JSngry

In 1953, Easter was on April 5, so...just sayin'.

Cafe Reggio Mister October Red Callendar

BB studied the Schillinger system for a while, not for musical reasons, but just as an intellectual exercise.

Nothing of specific direction to add except that if you're not yet on the path of the Basie airshots from this time, get started, and don't stop when Herschel's not there anymore.

Somewhere in the world there are glow-in-the-dark devil cows, and they are not toys.

I drink either soy or almond milk myself. Silk is doing good work these days! We only keep cow milk on hand because Brenda likes it in her coffee. With that limited amount of use, I've seen more than one quart go bad, but have never seen one stay fresh for this long.

This milk remains fresh and clean.

Cos Q Mr. B

This. I saw BB a few times, in varying venues playing to different audiences. Sometime his show would begin earlier than others, but it was always killer. And from all I've heard, he was a supremely ethical business man, had his band on salary with full benefits, health insurance, retirement plan, and all that. When you did the B.b. King gig, you were not just doing a few one-nighters and paying your way as you went along. The last time I saw him, him and Bobby Bland were doing a show at the Meyerson (sic). Brenda wanted to go, and I told her that we needed to take the kids too, they needed to see these men in the flesh, put faces, and most importantly, actions to the names, because those are names and sounds they're going to be experiencing in some for or fashion for many year to come. They were both totally enthralled, and both still remember the concert to this day. Lots of people are called "giants", but few truly are. B.B. King was a gaint, and you don't kill a giant, they don't die, they just move on to the next phase. RIP to a genuine giant.

If he gets off just one grunt as nasty as Errol Garner, he can hang it up with a Clear Jazz Conscience. Until then, he needs to keep going. Hey, Artistry Is Hell.

Still not that much of a Carmen mcRae fan, but arrangers include Gerald Wilson, Thad Jones, Johnny Mandel, and....some people who are not them. Saw this for 4 bucks about 5 years ago, and said, eh, ok, buy now, listen later,. Later was today. Tell you what, for the first four songs of Side One, I was thinking about re-examining Carmen McRae. A wholly characteristic Gerald Wilson chart on "Can't Hide Love" with wildly inappropriate piccolo trills on the fade, double-tracked vocals, and Carmen's sounding like she's loving all of it (and besides, that's one of the greatest songs of its era, period). Then a freakin GORGEOUS reading of Cole Porter's (or so says the record...) "The Man I Love", Mandel presaging his transcendent work with Shirley Horn of decades later, Carmen sings the verse, you get to hear that uber-rare Harvey Mason/Joe Mondragon hookup, damn, this one is for all time, then "Only Women Bleed", and yeah, I know, but Carmen is really leaning into the lyrics, so hey, and finally, a batshit crazy, a batshit fucking crazy Thad Jones chart on Bill Withers' "I Wish You Well" that just has me LOL-ing WAY loud by the time it's over, and then I'm like, yeah, this is gonna be alright after all. And then - "All By Myself". Nothing can save "All By Myself", that thing was death, is death, will ALWAYS be death, fuck you Eric Carmen, and fuck you People Of Earth for enabling that shit, too late now, but y'all going to hell by yourownselves on this one, not me, uh-uh. So that was Side One, and Side Two did not recover. The chances were there, but, too bad, most everybody's dead now, no taking it back even if they wanted to (and they really should have). So, four bucks for four songs and two real keepers. I feel neither cheated nor rewarded, not particularly. In another 10-15 years when I get this one back out, I'll know where to start and when to stop, time not totally wasted, although pretty damn close. But - here, this one's on me.

Joe said there was one on the list that he hadn't heard of. I was betting that it was the one called "Puristisu", and looking at the albums on the link provided, my hunch was that it was Priestess, since that's the only one that's on the site that is not on the list. Some of those translations, btw, come off pretty funny (as often happens with Japan/English translator engines.). I particularly like "Buddy Rich / Mercy, Mercy - Live At Shizasu Palace 1968" and the two Quincy Jones titles "I think of jazz" and "Walking-in-a-space".

Interesting post-hardbop originals that reach more towards Bill Barron than Cedar Walton in terms of harmonies & structures, James Clay and other local heroes and flavors, including one weird ass engineering/mixing/whatever that does none of it any favors. But Roger is still alive and playing today, still a beautiful and proactive thinker and conversationalist. Long may he wave.

Ah, that's right. So one really needs both, or, really all three - LP, CD, and CD compilation. Worth it, imo.

This record needs to be preserved in the Smithsonian.

Let me clarify lest purchases be made in vain - it's the Bluebird CD of There Comes A Time that contains more music.

He used to play locally (literally, lots of small-town festivals and stuff like that) for a while until, I guess, his health turned on him. RIP, part of the landscape, in the most meaningful way.

Also a drum solo track, which is basically Mel keeping time. Point being made!

I had fears of some really over-dramatic emo kitsch, but no. Some of the settings...predictably "bourgeois ", but the readings themselves are contently strong & compelling (and the source material impeccable) in an of course Sidney Poitier type way (I find some interesting parallels in his cadences and William Shatner's, but to completely different ends). So, yeah, very..."that", but also must be considered as part of the same spectrum as something like Celebrations & Solitudes, not something apart from it. Apart from that...some interesting things found in the liner notes of the 1969 UA (still using the orange and pink lables) release - Specs Powell on broad as drummer, percussionist, and pianist, Bob Porter as assistant engineer, and - liner notes by George Butler, Ph.D. as well as Album Coordinator: Dr. George Butler. So - One Degree of Sidney Poitier to Elvin Jones, Grant Green, Bobbi Humphrey, and Black Byrd. Also in the liner notes, this: Jeeezus, I had completely forgotten about "dramatic readers", church socials and teas, all of that. Hard Core Bourgeois, to be sure, but also - oral tradition keeping ideas and attitudes fresh in people's minds past and stronger than the written page itself, reference points for later decision making either on or around The Corner as well as in The Real World., and keep that in mind when pondering that "jazz" brings that part of life to it as well, aka Duke's line about New Orleans had more churches that whore houses. Anyway...hearing Poitier & Doris Belack (an interesting choice) trade verses on "When Malinda Sings" (or as the album's track list calls it, "When Melinda Sings", it's a good thing. But HOLY SHIT, this album was originally released in 1955?!?!?!?!?! sooo....WTF? UA picked this 1955 indie release up, changed "Negro" to "Black" and...did what? Overdubbed the music" Dr. George Butler acts like this is a new release? wow. FUCK - I see now that George Butler took Lorraine Hansberry's liner notes, parsed them down a little bit but otherwise quoted them verbatim - and put his name on them. Did this motherfucker have NO shame?

The Gil/Kikuchi album keeps the tunes longish, and the electronic colors abundant (and when Gil went into electronics, colors abounded). And Billy Harper is ALL over the thing! There comes A Time LP vs CD - LP was marvelous, but a lot was edited out. CD restored much of it, and to gripping effect, imo.

It's Texas. We don't use extraneous letters, although we do find weirdass ways to pronounce the ones we keep.

Betting it's Purisutisu, which turns out to be the Antilles Priestess. That Gil/Kikuchi thing is a monster, highly recommended. It's more like the CD version of There Comes A Time than the LP version, if you know what I mean. Oliver's side is a keeper too, in my book, just because it's a roaring-ass live big band recorded very nicely. Soloists are not always..."stimulating", but they don't suck. The main thing, though, is that big-band energy as applied to those charts.

Not if you're a bottom feeder like me. The used bins are filing up again. Not as cheaply as they used to, but still affordable enough most of the time.