jeffcrom

Really enjoyed reading this account. Hope I have the opportunity to see Mr. Bennink again.

Billie & DeDe Pierce at Luthjen's (Center). I love New Orleans dance hall music, a sub-genre of New Orleans jazz that died out by the early 1970s, as far as I can tell. It was usually played by "short" bands (three or four pieces, as opposed to a full six-or-seven-piece New Orleans band) in neighborhood dance halls. The repertoire included some of the usual New Orleans jazz standards, but was heavy on pop tunes and waltzes - "High Society" and "Eh, La Bas" are found alongside "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" and "Merry Widow Waltz" here. The musicians stuck pretty close to the melody, but tended to play in a relaxed, engaging style - no racehorse dixieland, to use Bunk Johnson's phrase. This album was recorded at Luthjen's, a bar/dance hall in the St. Roch neighborhood, in 1953. The great husband and wife trumpet/piano team is joined by trombone and drums. It's not great jazz, or profound music, but an amazing snapshot of a Sunday night at a typical New Orleans dance hall. Later: Did DeDe Pierce really just play a bit of "Vesti la guibba" from Pagliacci in "Eh la Bas?"

Paul Quinichette - On the Sunny Side (Prestige OJC)

Yes, wonderful! and great photograph by Ray Avery ! The LPs are fine, but I recall some of the alternate takes on the CDs sounding pretty bad - or at least not close to the issued takes. One of my local brick-and-mortar stores stocks the CDs. I look at them every time I go in, wondering if I should "trade up." But the LPs seem so perfect as is that I've always resisted.

Congrats!

Wardell Gray - Memorial Volume One (OJC). Right now this seems like the best music ever recorded.

Marvin Stamm - Machinations (Verve stereo). Not a great album, but a pretty interesting one - trippy 1968 big band music arranged by Johnny Carisi. Jeffery likes.

Max Roach - Chattahoochee Red (Columbia). Never on CD, as far as I know. I usually spin this one every year on MLK day; the first track mixes excerpts from Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech with Roach's drums. It's kind of magical, and the rest of the album is equally excellent.

Bob Brookmeyer and Friends (Columbia two-eye stereo)

PM sent on: Art Blakey/Jazz Messengers Meet You at the Jazz Corner RVG 2cd $5

George "Harmonica" Smith - Arkansas Trap (Deram)

Jazz Kaleidoscope (Bethlehem). An absolutely gorgeous hunk of vinyl - mint condition, and excellent music. One side is a complete 1954 session by Pete Brown, with some fine Joe Wilder. Side two has two 1954 Jonah Jones sessions, minus one tune. Nice stuff.

Went on an afternoon date with my wife, strolling around a suburban Atlanta antique mall. I found a few gems: Mitchell's Christian Singers - Who was John/What More Can Jesus Do (Romeo, 1936). This is my all-time favorite gospel group. I had three of their 78s before this, but I bought them all on Ebay; this is the first of their records I have found "in the wild." "Gotham Club Orchestra" - Red Hot Mamma/Doodle Doo Doo (Silvertone, 1924). I think I've said before that I've learned to recognize a pseudonym on an old dance band record, and the titles looked promising. A little research when I got home revealed that these sides were recorded for Emerson (Silvertone was Sears' label), and that "Red Hot Mamma" is by the Original Memphis Five, a band I love. The flip is by the Emerson studio band. Bob Roberts - Twenty-Three (That Means Skidoo) (Columbia single-sided, 1906). An interesting vaudeville song from very early in the century. None of these records are in great shape, but the only skips or catch grooves are on the Emerson Dance Orchestra side; everything else is listenable. I'm happy.

Several times in these forums, I have tried to enhance my fellow music lovers' lives with the information that the lyrics to the Green Acres theme can be sung to the melody of The Beatles' "A Day in the Life." No one here has ever seemed impressed. Well here's the proof. Is this not genius? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtakUulufNk

'Bout time the unedited At Fillmore material came out!

Maynard Ferguson - Jam Session (EmArcy). Some nice Herb Geller and Bob Cooper here.

Bunny Berigan - Bunny (RCA Camden)

George Van Eps - Soliloquy (Capitol)

Clayton Love - Come on Home Blues (Red Lightnin' 10"). I saw Clayton Love perform in Clarksdale, Mississippi 20 years or so ago. Also on the bill was Little Bill Wallace, Wadada Leo Smith's blues-playing stepfather.

Sun Ra - The Night of the Purple Moon (Intergalactic). Typical weird Saturn issue, with one catalog number on the label and another on the jacket.

Do you know about the side "mix ups"? I should scan my notes from Cuscuna. No, I don't. Please inform.

I may have told this story here before, but a few years ago I went into my favorite pizza place in New Orleans for lunch. Much to my surprise, they were playing Miles Davis' Filles de Kilimanjaro album - not exactly easy-listening background music. I asked my young waitress who was responsible for picking the music; she got a "here we go again" look on her face and said, "I am." She lit up when I told her that it was one of my favorite albums. There had been several negative comments earlier, apparently.

Anthony Braxton - Composition 82 for Four Orchestras (Arista). I've been back and forth on this music for years. Tonight I'm spinning sides five and six, and enjoying it, in a modest way.

Just to give a responsible opposing viewpoint, as the radio stations in the U.S. used to say: This is my favorite early Lacy album; I think it works on every level.

David "Fathead" Newman - Still Hard Times (Muse)