sgcim

Another cat who's in his 90s that's still playing is Billy Taylor's drummer, Percy Bryce. I was just talking with a trumpet player friend of mine who was doing gigs with Percy and Earl May up until Earl's death a few years ago, and he just spoke to Percy, and he said Percy is still doing jazz gigs today.

I've got to admit I've never seen the there there with BF, but he further intensifies it with a CD he made with his former guitar teacher, where he demonstrates he can't even play straight-ahead as well as his aging teacher. Oh well, if DOWNBEAST says he's a genius, I guess he must be...

I was still a kid and had just discovered Sid on WEVD, but he was playing all latin music instead of the jazz that I expected. I'm pretty sure that I phoned in when he was taking requests on that last broadcast, and asked him to play Tal Farlow. He said, "Larry Harlow? You got it." He then proceeded to play some Larry Harlow cut that I couldn't give a shit about.

Frank Strozier has a nice song that he plays on flute from the LP "Remember Me" called Neicy that begins on an ascending b5 interval. The song "Isn't It Romantic" has a tricky descending major 7th interval in the last bar of the first ending that goes from the sixth in the key to the b7 "When I Fall in Love" has an ascending maj7th interval going from the first bar of the 2nd ending to the second bar. "There'll Never be Another You" has another ascending maj7th on the words 'how can they come true" at the end. "The Song Is You" has an ascending maj7 in the fifth bar of the bridge. "Misty" has an ascending maj7 on the first two notes of the second bar. "Invitation" has an ascending maj7th followed by a descending 4th on the second third and fourth notes, a pattern repeated throughout the song up a minor 3rd. "I'll Never Smile Again" has a descending minor seventh on the words 'smile again' repeatedly throughout the song

RIP, Phil. They played a live concert on the radio in tribute, and I was surprised to hear what great musicians they used and featured at their concerts. This one had the great Buddy Emmons(!) and Albert Collins.

We used to have almost 100 copies of "Blues People" at the HS where I used to teach. If a black kid was failing my music class, I gave them a copy and had them write a book report on it for extra credit. None of them ever returned it. Maybe I created an entire generation of jazz critics. RIP AB/LJ

The great guitar maker, Roger Borys, called me up today and said he had an extra ticket to a concert they had at The Cutting Room in NYC to celebrate Bucky's 88th birthday, so even though it was the coldest day in NY in many years, the words "free ticket" are music to my ears, and I somehow found my way there, and had a nice time. The band consisted of the NYC jazz guitar mafia- Bucky, Frank Vignola, Gene Bertoncini and Ed Laud(?)-and they played some of Bucky's favorite tunes. Bucky's still playing the shit out of that 7 string guitar, and each guitarist was featured playing their own solo guitar arrangements, which were all excellent. Then, Frank Vignola and the guitarist in his duo (Vinnie something)did a medley of songs in A minor, starting out with "Tico-Tico" and jetting through about five others, including Fred Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven", complete with worked out choreography. Bucky finished with an encore of Jenkins' "Goodbye" and the packed club gave him a standing ovation and sang Happy Birthday to Bucky, as he blew out the candles on his birthday cake.

I don't know what albums Mealing produced, but I looked at his credits on Discog, and he did arranging for numerous recording artists. On my IF 3 LP, JW is listed as Hodkinson. i was saddened to find that he passed away in July of 2013. I've got "Fallout" on the Sunbeam CD. There's a nice booklet that has Smith's recollections of the session. He said that Scott Walker decided to produce some jazz albums, and he chose TS as his first one. TS recalled he got to the studio in the morning, and was surprised to see the top players of the day waiting for him- Ray Warleigh, Gordon Beck, Kenny Wheeler and Harry South among others. I had the TS LP with Tony Lee on tape, but just tore apart half of my closet looking for it. I guess I'll start on the other half... It really deserves a CD release. Here's Pt. 1 of the Bull's Head gig with Smith and Lee:

They made him play pentatonic scales and use wah-wahs and distortion for the first IF LPs, but when I saw him at The Gaslight in NYC a year after I first saw them at the Fillmore, he was literally on fire the whole night. We sat at the table right in front of him, and I think I got the best guitar lesson I ever took that night. I think we've talked about IF here before, but it's worth repeating that most of their stuff with the original band gets into serious grooves, even though most of them use compound time signatures. Dennis Elliot sold out big time by joining Foreigner with his fellow sellout from KC, Ian MacDonald. Mealing became a big producer... J.W. passed this year, Morrissey a few years back.

