ghost of miles

Gotta say the execution of this concept is not working for me at all, mostly because of the vocals--though the arrangements aren't really offering much to write home about either. Bowie himself famously plugged into jazz at the end of his career with Maria Schneider and Donny McCaslin, and I greatly enjoyed those recordings... but this sounds too much in the neighborhood of Bill Murray's old SNL lounge-singer schtick. YMMV:

Twenty-five years on come this September and it still hits like a masterpiece of broken-hearted pop, a beautiful balance between the intimacy of his preceding Kill Rock Stars albums and the baroque polish of Figure 8 that followed this one. And you hear his influence a lot these days, especially in artists such as Phoebe Bridgers (who’s even written a song about him, “Punisher”):

I did this quite a lot when I was much younger, seemingly a lot less for some middle-aged years, and then in recent times doing it more often again. I enjoy the passionate intensity of engaging with an album repeatedly over the course of a week or two (did this not long ago with Love’s Forever Changes), but also am increasingly aware that time spent in such a way comes at the expense of time to explore recordings (or books—I have a similar conflict with the desire to reread) that I haven’t already heard. Still, there’s a marvelous joy to staying with what’s enrapturing you.

Up for Nichols' birthday today: Herbie Nichols' Third World

Pg 438, in the midst of 1964: >>(Grachan) Moncur asked for more music, but Sonny demurred. “I said, ‘Sonny, why don’t you bring me some chords sometime or a lead sheet of some of the stuff you want to play?’ He said, ‘Uh, no, Grachan, I think I like the way you play when you don’t know the changes.’ “ So Moncur just kept the mouthpiece at his lips and hung on for dear life. “For me to last ten days like that was a miracle,” Moncur said, “‘cause he was known to knock cats out if he didn’t like how they played.” In musician circles, Mingus was known for this, but so was Sonny.<< Pg 439: >>Two weeks later, Sonny hired (Beaver) Harris and pianist Freddie Redd for two weeks at Basin Street West in San Francisco, followed by Shelly’s Manne-Hole in Los Angeles. He planned to find a bassist in San Francisco. When Sonny picked them up to go to the airport, Redd had a tenor saxophone with him. ”What do you have there, Mr. Redd?” Sonny said. ”Well man, a friend gave me this tenor saxophone, man, a Selmer,” said Redd, “and you know, I just thought I’d come out and practice.” ”Well, yes, you can come out and practice,” said Sonny with a touch of irony. “But don’t bring it on the gig.”<<. 😄

Like so much of my recent listening, a Sonny Rollins revisitation prompted by reading Aidan Levy’s new biography:

I’ve seen that set highly recommended elsewhere. This one finally landed at my local record store:

Cueing this new purchase up for an afternoon viewing:

Pg 332: “Starting July 22 (1959), Sonny was booked for two weeks at the Sutherland Lounge in Chicago. He brought Freddie (Hubbard) and used a Chicago rhythm section: drummer Wilbur Campbell, pianist Jodie Christian, and his old friend Victor Sproles on bass. During one set, they played ‘Confirmation’ for 28 minutes before segueing into ‘I Can’t Get Started,’ with Sonny and Freddie soloing simultaneously. Sonny prohibited any bootleg recordings, but he made an exception in Chicago for a former Julliard student who had loaned Sonny his tenor in 1954 before Sonny went to Lexington. Sonny had pawned the loaner, but eventually returned it. Remembering this, Sonny allowed him to record the gig on his reel-to-reel recorder.” 😮 According to the online footnotes (chapter 22, fn 128), the recording resides in the Carl Smith Collection. Chapter 22’s footnotes also refer frequently to several oral history interviews that Freddie Hubbard did with David Weiss in 2004-2005. Would love to read those at some point… Levy thanks Weiss for access in the footnotes, so apparently they remain private for the moment. I’d also love to read a book about Freddie by David (who posts here).

To quote a late-period Bud Powell title, in the mood for a classic. Presumably this will be part of the forthcoming Mosaic set—I remember how thrilled I was when it was reissued in the Connoisseur series:

Thanks for the heads-up! Now on Dusty Groove’s notification list for it.

I love the account of the Way Out West date, especially how Sonny runs down the lyrics of “I’m an Old Cow-Hand” to Brown and Manne.

20th anniversary of the Great Organissimo Migration!

Revisiting this one this iced-in morning:

One of my earliest and still one of my favorites (along with the Andrew Hill 1963-66, which was my first Mosaic purchase):

It’s making me want to revisit the Elvin Jones Mosaic as well.

Glad to be finally putting my ears to this one:

Working on a show about Milt Jackson’s Riverside recordings. Some nice work on this album by Tadd Dameron and Ernie Wilkins:

Another spin prompted by Aidan Levy’s new Sonny Rollins bio—a pattern I foresee continuing throughout my reading of the book: