Soul Stream

Just a note about Baby Face...some of his best work imho is on Grant Green's "Grant's First Stand" and also Lou Donaldson's "Here 'Tis." In case anybody doesn't have those, by all means make an effort to.

The stuff Rufus Harley did with Don Patterson is badass. I REALLY dig it.

Has your manager read rule #2?

Not true at all. Listen to the stuff on the Jimmy Smith Mosaic box from a few years ago... Jimmy could and did go outside the lines on many occasions. Man, are people just listening to "Rockin The Boat" and nothing else of JOS's? I mean...."Blues For J"...not only is he coloring outside the lines of the blues, he obliterated the lines. And that's on a damn blues! I guess my suggestion for everybody who is mainly only listening to Larry Young is..., put "Unity" down for a minutes and put on Freddie Roach's "Good Move" or Shirley Scott on "Dearly Beloved" or Jack McDuff on "Tough Duff." I mean, there's so much MORE out there than Larry Young and being "out." Being "in" is cool too.

In my mind... showing off = busting at the seems ...this isn't a bad thing, I LOVE Groovin' at Smalls...especially Valentine...probably my fav. rec. of Jimmy's But, in truth, Jimmy's WHOLE life was showing off. But, in a good way.

Jimmy Smith didn't show off.... Uhhhh..... Have you ever heard "Groovin' At Small's Paradise?"

ALL these cats are bad. I get a little weary of the Larry Young fetish among jazzers.... I mean Dr Lonnie Smith, Jack McDuff, and Shirley Scott at one each is just sad in this poll. Sure, JOS and Larry Young are dominate in people's minds as innovators...but are they everyone's favorites too?

Hey Clem From what Martin Banks alway said...Kenny Dorham was from Austin...as far as going to high school here at the very least. Of course, I don't REALLY know.

Jim, I'm looking forward to hearing it OF COURSE! I get the feeling ya'll may not be in there playing "Nardis" in 20 different time signatures. That's cool. I understand that 100%. Be yourselves...and be the hell out of it! We all want to recreate what the legends did. I understand, but in the end the Organissimo CD will sit right next to the Jimmy Smith CD at the story...it's GOT to be it's own thing. I think that's what you guys are doing, and THAT'S when it'll start to pay off for you. Be Organissimo. That's your strength, you're a GROUP. THAT is a very, very, very rare thing these days. And THAT can go far.

The problem with Jimmy Smith's invention of the B3 style in the 50's, is that it swings and is bluesy. No matter how harmonically inventive JOS and crew get, it's just lumped together by the "blue bloods of jazz" as crap. Except Larry Young. People bow to LY and not JOS???? That's a frikkin' joke. But, I digress... In my book, Larry Young was no better than Baby Face. If you think what Baby Face is doing on ANY of his recorded work is lame....listen to many of the "hip" jazz organist of today (...snooze). BFW could play and he played his life. R&B gigs w/Guitar Slim in New Orleans, Gospel gigs in a tent revival, Jazz gigs with Lou Donaldson. That was HIS life. He did it all, and did the HELL out of it. A lot of jazz folk are soul-less snobs. That's cool. I put on my crappy BFW "Behind The 8 Ball" and be 10 times happier than they are listening to gobbly gook critics dig. KD's attitude, sadly is what turns me off to jazzers. They only dig very complitcated music that they deem hard enough to play and play well. It's a very macho vibe.

...put da lime in de coconut.

Sounds like ya'll are having a great time in the studio. Can't wait to hear the results! Awesome, and keep up all the hard work.

Hmmm. When people say jazz organ and circus in the same sentence, that's usually not a compliment. Some don't dig that organ sound(o.k, most), but as someone who has listened to a LOT of organ records, for myself, it sounds really good and unique. BG had his own thing going and that's hard to do on the B3, in the shadow of Jimmy Smith during his heyday.

No publisher listed.

I love his bass line on Mary Had A Little Lamb. Seemed like a very talented player to me, that should of gotten more recognition. He died fairly young. In Chicago in the 70's I believe. GREAT organist and really unique in his settings and approach. He also plays Lou Donaldson's "Fried Buzzard" and Houston Person's "Truth", although his playing is more "generic" sounding on those dates than on the Braith stuff. Didn't mean to dispute the "gutter" thing. Just that Billy wasn't doing much on that stuff to my ears, but like you said good albums.

So did he dig "Song for the Universe?" Couldn't tell with all the hipster-isms going down. Hope so, cause it's one of the best organ cuts ever put down on wax. KD seems pretty square.

Billy Gardner on piano ain't going to be worth the walk all that much. But Billy Gardner on the 3 George Braith albums is some of the best, most interesting and UNIQUE jazz organ ever played imho.

Wow, I'd LOVE to see that review. Funny to think KD would bash a fellow Blue Noter so badly. (Especially since I love that album!)

I think the best advice I ever heard about anything was "Do the best you can with what you got where you are." If you're a jazz upright bassist in a town with no demand for that...well then you have an instant hobby. GIGS make a professional musician, we all know that. I've come to the conclusion that GOOD music is music is music. Wanting to play Coltrane in today's environment isn't very realistic unless you live in NYC maybe. You can't play stuff that has no audience. Music is a communal event. Keeping playing is more important sometimes that what you play. You gotta think about WHERE you are. I live in a horrible place for organ jazz. Since I stopped trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, I'm a lot better off. It takes the pressure off of a no win situation. You HAVE to have an audience. If I can't play standards for a living (hey, "F" a restaurant, that ain't jazz), then I'll play something else. In my case that's blues and soul for the moment. Nothing wrong with that. I'm learning as much doing that as I did learning "Lover Man." It's all good if you make it that way.

and those were all from the late 1950s as well, right? http://www.bsnpubs.com/latin/seecorelated.html Yep. That's the same Dawn Logo that's on my 45.

Thanks everybody for their help. Looks like the bennet beat the roach version my a good 5 years or so. Interesting. Nice recording, and the B side is cool too a minor blues shuffle. (Lon, I liked the new locale better too. But, like you, I think I have everything I want when it comes to old LPs.)

Wow. That's such a common sounding blues head, I wonder if Freddie really wrote it, or if it was one of those things that was floating around at the time and he "adopted" it. Have a hard time believing that Lou Bennet would be covering a FR blues shuffle at that point in his career, but you never know I guess. Still wonder if it was Lou's first. Oh, and is there a unreleased Freddie Roach Blue Note session I've never heard about?!!!! Thanks Bertrand.

Yeah, I don't know. No date at all on the 45.

I half-heartedly went to the Austin Record Show this weekend for about an hour with a friend. Didn't really dig around that much, but just happened upon an old 45 on the Dawn label by Lou Bennet (the great but very under-recorded organist). Since this was something he recorded in the states before leaving for Europe, I picked it up. Great record. One one side is the song "Googa Mooga" credited to L. Bennet. It's the same "Googa Mooga" that is on Freddie Roach's "Mo Greens Please" Blue Note LP. Very interesting to hear Lou with a real american rhythm section in his prime.

Yeah, my wife tells me the same thing when I goof on a piano. Love conquers all