Hot Ptah

The Hot Trumpets of Joe Newman and Henry "Red" Allen This is great. It consists of an album by Newman and a separate album by Allen, both from the early 1960s. The Newman album features Tommy Flanagan very prominently, and ranges from beautiful to truly exciting. Did Henry "Red" Allen ever make a recording that was less than really good? This one is really good, very energetic playing by all.

Indeed, especially when they were over on Westport Road. The Music Exchange was my bar after work. Well, they didn't serve alcohol, at least not officially, but I know what you mean. It was my clubhouse, my refuge after work, to unwind. The staff was friendly and very knowledgable, always very nice to me. When it was on Westport Road, you could just stare at the walls and ceiling, at the massive amount of stuff they had posted and hanging from every conceivable surface. As one of the long time staffers put it to me, the decor was "nutso". Never dull, though. With the massive selection in virtually every genre of music, one could flip and browse infinitely and never exhaust the possibilities. My bank balance provided the only limits to my purchases. It was the kind of place, that on the rest room wall was hanging the original large Levis print ad from the 1930s from which the Byrds "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" cover was taken. I realized in looking at the ad that only a small fraction of that Levis ad was used for the Byrds cover. The ad, which was about 3 feet high and 2 feet wide, was a small encyclopedia of words and drawings of everything cowboy related. And there it was, just on the rest room wall. Ron Rooks wanted $3000 for that ad when he moved the last time. That's just one of many, many unusual items I saw there. There will never be another place like the Music Exchange in its heyday. It was the kind of place, that if you needed some type of music supply, you could get a staffer to help you look in all of the odd nooks and crannies of the store, underneath the endless record racks, behind postcard trees, etc. etc., and you were sure to be able to cobble together whatever you needed. Once when my epileptic son had a seizure in the store, we helped him to the car, drove home and realized that one of his shoes had come off and was still in the Music Exchange. I immediately called the Music Exchange and asked them not to tie the shoe to the wall with a price tag on it--which I thought that they would do.

Ron Rooks, the owner of the Music Exchange in Kansas City, died this week. He had planned to reopen in a warehouse space in the West Bottoms area of Kansas City. Those who visited the Music Exchange know what it was. For others, it was one of the largest used and rare music stores in the nation, with over 1 million vinyl recordings and an ever changing set of CDs, cassettes, 8 track tapes, videos, sheet music, music magazines, memorabilia, ephemera, etc. etc. It was a colorful store, with a huge jazz vinyl section. Ron was a colorful guy and seemed to enjoy putting on the press. Google will bring up articles about his antics, odd interviews and personal problems. Above all, he really knew music, in all genres, from the first days of recorded sound through today, and was passionate about music and sound recordings. I am very grateful to him for the special items he would pull and save for me, from individual Sun Ra 45s to entire vinyl collections of avant garde jazz which he had acquired. His passing somehow seems like the end of an era to me. I wish his wife and family peace in this difficult time.

Kerry Packer Shane Warne Dennis Lillee Willie Dennis Jimmy Knepper Jimmy Cleveland

Recycled Sounds in Kansas City, one of the nation's great used and rare music stores, closed this year. For years their store featured these heads of Cobham and Duke (connected to their hands) cut out from the album cover and taped prominently onto the cash register. During the closing sale, I noticed that Cobham and Duke were gone! It was as if the store had lost its soul. The clerk hastened to inform me that the heads/hands images had been carefully peeled off and saved as priceless artifacts.

Geez, Lon, that rehersal track is featured on the Rhino Box Set, "Noodling with the Dead," a collection of false starts, tune ups, stall tactics, and teases, Vol. 5, the Lost Year. Jerry's comments can be heard on the bonus cd, "Rare words from the stage 1975-1977." Interesting enough, there is an alleged audience tape from 9-08-74 at the Jack-in-In-The-Box Theater in Anniston Alabama on which Jerry plays a single chord that may or may not be a tease of Garner's "Laura." God, what a find that would be My favorite from that Noodling series is the five second version of the head of Mary Lou Williams' "Roll 'Em" on Vol. 3.

