JSngry

Hell, in this economy, everybody's just working ON the weekend!

Its catalog/vault items New jazz that is either "conservatively progressive" (meaning that it might displease some folks, but it won't scare anybody ) or a continuation of the label's (mostly) Wolff-led years "Rare Groove" style And Singers that a lot of jazz people have dug over the years. Remember, Mose Allison has been with them for a while now. Don't know if he still is, though. We've also had Lou rawls and Dr. John, and I'm sure there's been others. You got Dianne Reeves too. Thank God it's not Dianne Schurr! Actually, it seems like a pretty diverse-yet-coherent agenda if you ask me. Music that is comfortably different and is either "jazz" or "today's non-smooth-jazz-listener-friendly". Not too much of the new stuff thrills me, but I doubt that I'm their target demographic either. And, of course, there's Norah Jones, who I really don't think anybody had a clue was actually going to become a freakin' Pop Star. I think they saw her as an interesting jazz/country hybrid, not too terribly dissimilar from some aspects of Mose, albeit several generations removed in style and substance. But they heard something "different", something of musical interest that didn't fit any then-established pop niche and was closer to jazz than to any "commercial" format at the time. Credit Lundvall's veteran expertise with knowing how to fully capitalize on that Pop Stardom when it began to happen, helping the Blue Note bottom line to no end, and possibly saving EMI from some deep shit. Not for nothing did this guy used to be head of Columbia!

Count Basie w/Lockjaw, Eric Dixon, Marshall Royal, and Norman Jones, Shreveport, Louisiana, Sunday, December 13, 1970. The trip to Shreveport to see the band was a birthday present. I was about to turn 15 and had been into jazz for about 4 months. Didn't know who anybody was but Basie. My Dad recognized "April In Paris". The whole experience freaked me out. Ths shit was LOUD! The musicians were cooler and hipper in demenor in comportment than anything I had yet to even begin to imagine. And I thought that Dixon & Jaws were the weirdest (in the best possible way) shit that I had ever heard, weirder than Zappa, Hendryx, & "Revolution 9" rolled into one. STILL think that about Lockjaw... Oh, to have a time machine and be able to hear what I heard then with the benefit of what I know now... During that concert, what had begun as an enthusiastic curiosity became a purpose in life. Two weeks later, I bought my first jazz album. A few days later, I bought my next. Three weeks later, I got my first solo in Stage Band. And so it went. And goes.

You know, I got really upset when Total stopped making oatmeal, but Al Green on Blue Note doesn't bother me one bit. Hell, if they want to reactivate Pacific Jazz and do a Brian Wilson solo album, that's cool with me too. Possibly even more than cool, depending on the results... It's all music, and it's all business. You want "purity" and "vision", look somewhere besides a corporate entity. Or even better, compare Blue Note to Verve and send Bruce Lundvall a note of thanks.

That AMG blurb leads me to ask - what OTHER forms of "vinyl trickery" are there?

Surf the net, watch TV, and eat. ALWAYS eat.

Now, if you want to hear some deeply moving Getz (and "deeply moving" is a quality I think he didn't consistently bring to his playing until his last years; just my opinion), try this one: If "When I'm Called Home" don't get to you, you probably can't be gotten to.

Bet there'll be a sexy cover for THAT one!

I just dusted off an old 45 rpm single I bought way back when I was still young and foolish, Give me one more chance c/w Get it, the latter being a real nice funky instrumental. The band doesn't sound as big as the listing, but they hit a groove. Cover depicts only five guys. But that list sure IS impressive. I'll give it a spin ... Click here and find out yourself! Picked the personnel listing off of HERE. You know, it's interesting, becasue the way this guy kicks sometimes, it's like he's superimposing funk accents over a jazz pulse. Which brings to mind an off-topic point. Does anybody else hear, on Jimmy Smith's "Messy Bessie", Donald Bailey slipping in and out of a groove that is VERY similar to what James Brown would be up to a few years later? Bailey stays on the ride cymbal, but the accents he plays in spots, and the feel he plays them with, sure sound like a JB groove to me. Knowing how popular Smith was in that circle, I can't help but wonder if somebody in JB's band, maybe even JB himself, didn't pick up on that and put it to a more overt use. But maybe I'm just imagining that? And, BTW, what other recordings of this trombonist did this drummer appear on? Enquiring minds want to know!

http://www.carrothers.com/comedy/julie%20london.wma

http://www.carrothers.com/billyboy/comedyjukebox.htm

CAPTAIN MARVEL is one of my favorites, but not as much as SWEET RAIN.

