Kevin Bresnahan

I haven't spun this one in a while. Time to rectify that... playing now,

Last night, it was Carl Allen, Cyrus Chestnut, Yasushi Nakamura & Vincent Herring at Scullers. Tonight, Scullers is bringing in Harold Mabern, John Webber & Joe Farnsworth. I got Harold to sign a great photo taken during his last trip to Boston:

The stories I heard about his lack of playing time in the late 50's to early 60's centered around the color of his skin.

I can certainly hear George Coleman in Alexander's playing but Alexander just sounds different to me. He hits certain notes and I can tell it's him. He seems to glide along the notes more than George, who seems to chop off his notes more abruptly.

I did forget that one, which may be because I actually don't own it. Re-reading the blurb about this release found on the label website: https://www.giantsteparts.org/news/2019/3/5/eric-alexander-leap-of-faith-release where it says, "He has rarely played in, and almost never recorded in, a chordless trio setting. It also marks the first time, in a discography that counts more than 40 releases, that Alexander has recorded an album consisting solely of his own original tunes," I see that I mixed up the parts about "original tunes" with "chordless trio setting". Mea culpa. I ordered it as I am interested to hear what a Jazz Times reviewer calls a "freer, rawer, more searching, more relentless" Eric Alexander. While that may be true, I can still call a Dex tune in 2 or 3 sax notes, be it from 1962 or 1979. Dex was Dex all the time. Having said that, Eric Alexander is one of the few modern tenor players where I can usually tell it's him in 4 or 5 notes.

Eric Alexander's latest, "Leap Of Faith" (Giant Step Arts) was issued May 17th. It's a first for Alexander in that it's a trio recording. Sample here: I think it's only available directly from the artist at this time: https://www.ericalexanderjazz.com/leap-of-faith-1/leap-of-faith

LP version: https://store.craftrecordings.com/collections/panart-records/products/the-complete-cuban-jam-sessions-5-lp-box-set

Me too! In fact, I love buying those commemorative sheets. I bought a bunch of these ones with tropical fish: And this one:

I know exactly what they're talking about. Look at Amazon's digital music offerings. Who makes money off of an album like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Hank-Mobley/dp/B0048W7H0M/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=hank+mobley&qid=1558553938&rnid=2941120011&s=dmusic&sr=1-14 ? I'll tell you who - Amazon.

It looks like the market correction I talked about was in 1988: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/24/style/stamps-just-how-much-should-it-cost.html The gist of it is that most dealers were buying stamps at "50% of Scotts" and when Scotts adjusted their value to reflect what dealers were actually paying, dealers still said "50% of Scotts". I actually had more than one dealer offer me less than face-value for a majority of my stamp collection. I finally said, "If they're worth less than their value as postage stamps, I'll just use them for postage". It made for some cool mail back then. One thing I couldn't mail were those postage due stamps. I had a bunch of those because I found out that my local post office had old, old stock. I thought they might still have value. Nope. Not worth much over face. It was a bummer. I should have stuck with coins like my brother. He made a bunch of money when he sold his coins.

Googling NEA Jazz Masters brought up this really great story: https://www.joealtermanmusic.com/new-page-1 It's a great read. Most telling was when he was talking about Yusef Yateef just before he took the stage. He wrote that he looked "very thankful that he, and especially he (an often underappreciated and under-recognized, yet more than deserving jazz master) specifically received this award before it was too late".

Do you know why they don't choose the full number of deserving Jazz honorees each year? It seems strange to me that when choosing from an ever-aging pool of Jazz superstars, they choose to defer. Mabern is 83. Wyands is 90. Kuhn is 81. These guys are most likely not going to be around much longer. Why wait? Do they figure that if they die, they saved some money (that was sarcasm).

No money for the DB Hall Of Fame. NEA Jazz Masters is $25,000. I'm sure these Jazz masters would all appreciate that.

Well I certainly wouldn't even have to think about looking up Mabern or Wyands or Kuhn.

You look up every odd name you see in a tune title? I don't. I didn't even know Dorthaan was a real name.

I stopped collecting stamps decades ago. I used to have quite the collection too. I think I sold it shortly after the whole industry went nuts when the Scotts price guide devalued nearly every stamp one year. They killed the value of most collections. I think I used most of my later stamps for postage, which is the only way I use postage stamps to this day.

Nice tune. I haven't heard that in while.

Thank you for the correction - I mis-read where the adjective was being applied to McFarrin and thought it was her. However, I still have never heard of her, no matter how much she has done for Jazz in the world. I am not downplaying her influence or her contributions. It's just that I have personally never heard of her and at this point in my life, I thought I'd heard of most. On the flip side - I have heard of Harold Mabern... and Richard Wyands and Norman Simmons and Steve Kuhn. On top of all this, it bothers me more when I read that up to 7 artists can be elected each year and yet they never do, which results in the situation we're in now.

Harold Mabern should have gotten this a long time ago. This bugs me. While I'm sure Dorthann Kirk has done great things for the Jazz world and a well deserved nominee, this is the first time I've heard her name.

You don't have the Verve Elite Edition CD? It adds "Cats Vs. Chicks" to Clark Terry's eponymous LP. Well worth finding.

If that's Tubby Hayes, he was a lot thinner than I thought he was.

The Go Fund Me account is up to $206,530 and that's after it had $30-50K withdrawn a few days ago. I hope Kenny & his wife can climb out of their financial hole with this money. Having never seen a Go Fund Me fundraiser succeed so well, I don't know how they "end". Obviously, they've dramatically exceeded their $100,000 goal. Does it stay open until the donations slow down and stop? Don't take this question the wrong way - I'm not complaining. I am very happy that Kenny and his wife are getting the financial help they need. I'm just curious is all.

From the All Music write up: "He only plays the contrabass sarrusophone on "Mandy, Make Up Your Mind" (which in 1924 had the only other recorded sarrusophone solo) and his playing falls short of Sidney Bechet's maiden effort. "

So it sounds like a subcontrabass saxophone was never made? If so, then Robinson plays the Contrabass saxophone on this one: Not my favorite sound. Sounds like painful flatulence.

Robinson plays a Contrabass Sarrusophone, which I think is the same instrument that the picture above calls a "Subcontrabass", on this: