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jeffcrom

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Posts posted by jeffcrom

  3. What vinyl are you spinning right now??

    in The Vinyl Frontier

    Posted

    0110150.jpg

    Cecil Taylor Quartet in Europe (Jazz Connoisseur). Rotterdam, November 9, 1969. I've always been slightly disappointed with the only official recording of the Taylor Quartet including Sam Rivers, issued in the US as The Great Concert of Cecil Taylor. I just found a nice copy of this bootleg of the same group six months later. On first hearing, I like it better than The Great Concert, except for the poor sound.

  6. McCoy Tyner's Milestone sessions

    in Artists

    Posted

    The second major jazz show I attended, at age 18 or so, was McCoy Tyner's group at a small club in Atlanta, with many of the musicians mentioned in this thread - Ron Bridgewater, Joe Ford, Charles Fambrough, Eric Gravatt, and I think Guilherme Franco on percussion. I was about four feet from Gravatt's ride cymbal, and it was intense.

  8. What Are Your Favorite Baseball Books?

    in Miscellaneous - Non-Political

    Posted

    Jim posted a picture early in the thread (13 years ago!) that might be of my favorite baseball book, but the internet has taken the image away.

    My favorite book when I was a kid was Strange But True Baseball Stories, by Atlanta sportswriter Furman Bisher. It came out in 1966, the year the Braves moved to Atlanta. It's a kid's book, but I still read it about once a year. The best stories are from the depths of the minor leagues, where odd things could happen - and still do.

    I'm on my second copy, because about 22 years ago I was dating a woman whose sister and nephew were visiting. We went to a Braves game, and the sister complained that she couldn't get her son to read. The next day I gave him this book, and he read the whole thing in the car between Atlanta and Knoxville.

  9. What 78 are you spinning right now ?

    in The Vinyl Frontier

    Posted

    9 hours ago, gmonahan said:

    Whoa, now THIS *is* obscure!! You sent me on a search. Apparently, this was recorded sometime in 1944?? Yanow wonders in his allmusic description of a defunct LP if Wilson was on all the tracks and if there wasn't also a bass??  Or is that something completely different? I do like your 78 posts, Jeff!!

     

     

    gregmo

    Recorded June 6, 1945. There's only 18 minutes of music in this three-disc album, so if it was put on LP, it was probably combined with material from the sessions Jerome did for the related Asch label. I've got two of those Asch 78s, and they're by larger bands - with bass and other pianists. So that's what Yanow probably was hearing.

    Tonight I spun those other two Jerome discs, plus this set again. All excellent, but Fingers... uh, Teddy... just kills it.

    And thanks for that last sentence. I'll keep posting.

  10. NOLA trombonist Wendell Eugene, RIP

    in Artists

    Posted · Edited by jeffcrom

    New Orleans trombonist Wendell Eugene died on Nov. 7 at the age of 94.

    http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/entertainment_life/keith_spera/article_2faed812-c5a1-11e7-979c-cbc09312c93c.html

    I have a special place in my heart for Wendell Eugene. I had never heard of him when I first visited New Orleans in 1990 and picked up an LP of previously-unreleased tracks on the 504 label. Three of the tracks were by Wendell Eugene's New Orleans band, and they were excellent, with muscular, intelligent New Orleans tailgate trombone. It took me a while to track down Eugene's own full-length LP on 504, West Indies Blues, but I finally snagged it. I somehow never heard him in person until very late in his performing life - at the Palm Court Cafe in 2014. He was obviously past his prime, but I remember a very moving blues from that evening.

    His older brother Homer (1914-1998) was also a trombonist, as well as a guitarist. There's a Peter Bocage recording from the 1950s which is all over the place stylistically, in a kind of wonderful way - Bocage's smooth, Creole trumpet, Emile Barnes' raw clarinet, and Homer Eugene's bebop guitar licks.

    RIP, Wendell Eugene.

  19. Big Ears Festival

    in Live Shows & Festivals

    Posted

    My closest friend and oldest musical partner, Rob Rushin, wrote a piece about last year's festival for the wonderful online magazine The Bitter Southerner.

    And I've got to put in a plug for perhaps the most obscure ensemble on the bill - Atlanta's Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel. The group is just what the name says it is, and they are pretty far from jazz, if that matters. "Ambient" would be their category, I guess. Scott Burland and Frank Schultz improvise long, atmospheric pieces in which it is seldom clear who is making what sound. They are almost always magical.

    Sometimes I think, "I've heard them so many times - do I really need to hear them again?" And I'm always glad I did.

     

  20. Same Song Title Different Composers

    in Miscellaneous Music

    Posted

    23 years before Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley wrote "Who Can I Turn To?," Alec Wilder wrote a song of the same title. They're both excellent pop songs, but I prefer Wilder's - it has his usual odd melodic turns and unusual harmonies. It hasn't been recorded that often, but I have it on a Morgana King LP, and Jo Stafford and Lee Wiley recorded it.

  24. 10 Classical Recordings You Enjoy Listening To

    in Classical Discussion

    Posted · Edited by jeffcrom

    I like the title and concept of this thread.

    Here are ten albums that get played a lot at my house. Some items will seem odd, maybe.

    Bach Cello Suites - Mischa Maisky (Deutsche Grammophon). My current favorite version. I had six recordings of the Suites; I just got rid of the two that I never played.

    Rascher Saxophone Quartet - Music for Saxophones (Cala). This album's highlights are the best recording (probably) of the Glazunov Quartet for Saxophones, a wonderful version of Steve Reich's "New York Counterpoint," and a transcribed Bach Chorale Prelude and Fugue that is one of the most beautiful things you'll ever hear.

    Stockhausen - Stop/Ylem; London Sinfonietta/Stockhausen (Deutsche Grammophon LP). A high point of Stockhausen's writing in terms of the balance between composition control and improvisational freedom.

    Ives - Symphony No. 4/Three Places in New England/Central Park in the Dark (Boston SO/Ozawa) (Deutsche Grammophon). Three of my favorite Ives pieces; excellent performances.

    Samuel Barber/Thomas Schippers - NY Philharmonic/Schippers (Sony). Schippers' "Adagio for Strings" stopped my in my tracks when I first heard it in a record store.

    John Cage - In a Landscape; Stephen Drury - piano, toy piano, and organ (Catalyst). I often turn to this calming, very still music when my mind is troubled.

    Mozart - 51 Symphonies; English Chamber Orchestra/Jeffrey Tate (EMI). There are certainly more exciting performances of some of the major symphonies here, but Tate is consistently good, and I can put on any of these 12 discs and find enjoyment.

    American Music - Donald Sinta, alto saxophone (Mark LP). Highlights are my favorite reading of the Creston Sonata for Saxophone and Warren Benson's heartbreakingly beautiful "Aeolian Song."

    Beethoven - Symphony No. 9; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra/Furtwangler (EMI). This 1951 recording is some of my favorite Beethoven on disc.

    United States Marine Band - The Bicentennial Collection. An amazing 10-disc set by the best concert band in the world. It's not all "classical" - there are light classics, marches, and rags, but I turn to this set often for some the masterpieces of wind band literature: Holst's Suite in E Flat; Hindemith's Symphony in B Flat for Band; Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy, Husa's Concerto for Wind Ensemble, etc.

  25. Poetry Corner

    in Miscellaneous - Non-Political

    Posted

    7 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

    I like, yours?

    Yes. Much to my surprise, I started obsessively writing haiku a couple of weeks ago. Most are trash, but I noticed that most of the good ones were blues-related, so I'm concentrating on that theme. I messed up the syllable count on my first one, several posts up, and when I revised it, it turned out to be a much better poem.

    Blues Haiku #1
    after Clara Smith

    Water drips from leaves -
    I never miss the sunshine;
    I'm so used to rain.

    Here's one for Atlanta's much-beloved Mr. Frank Edwards, who recorded in the 1940s - and a few hours before he died in 2002. Most nights he could be found on "his" stool in Blind Willie's, the Atlanta blues club, dressed to the nines and enjoying whatever band was on stage that night.

    Blues haiku #9
    For Mr. Frank Edwards

    That's Mister Frank's stool
    at the far end of the bar.
    One night he was gone.

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