I recently discovered this video on youtube, and did a search and found that TS had no thread here. Here he is with the Tony Lee Trio doing a Stevie Wonder tune: I've been a fan of TS since I went to see Black Sabbath at the Fillmore East, and opening for them was some British Jazz-Rock band named IF. I came away sick of BS, and in love with IF, and Smith's burning plectrum technique. I later discovered TS and Dick Morrissey had been Melody Maker pollwinners before they started IF, and TS had been musical director for Scott Walker, who produced TS' first LP back in 1968, "Fallout". He recorded with Jack McDuff on "In Search of a New Home" back then, and then played in a few bands, IF, Zzebra, before resuming his jazz career. I sent away to the UK to his record Co. directly, Actone Records, for his last CD, "Tenderly" a few years ago. He goes back to his Wes influence, abandoning his exciting plectrum technique for the use of his thumb. Someone taped the LP he made in 1977 with Tony Lee for me years ago, but I can't find it after a few moves. Was it ever released on CD? Has anyone heard the McDuff LP? There's also a recording someone made with their tape recorder at the Bull's Head of TS with the Tony Lee trio that was put up on youtube. Any Brits ever catch him there?

Very sad to hear. RIP, Al. The days of the great lead players like Al, Bernie Glow, etc... are all but over. Today, everyone is expected to be able to do everything, and it doesn't neccessarily mean that things are better that way...

I'm digging the KCR Memorial now. I have to admit to being more partial to his traditional stuff than the later stuff, but RIP to a great wind player. A trumpet player friend of mine was his mentor when Yuself was a student teacher at a public school in the Bronx. They used to put on jazz concerts every week in the school, and have public debates about jazz afterward, and the kids loved it. If someone tried to do that in the NYC public schools of today, you'd be out on the street in a minute. Bloomberg finally gave up his stranglehold on the schools today, but it will take decades to undo the harm he's done. My friend has some great framed pictures of himself and Yusef playing on the school auditorium stage.

The great fusion drummer Ricky Lawson passed at the age of 59.

Now I've heard everything... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX-aPJ6AB4w

Yesterday, I saw this 1953 Noir-ish drama about a refugee looking for a clarinetist in Times Square to prevent him from being deported, and all of a sudden there's Jimmy Giuffre sitting there playing tenor sax in one club scene. I checked Meeker, and sure enough, it was Jack Teagarden featured with Shorty Rogers' band (Giuffre, Bob Gordon Jack Montrose, Shelly Manne, Howard Rumsey and Frank Patchen), with Bob Keene ghosting the clarinet solos throughout the movie. I don't know why they had to have a West Coast band featured in a movie that was shot in NYC, but they played some wild swing arrangements with some good trombone, clarinet and trumpet blowing.

Spent countless hours listening to Gato wailing away on "Falsa Baihana" on that one. Immediately caught him live in 73 at the Newport in NY Festival with a teenager named Stanley Clarke on bass. We had a post-Christmas Pop vinyl fest last night: McKendree Spring-1st LP- drummer-less quartet with elec. violin. Free Design- "You Could Be Born Again" - Chris Dedrick was a genius IF- 1st LP- great UK jazz-rock feat. Dick Morrissey and Terry Smith

