JSngry

Dawn Wendell Elrod Dawn Wendell Elrod's Husband, Steve Elrod Dr. Burton F. Elrod (no relataion, afaik)

Kristen Wiig Kate McKinnon Imogene Coca (yeah, I'll mention the first two in the same breath as the third, especially the first)

Bach Bach Bach

Yes, please. Green.

Well, ok. my wife has the flu, I don't yet. so I should probably do this right now, just in case, with the usual thanks and disclaimers in place, let's all go down to the record store an buy the new hit by Tammy Flue and The Cold Chill Sweat Band. TRACK ONE - Sounds like if McCoy had written music for a Peanuts special. How do you not like that? I do! Although that gosh darn voice-noise accompaniment suggests that this might be Keith Jarrett, but I don't think so, it's not girly-enough in pitch to be him. Besides, I don't think I'd like Keith Jarrett doing Peanuts music, and I like this. TRACK TWO - Wow, the intro sounds like more Peanuts music, but the song itself is one that Jimmy Scott did, so a little backwards engineering leads us here: http://www.allmusic.com/album/when-a-smile-overtakes-a-frown-mw0000066387 I love songs like this, "bebop love songs" is what they more or less are, and not just anybody could sing them right. If this version is done a little faster & more ornamental in accompaniment that the "classic" style, and if the singer's voice is a little less gravity-laden that that same "classic" style. No matter, it's a hip song done very well. I'd have love to have heard Al Hibbler & Rahsaan to have done it on their album, or Jackie Paris at some point (early-ish), or Billy X-Stine, ever. It's that type of song, and add this guy to the list now. I like his phrasing very much, he knows what time it is, Is the whole album this right? I mean, ok, this guy has just a hint of Aaron Neville in some of his colorations, and that's outside of the rigid parameters, but screw it, I dig Aaron NEvill, when the guys not role-playing for hi-profile pop records, he's a monster singer, so that's just one more way for it to be all good. I'm played thorugh it four times while typing this, and each time is better than the one before. Call me crazy, but I dig good singers singing good songs. TRACK THREE - Wow, this is intersting...I know I hear Roy Eldridge, but other than that...Flip Phillips, early Paul Gonsalves, maybe Budd Jonhson, Jacquet possibly but not likely, those all come to mind as tenor possibilities. And f the pianist is Oscar Peterson on a good taste day. more power to him, but if I'm looking for somebody who would be likely to play with this school of horn players on this type of piece, I might be tempted to say Jimmy Jones, but that' not Jimmy Jones' touch. The thing is, it's a more modern recording than you'd typically associate with this style of horn playing, so my label possibilities are not just Pablo, but also MJR, Chiaroscuro, and some other things I've never delved into with any kind of examination death. I might even go out on a limb a suggest Scott Hamilton is on this? Fun cut, very, and I wonder what the rest of the record is like. TRACK FOUR - Could just as easily be through-composed as it could be anything. I like it, although occasionally I hear the math. But it flows well, and always stays on-point. Would that more things did. TRACK FIVE - Is that Moody? Or some retro guy who amalgamates? Cause I hear some Dexter in there too, but mostly Moody. But all of it "referential", none of it "direct" (and should it accidentally be Moody, I have to say, it doesn't sound like an "unleashed" Moody, not at all). Oh, and ok, this guy thinks he's Warne Gonsalves. All thing together, I'd have to say that this is about 20-30, maybe even 40 years behind its time, which is not necessarily bad, I just wonder why. TRACK SIX - Ok, at first I thought is was some later Horace piece, but no, that's Mal Waldron. Nobody OCDs a piano like Mal Waldron, and I mean that as a compliment. OH GEEZ, that's "Beat It", I have this record, I think it's got the M*A*S*H song on it too, a lot of pop songs, w/Reggie Workman & Ed Blackwell iirc. I bought it thinking it was going to be one thing, but it's pretty much what it looks like, MAl Waldron covering a lot of pop songs, like a Mal Waldron version of a mid 1960s Ramsey Lewis record. They could have overdubbed hand claps and audience noise on this cut and had a hit! TRACK SEVEN - Oh, that's Illinois Jacquet. TRACK EIGHT - Sounds like Monk if Monk was up all day and slept all night. Is that Jarrett? I don't know why it would be, it just sounds like it could be. But just in spots. TRACK NINE - Bobby Watson, "Wheel Within A Wheel". That's such a great tune, but I find that I enjoy it more when there's a another lead line to play against. I've never really warmed to Bobby Watson as a player, but his writing is excellent, and from all accounts he is a true gentleman who handles his business. so nothing but best wishes here, a long life well lived and well-played. TRACK TEN - Now that's how to get a good sounding record, harmonious air. Play in such a way that the individual notes and their decay don't overlap in conflict with their successors, voice the chords with the same consideration, and then record it in the same way. You end up with sound and space merging to form harmonious air. It seems like such a simple concept, but it's amazing how much sound gets made that appears to attempt to move the air by force, rather than through mergement, ego over partnership, king of the hill instead of lord of the mountaintop village. We live in an age of crude brutality, and even roughness can be done with sweetness, so don't confuse the two. Harmonious air, don't ask for it by name, because people will think your crazy, but insist on it in your own life by implementing best practices at all times. Now, for some reason, this reminds me of a Duke Pearson thing from long ago. But that's beside the point. TRACK ELEVEN - I get an objective perception of the sense of the intended attitude. TRACK TWELVE - Buddy Tate? Dickie Wells? Sounds like a Columbia record, but that's not Basie, I don't think, not with that kind of groove. My days of being able to make even a halfway-educated guess are long behind me, at least for now. But the bass sure was recorded well, wasn't it! Or maybe that is Basie, it's just that the oom-pah comping is throwing me, as is the drumming, not really getting Jo Jones AT ALL. But hell, who knows? Not me! After you get past the "period" thing, though, that's some nice playing by everybody, a little on top of the beat in the section work for my tastes, but it never feels rushed, and that's a huge, important difference. Or maybe that's Herschel Evans? TRACK THIRTEEN - I guess I don't have the frame of reference to understand why anybody would think like this, at least not this developed, like free-jazz Muppet Show Monk-music is a concept I would enjoy to the level of smiling at the thought, not going to all this...work to actually make happen, so all I can do is be objective and say that it sounds like they have a good reason, one that means something to them, and there certainly seems to be no shucking involved, so...go ahead on, whoever you are! TRACK FOURTEEN - "I'm Just Wild About Harry", is that what this is? No, it is not. Very high-level Bud Powell World playing though, very high level. Barry Harris, perhaps? There's imitating the sound of a world and then there's living in it and speaking of it naturally. This feels like the latter. "Look For The Silver Lining", is that what this is? No? Very enjoyable collection of almost totally unfamiliar (to me) music, including some real gems (notably the Luqman Hamza!). Much, big thanks!