Herb Adderley Willie Wood Bob Jeter

Max Roach Freddie Roach Archie Roach

Tommy Johnson Mississippi John Hurt Furry Lewis

The woman made faces at people as they came out of the john? WTF was the matter with her? She was quite convincing as her looks seemed totally spontaneous and natural. They ranged from looks of surprise, shock, disgust, resignation at being in an unpleasant place--they all made us at least slightly embarassed that we had used the facilites within a few feet of her desk. The place was really cramped.

This is a bigger issue in offices than has been previously documented, and deserves thorough study by a team of experts. We had an office set-up once in which our office was spread among three small floors. There was a large men's room on the lowest floor, and a small men's room with just one toilet and sink, in the middle of a narrow hallway of offices, on the upper floor, where I had an office. Directly across the hall from this mini-rest room was the office of a young woman assistant to all of us. The looks she would give us as we left the room were embarassing. After a short time, like maybe two weeks, the mini-men's restroom was never used again. We all went down to the lower floor. Big Al, you may need to work on your exaggerated facial expressions and agonized glares.

"Dakar" is spread over two discs and is my favorite too. It reminds me a lot of very early Sun Ra, with the two baritone saxes and just with its overall flavor. I mean the Sun Ra of "Sun Song", "Supersonic Sounds", "Jazz In Silhouette".

I have always thought that it was a shame that Ray Charles did not know the words to "Spirit In the Dark" when he came out to perform with Aretha at this concert. It made the performance much less exciting than it could have been. At one point Aretha says, "Ray don't do this to me." I can't imagine what it is like expanded out to 19 minutes!

Has there ever been a musician whose music has done this? I think that if several musicians from jazz history had been given the unprecedented help, position and publicity campaigns that Wynton received, their music could have made people more excited about jazz as they ascended into the prominent position. No one can really know for sure, as no other musician has ever been the beneficiary of all of this high powered help. But I can see that it would have been possible if the help and publicity and position had been handed over to Duke Ellington, Billy Taylor, John Lewis, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Maynard Ferguson, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, many others. Some of them might have been terrible administrators or had personalities that would not have allowed them to succeed in the position. But who really knows? Wynton did not have business managerial experience before he took the job, and he did not have the greatest personality before it was all handed to him--as I can attest from an April, 1982 interview which I conducted of him. By the way, in that April, 1982 interview, Wynton expressed great doubts about whether it was a good idea to revisit the past and try to play like the 1960s Miles Davis Quintet. Somewhere along the way his thoughts changed on that issue.

I see it as a missed opportunity that a major effort was made to create a position for, and publicize, a particular jazz musician, to become the brand for jazz and the face of jazz--and then his music does not move large numbers of people to become more excited about jazz.

He has that in common with Stanley Crouch.

Of course, those greats whom you mention go back to the age when jazz WAS the popular music. Not at all the case today. One of the reasons that jazz WAS the popular music was that these popular people were playing it. Wynton cannot inspire that type of popularity for his music, and since he IS jazz to many people, jazz becomes less and less popular.

Here's another issue I see with Wynton being the lead man at JLC and the "face of jazz". At one time there were several jazz artists well known to the general public, including the people who did not like much jazz or care about jazz much. Those jazz artists created a warm, positive feeling among the general public, for their music. I am thinking of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and a few others (debates could rage about who they were). If you mentioned "jazz" to the average person who did not own a single jazz album, he or she might say, "oh yeah, that Louis Armstrong is such a good trumpeter, and such a fun singer. I saw him on Ed Sullivan, that was nice." There is really no one like that today. Wynton has become THE jazz artist that the general public knows about, but almost no one, from the "unwashed masses" to hard core jazz fanatics, really has a warm, positive feeling about his music. So the only jazz artist known to most people creates music that no one has a happy feeling about. No degree of planned manufacturing of a position of prominence can overcome this situation.

Allen, thanks for a literal laugh out loud for me, during my not-so-exciting day job!

