jeffcrom

Don Elliott - Music for the Sensational Sixties (Design). Fun, goofy music. Hal McKusick's bass clarinet solos add some substance. The cover makes me smile, and so did the music this morning.

I'm going to contribute a very minor bit of history, not widely known, I don't think. One of my saxophone students is a Rothschild, a guy in his 60s. He says that after Bird's death, the Baroness was evicted from her apartment by the management, due to the scandal. Again, a minor footnote, but another little piece of the story.

This album, Through the Streets of the City: New Orleans Brass Bands (Smithsonian Folkways) was released a few months ago, but I just picked it up today. Although it's not perfect, I still recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good overview of New Orleans brass band music today. There are three bands represented: Michael White's Liberty Brass Band gets six tracks, the Treme BB has five, and the Hot 8 gets four. The Hot 8 is one of the best bands in the city today, and their tracks are hot (duh!) and funky. The Treme is a smaller band, as they usually are in "real life." their music is poised somewhere between the funk of the Hot 8 and the traditionalism of the Liberty. I like them a lot - they're totally unpretentious: just a fun, genial neighborhood brass band. Bruce Brackman is on clarinet, and he's one of New Orleans' hidden treasures. Which brings us to Dr. White's Liberty BB. They are overtly traditional, and are, well, a little on the polite and polished side. If you accept that, they are good, if maybe not really exciting. The trumpet section (Wendell Brunious, Gregg Stafford, and Dwayne Burns), is what must be the best traditional brass band trumpet section in the city. The Liberty's version of "Panama" slows down painfully - if it was my band, I wouldn't have allowed this recording to be released. But otherwise, they do a good enough job of demonstrating the traditional side of the city's brass band spectrum.

I can never tell if you're joking, but I don't think there's any beating up going on here.

I should probably just shut up and go away. But I love music and also enjoy a good bit of antiquarian indulgence. (How could it be otherwise, since I'm a 78 collector/listener?) What's wrong with that? There's plenty of stuff here that's not just about the music. Of course a thread in the vinyl forum called "Great Finds" is going to have a lot in it about finding cool obscurities. There's nothing wrong with any of this. Let people share what they're excited about. I don't so much, anymore. I've been here six years and have learned to censor myself more and more; to reveal less and less. I wrote a lot more, then erased it.

Nothing sad about it at all. Record collecting is a fun activity, and although it's generally motivated by love of music, there are other aspects to it. I certainly enjoy and appreciate my records as objects/artifacts in addition to enjoying the music on them. Nothing wrong with that, or with this thread.

Cool!

Early-to-mid-1920s jazz and near-jazz by Bennie Moten and The Benson Orchestra of Chicago. I've got 19 discs by the Benson Orchestra, an accomplished and enjoyable dance band. When the Great Record Purge happens in a few years, I'll keep about three of these, including the 1923 disc pictured above, which has what I think is Frank Trumbauer's first recorded solo. But I probably most enjoyed the flip side of one of the Benson discs, "Sweet Georgia Brown" by Oliver Naylor's Orchestra - a nice, hot side by a band filled with New Orleanians.

Happy Birthday 2015!

Olympia Brass Band - Mardi Gras '77 (OBB). This is a three-tune, seven-inch 33 RPM EP. Discographical info is scarce, but I hear Milton Batiste on trumpet and vocals, Harold Dejan on alto, two hot trombonists, Emanuel Paul and (I think) David Grillier on tenors, two tubas (Allen Jaffe is one, I think), snare drums, bass drum, and percussion. Wonderful stuff.

Tony Parenti - Ragtime (Jazzology)

Didn't know anyone else here knew that album. I have the U.S. version on Serenus, with this cover: Despite Max Harrison's high praise for this album, the music more interesting than great, I think. But I haven't spun it for awhile; I'll do that soon. Spun this tonight. Yep, still more interesting than compelling. Shake Keane's playing is heroic, though.

When I think of Lew Soloff, I think first about his work with the Gil Evans Orchestra, where he was not only lead trumpeter and frequent soloist, but took on a role akin to the concertmaster in a symphony orchestra. He cued sections, set riffs, and kept the brass tight. The last time I heard him, a few years back, he was soloing over some of my elementary band charts. His nephew was in the band at a suburban Atlanta school, and for two two years he timed his visits to his sister to coincide with his nephew's spring band concerts so that he could sit in. I was the only guy in the area writing jazz arrangements for elementary band, so they used some of my charts. RIP, LS.

Didn't know anyone else here knew that album. I have the U.S. version on Serenus, with this cover: Despite Max Harrison's high praise for this album, the music more interesting than great, I think. But I haven't spun it for awhile; I'll do that soon.

Spinning lots of shellac lately - much more than I will post about here. 78 hunting is interesting; I do a good bit of it, because you never know what you might find. Almost every antique store in my part of the US has at least a few 78s for sale. Of course, they're usually not anything interesting - pop vocals, semi-classical fluff, etc. Here in Georgia, you find lots of country discs, but for the most part, the records show that, then as now, most people liked the more homogenized forms of country music - so it's mostly Carson Robison instead of Charlie Poole, Cowboy Copas instead of Hank Williams. But the odds against finding anything really excellent make it more exciting when you do. Yesterday I visited an antique store in an Atlanta suburb and walked out with a stack of records. The winners were: Fletcher Henderson (as "Roseland Orchestra") playing "Sorry" - a 1927 disc on the Banner label. The flip side is by Fred Rich's dance band. I almost didn't shell out the two bucks to get this one. The record is in rough shape, visually, and I thought the odds were against it being Henderson. (Sam Lanin's band also recorded under that name.) But it sounds pretty good; it plays far better than it looks, and apart from a mediocre vocal chorus by Andy Razaf, it's musically excellent. There's a short, but very exciting solo by Coleman Hawkins, as well as a very good half-chorus by the underrated Bobby Stark on trumpet. I had never heard this track before; I'm glad I have now. And I picked up twelve beautiful British Decca records - Alexander Borovsky playing Liszt's first thirteen Hungarian Rhapsodies, from 1930, I think. They are evenly split between 10" and 12" discs, and most are in near-mint condition. Some of the Rhapsodies are complete on one side, some are split between two sides, and the first is spread over four sides. The wonderful performances made me "get" these pieces as never before.

