BFT 151 (October 2016) - Discussion Thread

[JSngry]

Greetings all. I will be unavailable the first few days of October, but rest assured that BFT 151 is already in the hands (and presumable on the servers) of Thom Keith, who is so graciously hosting and archiving so many of the BFTs these days.

http://thomkeith.net/index.php?cID=136

I've asked Thom to make the download/streaming available on or about October 1, so once that is done, discussion can take place in tis thread.

The test is 12 selections, and is a few seconds shy of 55 minutes. The cuts all hold individual interest (to me, anyway), but I tried to sequence and pace them in such a way that a listener might hope to have a satisfactory "album" experience as well, just listen straight through and have fun so doing.

I know time is tight for everybody, but if you do have the free time to give the thing an uninterrupted "recreational" listen with no "analytics" in place, please do. I think it's a engaging listen like that, perhaps even more than breaking it down and dissecting each track. But of course, BFT, so, hey...

Also, fullest and warmest thanks to Andrew Griffith & Rod Stasick for helping me with their technology when mine was basically inoperable, aka "fucked up". These guys are true friends.

Looking forward to reading any and all thoughts that these musics generate, individually and collectively. Onward!

[JSngry]

Have confirmed with Tom that the test will go live on his site the night of September 30, so discussion can begin here on Oct 1.

[Hardbopjazz]

Sign me up. DL

[felser]

DL please

[BillF]

Will be using the streaming option.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

DL for me, too. But I think, when you hit the link, you get a free choice.

MG

[JSngry]

Yes, you do...the "sign up" for this one is a bit of a formality since Thom makes either format readily available.

Still, it's nice to get a gauge of who all will be listening!

[mjzee]

I hope to participate (via streaming).  The last 2 months have been crazy, but this one should be easier.

[tkeith]

Here is the link to Jim's test:  http://thomkeith.net/index.php?cID=136

[felser]

Well, I'll pick off the easy ones.  #2 and #11 are parts 1 and 2 of Charles Mingus' "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" from 'Blues and Roots' (vinyl to boot) with some amazing Booker Ervin, and #4 is some version/edit of James Brown's "Superbad".  Much of the rest sounds, er, "unusual".  I certainly feel a LOT of freedom for whatever I do in December!  I'll listen more and see what else I can come up with, including a unifying theme I assume is there somewhere.

[JSngry]

Vinyl, yes. LP,  no. Not taken from the LP.

Narrative more than theme, yes, moreso.

[felser]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

Vinyl, yes. LP,  no. Not taken from the LP.

Narrative more than theme, yes, moreso.

Cool!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well, here we go!

1 ‘Signing off’. A song by Leonard Feather and J(ane?) Russell. I have versions by Johnny Otis and Wynton Kelly. This doesn’t sound like Johnny Otis, or rather, it doesn’t sound like my copy on LP. And Dorothy Morrison doesn’t quite sound Dorothy Morrison-ish enough. But the playing sounds like it. So after it finished, I dug it out from the waiting to be ripped pile and played it. Yes, it’s Otis and Morrison. Bloomin’ ‘eck! Well, the fi is different, which is why I didn’t get it immediately.

I wondered why yours was longer than mine.

2 Damn, I know this one, too. ‘Saturday night prayer meeting’. Is this REALLY the version I’ve got on ‘Blues & roots’? I think so. Yeah, sure as hell is. Bet EVERYONE gets this one. And what a lot to pack into three minutes.

3 Off the wall. Something familiar about the tune… Oh yes, it’s ‘Shortnin’ bread’. Hm, don’t think I’m going to last the course.

Well, I’m afraid I didn’t. Nowt objectionable about it, I just plain don’t get it.

4 Jimmy Brown NOT the Newsboy! YES! YES! Yeah, he’s Superbad! I think I have this on a 3 part 45. Yes, I do; King 45-6329 and the time on both sides label says 4:05 so mine’s longer than yours, but I shouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t edited to repeat a couple of minutes. King did a lot of that with Mr JB. Actually, I don’t mind them mucking about with his stuff. But catch me saying that if Jug had recorded for them

5 TV intermission music? Why else would someone pay musicians to do this?

6 Sounds like modern classical music. Not French, I fancy, as it doesn’t strike me as intended for entertainment.

7 “Lonesome road’, performed by a somewhat too modern band. What they’re playing doesn’t SOUND like they’re totin’ a heavy load. Nor does the way she’s singing it.

8 Load of bollocks! No evidence adduced. No stream of cause and effect.

9 More classical music? If it is, it again doesn’t sound French. Very heavy and ponderous. Oh, the baritone player seems to be playing jazz. Well, I dunno, guv. Time for a piddle and a cough and drag. Well, I can face the rest now. Sounds like a bunch of classical musicians helpfully trying to realise some jazz musician’s ideas of what classical music OUGHT to be. Well, I can’t actually hear anything likeable in this, but I’ll listen all the way through. I WOULD be interested to hear someone else’s ideas on what is likeable here.

10 Hm, some more of the same kind of stuff. And kind of foolish, too. Skipping through the rest of the track. Hm, nowt different, just more so. REALLY not with this.

