JSngry

Pete Fountain came to prominance on the Welk show, iirc. The "best" Welk shows were the ones towards the end, whne the show was in syndication. Paul Humphrey was the drummer, I think, Skeets Hurfurt was on lead alto, and with Havens and Questa (no match for either Fountain or Hucko, but a good player nevertheless) the band brought a core of "jazziness" to the fore that it had heretofore mostly squelched. More and more, little things began to creep into the show that hadn't been there before. I actually remember a small group jam version of "How High The Moon" ca. 1975 or so that ended with an out chorus of "Ornithology". I thought I was going to die.

I can think of but two times in my life when I've gotten smacked upside my head by a personally relevant musical revolution in real time, as it happened, the kind of thing that comes out of the blue and grabs you by your gut and changes things forever. The first was seeing The Beatles their first time on The Ed Sullivan Show in January of 1964. But that defining moment (I immediately knew somewhere inside my 8 year old self that music was to be the life for me, some how, some way, and that everything else was going to be secondary) was not without some lead up - KEEL-AM in Shreveport, La. had been playing the shit out of The Fab Four for a few weeks prior to the Sullivan show, so I was primed. The TV gig just sealed, no, seared the deal. The second time was in the summer of 1977. I was home from college for the summer, and had been flirting with Music School Burnout. All the "formalism" of the legit stuff was really starting to beat me down and all the Jazz Education Rules were beginning to make me feel as if maybe jazz was not the music for me, at least not the kind of jazz I was fighting indoctrination against. I'd begun to flirt with the early punk bands and to revisit the rock and pop of the 1960s just to get in touch with that energy, the feeling that music was something you played because you had to do it or else you'd die. I was getting it from some jazz, but not the type I had regular opportunities to play at school. The whole music thing was getting kind of...dreary. So, it's the summer of 1977, and I'm in Dallas on an off-day from my summer job in Gladewater as a roustabout for Texaco, and I'm making the rounds of all my favorite Big City Record Stores. I stop in at a place called Metamorphosis (Rod surely remembers this place), and I'm browsing the bins when I come across a promo copy of a new album by Ornette Coleman with a really cool cover called Dancing In Your Head. I'd not heard any advance word about a new side by Ornette, and the personnel listing on the inside looked pretty, uh...different from anything I'd heard by him before. And I had heard a lot of Ornette before - a 45 of "Una Muy Bonita" was one of the very first jazz records I owned, Free Jazz was one of the first 50 or so jazz LPs I ever bought, and I'd bought pretty much all the Atlantic, Blue Note, Impulse!, and Columbia stuff by the time I was 20. So I knew Ornette. Loved Ornette, in fact, and knew well what was up with him and his music. And this record looked to be not at all like any of it. So I bought it immediately. Got home from Dallas about 7 PM, checked in with the folks, ate dinner, and went into my room to check out the day's purchases. Of course, the new Ornette was first. I didn't understand how Ornette could have a new album out on a major label (A&M - home of The Carpenters!) and I'd not heard or read anything about it. How could that be? Oh well, let's put it on and see what the deal is... WHOA.... From the very first sound of Side One, I knew that this was something else entirely, that my world was changing right before my ears for the better. Every microsecond of this music was a revelation. I listened in awe at the sing-songy theme from Skies Of America that was played over and over and over and over. I listened in ecstasy as Ornette played an endless solo that was as inventive as it was organic. My jaw literally dropped as I heard Rudy MacDaniel (he wasn't Jamaaladeen Tacuma yet, at least not in the personnel listing) play how no bass player had ever played with Ornette before, and on electric at that! The guitars and the drummer, hell, I was too much in shock to hear what they were doing, but I good feel it, and it felt right. Damn right. I was stunned when the side finally ended. Too stunned to turn the record over in fact. The old-school multiple-play turntable had the balancing arm up and off to the side, so the tonearm picked up, and the side replayed all by itself. I listened. That went on for a while before I could finally muster the presence of mind to turn the damn record over. Lot of good that did - it was the same thing, only completely different, with a little bit of Morrocan stuff thrown on at the end. That side was also allowed to repeat god knows how many times. I fell asleep to it and I woke up to it the next morning. I wasn't sure exactly what I had heard, but I knew that it had come out of nowhere, literally, and that it had connected in a way that music hadn't been connecting with me lately. Was anybody else doing anything even remotely like this? Not that I knew of. Why not? This was music that was damn near perfect - sure, there was dancing going on in the head, but as the prophets had advised us just a few years before, free your mind and your ass will follow. Here was the proof! (Already) long story short - I went back to school that fall energized, revitalized, and ready to do with music school what any sane creature should do with any schooling - get the knowledge, and fuck all the dogma they try to sell you as being further, more rarified knowledge. I became absolutely committed to dancing in my head, and anywhere/everywhere that led to. My Lab Band Career was shot, but my life, my life, not my programmed existence, had begun anew. Almost 30 years later, the world has changed. This album did make some noise, finally, and it spawned a little Mini-Revoltion. Like all of Ornette's revolutions, the direct influence proved to be pretty insular, even if the indirect influence eventually spread far and wide. The Big Chill of 80s Retro-ism tried its damndest to silence the revolution, and it did a helluva job. But it didn't succeed, not totally. Ornette continued to grow along the way to his next manifesto, Tone Dialing, and now, finally in the last few years, we're hearing younger players who absorbed the lessons of Dancing In Your Head, not so much in terms of stylistic imitation, but more in terms of realizing that freedom and dancing are really synonymous if you've taken the time (and the necessary precautions) to get your shit together as a human being. It's the basic lesson of jazz, really, and Ornette keeps keeping it current, even if the current has AC involved. Can you live a totally unplugged life? If you can read this... I'll leave it to others to provide musical (and/or other) analysis of this album. My experience with it has been way too personal for me to do anything other than tell y'all what it did to me. It came totally out of nowhere (I may well have been one of the first 500 or so people in the world to have heard it, which blows my mind now almost as much as it did then, if for altogether different reasons), but it was definitely the right thing at the right time. Finding this album when I did and how I did might have just been a cosmic accident, but it's the type of accident I wish for everybody. Dance on!

