jeffcrom

I like it. Burton and his rhythm section sound good - more straight-ahead than usual. Grappelli sounds fantastic - some of the best playing I've heard by him (although there are tons that I haven't heard).

Gary Burton & Stephane Grappelli - Paris Encounter (Atlantic mono promo)

Fritz Kreisler on one-sided Victor Red Seals: Dvorak: Humoresque (12" - 1910) Kreisler: Caprice Viennois (12" - 1910) Handel: Largo (12" - 1914) Tchaikowsky: Chanson sans Paroles (10" - 1916) Pretty lightweight stuff, for the most part, but Kreisler's playing is just gorgeous.

Kaiser Wilhelm Kaiser Marshall Marshall Royal

HBBB!

Finally got some time to listen. Here's the first half: 1. The old blues-with-a-bridge. This is very well done – tasty without being particularly original. It’s good, but could be almost anyone. 2. Wow! This, on the other hand, is tasty and very original. I like the band, I like the piece, I like the space, I like the interaction. Very nice, compact trumpet sound – is this a cornet? Two thumbs up, plus my big toes. 3. Another winner. My first thought was Perry Robinson, but the sound is a little fuller than Robinson’s. I’m going to make the somewhat ridiculous statement that it’s either Perry Robinson or someone I’m not familiar with. I love the moody atmosphere here. 4. Great! Don’t have any idea who it is, but the conception and playing are excellent. The trumpeter has listened to Lester Bowie. 5. More interesting music I’ve never heard. Some fine bass playing, but once again I have no idea who it is. 6. Ditto the first sentence above. This kind of bass-less trio is hard to make work, but these guys do a nice job. I like the drumming – solid and loose at the same time. I have a feeling that I’m going to kick myself when I find out who the tenor player is. 7. I’m not even sure how many people are playing here. It’s well-done, but kind of episodic – a bunch of parts that don’t really hang together very well, in my opinion. 8. To be honest, my comments about track 1 also apply here. It’s a solid group of musicians whom I don’t recognize, playing competently in an established style. So why do I find this track so much more interesting than track 1? It could be that this area – a Coltrane-esque minor blues – has not been quite as thoroughly mined as the shuffle blues of the earlier track. Or it could be just personal taste. In any case, I like this. 9. The piano solo is fabulous – thoughtful, moving, and spacey. The whole track is touching; good singer, even if this kind of very “clean” jazz singing doesn’t usually get to me. Once again, no idea who anyone is. Although I'm sure you can tell I like some tracks more than others, I'm kind of amazed that there's nothing I don't like here (although track 7 comes closest). Part 2 will follow soon.

Which is why I'll never buy another recording with TS Monk on it. He has no way to know absolutely that his father wrote that piece but Sonny's estate doesn't sue him so he gets away with stealing a piece published by Sonny Clark. That's just not right. Well, TS found the manuscript among his father's papers. That's a level of evidence I'm willing to accept. According to Robin Kelley's Monk biography, Monk knew Clark was down on his luck and just gave him the tune. My memory failed me on this - Kelley implies that Clark did steal the tune, and that Monk didn't want to make an issue of it.

George Lewis - Oh, Didn't He Ramble (Verve mono) One way to "read" the George Lewis story is through the many trumpet players who worked with him. Kid Howard played with him off and on from the 40s to the 60s, sometimes brilliantly, sometimes less so. Kid Shots Madison made his best records with Lewis. I really like the recordings from the 1960s with Jack Willis, who was practically a bebopper when compared to Lewis. George's favorite trumpeter was the rough-and-ready Elmer Talbert, who died young in the early 1950s. I think my favorite George Lewis trumpeter is Percy Humphrey, who replaced Talbert, but was unable to tour extensively due to his insurance business in New Orleans. Humphrey played a driving, exciting lead style which was almost totally pre-Armstrong in conception. This 1958 album has Alvin Alcorn, who sounds great here. He has a beautiful sound, and kind of floats over the beat rather than swinging hard. George Lewis was one of those musicians who probably made too many records; this couldn't be called his best, but it's still beautiful.

As far as I know, Lorenzo Tio didn't visit NYC until 1923, when he gigged and recorded with A. J. Piron's New Orleans Orchestra. (Great records, by the way.) Ed Hall was a country boy (from Reserve, Louisiana) and didn't even make it to New Orleans until 1919.

I don't know the specific account you're referring to, but the Creole Band, with George Baquet on clarinet, played New York as early as 1915. A quick glance at Lawrence Gushee's book about the band, Pioneers of Jazz, doesn't reveal any incident like you describe, but all I have time for now is a quick glance. The band certainly turned heads (and ears) all over the country on the vaudeville circuit.

Glad to hear it!

