Hot Ptah

We all have our certain talents. If only this particular one resulted in lucrative recompense.

Marty Robbins--Don't Let Me Touch You

As I listen, the drumming is also more contemporary than it would have sounded in the 1970s. I am really interested in who this is. I would pay to go see them play.

At the blues concerts I have attended in the past three or four years, the audience has been small, almost all white and white haired. It looks like a bus brought the audience from an assisted living facility. Maybe that is just Kansas City. Whether it is Bobby Rush or a white guy with a guitar before them, the audience seems to be too small and old to be much of a statistical sample of anything these days. Also, I have always listened to a good amount of blues radio programs which feature new releases, on public and community radio stations. I think that Koester's quote applies more to the blues recorded before, say, 1985. In recent decades, sorry, but the purely vocal blues new releases tend to be just not that good. Once the originators and those who learned with the originators left the scene, the blues artists who emphasize the vocal strike me as mostly not that compelling. We haven't had the likes of Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Howlin' Wolf or Bobby "Blue" Bland in his prime, for a long time. When I saw Bobby "Blue" Bland and Etta James live toward the end of their lives, the audiences were mostly white and very appreciative. I agree with Koester that there once was a group of white listeners who branched out from 1960s and 1970s rock and got interested in other music to some extent but not fully. This audience is mostly gone now, either dead or no longer going to concerts or following music much as far as I can tell. This audience liked Eric Clapton for blues, the Mahavishnu Orchestra for jazz, Commander Cody for country. But that's ancient, and largely irrelevant history by now.

I missed Charles Mingus because my ears opened up to jazz about a month after he played live in my city. I never had another opportunity to see him before he died. Art Pepper was scheduled to play a concert in a park, which I went to, but he died very shortly before the concert. Betty Carter filled in. I bought a ticket to a Woody Shaw concert in a club, and excitedly went to the club to see him, only to be told that he had played there the night before. I looked at the ticket and sure enough, I was off by one day. I never had another opportunity to see him. Tommy Flanagan was the last artist to be featured in a subscription series of jazz concerts which I purchased. Before we got to the last concert, he was too ill to perform. Roland Hanna filled in. Flanagan passed away shortly after that. I was never in physical proximity to any city in which Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Andrew Hill, or Horace Silver played. I flew to Seattle on business and Benny Carter was playing in a club there with a small group. I had a bad cold and the flight made me feel so congested I just could not get out of bed to go see Benny. Otherwise I have seen just about every great who I would want to see, who was alive after I became a jazz fan. I have seen many of the greats and near-greats.

I cheated on #1, which I love, and found this online: If this group ever comes to my town, I will be there. #3 has the sound of the 1970s fusion that I really like, but the engineering is too clean to be a 1970s track. It sounds to me like skilled re-enactors, recorded much more recently. They really capture that 1970s feel though.

Ok

Dan, I would like the Ike Turner, Duke Robillard, Ronnie Earl, Steve Miller Buddy Guy, Debbie Davies and Arthur Crudup, if they are still available. Do you need my mailing address? If so I will send a PM. Thanks, these look great! Bill

Thanks for posting this, Jim. I will have to pick these up. I have been a fan of Randy Newman's since 'Sail Away" was his most recent album. I remember going to buy "Good Old Boys" at the local record store on the day it came out. These versions by other artists should be very interesting.

So #9 is early Sun Ra? I like to put early Sun Ra on my Blindfold Tests too. Once you know it is Sun Ra, it seems obvious, but sometimes it is difficult to tell just from listening cold, especially in the pre-1961 era. I know the Captain Beefheart albums, but not all of the solo albums and side projects by his sidemen. It is very interesting to hear the John French track. I have enjoyed Leo Kottke live, and have some of his albums, but not this one. Very interesting music! I own the albums from which Tracks 1, 2, 9, 12, 13 and 14 were taken, and did not identify any of them. This was a most enjoyable Blindfold Test! Thanks for putting it together.

That is an incredible collection at a great price as some of those items sell for a lot on their own. If I did not already own all of it, I would be all over this. Someone should really grab this!

Bobby Watson has been a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City for many years and often plays live in Kansas City. I just looked it up and he moved here in 2000 and took the job at the University. Those of us who live in Kansas City have so many opportunities to see him perform each year that we get almost jaded about it. Sometimes his local performances are at a very high level.

I will participate as well.

I understand your frustration because the unexpected deletion of a lot of material has happened to me at work more than once. For the benefit of those who spent time listening to, thinking about, enjoying, and writing about your selections, could you please post something more? Maybe an online link for each track, which would contain the information which was deleted?

Who is the saxophone soloist on Track 5? Also who composed and arranged Track 5?

Track 5 is very odd. Usually when an avant garde group "plays it straight", they still phrase differently than the way that the band does in the opening section of this track. It is as if a corny big band was suddenly joined by an avant garde tenor sax player, as if the tenor sax player was transported, Star Trek style, while soloing in an avant garde group, and materialized in the midst of this corny big band. Who would conceive this track? Who thinks this way? Who could pull off both styles in such a convincing way?

I'm in.

Oh, you may be overestimating many of us.