[Favorite Reed Player with Charles Mingus]

I went with Hadi, and not just because of his great "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" solo. Hadi was somehow able to put an Ellingtonian spin (timbral variation, understanding of ensemble dynamics) to a very set of quintessentially hard bop ideas (some original funk in his ideas; an almost caustic articualtion of bop phrasing).

INSERT:

Damn, Chuck said almost this very same thing, only much more succinctly.

END

The little bit of mystery that surrounds Hadi doesn't hurt either.

The Bobby Jones HILL COUNTRY SUITE is an excellent date, though Jones' clarinet is slightly more in evidence than his tenor sax.

[Complete Jack Johnson Sessions?]

He (to me) had a kind of left-of-center Gil Evans mentality.

Absolutely!

And I've been looking for the Muse record for a long time.

[swing stars in the '50s & 60s]

One of my favorites in this "style" (if you can call it that):

Some lyrical, joyous playing by all involved, including Walter Bishop, Jr., who is anything but a sore thumb here. Contains what is for me the finest, most aching interpretation of "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" I've ever heard.

[AOW Nov. 30-Dec. 6]

Excellent choice, great session. PJJ indeed makes a huge difference; AB these performances with those on the Blue Note INTRODUCING JOHNNY GRIFFIN (aka CHICAGO CALLING), with the more disciplinary Max Roach in the drum chair.

Larry, from your final description, it may be fair to dub Griff the Robert Rauschenberg of the tenor saxophone.

[Percy Mayfield, HIS TANGERINE AND ATLANTIC SIDES]

Long-awaited... Get it while you can...

A blues and R&B legend, Percy Mayfield is known both as a singer and as a songwriter for other artists, most notably Ray Charles. His singing career took off in the late '40s, when he tried to get Jimmy Witherspoon to record some of his material. Spoon's Supreme Records signed Mayfield as an artist instead, releasing "Two Years Of Torture" b/w "You're Still A Square," songs that were recorded years later by Brother Ray and B.B. King, respectively.

The hits began to flow, including his signature 1950 #1 for Specialty Records, "Please Send Me Someone To Love." Then, in 1952, Mayfield was involved in a horrible car accident, leaving his famously handsome face disfigured. He struggled through the '50s, releasing unsuccessful singles for Chess, Cash, Imperial, and 7 Arts before leaving Los Angeles for his Louisiana home. During this time Mayfield wrote one of Ray Charles signature songs, "Hit The Road Jack," and the two reconnected.

Ray had broken big with "Sticks And Stones," "Georgia On My Mind," and "One Mint Julep," and his success brought him his own label, Tangerine. Mayfield found his way onto its roster, along with other Charles favorites like Jimmy Scott, Louis Jordan, and Lula Reed. He wrote custom material for his legendary label boss ("Hide Nor Hair," "The Danger Zone," "My Baby Don't Dig Me") and also recorded the songs on this release, considered some of his finest.

Among the gems on this collection are "River's Invitation" (1963), whose funked-up Gerald Wilson arrangement helped Mayfield back onto the R&B charts at #25. "Stranger In My Own Home Town" (1964) was subsequently recorded by both Elvis and Mose Allison. The harrowing "My Bottle Is My Companion" (1968) chronicles the artist's bouts with alcoholism in the period following his accident. "Ha Ha In The Daytime" (1968) was his last Tangerine side, a remake of a previously unreleased 1962 number also included here.

His Tangerine & Atlantic Sides is available as an individually numbered limited edition of 2,500 copies.

TRACK LISTING

HA HA IN THE DAYTIME (???)

