jeffcrom

Back in October, Lazaro Vega posted that he was looking for the Jazz View CDs of Tadd Dameron's band with Fats Navarro at the Royal Roost. I found copies for him and for me. I figured that there would be some overlap between them and the Milestone CD Fats Navarro Featured With the Tadd Dameron Band. It turns out that the first ten tracks from the Milestone CD are also on the Jazz View CDs - that's all of the Milestone tracks except the three on which Kai Winding replaces Navarro. That leaves plenty of tracks on the two Jazz View CDs which aren't on the Milestone. The Jazz View tracks often have Symphony Sid's spoken introductions, which is cool, but the high end has been drastically rolled off to eliminate surface noise; this affects the sound very negatively. So the Milestone issue sounds better, even with surface noise. Anyway, they're all worth having, and I finally got around to making a little chart of which of the Milestone tracks are on which Jazz View CD. I tried to get the PDF just the right size to fit neatly into a CD booklet, but I got tired of fooling with it before I reached that point. If you download this chart and print it at 80 or 85%, it should fit pretty well. Dameron RR chart.pdf

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

George Lewis was what he was - a simple musician whose style never changed. His early recordings have a freshness and directness that I like a lot. He probably recorded too much over the years - there's a sameness about many of the later recordings. But there are some good ones, too, like the Atlantic album. George Lewis Plays Hymns, mentioned by jazztrain, works so well because it's so straightforward and sincere. I agree with Greg M. that Bechet's "Blue Horizon" is a masterpiece. I can't follow him into Eddie Daniels appreciation, though. Daniels has amazing command of the clarinet, but his music leaves me cold.

I knew I would forget to mention one of my heroes. How could I have overlooked Jimmy Giuffre?

Cool - I didn't know he had a new one out. Thanks for the tip!

Any particular album recommendations? Damn. Okay.... I was going to use something from one of these albums on my next Blindfold Test. But this is more important. Try this for a readily available album: Delta Bound on Arbors. My favorite Evan C. album is probably going to be hard to find if you don't live in France. It's called Introduction: Live at the Meridien. I can't even tell for sure what the label is - Classic Jazz, maybe, or Jazz Traditions Project. But it's very cool - Evan plays standards, Ellington, and Ornette with a French guitar/bass/drums rhythm section. Same request here. All I have are four tracks with Billie Holiday & Bunny Berigan. Mostly Faz on Jazz Band is very good. Most of it is two mid-40s sessions from when he moved back to New Orleans. Otherwise look for the stuff he did with Bob Crosby. Yeah, Doreen's great. Not really in the first rank of New Orleans clarinetists, but not that far off, either. And I forgot to mention Ben Schenck, a New Orleans guy who just gets better and better. His band is the Panorama Jazz Band - they've got three albums, of which Come Out Swingin' is the best. They play traditional jazz, klezmer, calypso - all sorts of stuff.

15 divides so nicely into thirds, so here are my comments on the first five tracks. I like every track, and almost every moment of every track. I'll mention the one exception below. I don't recognize anyone except for one musician. 1. A wonderful version of Monk's "Skippy." Two excellent musicians, and I have a weakness for good stride piano. I love the contrary motion at the beginning of the piano solo, where the improvised melody ascends while the bass line is descending. The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the trumpet player's double- or triple-tonguing - that's a sound I've never much cared for in jazz. But a great performance, nonetheless. 2. This sounds like the heyday of free jazz - the 1960s. I like the fact that the soloists keep the theme in mind while they're improvising. No one who listens to this one carefully could say that the playing is just random. Are there two drummers? I didn't like the bass duet. The first bass solo was good, but once the second bassist entered it got ugly. And good jazz is never ugly - free jazz or not. Albert Ayler was alway beautiful, no matter how intense the music got. 3. Wow - is this Buell Neidlinger's tune "O.P?" I've always thought that was a great bass player's tune. Good performance, good solos, even if they aren't particularly distinguished. 4. Interesting performance - I love the pointillism. Again, the horn players aren't just blowing randomly; everything they play has a melodic point to make, even if the melodic language is pretty abstract. I'm looking forward to finding out more about this well-organized piece of music. 5. Sunny Murray on drums, I'm pretty sure, but I don't know what album this is from. Hard-core free music from the 60s again. It must have been a shock for a lot of folks back then, but it makes sense to me. I like this one a lot.

