kenny weir

There is no escape!

Hell, the aforementioned Pete Fountain & Irma Thomas would do me ...

Don't be ridiculous! The fact they're still going around shows where their heads are at. And BTW, they played at the "after party" of the Australian GP here in Melbourne last year, so playing the Super Bowl 1/2 time ain't no big sellout or change by their current standards.

Hellyes! Even then-culturally-isolated NZ, I got to see and often meet heaps of giants - Muddy Waters, BB King, Fats Domino, Dizzy with electric bass etc. And there was no sense of any of it being from a museum or such like. Once I got to the US, 1977, I was like a kid in a candy store. Actually, I WAS a kid.

I hear you. I remember, a few years back, being quite startled when a local trombonist listed Lawrence Brown as being among her then daily listening. Startling if only because I'm sure that is quite unusual for a young musician. As for Trane, is he pretty much ground zero for saxophone these days?

Yes, some interesting responses here. Remember, too, Bev that some of folks - including myself - "ticked" both boxes. At the moment, the past - be it jazz, country, blues, whatever - definitely holds sway in my world. Each to his own. I do get a bit bemused when friends suggest that I am somehow a traitor by not doing more to support contemporary artists. The obvious rejoinder to that, it seems to me, is the alarm I feel that so many brilliant performers from the past seem to be literally dropping off the radar. Likely for good ... This also resonates with me. So many Gram Parsons fans who have never really LISTENED to Hag. Worse yet - so very many fans of Michael "The Bubble Boy" Buble who have never even HEARD Bing Crosby.

Talking of jazz specifically, my big plunge evolved during a time when I was visiting New Orleans on a regular basis for visits as long as I could afford to make them. Thus - in the spirit of ReBirth BrassBand>Jelly Roll Morton AND Jelly Roll Morton>ReBirth Brass Band - the answer for me is both simultaneously. The distance between past and present, musically and otherwise, frequently seems wafer thin in New Orleans.

Very cool! Kenny, moving in the other direction and who bought a Hal "Lone" Pine/Betty Cody reissue last year.

Ditto for me - in both cases.

Yes, well by the time I gots around to Pops, Jelly Roll, Count Basie, Jimmy Smith, I was primed on swing 'n' funk and ready to go. Cody & Co could swing like hell! Oddly, these days so much of their source material is available that I have little incentive to lay hands/ears on their stuff again. Sad thing is, I know there's a whole bunch of cats who dig Bob Wills and so on but would NEVER EVER turn an ear to, say, Eddie Condon or Basie.

The Orginal Memphis Five is similar to a lot of other CDs I have, so is having the least impact so far in two days of intense exploration of my new purchases. The Joe Robichaux is a wild ride. If I've read the notes correctly, it seems that though these are NY recordings the band itself was a working New Orleans unit. Certainly different from anything else I've heard from that place and time - maybe Herb Morand and what I imagine the Harlem Hamfats will sound like when I eventually get there. Also: Early horn-laden Bob Wills. Lots of riffing and rocking. A pleasure! Burke is a new artist for me so this is a true delight that I'm imbibing on as I write. This has gone straight into the top eschelons of my favourite recordings of New Orleans trad outings - relaxed, swinging, acceptably diverse repertoire (considering the genre), mostly great sound and three different lineups to add variety. Fabulous!

Interesting ... I'm probably a little younger than you, though I do remember a "jazzy" content on NZ radio of the sixties when my ears first started flapping. In any case, those ears soon went off on a journey of their own:

Yes.

No, no, no! Wrong, wrong, wrong! IMHO! Hag has one of the GREAT voices, not just in country but anywhere, anytime. And he's a FANTASTIC songwriter. As well, he's a good player who taught himself to become a pretty fair fiddler for the Bob Wills project, has great, diverse tastes and a real feel for the various traditions in American music. Hag's achievements should see him lauded in the same way Dylan is, rather than compared with other country artists.

I've been a regular cdbaby customer over the years. Not anymore. A while back they completely revamped the website. Now it's slow, stupid, clumsy. And they've done away with the "geographic locator" that made it easy to seek out music from, say, San Francisco, New Orleans or even Melbourne. 'Tis a shame ...

Kenny they weren't booing. The presentation was made by a former Saints hero named Deuce McAlister, and they were shouting "Deuce!" It is common for American fans to shout the names of ballplayers whose names rhyme with "boo". Anyone named "Moose", for example. Ha ha - fantastic! Like Bonnie Raitt wondering why she was being booed at that no-nukes gig in which she was one before Bruce Springsteen.

As recorded elsewhere, most of my listening lately has been country of one sort or another, so getting these today from cdconnection is a nice change - and tasty!