NEVER NO MORE (2:05)

I REACHED FOR A TEAR (2:28)

MEMORY PAIN (2:24)

NEVER SAY NAW (2:52)

LIFE IS SUICIDE (2:16)

BABY PLEASE (LOST LOVE) (2:59)

RIVER'S INVITATION (2:18)

COOKIN' IN STYLE (1:57)

THE HUNT IS ON (1:57)

YOU DON'T EXIST NO MORE (2:42)

MY JUG AND I (2:58)

STRANGER IN MY OWN HOME TOWN (2:38)

WAY DOWN HOME ON THE FARM ()

MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE OF LOVE (3:20)

STAND BY (2:13)

FADING LOVE (2:18)

GIVE ME TIME TO EXPLAIN (1:44)

MY BOTTLE IS MY COMPANION (2:47)

IT'S TIME TO MAKE A CHANGE (2:40)

WE BOTH MUST CRY (2:38)

MY LOVE (2:06)

DON'T START LYING TO ME (3:09)

LONG AS YOU'RE MINE (2:52)

HA HA IN THE DAYTIME (2:56)

PRETTY-EYED BABY (2:41)

I DON'T WANT TO BE PRESIDENT (3:19)

NOTHIN' STAYS THE SAME FOREVER (4:32)

http://www.rhinohandmade.com/browse/Produc...sso?Number=7828

[Saxophone-bass-drums]

For the Steve Lacy fans here:

Bruce Ackley Trio, THE HEARING

Finally, a record that is crying out for re-issue, the Joe Daley trio from Newport '63.

[Solo Sax]

Uhhh, Julius Hemphill, anybody?

BLUE BOYE and ROI BOYE AND THE GOTHAM MINSTRELS have both made it to compact disc.

[Jason Moran - Bandwagon]

Is it possible that the poor sound quality may be due to copy protection on the disk??

Dunno. It just sounds like a rather careless, flat DAT dump to me...

[*** Tyrone Washington Corner ***]

Lazaro -- I hear the same JH-related thing in Malaby as you do, but most of the time it nearly drives me crazy. One perhaps revealing example is the way he and the leader play on Dave Ballou's 2001 Steeplechase album "On This Day," where all the pieces were supposedly improvised from scratch. But the results essentially consist of everyone, especially Malaby, laying down such a carpet of harmonic ambiguity (apparently in this case in the name of potentially making everything "fit") that what you mostly get is all this dial-twisting, side-slipping, "after you Alfonse, after you Gaston" soup -- actually stating what I'd call an idea is almost impossible. I've heard all the horns involved, esp. Ballou and Billy Drewes, sound much "freer" when they were playing in a less "free" context. Another player heavily influenced by JH, for good or ill, is Rich Perry, who when he was a newcomer to the Thad-Mel band was known as "Little Joe." In Perry's case, what I hear fairly often is that the melodic element of his playing, such as it is, has almost nothing to to do with note to note relationships i.e. the lines aren't lines but are essentially moves toward and away from usually quite oblique harmonic nodal points, and that those nodal points,  as they line up, are the real melodic  element, albeit a rather slow-moving one and one whose relationship to all the notes that have been expended in order to nudge things around harmonically seems sort of...wasteful? Now if there were some sort of, in effect, meaningful contrapuntal relationship between the notes and the harmonic "nodes" (that's how I think Herbie Nichols' music works), you might really have something. But too often what I hear from these guys sounds like fidgeting.

Would you all say the "second great Miles quintet" (Shorter, Hancock -- a Chicago cat, FWIW -- Carter, Williams) was also responsible for the installation of this kind of improvisation as a standard?

[Roswell Rudd]

The NUMATIC SWING BAND date on the JCOA label is some of the finest Rudd you're going to hear. Also some incredible soloing from Dewey Redman.

More excellent Rudd of recent vintage...

[pianist Vijay Iyer - anybody heard of this guy???]

I was looking for a particular Andrew Hill quote with Google, and found this paragraph from an on-line review of "Judgement!":

Already [Hill's] exemplary horizontal writing style was in evidence, a style which would not reappear until the late 1990s, with the emergence of Vijay Iyer.

BTW, that's hardly a fair assessment. Anthony Davis' work in the late 70's and early 80's shows a strong Hill influence as well.

[pianist Vijay Iyer - anybody heard of this guy???]

Yes, there is a big dose of M-BASE in Iyer's music, but his music is also grounded in the fundamentals of Carnatic music as well (perhaps reflective of his South Indian heritage). As Nate notes in his review, there's quite a bit of Carnatic rhythm underlying the strucutures to be heard on PANOPTIC MODES. An increasingly important artist, IMHO.

