Rooster_Ties

https://www.discogs.com/digs/features/a-jazz-archive-comes-to-discogs A Pittsburgh Collector’s 70,000-Record Jazz Archive Comes to Discogs George spent decades building a 70,000-record jazz archive, and now it’s up for grabs. If you spent any time sifting through records around Pittsburgh in the last several decades, you likely brushed shoulders with George, a quiet fixture of the western Pennsylvania scene. Inside his home, he lived a modest life as a family man with a career, taking the bus everywhere rather than the car, but behind closed doors he curated a 70,000-record archive. George was primarily a jazz collector. During the 1970s and ’80s, when the genre’s popularity waned and Blue Note, Prestige, Strata-East, and Impulse! Records were relegated to the bargain bin, George thrived. He hunted mint copies with relentless dedication, stacking them in his listening room over decades. In his later years… (…continues at link up above, with a few pictures too!)

Arguably Frank’s best lead-singer (at least in my estimation) — with a nimble and rich baritone. Super nice guy too — I met him just once, fronting Project/Object (a damn good Zappa tribute band) in the late, late 90’s. Caught him well before the show in a small club after a very informal soundcheck, and he just hung out at the bar for a good hour before the show started. He was cordial, unassuming, and totally down to earth. Didn’t talk his ear off (nor he mine) — but he didn’t mind conversation at all — I think we chatted a good 10-15 minutes. I asked him what he’d been studying at Wash U (in St. Louis) when he met Frank — and I think he said political science, iirc. Never got to hear him with Frank (nor Frank) — I didn’t really discover Zappa until I was in college in the late 80’s (at least beyond the like 5 songs I’d heard on the decent AOR classic rock station in St. Louis in high school in the mid-80’s). One of the most interesting voices (timbres) in all of rock music. Expressive, full-bodied, and genuinely unique too (not ‘weird’ but definitely different). RIP Ike. ♥️ PS: Ike kinda reminded me a little of (jazz vocalist) Kevin Mahogany too, come to think of it (I knew Kevin a tiny bit when I was back in KC, and sat with him and his wife a few times at other people’s gigs — talked with him more at one club I used to frequent, than I ever actually got to hear Kevin sing). ANYWAY, Ike and Kevin had a somewhat similar presence (in conversation), if I’m remembering. At least their rich speaking voices (and Billy Harper’s too).

Bringing up a now 20 year old thread of Paul’s (RIP) — to ask a question I’d thought of a few years ago, and always meant to ask… I know Lennie Tristano recorded 6 takes of Tunisia in 1946, when it was (apparently) still titled “Interlude”… QUESTION — what’s the chronology on the retitling of the tune? When did it become “…Tunisia”?? Were all(?) of the first however many recordings of it all just titled “Interlude”? Are there that many other recorded versions that predate the new title?? — meaning that were released as “Interlude”?? I have to confess — other than bits and pieces of discussion primarily on this board — I don’t know much about the early chronology of the tune, its genesis, and what were some of the FIRST recordings of it without Dizzy? — etc. (Bringing this old thread of Paul’s seems to be as good a place as any to ask.)

Gosh, I sure wish both those Brackeens on Tappan Zee had been on CD at some point, Japanese, wherever. I’d pay a little premium for both — among her finest work, far as I’ve heard anyway. They were released (maybe just distributed?) by Columbia in the US, CBS in Europe, and CBS/Sony in Japan — so what’s the holdup? Sure are plenty of OTHER Tappan Zee titles on CD (see link below, Discogs says over 150 titles! — but some may be compilations). In any case, what’s the deal with those two fantastic Brackeen dates?? — never having been on CD. https://www.discogs.com/label/31669-Tappan-Zee-Records?format=CD

Super nice guy!! I didn’t know Paul super well, but I heard/saw him on quite a number of his gigs in KC, and we had lunch a handful of times — and a lovely hang one afternoon in his house and listening room. And he always played a request for me whenever I caught him in small combos with local rhythm sections — often “Beatrice” and “Black Narcissus”. And he often played a favorite Woody Shaw tune of his for me whenever he could — Paul was a big Shaw fan. And I’m pretty sure I saw Paul with the Woody Herman alums band in KC too (at The Drum room, my main jazz hang) — probably a year or three years before we even met (I forget the exact timing). It was funny, the very first time I actually met Paul — he was playing as an extra with the Westport Art Ensemble, and I chatted him up between sets. And I must have said something — probably about Tyrone Washington and/or Andrew Hill — and he immediately asked me, “Hey, are you on the Organissimo board? Turns out he’d been lurking here for years! So just from our brief conversation, in less than 2 minutes, he’d figured out who I was here on the board. I immediately copped to being “Rooster_Ties” (such a genuinely weird feeling in that moment, to be ‘known’ just from my ‘personality’ online) — but I also immediately said he REALLY needed to stop lurking, and get in the game and start posting here — which he eventually did in another month or two (I think I had to chide him about it when I saw him playing a few weeks after our first meeting — after which he finally joined). I can’t overstate what a great, down-to-earth guy Paul always was — generous with his knowledge, and just an all-around wonderful presence. RIP.

Photo caption: Summer 1962. L to R: Robin Shaw, Peter Nelson, Mitch Mitchell, Tony Hall, and Vic Briggs. Photo from Jimi Hendrix: Inside the Experience book (by Mitch Mitchell) www.whiteplainschronicles.com/2018/06/pete-nelson.html

Amen to that. Maybe my favorite rock drummer — or certainly in my top-3.

I walk about 5 miles a day, sometimes 6-7. Every day. Every single day. 10,000 steps a day keeps the cardiologist away!! (And that’s about 4.5 miles). As of today, I’m now up to 285 days in a row — NO SKIPS — of 10k steps-per-day minimum. Aiming for 365-in-a-row, if I can manage it. And honestly, I really need to up my daily goal to 12k/day (and try and hit THAT every single day, no skips). All that said, I haven’t done any strength training or even light weights in several years (not since the Covid shut down) — but I really probably should. I’m just a hair less than 220 lbs (way down from my worst weight years ago of 254) — but my BMI is 33.5, and I really need to loose 20 more lbs. I’m making progress, but NOT trying to loose it all in 6 months.

I just turned 57 — and my wife is ~16 months older than me.

Fortunately my wife and I have been “old fogies, in-training” for about the last 25+ years (something we’ve literally been saying almost that long). Speaking of which, our 25th wedding anniversary was just this week — and it’ll be 30 years since our first date next month. We’re hoping for another 25-30 years together (when we’ll be in our mid-to-late 80’s), but only time will tell. But seeing my dad now at almost 99, I don’t think I want to live too much past 90. We ended up retiring somewhat early, just in the last year (in our late 50’s) — my wife in March last year, and me just in January of this year — and we feel very fortunate to have been able to do so.

Pretty old thread. Anybody got any more recent data??

For those curious about the contents of the CD, I dug around and found the track-listing… https://www.discogs.com/release/36500956-Various-100-Miles-The-Classic-Sounds-Of-Miles-Davis-Friends

I’ve always loved this Boykins tune (or at least that baseline is totally the bomb) — “The Will Come, Is Now”. It came up in this other Boykins thread of mine too, fwiw.

I probably would too!! 👍

In many ways, KCMO & KCK are really one big city (plus the other inner-ring suburbs on both sides of State Line Rd). But the majority of the Black community was in KCMO, specifically east of Troost Ave — and the heart of that community was around 18th and Vine, and 12th and Vine (all around there). As in many, many cites in the US — there was redlining, and before that, racial covenants that excluded minorities and Jews from certain developments (effectively certain entire neighborhoods). Not sure how far back the redlining goes historically, but the reasons for all these patterns have to do with segregation, both formal and semi-formally ‘enforced’ through all sorts of methods used widely (certainly not just in either of the Kansas Cities).