A friend found it for sale online and was asking me if I knew what it was. I figured it was a compilation but wanted to put it out here for the pros.

So, do you see gravity or deception as your friend? ← Depends on how grave the deception is. Or how deceptive the grave proves to be. What is this anyway, Meet The Press?

A lawn mower is amazing too if you stop to think about it.

Gravity is the enemy of deception, and gravity is this lady's friend!

I don't like Soulive. I think that they are not good music. If there was such a thing a Funk-In-A-Box and Soulive was inside, I would return it for defective packaging and/or false advertising. I don't like Soulive. So there.

It wasn't the fingers that impressed me...

Very sexy cover model too.

Just wondering. Seems certain that it is, but just thought I'd make sure. As always, thanks in advance.

Just heard from Dan, and he just now got power. He's ok, and will have some stories to tell.

STEVENS!!!!!

Welk reportedly gave Hodges the royal treatment during the session - 5-star hotel, chaufeurred limo, good $$$$ (from what I understand, a rarirty in the Welk business canon), and respectful deference to Rabbit in all things musical. Hodges is reported to have genuinely appreciated all of it.

Well, that was easy! Thanks!

Seems like Welk (or somebody in his camp) commisioned arrangements specifically for the date, got some fine L.A. writers (Benny Carter among them, iirc) who understood the mutual requirements of such a meeting, let them do their thing, and, perhaps most importantly, treated Hodges like the royalty he was during the entire affair. Everybody was on the same page, and the results speak for themselves. There's no polkas, no "la-la-la", "Calcutta"-type gimmick vocals, no typical Welk schmaltz, no anything other than Johnny Hodges as star of a very professionally arranged and performed mid-1960s type Easy-Listening album. It is what it is.

What do you need to play a .RAR file and how do you use it?

I heard that. Most people lose sight of the fact that it's actually an orchestral composition, not just a tune for blowing. It's a good blowing vehicle, but not a tireless one... ← Quartet Out does a damn fine version! ← Yeah, but you notice we always save it for the end of a set and we always go out and visit with friends and/or fans and/or anybody else immediately afterwards...

It's none too bad, all things considered. Mostly very un-Welk-like.

Glad you both made it! Anybody hear from Dan? I sent him an email earlier this week and still haven't heard back...

She's the kinda girl a guy could get, you know, comfortable with.

Tardy tidings to a truly terrific talent!

HB, CT! http://www.drinknudebeer.com/

The Columbia has better "excitement", the Everest better "execution". They're different enough to warrant having both, I think.

When is Alan going to pop in to tell us that it's a "carbon copy" of "Invitation" and that Bronislaw Kaper should've sued Oliver Nelseon?

I heard that. Most people lose sight of the fact that it's actually an orchestral composition, not just a tune for blowing. It's a good blowing vehicle, but not a tireless one...