Speaking of KC drummers, I finally received the DVD of the 21st Century Schizoid Band Concert in Japan from Netflix, and was overjoyed to hear the great work of Michael Giles for a full concert. As KC fanatics know, this concert re-united the original band with the exception of Fripp and Lake. IMHO, the highlight of the set was a Giles original from his 1978 LP entitled "Progress", which featured Giles playing a complicated. polyrhythmic accompaniment to a deceptively slow tempo that I had to listen to twice to fully comprehend. Though the concert was recorded back in the early 2000s, "Progress" can stand up to anything current in jazz, fusion or prog., and should be a standard in any of those genres. Mel Collins proves that he came a long, long way in his sax and flute playing since the early days of KC, and really shines on this and "Formentura Lady". McDonald proves that he was the compositional genius behind "ITCOTCK" and does his usual impeccable job on flute and keyboards. A great touch was featuring McDonald and Collins on baritone and tenor saxes rather than taking the easy way out with synths handling everything, an approach that has IMHO fucked music beyond redemption. Unfortunately, the disc had some type of electronic blocking format in it that prevented me from duping it on to videotape on my DVD/VCR Recorder, but would it be possible to dupe such a disc onto another disc in my computer?

I really enjoyed this BBC ND tribute concert " A Way To Blue", as many talented Brits got together to celebrate their country's neglect of one of their most talented singer/songwriers, ultimately pushing the already fragile ND over the edge... But seriously, this is a very nice concert with nary a synthesizer nor a Sting in sight. The orchestra performs the original arrangements wonderfully, and Danny Thompson performs on the ACOUSTIC BASS marvelously. The acoustic guitarist does a wonderful job, also. The only performance I didn't like was Robyn Hitchcock's. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X2JDv39tG0

Just finished this. I had never read his column for Premeire, so I was never exposed to his writing before, and I found it uniformly excellent. In the first section he talks about going to jazz clubs in the 60s and 70s, and comments that when he'd see Bill evans towards the end (the late 70s) at the VV, and he was surpried by the "odd, loping shuffle in his right hand lines, as if he was regressing to an antiquated rhythmic style." He also mentions seeing Mingus at the VV, and talked about CM seeing Coleman Hawkins at the bar and calling the Hawk an Uncle Tom. Hawk just smiled politely at him and kept drinking... He also saw Jaki Byard there and Jaki spent an entire break at his table when he asked JB some questions about the music. When talking about jazz radio, he fondly remembers Mort Fega's show, and recalled an incident where Fega played an Albert Ayler cut, and after a minute, scraped the needle on the record and took it off... In the second section he describes his gradual psychic degeneration from what he calls "Acute Tour Disorder", and ends the book with a clinical description of its symptoms as if it was actually listed in the DSMIV-R (or whatever it's called). A great read from one of our greatest living singer/songwriters.

Thanks so much Uli! Jazz piccolo and I guess that was either alto or bass flute. I enjoyed that more than the LPs with Herbie Mann and Jeremy Steig. I knew Herb played the flute, but I didn't know he was that good. Was that ever released as an LP?

I just got back from the most intense jam session I ever had in my life, and the pianist said he had a video from Italy with Herb playing a concert with Bill Evans(!). BE's little seen GF, Elaine was in it. it can only be played on an all region VCR, which I don't have, so I guess i'll have to wait for next time. My pianist friend freaked when he heard Herb had passed...

Like Judee Sill, Drake paid the price for overestimating the sophistication of the music audience of his time...

Very sad to hear. One of the alto greats of all-time. RIP, Mr. Geller.

Charlie Shoemake "Plays The Music of David Raksin" on Discovery Records Never knew this existed, which is kind of strange considering I thought I was going to be doing the first jazz album of DR's music. Found it on Discog for $4.99. Good playing by CS, Peter Sprague, Mike Wofford and Ted Nash.

Phil Schaap is celebrating CT's 93rd on "Traditions in Swing" right now on WKCR. I was ready to hang it up many years ago and get a 'real job' when I got a gig with CT, and decided if he dug my playing, maybe I should stick wid it. He dug me, and I wound up getting a real job later anyway, but nothing can match being recognized by a real giant on the stand. Happy Birthday, CT, and many more!