Teasing the Korean

Dave Lambert's Pre-LHR groups were largely, if not entirely, studio projects using available singers from a pool of New York session singers from the period. I too have tried to find this information on the Web to little avail. Even if we had the names of the singers, they would be largely unknown to most of us. That said, I can tell you that two of the singers he used on occasion were Gabe Drake and Jim Farmer.

Various - Best of Studio 1 - Heartbeat

Blossom Dearie - Blossom's on Broadway - DRG Disc 2 is not one of her best, IMHO. Disc 1 is good.

Does this 70s twofer release have the Mingus bass overdubs? Are they on all tracks on both discs, or only certain tracks?

Johnny Frigo - Chicago Jazz Dance Revival at Gus' Place - Orion (mono) With an especially groovy version of "Aquarius."

Ravel's Sonatine.

I saw him live a few years before he died. He was in pretty rough shape physically. Vocally he could scream, but his voice had lost its elasticity. He was a great talent in his day, but hard living did him in early, sadly.

I never enjoyed Byrd's playing overmuch, but I decided to put in Transition Sessions the other day and was really impressed. His playing on "Crazy Rhythm" was dazzling. Maybe I need to listen harder. I really like his work in the 1960's, but he sounds really unformed on The Young Bloods. I like the Byrds WAY more than the Youngbloods, although the latter had a couple of decent tunes. Now playing: The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds - Capitol (rainbow label) DUOPHONIC! This the BEST SOUNDING version of Pet Sounds I've ever heard! Take that, you mono purists!

Which to you like better? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvQwXOCKNLY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBWOmHUvKBw

I am so tempted to get a mono cartridge, even though I have a mono switch on my amp. I have so many mono LPs and I love the sound. I like stereo CDs, but I really love mono LPs.

Plenty of other labels did that. Why not do something different?

I love virtually EVERYTHING Creed Taylor did for Verve in the 1960s. Watching the tone arm lower to the start of an LP side as the Verve label spins is like porn. It is the musical equivalent of walking into a Fellini film or an issue of French Vogue. Collectively, those albums capture that mid-60s dual elegant/decadent jet set aesthetic better than those of any other label. Put "Soul Sauce," "The In Sound" or "Getz/Gilberto" on the turntable and it's like Burt and Angie just walked into the room. He also produced those wonderful Kenyon Hopkins albums for ABC which had to come out under Creed Taylor's name for contractual reasons. As for CTI, there's a lot of negative generalizations about those albums. Most pre-disco albums with Sebesky or Deodato albums are solid, deftly combining pop elements with experimental delirium. CTI post-disco and/or with Bob James involvement is useless for me. Haven't liked much of what I heard on the Kudu label or whatever it was called. So, despite his good or bad intentions, I will always love Creed Taylor for creating the idealized 1960s and 70s that I choose to live in, in my Eames knock-off recliner on a flokati rug under an arco lamp, glass of wine in hand, being careful not to spill any on the flokati rug which I just had dry cleaned.

I file LPs by artist but generally not chronologically, so albums get moved. I also unloaded stereo copies of those Miles albums over the years as I've found mono albums, so the actual copies have changed too.

Les Baxter - Soul of the Drums - Reprise (white label promo, mono)

Pete Rugolo - Music from Out of Space - Mercury (black label, stereo) Featuring the amazing track "Stereo Space Man."

Cecil Taylor.

Dot released one of my favorite exotica albums, "Jasmine and Jade" by Axel Stordahl.

I first saw an excerpt from this clip on a Monkees retrospective in the 90s. I found the whole thing on Youtube. It was an early single - or first single, or only single - that he did prior to the Monkees. It was released under the name Michael Blessing, which he chose at random out of the phone book.

A year before the Monkees: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbAykpPCNmU

Wow, his I think his lyrics are his strong suit. It's amazing that Gram Parsons gets all this credit for beginning country rock, yet teeny boppers who bought those Monkees records got at least two tracks of proto-country rock on each album, courtesy of Mike.

They really accomplished a lot in two years, didn't they? I mean, just doing two seasons of TV shows, and TV seasons were much longer back then, is a lot of work. And on top of that, they released FIVE albums in that time span, one of which was all them; had 6 hit singles (more if you count B-sides); did a concert tour; and recorded tons of stuff that didn't make it the LPs (they've shown up as bonus tracks and on comps). Granted, most of it was done by studio musicians, but where did they find the time to learn the tunes and go into the studio to sing all those songs? Is the clip you're thinking about the clip of Davy Jones with Charlie Smalls, who went on to write The Wiz?

You may as well post the Tim Buckley video. The smashed up car is in the background.

Villa-Lobos - Forest of the Amazon - UA (stereo) Conducted by the composer shortly before he took the A train. BLOWS AWAY the later digital-era recording by Alfred Heller/Renee Fleming