And, if you're interested in more young pianists influenced by Andrew Hill, you might care to look into John Bickerton's work, particualrly SHADOW BOXES on Leo.

[Tristano school stuff]

Richard Tabnik is an interesting player, not nearly as orthodox as some of Tristano's followers, touched by some of the more free-leaning players on his instrument. I have IN THE MOMENT, his trio date with Cameron Brown and Carol Tristano, and it is quite fine. Nate, you may want to take especial note of this date given that track 6 is entitled "Lester Young's Solos on Shoe Shine Boy [Takes 1-2]". Been quite a while since I spun this one, though.

Connie Crothers is certainly worth checking out -- I have both JAZZ SPRING, a quartet with Brown, C. Tristano and Lenny Popkin, which features playing more "romantic" than one might normally assocaite with the Tristano school, and SWISH, a somewhat unusual duet recording with Max Roach.

Agreed that Mosca's few recordings are quite exquisite, but, unfortunately, the CD transfer I own of his excellent solo recital (A CONCERT) is distractingly poor.

[Stanley Cowell]

Definitely MUSA ANCESTRAL STREAMS and the Arista session (TRAVELLIN' MAN / BLUES FOR THE VIET CONG).

Among his many "sideman" appearances, this one stands out, and its available again after some absence from the catalog:

[Honest appraisal of Lou Donaldson's soul jazz stuf]

My two well-rubbed pennies:

When Sweet Poppa Lou's boogaloo material is good, it is superb. Cf., "One Cylinder" from ALLIGATOR BOOGALOO or virtually all of EVERYTHING I PLAY IS FUNKY. When it is less than good, well, its pretty darn cheesy. Luckily, there only a few really greasy dollops of Velveeta sammiched between the LP's you've listed.

[Water Records]

Don't overlook this Water re-issue:

[Soul jazz recommendations]

Rusty Bryant's Prestige dates -- now available from Fantasy -- are among the best from this era that I've heard. SOUL LIBERATION and FIRE-EATER in particular are killer sessions.

And another plug for Fathead Newman's CAPTAIN BUCKLES. If you dig what he does on Smith's THINK!, well, you have to hear this one.

[Jason Moran - Bandwagon]

FWIW, I like both Moran and THE BANDWAGON a lot. And I think he is a great example of a truly important young "jazz" artist. That is, he is doing vital, enjoyable, potentially important and even innovatory work without abandoning his roots. To me, musicians like this are in sadly short supply these days.

That said, THE BANDWAGON sounds little better than a bootleg in terms of recording quality.

[Fourth Blindfold Test?]

Jim: nobody throws a curveball -- or calls an audible -- quite like you.

[Fourth Blindfold Test?]

Jim -- you KNOW I'm in. Gotta raise my batting average with you on the mound.

So to speak.

Caught looking,

Joe

[*** Tyrone Washington Corner ***]

I am still trying to completely understand NATURAL ESSENCE, which I own but which I do not listen to with anything like regularity. Like Lon says, it is another of those BN sessions from the period which is remarkable for the way in which it -- maybe not BREAKS, but offers a very unique parsing and reinterpretation of certain formulas.

I do know that is Washington had never recorded anything other than the solos to be heard on Horace Silver's THE JODY GRIND, however, he'd still be an important and frustratingly under-recognized figure. If ONLY there was more material by that edition of the Silver Quintet; if ONLY, as I''ve heard, Horace had not lost his patience with the increasing "unruliness" (in terms of musicianship, you understand) of his front-line...

[Clifford Brown Set]

:excited:

[animated album covers]

Tres cool!!!

Terry Gilliam meets Reid Miles. Gotta love it.

[Any Frank Morgan Fans Out There?]

Glad to hear Mr. Morgan is still doing well. I wish he would make it to the recording studio again.

[I finally found a Blue Note I hate....]

I'll take THE PRISONER over MY POINT OF VIEW anyday. There's a level of inspiration in the playing and writing on the former that I just don't find on the latter.

Caveat: I'm not a great huge Hancock fan. I feel the great majority of his work as a leader tends towards the bland. To me, his best work was with the Mwandishi band (up through SEXTANT).