Hot Dog Appreciation thread

[AllenLowe]

oh, you guys were talking about HOT DOG -

I thought you were talking about Mantovani Plays The Beatles -

sorry

ooohhhh - prettiest color yet -

[Soul Stream]

One man's trash is another man's treasure. And to be honest Allen, I think it's a big drag you trashed the thread with the multiple posts in huge type. Hot Dog is not poop, imho. Like Jackie McLean said in the documentary Jackie McLean on Mars..."You think Lou Donaldson WANTS to be playing Hot Dog!!??? He's one of the greatest alto players in the history of the music!" (Or something to that effect.)

So, I understand the sentiment. That said, if you consider Soul Jazz an art form (which I do), then Hot Dog is one of the cornerstones of the music. Everything can't be Kind Of Blue (thank goodness), but there are certainly merits Hot Dog and those Lou Donaldson albums mentioned above. By the way, Lou's playing the Village Vanguard tonight...I'm sure he'll play Alligator Boogaloo or Midnight Creeper or Hot Dog since those are all staples of his set. Lou doesn't have to play these anymore for commercial reasons I would imagine. He likes to play Cherokee, sing a slow blues, a ballad and and play Hot Dog... he could do standards all night if he wanted, but he doesn't. So I think even Lou would make the arguement that there are "musical" justifications for this era of his career.

[analogak]

and he will say "fusion. more like CON-fusion." or whatever it is he says.

[Soulstation1]

Soulstream

What are your top 10 in the 1967-1972 era?

[analogak]

check out cosmos. it is da best. trust me. though it does have background vocals.

and i guess it is retardo to have e-bass on an album with leon spencer since he is da bass man.

[Soul Stream]

Soulstream

What are your top 10 in the 1967-1972 era?

I think any Soul Jazz organ-based recording on Blue Note between those dates are amazing. My favorites change depending on what I'm listening to at the time....right now Reuben Wilson's "A Groovy Situation" and Lou's "Say It Loud" are ones I'm really digging a lot. A few months ago I was on a heavy McGriff's "The Worm" and Lonnie's "Turning Point" kick...

[Dan Gould]

I saw Hot Dog once at a used CD shop - they didn't allow you to audition CDs and I had this vague feeling that it wasn't going to be very good so I passed. I think at the time I was less appreciative of that era ... but now hearing that Allen considers the record to be POOP while Shawn, Mike, Jim and MG consider it a classic of its type ... well, I've gotta get me a Hot Dog very soon. That's a seal of approval from all concerned that I'm gonna enjoy it.

[AllenLowe]

all right, let's get serious Soul Stream - name some other instances of soul jazz - it's a good idea, but Donaldson's idea is all cliche and false feeling -

soul jazz? Julius Hemphill's hard blues - Ornette playing a ballad at Town Hall - Monk playing a slow blues -

not the repetition of a string of tired phrases by a guy who is not, honestly speaking, much better than an ok bebopper - Lou always played all the right notes, but not much more, in my opinion.

more soul? Dave Schildkraut; Art Pepper; Ernie Henry;

Cannonball on just about anything -

NOT, the way I see it, blues cliches - a la Oscar Peterson -

Bird on any blues or ballad, YES -

jeez, I'm a better blues player than DOnaldson - I'll send you a CD -

Edited March 6, 2008 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

or King Curtis -

[AllenLowe]

Fathead Newman, Booker Ervin -

[Soul Stream]

all right, let's get serious Soul Stream - name some other instances of soul jazz - it's a good idea, but Donaldson's idea is all cliche and false feeling -

soul jazz? Julius Hemphill's hard blues - Ornette playing a ballad at Town Hall - Monk playing a slow blues -

not the repetition of a string of tired phrases by a guy who is not, honestly speaking, much better than an ok bebopper - Lou always played all the right notes, but not much more, in my opinion.

more soul? Dave Schildkraut; Art Pepper; Ernie Henry;

Cannonball on just about anything -

NOT, the way I see it, blues cliches - a la Oscar Peterson -

Bird on any blues or ballad, YES -

jeez, I'm a better blues player than DOnaldson - I'll send you a CD -

Allen, I just don't agree that Lou's idea of Soul Jazz is all cliche and false feeling, played by a guy who's just an O.K. bebopper and a bad blues player. I think if that's your feeling about Lou, than we're just too far apart to agree on much of anything here. That said, Soul Jazz (to me at least) is a pretty broad area. There's a pretty big gap between what Reuben Wilson was trying to do on Love Bug, and what John Patton's intentions were on Memphis To New York Spirit. I'm a big fan of both approaches. Maybe I'm a nut, but I get just as much pleasure out of hearing Monk "Live At The It Club" as I do Lonnie Smith "Live At Club Mozambique."

[Dan Gould]

Good response, Mike. Allen has ripped LD before. There's no point in going head-to-head with him on this. Its Allen vs a lot of people, and no one is going to change their minds.

[JSngry]

Allen, I love you, man, but on this one, you're en crannius recti.

Man, it's party music for then-early-middle-aged-black-folk-who-didn't-necessarily-want-to-go-to-the-same-clubs-their-kids-went.

What's the problem with that?

I mean, this is "Sugar Sugar" & you're bitchin' cause it ain't "Eight Miles High" or "Third Stone From the Sun". It ain't supposed to be. It ain't tryin' to be.

Man, there's some shit that a New England Yankee just ain't never gonna get. :g :g

[Chuck Nessa]

Well, I lean towards Mr. Lowe on this one. Hot Dog is one of 25+ Donaldsons in my collection and I kept it (for the second time - vinyl long gone) to remember when this music started a slide. YMMV.