Katie Holmes Carol Walters James Coburn

I keep thinking that The Mills Brothers are easily enough ignored, but putting that thought into action seems to run into a snag every few years, and, as in these two cases, in some pretty spectacularly unlikely places. The Basie thing is not really surprising, just the song itself, and hearing that LOL moment when Jaws just ignores the changes at the end of his solo to throw in that one lick, Lockjaw Davis don't give a damn about no Glen Campbell or no John Hartford, Lockjaw Davis = Lockjaw Davis, so BOOM, that what you get for your money, that's what you came to hear, right?, but the Welk clip is priceless at many levels & almost up there with the Johnny Hodges album as example of an America that could have existed but didn't, because the only way that it could have existed was for the real America to have never existed, but hey, that's the thing that makes the show business, right? And really, didn't the Mills Brothers always swing? Even if/after it became a formula?

He looks like Robinette on/from Treme.

Turk Farrell Faron Young Amanda Barren

Just look at Frankie Lymon's head. Just his head, don't take your eye(s) off his head, specifically the upper head, from the eyes all on up the forehead. Pretty soon it (his head) becomes detached from his body, like it's just hover-flaoting above it. And then, it gets WEIRD. It's like one of those Magic Eye cartoons, only this eye gets evil. FLOATING BIG HEAD EVIL. (cf. )

Yeah, I like the notion of doing that, just because. Results vary wildly, to put it mildly, but I like that people are thinking like that as an alternative to more or less relying on societal conditioning to "hear" music. The BRG's output is not exactly "legal", but there's been 7 volumes so far, released (strictly online and free, at least as far as I know about) under titles "Tuned To A Natural E Volume (x)". I say that to neither condone or encourage the pursuit of such material, but rather to simply keep the historical record as accurate as possible....

