jeffcrom

The Soul of Jazz (World Wide). A strange one, which I forgot I had - I came across it while thumbing through my LPs. There's no leader listed, but it seems to be organized by arranger Billy Ver Planck - and it's listed under his name in Michel Ruppli's Savoy discography. World Wide was apparently Savoy's early stereo subsidiary, lasting for about 20 albums. The music is mostly self-conscious soul/gospel jazz, with corny heads and heavy backbeats. Four originals are credited to "Davis," whom I assume to be Ver Planck. But I enjoyed this immensely tonight, because the soloists are excellent. Joe Wilder, Bill Harris, Pepper Adams, and especially Bobby Jaspar and Eddie Costa are in great form. And George Duvivier's bass lines are worth a listen on their own.

I know this isn't the main topic of this thread, but - I've been looking for a John Pierce clarinet mouthpiece for about two years now. Since they are no longer made, they don't often show up, and when they do, they tend to be very expensive. A few weeks ago I searched again, and found one for under $100 (that's on the low end of what a professional quality mouthpiece costs), and snatched it up. I really love it - it has a great sound and lots of volume. I'd say that it's designed for playing jazz in general, not dixieland per se.

I've been enjoying my 78s so much that I've kept my turntable set up for those shellac discs for nearly a month now. I changed over to the LP setup today, and it's like discovering vinyl all over again. Tonight, so far: Circle - Paris Concert (ECM). An old friend. Jimmy Giuffre - 7 Pieces (Verve mono). Great music, but really softly mastered. Sleepy Time Gal (Center). This excellent album of traditional New Orleans jazz has no leader or band name listed. It has been reissued in Jim Robinson's name, but it's really, in essence, The December Band, Volume 3. (Does that mean anything to anyone here? I'm probably speaking another language.) Anyway, it was recorded at the same 1965 concert which produced the two December Band albums on Jazz Crusade and GHB. Kid Thomas Valentine and Capt. John Handy are on board.

Atlanta Jazz Festival, Summer, 1980 I went to most of this. A couple of months later, our local public television station broadcasted an hour-long program of performances from the festival. VCRs existed at the time, but I didn't have one, so I plugged my cassette recorder into the headphone jack of my portable TV, and so have one hour of music from that festival. Here's what was aired: Mary Lou Williams with Milton Suggs, bass: History of Jazz: Spiritual/Fandango/Blues/Kansas City/Boogie Woogie unknown title George Adams/Don Pullen Quartet with Cameron Brown and Dannie Richmond: Metamorphosis for Mingus. This tune is 15 minutes long. I also remember that they did "Double Arc Jake" and two more tunes. Arthur Blythe with James Blood Ulmer, Abdul Wadud, Bob Stewart, and (I think) Bobby Battle: Down San Diego Way Marion Brown with Bill Braynon, Gregg Maker and Freddie Waits: unknown funk tune Wade in the Water (solo)

I just came across a really nice four-page tribute page to Lacy on Point of Departure, consisting of quotes by his colleagues. It looks like it's from 2008, but I wasn't aware of it until tonight. http://www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD17/PoD17Esteem1.html

I started collecting 78s too late to have a huge, comprehensive, breathtaking collection - and that's not what I want, anyway. But one goal is to have representative samples of important early jazz (and blues and country) artists on the original labels. I had been wanting some of the Okeh records of Clarence Williams' Blue Five with Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet, and today two reasonably-priced examples (from different sources) arrived in the mail. Armstrong and Bechet do not appear together, unfortunately - "Everybody Loves My Baby / Of All the Wrongs You've done to Me" has Louis but not Sidney, and Sara Martin's "Atlanta Blues / Blind Man Blues" (acc. by the Blue Five) has Sidney but not Louis. But that's okay - Martin's "Atlanta Blues" has long been one of my favorite early jazz recordings, and I'm tickled to have it in decent shape in its original form.

Ten years worth of Ellinngton - 50 minutes of music, starting with "Move Over" on Cameo from 1928 and ending with "New East St. Louis Toodle-O" on Brunswick from 1937. I've said stuff like this before, but it's a really different experience hearing this music as a series of singles, as originally issued.

After early jazz earlier today, it was Alec Wilder 78 night tonight. I didn't play any non-Wilder B sides. Several of the pop performances were studies in how not to sing Wilder - his songs are melodically subtle, and require sensitivity, not over-singing. Johnny Ray ran roughshod over "Give Me Time," which Mildred Bailey sang so beautifully. Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney did better. Peggy Lee - While We're Young (Capitol) Tony Bennett - While We're Young (Columbia) Teresa Brewer - Goodbye, John (Coral) Mills Brothers - I'll Be Around (Decca) Mitch Miller Ensemble - Serenade for Horns/Horn Belt Boogie (Columbia promo) The four horns are John Barrows, Jim Buffington, Ray Alonge, and Gunther Schuller. Not bad! Johnny Ray - Give Me Time (Columbia) Rosemary Clooney - Love Among the Young (Columbia) Frank Parker - Parker's Lament (Columbia) Alec Wilder Octet - A Debutante's Diary/Neurotic Goldfish (Brunswick)

I deeply love Sam Rivers' music - he has been one of my musical heroes since I was a teenager. I saw/heard him three times that I'm sure about - in duo with Dave Holland back in the late 1970s, his "Florida trio" about ten years ago, and with Jason Moran. He drove up to Atlanta from Orlando to do the Moran concert. I'd like to mention the Impulse album Hues, which has concert excerpts by three different trios. The 1973 Norwegian concert with Arild Andersen and Barry Altschul has been reissued in full on CD (Trio Live), but there are 17 minutes by the Cecil McBee/Norman Connors trio from the Jazz Workshop in Boston, 1971, that have not been reissued. More importantly (to me), there are six minutes of a 1972 Michigan college concert with what (based on this six minutes) might be my favorite Rivers Trio, with Richard Davis and Warren Smith. I'd love to hear that entire concert.

I have many Threadgill albums, but not this one. This thread prompted me to order the Black Saint box, even though I already had half of the albums. I obviously can't comment about this music specifically, but I'll make a general comment. The way I hear it, around 1990, Threadgill expanded from being a "jazz" composer (an adventurous one) to a composer with no boundaries whatsoever. I love the way that any element of any musical world is fair game to Threadgill, and how those different elements are combined in so many different ways.

I like that Rifkin 6 Favorite Cantatas a lot. It sounds very natural to my ears, not mannered at all. This is wonderful - Stravinsky Sacred Works:

Albert Schweitzer playing Bach in the 1930s. Surprisingly good recordings and transfers.

Oscar "Papa" Celestin's Tuxedo Jazz Band in the 1940s and 1950s: High Society / When the Saints Go Marching In (New Orleans Bandstand) My Josephine / Hey La Bas (Regal) Marie Laveau / Maryland My Maryland (Regal) Tiger Rag / Darktown Strutters Ball (Columbia) This is not the most profound manifestation of New Orleans jazz, but it's still moving to me to hear some of the earliest jazz pioneers, like Celestin and Alphonse Picou, play with joyful abandon near the ends of their careers and lives. And these recordings are about 37 to 43 years into the longest-running jazz band in the music's history. Founded in 1910, the Tuxedo is still playing in New Orleans, and they are only on their fifth leader - Gerald French, the grandson of the Albert "Papa" French, the third leader, who plays banjo and guitar on the Columbia disc.

Since we're on the last day for this album, I'll reiterate something Paul alluded to. This CD, and most other issues of the Wolverines material, also contains the Sioux City Six and Bix and His Rhythm Jugglers sessions, recorded shortly after Bix left the Wolverines. The Rhythm Jugglers' "Davenport Blues" is considered to be prime Bix - it's his first recorded original composition, and his playing shows off his advanced harmonic ideas well.

I love Charles with Cecil Taylor, Steve Lacy (early, middle, and late), Billy Bang, etc. But don't overlook Drum Talk on Wobbly Rail. It's a wonderful duo album with Susie Ibarra. No, an hour's worth of drum/percussion duets is not boring at all; it's varied and fascinating. Drum Talk is out of print, but it looks like it can be had pretty cheaply if you look around.

Your meaning was clear enough except when someone (that would be me) reads too quickly and carelessly. You did put an idea in my head - I don't know why, in my 40 years of listening to Bix, I have never played, back to back, the Wolverines tunes he later remade with those later remakes. It's happening tonight.

It's a "yes" to how I misread the last part of statement. Oh, well.

The three adjectives you put before "Shy Guy" are just wrong, but the "Shy Guy" part I get. Part of Bix's greatness is that he presented one of the first alternatives to "hot jazz." His music was cool, pretty ("beautiful" is probably better) , and adventurous in an overtly intellectual way. But it was also Jazz with a captial "J," and Bix was almost always the hardest swinger in any group he recorded with. If you have it or can find it, listen to the Wolverines' version of "Tiger Rag," which survived only in a test pressing. It's fast and hot, and Bix plays plenty of blue notes in his solo. But he's still somewhere else, and that somewhere else didn't really fully reveal itself until Lester Young came on the scene. Yes. These were still early days for Bix, and most his greatest achievements were ahead of him. And the Wolverines were certainly a mixed bag. Like lots of jazz from the 1920s, listening to the Wolverine Orchestra requires sympathetic ears and a willingness to accept a certain amount of chaff along with the wheat.

You're not wrong, but it's ironic, because Leibrook was about the only member of the Wolverines besides Bix and pianist Dick Voynow (and Bix's replacement, Jimmy McPartland, of course) to go on to any kind of real career in the music business. He later added string bass and bass sax to his arsenal and joined Paul Whiteman's band, where he was reunited with Beiderbecke. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a studio and theater musician until his died prematurely at age 40.

The 1920s is late for the Archeophone label! For those who aren't familiar, their releases explore the earliest days of recorded sound.

Schubert - Trio No. 1 in B Flat, op. 99, played by Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals, and Alfred Cortot. An early Victor electric album, recorded in London in 1926. I've listened to this four-disc album frequently since I found it in an antique store in Michigan about ten years ago, but it has never before spoken to me like it did tonight.

Well, shoot - I didn't realize that this CD is already out of print. Certainly don't buy the $80 or $250 used copies I see on Amazon. It looks like they might still have some new copies for $18.73 here. An alternative would be the CD or download version of that Milestone album that entranced me as a teenager, Bix Beiderbecke and the Chicago Cornets. It's got all the Bix material the Off the Record set has, plus the two 1925 Wolverines sides with McPartland, plus part (why not all?) of the Muggsy Spanier Bucktown Five session from the same period. I don't know what the sound is like, but it can't be as good as The Complete Wolverines, because that's the best I've ever heard for this material.

Back the original topic - it amused me, as I was refiling CDs yesterday, that on my shelves Ken Colyer is between John Coltrane and Company, the Derek Bailey free-improv collective. I wonder what Mr. Colyer would think of that.

The Complete Wolverines:1924-1928 (Archeophone/Off the Record) I know that this album will not be to everyone's taste. But from what I could tell, there has only been one AOTW that included music from as far back as the 1920s, and I wanted to expand things a little. And the music is "important" as well as excellent. This music was not originally issued as an "album," of course, but as a succession of 78 RPM records with three minutes of music per side. But such collections of single records have made the AOTW lists before, and the Wolverines sides have been issued together in album form many times over years. I, and many other listeners, I suspect, think of them as a unit. The Archeophone/Off the Record CD is the clearest and cleanest reissue of this material yet. The sound is archaic, but should pose no problems to anyone coming to it with an open mind and ears. There's a certain personal nostalgia to my selection. The first two jazz albums I remember buying were a Charlie Parker collection and a Milestone two-fer called Bix Beiderbecke and the Chicago Cornets, which had the Wolverines sides along with other material. I suppose that was a strange choice for a teenager, but I had read about Bix and was fascinated. It took me about four minutes in to "get" Bix - I responded to his solo on "Jazz Me Blues" right away. The Wolverines (Wolverine Orchestra, officially) were young when they first recorded in the Gennett studio in Richmond, Indiana in 1924 - Bix was a month shy of 21. The band was influenced by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, but except for Beiderbecke, they couldn't match that band's easy sense of rhythm. What they did have to offer was a sense of adventurous modernism, in the context of the time. Presumably prodded by Bix, who had a strong sense of musical curiosity, they explored extended and altered chords, and interspersed their music with interesting arranged passages. But without Bix, they would probably be forgotten today. Listen to the first side the Wolverines recorded, the New Orleans classic "Fidgety Feet." Most of the band has a kind of jerky sense of time, athough they loosen up as the tune progresses, and clarinetist Jimmy Hartwell takes a credible low-register solo. But Bix is already somewhere else. Although he doesn't solo, his lead cornet is flowing and imaginative; he sings where the others plod. The next side, "Jazz Me Blues," includes Bix's first recorded solo. I may be exaggerating, but only slightly, when I say that this is where "cool jazz" was born. Even when I heard this solo all those years ago, I was struck by the beautiful note choices and the relaxed, graceful flow of the lines. The last of the Wolverines sides with Bix on board also features his first recorded piano solo. The "Big Boy" solo is a little clumsy and heavy-handed, but melodically and harmonically odd enough to reveal an unusual and original musical imagination. Beiderbecke reveals his youth with a few missteps here and there. For instance, his solo on Hoagy Carmichael's "Riverboat Shuffle" has some corny, repetitive licks in the mix. The two 1925 Wolverines sides recorded after Jimmy McPartland replaced Bix reveal mostly how much the band needed Beiderbecke. McPartland has started to mature by the 1927 "Original Wolverines" session, but the band is a rhythmic and ensemble mess. I want to put in a minor good word for the Wolverines' tenor saxophonist, George Johnson. He wasn't a particularly imaginative player, but he had a nice sound and seemed to be interested in just playing pretty music on the saxophone - he didn't resort to slap-tongueing or novelty effects, as so many saxophones at the time did; even young Coleman Hawkins wasn't immune.

Buncha stuff for a couple of weeks now. Today: Alexander Borowsky playing Liszt, Art Tatum on ARA, and a bunch of early country. Among the later the highlight was Muskrat Rag/Poca River Blues by (Dick) Jarvis (guitar) and (Reese) Jarvis (fiddle). A couple of years ago I was invited to play some of my Irish 78s on the Celtic music show on an Atlanta radio station. I played this one at the end to show how American country music developed ouf of the of reels and ballads from the British Isles and African-American music. "Muskrat Rag" is actually the traditional Irish tune "Miss McLeod's Reel."