bLiNdFoLd TEST #7 ANSWERS!

[couw]

yup, nice clothes, but they STINK when wet!

[mikeweil]

#2) I'd like to know of more of this "silly" Gil Evans piece. I am in no way a Gil guy. Have the standard Miles collabs as well as the Impulses and absolutely loved the "individualism" from Randy's test... where do I go from here?

Well, apart from his own sessions as a leader his discography is not that large.

His first as a leader was on Prestige and is available as OJC CD or a new 20-bit remastering.

He did two for Helen Merrill on EmArcy, which are wonderful, the second is a remake with exactly the same tracks, but it works!

He did arrangements for Kenny Burrell (Guitar Forms) and Astrud Gilberto (don't know the album) on Verve.

There was an album with a Japanese orchestra led by Masabumi Kikuchi that I cherish, Billy Harper has a few excellent solos on this.

If you dare follow his post-Miles development, go for the LPs on Ampex (reissued by Enja) and Atlantic (Svengali, an essential one); the RCAs with Hendrix material etc. are a little confused at times (to these ears) - but he took a lot of chances back then.

Take any of his later live sessions for a sample of what his later bands sounded like.

If you want to explore his very roots, go for the arrangements he did for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra in the late 1940's.

[mikeweil]

#11) This Wilen piece really re-kindled a very slight interest and how. The cut is the odd duck out on the JiP disc and I guess kind of Duke Jordans up the Django classic. So what's going on here? This thing is a cooker that a smart record clerk would put on the hi-fi and sell every copy in the store. Seeing that the first BFT included a cut from 'Jazz sur Seine' was purely an oversight. I need more of exactly this!!! ???

Well, for more about Barney Wilen, follow this link.

The extensive discussion here may be the reason this track did not generate as muich excitement as it should.

I remember I was totally thrilled when I bought this, it was the first Wilen I ever consciously encountered.

For a record with the same youthful excitement, I'd say hunt for his Vogue debut, Tilt - seems the BMG CD reissue is OOP again.

[couw]

#11) This Wilen piece really re-kindled a very slight interest and how.  The cut is the odd duck out on the JiP disc and I guess kind of Duke Jordans up the Django classic.  So what's going on here?  This thing is a cooker that a smart record clerk would put on the hi-fi and sell every copy in the store.  Seeing that the first BFT included a cut from 'Jazz sur Seine' was purely an oversight.  I need more of exactly this!!!  ??? 

Well, for more about Barney Wilen, follow this link.

The extensive discussion here may be the reason this track did not generate as muich excitement as it should.

I remember I was totally thrilled when I bought this, it was the first Wilen I ever consciously encountered.

For a record with the same youthful excitement, I'd say hunt for his Vogue debut, Tilt - seems the BMG CD reissue is OOP again.

I think what Vint is looking for is more Wilen in this rather hot cooking setting. Whereas the rest of the JiP Swing '39 disk is indeed in a somewhat similar vein, this particular track does stand out because of the added percussion, which only returns for the take on Minor Vamp (track 11 on the JiP disk); nevertheless this one is way more vavavoom! Wilen is going BERSERK on this one (in his own patented cool as hell fashion of course), he is WAY more restraint on the other tracks.

Although I love the shit out of it, I do not think the Tilt album is satisfactory to Vint in this particular sense.

[brownie]

I had not joined the BFT lists at the time of volume 7. During a recent CD swap, Man With the Golden Arm very nicely added a copy of his Blindfold Test. This was weeks after the thread was active.

I listened to this, played the game for a couple of days then looked at the BFT 7 results. A few thoughts on this quite interesting volume.

Most of the music in it was new to me. There were only three tracks I had no problem identifying:

- track 5 the 'Black Nightgown' music by Gerry Mulligan from Johnny Mandel's music to the film 'I Want to Live', some of Mulligan's best music, and one of the best jazz soundtrack score ever,

- track 11 'Cha Cha Cha du Loup' the Serge Gainsbourg/Alain Goraguer music

which was reissued recently in the Jazz in Paris series, I grew up with this music - and a lot of other Gainsbourgs. That Cha Cha Cha was a favorite at several parties I attended back then! 'Les Loups Dans La Bergerie', the film for which Goraguer and Gainsbourg composed this music, was pretty bad!

- track 12 Barney Wilen's 'Swing 39' an old favorite. I still have the original LP which I bought when this 'Jazz Sur Seine' session came out.

Of the others, two were slightly familiar but I was unable to identify them:

- track 2 from the 'Absolute Beginners' soundtrack, one of the few Gil Evans I did not care for. I did not like the film, was not impressed by the music. One of Evan's lesser effort.

- track 3, thought this might be from a film soundtrack too but my memory machine was blank. Goraguer was an interesting composer/arranger - and a good jazz pianist too - who worked for Boris Vian, Juliette Greco and Serge Gainsbourg among others.

He was house arranger at Philips France where he was hired by Vian.

That 'Strip Tease' film was a real bad one BUT one of the stars of the film was none other than Nico. Yes THE Nico of Velvet Underground! she played the part of a stripper from the Crazy Horse Saloon to contribute one of the only attractive aspect of this film. Stride pianist Joe Turner who held forth at the La Calavados club, not very far from Le Crazy Horse location also appeared in the film.

The rest of the music was new to me. Grooved on the Kip Hanrahan tracks. I will have to investigate his music more thoroughly. A number of friends have recommended his albums but I had failed to explore his albums yet...