What was the quote? I didn't hear the Buddy tapes until just a few years ago.

Yeah, I can just imagine Sgt. Friday having Bird thrust upon him by this buxom beautifinous bombshell that he found himself somehow being married to. Puts all those Dragnet/Adam 12 episodes involving hippies, acid trips, and dead babies into a whole 'nother perspective.

Just to clarify, Wilmer & the Dukes are NOT heard on this BFT, although, apparently, Vinnie Ruggiero is.

Wilmer & the Dukes = Arnie Lawrence Baritone Saxophone Jerry Niewood Baritone Saxophone Ron Alberts Drums, Percussion Vinnie Ruggiero Drums Doug Brown Guitar Wilmer Alexander Jr. Keyboards, Piano, Tenor Saxophone Gap Mangione Keyboards, Piano Larry Covelli Tenor Saxophone Jerome Richardson Tenor Saxophone Sonny Ausman Trombone Dennis Good Trombone Chuck Mangione Trumpet Sam Noto Trumpet Good Gawd. How are they?

"All The Things You Could Be By Now If Snoopy's Wife Were Your Mother" "Baron" Mingus, as he called himself back in the L.A. days, would rechristen himself "Red Baron" Mingus. "Little Red-Haired Girl's Table Dance" "Duke Ellington's Sound Of Franklin"

Creation is literally vibration, and so is music.

That might well be, Harold. I was going by an article in, I think, Jazz Times, that profiled Jerome's "re-emergence".

Ronnie Alberts? Wilmer & the Dukes? Chuck Mangione? My GOODNESS, what strange places these things lead! LOVE IT!!!!

I really don't see the publishers point. Smells like a shakedown to me at first whiff, or at least a negotiating ploy. If they want to argue for a higher overall royalty to cover unauthorized copying, that's one thing. But the way they're putting it now doen't ring true to me. A question for the vets - if, in the old days, a 45 would have been released commercially with the same song (and same performance) on both sides, would a double royalty have been paid? If so, then I guess there's a case. It's not like this "2 in 1" format is cutting into sales and depriving anybody of legitmate royalties. I mean, who's going to buy both a copy-protected version of an album AND a non-copy-protected version? Right? These are all first impressions. Somebody persuade me otherwise, I'm open to it.

The AMG link doesn't list a drummer, but a look into Bruyninckx revealed it is not Dunlop on that album - somewhat too busy for him, anyway, but that drummer sure is great, but completely unknown to me! - if it's that album. Who does Bruyninckx list as the drummer?

[Conjunto] Libre is percussionist Manny Oquendo and bassist Andy Gonzalez's group. I think that their music is generally more traditional (in an Afro-Cuban-Puerto Rican way), more intense, and more innovative than most of what has been released by Jerry Gonzalez's Fort Apache Band. I thought that Jerry was on the first Libre album or two back in the 70s, but I could be wrong.

The BeeHive stuff that made it to The Bridges Of Madison County soundtrack is superb as well. Also, the Bethlehem STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART is pretty good, but Hartman's not quite fully matured yet, at least not to my ears. One thing you GOT to get, though, is the Roost/Blue Note AND I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU. If you dig Hank's version of "There's A Lull In My Life", you'll dig hearing this version too. But the whole album is really nice.

Indeed, and the two covers of material from the Kenton book are as wonderful as they are successful. Ricky Ford, who goes back a long way w/Blake (I believe he was a student of Blake's at the New England Conservatory - where Byard also taught - and was on Blake's great Arista/Novus LP RAPPORT, as was Chris Connor(!) ), plays throughout with a laser-like focus, something he was not always wont to do at the time. Although I like him (Ford) no matter what, to hear him play like this is quite satisfying to me.