker solo.

If I have to limit it to five, it would probably be this rather odd assortment (with more commentary than anyone really wants to read): 1. Budd Johnson - Ya! Ya! (Argo): Not only the first jazz album I owned, but the first LP, period. I was twelve and had just taken up the saxophone, and my mom got me this one for Christmas. I was disappointed that I didn't get a rock album like my brother, but I gave it a chance. I like about half of it right away, but I credit Richard Davis' bizarre, atonal, double stopped, bowed solo on "Exotique" for opening up my ears at an early age. 2. Bix Beiderbecke and the Chicago Cornets (Milestone): After listening exclusively to rock for about three years after receiving #1 above, I started expanding my listening, and bought two jazz albums, this one and #3. This two-fer contained the Wolverine sides, and I was hooked by the second cut, "Jazz Me Blues" - Bix's solo got to me right away, and I've loved older jazz ever since. 3. The Essential Charlie Parker (Verve): At a band clinic, someone played a cut from this, and it floored me. I didn't understand how someone could improvise so coherently at that speed - and to an extent, I still don't. 4. Arista/Freedom Sampler (Arista/Freedom): My sweet mom liked to rummage around surplus and junk stores, and would bring home any record that looked like a jazz album, since she knew I was interested. By 1975 I had been trying to learn all I could about jazz, and had read about something called "free jazz," but couldn't imagine what it sounded like. This promo sampler came out that year, and had tracks by Anthony Braxton, Oliver Lake, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Albert Ayler, among others. The Art Ensemble track was too short to make an impression, but I "heard" Braxton and Lake right away. The Ayler track ("Spirits") just repelled me. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to make music that was so ugly. But at the same time, I was fascinated - why did he play like that? So I kept listening, and I heard the structure of the piece - it was an improvised rondo, more or less. Once I heard the form, I started getting the message - one of those life-changing moments. 5. Miles Davis - Miles Smiles (Columbia): Not only is this a beautiful album, but the free-bop approach was a revelation to me. Years later I had a gig with my quartet, and the drummer couldn't make it. So I hired an excellent Atlanta drummer who was playing with Curtis Mayfield at the time. He had never played anything like my tunes before; he sounded good, but I could tell he was puzzled. About a year later I saw him, and he told me that he had picked up Miles Smiles, and that two minutes into the first tune, he yelled out, "That's where Jeff Crompton gets that shit from!"

Okay, the first Ellington-a-thon selection from the Sacred Concerts. The Sacred Concerts contain some of Ellington's best melodies ("Heaven" is melodically as good as anything he ever wrote, for example), but I hope it's okay to say in this music forum that I find the theology and lyrics pretty childish, for the most part. "The Brotherhood" is from the Third Sacred Concert, and is dedicated to the United Nations, who sponsored the concert in Westminster Abbey. I'm okay with it until the John Alldis Choir comes in. It's a catchy piece, and the band bites into it, but the very unswinging choir and lame lyrics about the United Nations are a drag. On the positive side, there's a long Harold Ashby solo.

HELP! How do i get hold of that album by Don Jacoby feat. Keith Jrrett? I would save an Ebay search - it shows up there periodically.

Agreed that it's atypical, perhaps even "dreadful" in places, but...I like to hear how different players of different ilks go about presenting what they think is a "pop" (I'll not say "commercial", because although it seems that some folks don't care about how to seel their records, does anybody ever make a record that they don't want to be bought?) project. Even if it's a total producer's project where all the player does is show up and role-play, there's still a lot of different ways to go about that. I think Blythe that Blythe does indeed "put sunshine in it", although what the "it" is that he is putting sunshine in might well be something from a place where the sun never shines, or is ever able to. All in all, stuff like this just makes me appreciate how musically involved Miles' later bands were. Pop on the outside, meaty on the inside, a salty-sweet snack that you could eat as a meal if you had to. Yum! Jim has facilitated a small miracle: his comments were interesting enough that I pulled Put Sunshine In It off my shelf and am halfway through side two. And I've got to say that this music hurts me in an almost physical way. The tunes are so bland and lacking in that mysterious spark that makes music the amazing force it is that it's painful. That being said, I hear (I think) what you're saying. Blythe plays very well over the pap. That's part of the problem, in a strange way - his sound has so much life in it that it doesn't fit the setting at all. A smooth-jazz guy with a pretty, vacuous sound would have worked better, in the sense of a unified "product." I bought this album about 7 or 8 years ago strictly to complete my run of Arthur Blythe Columbia albums. I think this was only the third time I've spun it, and it will probably be at least five years before I'm tempted again.

In the digital age, is any recorded music really rare? About a month ago, I picked up a Victor Red Seal 78 album: four records of Puerto Rican danzas, composed by Juan Morel Campos (1857-1896) and played by Jesus Maria Sanroma. I finally got around to cleaning them and playing them today, and they're excellent, if a little carefully and politely played. Poking around the web to find more information about these recordings, I see that they were reissued on a Pearl CD, which means that they can probably be downloaded somewhere. So not as rare as I thought, apparently. Excellent, interesting music, though. And the other day I picked up two Victor 78s by the Sandhills Sixteen, an African-American male choir performing spirituals. This led to my playing a string of large-group "concert" spiritual performances - polite, again, but still beautiful: Sandhills Sixteen: Shine on Me/What Sort o' Robes Do de Angels Wear? (Victor, 1927) Sandhills Sixteen: Hush! Hush! Somebody's Calling My Name (Victor, 1927) Tuskegee Institute Singers: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot/Steal Away (Victor, 1916) Tuskegee Institute Singers: The Old Time Religion/Heaven Song & Inchin' Along (Victor, 1916) Dixie Jubilee Singers - I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray/Roll, Jordan, Roll (Brunswick, 1924-ish). I've had this last one since I was a teenager, but I didn't know anything much about the Dixie Jubilee Singers until I did a web search just now. They were led by Eva Jessye, an accomplished African-American choir director who studied under Will Marion Cook.

Gail Storm Rubin "Hurricane" Carter Bob Dylan

That one is on Columbia, actually.

Sugar Mama Blues - 1949 (Biograph). Downhome blues recorded for Regal, with liner notes by Chris Albertson. I picked this one because it has a track by Frank Edwards, known affectionately by us Atlanta blues fans as "Mr. Frank." In about 10 minutes I'm heading to Blind Willie's to hear a friend's blues band, and for years Mr. Frank was a fixture at "his" stool at the end of the bar - always dressed to the nines.

I've seen the first Blythe Columbia album, Lenox Avenue Breakdown, and Basic Blythe, the "strings" album, on CD, but I don't think any of the other Columbias came out in CD format. Could be wrong about that, though. I mostly agree with Jim - I've got all of Blythe's Columbias, and this is my favorite. But beware of Put Sunshine In It, a pop/funk album that doesn't even sound like a Blythe album. The follow-up, Da-Da, uses some funk touches, but they're more integrated into Blythe's world; I like that one.

This thread depresses me - it reminds me that Atlanta has become more of a cultural backwater than ever. Touring jazz musicians of all stripes avoid us. There are only a few shows I went to in Atlanta worth mentioning this year, and my travels didn't take me anywhere to hear good music, except for my annual New Orleans trip. McCoy Tyner Trio (January, Atlanta) Tim Laughlin w/ Jon Erik-Kelso (April, New Orleans) Matt Perrine & Sunflower City (April, New Orleans) Panorama Jazz Band (April, New Orleans) Dirty Dozen Brass Band (April, Atlanta) Janiva Magness (Atlanta, May) Richard Devine/Josh Kay (electronic improvisations) (Atlanta, May) Urs Leimgruber Trio (June, Atlanta) Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel (a local duo that's what it says it is) (October, Atlanta) Not much for a year.... Well, I played some pretty good shows.

Some money came in today and I finally ordered mine. Really looking forward to it.

Jazz Odyssey, Vol. II: The Sound of Chicago (Columbia) - disc one. I have most of this stuff elsewhere, but this set has some very cool rare tracks. Lyle Murphy - 12-Tone Compositions and Arrangements (Contemporary) The Sunny Meadows Radio Show - 1929 (Sunbeam). Pretty interesting - two episodes of one of the first transcribed radio shows, sponsored by the Meadows Washing Machine Company. Side one features Ray Miller's dance band from Chicago, with young Muggsy Spanier.

Today's 78 RPM highlights were all Johnny Hodges: It Shouldn't Happen to a Dream/A Little Taste (Mercer, 1947) Let the Zoomers Drool/Searsy's Blues (Mercer, 1947) Through For the Night/Latino (Mercury, 1952)

I've been scared to count my records and CDs for years.

Happy birthday, and sorry to hear about the personal circumstances. I went through the same thing at about the same age. An older friend told me, "Your thirties suck. You'll be fine once you're in your forties." And he was pretty much right.

Okay, BFT 82 has been put together; discs will go out this afternoon, and the download links will go out on the 31st. It's a pretty diverse set of jazz and related music, old and new, and everyone will probably find something to like and to dislike. And I only turned to my 78s for one track. I'm more interested in opinions and discussion than identification of tracks and musicians, although that can be fun, too. If you haven't already signed up, please consider giving a listen.

Thanks for the BFT, Tom. Sorry I never got around to disc 2.

It's: Art Farmer - tp; Hal McKusick - as; Zoot Sims - ts; Gil Melle - bar; Teddy Charles - vb; Joe Cinderella - g; Vinnie Burke - b; Ed Thigpen - p Info from Gil Melle, as told to Dan Skea.