As a New Orleans stalwart I'm very happy to the Saints in the Super Bowl. Question from an ignorant Australian: Why are the Saints fans booing in the post-game presentation?

Anyone heard of Bob Newman? Back in the day I used to have and utterly adore this Bear Family vinyl reissue of his King recordings: For the past few years, as my interest in such things has been reignited, the wish that the label would do the business on Newman has been nagging away at me. Little did I know that in 1995 a label simply called The Hound - one of those labels, no address, email, or any other indicators of origin etc etc - had done just that business. Gosh, it's just a dream to have this back in my daily soundtrack. I've looked fairly widely and there's not a lot to be found out about Bob. Bass player - who plays on at least some of these cuts I don't know. In a band called the Georgia Crackers with brother Hank. Most of this stuff recorded for King using the usual suspects, although the CD has later tracks that are also pretty good. Available pics make him look like a humble bank teller or some such. Boozer who came to a non-descript end. Outstanding songwriter. GENIUS singer. No kidding ... This is almost all hot-as-blazes hillybilly boogie - like King-era Delmores on crack. The inclusion of Lonesome Truck Driver's Blues and Haulin' Freight mark Bob as a pioneer in this significant country genre. On the former he pays homage to fellow King artist Moon Mullican. Hangover Boogie, Quanrantined Love, Sand Boogie, It Hurts Me, the quasi-raunchy Baby Take Me Home With and Tonight's The Night (suck on THIS, Rod Stewart), and many more - all classics. Buckets of humour here - including a take on Heehaw's Phftt! You Were Gone - pretty much his main claim to fame outside collector circles, as far as I can tell. But the singing's the thing. Bob is pure country, but more in the suave Hawkshaw Hakins/Johnny Mercer manner. But what sets him apart and above just anybody I've heard do this kind of stuff is the phrasing, delivery and swing. Newman pushes his voice in a way unique, in my hearing, to country. Instead of the usual influences - Bing Crosby, Jimmie Rodgers and so on - one can easily imagine him channeling Roy Brown or Wynonie Harris. That would make not so much a country crooner as a country shouter! Unreservedly recommended if you can find it. And I wouldn't be surprised to see Bear Family eventually get around to this again. Best source of info on Newman I've found: http://www.bopping.org/eng/?p=23&cpage=2

At the moment for me, about a dozen or so variants of hillbilly are supercharging my serotonin like nothing else, so I am blissfully biased. But I am wary of contrasting ostensibly uncultured country and those who made it with the supposedly superior chops and/or musical intelligence of more contemporary jazz musicians. I have hundreds and hundreds of alternate takes by heroes such as Jelly Roll, Armstrong and Ellington. In the majority of cases, any differences between the unissued and the released is obviously more due to happenstance than to any different creative approach, deliberate or otherwise. Moving closer to the present there are obviously changes - longer tracks times for a start. Trane's Meditations come to mind as an example of very different versions of the same material. But I also have dozens and dozens of previously unreleased takes spread across my reasonably extensive collection of RVGs. IIRC, the overwhelming majority of them illustrate eloquently that this stuff was just as set-in-stone as hilbilly, at least in a studio context and no matter what one thinks of the relative merits of the genres and the strengths/talent of their purveyors.

Good point. I remember a few years back some of the more precious rock "artists" expressing dismay at the looming demise of the album, that is in terms of a certain number of tracks to be played only in the order determined by the artist. Well I got bad news for them - it's looming no longer. Let me add that I ALWAYS play these types of multi-disc sets using the shuffle mode. And when I'm really hot on a particular artist, I have no problem going for an hour or more even if the music was never made with that in mind. And it seems like some kind of miracle that this stuff is so freely available - AND that we even have choices about how to get our hands on it. Like I'd guess most of us here, I remember some lean years in my lifetime.

That there's the goods!

