Interesting Mainstream Records reissues

[paul secor]

And then there are some folks who try too hard to stay young. Age is more than just a number.

[JSngry]

Cedar Walton's dead. He made more than a few records on electric piano. On some of them he plays very well. Some of them really suck. And some of them succeed in spite of their stylistic trappings, because Cedar Walton was a helluva good writer, period. What any one person "likes" or doesn't "like" is the point only when it comes to what records you do or don't want' to listen to. It ahs nothing to do with history or what somebody else likes or doesn't like. Nothing.

At some point, the notion that something like this was "bad" because of the trappings just got laughable.

Cedar Walton playing Rhodes or not playing Rhodes, that is so completely...inconsequential to whatever was or wasn't happening when he did.Music, any music, has intrinsic content quite apart from the manner in which it is conveyed. Rhythm, harmony, timbre, balances (physical/mental/spritual/etc), hell...execution period. A good idea not fully executed is till a good idea, but a less good idea exquisitely executed, that is a thing too, in both cases, credit due, ok?

I mean, I think it's a drag that sooo many young people have such an illiterate sense of diatonic (or any, really) harmony that they have no idea what makes, say, Ran Blake such a badass man of surprises.. Just like I think it's every bit as much a drag that all these "old guys" have such an unevolved sense of "rhythm" (I mean, c'mon "rhythm" and "time" so so not synonyms), that Dilla makes NO sense to them whatsoever...there's physics involved in all of this shit, ok? All of it.  Armstrong, Tatum, Ellington (geez all those colors!), Bird, Warne, Trane, Roscoe, Braxton, all these guys were not just "playing music", they were engaging in pysio-pshyco-spritual (meta)physics. That's why they got there and so many others (most, really), at best sometimes and/or sorta got there. At best.

Sooner or later, any artist - any human, really - that is worth a shit confronts the physics of what they are doing, either formally or intuitively, or in Perfect World, both. "Taste" alone is just...masturbation, which as I'm sure we all know is as important as it is pleasurable as it is necessary, but, really, it's still just masturbation. It';s not an ultimate destination point...I mean, geez, I ain't that old of an old guy, nor do I aspire to ever be. If you can't justify anything with musical physics, then don't try to justify it, ok? Just go to your room, close the door, and have a good time. That's cool too!

Anybody can write their own personal history however they desire, but ultimately, any history that is to have relevance beyond the strictly personal has to look at the broadest overall picture possible, so sorry, people who don't like Rhodes, or Disco, or electricity or anything else, vibraphone, flute, whatever. That shit happened, people heard it, it is history and life/music is going on because of it, not in spite of it. Go ahead, be an island, just don't act like the beach is getting bigger when it's really that everybody's dying.

That's what it means to me to be an old guy - to stop fucking pretending like what I "like" makes even a half a rat's ass difference to things at large. There's a reason for that, and it ain't nothing to do with "taste".

 

[felser]

I always LIKED the Buckinghams a lot (especially "Kind of a Drag", "Susan", "Hey Baby, They're Playing Our Song", and a b-side called "Foreign Policy"),   I also like Rhodes and a lot of Disco (especially the Chic family of artists, love the rhythm).  But that's certainly not the response you are looking for.   But I realize that what I like is just a personal snapshot of what I like, and does not begin to complete any comprehensive picture of the overall aesthetic value of anything (I don't "do" rap/hip-hop , but that doesn't mean there isn't "good" and "bad" ideas in that genre), and maybe that is closer to what you're getting at.

 

 

[JSngry]

 

 

[soulpope]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

Old guys are funny! Like, you get old and objectivity is still not a consideration, hilarious! "Taste" uber alles! Forever young, right?

 

BTW excellent album ....

[soulpope]

Lovely ....

[paul secor]

3 hours ago, soulpope said:

Lovely ....

Vocal's pretty good. I don't like the backing at all. Just my opinion.

[soulpope]

1 hour ago, paul secor said:

Vocal's pretty good. I don't like the backing at all. Just my opinion.

Hi Paul, this is a quite revered LP in some soul cycles (an original gatefold sleeve copy in decent condition fetches EURO 250 +) - (IMO) very good vocals, but the backing is definitely "up-townish" .... I`m positive that Alice Clark would have sounded superbly with a southern soul tinged backing, but would argue similarly with a number of (soul) singers ....

[JSngry]

Most of those Mainstream records had production that one way or another did the music a disservice. Sometimes the blends were too blunt, sometimes the band could have tuned up a little better, sometimes it sounds like Bob Shad didn't think that getting a final mix before pressing was important, sometimes...I don't know what. Maybe it was his headphones. But usually the "faults" I find with those records is not with the music, it's with the production.

