paul secor

Vibist Al Francis is both - unknown & underrated. He made two records that I'm aware of. One as a sideman on Don Ellis' New Ideas and one as a leader - Jazz Bohemia Revisited (Lost Cosmic Unity). Jazz Bohemia Revisited is a very fine trio date with bassist John Neves and drummer Joe Hunt, and is one to pick up if you ever come across it in a used LP bin. It deserves to be reissued.

Always felt that Gram Parsons was a better idea than a reality. The concept was there; the image was there; maybe some of the will was there; but there just wasn't much that was real there. For me, the Everly Brothers did it much, much better ten years earlier. I can listen to them, some of the Bakersfield cats, and maybe Percy Sledge or Arthur Alexander and hear what Gram Parsons was supposed to be. OK - he put the hippie spin on it, but, for me, that's nothing much. Just my take. I'm sure others might disagree, but I know where I'm at on this - have been for a long time.

Just from listening to some sound clips, he sounds like he can really play. Randy Gelispie (assume you have the spelling right - CD Universe uses 2 or 3 variations) sounds like a good drummer too. Thanks for posting this - I'll be checking him out.

He does look happy in these photos, and that's a great and amazing thing after all he's been through.

Happy Birthday - Hope it's a great day for you!

have no idea why this kind of trash is allowed on this board or why this pig of a person is allowed to continue posting his filthy rantings. To quote Nessa: "I like Clem. " I like Clem too. Don't always agree with him, but he's almost always worth reading.

Joe Newman: Good 'n' Groovy

I feel that Sidney Bechet is possibly the most overlooked/least listened to (in general, that is - not by people who've responded to this thread) of all the major jazz musicians. Any opinions?

Harold Land Sextet: West Coast Blues!

Larry - I agree with what you say, and I love that intro with it's intimations of "Back in Your Own Backyard". "Corny" was my musician friend's reaction, and that's probably not a good word to describe Warren's intro. Perhaps satirical - with a lot of love included, as he no doubt heard his share of ballroom dance bands, and maybe even liked some of them. I've always been impressed by his facility on those four bars (think that it's four, anyway).

Howard McGhee: Maggie's Back in Town!!

I've always enjoyed Earl Warren's stylistically out of place intro to "Dancing in the Dark" on this record. I remember playing it for a musician friend who laughed at how corny it sounded. I had to agree, but I still like it, perhaps because it does sound so out of place (and corny).

Clem - Booker T. has his own Silkheart release, and he's also on Dennis Charles' Queen Mary on Silkheart. I like that one a lot - tho I have to admit that I'm a big Dennis Charles fan, so my listening is not without bias.

Yep. Standard - CIMP 299 - duo w. bassist Dominic Duvall. Haven't heard it except for a 1 min. clip on the CIMP website.

Sheila Jordan: Portrait of Sheila and Three by Meredith d'Ambrosio, a fine but overlooked singer: - Little Jazz Bird -Lost in His Arms - It's Your Dance

Howard McGhee: The Sharp Edge (Black Lion Japan) - produced by our own Chris A.

The Coasters' "Shoppin' for Clothes" would be a perfect tune for that instrumentation.

My favorites (at least those that come to mind at the moment) have already been mentioned: Bird on Dial; Blakey Quintet at Birdland; and the Massey Hall version. I'll just add the version on An Electrifying Evening with the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet (Verve). Electrifying Evening was one of the first jazz records I bought (from a friend who got it in a record club deal and didn't like it), and I still enjoy that version of "Tunisia".

Sonny Rollins: Tour de Force (Prestige/OJC)

Haven't seen a mention of Tour de Force. I can take or leave Earl Coleman, but there's a lot of prime Sonny on this one.

Not much of a Cowell fan, but I always liked his solo on "Spooks" off Marion Brown's 3 for Shepp album. (I'm assuming that it's Stanley Cowell. Dave Burrell also plays piano on that, and Frank Kofsky's liner notes on the original LP make no mention of who plays on what tracks. But hey, those sort of things weren't important to Frank Kofsky.)

Al & Zoot

Another documentary film I'd recommend is Gift of the Game - a group of American baseball players (including several ex-majorleaguers), led by Bill Lee and writer Randy Wayne White, journey to Cuba to meet the surviving members of a Cuban children's baseball team which had been founded by Ernest Hemingway in the days before the revolution.

Have a great one!

Comic Book Confidential - mini portraits/interviews with R. Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner, Gilbert Shelton, Art Spiegelman, and many others Crumb - A portrait of the artist/cartoonist and his family Stone Reader - A man who loves a book that was published in 1972 seeks out the author, who has seemingly disappeared. A couple of well know jazz documentaries: A Great Day in Harlem and Straight No Chaser and a few lesser known jazz documentaries: Portrait of Pee Wee Russell; Ben Webster - Big Ben in Europe; and Rising Tones Cross - Charles Gayle, Billy Bang, Charles Tyler, Peter Kowald, William Parker, and others are featured