John L

This is also my favorite Grant Green album.

I don't know if I am interpreting the the question properly, but putting a capo on the second fret just moves everything up a full step. So playing an open Am chord will now be Bm. Playing an open Bm chord will now be C#m.

I imagine that this is not good news for jazz lovers. Concord seemed to have an interest and commitment to jazz that went beyond most other labels.

There doesn't seem to be much new in that regard.

RIP

You guys should give Mehldau a break. As far as I see it, he was just stating a frank and honest opinion. Members of this forum have often stated less than enthusiastic opinions about Bill Evans, Does Brad Mehldau's fame as a jazz pianist mean that he shouldn't have the right to state his? And what he said about Bill Evans was really not that damning. He just indicated that he personally does not understand why Bill Evans gets so much attention relative to other pianists.

I have one from Ronnie Scott's Club as well, although from 1968. Stan Tracey is the pianist on that one, along with Oxley, Ronnie Scott, and an unknown bass player. 1) Bye Bye Blackbird 2) The Night Has a Thousand Eyes 3) Sonnymoon For Two 4) Three Little Words 5) My Reverie (incomplete) Are you saying that you have a Ronnie Scott's set with the exact set list that I gave for the tape that is supposed to be from Manchester?

It is interesting that you mention this. I may have the same concert tape that you do. Mine is 1) Love Walked In 2) The Can't Take That Away From Me 3) My Reverie 4) Three Little Words / Four 5) There Will Never Be Another You Where did you get information about the drummer and bass player? The below flier might suggest a high probability that StanTracey played piano. But it doesn't really sound to me like the other recordings that I have with Stan Tracey. In general, I find it to be a bizzare recording. Sonny is clearly NOT hooked up with the rhythm section at all. The drummer is particularly unpleasant. But Sonny somehow finds his own musical world and plays some wild stuff.

Given that Target is a major donator to the Republican Party, I wonder if Jimi would have approved?

it's a splendid set, btw, I enjoy having it a lot, even though I've already had most of the music in other editions! Thanks, Ubu!

I am very interested in reading this book, if only to see what Crouch has gathered in those years of research. I suspect that there is probably an agenda to bury the myth of Charlie Parker as an irresponsible and unpredictable drug addict as deeply as possible, and to portray Bird as a reliable hard working professional in spite of his addiction. As long as that is expected, it shouldn't bother me too much. In fact, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Very good question. I downloaded these three tracks from Amazon as I already have the rest of "First Impulse." Was there any discographical information included in the booklet that goes with the set? Maybe this information is on the Wild discography site, as suggested above, but I couldn't find it.

My take: The guitar playing is better on Blues is King, but the singing is better on Live at the Regal. So is the atmosphere. I love them both, but if I could only have one of the two, it would be Live at the Regal.

By the way, since you are in an Elmore sort of mood, the Elmore James band backs Junior Wells on half ot the tracks on this album. The Muddy Waters band is on the other half. The music is absolutely timeless:

Charly and Collectables can both really botch the sound. I have it on Charly, myself, although in a different package. The sound is OK, although probably not as good as it could be. You will enjoy the later sessions, as they contain a good share of Elmore's all time classics. There are also the two short sessions on Chess. With those two installments, together with the box of early recordings, you will have the complete Elmore James on record.

It's great that Elmore grabbed you. But don't give up on the rest just yet. Some blues takes a bit longer to dig into your soul, but the wait is worth it.

