Stop me if you've read this one....

I really like Lee Morgan. If you were to ask who was my favorite all time trumpet players in jazz, he'd probably rank either first or second (behind Clifford Brown). He had a really unique solo voice - bluesy, funky, with a lot of those half-valve squirts - and was a great writer too.
So it's kind of ironic that I forgot the albumin the last couple entries his when listing all the records I bought . Charisma is the name of the album, which also features good ol' Hank Mobley.
OK, I think I finally listed all of them.

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The theme of tonight's entry is the issue of buying too much music and not having the time to listen to it. Gone are the days when I could spend most of the eight-hour work day listening to music while I worked. Or having it be part of my main working gig. So that leaves the time that I'm home and the time I'm in the car. And when I'm home I want to spend most of that time with my wife and kid (or blogging), or sleeping.

Aw hell I'm whining again. Here's what I'm getting at...

I just bought a buttload of cds over the past couple weeks, plus I came home from 2 house sales last Saturday with about 40 records under my arm. The majority of them only cost a quarter each so I snatched up things that I might otherwise avoid.

The first sale had a Frank Sinatra album marked at $3, which was $2 more than the other albums. Fair enough, I guess. Ol' Blue Eyes can be sort of collectable. But in that same stack I found a Hank Ballard & the Midnighters album that's worth somewhere between $100 and $400. And the Isley Bros' Shout, original mono. $150 mint. Chuck Berry's Greatest Hits on Chess. $100. All of these were $1 each.

Funny the value people put on stuff.

The second sale was the quarter a piece one. I got there early but the folks didn't seem to mind. They had a fairly big stack of records out already but the guy kept bringing out more. And more. And more. After the fifth stack, he asked if still wanted to see more. Damn buddy, you want to sell them don't you? There were about 6 albums by Sandy "Let there Be Drums" Nelson, so I picked up two or three. I don't know, anymore seemed excessive. There was a nice copy of Grandpa Jones' Fifteen Cents is all I've Got, two Alvin & the Chipmunks albums (Songbook and ...Sing Dr. Doolittle). God Bless Tiny Tim. Three Connie Francis albums (same thing goes with Sandy Nelson. I don't need a copy of Connie singing "Oh Suzannah.)

They also had a bunch of '60s 45s. One I got was the Rolling Stones' "Lady Jane." I've always loved that song. The acoustic guitars sound so crisp. The harpsichord is a nice touch. And Michael Philip Jagger sounds less like the cad and more like the gracious gentleman in it. And when he sings the word "my love," he always sounded to me like he had a cold and was actually singing "by lub."

On top of all those, I bought about eight CDs over the past two weeks. Let's see if I can recall them:
Sonic Youth - Sister
David Torn - Prezens (has Tim Berne on it)
Roscoe Mitchell - Sound
Charlie Parker - Overtime (a comp that has pretty much all the Verve Diz/Bird/Monk masters, some Savoy and a one w/Lennie Tristano that I don't have)
John Coltrane - Traneing In

........I've actually listened to all of them at least once. I had to go the Maryland for work this week and swore I'd hole myself up in my hotel room with all the music and just listen in the evening. It sort of worked. But I kept falling asleep.

While in Maryland I found a beat up but playable original copy of Monk Plays Ellington, Antietam's Music from Elba and Franklin Bruno's Bedroom Community. I was happy to find them but felt like maybe I should take a break from buying stuff and get caught up with what I have. Record buying is losing its appeal. Oh now, I'm getting old!

How could I forget these?

Of course, there were a few records that I got in the record hunt (see last entry) that I had neglected:
Cecil Taylor - Indent
Sam Rivers - Crystals
Charles Tolliver - The Ringer

Those are three names that you shouldn't forget, but of course when you have piles of albums that are stacked with no rhyme or reason, it's easy to do that.

I won my first record in Jerry's Records jazz auction!! Finally got lucky. It's Wayne Shorter's Adam's Apple. I also bid on Bobby Timmons and Archie Shepp but didn't get them. Wish I could stay home from work and just listen to it today. I could stop up there, come home and listen to it and when I'm done listening to that, get into the CDs I bought yesterday: Albert Ayler's Love Cry and Sunny Murray's Sunny's Time Now. I checked them each out once already, but want to hear them again. In fact yesterday I drove around with Donovan in the car while playing Albert Ayler. Don't worry I kept the speakers in the back seat on low volume so as not to freak him out and have him do his own Ayler imitation.

I think I'm actually going to try to get to some estate/house sales this weekend. Jennie is having one here on Sunday in case anyone is interested. 10 a.m. No earlybirds, folks.

Dawn of the concept album

There's an article in the Post-Gazette about today being the 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. (I was in utero at the time of the release.) And guess what the first line/paragraph of the story was..........can you guess...........c'mon, you can see it coming.........................

"It was 40 years ago today."

Geez, oh pete, did they have to go for the obvious cheap line?! I read that news today, oh boy. I bet when people heard that album that thought "It's getting better all the time." And it really didn't matter if they were wrong or right. How many more Beatles lyrics can I throw down to make the point that I hate when people use that Entertainment Tonight fluffy style of writing. Plus they overlooked the fact that "A Day in the Life" was not merely a John song but the fusing of an unfinished John song with an unfinished Paul song, and probably the last healthy collaboration those two had.