jeffcrom

As promised: https://78rpmblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/james-reese-europes-victor-records.html

I love that "Razor's Edge" 12". And the entire Thermonuclear Sweat album.

Bebop and such tonight: Bennie Green - Expense Account / Blow Your Horn (Decca, 1953) Milt Jackson Quartet - Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea / Milt Meets Sid (Dee Gee, 1951) Wardell Gray - Blue Lou, parts 1 & 2 (Modern Music, 1947) J.J. Johnson - Jay Jay / Coppin' the Bop (Savoy, 1946) Charlie Parker - Moose the Mooche / Yardbird Suite (Dial, 1946) Charlie Parker - A Night in Tunisia / Ornithology (Dial, 1946) Metronome All Stars - Overtime / Victory Ball (RCA Victor, 1949)

Some great old-time country today: Leake County Revelers, from Mississippi: Rockin' Yodel / Julia Waltz (Columbia) Wednesday Night Waltz / Good Night Waltz (Columbia, late 1940s reissue) Roane County Ramblers, from east Tennessee: Southern No. 111 / Home Town Blues (Columbia) Marion Underwood (as Floyd Russell), from Kentucky; flip by Frank Jenkins (as Louis Watson), from North Carolina: Coal Creek March / Home Sweet Home (Silvertone). These are both banjo solos. "Coal Creek" is one of the great early banjo records. Dock Walsh, from North Carolina: Knocking on the Hen House Door / We Courted in the Rain (Columbia) I'm Free at Last / The East Bound Train (Columbia) and Walsh with the North Carolina Tar Heels: When the Good Lord Sets You Free / I Love My Mountain Home Scottdale String Band (They worked in the cotton mill in Scottdale, Georgia, about 7-8 miles from my house.) All on Okeh: Carolina Glide / My Own Iona Chinese Breakdown / In the Shade of the Parasol Down Yonder / Sea March

I've got a few - 3 or 4 Paul Whitemans (with Bix on a couple) and one by the great Greek clarinetist Gus Gadinas.

Just poking around the web, I can't find any CDs with tracks by Ford Dabney or Tim Brymm. The 1913-14 James Reese Europe Victors have shown up one or two at a time on CD - at least the ragtime sides. Stomp and Swerve on Archeophone has "Castle House Rag." I have three ragtime collections on the British Saydisc label: I'll Dance till de Sun Breaks Though has "Castle Walk," Rusty Rags has "Castle Walk" and "You're Here and I'm Here," and Too Much Mustard has "Down Home Rag." I have no idea how easy or difficult to find these discs are now. If you just want to hear the Europe Victors, rather than "own" them, wait about a week. The next entry in my 78 blog will feature all eight of Europe's Victor sides. (Of course I have all the original records. Don't be ridiculous!) I'll post a link here. In the meantime, there's this: http://78rpmblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/an-early-zonophone-rag-creole-belles.html

For various reason I won't get into here, Eddie Shaw's music means a lot to me. And his song "Delta Bound" from the album In the Land of the Crossroads has (I think) the only geographically correct version of the first verse of "Highway 61." All the other versions have 61 staring in Chicago, Atlanta, or elsewhere, but Eddie sings: "Highway 61, the longest highway that I know; Highway 61, the longest highway that I know: It run from the Twin Cities down to the Gulf of Mexico." RIP, Mr. Shaw.

Ken Vandermark's two-guitar band Marker at The Earl in Atlanta tonight. (Sorry about the lousy cellphone pic.)

Some early near-jazz by black New York bands: Ford Dabney - When My Baby Smiles/Wedding and Shimmie and Jazz (Aeolian-Vocalion, 1920) Ford Dabney - My Laddie (Aeolian-Vocalion, 1920) (Reverse is by Paul Biese's dance band.) Ford Dabney - Mr. Sousa's Yankee Band/Feist's All-Hit Medley (Aeolian-Vocalion, 1918) Tim Brymm and His Black Devil Orchestra - Siren of the Southern Sea/Wang Wang Blues (Okeh, 1921) Dabney's was a good dance band, but with really no jazz content. The odd title of side two of the first record was apparently meant to be "The Wedding of Shimmie and Jazz." If that's the case, Jazz didn't show up, and left Shimmie at the altar. The third Dabney record is a 12" vertically-cut disc - my turntable has a "vertical" switch to play these early discs. The first side of that one is pretty grim, but the medley is interesting as pop music of the time. Brymm's band was a lot looser - "Wang Wang" actually swings.

Earl Hines - My Tribute to Louis (Audiophile). All tunes associated with Louis Armstrong, recorded twelve days after Satchmo passed. Hines is at his latter-day best, the piano is a fine Steinway, and the brilliant Ewing Nunn did the recording. Thanks to Chuck for hipping me to this one.

Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music. Not everyone's cup of tea, for sure. But listen to the list of influences Mike lists: Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Willie Hutch, OutKast, Jimi Hendrix, George Clinton, Aretha Franklin, Shirley Caesar, Nina Simone, Sade, John Coltrane, Miles Davis. We love Killer Mike in ATL. Our tunnel-drilling machine is called Driller Mike. This is totally true.

I have the first Jazz Oracle 3-disc set. I don't listen to it as much as I expected to. Including groups like the Charleston Chasers, the Arkansas Travelers, Red and Miff's Stompers, The Captivators, etc. in addition the Five Pennies. I have about two hours of Red Nichols 78s, and listen to those fairly often, a few at a time. That's no help to most folks, of course.

You'll have to take a Midnight Train to Georgia and find out for yourself.

I've loved this concert since the day it was issued, not just for the superior Bird, but for the Coleman Hawkins set with Fats Navarro as the other horn. I listened again last night, and I don't really hear Bird doing anything harmonically that he didn't do elsewhere - I hear his usual alterations of the chords, particularly the dominants. But I would agree that the rate of such alterations is pretty zippy - they come quickly and frequently, which may account for the impression you got. In any case, it's excellent music. And I'm amused at the way any small hint at a honk from Flip Phillips sends the crowd into a minor frenzy.

Vintage country on a rare snowy day in Georgia: Bill Cox - The Death of Frank Bowen/When We Sing of Home (Gennett, 1929) Bill Cox - Browns Ferry Blues/Long Chain Charlie Blues (Conqueror, 1934) Bill Cox - Rollin' Pin Woman/Star Boarder Blues (Banner, 1934) Bill Cox & Cliff Hobbs - The Hobo's Lullaby/Old Pinto and Me (Conqueror, 1939) Georgia Yellow Hammers - Pass Around the Bottle/Johnson's Old Grey Mule (Victor, 1927) Georgia Yellow Hammers - My Carolina Girl/The Picture on the Wall (Victor, 1927) Uncle Bud Landress and Georgia Yellow Hammers - Christmas Time at Moonshine Hollow/Candy Pulling at Moonshine Hollow (Victor, 1927) Gordon County Quartet (the same group as above) - Walking in the King's Highway/Beyond the Clouds is Light (Columbia, 1930) The last four records are by the same Calhoun, Georgia group. "Christmas Time"/"Candy Pulling" is attempted humor, but at least the first side includes a nice, although short, version of "Give the Fiddler a Dram."

George Lewis - Keeper of the Flame (Storyville). It's mildly miraculous to me that, although none of the musicians on these 1950s recordings were young at the time, I heard three of them in New Orleans - one as late as three years ago. I heard Percy Humphrey and Jeanette Kimball in the 1990s, and 90-year-old Wendell Eugene in 2014. He was the last surviving musician who played on this set; he died last year.

Today's vinyl, so far: Ben Webster - Did You Call? (Nessa test pressing - thanks, Chuck!) Joe Henderson - Page One (BN UA press) Company 4: Steve Lacy & Derek Bailey (Incus) Charlie Parker - One Night in Chicago (Savoy) New Orleans Dixieland Express (Southland). This has 50s tracks with bands led by Emile Christian (of the ODJB), Joe Capraro, and Tony Almerico. Not profound, for the most part, but very enjoyable. The biggest pleasures on these tracks are courtesy of the clarinetists: Raymond Burke with Christian, young Pete Fountain with Almerico, and Johnny Reininger with Capraro.

Albert Ayler - Vibrations (Arista/Freedom) CTI All Stars - California Concert (CTI double album) One of these albums is better than the other, of course, but I'm glad to have both. To me, the CTI is what Jazz at the Philharmonic was 20 years before - a loosely-organized all-star concert of solid, but populist jazz reflecting its time.

Mose Allison - Mose in Your Ear. I'm guessing that this 1972 Atlantic live album was considered one of Mose's less appealing records due to the length, intensity, and complexity of the piano solos. I'm enjoying it tonight, though.

The Mutt Carey sides of Jazz New Orleans, Volumes 1 & 2 on Savoy. (Punch Miller gets the other side of each, but I only wanted to hear Carey's tracks tonight.) Of the nine musicians who participated in Mutt's two sessions, six were from New Orleans. But this is still very stylistically heterogeneous music. That's one of the things I love about it, and about much New Orleans music. Mutt Carey and Pops Foster in some ways represent a different stage/generation of jazz than do Danny Barker and Edmond Hall, but they all sound great together. My Volume 1 is a 1985 reissue; Volume 2 is a deep groove original pressing.

