sgcim

You da man, Scooby! Now how about some PW transcriptions...

Zappa, really? I thought he did an audio-only project (a commission, iirc), that was deemed 'pornographic' by the local authorities -- or something like that. I'm not as deeply steeped in Zappa lore as I once was 10-15 years ago, so my claim is certainly not authoritative. The only movie that Zappa did that I'm aware of was a crazy flick in the 60s called "The World's Greatest Sinner"(1962). It was made by the crazy character actor Timothy Carey, and I've got it on tape. To quote the Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film: "Frank Zappa did the music for this oddity about an insurance salesman who decides he's God, and becomes a rock 'n' roll evangelist to spread the word." It's not a porno film- just very weird. I've pretty much spent my life looking for weird flicks like this... I don't know about porn, but those composers like BN, PU and EM wrote some great music for the Italian "Giallo" films of the 60s and 70s.

In the early to mid 1960s, before hardcore or softcore porn existed, most of the movies they'd play at the 'Grindhouse' theaters would feature some type of jazz soundtrack. There would be no music credits listed, so there's no way of knowing who's playing, or which composer wrote the music. A good, Catholic boy such as myself, would have no knowledge of movies such as that, but a friend of mine told me he saw one from about '64 that had a jazz quartet with what sounded like Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard going completely maniacal for about a half hour straight on some very modern (for the time) sounding modal thing. Unfortunately, the Meeker book wouldn't have any info on something like that.

http://observer.com/2014/02/what-is-the-future-of-jazz-in-new-york/#axzz2t9AYqtEj

I just heard some great musical silence by the master Bill Evans himself, on the 1974 Live in Holland album his trio did with Stan Getz. They had a three hour rehearsal the day before the concert, and agreed on what tunes they were going to play. Then, the day of the concert, Getz acts like a total dick, and plays one of his own tunes (Stan's Blues) that they hadn't rehearsed. You can hear BE comp changes for the head, then he just refuses to play after that. While Getz plays his solo, BE starts shaking his head at Eddie Gomez, telling him not to take a solo, even though Getz wanted him to play a bass solo. When Getz finishes his solo, he expects EG to play a bass solo, but the entire trio stops playing, and Getz is forced to play a stop chorus by himself. Getz manages to pull it off, and then they take the tune out, but BE never played another note after the first chorus. Don't mess with BE!!

Very sad to hear. PSH was a great stage actor as well as movie actor. RIP, Mr. Hoffman

I remember there was some controversy about who really wrote the Shaft theme arrangement when it first came out. I still read 'Downbeast' at that time, and some guy had written a letter saying that he had actually done that genius (IHMO) arrangement, and Isaac Hayes took all the credit for it. Was that Johnny Allen, or someone else?

You're no doubt correct, but I could never get past the corny-creepiness. I never heard any music compelling enough to care. The whole "it takes a worried man to sing a worried song" thing...eh, yeah, right, I sing a worried song, therefore I am a worried man, well, ok, furrow your brow then, worried man, furrow your brow and let's get busy killing fascists with banjos and guitars and songs. BOOM!!! BANG!!! STRUM!!!!! Here's how you kill a Fascist: Everything else just throws them off balance for a little while. Get to the bank while you can! That was Woody Guthrie that wrote "this machine kills fascists" on his guitar- not Pete Seeger.

RIP, Mr. Seeger- The man was a saint, as well as a virtuoso banjo player.

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