A couple of hours of 78s tonight, starting with a bunch of Johnny Hodges: It Shouldn't Happen to a Dream/A Little Taste (Mercer, 1947) Let the Zoomers Drool/Searsy's Blues (Mercer, 1947) Globetrotter/A Gentle Breeze (Mercury, 1951) Sideways/A Pound of Blues (Mercury, 1952) Who's Excited/Below the Azores (Mercury, 1952) Through For the Night/Latino (Mercury, 1952) Wham/Come Sunday (Clef, 1952) Then, a little armchair journey to New Orleans: King Oliver: Stingaree Blues/Shake It and Break It (Bluebird, late 30s pressing of a 1930 recording) George Lewis Ragtime Jazz Band - Willie the Weeper/Mama Don't Allow (Good Time Jazz, 1950) George Lewis Ragtime Jazz Band - Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula/Burgundy Street Blues (Good Time Jazz, 1950) Baby Dodds Jazz Four - Winin' Boy Blues/Careless Love (Blue Note, 1945) Celestin's Original Tuxedo Orchestra - Maryland, My Maryland/Marie Laveau (Regal, 1947) Celestin's Original Tuxedo Orchestra - My Josephine/Hey La Ba (Regal, 1947) Papa Celestin and His Tuxedo Dixieland Jazz Band - Tiger Rag/The Darktown Strutters Ball (Columbia, 1953) Bunk's Brass Band - Didn't He Ramble/You Tell Me Your Dream (American Music, 1945) Personal notes on the New Orleans discs: Today was the day that I started yearning for New Orleans again. That makes sense, because it's been a little over four months since my last visit, and the pangs usually start at about the four month mark. The King Oliver record is one of my favorite 78s from my collection, even though it's a later pressing. It's great music, in excellent condition. As I've said before, the 1950 George Lewis session sounds so much warmer on shellac than on CD. The 1947 Celestin session is moving to me for several reasons - Alphonse Picou, the pioneer first-generation jazz clarinetist, is on board, and I love hearing alto saxophonist Paul "Polo" Barnes play on his composition "My Josephine," which he also recorded with Celestin back in the 1920s. The 1953 Celestin record represents Papa Celestin's last studio recording, I think. It was recorded 61 years ago, but I heard one of the musicians two or three times in New Orleans. Pianist Jeanette Kimball was the in the band the first time I visited Preservation Hall in 1990, and I heard her there once or twice more. The Bunk Johnson brass band American Music sides are the first recordings of a New Orleans brass band (apart from a one-and-a-half minute clip from a 1929 newsreel). If I was going to give a lesson on where jazz came from, I would play "Didn't He Ramble" from this session. It's not jazz at all - it's a 6/8 march. But no one is reading; everybody's improvising. It was a short step from this loose march to jazz.

Cecil Taylor Unit - Live in Vienna (Leo). As Units go, the version with Carlos Ward, Leroy Jenkins, William Parker, and Thurman Barker was not the most connected to Cecil's message/vision, in my opinion. But this is still pretty good music. The double LP is around 20 minutes longer than the CD.

You're all wrong about Thor, Larry. The greatest Thor was: Allen Woody's ridiculous awe-inspiring 18-string bass that he occasionally used with the Allman Brothers Band. Yes, he called it Thor.

Well said JT! I tell all my musician friends that there's a web site called Organissimo where they all hate Oscar Peterson, and they all let out a series of epithets that I would not care to write here. In fact, I just got off the phone with a musician who was on the road with Curtis Fuller in Gates' Band (LH), about the consensus on OP, and his reply was*%($(^$(&$% them! Please thank your friend for the big ole "fuck them," and thanks for sharing it with us.

Eric Dolphy - Quintet U.S.A. (Unique Jazz) Live at the Gaslight Inn, 1962.

I'm in, and will try not to wait until the last day of the month this time.

There may be others more qualified to answer this than me, but here's my two cents. Musically, this is the best GTM I've heard (for my tastes anyway). And the ensemble is top-notch, with some of Braxton's most important collaborators of the past few years. So from those standpoints, yes, this would be a great introduction. But as others have said, the scope of this set is a little daunting - I still haven't heard a couple of the discs yet. It's hard to think of ten discs as an introduction. I had previously enjoyed Four Compositions (GTM) 2000 on Delmark quite a bit, compared to other GTM I had heard. It's a little more approachable in several ways - it's a standard jazz quartet format, and a single disc, with four compositions. It's certainly a cheaper and safer way to start.

I have that 78 RPM album. The music is excellent, almost as good as the Spanier "Great 16" on Victor/Bluebird, and the packaging is top-notch, from the DSM cover to the well-done booklet (with great photographs) inside.

So long to someone who made a lot of transitory music permanent for us to enjoy.