Big Black - Elements of Now (Uni)

Ellington Small Group Sessions, disc 7. As I listened, I flashed on a memory: when I was in college, I bought a stack of worn blues 78s at junk shop in Bogart, Georgia - all obviously from the same source, presumably the well-loved collection of a local resident. Among the B.B. King and Lightnin' Hopkins discs was Vocalion 5533 - "Skunk Hollow Blues" and "Tired Socks" by Johnny Hodges.

Bill Dixon 7-Tette/Archie Shepp and the NYC5 (Savoy). Outstanding. Ben Young's liner notes clear up a lot of things, and the alternate takes of the solo section of Dixon's "Winter Song 1964" are fascinating.

Last night I had a 78-only listening party last night with seven friends in my tiny living room. They were all folks associated with the Atlanta music/arts scene in some way: a music critic, a rock guitarist, a baritone saxist (and my colleague in the Edgewood Saxophone Trio), an electronic improviser, a part-time music promoter and her music-loving husband, and an arts writer. I picked some of the records with specific people in mind, but everybody at least thought everything was interesting, and usually more than that. (The music critic hated the Al Sears, for some reason.) Anyway, it was a really fun evening. Some discs got both sides played, some just one. We spun: My oldest record - an 1898 Berliner of F. Jardella playing a polka on clarinet King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band - Dippermouth Blues on Gennett (Actually, I have the 1925 issue where it's called "Sugarfoot Stomp." It's the only second pressing Gennett did of any of the Olivers.) Sara Martin with Clarence Williams Blue Five - Atlanta Blues on Okeh Hersal Thomas - Suitcase Blues/Hersal Blues on Okeh Bessie Smith - Back Water Blues/Preachin' the Blues on Columbia Fiddlin' John Carson - The Little Log Cabin in the Lane/The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster Crowed for Day on Okeh - record brought by a guest klezmer clarinet from the early 20s by Naftule Brandwein and Sam Finkel on Columbia A 20s dance band called the Midnight Rambers on Broadway - record brought by a guest A Japanese Columbia with a male singer singing Perry Como style in English and Japanese - record brought by a guest Charlie Parker - Klaunstance on Savoy Earl Coleman w/ Bird - This is Always on Dial - record brought by a guest Miles Davis - Godchild/Jeru on Capitol Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle - You are My Flower/Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow on Columbia (A really lovely record.) Bill Cox & Cliff Hobbs - Hobo's Lullaby/Old Pinto and Me on Conqueror. I brought this back from Washington last week. I don't think it had ever been played until I put it on the turntable. Ink Spots on Decca - record brought by guest Joe Mooney Quartet - Tea for Two/Warm Kiss, Cold Heart on Decca. Sophisticated pop/jazz. I knew one of my saxophonist friend would love this one, and he did. Buddy Moss - Someday Baby/Shake it all Night Long on Conqueror Buddy Moss - Joy Rag/Unfinished Business on Okeh John Lee Booker (sic) - Pouring Down Rain on DeLuxe Muddy Waters - Manish (sic) Boy/Young Fashioned Ways on Chess. Mint condition, for some reason. Who wouldn't have played this record a lot? Little Walter - Roller Coaster/I Got to Go on Checker Little Walter - Tell Me Mama/Off the Wall on Checker Johnny Cash - I Walk the Line/Get Rhythm on Sun Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues on Sun Al Sears - Mag's Alley/Huffing and Puffing on RCA. I like this one because Sears sounds exactly like Albert Ayler for about 15 seconds on side one. Lee Allen - Walking with Mr. Lee/Promenade on Ember Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm - I'm Tore Up/If I Had Never Known You on Federal James Brown - Please, Please, Please/Why Do you Do Me on Federal Ray Charles - Sinner's Prayer/It Should Have Been Me on Atlantic Elvis Presley - Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel on RCA Elvis Presley - Jailhouse Rock on RCA The Dell-Vikings - Come Go With Me on Dot

Really enjoying some old and new vinyl after having my turntable set up for shellac 78s for a couple of weeks: Clarinet Summit - Southern Bells (Black Saint). I've had this on CD as well, and both versions have some pretty nasty digital distortion. I love the music, but I wonder how the sound got by everyone on the way to issue. Steve Lacy & Joe McPhee - The Rest (Roaratorio). A fabulous soprano saxophone duo improvisation. Sonny Rollins - Reel Life (Milestone). Fairly mediocre, but "McGhee" is just fabulous. Dodo Greene - My Hour of Need (BN stereo, Liberty pressing). Not great, but very enjoyable.