Jeez, I love the clarinet. Most of my favorites are from New Orleans, not surprisingly. I don't know that I can put them in any particular order. Sidney Bechet, Irving Fazola, Willie Humphrey, Harry Shields (not his brother Larry), Raymond Burke, Tim Laughlin, Evan Christopher, Ed Hall, Albert Nicholas, Alvin Batiste. I could elaborate on all of these, but I'll just say that Willie Humphrey improvised with a brilliance which was usually not recognized during his lifetime - he was just thought of as the the old guy who played with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. If you want to judge for yourself, his best single recital might be the Eureka Brass Band's Jazz at Preservation Hall album - Willie plays one amazing solo after another. and some non-New Orleanians: Benny Carter (It was a tragedy when he stopped playing clarinet), Pee Wee Russell, Frank Teschemacher, Lester Young, John Carter. And yes, of course - Benny G. and Artie S. You almost don't even have to say that. I'll go out on a limb and say that my favorite living jazz clarinetist is probably Evan Christopher. Most of the folks who have heard of him probably have dismissed him as a revivalist. He's more or less a traditionalist, but he's got a wider range than most folks realize, and he's an amazing improviser. And as far as I can tell from recordings, the great Irving Fazola had the most beautiful clarinet sound I've ever heard. And since I've been listening to lots of klezmer lately, I have to mention the great Dave Tarras and Naftule Brandwein. They ain't jazz, though.

Duke Ellington - Ellington Indigos (Columbia stereo) I don't know how many Ellington albums I have, but it's a lot. This is probably the least-played album among them, but it was just right for me tonight. I didn't even buy this one - it was an unexpected bonus with an Ebay purchase. It's supposed to be a representative sample of the music Ellington would play for a dance, circa 1957 - a collection of well-done pop songs, three by Ellington himself. Not Ellington's most profound album, but like I said - just right for tonight.

Okay - BFT update. Seeline is not going to be able to present a BFT for September, but Hot Ptah has his ready to go and has agreed to take September. So I moved everyone up a month, except myself. I moved Tom in RI up two months - since he hasn't presented before, I thought he should move ahead of me. I'll be contacting the other presenters individually to make sure they're all okay with this. If you're interested in participating in a future Blindfold Test as a listener or presenter, read the first post in this thread for info. And I promise an updated FAQ and Master List soon.

Joe Henderson/Woody Shaw - Jazz Patterns (Everest) Dubious provenance, but excellent music.

I was actually kind of "suspicious" of this one for years - I picked up Recollections, a solo album Brown made a decade later, first. And I was never very fond of Recollections, so I delayed getting the Solo Saxophone for far too long. It's really wonderful.

Marion Brown - Solo Saxophone (Sweet Earth) Beautiful.

Killer solo, Jim!

Ornette Coleman/Paul Bley - Coleman Classics Volume 1 (Improvising Artists)

Cab Calloway Robert DeNiro Jodie Foster

Jackie Gleason Jackie Mason Perry Mason

Sorry to hear this. RIP.

