Tom Storer

Discussion of BFT 40 has been open for over a week and hasn't been active in the last 48 hours or so, so I guess it's not too soon to launch the signup for number forty-one. I've got two CDs ready to burn. Please PM me with your postal address if you're interested! I'll edit this post to list everyone who's in on it, so you'll know you're officially signed up. Signed up => sent to all on Monday, Sept. 25: Bright Moments (received) Stereojack (received) Eloe Omoe (received) Nate Dorward (received) relyles (received) The Magnificent Goldberg (received) mikeweil (received) Steven (received) king ubu (received) Stefan Wood MartyJazz paul secor JSngry (received) fent99 (received) Jim R (received) Big Al (received) dutchmanx Durium (received) gnhrtg (received) brownie (received) Thanks, Tom

Thanks, John. I'll order it.

Is this a book for musicians, or is it one a lay person could get into?

You mean the guitarist born on Jan. 29, 1930 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England??

Much older? Damn. Humair is 68 years old!

I'm more of a Betty Carter/Sheila Jordan man myself, but Rosemary Clooney has made some lovely records on Concord.

That some people like it?

I don't know, I suspect that as a player you're a lot more invested in this than those of us who aren't. Not knowing what the hell it was, I enjoyed it a lot. Now I can go back and say they've missed the point, but if they have, that's their problem, except they apparently don't feel it is one. Some people spend their lifetimes playing as if they were in Chicago in the 30's, others do Hawk or Stan Getz, others pretend they're Coltrane, and so on. It's what the French call an exercise de style, a harmless demonstration that one has thoroughly understood the mechanics of a particular style. It's academic, literally. No one is going to be fooled into thinking these guys are offering anything other than that.

Actually, someone mentioned this CD and that looks to be it, all right. You and Jim had better reach for the air sickness bags. I was just guessing. The tenor player, like many others, is in the same general ball park as Lovano and Eskelin but I wouldn't swear to anything. However, the tenor-guitar-bass-drums combination makes that band Humair had an obvious guess.

Here go my best guesses for CD2: 1. A little slick, but I like the arrangement and mood. The alto player doesn't convince me, though. Here you'd need a Kenny Garrett, a fat and soulful tone. The alto sound here is too thin, and the player sounds a little quick and nervous--there are flurries and hiccups that don't match the mood. The trumpeter (flugel?) hits the right feeling for me. Could this be a Terence Blanchard thing with Donald Harrison? 2. "Star Eyes." They could have taken it down a peg in tempo. The alto doesn't give the impression he's all the way focused. The pianist sounds like someone used to more modern material than this. No idea who they could be. 3. Gorgeous! A great example of the fusion of jazz with, uh, something. Lyrical, grooving, sincere. An appropriately sensual contribution from the tenor. I want it! 4. Curious. The pianist keeps it so simple you wonder if he's a full-time pianist or somebody moonlighting from his main instrument. 5. Not unpleasant to listen to but nothing much happens. If you're looking for something to happen, you'll be disappointed. Otherwise it all depends on how much you like the textures. For me this isn't very memorable, but do you want wallpaper to be memorable? 6. This seems to be an "old-time" thing played by non-old-timers--someone's idea of a fun thing to do, and maybe something that gets a good response in concert. The pianist seems to be the most involved, playing around with the expectations of "old-time" jazz by goofing around in a more modern style. The whole thing sounds pretty perfunctory to me, though. 7. This kind of po-faced thing with soprano and flute(s) noodling over bowed bass and sporadically thrashing drums may once have sounded fresh, but it sure is dated now. Sounds like "Part 1" of something. Maybe we'd need the rest to see what it was leading up to. 8. I like the Ellington/Mingus feel. It's a nice composition. The needle seems to jump into distortion on the treble end, unfortunately for the tenor player. I would have liked to hear a tenor solo, but hey. The ending is a bit intemperate--I think it would have been easier to judge that if the sound had been better. 9. OK, but nothing thrilling. Could it be Peter Bernstein on guitar? If so, probably a Criss-Cross date. 10. Definitely Ornette-inspired. At first I was thinking Joe Lovano with Ed Blackwell, but in fact I don't think it's either of them. I like that drummer, though. 11. Sounds to me like Branford's quartet with Tain Watts. Except... maybe not. Tain is being unusually well-behaved if it is he. Still, I'll go with the guess. I like this a lot. 12. Good and rollicking after the piano introduction. Could it be a Randy Weston group? Talib Kibwe on alto? 13. I like the gruff tenor sound. The bass vamp sounds like the kind of thing Stanley Clarke used to do in the 70's--backing Joe Farrell for example. But this isn't Farrell, nor is it Stanley Clarke, whose soloing style was not this. This bassist is better at vamping than soloing. Hey--nice drums! I'll be interested to see what this is. 14. I'm going to guess this is from one of Wycliffe Gordon's Criss Cross releases. Nothing earthshaking but well done. I like it. 15. Nice party feel to this. As soon as I heard the theme I had the feeling I had always known it, which is a good definition of "catchy." It would make a good theme for a jazz radio show. I don't know if I could listen to it all that often, because there's something a little cloying about it when all is said and done. The soloists do a good job with it, however. A good closing piece for BFT 40, as it no doubt is at concerts by this group. Thanks, Luca, for a worthy collection of tunes in a broad mix of styles. I look forward to getting the key! Some of these I'm going to want to pick up.

