GA Russell

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.

Happy Birthday!

West Coast Eagles 85....Sydney Swans 84 Kenny, how you can consider a game decided by one point to be not a classic is a mystery to me. Here is the headline in today's The Age from Melbourne: Incredible rivals deliver all-time classic Eagles take revenge by a Swan's neck as the game's modern rivals deliver a classic I had to be somewhere a 9:00 am this morning, so I couldn't stay up and listen to it all. I went to bed at two o'clock, at halftime, with West Coast up by 25. West Coast dominated the first half, but Sydney would have made a game of it in the first quarter if they hadn't choked on two easy kicks for goal. Sounds like I missed a great second half, the fourth quarter in particular! I haven't found a good play by play recap of the game, but this is a good article: http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfoo...9337390473.html

I notice that the thread of Morganized regarding the "best new finds" from the Concord sale is getting a lot of posts but not very many suggestions. So I wonder at what rate the group is making headway through its stacks! I am opening mine at the rate of one a week. So my stack should last me seven months!

The championship game Grand Final of Australian rules football is tonight, starting at about midnight eastern time, which I think is 2:00 pm Saturday afternoon Melbourne time. I listened to the game last year, and it was the most exciting ballgame of any sport I have ever listened to on the radio. The best game I have ever seen on television of any sport was also an Australian rules football game, a 1989 playoff game betrween the Hawthorn Hawks and I think the Melbourne Demons. Unfortunately most AFL games are not all that close, and when they're not close the games are duds. As I recall last year's game was between the Sydney Swans and the West Coast Eagles, the two teams who are playing tonight. At one point near the end of the game, the announcer was starting to lose his voice a little bit, and he shouted, "Go ya bastard!" Last year's game was carried on a Melbourne radio station called 3AW, and I expect this year's game will be as well. Here's the link to 3AW's webpage: http://www.3aw.com.au/main_index.shtml If you haven't already done so, be sure to download Windows Media Player in plenty of time before the game starts. 9/23/12 - edit thread title

Jim, I hope to buy a house in about a year. I'll keep LG in mind when the time comes, since you and Indestructible recommend them.

Indestructible, I thought I was the only Canadian league fan here! I should have known that someone named Shane was a Canadian! I try to listen to all the games on the internet. The past month I have had significant streaming problems. Only the Regina station CKRM streams satisfactorily now. Calgary's CHQR was one of the best until the problems started. I emailed the stations about the problems, telling them to undo whatever it was that they did a month ago, but the only response I received denied having done anything. I hope CKRM carries the Grey Cup. They probably will.

Not to change the subject, Jim, but what do you think of your LG refrigerator? The website that carries the Calgary Stampeders Canadian league games is sponsored by LG, and I had never heard of that company before.

If one can bump the desert island list from five to ten, this would be on mine. As the 1968 Capitol album cover points out, Bossa Rio was a sextet, not a trio.

NIS, I saw If on two consecutive nights in suburban Washington, DC, in the fall of '70. I had the plasure of interviewing Dick Morrisey for my college radio station. They put on a great show both times, in terms of music. I was really impressed by John Mealing on the organ after that. He later played on Passport's second album, and really made it IMO. Actually, I was only nominating If's second album, which was called If Squared, except that I don't know how to raise the 2 on this computer. I thought that their first album was their best, but it was recorded in 1969 I think. Some years later, maybe 1977, I spent the night in a motel in Toronto, and heard over the cable TV (on the weather page) the song What Did I Say About the Box, Jack?!!! Talk about an obscure song! I figured I was probably the only guy in Toronto who recognized the song as it was playing. My favorite jazz-rock band at that time was Manfred Mann Chapter III, but If was my second favorite. I probably should have put Manfred Mann Chapter III Volume Two on my list. I don't believe that all four of If's albums have been released on CD, but I think that the first two have, as well as a Best of compilation. I think all of the CDs were British, none US. Although jazz was starting to get sort of tired at that point, it was a magical time for a few musicians who were experimenting with adding a rock beat to jazz music. Morrisey later led two rock bands called If, but it wasn't the same. I read on AAJ that he passed away in 2002. Nice guy.

I see that BMG has a couple of new listings today that I am interested in - the latest from Michael Franks and Pat Martino's tribute to Wes Montgomery.

I would have said either "throw out" or "offer up"!!!