bob cooper - milano blues

[tooter]

The first tune, title track of the album [Milano Blues], is not a blues whereas Cappucino Time (#3) is a blues. I wonder if the titles have been reversed. It seems to me unlikely that Bob Cooper, who is credited with both tunes, would entitlle an AABA tune "blues" although of course there are many examples of non-blues tunes which are so called. Does anyone know if what I suspect is so?

[tooter]

I thought this was as long shot - nobody knows. An example is Limehouse Blues, and perhaps Blues in the Night too although that "blues" may refer to being melancholy rather than the musical form.

So I'm on my own - I'll assume I'm right!

[jazzman4133]

Tooter...........you are usually more right than wrong.

[tooter]

Ah - company! You're nearly there - one stripe - 96 - soon a "groover". You don't have to call me "sir" - yet, anyway - that's only for "Supa's"

PS Come to think of it, this is rather faint praise!!!!

Edited July 13, 2004 by tooter

[Michael Fitzgerald]

I don't own either album but the tune Milano Blues is also on Stan Levey: Drummin' The Blues (Liberty 3064) - so one could check if somehow the titles got switched on the Milano Blues album.

Mike

[jazzman4133]

Tooter......seems to me that I recall some very British stiff upper-lip kind of thing from either a movie or a book where one of the main characters says "Faint praise, indeed!

Edited July 13, 2004 by jazzman4133

[tooter]

I don't own either album but the tune Milano Blues is also on Stan Levey: Drummin' The Blues (Liberty 3064) - so one could check if somehow the titles got switched on the Milano Blues album.

Mike

That's good thinking, Mike. Thanks a lot. It's a bit of a surprise that the tune was recorded again, although of course I now see that Bob Cooper was in the line up. I haven't got [Drummin' the Blues] and my efforts to get a snatch of it on-line have so far not borne fruit. Does anyone have the album [Drummin' the Blues]? I could give a musical transcription or perhaps even non-technical description of the two candidate tunes for comparison with the real Milano Blues if anyone is willing to go to this extreme.

[tooter]

Now that I have got back onto AMG, I saw the entry there for Milano Blues and heard the sound sample. Unfortunately it does not include the tune, as far as I could tell anyway. But it is certainly a twelve-bar blues so once again I am assuming my guess is correct.

[brownie]

I haven't got [Drummin' the Blues] and my efforts to get a snatch of it on-line have so far not borne fruit. Does anyone have the album [Drummin' the Blues]? I could give a musical transcription or perhaps even non-technical description of the two candidate tunes for comparison with the real Milano Blues if anyone is willing to go to this extreme.

I have 'Drummin' The Blues' with its 5m02s version of 'Milano Blues' and could check with a desription of the track from the Bob Cooper album which I don't have... but I have never been able to read (or comprehend) a musical chart

[Dan Gould]

Tooter......seems to me that I recall some very British stiff upper-lip kind of thing from either a movie or a book where one of the main characters says "Faint praise, indeed!

While I may be wrong, I believe in an episode of Cheers, John Cleese plays a marriage counselor who has a session with Sam and Diane, and when Diane gushes, "You are the smartest man I know!" he replies, "Faint praise, indeed!"

[tooter]

I haven't got [Drummin' the Blues] and my efforts to get a snatch of it on-line have so far not borne fruit. Does anyone have the album [Drummin' the Blues]? I could give a musical transcription or perhaps even non-technical description of the two candidate tunes for comparison with the real Milano Blues if anyone is willing to go to this extreme. 

I have 'Drummin' The Blues' with its 5m02s version of 'Milano Blues' and could check with a desription of the track from the Bob Cooper album which I don't have... but I have never been able to read (or comprehend) a musical chart

Brownie - good man! I'm sure this is get-roundable. The blues that I think might be Milano Blues but that is listed on the Bob Cooper album as Cappucino Time has a simple first part to the melody made up of two three-note figures and one of four notes. So it goes, starting just before the third beat of the bar, "dit de-da (going down), dit de-da (up and down), dit de-da-da (up down down)", each of the threee figures starting lower than the one before. If it's not possible to identify from this perhpas I can think of another way.

I quite enjoy chasing down these little mysteries but not everybody's cup of tea. So thanks for a lot for your help.

What is the album like? Many drum solos?

[brownie]

Tooter, the 'Milano Blues' on that Roach/Levey album indeed sounds like what you describe.

The album was briefly discussed recently:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...55&hl=max+roach

As mentioned, Max Roach and Stan Levey never play together. And it's Levey playing on 'Milano Blues'.

[tooter]

Success! Thanks, Brownie. My description was intelligible then. I started of describing it in tones and semitones but then decided this was not the way. But it seemed a fair bet from the start that it was that tune as it is the only blues on the album [Milano Blues]. Very nice to be able to confirm it though.