GA Russell

Happy Birthday!

I read in the paper this morning that the Tigers lost 30 of their last 51 games. I don't think it's out of line to say that going 21-30 is backing in.

Completely by coincidence, last week I was rummaging for the first time in ages through a box of unread books, and I found The Black Dahlia in there. I had completely forgotten that I had bought it. The only Ellroy I have read is LA Confidential, which I enjoyed. So I'll pick up Dahlia soon. When White Jazz was new, Ellroy was visiting Atlanta on a book tour. I bought a copy of the casette audiotape of it for my brother-in-law for a Christmas present, and had Ellroy sign it for him. I don't know if my b-i-l ever listened to it!

I said much the same thing a few weeks back, and Chuck said he pitied me!

Congrats, guys!

Thanks for posting those pictures, Alexander. I thought that the book I grew up with was a reproduction of the original, but what I remember was very obviously an Indian boy.

I've had it with My Funny Valentine. Maybe it's overexposure. Maybe it's just what Hot Ptah said. But whatever, I don't need to ever hear it again.

Don Larsen pitched his perfect game in the World Series. My parents had tickets to see My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews on Broadway, and they spent the day driving down to New York from Boston, listening to the game on the car radio. Some day!

I tuned in to the Cal-Oregon game just in time to see the first replay of the guy taking a flying leap and kicking the other guy in the head. Did you see that? No call!

My pick this month is Michael Franks - Rendezvous in Rio. I'm looking forward to this one. But I have a birthday coming up, so I plan to hold off till then to open it, and will give it to myself as a present. (I'm just making sure I get something I like! ) I think I have every Michael Franks album except Blue Pacific. Although he has recorded many songs which were subpar, every album has at least one song which is worth the price of the CD. I have seen him in concert twice - in Pittsburgh about 1978 and in Atlanta about 1990. I also met him and chatted briefly with him early in his career when he was in a record store signing albums. At the time his new album was Sleeping Gypsy, which is what he signed for me. Nice guy. CD Universe says that this was just released June 27. I saw it in the paper maybe three weeks ago listed as a jazz best seller. So it is pretty early in the game for BMG/Your Music to get it. This is his first album on the Koch label. I don't know how Koch is affiliated with Warner. He was with Warner for about twenty years. In 1999 he released an album on Windham Hill, which I think is a BMG label. In 2003 he released a Christmas album on Rhino, which I believe has been owned by Warner for a few years now. Koch has released Atlantic (another Warner company for many years now) reissues in the past. So it looks like Franks is back with Warner, but maybe not. Last November I got his Christmas album, called Watching the Snow. I played it a lot, and recommend it.

I get it!

Around here, there are two kings: Elvis Presley and Richard Petty!

Alexander, Sambo was a very intelligent Indian boy who outsmarted the tiger.

1959 is a special year for me because it was the first year I paid attention to sports (collecting the bubble gum cards, my dad took me to my first game, etc.) and the first year that I went off to summer camp.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

It looks like they have finally caught up. If that's true, maybe we can look forward to a fall blowout sale sometime in the near future.

Within the space of five weeks SMS Jazz Records has released two CDs by a clarinetist I had never heard of before named Mort Weiss. Here's his story: Weiss was born in 1935, so that makes him 71. In the late 40s he played tenor sax alongside Frank Morgan in Freddie Martin's orchestra backing up the band's singer Merv Griffin. He scraped along until 1965 when he realized that his life was a mess with vodka and Benzedrine. So he started a new life, cleaned up and stopped playing music. Weiss got a job at a music store called Wallach's Music City and worked his way up to District Manager until the chain went bankrupt. So in 1979 he started his own store The Sheet Music Shoppe, which he says in now the premier print music store in the West. After 35 years of not playing, he took up the clarinet again in 2001. He recorded a jam he did with a regular customer, a guitarist named Ron Eschete', and released it on his own record label (SMS stands for Sheet Music Shoppe). So far, it's an interesting story with a happy ending, but it doesn't make we want to listen to him. Now get this: In 2003 Joey DeFrancesco called him up out of the blue after hearing about him. They recorded an album together called The Mort Weiss Quartet. Prior to August Weiss had released four albums of himself. On August 8 he relased his fifth album called Mort Weiss Meets Sam Most. This was a quintet jam session recorded live at a club (I think in L.A.) called Steamers March 1 of this year. Very mainstream, it could have been recorded in 1958. It swings throughout, and is perfect for late at night. There are ten songs (all familiar: five popular standards and five jazz standards) totalling 75 minutes. This was a true jam session. Weiss had never played with Sam Most before. Most is on a roll. I hadn't heard anything he has done for thirty years. Then last year he recorded on the popular Terry Gibbs album of bebop songs and now this. The remaining members of the group were Eschete' on guitar, Luther Hughes on bass and Roy McCurdy on drums. (I saw McCurdy play with Cannonball Adderley about 1970, when the band's current album was Country Preacher.) Now here's the surprise. Weiss is good. He has a great tone. He's not perfect. A few times he bit off more than he could chew, and did not play a run of sixteenth notes cleanly. Most does a fine job, although not much is asked of him. Most of his solos are on the flute, but some are on the tenor sax. Eschete' appears to be a man over 50. I don't know what he has been doing all of these years, but he deserves to be heard more often. He too has a great tone. Like Weiss he is not perfect. On a few of his fast runs he always hits the notes cleanly but fails to keep up that beautiful tone that he otherwise creates. Luther Hughes on bass is a find. He's great, both with his comping and his solos. Why have I never heard of him before? I suppose much of the credit for the swinging should go to Roy McCurdy. The great ones make it look easy. CD Universe has this for $12.85. If you are in the market for a clarinet album or music which is straight from the 50s, I can recommend this one. I'll start another thread to talk about the new album with Joey DeFrancesco.

One of the CDs I got in the Concord sale was Terry Gibbs & Buddy DeFranco Play Steve Allen. It was recorded for Contemporary September 3, 1998. Gerry Gibbs is on drums. This thread reminds me that I ought to open it up soon.

Break a leg!

The Amerian tour starts tomorrow. If anyone gets to see the band, I hope he will report in and tell us what he thinks, and if his experience was the same or different from that of King Ubu.

If I were the Commissioner, I would have banned him for life.