jeffcrom

Anthony Braxton - Trio (Victoriaville) 2007 (Victo). My parameters were: 1) Braxton, 2) small group, and 3) Mary Halvorson. This is a good one.

Thanks for the mention. I'll post something more about it in a couple of days, when I get it up on Bandcamp. Official CD release is April 12.

Ha! Yeah, me and Sonny like hanging out together on your shelves.

That's a magnificent record. There's so much going on lyrically in this version of "Pony Blues."

Cecil Taylor - Indent (Arista/Freedom). Brilliant, very tightly woven solo piano music. I've had my copy for 40 years.

This was Ronald Hampton's only shot at the big time, I think. Shortly after this session one of his parents became ill and he moved back to Atlanta to take care of him or her. He is now a substitute teacher in the Atlanta school system, and a band teacher friend of mine says the kids love it when he subs in music class.

It's small - 5" x 7" on board. It's part of a series of small paintings called collectively "Not Everything Will Be Okay But Some Things Will (Thank You, Mrs. Kalman)."

A painting by my friend Judy Rushin.

Love that one, plus More Gumbo Stew and Still Spicy - Gumbo Stew.

Info that I think I got from the Lord discography: Middy Middleton - tenor sax; Edward Crockett - bass; Sunny Murray - drums; Philly Joe Jones - congas; Joe Lee Wilson - vocal; NYC, c. 1973 "This was originally recorded for the Creative Artist Program Record Edition by Desto Records." John Coltrane - Expression (Impulse). Nice original pressing that cost me all of a dollar in a junk shop in Bellingham, Washington.

Rev. Johnny L. "Hurricane" Jones - Do Your Thing (Jewel). From J.M. Gates to Jasper Williams to The Hurricane, Atlanta has always had the best recording preachers. Just sayin'. This is some sermon. After referencing the parable of the talents, Rev. Jones is now preaching/singing, " Joe Frazier did his thing. Muhammad Ali did his thing!"

American Folk Blues Festival (Decca stereo). I couldn't resist this mint copy of the US issue of the very first LP documenting this series (from 1962) when I saw it in a suburban Atlanta record store today.

Previous Unreleased Recordings is one of my favorite Hodges albums. The rhythm section doesn't let him coast. I like Eleventh Hour, but more as a mood music album than as jazz. A couple of years ago I posted about enjoying it and someone here kind of slapped my hand.

Jazz of the Connecticut Traditional Jazz Club 4 (CTJC). Every year the CTJC put out an album with highlights from their concerts. I have a few, and particularly like this one, because the club somehow got the rights to issue two outtakes from the great New Orleans saxophonist Capt. John Handy's second RCA album. Those two tracks, with Kid Sheik and Louis Nelson, are the highlights, but I also like the concert excerpts from the Louis Nelson / Ernie Cagnolatti band, composed of half New Orleans guys and half New Englanders.

Just looked at this thread for the first time in several days - lots of great music playing! John Coltrane - Offering: Live at Temple U (Impulse)

Martial Solal - Himself (PDU)

Eddie Shaw - King of the Road (Rooster Blues). This never-reissued LP collects tracks by the great blues saxophonist recorded between 1966 and 1984.

Nice one! Red Callender - Swingin' Suite (Crown) Sonny Rollins - G-Man (Milestone)

A bit of variety at the JC household this evening - getting progressively more raucous, apparently. Gil Evans featuring John McLaughlin - We Remember Jimi (Dark Magus). An "unofficial release," as Discogs says. Johnny Jenkins - Ton-Ton Macoute (Capricorn). The Macon, Georgia bluesman's first album, with members of the Allman Brothers Band and other Southern studio guys. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music (Williams Street). We love Killer Mike in Atlanta. Our tunnel-drilling machine is named Driller Mike. (This is not a joke - it really is.) I'll say that I like some of the tracks better than others, but the best tracks have a political awareness and/or spiritual dimension far beyond gangster or bragging/lifestyle hip-hop.

A bunch of Andy Kirk Decca records (1937-1945), inspired by finding a "sunburst" Kirk Decca for a buck "in the wild" today. I won't list them all, but the highlights were "Walkin' and Swingin'," "Bear Down" (for Mary Lou Williams' piano solo), "A Mellow Bit of Rhythm," and "McGhee Special" - the last one being a tour de force for young Howard McGhee, of course. These discs reminded me what a great arranger Mary Lou Williams was. There are some really imaginative things here, like the low-register saxes with tenor lead in "Mellow Bit of Rhythm" and the four saxes with trumpet lead on "Walkin' and Swingin'."

Andrew Cyrille - The Declaration of Musical Independence (ECM). I bought this the week it came out, listened to it probably twice, and put it on the shelf. I spotted it tonight and was kind of surprised - I had pretty much forgotten about it. I'm really enjoying it right now. And yes, I've got too many records and CDs.

I got lucky - found the three twelve-inch records together at a local record store that had 78s for a while. One of sleeves had a sticker for the Cable Piano Company in Atlanta, which also sold records. Since then I've found several other records with the Cable sticker on either the sleeve or the label. The building burned in 1936.

Steve Lacy/Ulrich Gumpert - Deadline (Sound Aspects). I avoided this record for years because Lacy said not to buy it, since it was mastered at the wrong speed. When I got a variable speed turntable a couple of years ago, I realized that I could rectify the problem. It helps that the first track, "Art," starts with a single note - C - on the piano. Eugene Chadbourne's review on Allmusic can be safely ignored - it's an excellent album. The Lee Konitz Nonet (Roulette). I'm really enjoying this one tonight.

Clayton Love - Come on Home Blues (Red Lightnin' 10" LP) Recorded live in a club in St. Louis sometime in the 1970s, I think. One of the best hours of my life was spent in a hot, steamy, run-down theater in Clarksdale, Mississippi - in 1994, probably. After a set by Little Bill Wallace (Wadada Leo Smith's stepfather), Love and his band played an amazing set of blues and R & B much like this album. Of course, he played and sang "The Big Question," his hit with Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm, and also Turner's "I'm Tore Up," originally sung by Billy Gayles. He does both of those songs here.

Yeah, I don't see calling a 78 album a box set, generally. But The Jazz Scene is so over-the-top deluxe that it certainly provided the template for limited edition box sets in the LP era. When I finally found a near-mint copy of the original 78 set, I justified my purchase by noted that, adjusted for inflation, I was paying less that the original price.