MG, Half Price Books is a chain of used bookstores which began in Dallas, Texas and has spread through the Southwest and Midwest U.S. They are different from most cheap used bookstores or music stores. They feature publishers returns and whatever customers bring in (which they pay incredibly low prices for). They are usually located in nice, suburban style shopping centers. They are bright and clean, with white painted walls, bright lights, spotless bathrooms. They attract ordinary people in droves, who would never step foot in a quaint, run down used bookstore or music store. Stereotypical middle class Americans can be seen lugging heavy boxes full of books, records and CDs to their "buy" counter on most visits. I think it is seen as a safe, pleasant way for ordinary people to clean out their houses and get some small pittance for the books and music they don't want to keep around. The clerks are not snobbish and do not act like clerks in most used bookstores or music stores. It is a pleasant, non-intimidating environment. I picked up a David Sanchez CD for $2 and a World Saxophone Quartet CD for $3 on a recent visit to Half Price Books, together with a hardcover biography of Lionel Hampton for $5.98. I bought a 2 CD set, a Shorty Rogers anthology, brand new in its shrinkwrap, for $1 ("Sweetheart of Sigmund Freud.") There are often 5-10 jazz CDs I could buy at $3.98, 5.98 or 7.98 there--sometimes I exercise control. I have picked up some 32 Jazz label reissues there (such as Don Patterson), some Spanish import label jazz which has been excellent (such as the Peggy Lee cuts which are on her Mosaic box set--but for $7.98), some Proper box sets, some out of print oddities that I had been looking for for years--at $5.98. Some visits, there's nothing. Some visits, the CDs I had wanted to buy at $7.98 but had exercised rare control over, been moved to the $2 bin. They also have a great selection of children's books, for what it's worth to some on this board, including collections of 1950s and 1960s books, which are very appealing and often better than the new children's books coming out. Again, all for very low prices.

Here's two good ones: "Joe's Hap'nin's"--Joe Newman, and "Mr.Allen"--Henry "Red" Allen, together on the reissue "The Hot Trumpets of Joe Newman and Henry 'Red' Allen" "Yes, Indeed!"--Buddy Tate and Claude Hopkins, and "Tate A Tate"--Buddy Tate together on the reissue "Buddy and Claude" Both very highly recommended!

Phineas Newborn Phineas Poe Phileas Fogg Misty Mundae Katharine Hepburn Audrey Hepburn

To me, the question is whether a more creative jazz artist could have accomplished the same thing, or done better, with the backing and position that Wynton has enjoyed. I don't know the answer. Is Wynton some kind of marketing, fundraising, managerial genius, so that it could fairly be said that if another musician had been given his opportunities that the JOLC complex and programs would not have happened?

I have been amazed at the three Half Price Books stores in my metro area, Kansas City. They have a surprisingly good variety of jazz CDs, vinyl and books, at prices which range from low to ridiculously low (like $1 for a new CD of a major artist). I have picked up many jazz biographies there in the books section. The CD section often has avant garde jazz that I want, in addition to other styles. They always seem to carry many Proper box sets. The decor (or lack thereof) of the stores makes it seem like the selection will be relentlessly Middle-American, but that is not the case. They certainly do not pay much for stuff that you bring in, so I don't even try to trade. Are these observations unique to the Kansas City area stores? What is Half Price Books like in your town?

A footnote to this discussion: the same night that I saw Wynton and the JLC Orchestra in Kansas City, guitarist Rodney Jones was leading a jazz/'70s funk style band at a bar--consisting of Arthur Blythe, Fred Wesley, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Idris Muhammad. I drove from the Wynton/JLC show and went to the Rodney Jones show (I was forced to park four blocks away from the bar and sprint through a blinding downpour-I kept thinking, you would really have to love music to do this). As I listened to the Rodney Jones concert, it struck me that the funk compositions were more rigid and limited than the entire spectrum of jazz history that Wynton/JLC had drawn from, but that the music of Jones/Blythe/Wesley/Smith/Muhammad was so much more free and exciting, even within the confines of the funk tunes. The soloists were infinitely more inspired and made much more of a human connection than any of the soloists with the JLC band. The music itself seemed vital and alive, compared to Wynton's group, which I had heard less than 30 minutes earlier.