Hee hee ... BIG grin here ... :D Yes I know what you are talking about. I have the Bear Family Pee Wee King LP too but in fact I like the "Ballroom King" LP (on the U.K. Detour label) even better. And then I have two or three more LPs (released in the late 80s) programmed along the same lines and that just about does it for me as far as Pee Wee is concerned. Have checked a couple of other more recent releases but found that the most fascinating sounding titles were already there. So no need to go any further into the non-essentials. That is - there may of course be a hidden trove of uninhibited, all-out transcriptions by them (much like Bob Wills' Tiffany Transcruiptions, who knows?) but it would only be labels such as Krazy Kat that I would trust to bring them to us in a well-presented manner. As for the "sameness" of early jazz Mosaic boxes, I guess others would be more qualified to judge that so you will have to ask the question elsewhere. At any rate, I do agree with those who claim that a lot of pre-war blues should really be consumed in small doses (just like they were consumed back then on 78s) because otherwise the feeling of sameness would prevail before long. If you can stand more then this is a matter of personal preference (I can stand more late 40s/early 50s Honkin' Sax R&B than many others, but I'd agree they normally ought to be taken in smaller doses too). However, I do feel there is a fundamental difference between having box sets of, say, 20s or 30s jazz bands on the one hand and late 40s and 50s country artists on the other. In many cases those country songs were all vocals with relatively sparse instrumental backing (a FAR, FAR cry from those early post-war Western Swing bands that blasted away full steam, even at moderate tempos). 20s jazz OTOH was largely instrumental with a really full instrumental sound (despite all fidelity shortcomings) and not only solos but also lots of interplay of the instruments that will give you some meat to cut your teeth into. Much less so with the nasal country vocal twang with (relatively) subdued backing where the instruments were just that - BACKING - well in the BACKground of the vocalist. Limited instrumental means that reach the end of any possible diversity earlier than in the case of full bands that thrive on instrumental action. A bit like in the case of 20s/30s blues with maybe one guitar or one piano for the entire backing. Fascinating vocals, for sure, but 30 of them in a row? So if you want to compare the non-essential character of those 50s country completist boxes with earlier music (and looking beyond early country blues), then - YES, I would not need a 4 or 6 or 8-CD set with the "complete works" of any of those 20s or early 30s crooners with semi-jazz or dance band backing either. Ahhhhh - yes that's the one. Ballroom King on Detour, not Bear Family. When I mentioned pre-war jazz, I wasn't really thinking of instrumental stuff, but the whitish pop stuff on which jazz players performed. I reckon quite a bit of the Bix box falls into that category; as does - just for example - the double Jazz Oracle cd I have of Adrian Rollini. Some cool stuff but plenty of hohum to wade through, too. The same could be said of quite a few of my early jazz collection sets. Nor, I'm sure, were the fundamental aims of the labels and A&R types any loftier. Indeed, in the case of blues, country and some jazz, the A&R guys and/or producers were one and the same. Having said that, I only have two monster Bear Family boxes - Tennessee Jive, which is various artists and thus free of such worries, and the first Bob Wills, which I wouldn't want to be without. Others - Merle Travis, for instance - are worth every disc and minute/hour in my world.

Steve: Here's a good example of what I figure we're talking about here ... Many years ago, in an earlier period of intense interest in this area, I adored a Bear Family vinyl LP I had of Pee Wee King. Slick, rocking '50s western swing of the type found on the Leon McAuliffe CD. Every track a monster. On that basis, a few years ago - just as I was getting back into this stuff big time - I saw and bought a secondhand copy of his Bear Family multi-disc set. Man, that was some of the most lame-ass country I've ever heard! IMHO. Sold it soon after - and will probably pick up the Pee Wee King Gonna Shake This Shack comp some time this year, having as it does all the hot stuff one on disc.

Steve, by and large I agree with you. When it comes to the boxes, what I tend to find myself doing is gravitating towards really strong artists who are represented by a 4-5 disc set. 10 cds by Wynn Stewart - or even Hank Thompson? I agree, too much for me. OTOH, the Buck Owens looks just the right sort/size. The Krazy Kat Webb is the same material - just less of it. And as it's really good strong stuff, I am happy to have the two-disc set on Acrobat. Yeah, I do a lot of comparing between different issues and companies. And of course, when it gets down to comparing the likes of the various Carters and Uncle Dave Macons and so on, you necessarily confront the moral conundrums of buying JSPs. Ah yes, the books. In many cases, the books constitute not only the best but the only decent biography of significant artists - Floyd Tillman being a good example. Really doing some deep listening to this today: As I said above, nothing groundbreaking here - but my, my it's good. Not just the steel guitar, good as it is. What really grabs me are the whole performances and little details, some fine fiddle and also clarinet, trumpet, sax. And the various vocalists are mostly top shelf. Just one example - Duane Bass on Eating Right Out Of Your Hand - the phrasing, the swing, the delivery - sounds to me right up there with Tommy Duncan when it comes to the Crosbyesque school of western swing singing. And, importantly, as my son pointed out this morning, the typeface on the cover is the same as for Indiana Jones. ******* Another thought: Steve, do ya reckon the same criticisms can be made of some of the pre-war Mosaic sets? The Bix for instance? No more made for the sort of concentrated listening that box sets invite than the Cliff Brunner, I'd suggest. But then, I can happily listen to severals hours of uninterrupted Charley Patton (yes, I have the flash Revenant) or the Pops Decca Mosaic for disc after disc!