jeffcrom

Original Zenith Brass Band - Marching Jazz (Circle 3-record album). The second recording of a New Orleans brass band, from 1946.

When I was a kid and got interested in jazz, my sweet mom would bring home anything that looked like an interesting jazz album found during her junk store jaunts. She came home one day with a copy of the US Good Time Jazz issue of this, which I still have. I was so entranced by the power of Ory's playing on this; I thought, "I hope I can play like that when I'm 70."

Before this BFT closes out tomorrow, I wanted to comment on this Hot Ptah quote: I was listening to Allen Lowe's box set, Really The Blues? (Box 1, with the first nine of thirty six CDs which make up the entire set). This Jelly Roll Morton track was surrounded by tracks by other artists from the early 1920s. This track jumped out at me. My initial thought was, "this song is where a lot of Professor Longhair's piano style comes from!" I really like Professor Longhair's music, from decades later. Some of Professor Longhair's signature devices can be heard in this 1923 Jelly Roll Morton recording, to my ears. So that made me think. Did Professor Longhair actually know this 1923 Jelly Roll Morton recording, and was he greatly influenced by it? Or was this just a style of piano playing common in New Orleans as Professor Longhair was developing his style, which he heard in bars and clubs? If that is the case, was it a style common in New Orleans because of this 1923 Jelly Roll Morton recording? Was this specific 1923 Jelly Roll Morton recording the source? Or was it a common piano style in New Orleans anyway, and no one thought of this 1923 Jelly Roll Morton recording as a source for it? Or, was it a common piano style in New Orleans before Jelly Roll Morton recorded this track in 1923, and Morton was just documenting what he was hearing in the bars and clubs prior to 1923? I have no idea what the answer is. Since Professor Longhair was a big influence on a lot of New Orleans music after him, if this 1923 Jelly Roll Morton recording was in fact the specific source for a lot of Professor Longhair's style, then this 1923 Jelly Roll Morton recording is the hugely influential source for a great deal of music in later decades. As intriguing an idea as this is, I doubt if Professor Longhair was directly influenced by Jelly Roll Morton. "New Orleans Joys" came out when Fess was five years old. Jelly had already left New Orleans, and if I remember his biography correctly, never returned to his hometown. It just seems unlikely that Fess would have known that record, which would have been out of print and tough to find well before he was ten. That Caribbean/rumba influence was just something in the air in New Orleans - Pops Foster even spoke of Buddy Bolden playing "a slow blues with a Spanish beat." Fess's progenitors were the "junker blues" pianists like Champion Jack Dupree. I just think that he felt that style strongly, and it came out in lots of his tunes.

Larry, your dream prompted me to explore one of my pet theories - and reject it. "I Don't Know What Kind of Blues I've Got" has long been on of my favorite Ellington recordings. From the first time I heard it, I thought that the first clarinet solo was by Barney Bigard, but that the second one, with its hard, clear sound, was by Harry Carney. Ellington did that kind of thing every once in awhile - he would use different soloists on the same instrument on the same record for their slightly different sounds/feels. Listening to the master take, I could convince myself that I'm right. But on the alternate take, the balance of the saxophone section is slightly different, and I can hear Harry Carney's baritone behind the clarinet in the third chorus. Oh, well. I'm glad I finally know for sure. But cool dream.

I tend to avoid these "recommendations" threads, because everything an artist has done ends up being recommended. But I love Milhaud's EMI Composers in Person CD, mostly because of the the 1932 recording of "La Creation du Monde". It's the most revelatory reading of this masterpiece I've ever heard. I don't know who the clarinet player is, but his jazz feel is pretty amazing, for a French classical player of the time. It's not quite like Johnny Dodds is playing under Milhaud's baton, but it's least a little like Garvin Bushell is.

Sunday morning in August in the Mississippi Delta, off New Africa Road south of Clarksdale. I took this picture with a cheap camera, which did have a panorama mode, around 1995 or so. Bev, thanks for the Avebury picture. I cherish the afternoon I spent there around 20 years ago.

