JSngry

Thanks! That link doesn't fully load for me right now, but I'll keep trying. ← After much perseverance and invaluable site translation by e-mail/hand-holding by the Red Octopus staff (once again, it seems that everybody in the world can handle English, but dumbfuck Americans like me can't handle anything else...), I got an order placed. Ended up being a tad pricey (a little over $40 after shipping), but I figure it's two of my favorite tenorists, it's previously unissued material, it's a 2-CD set, and it's a limited edition (geographically as well as numerically, it seems). If I overpaid by a few bucks, so be it. Such are the ways of the Carpe Diemist.

Alec Wilder Alex Karras George Plimpton

To further drop M&Ms on the discographical trail, 8 of those 10 Reprise cuts were issued as a budget LP on the Columbia subsidiary Harmony as DUKE ELLINGTON'S GREATEST HITS Recorded Live In Concert (H 30566). BEsides the medley that Chuck rightly praises, there's an "Echoes Of Harlem" that is brief but stunning. Hell, the whole album is stunning. For that matter, the whole concert is stunning. I got the Harmony album for Christmas in 1970, bought the Atlantic album when it was first released (I was young and dumb, but not that dumb), still play the shit out of both, and still haven't missed the two cuts. such is the power of Ellington!

Do you pay throught the nose?

Yeah, that's right. I've heard it, and it's damn good.

Percy France Julie London Spider Martin

Not through any doings of Dick Wetmore, I hope...

So I'm driving to work, turn on KNTU, and I hear this vocalist with a big band. My first reaction is Johnny Hartman, but a few seconds into it, I glom that it's Kevin Mahogany. The tune is a bossa apparently entitled "Three Little Words" (not the standard, btw), and it's a gorgeous tune. The big band arrangement is not to my usual stylistic liking, but this chart is recorded well, and whoever the drummer is is stealthly setting up a pocket that makes everything lay just right. Great tune, great groove, I'm digging it. There's a tenor solo that is about what I'd expect, and then there's this trombone player who jumps in and SOARS, plays in the style of the vibe, but with an additional quality that borders on freakin' majesterial. Like I said, this type of thing is not my usual turn-on, but I can feel the magic happening, and magic transcends "styles", if you know what I mean. Mahogany comes back in and takes it out (a whole 'nother full chorus would've worked better for me, but c'est la vie...), and I'm wondering who the hell THIS was that could take a style that I usually go out of my way to ignore and make it sound so damn GOOD?!?!?!?!?!?!? Well, I don't have to tell you who it was, but the DJ told me, so I guess it's only fair that I tell most everybody else - it was Frank Mantooth, the album was Miracle, and the trambone solo was.... Yeah, YOU. Nicely played, sir, NICELY played A BIG Now, who was that drummer, and why can't all big bands of this ilk have one like him/her? And that tune! Wondermous! I hope you bring it into sessions and shit. It's that good, I think. Majesterial, dude, majesterial is what you was. Kudos!

Chan Gailey Geraldine Page Rebecca Kilgore

Don't we all...

I've got the Tapscott/Simmons, and dig it heavily. Isn't there a Ricky Ford album or two on the label as well?

Lionel Hampton Edward Brooke Thomas Sowell

Uh....that's how he spelled it...

Anybody see the Cantinflas movie that was just on? Freakin' BRILLIANT!

Mitch Ryder Butch Trucks Evil Knievel

None that I've come across...

Saw them once, in either 73 or 74, when the pop tip was more than taking over. Apparently they were uncomfortable with this, because the show feature a lot of lengthy jamming, none of it particularly inspir(ed/ing). But Danny Seraphine was a damn good drummer. Opening act was an unknown (then and now, at least to me) "jazz-rock" group (also on Columbia) called Madura. Actually enjoyed them more than I did Chicago! Anybody else remember them?

The result of the battle between Dick Hyman & Dick Wellstood, no doubt.

Early Wynn Anna Loos Jon Gnagy

No gas for me. What's the point? Used a Weber kettle for years until it finally fell apart. The mother-in-law offered to buy us a Big Green Egg (after a few hints had been dropped), and we took her up on her offer. Damn fine thing, the Big Green Egg is.

Definitely one of my favorites as well. The band was on!

Can't please everybody!

I always looked at that as a riff on Basie's "One more time!" schtick on "April In Paris". Same thing, really, right down to the words themselves.

Same band, Not exactly the kind of group you'd expect to get those types of albums out of, but there they are. On more than a few occasions, those particular Buckinhams albums sound like rough drafts for Chicago's work-to-come. The AMG profile of Guercio reads, in part thusly: