sgcim

Here's an instrumental that DR wrote captures the mood of city noir very well. No lyrics, though:

Imagine hearing this one in a bar at 3:00am sung by Shirley Horn

I was disappointed by the cast album of "The Nervous Set". Even though it had Kenny Burrell in the band, the rest of Tommy Wolf and Fran Landesman's songs were nowhere near SCRHYUTM and ATSYM. "Golden Boy", the musical by Charles Strouse had some other noir-ish type tunes like "While The City Sleeps" which takes place during a game of poker with a bunch of guys with nicknames like 'Judge', and their night time activities. "Rules of the Road" was a song that had those desperate noir-type lyrics that only transients could relate to.

Here are some of the lyrics: "Pretty women, blue eyed or brown, How they drive you crazy, how they bring you down. Then they're all fat and happy, and you're a worn out bum. Gim-me some Gim-me some!

I'm still waiting for the first review. I know the 'production quality' is never going to be as good as "Pure Desmond...

"Gimme Some" from the show "Golden Boy" sung by Sammy Davis Jr.

Buddy, Can you spare a Dime?"

"You Don't Know What Love Is" "The Gentle Rain" "A Day in the Life of a Fool" (The Brazilian writers could be downright morbid) "How Insensitive"(The Brazilian writers could be downright morbid, so imagine you're in a Brazilian cafe listening to those last three) We'll Be Together Again "God Bless the Child" "Stormy Weather" (When I was working at the trumpet player Mel Davis' club, he told me the one song I should never play is Stormy Weather!) Lonely Town (Even Bernstein had the blues, even though he couldn't even follow the twelve bar form when he tried to play a blues at a club once!) Some tunes don't even need lyrics to evoke that feeling, like Jim Hall's "All Across the City" and ON's Stolen Moments:" "Any Place I Hang my Hat is Home"

Sorry, but that's not Don Preston playing that excellent solo on "Billy The Mountain", that was Bob Harris(1), who replaced Don Preston in the Mothers in 1971 for the tour that included the "Live at the Fillmore East" album. Harris was the son of "Tonight Show" trumpet player Maurice Harris, and was an unusual presence in the MOI, because he was a hard bop playing, lifetime junkie. I don't know if Zappa knew that he was a user. Harris played his Wurlitzer on that BTM solo, the favorite instrument of Ray Charles, his idol, who he jokingly called, 'that genius n-word'. Harris spent a few years on the road with the Ray Charles Band when Marcus Belgrave was in the band. Harris was also the husband of singer/songwriter Judee Sill, and did some of the arrangements on Sill's self-titled first album. I have the "Playground Psychotics" CD, and Harris' solo is my fave part of the album.

I remember talking with a sax player friend of mine on a gig once back when tech was starting to make us feel like dinosaurs, and I asked him, "Who do you think is going to be able to survive this tech onslaught in the future?" He thought that it would have to be someone who could literally do everything. That was about 30 years ago, and I guess the future is here. WKCR, Columbia's jazz station, has been playing an interview with multi-instrumentalist/composer/arranger/bandleader/vocalist Charlie Rosen (not the late pianist, although back in college we used to call him 'Charlie' behind his back), who has led a few of his own big bands; one that plays mainly jazz arr. of Broadway tunes, another that plays his video game music, that uses some electronic instruments, and a more eclectic one that uses a string section. He was one of those kids with parents who were 'legit' musicians, and he learned how to play most instruments, was born with perfect pitch, and studied composition, piano and arranging when he was young. Here's proof that he is indeed a multi-instrumentalist: Here's his more pop-oriented modern band: And here's his 'Broadway' band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi1HPD8ioR0

I can't count the number of times I'd see that LP in a record store, sit there arguing with myself about whether I should buy it or not. Bobby Jones and Pat Martino! But what if they don't get any blowing space or the singer sucks? The more cautious/cheaper me always wound up winning. Thanks for posting!

It's not hard to trace where he got his famous "Wooooo" high notes from. He admitted that he got it from Marion Williams, my fave Gospel singer. I saw her at SOB in NYC, and got her autograph at the end of the show.

The Love album from 1967, "Forever Changes" had a schistload of Tijuana Brass-like arrangements on it. Arthur Lee used to meet with the great arr./composer David Angel daily for two weeks, and they'd sit at the piano and Lee would sing or play what he wanted on each tune. Angel would orchestrate it for strings and trumpets, with optional tacos.

