jeffcrom

Needed something grittier after Stan Kenton: Sunny Murray - An Even Break (BYG). Love the interlocking saxes of Byard Lancaster and Kenneth Terroade.

Ken Stanton - Fire, Fury and Fun (Creative World). I picked this one up today because I didn't have any records featuring the recently deceased Tony Campise. He plays a great flute solo here on his own "Hog Fat Blues," but I was kind of disappointed that he wasn't given any alto solos.

Heritage of the March, Vol. 76 - music of Schroeder, Mancinelli, Nowowiejksi, and Massenet, played by the Allentown band. This volume includes some obscure non-march band music - I particularly like Cleopatra Overture by Mancinelli. My friends are welcome to mock me for my enjoyment of this series. Trolls can kiss my ass.

I almost put that one in my top three. I didn't because: 1) I thought I might be influenced by nostalgia - I bought the LP many years ago when I had just discovered George Adams and Don Pullen and didn't have many Mingus records. 2) Mingus himself turns in a kind of listless performance, bass-wise. But it's a great group - Adams, Pullen, Dannie Richmond, and the little-known Ronald Hampton on trumpet. Pullen and Adams are outstanding, and both contribute tunes. The Rhino/Atlantic CD issue has a couple of bonus tracks, including an early version of Pullen's "Big Alice." I think I'll listen to Mingus Moves today. Edit: I forgot to say the obvious - the main thing that makes this album appealing is the presence of several excellent, little-known Mingus compositions, like "Canon" and the unimaginatively titles "Opus 3" and "Opus 4."

I haven't had very good results with the one I bought - can't remember the brand right now. CDs that didn't play before treatment still didn't play afterwards.

The Complete HRS Sessions - disc five.

Donald Byrd - Free Form (BN mono). What a lineup - Byrd, Shorter, Hancock, Butch Warren, Higgins.

Horo pressings are so bad that you won't enjoy this album. Just send it me in Atlanta so it won't give you pain....

Barney Bigard/Albert Nicholas (RCA Vintage Series) - the Albert Nicholas side. Great Harlem jazz from 1935, recorded under the names Bernard Addison, Freddy Jenkins, and The Little Ramblers. Not only is Nicholas good here, but Bernard Addison on guitar and pianist Joe Turner (the other one) are very impressive.

Horizons seems to be Ira Sullivan's only album as leader between 1962 and 1975 - recorded in Miami after he moved there (March 2, 1967). It's by a quintet, with Sullivan playing trumpet, tenor, and soprano. The others are mostly Miami guys, and their playing is impressive: Lon Norman on trombone and baritone horn, Dolphe Castellano on piano and electric harpsichord, Bill Fry on bass, and Jose Cigno (whose playing I like very much) on drums. The program is a mix of bebop, standards, modal stuff, and "Norwegian Wood" with soprano and harpsichord. It was reissued on LP on Discovery at some point, and it looks like it came out on CD in one of the strange Collectibles pairings with a Luis Gasca album. Anyway, I like it - it shows how adventurous and wide-ranging Sullivan was.

Ira Sullivan - Horizons (Atlantic stereo). Very much "of its time" (1967) in some ways, but I don't mean that as a negative comment.

I'm going to make sure MG gets a sample of real southern barbecue at Harold's, Dean's, or the Old Brick Pit in Atlanta.

Tough, but I think I'd go with two of Paul's: Mingus Ah Um and Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus. I would replace the solo piano album (which I do find interesting) with Mingus at Antibes, which I think is phenomenal: searing solos, amazing ensemble concepts, and Mingus and Dannie Richmond are telepathic. Mingus Ah Um was also the first CM I heard, and it still sounds as good as ever to me. I have the expanded edition, but kept an old CD with the orignal edits - I like them both.

Have we got a troll here? Looks that way to me.

A joke for your birthday: How can you tell the trombone player's kids on the playground? They don't swing and they complain about the slide. Happy birthday!

Not quite the right thread for this, but I think that maybe Bunny Berigan recorded the worst song ever written in 1936: "The Goona Goo." Berigan plays well, and the instrumental parts aren't bad, but when Art Gentry started singing the lyrics I thought the floor was going to split and open a portal to hell. I'm too scared to reproduce the lyrics here, but if you're brave enough, they are here.

Bunny Berigan - The Key Sessions 1931-1937 (JSP); disc 5

Roy Haynes - Hip Ensemble (Mainstream). George Adams' recording debut.

Today's winner from the few 78s I played: Ivory Joe Hunter - I Like It/No Money, No Luck Blues (King). A good one. Side one has a bunch of Ellington guys (c. 1947) backing him up - Shorty Baker, Tyree Glenn, Russell Procope, Pettiford, and Greer.

The vinyl I'm spinning, posted for all the world to see: Karl Berger/Dave Friedman/Tom van der Geld/Wolfgang Lackerschmid - Vibes Summit (MPS). I'm a sucker for these Joachim Berendt "summits" - four great soloists on the same instrument and a rhythm section. I've got the flute, alto and trombone LPs in addition to this one. The vibes LP is excellent - not cluttered or "clangy" at all.

Thanks, CT. I figure most of us who listen to lots of different music have odd little corners in our musical tastes that seem strange to others. And I certainly don't mind being ribbed about my taste by those I respect here.

Okay, many of you will think this is weird: Heritage of the March, Volume 73 - US Naval Academy Band. There seem to have been at least 100 volumes of this series, featuring various bands and intended for band geeks such as myself. I found a few volumes in a used record store a couple of weeks ago and bought one that looked interesting - the marches of Charles Zimmerman (bandmaster of the Naval Academy band from 1862 to 1916) and Michele Lozzi, an obscure Italian-American band composer. Marches are easy to write, but hard to make interesting. Most of the Zimmerman and Lozzi marches here are really good - melodic and original. I'm enjoying this one so much that I'm going back to pick up the other volumes I saw.

Just picked up a cool "new" 78, which gives me two by the great klezmer clarinetist Dave Tarras. Just played them back to back: Two Rumanian tunes (the full titles are in Hebrew) on a British "Magic Notes" label Columbia. Really beautiful clarinetizing. Kosatchok/Komarinska by the Dave Tarras Orchestra on a blue-label Savoy. This one is just too cool. The tunes alternate straight klezmer passages with sections arranged for a medium-sized swing band. The arrangements are by Tarras's son-in-law Sam Musiker, who was Gene Krupa's clarinet soloist in the early forties; Musiker is a great klezmer clarinetist himself. I like this record a lot.

Woody Herman Evelyn Wood George Washington Carver

Another 10-incher, from 1952: Hot vs. Cool on MGM. This is a fun album, based on a gimmick: Jimmy McPartland's dixieland group (including Ed Hall, Vic Dickenson, and George Wettling) and Don Elliott's modernists (with Buddy DeFranco, Max Roach, and guest Dizzy Gillespie) each play the same four tunes. The silly concept results in some excellent performances.