Wouldn't bebop be an obvious exception to this rule? It came from back musicians, but not really from the ghetto, and never had too much popularity there. I don't think that's true. If you look at the material played by soul jazz musicians in the sixties and early seventies - whose work was primarily aimed at the ghetto - you find a load of bebop tunes being played as part of a general 'menu' of entertainment alongside soul songs, blues, swing numbers and general pop songs. And don't forget that Diz and Bird and other beboppers got singles onto the R&B charts in the forties. MG Sure, a lot of musicians who played soul jazz in the sixties and early seventies were fluent in bop, and brought those sensibilites to the music. But if you look at bebop in the 40s and 50s, the audience and fans were predominantly middle class and above. The sound of the ghetto was R&B / blues. Of course, the Central Avenue scene in L.A, where bop and R&B were almost bedfellows, may have been somewhat of an exception. . On the other hand, I know what you are saying, and actually agree with it to a large degree. Even if bebop was "high brow," it still embodied the sound of the street and got a lot of its power from that source.

Wouldn't bebop be an obvious exception to this rule? It came from back musicians, but not really from the ghetto, and never had too much popularity there.

I think it needs imaginative minds more than it needs "good musicians". An imaginative mind will find the way to make the music. A "good musician" will always be a laborer first and foremost, and when the call for that labor is gone, then what? Just another unemployed steelworker or some such, a proud remnant of soemthing wonderful that nobody rally needs any more. I'm certainly one to groove on good craftsmanship, and would like to take up woodworking when I retire for that very reason, but give me a guy who can sincerely discombobulate me with a laptop/etc over somebody who can make the bridge over TSIY in any key and move nobody in the process any day. Burrell, though, can make that bridge in any key and move me, or could...maybe still can. But would you advise your babies to go to Pittsburgh to make steel for the rest of their lives? Different types of bridges, but maybe not so much? Interesting. I have thought for some time that that is the general direction that we are moving. Computerized instruments and do-it-yourself studios will increasingly allow creative musical minds to get the sounds out of their heads without the prerequisite years of woodshedding needed to really master a musical instrument. At least that is the good scenario...

RIP

The music on the Ace LP - Bay Area Blues Blasters - is now found on 3 CDs. The sides by Lafayette "Thing" Thomas, Baby "Pee Wee" Parham, Johnny Parker, and one Jimmy McCracklin side are on Jimmy McCracklin: Blues Blastin' Vol. 2 - Ace CHD 993. The Roy Hawkins sides are on Roy Hawkins: Bad Luck Is Falling - Ace CHG 1096. The James Reed sides are on The Downhome Blues Sessions 1949-1954 - Ace CHD 1194. All of these CDs contain much additional very fine music. The other CD entitled Bay Area Blues Blasters is on the El Cerrito label. It's a bootleg - or was when it was issued - the material is probably p.d. in the U.K. and Europe by now. It contains music by different group of musicians (Johnny Heartsman, Tiny Powell, Ray Agee, Jimmy Liggins, and others) and is taken from 45's issued in the 1950s and 60s. All of this is probably more than anyone other than a compulsive collector needs to know. Much appreciated. I do have the Bay Area Blues blaster LP in digital format. I became so fond of the song selection and play ordering that I reconstituted the album from a number of collections.

In addition to all of these fine recommendations, it would be good to tap into the West Coast electric blues from the 40s & 50s. There are a number of cheap box sets floating around of material produced by Bob Geddins. In addition to the well known stars (Lowell Fulson, Jimmy McCracklin, Johnny Guitar Watson), Check out Jimmy Wilson, Lafayette "Thing" Thomas, Johnny Heartsman, Pee Wee Crayton, Johnny Fuller, James Reed, There was a great LP on ACE called "Bay Area Blues Blasters" featuring some of these people. There is a CD by the same name, but has different music.

This one just blew our minds in '73, and shook our bodies in ways that they had never been shaken before:

Yes! For some reason, it doesn't show up with Firefox on my Mac. I see it now with Explorer. Sorry. Great music!

Do those albums have Bland's complete Duke material? There's so much great stuff there, someone ought to do a box. MG Yes, that is volume 1. All of Bland's Duke recordings were available on three such volumes, each with 2 CDs. Oops, yeah, that was just volumes 1 and 2. Forgot about vol. 3: Actually, you also forgot about volume 2, maybe the strongest of the three.