Somehow, Ernie Wilkins had an in with Shad during those years. I don't know how or why anybody thought that Ernie Wilkins would be a "go to guy" for R&B type anythings, but there he was. Again, production...

[felser]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Maybe it was his headphones.

It was definitely the headphones.  On a more serious note, I do agree wit your points - some very "off" sounding recording/mixing on a lot of those albums.

 

[JSngry]

Plenty of good (or better) playing, though. I don't blame the players, or the music. That Galper record, or the Jack Wilkins records, that whole post-Dreams fallout scene, that was real, that was as much of a part of what was going on in those fertile times as anything else. Too bad Bob Shad didn't carry his weight on the other side of the booth.

What amazes me is how Iapetus came out. That was a pretty production-centric album, and they nailed it. Great music, great record. Maybe Shad had somebody along for the ride on that one, maybe Caliman's experience with Santana raised his own bar for what a record needed to sound like, I don't know. But if all, or even most, of the Mainstream records of the time had that level of production...but they didn't. 

[felser]

Agreed on Iapetus, and on the music/playing.  I remember Dreams (and Compost, for that matter) well, and liked/like them and what they were trying (except for that bizarre second album by Dreams), but was not plugged in to know the fallout from them.  Can you (or anyone) expound?

[JSngry]

The players from Dreams (both Breckers, Barry Rogers, Billy Cobham, Will Lee, John Abercrombie, Don Grolnick, a.o. were on to something, and they knew it, even if the marketplace was not in immediate agreement (or the records seldom gelled like a great record should). Those guys, the newly revived Gil Evans band, the circle (no pun intended) of the players in the first Return To Forever, these people were all still formulating things, playing together in different combinations/projects/records, and a subset of the Mainstream catalog shows them so doing. That Guerilla Band lineup was no accident, that was a thing, those guys, that scene.

The White Elephant Orchestra too, that's a barely documented project that was apparently pretty impactful for all involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Elephant_Orchestra Recognize any of those names?

The whole early "jazz-rock" thing was far from the formulaic "fusion" that it became, nor was it all rooted in a desire for hit records (Michael Brecker was not looking to make the next "Listen Here", right?). Mainstream fills in some of those puzzle pieces, as do the L.A. impulse! records of the same time that quietly document the various Don Ellis fallout(s). It was an interesting time, a very real part of history, and if you have to go through a bunch of uneven (in all kinds of ways) records to get to it, so be it.

[JSngry]

Documentation...those Charles Williams Mainstream sides, especially the two small group ones, invaluable - Don Pullen on organ & Bubba Brooks.

The two Roy Haynes records, George Adams.

The one Shelley Manne record, not great, perhaps not even "good", but...it happened, and it was not jive or halfass.

Charles Kynard, just because.

Sonny Freakin' Red, with Herbie Lewis!

If a listener is oriented towards getting a "fuller picture", these records should be known. Not necessarily bought for a whole lot of money, but heard a time or two in some form or fashion.

Documentation for the documentation-minded listener who does not confuse documentation with perfection, or even art.. Here a bunch of it is.

[felser]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

The players from Dreams (both Breckers, Barry Rogers, Billy Cobham, Will Lee, John Abercrombie, Don Grolnick, a.o. were on to something, and they knew it, even if the marketplace was not in immediate agreement (or the records seldom gelled like a great record should). Those guys, the newly revived Gil Evans band, the circle (no pun intended) of the players in the first Return To Forever, these people were all still formulating things, playing together in different combinations/projects/records, and a subset of the Mainstream catalog shows them so doing. That Guerilla Band lineup was no accident, that was a thing, those guys, that scene.

The White Elephant Orchestra too, that's a barely documented project that was apparently pretty impactful for all involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Elephant_Orchestra Recognize any of those names?

The whole early "jazz-rock" thing was far from the formulaic "fusion" that it became, nor was it all rooted in a desire for hit records (Michael Brecker was not looking to make the next "Listen Here", right?). Mainstream fills in some of those puzzle pieces, as do the L.A. impulse! records of the same time that quietly document the various Don Ellis fallout(s). It was an interesting time, a very real part of history, and if you have to go through a bunch of uneven (in all kinds of ways) records to get to it, so be it.

