mjzee

August 22: Bumps Myers, tenor sax, 1912 Lex Humphries, drums, 1936

Nothing at all wrong with enthusiasm - life wouldn't be worth living without it. For myself though, sometimes the enthusiasm of collecting overwhelms my listening. It can be difficult to keep both of those things in some sort of balance and perspective. Agreed. And then there's the space issue - where to put all of it?

IMHO, there's nothing wrong with enthusiasm. It's the impetus for buying records, which keeps the industry alive.

August 21: Count Basie, piano, bandleader, 1904 Art Farmer, flugelhorn, trumpet, 1928

I agree. The Flo & Eddie band was firing on all cylinders. I saw them about a year before the Fillmore East album; it was a great show. I think they inspired Frank to do some great writing (didn't they get a credit on a Zappa album for contributed material?). "Eddie Are You Kidding?" is just a perfect song. "I'm coming over shortly/because I am a portly/You promised you could fit me in a 50-dollar suit/What!/Eddie are you kidding?/No! No!"

August 20: Jimmy Raney, guitar, 1927 John Clayton, bass, bandleader, 1952

I think they were both into Transcendental Meditation.

Jeez, I did that in grade school...sometimes I used my thumb.

August 19: Eddie Durham, guitar, trombone, 1906 Jimmy Rowles, piano, 1918

Was that really a quarter taped to the tonearm head in the Times piece? I'm sure it wasn't, but it looked like it...

August 18: Don Lamond, drums, 1920 Oscar Brashear, trumpet, 1944

But....the 1988 big band tour. The recordings from that tour have some amazing moments, especially on 'Make a Jazz Noise Here.' I've never heard the music from that tour, so it's nice that there's always unheard music to aspire to. The last time I saw Frank was at the Felt Forum in '84 or '85. I found it to be dull and depressing... more the Ray White and Ike Willis show than Frank's. Frank had this glassy stare all night; it seemed he knew his cues when to solo (and the rhythm always dropped down at those moments to that slow lope like in the bridge to Inca Roads...and it would then speed up to the song's original tempo after his solo), almost like he was trotted out at those moments. With the benefits of hindsight, I wonder whether he was sick and on meds even at that point. If you want a taste of what I'm referring to about the glassy stare, I remember seeing it all over "Does Humor Belong In Music?"

August 17: Ike Quebec, tenor sax, 1918 Duke Pearson, piano, composer, arranger, 1932

"New York was one big kitchen where we could cook up whatever we wanted," Guillermo Klein said over the phone from Buenos Aires. "We were free. We could experiment." The pianist and composer fondly recalls the period, from 1994 to 2000, when he established a foothold and a following here. But Mr. Klein's native Argentina, where he first fell under the sway of such indigenous musical styles as zamba and chacarera, eventually drew him back home. A couple of years later, with the Argentine economy in shambles, he headed to Barcelona to live, before returning to Buenos Aires last year. More here: WSJ

August 16: Mal Waldron, piano, composer, 1926 Bill Evans, piano, 1929

Wasn't there also a charge to "join the club"? I visited England in 1981, and was surprised to find that pubs weren't allowed to sell beer after 9 PM (10 PM on weekends). But after-hours members-only clubs were allowed to serve members until 1 or 2 AM. On that trip, I went to Ronnie Scott's (I forget who the main act was, but Susanna McCorkle opened), and remember being charged a surcharge to join the club. Can anyone corroborate?

On the inside foldout cover to the Inner City release of People In Me, there were some cool pictures of Abbey with Miles Davis. Miles is wearing those octagon glasses that are on the cover of Get Up With It. Evidently, Abbey accompanied Miles on a Japanese tour, and it was on that tour that she recorded People In Me (Dave Liebman, Al Foster and Mtume are in the band for that, along with some Japanese musicians). Did Miles play some role in getting Abbey to perform again?

On the face of it, this summer has been a fruitful one for male jazz vocalists. Freddy Cole closed out the Jazz in July series last week at the 92nd Street Y and has a new album on shelves this week. Harry Connick Jr. just wrapped up an 11-show run on Broadway. And Sachal Vasandani will embark on a national tour in August, including a stop at Feinstein's on Aug. 12. But the recent activity belies a long-running trend: Though men have dominated jazz music from its inception, male jazz vocalists are an "endangered species," as Carl Allen, the artistic director of jazz studies at the Julliard School, recently put it. More here: WSJ

Still in pain following hip surgery last fall, Little Richard had no problem getting down to business. Minutes into our recent phone conversation from his home, the rock 'n' roll founder broke into "Tutti Frutti," his first hit single recorded 55 years ago next month. As he sang, his voice sounded sweet, the lyrics emerging slowly, almost as a gospel ballad. After a dozen bars, the 77-year-old legend stopped abruptly and laughed: "That's right—the song that started it all!" Even by Little Richard's standards, the remark is an understatement. Recorded on Sept. 14, 1955, the song about a girl named Sue who knows just what to do unleashed a new, sexually charged form of rock 'n' roll and transformed American culture. From the record's opening salvo ("Awop-bop-a-loo-mop Alop-bam-boom!"), Little Richard delivered the lyrics like an arsonist warning of a blaze. More than just another blues shouter, Little Richard had urgency and electrifying movie-star looks. More here: WSJ

WSJ: Abbey Lincoln, Soulful Jazz Vocalist, Dies at 80

Maybe it's a calculated gamble on their part, such as "it's probably not economically feasible for the record companies to sue us over THIS." The majors are also weakened financially by this point. I saw on Amazon that one of the bootleggers plans to put out Kind Of Blue. It'll be interesting to see Sony's reaction to that!

I'll stick to what I wrote in the other thread: Zappa's inspired creativity peaked in the '68 - '71 timeframe. After the accident, there was the Wazoo tour (which I caught at the Felt Forum in '72), but then something in him seemed to have changed. Whatever the source of creativity is, it slowed down to a trickle in him. Overnite Sensation, Apostrophe are perfect examples of this. Even when he had a smokin' band (the Brock/Duke agglomeration), the material didn't rise to their talents: monster movies, I get it, Frank watched a lot of monster movies in the '50's, but it sounded like he was groping for subject matter to write about. And then, starting with Zoot Allures, it really went downhill. I found Sheik Yerbouti shocking in its vacuousness, similar to my hearing Beefheart with the "Tragic Band" in 1973. I liked the Drowning Witch album, and Utopia had some nice moments, but Them Or Us was the end for me. Count me among the "them," I suppose.

Fox News RIP.

Beautiful voice, and a great singer. Those two qualities don't often inhabit the same person, but they did with Abbey. I loved her two '70's albums, People In Me and Painted Lady. Saw her at the Beacon Theatre in NYC around that time (1979?). "I know why the caged bird sings...birds were meant to fly, birds were meant to sing." RIP.