mjzee

Thanks for that, Jim Just excellent.

April 24: Johnny Griffin, tenor sax, 1928 Joe Henderson, tenor sax, 1937

April 23: Jimmy Noone, clarinet, 1895 Alan Broadbent, piano, arranger, 1947

I read that August 5th, 1973 was the primary date for the album. Which just happened to have been my 3rd birthday. Nope. It was a 2-night gig. I was at the one on 8/18/73, which provided a lot of the album, including "Dream."

I think that's why I haven't ordered/read French's book. I'd rather not know (at least not right now). But I did read the Harkelroad book and got a taste of it.

April 22: Charles Mingus, bass, composer, bandleader, 1922 Don Menza, tenor sax, 1936

I want to recant my diss on Robert Williams. He's totally great on Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller).

I recently bought the CD of Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), and listened to it in the car today. I probably haven't heard it in 20 years. I was completely blown away. The music still sounds fresh, inventive, and involving. So much imagination, intelligence and creativity. I hesitated playing it, because I would have felt so sad if it were just an exercise in nostalgia. No way; this is great music. I want to highlight "Suction Prints." Wow! What a driving song. Listening to it with fresh ears, I totally misjudged Robert Williams on drums - he's a monster! And the way the trombone and bass lines snake in and out, and the constantly changing musical pallette... As you may have surmised, I totally dug it. Highly recommended.

A really good later McCartney album is Driving Rain. I probably wouldn't have given it a chance, but I got to see him at MSG during that tour, and liked what I heard. The CD didn't leave the car for literally months afterwards. I think his great strength is as a melodicist, not as a lyricist. Not hard to understand, though: he was always a family man and pretty content, so wouldn't write vindictive or angry songs. I think a lot of songwriters create sorrows in their personal lives so they'd have material to write about. I think the Concord deal is easy to understand: they're one of the few labels interested in older pop performers (see their recent James Taylor releases). Also, McCartney the solo artist is facing the same sales doldrums as others of his timeframe: as today's WSJ put it, "Sir Paul's albums have sold more than 9.4 million albums in the U.S. since 1991, when SoundScan began tracking sales, plus 2.3 million digital songs. But those numbers have fallen dramatically in recent years along with the rest of the recorded-music market. Sir Paul's catalog sold just 357,000 total albums last year, and two-thirds of those sales were generated by a live album released that year by Concord, giving an anomalous bump to the catalog as a whole. He sold just 129,000 albums in 2008." Concord is one of the few labels still seemingly committed to CD releases, and to trying to find innovative ways of marketing them; hence, their deal with Starbucks.

April 21: Mundell Lowe, guitar, 1922 Slide Hampton, trombone, 1932

April 20: Lionel Hampton, vibes, bandleader, 1909 Tito Puente, percussion, bandleader, 1923

April 19: Tommy Benford, drums, 1905 (Slow day, huh?)

I just returned from a vacation in The Bahamas. While strolling through an upscale shopping and restaurant area that has music piped throughout, I was surprised to hear "I'm Exuma...I'm the obeah man! Na na na na na na na!" I thought Exuma was a New York City artist, but perhaps his roots are from The Bahamas. He caused a minor stir in the NYC area around 1971.

I suspect that the Amazon mp3 store is actually a separate corporate ownership, perhaps part-owned by Amazon. Would love to know the details.

Also: Al Jarreau, singer, 1940 Also: Slick Jones, drums, 1907 Also: Richard Davis, bass, 1930 Also, Johnny Ct. Cyr, guitar, banjo, 1890 April 18: Tony Mottola, guitar, 1918 Hal Galper, piano, 1938

April 11: Nick LaRocca, drums, 1889 John Levy, bass, 1942

April 10: Fess Williams, sax, 1894 Claude Bolling, piano, composer, 1930

An appreciation, from tomorrow's WSJ: A Punk Promoter's Legacy I had the album "Duck Rock," and remember it being very good.

April 9: Julian Dash, tenor sax, 1916 Steve Gadd, drums, 1945

King of Punk Malcom McLaren Dies Aged 64

April 8: Carmen McRae, singer, 1922 Paul Jeffrey, tenor sax, 1933

"It's not synthesizers. It's not samples. It's actual physical, living, breathing, smacking-and-getting-hit stuff," says jazz guitarist Pat Metheny. "Guitars, marimbas, vibes, dozens of percussion instruments, cymbals, drums, some custom-made instruments—an ensemble of stuff that I can then write for and improvise with. That's essentially what the Orchestrion Project is." He is in his workshop in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, the spacious chapel of what used to be a small Greek Orthodox church, speaking about his latest "band"—an automated set of jazz instruments that he has recorded with and is taking on the road. The term "orchestrion" once described a self-playing, multi-instrumental music machine that disappeared almost a century ago. Think of a player piano plus accompaniment. The name feels big and heroic: one man "playing" all the parts of a very large band, live and acoustic. More here: Wall St Journal

Here are some more quotes: “Life is already complete,” he said. “You can’t learn what life is. And the only way you die is if something kills you. So if life and death are already understood, what are we doing?” “Being a human, you’re required to be in unison: upright,” he said. “I think he’s singing pure spiritual,” he said. “He’s making the sound of what he’s experiencing as a human being, turning it into the quality of his voice, and what he’s singing to is what he’s singing about. We hear it as ‘how he’s singing.’ But he’s singing about something. I don’t know what it is, but it’s bad.” “That’s breath music,” he said, as big groups of singers harmonized in straight eighth-note patterns, singing plainly but with character. “They’re changing the sound with their emotions. Not because they’re hearing something.” But then we were off on another topic — whether a singer should seek a voicelike sound for his voice. “Isn’t it amazing that sound causes the idea to sound the way it is, more than the idea?” he asked. “Right now, I’m trying to play the instrument,” he said, “and I’m trying to write, without any restrictions of chord, keys, time, melody and harmony, but to resolve the idea eternally, where every person receives the same quality from it, without relating it to some person.” As you perhaps have guessed, the above quotes are not from Keith, but rather from Ornette (full article here). Are they really so different?

April 7: Billie Holiday, singer, 1915 Freddie Hubbard, trumpet, 1938