HAven't gotten around to Love yet, but if you are interested in all kinds of digital-wonkery done on known-quantity catalog, there's a thing called Beatles Remixers Group that's been at it for a good long while now, long before Love. With a little cyber-digging, they can be can be found and enjoyed. Their hit-to-miss ratio is mixed at best, but it's all free, and the good stuff is really, really good. Some of it is as simple as doing a remix of a song from the isolated surround-sound tracks that came out on...something...maybe the Anthology DVDs? some of it is mashups, some of it is real DJ-ology, extracting/reconstructing samples into a whole new piece. And some of it indeed very fresh and startling, like hearing this music with a fresh perspective for the first time in decades, and some of it is indeed total crap of the most amateur variety. But again, it's all free, so you got nothing to lose. This type of thing is not for everybody, for sure. A lot of people don't want to hear stuff like this, and I can understand why not. Me, I enjoy it (at least when it works), because if the only Beatlemusic I had to hear for the rest of my life was the known-quantity catalog, I don't know how often I would bother. I mean, I love the stuff, I imprinted on it from the night of the first Sullivan show, it's a much a part of me as much as anything else, but after a point...it's in there, I know it's in there, and let's leave it at that, move on, get some other stuff in there as well. I got no problem with that, don't really need to hear any of that ever again (or hardly ever again). But these manipulations-type things, those are a kick. I can't tell you how guy-punched I felt the first time hearling "I Long To Hold Tall Sally", it was like, wait, this is not anything that ever happened, so why is it happening, how did this happen, how do the Beatles sound like this, I know how the Beatles sound and they cannot sound like this. Yet here they are, so I guess they can. A total mindfuck, not from the novelty aspect of it, from from the deeper sensation of having everything I knew about everything involved totally destroyed in less than 180 seconds. This will need to be put back together, but you know, it'll never be put back together like it was, and that's something to be thankful for. Like music used to be all the time, right? That, to me, is what you should do, creatively, with known-quantity repertoire, find a way to make it into something new, twist it around, turn it back on/inward against itself, find new dogs in that old fur instead of putting that old fur on new dogs. Of course, sure, revisiting the original material is still valid, ti always will be, but a little of that goes a long way for me, after a point (a point long ago reached).

Erich Brenn Phillipe Wynne Bootsy

The Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane Nice Lady Johnny B. Goode

Raga-Rock was ok by me!

We knew him as "Mo'Hell", but not everybody did. Seriously, yes, CD Japan is very easy to deal with, in every way.

Sleater-Kinney Sauter-Finegan Capp/Pierce

You gotta carpe diem while the diem is there to be carped, know what I'm sayin?

And yet played live, as by that orchestra in that clip, it becomes very musical, conservative, actually, much more than the record, I think. I was surprised as anybody, but in a world of Stockhausen, Penderecki, Berio, etc., this fits right in. On a rock record, maybe not so much (and it was only years later that I learned of those other musics), but the Lennonos would go there for a while, hardly ever (one might posit never) with good results, but with age and knowledge of what they were referencing, at least now I have a context for the ambition instead of thinking they were just lost in space koo-koos or some such. Speaking of surprises... This thing is a worm that eats through your skull and eats your brain into a new place from which there is no retreat. In a good way.

Yeah, I mean, ok, the UK mixes are the originals, and now that I've lived with them, I consider them "definitive" as far as the music goes. But as far as how that music sounds, hey, don't expect me to unlearn what, 20+ years of aural memory. What, just tell myself that everything I heard never really happened?. What kind of retro-revisionist brainwashing is that? It may not be as dramatic as the differences between the original UK and US releases, but this was my logic, after much agonising, in convincing myself to go with the 2009 Stereo Box rather than the 2009 Mono Box when i finally got round to getting that sorted last year: I'd grown up with the original CD releases in stereo and it's just how i knew and loved the music. The funny thing is i've grown to love the early stuff, which i'd never listened to on CD growing up, and apparently it sounds much better in mono... so... something something. I went for the mono box just to see what all the fuss was about, and, yeah, I don't know if it sounds "better", but...the early stuff is definitely more punchier in mono, which is, I think, what the object of the game was. And the White Album in mono has some things here and there that are either dramatically different in balance or, a few times, aren't even there in the stereo mix. Enough of a difference that I had a real WTF moment or two, and I couldn't tell you the last time before then I had had one of those with Beatles music. Just saying, if the opportunity arises, consider it seriously as a worthwhile acquisition.

Nobody ever changes their mind about that one! However, this is worth at least one listen, more if, like me, you've always found it an "interesting" work. As tape collage, yeah, ok, but as live "contemporary music" orchestral work, hmmm....who knew?

Paul was always good. He was special in tandem with Ringo, though. There was a real synergy there.

Anything but Beatles For Sale & Let It Be will be pulled from the shelves without a second thought when the mood strikes (and those two will get pulled after no more than a third thought), each for different reasons. But since I got hip to the Purple Chick series, I'm just as likely to go for those, especially for the session takes. That's where it hit me head on that neither Paul nor Ringo on their own were in nay way "special", but in tandem, they could conjure a real mojo. Interestingly, the session tkaes for the early albums are more musically interesting than those for the later album, which are the more interesting (for me) in terms of "just" music. Really, though, it's so much a" known quantity" for me now, that the real "discovery" type comes from remixers and other digital-head type examinations.

Arvo Part Barvo Walker Chuck Norris