JSngry

And onions smell like beer!

Colors was originally on Phiilips, as was Twink (now retitled something else for, I guess, PC reasons). I used to have both LPs, having found them while on a family vacation in 1972 or so. We stopped for lunch at a "neighborhood joint" somewhere in Arkansas (my dad was adamant about leaving the Interstates for eating purposes), and there was a mom-and-pop hole in the wall next door. I persuaded the old man to give me 15 minutes before we got back on the road, and that was long enough to score those two sides. Gave them away ca. 1979 to a friend (who's no longer a friend) as a "thank you" gesture. Twink I don't miss so much, but Colors I do. Need to buy that expanded CD version... This set, however, contains all four Dot albums in their entirety, one cut that was only issued on the Blue Thumb 2-LP anthology How Are Things In Your Town?, as well as a few things from the Dot years that have never been issued in any form. So even if you already had everything, now you don't! My first exposure to Nordine was on a Dot LP called The Classic Collection, which was some sort of mini-series of LP releases that Dot did in the late-60s. Found it in a cutout bin ca. 1971, shortly after I had gotten into jazz, and bought it just because it looked like it might be interesting. Needless to say, it was... Not often do you get hit over the head by something that you're just totally unprepared for. Dancing In Your Head was like that, and that first Ken Nordine album was too. At least with Ornette, I knew who he was, and the surprise/shock was that of the direction, not of the content. Nordine? Completely sandbagged me. Side One began with "My Baby" and ended with "What Time Is It?". In between were "Down The Drain", "You're Getting Better", "Outer Space", & "Miss Cone", approximately 18 minutes of mind-blowing wordplay and imagery coupled with musical backing that ran the gamut form ersatz (or not?!?) "cool jazz" to pretty hip/out Third Stream type stuff. Wasn't ready for any of it, really, but became an instant fan, and have remained one since. Can somebody confirm my guess that "Forrest Horn" on the first album is really Chico Hamilton?

Wing=Mercury Camden=RCA Harmony=Columbia Pickwick was for a while associated in my mind with Capitol, but now I'm not sure how direct the connection was. Vocallion was reborn at some point in the 50s or 60s as a Decca budget label, I think.

In much the same way that Jimmy Scott sounds like Dinah Shore.

Package arrived today. Very nice, if slightly minimal, packaging. All the original liner notes and album covers are included. and the new commentary is brief but choice. Looks to be a winner, and they give you a free keychain to boot!

Jerry Garcia George Garzone Ralph Garr

Were you named after the city or the quarterback? (welcome!)

Pretty diverse cast, I must say.

Haven't found the Dewey side yet, but the cuts on Riff Mania whet the appetite for the full album. A helluva lot more than you might expect from a "riffs for DJs" type thing. Same hold for the Eddie Bo organ cuts. Attention must be paid! There's a whole series of thse things, it appears. http://www.tuffcity.com/html/HipHop.asp?Av...ShowFormat=CDVY Don't know how fruitful they all are, but still... Discographers, take note!

Pat Combs Pat Suzuki Antonio Stradivari

Just heard about this, nine months late. Apparently non-jazz tragedies don't get prompt coverage. http://www.thespeciousreport.com/2005/0505...andteicher.html Let's hope that he's recovered by now.

Indeed. I'm "all or nothing" with this stuff. Can't just casually check it out and then move on. It's all-consuming with me, so often I just leave it alone. It's just so freakin' massive that it leave me feeling that trying to play anything is just going to be an exercise in futility. And where's the fun in feeling like that? Some cats (and we all know at least one or twenty of them) respond by chasing the Trane like a dog chasing a car - an obvious exercise in futility, but they do it anyway, almost as if they can't help themselves (and they probably can't...). Myself, I take solace in the observation that although Trane pretty much closed the door on harmonic-based improvisation (really, what else is there left, especially after Interstellar Space?), his timbral and rhythmic "zone" was nowhere near as infinite. Plenty of room for discovery left there (which is probably why, where 60s Trane often leaves me feeling blissfuly paralyzed, 60s Rollins leaves me feeling blissfully inspired). I gotta laugh at attempts made to "deny" this stuff. the claims that it's too this or too that, or not this and not that are all just bullshit execrcises in aviodance, afaic. There is nothing in Trane's music (especially this 65 material) that isn't 100% real, and nothing that is not 100% true. Anybody who can't handle the message should just say so without attempting to blame the messenger. We all have our "tastes" and such, which is cool, but taste should not be confused with comprehension. "Not liking" something is one thing, attempting to deny its truth/validity is another thing altogether, and far less defendable. I'm no fan of the atom bomb either, but jeez, it happened, and life's not been the same since, so I gotta deal with the implications of atomic fission, dig? It's a fundamental fact of life now, right? If I try and claim that it's all a bunch of hooey, how big of a fool does that make me? I certainly dig later Trane a helluva lot more than the atom bomb , but I can also see how the sheer massiveness of this stuff can be overwhelming to some. But that's not the point, is it? Reality's a bitch, no doubt. But what's the alternative?

That's a pretty interesting segment, ain't it? How do you like the That Jones "arrangement" of "Tuxedo Junction"? Totally a stock arrangement except for the sax soli, which is totally Thad (and worth the cost of admission in itself!). You gotta wonder how much he got paid for that chart. Nice work if you can get it!

June Allyson Elvis Costello Ian Drury

Happy birthday! Rinse, please.

Dude, if you're using Ellerbe as the standard, very few anchorpeople of either gender stand up!

Lily Pons Lily Tomlin Ernestine Anderson

Don Larsen Kit Carson Tarzan

I'm sick. Any ideas?

Dill Jones Hank Saeur Christina Pickles

WOOF UP BIRFDAY DAWG!

I remember thinking that this surely was an act of conspiracy by the powers behind the incoming regime. I got mad as hell and stayed that way until later in the afternoon when some radio station was playing "I'm A Loser" and I heard the line "What have I done to deserve such a fate". Then I cried. Never cared about/hoped for a Beatles reunion, and never viewed John as a "moral authority" or some such. Never viewed him as anything other than a guy who asked the same questions as the rest of us, who was never coy in either asking or answering same, and who happened to have a real gift for putting it all into a song that you might well never be able to forget. Conspiracy or not, for a lot of us, the assassination of John Lennon was to the early 1980s what Kent State was to the early 1970s, a sign that things were going to work differently now, and that we were going to be on our own yet again. A bond, not necessarily of "profundity", but definitely of "family", had been violently and none-too-subtly severed, and there was nothing that could (or would) ever replace it. Would the 80s and beyond have proceeded on a different course had John Lennon remained alive? Who knows, and what difference does it make, really. What's done is done, and what is, is. I just wish we could've had the opportunity to find out. Even if everything would've ended up the same, it probably would've been a helluva lot more interesting along the way. I'm just a jealous guy.

Paul Terry Ralph Bakshi Ralph Terry

Is the Spoon stuff the live thing w/Sonny Criss from the late 40s/early 50s? Seems like that's the de facto Crown Spoon material.