Soul Stream

This was Baby Face Willette's first Blue Note appearance. And although it's overshadowed by Grant's "Grant's First Stand" and BFW's own "Face To Face", it still is a recording that's vastly overlooked and underdiscussed. If you have this, and haven't pulled it out for a listen in a while, do yourself a favor today and do so immediately. This really is Lou dipping his toe into the deepest of funk. He didn't mess around and basically dives into the greasiest, nastiest organ trio to ever hit a studio. Dixon, Green and Willette. Badass shit.

Personally, this is WAY better than "Keep Your Groove Going." That's a good recording too, but it has Gene Ludwig on organ. Lonnie Smith's on "Coast To Coast" and he just nails the shit out of everything as usual. "Coast To Coast" is in my top 10 organ records of the last 5 years.

That's super old stuff. His first recordings PRE Blue Note. Not saying it doesn't have historical value, but as listening, it's nothing special. Heavily Wild Bill Davis influenced. Kind of heavy handed.

We should all be faux kidnapped at least once in our lives.

The main motivation for me to quit was envisioning a lot of rich tobacco company executives profiting off of my death, ill health, or just general enslavement to their product. Seriously, I refused to be a victim of their greed.

I wanted to, but I promised to help my sister setup her wireless network in her new apartment. I'm sure it kicked ass! Dude, promises like that are meant to be broken on such an occassion!

So...anybody go last night. Or are ya'll so spoiled, ya can catch it next time?

I'm not saying constant quitting doesn't work for everybody. I'm sure, like you, there are many who have quit after many aborted attempts. I'm just generalizing from my own observational and personal experience. We all know lifelong smokers and quitters. Two of my sisters and my mother are lifelong "quitters" it's just a running joke at this point.

I did it cold turkey as well. But one other bit of advice.... If you're really not ready to quit, don't. I've know people who are ALWAYS quitting. My advice is keep your attempts to as low as number as possible, hopefully one. A string of failures makes it easier and easier to breakdown in the middle of an attempt..."oh, I'll just try again when ___________(fill in the blank with an excuse: less stressed, feel better, ect)." Don't be a lifelong smoking quitter. As Dennis Leary said so rightly in the 90's..."Goddamnit, make up your mind, be a smoker or don't. Just don't puff away and bitch about it."(paraphrasing)

I've email Cuscuna several times about issuing Grant Green's "Live At Club Mozambique." I've actually heard some of it and it's awesome, recording quality is Aplus as well from what I heard. Can't understand why we can't get this motha' out.

Yes, I still think "After Hours" is his best record. Classic.

Yes, plus the whole LPs in Aflat...a bitch. one of those blues shuffles he takes through ALL the keys...ouch. Groove is one of the few organists who COULD have hung on that gig with Ammons.

Yes, Groove Holmes is just a pure pleasure to listen to. Maybe it takes another organist to truely appreciate the complexities of Groove's abilities. Suffice it to say, he is truely one of the most recognizable voices jazz organ ever had. Personal favs... After Hours on Pacific Jazz and Soul Message on Prestige. Also, his Muse stuff is truely awesome.

"I Got A Woman" is a must-have. That's true, first and foremost. Also, dig much of Jimmy's late 60's and 70's stuff. Those LPs with Groove Holmes as well. There's just so much. A GREAT place to start is the Blue Note "Best Of Jimmy McGriff."

I asked Marchel how Dallas was and he said "I've been trying to get out of it." It's a shame he isn't exposed to a wider audience. He's just so good and for someone who's 70, he looks and acts like an energetic 50 something. He also has a 2 year old daughter if that tells you something! Yeah, for me.....he's it. For example, we played Honky Tonk and Marchel basically turned into Clifford Scott. He played that solo note-for-note with authenticity like you can't even imagine, said he used to play it with his high school marching band, trumpets played the guitar intro! Oh well, I could go on. Needless to say it was, and always is, a lesson from the master. The next day Marchel was playing a jazz fest up in Denton killing Cherokee and Laura no doubt.

