JSngry

I found a pristine copy at the thrift store, and after one spin, dragged it right back. I paid medium dollars for a Mobile Fidelity Labs copy & was pretty well pleased, but then went back and found an original Capitol LP issue, b/c if you don't do that, you don't get the original packaging and liner notes, which add the Creepiness Factor that just hearing the music along doesn't produce. But the music itself, once you get past the one or two obligatory Space-Age Hyperspew things, is really played with a balance and sobriety not found in that much of Kenton's work. I was, not exactly impressed, but...reached by it?

Produced by Keg Johnson!!!!), and adorative liner notes by Stanley Crouch(!!!!) Produced + Liner Notes written by Michael Cuscuna 1975 & 1976, respectfully. Blue Note hittin' dat new note! You got the guitars of Barry Finnerty & Joe Beck on the former, and Rodney Jones on the latter. Arthur Blythe is around but not really in the forefront, Steve Turre is all over the place, but mostly on bass, Arnie Lawrence has a cameo or two on Peregrinations, and on the whole it would easy to dismiss both as lightweight, inconsequential, well-produced fujazak wallpaper, easy and not entirely incorrect. But... Chico is really bringing his pulse mojo to the fore on these sides. No, ain't nothing much happening on the top or in the middle, but you get down to the bone, and there's Chico, keeping some serious, dancing, happy time, no matter what the groove, and doing it strongly. And every so often, it works, not as "music" but as mojo, something that works on your body by bypassing your head. I find that to one degree or another on almost every Chico Hamilton record I get, old or new - Chico himself, he got that mojo. Yeah, it would be easy to dismiss these records, easy and fair, and not really incorrect either. But it would be equally wrong to do so without first paying heed to the drummer, because the drummer got something for you ass, jack, yes he do. And he can keep you coming back for it.

Quiet Lady Sweet Charlotte Little Baby

That Wagner album is actually....restrained for the most part. Surprised the hell outta me.

Uh...guess it's back?

When I was there, I heard it mentioned more than once - always in a casual setting, never a formal one where accountability could come into play - how Kenton had "done more" for jazz than Ellington. Seriously. That level of True Believerdom is very much wrapped up in the Great White Hero syndrome and all that comes with it. It was not until very recently that I was able to approach Kenton's music being able to set that asise. But even then, I still have the sense that Kenton himself was into that, had some kind of messianic complex or something, and had a complex about wanting jazz the way he did, like it caused a conflict in him or something and he as determined to never give in to it completely for fear of..who knows what. Now, that's just Kenton himself. A lot of the people who made his sound for him were not into that at all. But the Kenton personality was so strong that it got into the mix anyway, which no doubt caused some...conflict. Holman in particular has been vocal about that. But it's undeniable that, conflicts or not, some people found their voice in that orb, and many more made careers. Here's the whole ting in a nutshell: Willie Maiden = Truth. Kenton = The Man, and Oh Those Krazy Kids Yet The Man is giving The Truth The Gig so...who's really got the upper hand here, or is there any hand in the first place?

That is indeed a very fine album, and one of the biggest surprises I've ever gotten out of a first-time listen to a Kenton album. Roland is not really "fleunt" on soprano, but his got a sound like Lucky Thompson on the instrument, and he knew how to work that sound.

