JSngry

It's good. Real good.

Everything old is new again...

Correct on all counts! CONSTELLATION tied w/McCoy's SAHARA in the Critics Poll. The Readers Poll winner that year was BIRDS OF FIRE, again by the Dave Pell Octet... The Muse CD of CRISSCRAFT included an alternate of "Blues In My Heart" as well as "All The Things you Are" from the OUT OF NOWHERE session. I've been seeing some Muse CDs beginning to pop up in various bargain bins lately, so keep your eyes open. There's no sense in these reissues offering less than full value!

So in summary - get all the Lester Young that is available. :D

Hmmm...another trip to the closet seems to be in order.... OK, neither one won either the Readers or Critics poll in 1972. THE YOU AND ME THAT USED TO BE by Jimmy Rushing won the Critics Poll, and THE INNER MOUNTING FLAME by The Dave Pell Octet ( ) won the Readers Poll. But I didn't get to the '73 polls. It's a really messy closet.

Believe me once, believe me again: (and what everybody else said too)

Oh, what about the MUSIC? Well, hey - it's an Aebersold playalong record, one of, maybe THE first in a loooonnnnggg series. I used it a bunch early in college. It is what it is. It doesn't NOT swing, and it can make for humorously innocuous background music (Hey, it's the perfect jazz record for people who don't like jazz - all groove and NO SOLOS!!!! :D: ), but other than that, I don't think it would be entertaining to a general jazz audience. But yeah, it's really good for playing along to, at least until the feeling of playing along with a record starts to become annoying, which it inevitable does.

You gotta remember that a key element of Dusty Groove's clientele is the DJ/sampling crowd, so those Aebersolds might have an appeal and usefulness for something besides what "we" can see. This was pointed out to me after I mad a similar "what the hell?" post a while ago on a bulletin board far far away. One thing's for sure though, anybody who samples Jamey's patented Mid-Western twang-heavy "One...Two...One, Two Three...(silence)" is somebody I'm going to be either very impressed or very frightened by!

Crouch's complaining about white guys elevating Douglas over Marsailis would carry a lot more credence with me if not for the fact that it was white guys who put Wynton "in charge" too. As usual, the guy has a valid point (anybody besides me remember how Larry Coryell seemed to systematically make the cover of Down Beat way, WAY past the time where he was of interest to ANYBODY?), but having a valid point means nothing if you don't apply it in a relevant manner. Somebody should tell Stanley about the Internet, hip him to the fact that for not very much money he can have a website where he can write whatever he wants anytime he wants and not have to be concerned with things like publication circulation, pesky editors, or even white folks wanting to be in charge. A supremely Garveyesque notion!

Lyricist(s), maybe?

Just got back from the closet, and I'll have the original 5-star Down Beat reviews for both albums ready to post when the time comes. Found a WHOLE buncha interesting stuff while looking for them, including a Grant Geen Blindfold Test!

For whatever it's worth, I got that date from the original LP, Cobblestone CST 9021. TUNE UP was also originally a Cobblestone release - CST 9013. Not that any of this means anything. It's just discographical triva. But I know for a fact that TUNE UP was RELEASED before CONSTELLATION. My memory ain't THAT bad yet! :D 32 Jazz seemed to be Muse-centric in matters Cobblestone. At least they did on BREAKTHROUGH - they reprinted that uglyass Muse cover instead of the MUCH better Cobblestone one. And you're telling me that they claim that TUNE UP was originally released on Muse? "T'AINT SO!!!!

JIMMY PONDER!!!! If so, that would make it the first GRASS ROOTS session, no?

LaMont Johnson?

If that's Joe kurking behind him, I'd guess UNITY. Can somebody digitally brighten the thing up to reveal who that is back there, all but invisible save the white shirt collar? I'm thinking I'm seeing Joe's black frame glasses, but maybe that's just wishful thinking...

Just want to make sure before posting anything - this IS Hank Mobley's A CADDY FOR DADDY we're talking about, right?

Gotta give the guy MAJOR props for being a supporter, nurturer, and most importantly, an EMPLOYER of a HELLUVA lot of significant players, as well as for being one of those guys who drew an audience from outside the hardcore jazz buffs. Even if only a small percentage of that audience took the bait, that's nothing to sneeze at. One measure of his renown outside the jazz world - I was listening to KLIF-AM (the mightly 1190!) one early evening waaaayyy back in the day, when the DJ, Michael Selden, played an advance copy of Eric Burdon/War's "Spill The Wine". After it was finished, Selden, always a "music" kinda DJ (ready-made for Underground FM, he was!), started rapping about what a fresh, new sound War had, how Burdon had hooked up w/them, and all the other schmoozy stuff that made listeners feel hip and label promo guys happy. "There's a flute on there, as you heard. I don't know who it is. Maybe it's Herbie Mann...". Herbie Mann was a big enough name to be a given amongst listeners of "hip" top 40 (MEMPHIS UNDERGROUND had been a HUGE hit, remember). So the reports of his death making all these local news shows doesn't really surprise me! Plus, the guy COULD play. I remember being on a road gig one weekend in the very early 80s, and the local PBS affliate in whatever town we were in was playing some jazz festival show on a Saturday afternoon. Herbie's band came on, and we were all kinda, "ehhhh, whatever". but the cat opened up with a really nice, mellow version of "Makin' Whoopie", and just caressed that melody like nobody's business. The rest of the show was erratic, but that one number alone made the afternoon go by a lot more pleasantly. Go In Peace, Herbie. You done good.

