[55 Bar Seized for non-payment of taxes?]

Anyone hear anything about this?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10203077512836820&set=a.1384481210160.2055314.1175899651&type=1&theater

[Vinnie Ruggiero]

I was just talking about him with a trumpet player friend of mine who went to high school with VR, and he said that VR was the most swinging drummer he ever played with.

He was playing pro level when he was in high school.

Unfortunately, VR adopted some bad 'habits', and that's what might have ultimately did him in.

My friend, who played with Lionel Hampton, wasn't even aware that VG recorded, although he knew about the Mangione connection.

He still has never used a fuckin' computer, so I'll have to tell him about the recordings mentioned.

[Stanley Crouch Parker biography reviewed]

Another Kerouac 'naming' from The Subterraneans was the character Harold Sands, who represented the novelist William Gaddis, who hung in The Village with Kerouac in the 50s, and who had just had the manuscript of "The Recognitions" accepted by a publisher.

You can still hear the influence of Kerouac's take on jazz in the lyrics of Donald Fagen, a big Beat fanatic.

[Jazz and LSD]

This thread is not going as I wanted it to go.

I wanted secret cabals of LSD using jazzers to be exposed; maybe even Ornette's secret acid dealer to come forward and make startling revelations .

I guess it's back to the free jazz movement of the 60s being spearheaded by aliens theory...

[Jazz and LSD]

Before the Internest, I usually kept my little crackpot theories to myself, and the world was probably a better place for it.. . But now we are all subject to whatever stupid thoughts run through everyone else's mind, and that can't be a good thing...

Anyway, I was talking to a sax player I know a while ago, and I told him I didn't like Trane's "OM' LP.

He said they all took acid before they recorded it, and when Trane listened to it, he didn't like it, and didn't want them to release it, but they released it anyway.

Then I heard Larry Young's jam with Jimi Hendrix, and I thought,"Hmm...that's definitely not typical LY,.." So I did a little research (IOW, I did a google search), and I found out that LY was trippin' himself around then...

Then I was listening to a Roland Kirk CD, and noticed he started doing some odd music in the mid to late 60s, like "Jammin' With Wolves", and other things like that, and then I read his bio, and sure enow, Rahsaan be trippin' his brain out , too.

i don't think I need to point out the pattern that seemed to be emerging, so what say you?

Can the term 'acid jazz' be used another way?

[Kenny Burrell LPs from late 60s to mid 70s on which he used his D']

I just picked up KB's "Blues: The Common Ground" on Verve, and was blown away by his sound and playing on it.

It was recorded in 1968, and there's a picture of KB playing his blonde D'Angelico New Yorker on the cover.

My favorite KB record is "Night Song" again with a picture of the same guitar on the back cover.

I did a search, and KB played that guitar again on the "A Generation Today" LP he made with Phil Woods, yet another of my fave KB LPs.

I think we're beginning to see a pattern here...

I compared this sound with the stuff he did in the 50s and early 60s on Blue Note and Prestige and found that that stuff doesn't speak to me in the same way that the Verve stuff using that guitar did.

He then stopped playing it and switched to a Gibson Super 400 at some point, and again, his sound didn't speak to me in the same way etc....

Can anyone name any other LPs KB made using the D'Angelico?

BTW, that very same guitar was sold by KB, and a NY music store was selling it for 75K...

[Hank Jones / NY Rhythm Section]

Does this set have a lot of Galbraith solos on it, or is it another session where Galbraith takes a few and mainly plays rhythm for Jones?

[Phil Woods Exercise]

You da man, Scooby!

Now how about some PW transcriptions...

[Jazz in pornos.]

just as an aside, both Mike Bloomfield and Frank Zappa did porn soundtracks.

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...

A lot of Italian composers, including Morricone and the likes of Piero Umiliani, Bruno Nicolai, et al flirted with some wonderful bossa nova and jazz soundtracks for soft porn films in the late 60s and 70s. I actually really like them, the music not the films that is!

I've heard of the Dexter Gordon porno film soundtrack, but never come across it, even in the outer reaches of my ebay adventures.

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.

[Jazz in pornos.]

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.

[Jazz in NYC]

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

[Money For Nothing? Nothing For Money?]

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!!

[Philip Seymour Hoffman, RIP]

Very sad to hear. PSH was a great stage actor as well as movie actor.

RIP, Mr. Hoffman

[Johnny Allen RIP]

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?

[Folk singer/songwriter Pete Seeger has died aged 94]

Right now I'm listening to the 1957 Folkways album Pete Seeger Sings American Ballads.

Okay, I understand the reservations some folks have expressed about Seeger, especially JSngry's comments about PS being creepy/corny. Corny he certainly was - "Everybody sing, now!" But I'm not sure Jim is right about "agenda first, music second, always." That construct certainly showed up sometimes, but not always. Part of Seeger's agenda was that there was a body of great American music which should preserved as living music. Seeger is not unlike many other musicians: some of his output is corny and regrettable, but much of it is moving and beautiful. This album is haunting and excellent.

To be kind of corny myself, there's a quality that shines through Seeger's creepiness/corniness/political agenda. I hear/feel a warmth, a sincerity, (and to be really corny) a love that emanates from his music. Weighing all the factors, I have no problem with describing Pete Seeger as an American hero. So long, Mr. Seeger.

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.

[Folk singer/songwriter Pete Seeger has died aged 94]

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

[Happy Birthday Jimmy Cobb]

Still hitting' with that ferocious intensity. Tonight Cobb kept the pots on on at least three fast tempos in the one set - Del Sasser, Lazybird, and something else.

Are Cobb, Roy Haynes and (semi-retired) Al Harewood the oldest active jazz drummers of all time?

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.

[Bill Frisell]

speaking of Frisell live, this is quite possibly thee lamest shit "imaginable," beyond the pale on all levels not least of which is the pedal steel rape (Jimmy Day and Ralph Mooney weep in hell), but boy, they sho' is smiley, and such tasty licks too! Mmmmmmm... Mmmmmm!! (I heard about it on NPR, you?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9a87Q3w7Ds

Once upon a time, in a world far far away, Ronald Shannon Jackon, Melvin Gibbs & ...

(I thought there were longer clips out there but the above will suffice.)

I want to publicly retract every salty thing I ever said about Pat Metheny, btw. Pat (& co.) may sometimes be tacky, but they've never been as gutless, insipid or self-satisfied as the worst Frisell, of which there's lately been plenty. The Big Sur album noted above is beyond awful; Frisell, is a plainly horrible composer without a concept/leader to kick his ass into some semblance of gear.

"Americana" (sic) drinks and goes home, wishes it was only a fucking nightmare.

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...

[Symphony Sid's Last Radio Broadcast (FANIA)]

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.

[interval recognition]

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

[Phil Everly has died aged 74]

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.

[Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) RIP]

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

[Bucky Pizzarelli's 88th Birthday Bash]

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.

[Terry Smith]

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:

[Terry Smith]

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.