JSngry

You sure you got a grasshopper in you ear?

What you find often depends on what you want to look for. Shepp's a significantly more subtle and nuanced ballad player now than he was in the 60s. I love his 60s work as much as anybody (and perhaps more than many), but ballads of the type he plays on this album can't help but benefit from the broadened perspective of life experience (including learning more about the subtleties of playing melody and changes), and Shepp brings that increased life experience to the table as openly as he brought his political passions to the table in the 60s. If love, life, and money don't turn you around every now and then and make you reconsider some shit as time goes by, well, that ain't much of a life if you ask me. So yeah, if you're looking for "angry" tenor or something like that, this stuff might well sound "blase". But if you're looking for soulful, nuanced, mature ballad playing that goes straight to the heart and speaks of and to a mature life, hey - it's definitely here. As our Fearless Flyer implies, it's all good to me when it is in fact all good. And Blue Ballads is exactly that.

Hey - I've heard a lot of standards, but by no means all of them. And the one's I've heard, I don't always remember. This is one of 'em. Evan's got it right - "I Can't See For Looking" it is. I pulled out the Red Garland Solar album and confirmed it. Looks like it was a tune originally done by Nat Cole in the 1940s. Sorry for my screwup, but glad that we all now know what it is!

Is that side still available?

J.G.? There's a ballad medley of Paul Chambers doing "Don't Explain", Wynton Kelly doing "Autumn Leaves", Trane doing "What's New", & Getz closing it out w/"Moonlight In Vermont". Then there's a splice to a perfromance of Trane & Getz toghether on "Hackensack". At sometime during the splice, Kelly got up from the piano bench and was replaced by Oscar Peterson. I suspect the tape was edited by Rosemary Woods.

The Burger King Hamburglar G. Gordon Liddy

Carole King Carola Gray Ray Hair

It's not any standard that I've ever heard.

Never on CD. Personnel is Bu Pleasant, Harold Vick, Atlee Chapman (trombone), Ted Dunbar, Mickey Bass, & Freddie Waits. Recorded 3/17/73 by Michael DeLugg, Produced by Larry Fallon. One of those sides that satisfies deeply (and perpetually) w/o a lot of obvious dazzle.

Just finished playing this cut 5 times in a row, and yeah, this cut is the shit. If you got the CD, give it a listen. It's a motherfucker. The attention to minute detail is as immense as the groove is big. And, dare I say it, it's totally Ellingtonian (in the non-literal sense). Pop music per se is not the enemy.

Yep.

Tom House Johnny Unitas Meenakshi Devidas, Ph.D.

Mother Popcorn Mother Teresa Mothers of Invention

PFC Gomer Pyle SSgt Barry Sadler Major Harris

Vicki Sue Robinson Alicia Bridges Andrea True

Dr. No Dr. Funkenstein Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk

It's been fairly widely circulated between collectors for the last year or so. But I think it's Oscar Peterson on piano, not Wynton Kelley. That's what I've been told anyway.

Joe Carrol Charlie Chan Jennie Ng

Could you post a link to that thread, please? I've seen that band on Dusty Groove & was wondering what the deal was.

I'd not let situation go unremedied.

Blue Ballads is a Japanese side on Venus. Black Ballads is on Timeless, IIRC. Thus the price difference. Of course, the differences in covers justifies the higher price...

What part of pointless (if often fun) mental masturbation don't you understand?

Greg Waits Tom Waits Tom Terrific Crabby Appleton 12 Angry Men Rebel Without A Boarding Pass

His readings of the ballads on this album are some of the most ravishingly devastating work he's ever done.