Here goes, my fresh-off-the-CD comments, no Googling or any of that. CD1 has some good stuff on it and I look forward to CD2! BFT 40 CD1 1. Not bad, I guess, but I feel the tenor player didn't do much with his solo--just coasting. And I wish the drummer had done a little more playing instead of rote time-keeping. No idea who they are. 2. Beautiful! Four tenors of the old school. Is Hawkins the first? I'm thinking Hawk, Byas... I love the heavy-lidded atmosphere, the poise with which they all step up to say their piece. 3. Love that chabada beat! René Thomas/Bobby Jaspar? The LaFaro-influenced bassist has personality. 4. Hot stuff, but the frenetic quality and what sounds like weird trafficking of the trombone sound makes it seem almost like a put-on. And does somebody cry "Hey, Big Bird!" in the middle of it? Odd. 5. Very nice indeed. I'm glad they play in sequence rather than together. The tenor player has some obvious jazz phrasing, with the others it's not so clear. I especially like the violinist, who reminds me of Carlos Zingaro with Joëlle Léandre. Otherwise, could this be a gang of French players? Louis Sclavis, Sylvie Courvoisier, that sort of thing? I also like the way this echoes the round-robin method of the four-tenors piece (#2). 6. I liked it until the singer came in. Other than her, it's enjoyable enough. 7. Very cool. Beautiful soprano sax solo--I could name a bunch of people it's not, but it's a lot harder to say who it is! Love the band, too, very much at ease. 8. Innocent fun. No clue who it is. 9. Sounds like Joe Lovano in a trio--wait a minute. What's that? Electrically distorted guitar? Hmmm. I'm thinking--Ellery Eskelin with Daniel Humair, Marc Ducret and Bruno Chevillon? 10. Lots of good tenors on this blindfold test! 11. I'll guess it's David Murray playing this version of "Round Midnight." Not my favorite, but whoever it is is playing a beautiful song on a beautiful instrument, so it's easy on the ears. 12. Organ jazz is not what I know best, shameful though it is to admit, so I won't offer any guesses. Love the tenor. The guitar solo is curiously limited rhythmically. 13. Love it. I'll guess Bucky Pizarelli just for the hell of it, because I don't think it sounds like Gene Bertoncini, and they're the only ones I can think of off the top of my head who are likely to record solo guitar jazz pieces in this style. 14. Ornette. I don't know of any duets with clarinet but that doesn't mean there aren't any. I look forward to seeing what this one is. 15. For me this bogs down quickly. I think if you're going to have that kind of drumming you need drama, whereas the piano here sort of broods and gestures and tinkles but doesn't do anything to really grab your attention. And then it's as if the atmosphere in the recording studio was, "Uh... does anyone know when this is supposed to end?" 16. Oh, I like this one. Classicism has its rewards. The rhythm section knows its business--love those bebop drums. 17. Oops. The skipping makes it hard to listen to.

I like a few of Brubeck's recorded efforts, and he conceived a fabulous band with his Desmond/Wright/Morello quartet--if only he could have found a better piano player. But seriously, his playing on "Time Out" is, I think, representative of his best--he toned down that bombastic pounding that mars so much of his work. (To his credit, Brubeck once said "If I want to be bombastic, I have my reasons.") He and Desmond are both stellar on "Strange Meadowlark." But on the early quartet sides, prior to Wright/Morello and when Desmond was at his hottest and most inventive, Brubeck would stomp in and just bore the hell out of any living creature with those long, heavy-handed solos. I return to those sides for Desmond, but it takes some effort to sit through Brubeck. His post-quartet years I liked better--for example "We're All Together Again For the First Time" and the record with Konitz and Braxton. He's a serious artist whose choices don't always sit well with my own tastes. I respect him. Can't say I follow him anymore.

Matthew, Dan described it perfectly. PM me if you have any more questions--I'm the JazzVines moderator. JazzVines is nice for people who don't have broadband or who don't want to deal with the technological constraints. Once you've set up your bittorrent client it's a snap, but the learning curve can be a hassle for those who aren't especially experienced with that sort of thing ("Forward my ports? What's a port?"). Also, the snail-mail contact gives the experience a personal touch that's lacking in digital-only situations. It's kind of the "slow food" side of music exchange. Lots of people enjoy it--and of course, many do both JazzVines (and/or AllJazz_2) and bittorrent. P.S. Matthew, lots of the vines are in FLAC format--you'll need a little application called FLAC Frontend that you can download free off the web to convert FLAC files to WAV, at which point you can either burn them on an audio CD or make MP3s out of them. But it's so easy anyone can do it.

