duaneiac

The flashback feelgood album of the day -- This album's two sides are titled "Smoke" and "Fire". The "Fire" side got a lot of play in my house way back in the day when I had this album as a $1.99 Woolworth's cutout.LP and even since I've had the Cd version, it's still those 3 cuts which get replayed most often. -- the surprisingly successful disco version of "Get Ready", the big hit, "Cruisin'", the Smokeyest of all Smokey Robinson songs, and this love groove classic, "Share It". Man, I forgot how good this song feels!

Last weekend's Valentine's Day show from the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland -- Maria Muldaur with her Jazzabelle Quintet featuring two stalwart members of Charles Brown's old group, guitarist Danny Caron and bassist Ruth Davies.

Absolutely! Wonderful album. I didn't wish to appear dogmatic!

If you have never had the pleasure of musically meeting trumpeter Alex Brashear, here's a pretty fair example of his work. Personally, I always find myself just a little bit happier by the end of one of his solos.

Stan Getz was on a roll in the 1980's. Each of these albums is worthy of mention -- The only rules: - The music must have been recorded between January 1, 1980 and December 31, 1989. - Release dates don't matter; archival recordings are fine, as long as they were made in the 1980s

No, but now the phrase "Grammofoon Platen Automaat" will be merrily dancing about my brain for the next few hours! Thanks a lot!

I love this album. This time around I was struck by the simple phrase "tired and weary" from "Feel Like Going Home". Any pop or Broadway show tune writer would tell you that phrase is redundant. The folks who write the dictionary and the thesaurus would have you believe the two words are synonymous. But the folks buying Charlie Rich records back in the day could straight up testify that there can be a world of difference between being "tired" and being "weary" -- but if you ever find yourself, as the protagonist of this song does, in the desolate state of being both tired and weary, then you well know what a sorrowful situation that is. That Charlie Rich. Damn good singer. Helluva songwriter. Any jazz singer looking for something other than the standard Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, etc. standard(s) fare could do well by investigating the Charlie Rich Songbook.

Tracks culled from three Muse albums. A nice selection. Her version of "The Water Is Wide" never fails to move me.

I've been watching a lot of various episodes from While I saw a lot of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents half-hour shows in syndication as a kid and have the first three seasons of that on DVD, I haven't seen many of these hour long episodes. They didn't get syndicated as much, perhaps because it lasted only 3 seasons (1962-65) in that format. I saw a few episodes on a local PBS station many years ago, but that's about it. Some of the stories are a bit slow-paced, some you can see the ending coming a half-hour away. Most of them hold one's interest. The acting is always top-notch and the list of actors who appeared on the show is impressive, from genuine movie stars (James Mason, John Carradine, Lillian Gish, Ray Milland, Christopher Lee, Gloria Swanson), future movie stars (Robert Redford, James Caan, Gena Rowlands, Bruce Dern, George Segal) and several soon-to-be familiar faces on TV (June Lockhart, Lee Majors, Bob Newhart, Pat Buttram, Martin Landau, Robert Culp, Angie Dickinson, Peter Graves, Peter Falk, Ed Asner, even a pre-Goober George Lindsey). It appears Mr. Hitchcock directed only one of these hour-long episodes himself, the rather pedestrian "I Saw The Whole Thing". One of the best episodes I've seen so far is "An Unlocked Window" starring Dana Wynter. A very suspenseful and scary story which holds up well (if one is willing to overlook some plot holes) -- for best effect, watch it alone on a dark & stormy night!

35 years ago, both the title track and "House of a Thousand Guitars" would have been legitimate contenders for Top 40 Hit status. That's not to say those songs sound particularly dated -- they don't, to me at least -- ,but the ever morphing tastes of the American popular music marketplace has moved in other directions in the ensuing years, I suspect.

From which, Disc 1 of 3.

It's time I faced the cold, hard truth -- I'm a hardcore Jug addict!

Discs Two and Three.

This is the first one I've seen. I have technology to thank for it. The YouTube channel on my TV recommended it to me, I guess because I had searched for "Catherine Russell" once before. i will have to check out some of the other shows.

While watching an old episode of my all-time favorite TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, I cracked up once again at this marvelously staged joke.

This is a beautiful CD. I bought it when it first came out as a fundraiser for that Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS group. Mark Murphy's performance of the title track is one of the greatest performances he ever recorded -- very moving. For me, the surprise standout track was "Little Prayer" by Dave Catney, who passed away from AIDS complications not long after this CD was made. It's a beautiful song of loss and remembrance which, unfortunately, is now all too relevant once again. There was a subsequent CD issued by the same organization

I may be wrong, but this may very well be the best big band jazz album recorded in Sioux City, Iowa in the last half of the 1990's.

This 1996 CD was my introduction to vibes player Brian Carrott. I really liked his playing here (and Fathead's too!).