Brownian Motion

What about Rufus Harley's first album? Wasn't that on Atlantic? I'd really like to hear it!

I strongly recommend the Basie box that Past Perfect put out a couple of years ago. I picked one up on Ebay for 40.00 plus shipping--not a bad price for a 10 CD set. It contains about everything the Basie band recorded for Columbia and RCA in the 30s and 40s, including some stuff you may only listen to once or twice. None of the Decca sides from the 30s are included. No alternate takes. Sound quality is better than average.

Thanks Catesta! It was Ray Codrington.

They were local semi-pro Durham musicians, but he was from out of town and he could really wail. I don't think he was performing regularly--maybe he was teaching.

I'm trying to recall the name of a bop trumpet player I heard play in Durham North Carolina in 1983. All I remember about him is that he was African-American, and that he was based in North Carolina. A couple of years later I found out that he had made a few records in the early 1960s with several well-known jazz musicians. I'd recognize his name if I heard it. Any help would be appreciated.

Leora Henderson, Fletcher Henderson's wife, occasionally played trumpet with the band. She is reputed to be the second trumpet soloist on Henderson's recording of "Blue Moments", a solo so incompetent that it was edited out when re-released on "A Study in Frustration" (according to Walter Allen). Does anyone know anything about a 1920s trumpet player named Doll Jones? Norma Carson plays trumpet on one track of the Clark Terry Verve Elite CD. The cut was from a mid-1950s album "Cats vs Chicks". Carson plays well, although Clark Terry overwhelms her with his technique. Why the whole date wasn't put on CD is puzzling, although stupid behavior on the part of THE GUARDIANS OF JAZZ is often the norm, so I suppose it isn't that puzzling after all.

Sun Ra is listed in the book as having played with Henderson in '47 or '48, but there is no indication that he ever recorded with him.

Thanks! I ordered both.

According to Walter Allen's "Hendersonia", Fletcher Henderson's last working band was a sextet which featured a front line of Dick Vance on trumpet, Eddie Barefield on clarinet, and Lucky Thompson on tenor sax. Although this 1950 group made no commercial recordings, some well-recorded air-checks of the band do survive. Has anybody heard these, and have they ever been available commercially?

In the 1930s Bill Coleman and Herman Chittison and a bass player made a few sides itogether in Paris. In my opinion such sides as "Georgia On My Mind" and "I'm in the Mood for Love" are masterpieces, but, then, I'm quite partial to Coleman's trumpet work, as perhaps some already know.

It is a great disk. When I was doing the overnight jazz show on WDBS in Durham 20 years ago I used "Dawn Dance" as my out theme. It was perfect for 6 Am.

Marcus Roberts "Prayer for Peace", mentioned earlier, is a winner. Dave McKenna also made a nice solo piano album of Xmas music.

One of my favorite trios was Mary Lou Williams, Bill Coleman, and bassist Al Hall. This was a working band in 1944 and cut half a dozen sides for Asch records. Very fine little group with Mary Lou's arrangements and piano and Coleman's skipping trumpet solos. Unfortunately, the recorded sound wasn't anywhere near state-of-the-art.

This South African guitarist recorded an album, "Dawn Dance", for ECM in 1980 or '81 and then disappeared. Does anyone have any information at all about him?

As a vocalist the great early trombonist Jimmy Harrison was somewhere between a vaudeville performer and a jazz singer. I believe I read somewhere that his inspiration was Bert Williams. Love "Somebody Loves Me" with Fletcher Henderson.

I can't off the top of my head name a recording from my birthday--02/11/47--(wait, when were the Bolden cylinders recorded?)--but I'd like to hear whether anyone knows of recording dates whose musical substance was somehow affected by news events. For instance Billie Hollliday's gently ironic reading of Gershwin's "Things Are Looking Up" was recorded just days after George Gershwin's untimely death.

Samuel Barber wrote a couple of symphonies worth hearing--in fact all of Barber's orchestral music is worth hearing, especially the Overture to A School for Scandal. My favorite Nielsen is "The Helios Overture".

I've had a fondness for the synphonies of Carl Nielsen for many years. In particular the 4th, composed during WW I, is a very moving statement, although very despairing. The only Nielsen symphony that doesn't hold up very well is the 6th (1930), which is a bitter attack on modernism by an old man whose time has passed.

That's it.

What was the name of that recording? Sounds interesting! The album was under Bill Keith's name: "Something Old Grass, Something New Grass, Something Borrowed, and Something Bluegrass". They also play a damn fine "Jordu", and a rousing "Auld Lang Syne", which I inflict at top volume on my family every January 1st.

It's blasphemy to talk that way about Caravan. One of the best versions I ever heard was by a studio band of hot bluegrass musicians--Bill Keith, Vassar Clements, David Grisman, and Tony Rice. When Charlie Byrd and Scott Hamilton recorded it together a decade later Byrd quoted liberally from Rice's guitar solo. Love that cross-pollination!

I got a cheapo system compared to most folks responding--Sherwood CD changer and receiver; Sennheiser headphones; a really old Technics tape deck; Cerwin-Vega! speakers; and an old Onkyo turntable with a Shure cartridge. I'm intrigued by the above statement about the importance of cables. Can anyone verify the importance of the cable choice to the overall quality of the sound? My cables are probably 20 years old, but they seem to be working fine.

A few other albums from the period in question... Personal Choice--Jack Teagarden, Ruby Braff, Lucky Thompson, Sol Yaged, and Ken Kersey--was recorded in 1954. Everybody shines on this date. Red Allen was not well-served by jazz record producers in the 1950s, but he did have a good night at Newport in 1957 along with Teagarden, Kid Ory, and his buddy J.C. Higginbotham. Why Verve hasn't seen fit to reissue it is a mystery. Red also did a first rate date for RCA in 1957 (Martin Williams produced); great supporting cast: Coleman Hawkins, Higgy, and the oft-maligned Buster Bailey. This recording is certainly one of Red's masterworks.

Paul Quinichette made an exceptionally nice album for UA in 1959--Al Grey, and 3 trumpets: Shad Collins, Sweets, and Snooky Young, and Nat Pierce, Freddie Green, Eddie Jones and Jo Jones(?)--very nice Basie feel. I'm waiting for it to appear on CD.

Well, I respectfully disagree about Bishop Jr. IMO he drags down this date, especially sad because Doc and especially Shorty were given so few chances to strech out during these years.