Upping the ante: http://www.catsonsynthesizersinspace.com/

I imagine just about everything has been identified by now. Haven't looked at the thread. 1. “New Orleans Joys/Blues” by Jelly Roll Morton, recorded for Gennett in 1923. This is one of my favorite of the early Jelly Roll piano solos, mostly due to the New Orleans rumba feel, so much like many of Professor Longhair records years later. And Jelly never plays “just” a blues; he’s too much of a composer for that. There are three distinct strains here, even if the second and third are marked by riffs rather than fully developed melodies. And I love the passage where his right-hand improvising is seemingly in a different, but related tempo, from the bass line. 2. “House Warmin’” by Howard McGhee and The Blazers. (Or Howard McGee, and the label of my Winley 45 says.) I love the idea of McGhee and Gene Ammons with an R & B rhythm section; they play well, and the concept works. I’m not going to dig out the 45 to see, but I believe McGhee and Ammons each get another solo on side two. 3. I don’t know – this was just okay for me. The feel was lightweight, but fun. As a soloist, the organist needed to edit himself some, and I thought that the tenor player was kind of repetitive. Enjoyed the guitarist, though – Grant Green? 4. I jokingly said that a Sun Ra track was a requirement for every BFT, and here you go. This is a nice early one, “Reflections in Blue,” from 1956. In typically confusing Ra fashion, this was issued on both the Saturn album Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth and on Delmark’s Sound of Joy. Besides excellent solos by usual suspects John Gilmore and Pat Patrick, I particularly enjoyed the trumpet solo by Art Hoyle. And the tympani and Wurlitzer piano show Ra’s interest in exploring his sound palette pretty early. Nice one. 5. Nice! I don’t know much about Latin jazz, so I have nothing intelligent to say except that this made me enjoy “Caravan,” a tune I’m kind of sick of. 6. First thought: Mal Waldron. Nope. Second thought: Abdullah Ibrahim. Yep. Third thought: I know what this is: “Impressions of a Caravan.” This piece builds to be greater than the sum of its parts. There was no single moment that I loved, but I loved the whole thing. Don’t know if that makes any sense. 7. Yeah! This is an exciting piece of music. Somebody’s got chops and imagination. No idea who it is. 8. More Ra, this time from 1977 – Some Blues But Not the Kind That’s Blue. I really like John Gilmore here. I guess the flute is Marshall Allen. I’m not too impressed with the trumpet solo by Akh Tal Ebah; it sounds like he doesn’t know what to do with the changes. I saw this album when it first came out, in an Atlanta record store with a bunch of other Ra albums. They all had hand-decorated covers, and I was so confused about which ones to buy that I didn’t get any of them – one of my all-time stupidest moves. I had to wait years until the Atavistic CD reissue. 9. The great Art Ensemble of Chicago, playing “Charlie M” from Full Force. The solos by Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors are great, but I also like some of the subtler touches, like the use of dual bass saxophones in one section. Beautiful. 10. Another great Chicago band – Air, from Air Lore, their album of (mostly) Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton compositions. I heard this version before I had ever heard an “authentic” version of Joplin’s original conception. I love the way they found a way to make this music contemporary, and found a different tempo that worked for each section. The original sheet music contains one of favorite directions to the performer at the last strain: “The pianist will please Stamp the heel of one foot heavily upon the floor at the word “Stamp.” 11. An interesting late-1940s big band record (on “What is This Thing Called Love” changes), with just enough modern touches to be really intriguing. Is that Herbie Fields on alto? 12. Sounds like a Paul Motian group at first, but later, I don’t think so. I really have no idea about who this is, but it’s very good. 13. McCoy Tyner, playing his old boss’s “Moment’s Notice,” from the Supertrios – Ron Carter and Tony Williams are the rhythm section. Dang; Williams is killing me. In my opinion, this is an all-star ensemble that actually works; I like it a lot. Thanks for a good one - I liked it all.

Sun Ra - The Sound Mirror (Saturn). A 1978 album with one side from a Variety Studios session and one side from the quartet tour of Italy. My copy is in a plain white sleeve and has blank labels with handwritten catalog and side numbers. I have a few Saturns like that.

Happy birthday, Chuck!

Buncha Fletcher Henderson tonight - 1923-1931, on Vocalion, Silvertone, Banner, National Music Lovers, Domino, and Montgomery Ward.

Dickey Myers - Dickey's Mood (Quadrangle). A 1979 album by an obscure, but talented tenor saxophonist, produced by one Allen Lowe, who wrote four of the tunes. The great Joe Albany is on piano.

"Agent Layoff Karma" is an anagram of "Lofty Fake Anagram."

Stella Chiweshe - Ambuya? (Globe Style)

Ellington Centennial Edition - disc five (with "Creole Rhapsody") tonight; And His Mother Called Him Bill this morning.

If I had to whittle all the Lacy on my shelves down to a half dozen items, this would be one of them - one of my absolute favorites.

Happy birthday, Larry!

Okay; that looks cool!

Walter "Foots" Thomas - Hot Jazz (Davis). Foots is mostly forgotten today, but he attracted some great musicians on his sessions - Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Budd Johnson, Oscar Pettiford, Cozy Cole, Doc Cheatham, etc. A very cool four--record 78 album.

I haven't heard him on C melody, but was very impressed with his alto playing at a recent gig in Atlanta and on the CDs I've heard - beautiful sound and lots of imagination. Nice guy, too.

This is the most unexpected and delightful post here in a while. This really tickled me.

Do they actually play the Ben Tucker tune of the same name? I'd like to hear Roy Eldridge playing that one.

That's the complete session by the Hawkins' 52nd Street All-Stars. I love that session.

The cream of this morning's spins of new acquisitions: Sonny Boy Williams - Rubber Bounce/Reverse the Charges (Decca, 1942). This is a fabulous, under-the-radar record, due to the trumpet solos by Freddie Webster on both sides. "Reverse the Charges" is a Webster composition (with lyrics by Enoch "Sonny Boy" Williams), and Webster's sixteen-bar solo is as modern as anything in jazz at the time. King Oliver - What You Want Me to Do?/Too Late (Bluebird) A 1937-38 reissue of some of my favorite Oliver Victor sides, from 1929. This one is in amazingly good condition, and sounds wonderful.

No, and there are really no decent record stores in the French Quarter now. (The Louisiana Music Factory is still great, but they have moved across Esplanade to Frenchmen Street in the Marigny nieghborhood.) Magic Bus has been gone five or six years now; I think that the space was still vacant the last time I walked by. The incredible Record Ron's (Ron had two French Quarter locations) disappeared when Ron died in 1996. There was a messy, disorganized store, the name of which I can't think of right now, on Decatur Street near Esplanade that I visited for nearly 20 years, but they are also now closed. Magic Bus was always my second favorite New Orleans record store, after the Lousiana Music Factory. Probably my best score there was a complete Bix Beiderbecke CD set on the Italian IRD label for 60 bucks. Besides the Music Factory, there are still a couple of good record stores in New Orleans. There's a branch of Euclid Records in the Bywater neighborhood. And Jim Russell's Rare Records on Magazine Street is an experience not to be missed, for those with a certain degree of patience. The arrangement and pricing of the records is totally random and arbitrary. But I've found some incredible stuff there, and their selection of New Orleans R & B 45s is jaw-dropping.