Stompin at the Savoy

Do you really expect an answer to this question-begging nonsense?

OK I listened to this. It is certainly a much better record than other Morris recordings I have heard. The producer appears to have prevailed upon Morris to restrain his playing while other players solo and play only bass and quiet chords. They may have been going for some sort of pop or blues crossover and Morris' right hand is considerably simplified from what he played on the At Count Basie's Vanguard album a few years earlier. He still frequently holds down his fingers for several measures... The other players, Edmond Hall and a bunch of Basie alumni, are good and play well. Morris doesn't embarrass himself but also doesn't really excel either; the record is pretty good in spite of him.

OK I will check out the Columbia album.

Steve, you continue to make my point for me: earlier you claimed this was not a "humdrum" album but now you admit that "this is one of many non-desert-island discs". Let's tally up the score, eh? You totally forgot you owned this or what it sounds like. After listening to it again, you admit it isn't great (ie not a desert island disc). Your defense of Marlowe Morris amounts to: well, that's how organ jazz sounded in those days! Or "their styles may not strike a chord with all listeners today at ANY moment" and you include yourself in this group. This is hardly a ringing affirmation of how wonderful it sounds. Remember my post that you were reacting to? The things you are saying now are not terribly different from my initial reaction above: you forgot what it sounded like or that you owned it; you don't think it is a desert island disc; and admit a lot of people aren't all that impressed with Morris, including yourself. The fact is nobody is running out to complete their collections of pre-Jimmy Smith organ jazz. I am not aware of any Marlowe M fan clubs. Many of those players, including Marlowe Morris, were used to creating a wall of sound, had trouble adapting their solo playing to the needs of an ensemble and tended to overwhelm and muddy up what the other players were doing. The author of the Mosaic booklet admits as much about Morris in the booklet. In my opinion Morris is even worse than Basie or Waller on the organ, sounding like a cross between a carnival and a late 50's ice rink. But that's one man's opinion: don't let that stop you from spending your time lost in admiration of Marlowe Morris' organ recordings...

OK if you say so. But in the privacy of your own room, with nobody else around, please ask yourself how much time you have spent listening to Marlow Morris and how much time in future you see yourself spending listening to Marlow Morris. Right up there with Miles Davis, right?

Yeah, I know and don't much like Basie's organ playing or that of Fats Waller, who tutored Basie on organ. As a jazz instrument, the organ had not yet matured at this point.

When I single him out and listen to lines he is playing he seems alright to me. Maybe it's the instrument he is playing or the settings? It's pretty awful.

Yes, agreed. On the other hand we have Steve denying the album could be ho-hum but it turned out totally forgettable to him. I'm weird but I find this amusing!

Okay, so you got home from the store and discovered gee whiz, I already have a copy of this! You didn't remember listening to it or owning it. Isn't this the very definition of a forgettable album? By comparison, the Joe Newman album included earlier on the set, Joe Newman and His Band, is to me a memorable outing and on a different level as far as re-listen quotient.

Seems kind of pricey for a 240 page book. No doubt they will make up for that by having extremely small print. I hope they put out a kindle version.

Well I have listened to the other two Jimmy Rushing albums on this set: VRS-8505 Jimmy Rushing And His All Stars VRS-8513 Jimmy Rushing – Listen To The Blues Rushing and his all stars was actually pretty good and fit pretty well within the rubric of 'small group swing'. Listen to the Blues is a real stretch to be considered small group swing! When they start playing pentatonic electric guitar licks a la Chuck Berry its not a gray area. I think the set would have been stronger if they cut it off at 5 disks and only included the second of the Rushing albums: And His All Stars. Marlowe Morris' playing has not aged all that well. Even the fellow who wrote the notes was kind of apologetic about the Marlowe. The whole album - A Night at Count Basie's - is pretty forgettable. I liked hearing Basie talk. The music - eh. I'll probably never listen to it again.

In his autobiography Basie said something to the effect that Rushing had been pigen-holed as a blues singer but he actually had a background in jazz and pop song or something like that. So I was expecting more of a jazz bent here.

It's a bit of a surprise, coming after four disks of jazz, and certainly confounded my expectations. I have to give it another listen after a bit and see what I think but it sounded sort of like Basie with the rhythm dumbed down to something more elemental. Which felt like a loss to me.

Yeah, I agree with that. It's meant to be a blues album, even though the band is a Basie alumni gathering.

I'm fond of Jimmy Rushing but have to admit being underwhelmed by the first of the Rushing albums on this set - Going to Chicago. The band, while all fine players, seems unfocused and unrehearsed. They are playing mainly 12 bar blues and Walter Page often plays one note ostinato, four to the bar, for each chord. I find this boring and surprising because Page played way better than this with Basie. Jo Jones also seems to be having a bad day and plays in an old fashioned way, with bass drum on the beat like Krupa. Rushing brings back some of his hits from his time with Basie, but performs them less well than on Basie records. I can't figure out what happened here but this album is unlikely to get a lot of play. I'm about to listen to the rest of the Rushing material on here but not optimistic. Nevertheless I really do like the rest of the set and am happy to have it.

I was trying to get a copy of the Mosaic Select just now but somebody outbid me. An elusive set!

The arrangements are mostly Bill Holman and Marty Paich. I listened to the entire album on youtube and ordered the cd. Some wonderfully in the pocket stuff in there. Mel Lewis!

Ted Gioia has a nice article on Terry and the Dream Band: https://www.honest-broker.com/p/terry-gibbs-celebrates-his-100th

That live Basie Roulette set is one of my favs. I have listened to it a lot. You might also like the Live at the Crescendo set, same time period, also great.

I never owned any of their records but PP&M were a sort of backdrop in the early sixties. You heard them on radio and TV. Folk was a big thing and everybody was learning to play guitar. As these guys die off it invokes a sort of nostalgia for me and a sort of slightly horrified cognitive dissonance because in my mind's eye I still hold the vision of them as the young folk musicians I saw on TV.

I always liked her early work a lot. Her later stuff has a sameness to it and her guitar playing, so inventive early on, came to often utilize the exact same chords over and over on an electric guitar. My worst mistake was watching a youtube interview of her several years back. She was putting down the boomers and I remember her sneering at the 'free love' of the sixties, which struck me as awfully hypocritical, considering who she was back then. I discovered in that interview that I did not like her much as a person and since then I seldom listen to her.

This arrived today. I'm enjoying it. The box, CD sleeves and the book are cheap, underwhelming, and printed in tiny type but whatever, the music is great.

It's tough to lose an animal where there is a real connection and intimacy. I lost a couple elderly dogs I had in 2023 and it took a long time to get over the shock and finality of it all. Luckily a stray cat showed up and moved in with me. I still miss those dogs.

The set arrived this morning and I am listening to the first disk. Great sound quality and relentlessly swinging stuff!

Miles In France 1963 & 1964 - Miles Davis Quintet: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 is now $63.50 at (US) Amazon. Very tempted. I still remember how ecstatic I was upon getting the 2nd Quintet studio albums box set.