danasgoodstuff

Loved their Rhumba Para Monk but haven't heard much since then (a decade ago?)

BB, No way man, I know when enough is enough, and this is it (or not?)!

Isn't "overly self-indulgent" overly redundent?

I was at the gig where The Rent was recorded, one of the best I've ever been to. But I gotta say I haven't heard any recording that really does his sound justice. Also like the solo Monk and duets with Mal.

That depends how narrowly you want to define "Delta Blues" (what was that quote about Hendrix playing delta blues, for the delta of a river on Mars?). But the first name that popped into my little head was Tommy Johnson, a big influence on Howlin' Wolf, among others.

$70 is quite good, I paid $37.50 (record store employee price) for a used set and consider it one of the best purchases I ever made both for the music and the deal.

Pat said something in print about how he didn't hear ZTFS as all that different from the PMG albums, but his audience sure did. I was working in retail when it came out and being the good guys that we were we would try to warn people who would ignore us and buy it anyways just to bring it back the next day. "Shipped gold, returned platinum", as we used to say at the Electric Fetus.

Appollo is owned by Delmark, who have reissued some jazz and blues/R&B stuff. Chess/Checker/Argo/Cadet is owned by MCA/Uni- (or whatever the're called now) who have concentrated on their blues and vintage R 'n R/R&B side and largely ignored the jazz side. Alladin is owned by EMI who did a nice 2CD comp about a decade ago and have largely ignored it ever since.

I must've got half way through my comments on Twilight Time and been distracted. SRV and Sco do NOT play together, but both play nicely in their own ways and the album is a keeper. More later, maybe.

If you can find the OOP 32 Jazz 4lp on 2cd package, go for it! Ditto their Hank Crawford.

For what it's worth, I love the tympani. Also love everything Sonny R & monk did together.

For what it's worth, I love the tympani. Also love everything Sonny R & monk did together.

Lon, IMHO, even when, or perhaps especially when, Eric is playing Freddie or Otis note for note (which I don't hear quite as often as some hear(sic)), the effect is still different, intentially and significantly so to me. It's not just that he recorded the Bluesbreakers album at club gig volume ('11') but that's certainly part of it. By the way, has anyone heard Beano in mono (UK posters?)--is it that different? Now that I think about it, did Freddy write "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" or was it written for him?

I almost forgot to put in a good word for Freddie's singing and songwriting, besides all those grooving instrumentals he also wrote some lovely songs like "Have You Ever Loved a Woman". The whole Layla album is essentially an (over)elaboration of same...(back to that pesky Clapton fellow).

Lon, the RPM/Crown/Modern/Kent (aka Bihari Bros.) BB King material has recently been collected by the UK label Ace in a v. nice 4 CD box. Good selection, intelligent notes and best ever sound. DrJ, Sorry not to reply sooner. I often face the dilema of posting off the cuff and risking being misconstrued, or over thinking it and taking too long for it to matter anymore. I certainly didn't mean to start a pissing match, so I'll lead here with the stuff I think we can agree on: the (relative, at least) excellence of Fresh Cream, Blow By Blow and "Since I've Been Loving You". Other than that I guess we will have to agree to disagree...In particular about Jimmy Page, by far my least favorite ex-Yardbirds guitarist. Emotionally empty, overblown (the music itself, nevermind the surrounding hype), and, most of all, C-O-L-D. Exactly the sort of formalist wankery you'd expect from an ex-session player. (I heard it that way before I knew much of the back story.) Eric, on the other (slow) hand, whatever his technical short comings, I generally find convincing up through Layla, esp'ly Yardbirds, Beano, Fresh Cream and London Sessions. After that he pretty much took himself out of the guitar hero game, or tried to, although "Double Trouble" from Just One Night" has a lovely solo that he couldn't/wouldn't have played earlier. If he'd died right after Layla (as he easily could have), he'd be as revered as Hendrix and rightfully so. It's not that he's the fastest, freshest, furthest out, etc.; it's that, for me, when he's 'on' he's just 'right'. Kinda like Grant Green in that regard; it's not a meaningfully quantifiable thing. Perhaps we should start a thread on the producer of the Atl Freddie Kings mentioned above, the great King Curtis who also sought the right thing, not the hip or new thing... tangentily yours, Dana

As detailed in Straight Life, he was in prison for much of this period but there is an unissued session done for Contemporary that supposedly shows the 'Trane influence at it's height and there are bootlegs but I'd have to check what I have before making a reccomendation on these...

Larry, Insightful post, as usual, makes me really look forward to the forthcomming book...

No offense to anyone here, BUT I find all this dissing of Eric inanely, sophmorically kneejerk, almost ritualistic and quite literally reationary, as if y'all have a deep need to prove that you are (no longer?) one of those taken in by the hype. High school level politics aside, Eric was a great synthesis of a wide range of influences (pretty much the full spectrum of blues guitar). It's also quite funny that it's his guitar playing that's being slagged here; his singing, songwriting and bandleading abilities are better candidates for distain. Certainly, he was never a radical innovater, never wanted to be one either. And just as certainly, his guitar work has on the whole fallen off since peaking about '66--partly due to his perfectly valid choice to emphasize singing and songs more (the Big Pink revelation, although he should've got this from the blues which is fundamentally a vocal narrative), and partly due to the corosive effects of various self indulgences like cream's endless solos, drugs, alcohol, Patty Harrison, etc. Layla, at least, was a better album than it might otherwise have been precisely because it turns away from the dead end of guitar heroics to use the quitar playing in support of the songs. Something I rarely if ever see mentioned is the bad effect (sic) the wha-wha pedal had on his playing by obscuring its real strengths: a razor sharp attack and finely nuanced phrasing and dynamics. Yes I am familiar with and love Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Freddie, Albert, BB, Buddy Guy, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Mike Bloomfield, etc. (Not Albert Collins, totally one dimensional to me). Also Grant, Kenny, Charlie C., Django, etc. Please add a little sugar to this if it's too cranky/bitter for your taste!

So when do we get the deluxe re-reissue of Carryin' On with bonus tracks of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Whitchitah Lineman"?

I think I may have posted before about hearing Pepper at yet another Portland club, the Kingston, which still exists but which was only a jazz club briefly. My strongest impression was that local hero (the late husband of Nancy King and son of Saunders King) Sonny King ate him up and spit him out. But that comparison is perhaps a little unfair since they were playing bebop standards which wasn't really Pepper's thing. If they'd been playing peyote chants, presumably the tables would have turned.

Shrdlu, If you really think Lester's use of language is similar to Aric's you are insulting the former and unduly flattering the latter. Lester was much more articulate and inventive; the fact that they bopth used slang is trivial in itself... Not to make a tempest out of a teapot, you're certainly right to call attention to Lester's language as interesting.

I have no particular prob with v. short tunes per se. I can find it annoying if they seem ARTIFICIALLY short, but no more so than if the're ARTIFICAILLY long. In general a tune/performance/recording should last just exactly as long as it needs to in order to get the job done that particular time, no more no less.

Staying in Oregon this year, going to the inlaws on Xmas day. Used to take the train to Saskatoon back when I had more time than $ (now I have neither). The train takes forever, but if you fly you can go from +70F to -100F windchill in about a minute. It's like being smacked upside the head with a giant icycle! Now we drive there in the summer, which is good too, but it's not the same... Underground, What takes you to Newfie-land?

Happy Holidaze!

Oh, and how could I forget, B-3 bass pedals too--Larry Young and John Patton were better 'base' players with their feet (yes, I know it's left hand too) than most bass players are with their hands!