Gotcha.  Never heard of the White Elephant Orchestra, but that's quite a lineup!   I lived and breathed a lot of those Impulse releases in that period (was able to get a lot of cheap promos/cutouts of Impulse and Mainstream titles), and it stiil speaks to me.  The John Klemmer Impulse titles (Don Ellis Connection) etc.  Michael White.  Norman Connors and Carlos Garnett on Cobblestone/Muse also.  And some interesting contemporaneous things over in England and Germany during those years (Embryo with Charlie Mariano for instance).  Stanley Clarke's great 'Children of Forever' album.   The whole thing went south hard ca. 1975,  Guess people saw money to be made by dumbing it down.

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Documentation...those Charles Williams Mainstream sides, especially the two small group ones, invaluable - Don Pullen on organ & Bubba Brooks.

The two Roy Haynes records, George Adams.

The one Shelley Manne record, not great, perhaps not even "good", but...it happened, and it was not jive or halfass.

Charles Kynard, just because.

Sonny Freakin' Red, with Herbie Lewis!

If a listener is oriented towards getting a "fuller picture", these records should be known. Not necessarily bought for a whole lot of money, but heard a time or two in some form or fashion.

Documentation for the documentation-minded listener who does not confuse documentation with perfection, or even art.. Here a bunch of it is.

Not familar with the music on those Charles Williams sides, need to check them out (I guess youtube is my friend) and have not heard the Shelley Manne (props to him for being willing to explore).  Have had the others in one form or another at different points through the years.  Frank Foster - The Loud Minority is another.  Always find it all pretty thrilling, even if they aren't always masterpieces. Appreciate the Quest.

[JSngry]

Ted Dunbar, he was on some of those Mainstream records, again, the early 70s Gil Evans Orch connection. Dunbar's never really rocked my world, but he's never rocked it to sleep either, ok? He was around he was playing, he got gigs, he made record dates. He caught enough ears that he took McLaughlin's place with Lifetime, so...Take him or leave him, but if you leave him, know he was there and what he did first, just saying.

An oh HELL yeah, that Gloria Coleman album, that's one that's a "must have" imo.

 

[Peter Friedman]

I am not sure I understand what Jim said a bit earlier about not confusing what a person likes with "taste" in the broader world?

Yes, everyone is entitled to like whatever they choose, but does that mean that "bad taste" beyond one persons preference does not exist more broadly?

On the "old guy" issue, it is not unusual for a large number of people to have a special affection for the jazz they listened to in the formative period when they first developed an interest in that music. For me, that formative period was from roughly 1953 - 1962. Be-bop, West Coast Jazz, and Hard Bop were the focus of my musical interest. Little by little my interest broadened especially in the direction of the Swing period, the Condon Chicago music and the Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens.

Allmost all this music was based on chord changes,the the structure of popular songs, and/or the blues. Other than the electric guitar, the music was played on acoustic instruments. As the years went by I flirted a bit with fusion, and "The New Thing". After those brief "flings" I realized that I did not find those new interests satisfying and came to recognize that my heart was firmly in the grip of the music referred to in the paragraph above. So now more than 60 years later the jazz I want to listen to is by the originators or the stylistic desciples of the music I truly love.

Someone coming to jazz in the 70's, 80's or later is apt to have a different type of experience. They were not there to anxiously wait for the next release by Horace Silver, Miles Davis with Trane, or Stan Getz. Electric instruments could well have been nothing out of the ordinary as  may also be the case for jazz not based on chord changes or popular song structure.

i understand that others of my generation may have developed interests in jazz quite different than mine, but nonetheless believe that age is an important factor in understanding musical preferences for a large number of people.

This may explain, at least a bit, why I am not pleased to listen to musicians I very much like such as Cedar Walton play the electric piano, or why I much prefer the acoustic bass over the electic bass.

The comments in this thread from Hal Galper regardin the electric piano were music to my ears.

 

 

 

 

someone

 

 

[JSngry]

I have enjoyed Hal Galper any number of times over any number of years, but playing with Phil Woods so long turned him into bit of a whiner (at least as far as his public online pronouncements go). Maybe it was contagious. Woods got to be pretty whiny about shit over the years too. So yeah, life's a bitch and you have to hustle to survive no matter how excellent you are in your own world, what life is supposed to be fair? Really?

"Bad taste" is entirely relative to your/"your" appetite. If there's any one thing that when done by anybody in any context that is 100% always in "bad taste", I've yet to find it. Other than, like, baby killing, genocide, other crimes against humanity, etc. Other than that...even the "worst" music in the right place at the right time will bring positive meaning to somebody, even if it's just to laugh at how stupid shit can get. As far as I'm concerned, hey.

Not exactly an overabundance of latter-day Ray Copeland on record, is there? Not a lot on this record either, but furthermore is the point.

[felser]

I found that Galper's leader dates became painfully "safe" during his era with Woods.  Some of the stuff he did with the Breckers in the late 70's breathed fire!