I read somewhere that they're only on two tracks. Most of the record is piano/guitar duets.

"Intercontinental," on BASF, from 1970, is a trio with Pass, Eberhard Weber on bass (superb swinging acoustic bass, he's unrecognizable as the electrified ECM artist of later years), and Kenny Clare on drums. One of my desert island discs.

I don't know if there's already a thread somewhere with this basic theme, but I couldn't find it any in a cursory search. I'm inspired to start this because a few weeks ago I was perusing a recent blindfold test answers thread--one I hadn't participated in, but I had a look for the hell of it. One of the tunes was by tenor saxophonist Shelley Carrol, from an album called "Shelley Carrol with Members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra." Jim Sangrey was so enthusiastic in his praise of Carrol that I figured I'd give the album a whirl, even though I hadn't actually heard the piece. It arrived yesterday and it's more than I had hoped for. I had never heard of Carrol before, and if I had read about this album--a tenor/trumpet/rhythm quintet, all alumni of the Duke Ellington orchestra (all but one well post-Duke) playing mostly Ellington tunes--I would have bet it was a piece of Wyntonian orthodoxy, workmanlike and earnest and probably forgettable. But no! Carrol is great, well rooted in the mainstream tenor tradition, but with the edge and fire and gripping sound that one doesn't get enough of these days. This stuff is revivifying, believe me. The album is on Leaning House Records, which stopped producing records in 1999. I picked it up second-hand from Amazon. One of the tunes features Marchel Ivery on tenor sax--another good one I'd never heard of. He also recorded for Leaning House. I'll be looking into those, too. All this got me thinking about the category of home-town heroes--the ones who don't go to New York and make it, but who are good enough that they could have. Let this thread be a place for us to tip one another off on all the fine players who for whatever reason labor in undeserved obscurity. Name names!

I love peanut butter--like Nate said, it has to be au naturel, the health food kind. Skippy and all that stuff is disgustingly sweet. Here in France the most readily available brand, which I think is German, is just how I like it, nothing but peanuts and a little salt. On the rare occasions when chunky PB is available, it's the sweet variety, so I don't go there. Peanut butter and bacon sandwiches--what a good idea. But in order to cut down on calories, I have stopped eating peanut butter, despite my fondness for the stuff. Maybe I'll have to make an exception soon.

This arrived yesterday. I've only listened to it once so far, but already it has caught my ear, especially Turner, who has never really convinced me in the past. He's really playing here, though; they all are. Impressive.

I got mine today, too. So far, so good!

The Marsalises, despite other sins one might hold against them, also despise the sound of the amplified bass. On records that Delfeayo M. produces, he always says something like "this CD was recorded without usage of the dreaded bass direct".

I call it "major label syndrome" (even thought Blue Note is kind of small to be called a "major label," it's the same syndrome). It rarely fails--there's something glossy and a little unreal and hollow about major label releases.

I chose the personal computer on the grounds that Big Al cited, that without PCs the Internet would not have the influence it has. But then I changed my mind. I should have voted for the Internet. I think the advent of the Internet is more important to a PC-connected world than the advent of the PC was to a world without PCs. Tough choice, though. The Internet is certainly what I would have the hardest time giving up. It's such an intimate part of daily life: email, document transfer, message boards, research, travel planning, the list could go on and on of things it would be very annoying to have to do solely offline. Doing without a cell phone is no problem--I've never had one!

Tom, thanks for the review. I found out about this just a few days ago, in perfect timing to my upcoming B-day. I've got my brother ordering this and the new Scott Hamilton ballads album. I'm figuring that between the two, I'll have the soundtrack ready for my anniversary, which comes 8 days after my birthday. The Person/Charlap is perfect for an anniversary. Well judged! Although... I guess it all depends on your wife. Dylan Thomas wrote a blurb for a novel by the Irish humorist Flann O'Brien that said, "This is just the sort of book you should buy for your sister--if your sister is a loud, dirty, boozy sort of girl." But I'm assuming champagne, candelight and jazz ballads are just thing for your wife, whom I naturally assume to be beautiful, charming and demure.

Digressing slightly from the thread title, I just got "You Taught My Heart To Sing" on HighNote, by Houston Person and Bill Charlap. This is a beautiful duet album that is well worth getting. In fact, you would be a fool not to get it. Mostly ballads, some mid-tempo pieces, all played like champagne and candlelight. Person plays with such modest authority, and so jaw-droppingly well. This is a keeper. To my knowledge, Charlap has never released a solo album. It's time! What a fantastic pianist. In the meanwhile this has become my favorite Charlap record.

Hi, Luca! PM sent--even before this thread! Looking forward to it. - Tom