Acoustic Victor Red Seal classical vocal 78s are pretty common; instrumental records less so. But I like them when I can find them - the sound is really good for the time, which makes them the best way to at least get a glimpse of some of the great performers of that era. Today it was piano time, with a bunch of one-sided Red Seals: Olga Samaroff - Moszkowski: Sparks, Op. 36, No. 6 (10" - 1921) Vladimir de Pachmann - Chopin: Mazurka in F Sharp Minor, Op. 59, No. 3 (10" - 1912) Alfred Cortot - Chopin: Berceuse, Op. 57 (12" - 1920) Alfred Cortot - Liszt: Caprice Poetic (12" - 1919) Alfred Cortot - Weber: Invitation to the Waltz, Op. 65) (12" - 1923) All beautifully played.

Lee Lorenz George Booth Roz Chast

A bunch of Texas soul/blues 45s by the great Johnny Copeland: Down on Bending Knees/Just One More Time (Golden Eagle) Tryin' to Reach My Goal/If Love Is Your Friend (Atlantic) Hear What I Said/Please Let Me Know (Allboy) You're Gonna Reap Just What You Sow/Wake Up, Little Susie (Wand) Ain't Nobody's Business/Year Round Blues (Bragg) If You're Looking For a Fool (Wet Soul promo) Every Dog's Got His Day/Wizard of Art (Kent) There's a Blessing/May the Best Man Win (Golden Eagle) Just what I needed....

Looking for musical comfort after walking out of a school where I taught for 25 years for the last time today: Jimmy Smith - Open House (BN Liberty - but the first issue of this 1960 session) Next up: Jazz at the Philharmonic: The Challenges (Verve) The 1954 edition, with Dizzy, Roy, and Ben Webster. This is a really strange & unsettled evening - and sorry to interject personal stuff into this thread.

Happy Birthday! To celebrate, play "Flight of the Bumblebee" on pedals only.

According to Robin Kelley's Monk biography, Monk knew Clark was down on his luck and just gave him the tune.

Inspired by Ghost of Miles' Glenn Miller AAF band thread: Django Reinhardt with the Glenn Miller's All Stars - Paris 1945 (French CBS)

Consider including some of the jazz recordings made by members of the Miller AAF band in Paris in the Spring of 1945. I have a French CBS LP called Paris 1945, but I'm sure they've been issued elsewhere. Bernie Privin - trumpet Peanuts Hucko - tenor sax Django Reinhardt - guitar Mel Powell - piano Joe Shulman - bass Ray McKinley - drums: If Dreams Come True Stompin' at the Savoy Hallelujah How High the Moon Mel Powell solos: Hommage a Fats Waller Hammage a Debussy Don't Blame Me Poor Miss Black (These are really nice!) Puanuts Hucko - clarinet Mel Powell - piano Ray McKinley - drums: After You've Gone Shoemaker's Apron China Boy Sugar

Earlier: Dave Brubeck - Jackpot Now: Archie Shepp - Kwanza (Impulse) Happy Birthday. And Grachan Moncur - yeah!

The final rehearsal was pretty intense; I think what we accomplished surprised us all. I'm really looking forward to this gig.

After reading this thread, I stopped on my way home from work at a record store which I knew had a large shelf of Brubeck albums. Sure enough, they had a nice stereo copy of Jackpot. Brubeck's liner notes imply that he was not happy with either the tuning or the action of the baby grand piano, and that he dealt with the situation by having a few more drinks than usual. (That last part could well be comic exaggeration.) The piano does indeed sound bad - somewhat out of tune (although not painfully so), but also just hard and unpleasant sounding. But on several of the tracks Brubeck does sound looser than usual - not necessarily a bad thing. I really like his solo on "Win a Few, Lose a Few." "Rude Old Man" is a nice bass feature, and Joe Morello has a long feature number; if you like long Joe Morello solos, it's a pretty good one. Desmond is his usual wonderful self, and plays particularly beautifully on "Out of Nowhere" and "You Go to My Head." Jackpot won't change anybody's life, but it's a nice album, and I'm glad I got it. I was hoping that the store would have a copy of the I Like Jazz album mentioned by Donald, but no such luck. They did have a couple of copies of the Brubeck/Bernstein record - I'll probably go back and get that one.

Music in which none of the twelve notes in the Western chromatic scale is given any more emphasis than any of the others. In the key of B flat, B flat is the most important note, F is (arguably) the next most important - those notes are given more weight. In twelve-tone music (and this is a simplified explanation), none of the twelve notes can recur until all twelve have appeared. Since none of the twelve tones is emphasized, there's little or no feeling of key center; the music is atonal - which doesn't mean it's cacophonous or chaotic; it just means that there's no key center. In jazz, besides Murphy, David Mack made a really nice album of twelve-tone music - it's pretty obscure. And John Carisi used a modified twelve-tone technique at times. More info here.

The Many Faces of Art Farmer (Scepter)

Richard Roberts Richard Rogers Lorenz Hart