It's not as worshipful as all that. Sparke is definitely a fan, but when a piece, a band, project, or tour sucked he says so in boldface and tells why in detail. And the alumni speak their minds if they hate a given chart or project or rhythm section. It's balanced. No, the book itself is not "worshipful", but Kenton Worshipers are a breed unto themselves, and in Speake's liner notes, it comes thorough much more clearly than in the book that this is what he is. Which is ok, but..I'm just sayi'... Trust me - I spent years at UNT, which in those days was the epicenter of Kenton Worship, even as the tide slowly and inevitably turned. After a while, you can read the signs, and Speake shows them. But he really tries hard not too! The book, though, what I've read of it, is pretty good. I'll be buying it at some point. But I don't think that Speake's musical judgements are always sound (i.e. - in sync with mine ), nor do I think he ever grasps how truly irrelevant Kenton became in his time to anything but his own insular world, nor how his best later bands and his best earlier bands were pretty much the same thing once you allow for the overall lesser level of soloists in the later bands. Hell, to be honest, if we're talking about bands, I think his Redlands-era band and the Mellophonium band at its very best were better bands than any band he had in the 1940s or 1950s. I mean, airshots of those earlier bands often reveal groups with some questionable concepts of time, tempo, and dynamics. Even, dare I say, blend, and this with a book where blend was crucial to everything really working. Those two other bands, otoh, played like bands, like people who had to play that way or else die trying. I very much appreciate it when people \play like that. And in the last few months, I've gone back and heard pretty much all of it, including a fair amount of "off-label" stuff, so that's not a causal or past-bias based observation. If you want to read a book that a lot of the True Believers hate (although for the life of me I don't know why) check out Straight Ahead: The Story of Stan Kenton by Carol Easton, from 1973, written while Kenton was still alive. Ms. Easton was definitely a fan, but not so much a True Believer. Yet the stories are pretty much the same, although Speakes has the advantage of writing After The Fact and having access to resources who could probably speak more freely than they could then. The one thing I definitely remember is her recounting of Anita O'Day's first entry onto the band bus. WHOA!

I've read a buttload full of liner notes by Speakes to a buttload full of Kenton CDs over the last few month's, and Stanley Dance he ain't, although that appears to be how he fancies/is positioning himself, as Kenton's Stanley Dance. Perhaps appropriate, that. Haven't read the entire book yet, but it is largely excerpted on Amazon, and I've gotten a good taste of it there. Not at all bad, although there is that "Kenton Worshiper" vibe that comes through in spite of trying not too. They are True Believers, they are, and they give off a vibe that cannot be disguised. Not saying that's good, or bad, but it is what it is. I'm not talking fans, I'm talking Believers. I've recently grown to more fully appreciate Kenton as a genuine Parallel Universe, a world that created its own ongoing relevancy to its own ongoing self. No small feat, that, even if, as it turned out, at some point inside the world is the only place that cares. Me, I gotta go there to get there, and I can never stay there, but I kinda dig, sometimes genuinely, sometimes perversely, how...adamant the whole thing was. It's almost(?) like that was the ultimate point rather than the music itself, which could range from dreck to magnificent and (usually) various points in between. But it was always adamant. Always.

What I admired most about the Rangers - their character, their resiliency, their defiance - has vanished. No idea why, or how, but it is gone.

This ended up being a significantly better record than I was expecting...the Quintet cuts with Dolphy are more heated than the other stuff of theirs I've heard, the vocal cuts are warmly quirky with an old-school huge sounding sax section providing the backgrounds, and the drum solos are nothing short of magnificent. I was expecting some equally pleasurable but significantly less substantial music. But ok, this then!

The Red Barron Red Ryder Edward J. Shoen - President of U-Haul International, Inc.

Has the cumulative material on that Capitol thing ever been out on one CD?

Little Debbie Malcolm Little Francis X. Bushman

Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands Gina Rowlands Gene Rayburn

It's got a deep groove! The LP, not the music...

Gruber Grover Griever

Apparently this is readily available on CD, but with some additional, unrelated, irrelevant material added. I got the Spindletop LP without all that nonsense. And nonsense-free it is. Splendid playing by both men. If all you know of Eddie Harris is the commercial stuff, and/or if all you know of Ellis Marsalis is his offspring, then this album will show you that even if you can't ultimately get past that, you could if you wanted to.

That high-level ping-pong scares/impresses the hell out of me. No way I could focus my reflexes that tightly and quickly.

Donald Walden Bill Walton Ray Walston

Issued on RCA with little to no fanfare. Totally solo (albeit overdubbed solo), and totally badass. Eddie Harris was a complicated man. Not sure if no one understood him but his woman or not, but...this is a serious album with some serious playing on it.

Our Father Gnoes http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnoes Pete Best

Same for Groove's vocal on "Poke Salad Annie"...not even "good for what it is". But Thornell Schwartz is ALL good here!