JSngry

Bob Field was the American Dennis Patch.

And did Mr. Bookends do the arranging for this date (asking because it's so strongly suggestive of "East Dallas Special" from Booker 'N' Brass)? Have we had a guess of Budd Johnson for #3?

Will Mastin Wima Astins Cholly Atkins

Yes about the drumming, except the kit doesn't seemed to be tuned quite as tightly. Or maybe it's the recording. The tenor/alto playing is a weird amalgam of dialects, all of them, however, spoken with a great deal of awareness, so it's not like whoever this is is some randomizing picker-and-chooser, I sense some real identity underneath it all, some real seasoning, but there's some Charlie Rouse, some Zoot, a little bit of Griff, some miscue in the altissimo, some I don't know what, and none of it really jumps out to me as truly singular. The alto playing sounds like the tenor playing only like the guy(?) is being cute about it being a smaller horn and jumping right in with the fast-finger stuff. The rhythm section does sound "local", but high-ish level local, so it sounds like a scene that was pretty active and well-traveled through. The "annoying" part of it for me is that it sounds like one of those places where there was these guys and they did this thing, and then it and they stopped. Everybody was happy with where they were, and if the world moved on, they didn't. And that drummer gets Bobby Durham-level annoying...We're either in Europe or some place like Denver, maybe? But as far as skills go, hey, everybody here's got skills. But - to move from this to the Carlos Garnett/Blakey right afterwards...little things mean a lot, and a lot of little things do add up to a big thing. Dude, it that Teddy Edwards on #1? Did you give us Teddy Bookends?

Red Holloway on #3?

Yeah, I've had those rattles...sometimes they can find 'em, sometimes not. Either way, you gotta keep driving.

No, I did not not know that, as this is the type of thing I don't go looking for, nor is it the type of thing that finds me out in the open. The bit of the clip here leaves me with no regrets about any of that.

Who is that guy, and what does he know that I don't? And if not, are the songs any good without the words? #thewalruswaspaul

But seriously also - why would a guy retire from the road, keep practicing, and end up doing those Clarinet Summit things with John Carter, Alvin Batiste, and David Murray? Maybe because he was the type of guy who was both deeply secure and deeply curious? If so, let us not puzzle over what Jimmy Hamilton was not, let us enjoy what he did, The Many Ears Of Jimmy Hamilton. Duke had Russell Procope, but Russell Procope was not gonna be the go-to guy for "Air Conditioned Jungle", nor to lead the section on "Pretty & The Wolf", and if Duke wanted some of that Al Sears type tenor, hey, he had that too, and oh by the way, check out the gigs where they did "Perdido" with the two tenors on top, Jimmy & Paul in unison playing that Clark Terry line, don't tell me that Jimmy Hamilton didn't swing, you get two unison tenors, if one of 'em don't swing, you'll hear it without having to go look for it. Think about it - the guy spent a few decades as a key voice - a very singular voice, actually, you ALWAYS know it's Jimmy Hamilton - at the service of one of the most fertile minds/environments of the 20th century. Hamilton, Procope, & Carney...if you heard clarinet in all the ways Duke did, hell, what did you NOT have at your disposal with those three? Jimmy Hamilton was a pretty deep musician, I think. Not a "jam session" mind, but a true servant to the music(s) he engaged, a servant to no man, but to all music. And kudos for gentlemanliness in the face of obvious personal distaste when Paul fell asleep. That, ladies AND gentlemen, was above and beyond, and it is also what a professional would have no choice but to do.

One for each ear.

RIP

I like him on tenor, like on the Circus Train Turnaround thing or whatever it was called. That & "Rock City Rock". For Clarinet, "Ad Lib on Nippon", not as much for content as for bringing that thing the way it had to be brought. A little either way and it would not have had the gravitas it did. Same thing with "Blue Silk" on Afro-Bossa, just the right weight, not too much, not too little.

Great record, too bad about the singer.

per http://www.winfreys.com/my-biography/ Christine Winfrey Stuart Winfrey The Winfrey Family

So can records, if you know where to shop. Live better for less, I say!

Probably because there was no place to put it after the Individualism LP was released.

AND Merv!

