tooter

Happy Birthday!

Count me in too please. PM on the way.

I had a picture of inferior quality for this one but keeping an eye on eBay has paid off again. With thanks to Couw for the usual processing, it now adorns our website - www.ronnieross.com

Thanks, Jim - I find these "coincidences" interesting.

Is the tune at 2. by the trombonist the same tune as "Thelonious" by Monk, as on "Underground" and many others? Sounds very like it to me. Some tunes that he wrote, or co-wrote, - "Round Midnight" and "Ruby, My Dear" spring to mind - sound completely different to most of his output. But this tune sounds as if it really could be Monk maybe.

1. Based on “All the Things You Are” – I know it and have it but that won’t change a thing. Bass player leader added his name to the tune title. 2. Know the tune – “T” – but not this version. The players I’m sure I should know but can’t dredge up any names yet. 3. No ideas 4. Nice but still no clue. 5. Indian instrument? – not up on this kind of thing. I thought of Joe Harriott and Indo-Jazz Fusions but line-up is wrong. I usually keep away from these hybrids but I liked this nevertheless. 6. Hazard a very uncertain guess at Cecil Payne on baritone but no names come to mind for the others. Bagpipe music? Scotch…? 7. Don’t know. 8. Ditto. 9. Ditto. 10. The tune is no mystery anyway – “I Could Write a Book”. I don’t think I’ve heard this before. I began to suspect it was Milt but then thought not. Doesn’t sound anything like John Lewis on piano anyhow. Looking forward to finding out who these players are. 11. Again the tune sounds familiar but no guesses for the players, even the tenor who I think I’ve heard many times. 12. No ideas on this one either. 13. Out with a whimper.. Greatly enjoyed this disc, Bill. All tracks well within my personal ambit. Sure I should have been able to identify more but not too much in the mood lately – not BFT fatigue. But thanks a lot for one I can regularly play as it is.

I remember Peter Clayton introducing "Sneaky" on his radio show "Jazz Record Requests" many years ago and suggesting it might be his personal signature tune. And yet a less sneaky sounding person I could not imagine. The programme's never been the same since he died. He presided there for a long, long time and left a great legacy of announcing gems all over. I agree, a nice album. I like all of it, not only side 1.

Oh, a theme! Development of bass playing from ? to ? ????

Lots of good stuff for me on this disc. I am puzzled to identify much but will try to do so without giving anything away if I can. 1 – 4. These tracks I enjoyed listening to but they are away from my usual fare so I have no chance of identifying anyone and do not know the tunes either. Some powerful swinging going on from high class groups I would think. 5. Can’t be any secret about the tune – Sleepy Time Gal. The trumpet player reminded me a little of Ruby but I don’t hear enough of him or trumpeters who play in a similar style to say more. Relaxed music. 6. I s this Slam? Sounds okay just once but would get on my nerves very often. 7. What am I Here For? is the tune but I can’t give any names. 8. Sophisticated Lady of course but no inspiration here either. 9. Again no clue, not even the tune this time. 10. Still in the dark. 11. This tune is obvious from the first few notes of the intro, as is the personnel soon afterwards, even without the announcement at the end. I don’t know this version. 12. Nice work if You Can Get It by the genius of modern music and the R ‘n B rhythm team – same drummer as 11. 13. No ideas here. 14. Can’t think of the tune although I seem to have heard it before. Relaxed – ending a bit over the top. No ideas as to the players. 15. Early bop – Terry Gibbs? 16. Seem to know the tune but can’t produce the name. Neither can I think of who the players might be. 17. No light here either. 18. I know this one – the bass player leader is easily recognizable, as is the drummer, and the other three are all big favourites. Golson tune, with the appropriate numeral for the instrument. 19. Nice but no ideas except to take a wild guess at James Spaulding on flute. Very interesting disc Bill. I’m sure to have a self kicking session when the answers become known. Maybe some are up already.

Busy day today. This one does not reduce my list because I did not know the album even existed until it came up on eBay the other day. I now have it and so have been able to scan the cover. Ronnie Ross only participates as a non-soloing sideman but can be heard occasionally. Plenty of jazz played on this album, some novelty vocal numbers and a quite Peggy Lee-like version of "Why Don't You Do Right (and get me some money now!)" by Marian Montgomery. There is a baritone (or what sounds very like a baritone) solo on the last track but I'm pretty sure it is the other baritone player, George Hunter, unfortunately. I am as yet unable to explain why both this album and the one at 75/2 entitled "The Greatest Swing Band In The World" (no ...Is) have the same number. They were made at the same place and at the same time but the material is different. I will try to sort this out when my friend in California comes back from his Hawaian holiday - vacation, I mean. He has the other album.

So there are now eighteen album cover pictures that I am still looking for. Here is the up-to-date list. (moved to later post - Sept 29 2005)

Thanks to our in-house image prestigitator (Couw), a new album picture which came up on eBay and which was on my list has been rendered presentable and is now on www.ronnieross.com as part of the Ronnie Ross Jazz Discography there.

Have a very Happy Birthday

I see I posted on the wrong thread. Discs received - thank you.

Discs have arrived here in the UK - thank you Bill. I will be listening for the first time later today.

Happy birthday from me too.

Birthday greetings too from London, England. Have a tip top day!

Incidentally, Sidewinder, I picked up a new copy of "Thames Suite" on CD, that you told us about, at eBay quite cheaply.

That place gets sillier by the day ! At least the picture was free though. ← eBay or Taiwan? Most of the bidders were in Japan but they were pipped at the post in the very last few seconds. Quite exciting to watch, even as a non participant.

An album, with Ronnie Ross is the line-up and that I have just recently added the cover picture of, has just sold on eBay for $773.00 - "Don Rendell Presents the Jazz Six" from 1957. Gone to Taiwan.

Thank you, Flurin - I get a lot of help and support here. On tenterhooks about the new recordings.

I am firmly in the camp that never listens to jazz vocalists from choice. I listen to jazz for the improvisation and there is often little or none of this in a jazz vocal performance. Because they are singing the words they have to follow the melody - maybe they don't but they do. I agree that words just seem a distraction mostly. On the other hand, I dislike scat even more. There no sense to this, so it must be just blind prejudice. What really bugs me are the jazz instrumentalists who try to sing too. Chet was bad enough - I always got the impression that he sang because he was bored with playing the trumpet - but as a good example of what I mean, I remember hearing Milt Jackson "singing" a dirge like tune in a reedy warble. Perhaps others have encountered this performance, although he may well have tried it more than once. There are many others of course. But I always thought Grady Tate did reasonably well on the odd occasion when I have heard him.

So here is the shorter list of nineteen albums for which I am still looking for cover pictures. Please keep your eyes peeled. (list deleted - see later post)

I incorrectly stated that I had a full house of pics for 1957 but I can now say it again, truthfully. Another cover has come up on eBay, the picture has already been inserted into the Ronnie Ross Jazz Discography and what is more my list of those I'm still looking for has now dropped below twenty! A landmark! This one is just an EP but even so starts at $25. Quite a rarity I should think.

"but tooter early on really surprised me by correctly id’g it. I mistakenly thought this piece was going to be a mystery throughout the BFT instead of the previous track." I thought I detected a certain satisfaction, not to say complacency, in the tone of the "nope" when I suggested it might be Gonsalves on tenor elsewhere.