11 More of the Mingus. Thought it was a bit short.

This is nicely placed. I think can hear that the arrangers/composers of those pseudo-classical pieces have heard this and are trying to bring off something rather akin, but who needs to bother when you’ve got this?

12 DUH? President Truman?

Oh, I’m sorry Jim, I’ve really liked only three cuts. Now for some Kande Sy. I don't think you'd like HER

 

 

MG

[JSngry]

Not Truman.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Oh well, I suppose it's 'I like Ike' then, not that I care very much.

MG

[JSngry]

Yes, Ike!, Now, what about his accompaniment?

 

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Actually, it sounded like it was a rap DJ, with Ike on top, a bit like Malcolm X's 'No sell out', the backing for that (just looked at the 12") was done by someone called Keith Leblanc. I don't truly imagine it was him, but it's that kind of thing.

MG

[randyhersom]

 

 1.  Signing Off signs on.  Anita O'Day perhaps
 2.  Definite Mingus feeling.  Disappoointing fadeout.
 3.  Genre bender.  More contemporary classical than jazz.  Gershwin feel until the vocals come in.
 4.  James Brown, probably remixed posthumously
 5.  Conga and a different kind of organ sound.
 6.  Some more classical influence, similar to Schubert Trout quintet
 7.  Vibraphone like instrument with female singing voice.  Harry Partch?
 8.  Spoken word make lemonade lecture.  Carnegie disciple
 9.  Milhaud, Shostakovich are my first thought, but did they really employ baritone saxophonists?
 10.  Deep male voices and jazz aware modern classical seem to be becoming a theme here.  Wonder what an Anthony Braxron opera would sound like?  Probably not like this but you never know.
 11.  I first thought Abdullah Ibrahim - African Space Program, but I'm leaning toward Randy Weston.
 12.  Collage of bowling alley sounds and political speech that seems far removed from today's guttersnipes, but you can never be sure.
 

[JSngry]

Will have more time to respond more specifically when I get back online more fully come the next weekend, but bonus points to the first listener who points out the direct, literal, Star Trek connection to (at least?) one of the selections here.

Also, MG is correct about Johnny Otis on #1, and Randy rightly noticed that this collection signed on by signing off. So, are there thematic implications for the remaing presention (including the way that #1 ends?),  to be gotten from that? If you want to think about that type of thing, yes, absolutely. And if you don't. ...still yes, but of no relevance, so carry on then, and thank you for playing.

I'd give it all away up front, but hey, Blindfolds! RIP Dorothy Kilgallen, etc. Gotta be SOME unsolved mysteries!

Oh yeah, Lonesome Road...the totin' a heavy load thing does not exist in the original, pre -Tin Pan Alley versions of the lyrics. That part's only in an added on bridge, and is relevant to neither the source of nor the inspiration for the performance heard here.

More info about that than anybody except these folks would ever want to know can be found here:

https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/best-friends-must-part-someday/

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

Will have more time to respond more specifically when I get back online more fully come the next weekend, but bonus points to the first listener who points out the direct, literal, Star Trek connection to (at least?) one of the selections here.

Also, MG is correct about Johnny Otis on #1, and Randy rightly noticed that this collection signed on by signing off. So, are there thematic implications for the remaing presention (including the way that #1 ends?),  to be gotten from that? If you want to think about that type of thing, yes, absolutely. And if you don't. ...still yes, but of no relevance, so carry on then, and thank you for playing.

I'd give it all away up front, but hey, Blindfolds! RIP Dorothy Kilgallen, etc. Gotta be SOME unsolved mysteries!

Oh yeah, Lonesome Road...the totin' a heavy load thing does not exist in the original, pre -Tin Pan Alley versions of the lyrics. That part's only in an added on bridge, and is relevant to neither the source of nor the inspiration for the performance heard here.

More info about that than anybody except these folks would ever want to know can be found here:

https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/best-friends-must-part-someday/

So is this Cnythia Hopkins from 'Parades and panoramas'?

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

PS

I always wondered about the word 'tredging' in 'Lonesome road' and see that was how it was written way back. But I find no useful definition on the web. Is it a 'real' word?

I always thought it was a black compilation of trudging and treading.

MG

[JSngry]

5 hours ago, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

So is this Cnythia Hopkins from 'Parades and panoramas'?

MG

No, that's Dorothy Kilgallen. What's  My Line? It's Mystery Guest time, panel!

[JSngry]

4 hours ago, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

PS

I always wondered about the word 'tredging' in 'Lonesome road' and see that was how it was written way back. But I find no useful definition on the web. Is it a 'real' word?

I always thought it was a black compilation of trudging and treading.

MG

"Tredgin'" was part of the added-on bridge, which, really, changes the lyric from that of a lonesome journey into  the void to a much more mundane, trivial, sad labor pop song. I would perceive It to be an Imposed dialect Impression of trudging.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Thank you, Jim.

Yes, I knew the photo was Dorothy whatsit. And I knew she was a gossip columnist who was often on What's my line?

So the recording wasn't a track from 'Parades and panoramas'?

MG

[JSngry]

Nope.