Quite coincidentally found some upperend cable channel last night that was carrying something call Get.TV and one of their slots was filled with a Kraft Music Hall episode called Woody Allen Looks At 1967. Totally wiggy, and Aretha had a spot singing Respect & Chain of Fools surrounded bu the Peter Gennaro Dancers and all sorts of design...Aretha was presented as a prop for the production number and was relegated to jumping up and down on a pedestal like a little girl. She never got a full closeup. Lisa Minelli got to sing and act, and William F. Buckley participated in a tightly edited bantering session with Woody & the audience. Prior to that was an episode of The Judy Garland Show that Mel Torme wrote that book about. It was one of the last ones, all Garland, with one appearance of the Buddy Cole trio accompanying her. Everything else was full orchestra (and more) and Judy Garland, wonderful pitch, but the time like a speed freak, everything stepping on the beat from the top. That was uncomfortable, a variety show without variety. One or two arrangements took some really nifty turns, but most were the ongoing same thing. I can only conclude that The Judy Garland Show failed simply because Judy Garland on TV for an hour was too creepy for most people. It was for me. Next Monday, Get.TV will have an episode of The Merv Griffin Show with guests Willie Mays, Lionel Hampton, and Tallulah Bankhead.

In order of actual release: Ampex album (not in circulation long in these parts, but findable in cuttout bins) Verve outtakes album (ditto) etcetcetc (LT LP, get it while it's there or else don't) Miles/Gil box

Oh, hear him playing The Meaning Of The Blues with Gil (CD version preferable, but LP version certainly fine). And "St. Louis Blues" with Johnny Copeland. Old Feeling, his last BN side, is absolutely sunny in its disposition!

Yeah, Roy Clark was still the bug-eyed guy making corny jokes, but with chops to chase away all demons. It's a particularly "country" trait, perhaps, it seems that a lot of the badass country players around here approach jazz like that, so hey, let people be who they are, show respect, and wasn't that Gatemouth in a nutshell anyway? I remember the record in its time...I was a little too hardcore jazzbore to appreciate it on its own terms. I don't know if I'd like it any more now than then, but I've no doubt that I would enjoy it more now than I did then. Too bad nobody got Glenn Campbell into those kinds of settings...that was another guy who had magic fingers.

Let me tell you about "Europa"...after years of just "playing" it, I decided to really play it like Gato...and discovered with no uncertainty almost immediately was that either the guy had breath control equal to vintage Sinatra, or else he was able to punch in phrases in a really seamless flow, and although that's cheating if it's used to cover for inability, in this case it would be an artistic choice, because those lines are sooooo long and the flow so uninterrupted and the arcs so complete in themselves, I mean, try singing that one sometimes, sing it with the record...it'll kill you trying to do it like Gato does, only breathing where he appears to. So it's masterful breath and tonal control. or a masterful assemblage of individual acts of masterful breath and tonal control. The more I got into the specifics, the more I leaned towards it being an assemblage, but even then, getting the potions to sound that right on their own...good lord, this is why I like to listen to singers, because "horn players" too often think of melody as something you play on a horn, when in reality, it can/should be something you sing on a horn! And Gato, at his best, was a singer. Not just of melodies, but of shouts, of chants, of exhortations, of wordless states of ecstatic possessions, etc.

I've no statistics to back this up, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the Iraq war did more for the notion of "professional soldier", not simply as an expression of a calling, but also as the best economic option available, that anything I've seen in my lifetime. For the young people who have gone through all that - and continue to deal with the aftermath of it, "postwar" ain't gonna have shit to do with either Sinatra, Aretha, Beatles, Dylan, none of that shit. And never mind all the new - and undoubtedly unending - rounds of answer records coming out of the various terrorist/"terrorist" indie labels.. Remember sex before AIDS? Those of us who do ain't getting any younger. And now we got remembering America before Iraq, which these days...and how many are left remember life before Viet Nam? "postwar"...it's just a silly notion if it extends out into the infinite, because it seems that America has damn near always been getting its war on at some point or another, little lulls here and there but not for TOO long, and it seems like all these wars bring about their changes to the national psyche, but if you want to not feel too creepy about that, sure, just call it all "postwar" and, oh yeah, WWII, that was Epic, hooray! Shit, we've still not gotten over postwar as in Civil War.

Well, ok then. That's not the same as saying that Viet Nam had no - or at best, minimal - lasting cultural impact, which is what it appeared was being said earlier, and which I find to be an absurdly simplistic, and wrong, assessment. And keep an eye on this post(Iraq)war thing...if Viet Nam was the acid trip war of scarydevilgenies being let out of the bottle and then seemingly disappearing once an illusory mass sobriety took hold, what we're in now is an methoid brainrattle abandonment of that "sobriety", and a willingness to let those genies - and any other ones that come along - back into the game as allies.

Nope. But I do think we've just begun living in postwar times relative to Iraq/etc. And good luck with all that.