Sookie Tawdry Sookie Stackhouse Houston Stackhouse

I have this one, and the liner notes, FWTW, say that it's Tristano on all but one track, where it's Argonne Thornton. Don't know that it's Thornton, but on that track it's certainly not Tristano. OTOH, I'm pretty sure that it is Tristano on the other tracks, albeit a Tristano who is not very comfortable with the styles of Harris and Phillips and perhaps in response seems to be trying to draw as much of contrast as possible between their hot driving muscularity and his (if you will) "out" inclinations. In other words, it's often "flashy" Lennie and a bit nervous. Also, if this is Tristano, it is still pretty early in the game for him. BTW, this date is listed in the discography in Eunmi Shim's Tristano bio. I just listened to my copy of the Jazz Showcase LP. It's definitely Tristano on "What Is This Thing Called Love," "Just You, Just Me," and "A Knight in the Village." There's not enough piano on the short ballad medley to tell, and the pianist on "Flip Meets Bill" is certainly not Tristano - could be Argonne Thornton; I'm actually embarrassed that I had never noticed it wasn't the same pianist. To me, Lennie's playing on the above three tracks sounds exactly like he sounded during that period, especially on informal recordings like this. Compare it to the Barry Ulanov All Star broadcasts of the next month. Incidentally, it had been a while since I've played this LP, and it was quite a trial. It's very poorly pressed, and I had to double the weight on my tonearm just to get it to track. And I'm not taking sides on Allen's Tristano/Hancock argument, but as I listened to this record I was struck by how often Lennie, like Herbie 20 years later, builds his lines in fourths.

I'm jealous of you guys who heard Johnny Hodges in person.... Of altoists who have been mentioned in this thread, I've heard Benny Carter, Lee Konitz, Ornette, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Marion Brown, Arthur Blythe, Julius Hemphill, James Spaulding, and Oliver Lake that I remember.

Wow - don't know those records at all. I'll be on the lookout. I know Eubanks from his playing on Jelly Roll Morton's 1923 Okeh session. Today's 78 spins, old and new: (Well, they're all old, but some are new to me.) I started and ended with one of the minor masterpieces of early jazz: Kentucky Grasshoppers: Makin' Friends (Banner, 1929) A vocal, trombone, and half-of-a-trombone-played-into-a-water-glass feature for Jack Teagarden, but young Jimmy McPartland also has a nice solo. The flip side's not bad, either - it's by Fred Rich's dance band, but both Dorsey brothers are on hand and have solos. Then on to modern jazz: the complete Parrot recordings of Ahmad Jamal: But Not For Me/Seleritus; Excerpts From the Blues/It Could Happen to You (Parrot, 1954) Between his stints with Okeh/Columbia and Chess/Argo, Jamal recorded these four tunes for the Chicago label Parrot. They're as good as anything he did during this period; they're also Richard Davis's recording debut. Then some old-time country by Bill Cox: The Death of Frank Bowen/When We Sing of Home (Gennett, 1929-ish) Rollin' Pin Woman/Star Boarder Blues (Banner, 1934) I've got three Bill Cox records now; I really like him for country music during this period. On to some later country: Delmore Brothers - Pan American Boogie/Troubles Ain't Nothin' But the Blues (King, 1949) I like this one a lot. Vin Bruce - Fille de la Ville/Dans la Louisianne (Columbia, 1952) A cajun boy, if you couldn't tell. Merle Travis - So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed/Sweet Temptation (Capitol, late 40s) A hoot. Then, two early Hungarian records I found the other day. I think I said in this thread recently that I have really come to treasure Columbia's "E" series of ethnic records. I tend to pick these up even if I don't know what they're going to sound like - I've discovered some really interesting stuff this way. Based on the label style and catalog numbers, these are probably from 1915 or before. I can't read Hungarian, so I'm a little unclear on what I'm hearing and who is performing, but two of the sides are very cool - a clarinet solo with band accompaniment and a violin solo with piano. And I ended up with "Makin' Friends" again. A nice hour among the shellac.

Sure, although not as number one. And let's not forget another great Smith: Tab Smith. And while we're at altoists nor mentioned before in the thread: Earl Bostic. And John Jackson! Yes on Tab and Jackson - not so sure about Bostic... I can take about 3-4 tracks of him at the time. As for Willie Smith: not a #1 choice, sure... but everyone's been posting lengthy lists and he turned up on none. Well, I guess people just aren't playing Jimmie Lunceford any longer. Well, I'm definitely a Willie Smith fan. And I like many of the other altoists named. But I already feel like I cheated enough by answering "Who's your favorite alto sax player?" with a list. After my list of nine favorites and three "alternates," Buster Smith, Willie Smith, and Marion Brown would probably be my next three. And I promise to stop there....

Well, it does say "Double Play."

Tampa Red - Guitar Wizard (RCA Bluebird) A 1975 double LP, not the Columbia "Blues and Roots" CD.