Teasing the Korean

I'm overdue for a spinning of his albums Don't Play Us Cheap and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/22/entertainment/melvin-van-peebles-obit/index.html

What I found interesting about the article was that by 1981, the record industry had not figured out that it could effectively tap into an aging WWII demographic with disposable income. It took the record industry until the mid-80s or so to learn that they could do this with the aging the baby boom generation. High-quality reissues for boomers began in the 1980s, and by the 1990s, there were lavish box sets for even obscure artists. By contrast, the WWII generation received mostly sub-grade greatest hits collections, or at best budget-line reissues of material with cheap-looking graphics and inconsistent sound.

While not percussive like the version I heard in my dream, Michel Legrand's version of "Round Midnight" has that space-age sparkle, and could easily be considered a space-age bachelor pad version of the tune.

Sidney Zion, whose book, ''Read All About It!'' will be published this winter, has been a music fan all his life. By Sidney Zion etween the rock and the hard disco, the melody began to slip back in. A piano bar here, a big band there, a touch of Gershwin, a spot of Kern. In gay places and out-of-the-way places. Exuberant, but a little wary, like a gambler with a short bankroll. When was it, two years ago, three? Well, look at it now. Big bands swinging coast to coast. Jazz flourishing in the cities, waking up on the college campuses, born again in the high schools. Singers we haven't heard from in years belting out the old haymakers, crooning the old smoothies. Piano bars, sassy and smart, popping up all over the country. Hotel dances and dancing cheek-to-cheek at chic parties. Kids jitterbugging. And the theater. Consider the theater. David Merrick rolls for the sky with 50-year-old evergreens by Harry Warren and Al Dubin and turns the movie musical ''42d Street'' into such a jackpot that to meet the demand - at a $50 top - he moves the show to the biggest available house on Broadway. And then it wins a Tony Award for best musical of the year. The Duke Ellington songbook is lavishly made into ''Sophisticated Ladies,'' and it's instant boffo. Lena Horne, all by herself, is selling out to audiences across all generation lines. She, too, receives a Tony. ''Sugar Babies,'' a tribute to burlesque and the old standards of Jimmy McHugh, is a great big hit. ''Ain't Misbehavin','' a salute to Fats Waller, has been running forever. Ditto ''One Mo' Time,'' a celebration of black vaudeville. And ''A Day in Hollywood ... ,'' featuring songs by the illustrious Richard Whiting, continues to attract large audiences... https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/21/magazine/outlasting-rock.html?pagewanted=all

Thanks. I'll get by...

Shame that I don't drink Monday-Thursday, or that I do drink Friday-Sunday?

That is nice! I have that LP, but couldn't even begin to tell you when I spun it last. I have spun in more recent decades the Todd track ("Four in One"), which is actually kind of close to the Dean Elliott album I posted above.

I am drug-free, and I don't drink Monday-Thursday, so this dream was neither drug- nor alcohol-induced.

I have kept two copies of an LP if I need one side from each to get a full clean LP. I own many titles on both LP and CD. And if I get a box set, I may or may not get rid of any single titles that I have. When I got the Star Trek original series soundtrack box set, I could not bring myself to unload the individual titles that had been released on GNP Crescendo. I had them for too long, and they were a part of me.

The book that comes with the Charlie Parker Savoy box set talks disparagingly about Hakim's playing on "Thriving on a Riff," calling it "primitive" and consisting almost entirely of descending chromatic scales. I will have to re-listen. Hakim also plays on part of "Koko" from the same session, and which the spellcheck keeps turning into "Yoko" despite my repeated revisions.

I dreamed I was hearing a space-age bachelor pad arrangement of "Round Midnight." It was played at its usual ballad tempo, but arranged for a big band with an extended percussion section. It started out with a gong hit. Overall, the arrangement fell someplace between Bob Thompson's brilliant arrangements for Felix Slatkin's Fantastic Percussion and Dean Elliott's over-the-top Zounds What Sounds. The contrast between the tune itself and arrangement was hilarious. I wish it existed.

Thanks all. Is anyone familiar with that East and West of Jazz album that I posted, and is any of his other stuff in a similar bag?

For several decades, I have had the Charlie Parker Records East and West of Jazz, with Sadik Hakim on one side and Duke Jordan on the other. I really like this album. Is there any more Sadik Hakim worth getting? I read someplace that his later playing became "more conventional." If that is so, I guess I am looking for the earlier playing. It looks like he played on some of Charlie Parker's Savoy tracks, but I can't remember these offhand. The first track here reminds me of Randy Weston in parts.

The original version doesn't have the killer bridge that Benny wrote, coming in the 59-second mark. Also, the male singer on the original is not as good as the pretty ladies on the Golson.

Norman Rockwell doing poster art for Italian giallos?!?

I dunno. While today's generation is saying some beautiful and important things - and as adults, we should listen - I much prefer to hear their pearls of wisdom delivered with the civility, gentility, and politeness that we associate with jazz.

There's enough in the Tune In, Turn On album alone!

But can you rock a turtleneck and love beads as well as Frank Foster can?

Hilarious spoof of the UK music show from Eric Idle's short-lived comedy show.

Haha!