[soulpope]

3 hours ago, felser said:

I found that Galper's leader dates became painfully "safe" during his era with Woods.  Some of the stuff he did with the Breckers in the late 70's breathed fire!

Another thumbs up reg Galper's 70's recordings with the Breckers .... and speaking of "bad taste", a major impetus for these session' s success are - the Brecker Bros ....

Edited July 4, 2017 by soulpope

[JSngry]

 

• Baritone Saxophone, Flute – Hamiet 'Bunny' Bluiett*
• Bass – Stan Clarke*, Wilbur Ware (tracks: A1, A2, A4 to B3)
• Bass Clarinet – J. C. Williams* (tracks: A4 to B2)
• Drums – Thelonious Monk, Jr.*
• French Horn – Stuart Butterfield
• Piano – George Cables
• Supervised By [Musical Supervision] – Ernie Wilkins
• Tenor Saxophone – Paul Jeffrey
• Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Joe Gardner
• Tuba – Bob Stewart

[felser]

I really like that Jack Wilkins session!  Have never heard the Jeffrey (or the Coleman).

[JSngry]

• Acoustic Bass – Lawrence Evans
• Alto Saxophone – Charles McPherson
• Drums – Billy Higgins
• Flute, Baritone Saxophone – Chris Woods
• Flute, Tenor Saxophone – Frank Wess
• French Horn – Julius Watkins
• Piano [Acoustic] – Barry Harris
• Trombone – Garnett Brown
• Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Cecil Bridgewater, Richard Williams

• Charles McPherson - alto saxophone
• Ted Dunbar - guitar (tracks 1, 3, 5 & 7)
• Barry Harris - piano
• Sam Jones - bass
• Leroy Williams - drums
• Selwart Clarke, Max Ellen, Emanuel Green, Joe Malin, David Nadien, Gene Orloff - violin (tracks 1, 3, 5 & 7)
• Julien Barber, Alfred Brown - viola (tracks 1, 3, 5 & 7)
• Kermit Moore, Alan Shulman - cello (tracks 1, 3, 5 & 7)
• Ernie Wilkins - conductor, arranger (tracks 1, 3, 5 & 7)

 

• Charles McPherson - alto saxophone
• Lonnie Hillyer - trumpet
• Gene Bertoncini, Carl Lynch - guitar
• Nico Bunink, Barry Harris - piano
• Ron Carter - bass
• Leroy Williams - drums

[JSngry]

Definitely a "supplemental" album, but, like Iapetus (which is anything but supplemental) it does show the fallout from the Second Quintet might have been smothered by the fallout from Bitches Brew, but it was not suffocated entirely. This record could have been on Strata-East.

• Buddy Terry - tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute
• Woody Shaw - trumpet
• Eddie Henderson - trumpet, flugelhorn
• Kenny Barron - piano
• Joanne Brackeen - piano, electric piano
• Stanley Clarke, Mchezaji - bass
• Billy Hart, Lenny White - drums
• Airto Moreira - percussion
• Mtumé - African percussion

A pretty atypical Buddy Terry album, actually, but not necessarily a surpising one...

[JSngry]

Remember this guy from the McLean Blue Notes) and/or from,much later solo projects)? Who knew?

• Bass – Reggie Johnson (tracks: A1 to A3), Stan Gilbert (tracks: B1 to B4)
• Congas, Bongos – Pondaza*
• Drums – Mel Lee (tracks: A1 to A3), Ray Pounds* (tracks: B1 to B4)
• Guitar – Art Johnson (tracks: A1 to A3), Mike Deasey* (tracks: B1 to B4)
• Keyboards [Ex-42], Cowbell – LaMont Johnson (2)
• Producer – Carolyn Judd, LaMont Johnson (2)
• Tambourine – Ray Pounds* (tracks: B1 to B4)
• Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Flute – Charles Owens
• Trombone – Yusef Rahman
• Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Sal Marquez

This one disappeared before it got out there but hello Sonny Red?!?!?!?! Dire, matbe? But that's part of the story, if you want to know the whole story, shit gets dire sometimes.

Either way, again, who knew?

And yes - THAT Phil(lip) Wilson.

• Alto Saxophone – Sonny Red
• Bass – Dale Smith (5), Terry Hensley*
• Congas – J. Burr
• Drums – Phil Wilson*
• Electric Piano, Organ – Merl Saunders
• Guitar – John White (31)
• Tenor Saxophone – Hadley Caliman
• Trombone – Jock Williams
• Trumpet – John Wilmath
• Vocals – Robert Williams (23)