I WANT TO GO!!!! (Damn, the South sux)

That's too bad. I really idolize those guys who really played that stuff in the real organ rooms of the 50'-70's. But after seeing lots of old home photos of those joints and times, I realize those were pretty rough spots for the most part and had their share of distractions, shall we say, I'm sure. Guys like Wayne Boyd were maybe on every street corner back in the day. But if you see one in this day and age, it's like seeing a ghost. Guitar players who know how to fit with the organ and keep it jazz and blues all at once just don't exist for the most part. Wayne Boyd kicked ass. That's all I saw or knew of him. Super-sharp and even sang Lionel Richie's "Easy" while playing some badass guitar!!!! Here's to a dying (literally) breed.

"Cold Duck Time" was the first tune we played! Yeah, Marchel's the man.

Yeah, Jim it was cool! How can playing with Marchel not be!? Anyway, it turned out to be more of a R&B ala 60's gig more than anything else. Roger Boykin was pretty much callin' the shots and came in with the set list to lay the funk and blues down for the kids. I tell you one thing, Marchel Ivery must be the only jazz sax player alive who wholeheartedly plays Ram-bunk-shush by Bill Doggett and Giant Steps with EQUAL enjoyment and ferver. Marchel is what you always thought Jazz sax WAS and SHOULD BE....guys who grew up playing stuff like Honky Tonk and then went on to Miles, Monk and Coltrane as a natural progession. It's all the same to guys like that, just good music. Marchel is just awesome! Period. The best tenor alive imho. That guy's my hero.

Just read this in "Waxpoetics" magazine that Wayne Boyd passed away. Don't know when or how. But if anyone knows anything more, I'd like to hear about it. Saw Wayne with McGriff a couple of times and was blown away. The quintessential organ guitarist who also sang very well. Very east coast and greasy and old school. Sad to hear he had died. Was fairly young by looking at him, I'd say 50's but don't really know. Too bad.

Ian MacLaugin(?) lives here in town (Austin) and plays every Thursday happy hour downtown. Sadly, I play at the same time every week so I've not been able to see him. Seeing as my weekly is ending in 3 weeks, I'll finally get the chance. And looking forward to it.

I really enjoyed talking to Percy that one time and helping him with his bass. One of the best walking basslines in F is Percy on "Walkin'". One of the first non-organ basslines I learned. I'm going to ask Marchel Ivery if we can play "Walkin'" tommorrow night in honor of Percy....

Although I don't think he's the "best" singer by any means. I think Scott has two or three really good wide vibratos that are pretty unique. As far as they all go, he seems to be the only one that has anything unique about him.

American Idol catagories of singers: 1. The "Kelly Clarkson"-aw shucks I'm a yokel! 2. The "Whitney Houston"-you know which ones these are. 3. The "Clay Aiken"-guys who sing Celine Dion songs willingly. 4. The "Rocker"-2 this season but originated on season one by that chick. 5. The "Velvet Teddybear"-coming out of the Luther mold. Reuben counts but this year we have the white overweight guy with the velvet vox. These are your 5 Idol catagories. Which catagory will win this year? Does it matter? But I love seeing Paula Abdul crying and caring that "The Rocker" didn't make it. This show has wonderful entertainment value as schtick.

Noj, I'm with you in the songwriting department. But to tell you the truth, I haven't heard a good song come out of R&B since the 70's. So, I'm not faulting her in that department. Recipe for a modern R&B slow jam: Kick drum and beats with sparce musical framework, add vocalizations with no point=hit song. That has replaced good old chord changes and melody as far as I can tell. I know I'm sounding old, but.... R&B nowadays is such a producer driven phenom that I don't think artists are allowed to write their own songs are they? ...but, please keep in mind I don't know anything about this stuff. I don't really listen to it. It all sounds the same to me.