??????? ???????

Hayes it is! I was going by memory, which is becoming an increasingly dangerous thing to do! But pulling the LPs out now (A NIGHT AT BOOMERS, VOLS 1 & 2) makes me ask what liner notes they use on these reissues. Vol 1 has a very nice, lenghty (little tiny type) interview by Garry Giddins w/Walton & Jordan that still makes for good reading, historically and otherwise. BTW - what are they leaving out? Vol 1 clocks in at 47:25, Vol 2 at 47:39. Combined, that's 95:04. Or is this a 2 disc set? You (or anybody) got a recording date for those two Stitt Cobblestones? I don't have TUNE UP any more (long story...), but I know that it was Cobblestone CST 9013 and that CONSTELLATION (which I do still have, thank God) is CST 9021, recorded 6-27-72. Don't know about CD, but TUNE UP definitely came out first on LP, and created a bit of a stir (5 star review in Down Beat by Dan Morgenstern, and LOTS of airplay, at least round here), since Stitt hadn't made THAT kind of a record for as long as anybody could remember, and CONSTELLATION just upped the ante that much more - another 5 star review by ?, and one that opened with the line, "It takes several listens to realize just how much MUSIC Sonny Stitt is playing here", or something like that, and rated it even more "on" than TUNE UP, an assessment with which I have come to concur (both are BAAAADDD, though!). I think Stitt's next record for the by-then Muse was "12", and John Litweiler really ripped into it, giving it only 1 or 2 stars, and really taking Stitt to task for playing solos that merely strung together his pet licks, without showing any attention to, or even concern for, a cohesive overall design. Equally overly harsh and spot-on accurate, that assessment was (in my opinion), but CONSTELLATION is arguably the last fully balls-out record Stitt ever made, and it deserves to be available in perpetuity if you ask me, just in case you forgot how bad he REALLY was!

The Cedar stuff has Clifford Jordan, Sam Jones, & Billy Higgins, was recorded live, and is pretty much as good as you think it might be. Long-time favorites here. The Jaws is not one of his nuttier affairs, but if you're a fan, you'll want it. If the Fathead is a reissue of his Muse material, well, it's Fathead, and there are neither surprises nor disappointments. Good, solid stuff. Those are the only ones I know enough about to comment on. Speaking of Stitt, have they reissued CONSTELLATION, his 2nd Cobblestone album? One of his very best, I think, and along with the seemingly better known but slightly less intense TUNE UP (1st Cobblestone, and reissued on Muse CD, I think), there's one helluva a 2-on-1 waiting to happen.

Anthony Braxton is a fan.

WHERE'S DIANNE????

This just in from the PR geniuses at BN: For your listening pleasure, we are pleased to announce the return of Blue Note Radio. Since our original version of Blue Note Radio became extinct over one year ago, we have seen a flood of emails, consumer inquiries and requests to bring Blue Note Radio back online. It had always been our goal to revive Blue Note Radio, but it had to be better than it was. A new Blue Note Radio would need to be easy to use, with more features and customization tools and of course great sound. All of this and more has been achieved with our new Blue Note Radio. With a new look, a new technology partner and new functionality Blue Note Radio delivers free streaming audio of your favorite Blue Note tunes. Classic and current Blue Note artists and songs are represented here. Listeners can choose high or low bandwidth, select artists and songs to hear more often, and can easily purchase and learn more about music heard on Blue Note Radio. Once signed in to Blue Note Radio, you can even listen from more than one computer. Blue Note Radio is only available in the US to PC users. Blue Note Radio sounds great at home or at work. Sign up is free and easy and Blue Note Radio is accessible from every page on the Blue Note web site. Sign in, Listen & Enjoy: http://www.BlueNote.com/Radio Truthfully, I dug the old BN radio. It was like any radio (a surrender of your listening choices to somebody else), only safer, because they covered the whole catalog, old and new (and the whole catalog has come to hold so many labels besides the REAL BN that the variety quotient trended favorable). Anyway, just thought I'd pass this along in case anybody was interested. Chow, Gym

Moms are funny - I was home from college one summer and was jamming SORCECER and my Mom walked in during Herbie's solo on "Limbo" and says, "That's NICE! Who IS that?" TOTALLY out of character for the woman, but hey... Here's some more recs for Moms - Coltrane/Hartman (Impilse!): works for damn near EVERYBODY! Milt Jackson's SUNFLOWER on (CTI): perhaps the apex of the CTI sound. Easy on the ears, yet some truly beautiful and GREAT playing by Bags, Freddie Hubbard, and Herbie Hancock. Dexter Gordon - THE JUMPIN' BLUES (Prestige): Mom might not be ready for the full-frontal Dexter of the BN or Steeplechase things, but this is a really good side with plenty o'meat, yet it maintains a mellowish vibe throughout. One of my favorite Dexter sides, actually, and seemingly underecognized, so give Mom her first taste of "insiderism" and of Dexter all at once! SO many more to recommend!

I knew him casually, that's all. It might be a while before I have the time to (re)post in depth, but I'll try to, eventually. Suffice it to say that he was very much "the real deal" and that I learned innumerable and immeasurable life and musical lessons from being in his company, even casually.