[Peter A]

all right, let's get serious Soul Stream - name some other instances of soul jazz - it's a good idea, but Donaldson's idea is all cliche and false feeling -

soul jazz? Julius Hemphill's hard blues - Ornette playing a ballad at Town Hall - Monk playing a slow blues -

not the repetition of a string of tired phrases by a guy who is not, honestly speaking, much better than an ok bebopper - Lou always played all the right notes, but not much more, in my opinion.

more soul? Dave Schildkraut; Art Pepper; Ernie Henry;

Cannonball on just about anything -

NOT, the way I see it, blues cliches - a la Oscar Peterson -

Bird on any blues or ballad, YES -

I could not disagree more.

Actually before I got into jazz (in the 80's) I was a hard core blues lover: mainly Chicago blues, a la Muddy, Wolf, Little Walter, Otis Rush and so on. Later I started appreciating jazz, starting with "blues flavoured" jazz, such as Jimmy Smith, Grant Green, Stanley Turrentine, Kenny Burrell (Midnight Blue!). After that my taste developed into hard bop and - at some point - even more experimental kinds of jazz.

However, I still have a soft spot for blues and blues-oriented jazz.

A lot of musicians in jazz, and even in pop/rock, think they are able to play the blues, as blues has a simple chord structure.

In fact a lot of these "so called" blues often had nothing to do with blues at all.

In my opinion Lou Donaldson really knows how to play (and even sing!) the blues, in fact he IS a real bluesman!

Regards,

Peter

[AllenLowe]

"Allen, I love you, man, but on this one, you're en crannius recti.

Man, it's party music for hen-early-middle-aged-black-folk-who-didn't-necessarily-want-to-go-to-the-same-clubs-their-kids-went."

actually, I think of Nancy Wilson and James Moody in this respect.

I understand the impulse behind this music but I think it doesn't have to sound like Lou. Hey, I once played on the same bandstand as Willis Jackson - he was a mean s.o.b. but he could play -

I just think there's more interesting ways to approach it.

Also like Jimmy McGriff, Johnny Hammond Smith and the other Smith -

I think Lou, as a soul jazzer, sounds too damned middle class -

I'll take Bobby Buster and Gene Ammons -

[AllenLowe]

Ivory Joe Hunter, Charles Brown -

see, I'm not that out of it, Jim - I Just think THOSE are the guys Lou is trying (with so little success) to emulate -

[JSngry]

I think Lou, as a soul jazzer, sounds too damned middle class -

EXACTLY!

He played Middle Class Soul Jazz, just like he played Middle Class BeBop.

Middle Class ¹ Soulless, although it certainly CAN. But Lou proved that it didn't have to.

It's just another wavelength in the Soul Spectrum.

Edited March 7, 2008 by JSngry

[AllenLowe]

yes, but a weak and dying and distant wavelength traveling through the galaxy and picking up fellow-would-be-soul travellers like Dan Gould -

hey, wasn't Jimmy Smith's audience middle class? But a middle class that had better taste -

maybe middle class is not the word for Lou's idea of soul-jazz; better to say "wannabe" "out of it" "clueless" and "pale."

better to listen to James Brown - and Charles Brown - and Ray Charles -

(sorry, wrong thread)

[AllenLowe]

now, I worked many a gig with the organist Bobby Buster - THAT was soul, unlike Lou's version. Bobby would lay it down with feeling and honesty - Lou just sounds like he's slumming -

also an organist from New jersey named Richie McRae - great player - played the blues like he felt it, not like he was a nightclub act -

[Dan Gould]

up yours, Lowe. Go read a Kennedy conspiracy book - that has as much connection to reality as you do when you dis LD and me.

[Soulstation1]

underrated cd

i like peepin' and the kid

[Soulstation1]

earland's solo on summertime = bad ass

Edited March 7, 2008 by Soulstation1

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

In the 1920s jazz animated the house bands that accompanied Memphis entertainers. Groups like Williams' Beal Street Frolic Orchestra were ragtime/jazz hybrids, not strictly jazz in outlook but spirited vaudevillians. They might have accompanied women like Sadie McKinney and Arah Baby Moore, talented show singers who, once again, were a step apart from jazz in letter if not in spirit. This, however, is part of an African American tradition which makes such distinctions obscure, and, ultimately, almost irrelevant. It's also related somewhat to the arguments of those jazz critics who didn't like organ trios in the 1950s and 1960s; try as they might to knock them down, they were an intrinsic part of community entertainment, of a very specifically black, journeyman, and critic-proof side of life.

(See, I do read what you write, and take it in. And very charming the Frolics' record is, too.)

So I know you understand this, Allen. I think the key point you made is critic-proof. What I think you're trying to do is apply criteria that are appropriate for some other kind of music (viz modern jazz) to this stuff, which ain't.

Of course, I'm not saying there are NO criteria by which you can judge this music. But a lot of the appropriate criteria are things like, a) "how good is it to dance to?", b) "how receptive is the band to the needs of the audience?", and you can add in c) historical significance if you want to look at it that way. By either of a) or b), the Lou Donaldson band with L Smith, Earland or Spencer was THE stuff, and in historical terms, cutting edge. You mentioned Jimmy Smith and McGriff. At that time, neither was doing what Lou's band was doing - though Smith's "Respect" was beginning, uncertainly, to approach it.

Gator Tail, who you also mentioned, never got to that point - though he ALWAYS gets an A+ for b)

As for preferring to listen to James Brown, who could afford him; a little bar in Newark, NJ? Good luck.

(Though that may, to some extent, explain the success of discos.)

MG

[JohnS]

Just got around to giving this one a spin, the first in quite a while. A decent dose of funk, especially on the title track. Hate the electonics, really spoils Lou's tone, sounds so thin and reedy.