There should be some more on Quill coming soon from Phil's autobiography. Jill Goodwin (Phil's wife) emailed me and said: " The book is getting closer to being finished. We've been over the discography and think it is as complete and accurate as we can make it. Hopefully, it will be useful to those interested in Phil's very prolific recording career. Stay tuned for an announcement about the release of Life In E Flat, hopefully later this year.

Sorry to hear this. A drummer I was playing with was on some of his Alto Madness records, and said RC just split, and he never heard from him again. It turned out he was in bad shape for a while, but he moved down to Pittsburgh and got better. I liked his playing until he made the mistake of recording the record, "Side By Side" with Phil Woods, when Woods was still in his prime. That was a mistake. Any alto player who recorded with Woods when he wasn't limited by his emphysema looked bad in comparison. Same thing with guitarists who recorded with Jimmy Raney, and Raney was great right up to the end... The smarter alto players waited till Woods was shot till they started recording with him. RIP, Richie Cole.

In the George Russell biography, there's a wild story about the session that produced Russell's "Ezz-Thetic. Miles was strung out during the session, and trying to get out of the studio to score, but Russell and his wife insisted that he play the line on Ezz-Thetic with Lee, but Miles couldn't cut it. It's a difficult line that doesn't sit well on the horn, but Lee had no trouble with it. Miles kept messing it up, and got so desperate, that he bolted for the door, but Russell's wife (who was also married to Giuffre at one time) was guarding the door, and blocked him from leaving. She and Russell dragged him back to the session, and Russell came up with that great counter line Miles could cut, and it came out fine, as you can hear on the record. The blowing changes are just "Love For Sale" so Lee plays the schlitz out of it.

I was at that concert. I took my high school girlfriend to see Lee at the Theatre De Lys in Manhattan, thinking that she'd be impressed. Lee was so awkward when he did that speech about Bird and Supersax, she thought he was juiced. It was a very uncomfortable ten minutes, but it was all part of Lee's spontaneous genius. RIP, to one of the greatest improvisers that ever lived...

Sad to hear, I've worked with many Japanese jazz musicians, and they always raved about him. RIP.

RIP Mr. Bass man...

Rob McConnell and Ed Bickert made a duo record called "Mutual Street".

Then he used the pedals in a much more sophisticated manner than Costa did, IMHO.

Feldman's approach to the piano was percussive at times, especially when building up his solos from single lines with chord comp punctuations to more percussive simultaneous chords and lines, where he was especially percussive, but not at Costa's dynamic levels. Feldman used octave lines, but not as percussively as Costa did Their other similarity is VF's use of blues scale licks in the right hand, while simultaneously chording in the left hand. Feldman was a much more subtle player in his use of dynamics, while Costa was nicknamed "The Bear" by Vinnie Burke for the way he would 'roar' in his percussive approach to piano. Costa played with a lot more energy and drive than Feldman. If you're looking for your Costa 'fix' from Feldman, you'd be better off with Phineas Newborn (a similar touch). IMHO, Feldman was a much superior vibist than Costa, probably because he had a better set of vibes, and used much more interesting harmony that Costa (maybe because he used four mallets?)

Thanks! I vaguely remember something like that being involved. Maybe that's why he didn't want to mention it in print. It's a shame, their repertoire was much more interesting than JALC's. Think of all the great Johnny Carisi, Al Cohn, Rod Leavitt, Geo. Russell, Kenyon Hopkins, Eddie Sauter, Jimmy Giuffre, Gary McFarland etc... charts that won't be heard again.

When the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band dedicated a night to the music of Manny Albam back in the 90s, I thought that things were finally going in a positive direction. The next thing we knew, Wynton was the only game in town, playing substandard music about working in the fields, etc... Randy Sandke felt he couldn't tell the real story about what happened to the CHJB in his book, because it would get him in political trouble with whomever. Now that the CHJB is a distant memory of some 25 years or so, does anyone know what the real story was behind that fiasco?

My faves were those two tracks and the "Alto Cumulus" arr. on the McKusick album, along with some other cuts from the album. Albam, was co-owner of Solid State Records, and helped get Thad and Mel their first recording contract for the Band. When I was a kid, Albam was commissioned by the Office of Cultural Development to write an original chart for a band that they sponsored on Lawnguyland. It was called "Comes the Resolution", and was a minor blues with some great writing for the sax section. We premiered it at The Quinnipiac Jazz Festival in Conn. We decided to go on a hike up the mountain, and smoked some ganja before we went on, and pretty much destroyed his chart.