duaneiac

Ray Bryant and Al McKibbon comprised the rest of the "All Stars" on this night.

Hendricks & Ross with Buddy Rich, 1969 The rest of the concert has some good performances by the band, but way too much "joking" and insulting of his own musicians by the a-hole drummer

A few months after I posted the above video on YouTube, I received a message from the wife of Joe Venuto. She said he was delighted to see this clip as he had not seen it before. It's from an old Abbott & Costello TV program in the days of "Live" TV, so if you were on the show, you didn't get to review your performance unless there were some kinescopes made like this. I believe Ms. Venuto said he was retired and they were living in the Las Vegas area at the time.

A "live" recording of a band which included Blue Mitchell, Bobby Shew, Britt Woodman, Richie Kamuca and Plas Johnson plus Ernie Andrews on vocals on 3 previously unissued tunes.

I guess I would be a typical Sauter - Finegan fan, Maybe all those Duke Ellington, Eddie Condon, Thelonious Monk and Jimmy Smith CDs on my shelf are just there to disguise my lack of a "jazz point of view". What some might call "clever" writing/arranging, others might call "intelligent" and "audacious". All I know is if you put a band of professional musicians on stage today and have them play arrangements like this, I will be there with cash in hand to see/hear that show. Since I first posted that video to YouTube 10 years ago, some viewers have identified the following band members: pianist: Chuck Hendry, drummer: Mousey Alexander, percussionist: Joe Venuto (the man on the vibes and other instruments here), trumpeters: Nick Travis, Bobby Nichols, Al Maiorca, tuba player :James McAllister, reed section: Harvey Estrin, Wally Kane, lead trombone: Sonny Russo, bass trombone: Tommy Mitchell, harpist: Edward Druzinsky (later to be the Principal Harpist with the Chicago Symphony).

Kind of sad to revisit all the passings from last year. There were some notable names on the list whose passing had escaped my attention: drummer Paul Togawa, pianist Johnny Maddox, pianist Gildo Mahones, Basie trombonist Bill Hughes, guitarist Wilbert Longmire, writer Lee Jeske, singer Yvonne Staples and singer Kellye Gray.

I needed something "nice and easy" with which to start off the day.

And of course there was the Ringo Starr - Oliver Nelson connection as well . . . Ringo proved himself to be a visionary man ahead of his time when he recorded this album of GAS standards decades before Rod Stewart even dreamed of croaking and wheezing his way to financial success by recording similar material.

In a show with so many flashy numbers, it's easy to forget just how incredibly beautiful a song "More I Cannot Wish You" is.

I suppose most folks who heard the LH&R recording back when it first came out would have been aware of where the lyrics came from. "Pogo" in its heyday was about as big as "Peanuts" and the "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" song pretty much became an annual tradition in the strip. I knew it when I was a kid about the time the above comic strip was first printed. Seeing that 1971 strip printed above was a true delight, especially now when there is not a cartoonist on the comic pages today who could draw his/her way out of a paper bag. This particular strip was a little late in the game for Walt Kelly, so the backgrounds are not as detailed as they might have been a few years before, but just look at the artistry, the lettering, the movement, the color and the humor (there is literally something funny in each panel and there is a separate running gag between the mouse and frog in the lower right hand corner) of that 48 year old strip. Sure beats the pants off of "Garfield". It may be after the season, but here is a version of this tune with all the verses and some great illustrations by Mr. Kelly:

This CD reissue contains the title album plus the album So Doggone Good, which I think had an even better album cover: The albums are a mixed lot. I'm still left wondering WTF about the nearly 14 minute long "Miss Ann, Lisa, Sue And Sadie" (with a string quartet arranged by Billy Ver Planck) in which Sonny Stitt does not even appear for the first 3/4 of the song. I looked forward to hearing one of my musical heroes interpret the work of another one of my heroes, but this recording or Randy Newman's "Living Without You" goes nowhere. But I really liked a couple of Stitt originals, especially "Orange Ashtray". Unlike many other Fantasy 2-on-1 CD reissues I have had, this one does not replicate the liner notes from the original albums (if there were any), but has a new essay (circa 2002 when this disc was reissued) written by Michael Rozek and which includes recollections of Sonny Stitt by Hank Jones, Todd Barkan and Eric Alexander.

It took me 2 days to get through this 3 hour concert DVD, but it was time well spent.

Discs 1 & 2 of 2.

Carl Saunders is such an amazing trumpeter. I have a couple of CDs featuring him as leader or co-leader and I got to hear him once as a member of Mike Vax's Stan Kenton Alumni/Legacy Band. Hearing Mr. Saunders alongside Mr. Vax was a real treat. On "Peanut Vendor:, they strolled down off the stage and out into the audience to prove they don't need no stinkin' mics. I have to confess, I bought a copy of that set when Fantasy was dumping them for dirt cheap and it still sits unopened on a shelf here. So much music to get around to one of these days . . . Still, I'm glad I bought it when it was available.

Mmmmm, that looks good. It might even go well with this I know you are something of a Johnny Lytle fan, HutchFan, and this long out of print Muse CD is one that's definitely worth tracking down. There's one track on here that is simply one of my all-time favorite pieces of recorded music. I could not find a sample of it online, but the track is called "Should I Love You?" (man, that's a heavy question and you already know if you have to ask it, there ain't no easy answer) and it's a grooving, swinging ballad in which Johnny Lytle plays so soulfully and then halfway through Houston Person steps in to offer his sage advice on the subject. It's a gorgeous track. Also on this CD is on of the finest versions of "September Song", a real showcase for both Johnny Lytle and Stan Hope. The whole disc is really great and the cover always makes me hungry!

Oh, thank you so bloody much! Now i will have that song stuck in my head doo do doo doo do doo doo in my head doo do doo doo do doo doo

Disc 1 of 2. This 2 disc set collects 4 1955 broadcasts recorded at Basin St. for NBC. The sound is decent if not spectacular. They played a particularly lively version of "Struttin'" on the second broadcast included on Disc 1 and Billy Kyle had a nice feature on "Blue Moon".