Detroit- The Motown Museum

It didn't hit me until we were in the makeshift theater that I was actually sitting in the building where all the classic Motown singles were made. The room was clearly a converted recording studio room, with walls built specifically to accentuate or deflect sound bouncing around the room. So who knows who once stood where I was sitting?

On Saturday morning, Dr. Jazz, a Detroit jazz promoter affiliated with the Detroit International Jazz Festival, charted a van for anyone who wanted to get the tour of the Motown Museum, which is located at 2648 West Grand Boulevard - the same place where the music was recorded. The neighborhood looks like a regular residential area that just happens to have a building with "Home of the Hits" written in script above its front windows. The guys who were giving the tour were really good, too, offering a lot of information without bogging it down with long lists of names or song titles, or just zapping the life out of the history. They really did a good job of letting you know how Berry Gordy started this enterprise, how he kept it going and how the music sounded so good. In other words, they let you know why you should care.

Studio A was the last stop on the tour, which makes sense because that's the most compelling place in the building. That's where all the recordings were done. And there are nearly lifesize pictures on the wall of Stevie Wonder and the Supremes at sessions, so naturally the tour guide (somehow "docent" doesn't seem appropriate at this museum) made some of the ladies do a Supremes formation, some of the guys do the Temps and one of the kids do a Stevie Wonder head wave right in the spots where the originals did it. Group participation usually isn't cool on a tour, but again, there's no tour like this one.

Best line of the tour: Q: What do you call a singer who can't do the Temptations dance? A: A Four Top.

Among the people on this tour, along with me and Jordy, was Ashley Kahn, who among other things wrote the book A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album. And a book about Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. And one about Impulse Records. And he writes for JazzTimes. This is the man I want to be.

Of course I didn't tell him that when I introduced myself. Or any other time over the weekend. I tried to play it cool. So the cat's out of the bag if he finds this.

He was nice enough to take my picture a couple times in front of the museum. I foolishly didn't bring my camera so all I had was my cellphone. I thought the lint that's all over the lense created that Penthouse look, but I actually think it's the sun coming over the building. The second one looks better. After he took this one below, Ashley deadpanned, "You know you're five minutes late for work." Mr. Gordy's gonna whup me.
Then it was back to the hotel and back to the festival.

Intermission

The upcoming posts will focus more on the music, I promise.

Detroit International Jazz Festival- Day One

It's been eight days since my adventure at the Detroit International Jazz Festival began, but it's taken that long for all the thoughts in my brain to settle, so that I can tell you what happened. (Actually I didn't have time to start blogging until my write-up for JazzTimes was finished, but the first thing sounded better.)


JazzTimes picked me to be the writer who would cover the festival for the magazine. Marking its 30th year, it was a pretty collasal event, with music going almost non-stop.

As I sat in the Pittsburgh airport with two hours to kill before my plane left (who'd'a thunk I'd get through security that quickly?), I realized that this would only be my fourth trip on a plane. I'm more of a train kind of guy, but that takes a long time and the cost of my flight was taken care of for me.



When I finally touched down in Detroit, I wasn't exactly sure where to go because there was supposed to be a driver ready to pick me up. But no one working in the airport knew where the Jazz Festival shuttle was. It was at that point that I got a call from one of the media guys saying that "they're looking for you at the airport." Me?! They know who I am? Oh yeah, I am a published writer and I know something about the music so that amounts to something. The guy in the call directed me to Passenger Pickup, where I could find the shuttle, and when the other person who was getting a ride showed up, we were whisked off to the hotel.



The swell festival volunteer directed me to where I was to check in with the hotel and with the festival itself, and I found out I had a VIP badge and a press badge so I could go upfront at all the shows. I also met my new friend Jordy who would be my running buddy for most of the weekend.



After hanging out in my room for a bit, looking at Caesar's Palace across the Detroit River in Windsor, trying to catch a bit of a nap (not possible after all the coffee I had that morning), I headed to the Pepsi Jazz Talk Tent where Hank Jones was appearing. Now the theme of the festival was "Keepin' Up with the Joneses," meaning Hank and his brothers Elvin and Thad. So his lineage and his age (91) made Hank a worthy honoree. With all that he's done, you'd hope that the person interviewing him would ask some good leading questions. Maybe "What was Charlie Parker really like at that Verve session" might not sound good, but I bet the answers would be. Instead, a lot of the queries were pretty general and phrased like yes-or-no questions.



Later I went to a VIP event where I met a writer who grew up about three blocks from me in Pittsburgh. That could only happen to someone from my town too. Gary Graff is about 7 years older than me (I know because he graduated from high school the same year as my brother Pete) and a good egg. He knows a lot about music but he's not high and mighty about it. No more sarcastic than I am, which I like. He took me and Jordy to the Dirty Dog, a restaurant that had a tent set up near the Chase Main Stage where Hank Jones was playing that night. We waiting forever for our server to take our orders and then waiting forever and a day for the food to come.

While all this was going on, the festival was starting and Hank Jones was getting a proclamation from the mayor of Detroit. Gretchen Valade, the grand dame or fairy godmother of the festival (and I mean that in a good way, in case you're reading this Gretchen; you're the tops) told Hank, "You're playing is so elegant and spiritual, it makes me cry. And I think everyone agrees." When Hank started playing it became clear that Gretchen was right on. His touch was so precise, with the right amount of subtlety and thunder, it was astounding. One of the tunes he played with Wes Montgomery's "Twisted Blues," which has a pretty complex melody. And Hank chewed up it. A couple people thought Hank was being held back because his regular drummer, Willie Jones III wasn't with him, replaced by Carl Allen. But I thought they all swung like hell, with bassist George Mraz in between them.

I kind of lost track of Jordy and Gary in a quest for coffee and a bathroom (not necessarily in that order). Chick Corea was up next, with Stanley Clarke and Lenny White joining him. I guess you could call them Return to Almost Forever, since all that was missing from the RTF equation was Al Di Meola. And electric instruments. Chick stuck to acoustic piano and Stanley played upright bass.

Someone in the audience yelled out "500 Miles High" and that RTF tune kicked off the set, coincidentally. The soundperson was getting a lot of feedback from one of the instruments and I was afraid Chick was going to rip their head off. He did walk over and talk to the person working sound, but he seemed cool about it. In fact he and Stanley were doing a lot of smiling while they played. Stanley seemed to pick up on the vibe of "I Mean You," doing his own kind of Monk-like solo. Of course it wasn't long before he started doing that double-time slapping thing he likes to do. Chick also got some Monk-isms going in a later tune that sounded like it could've been "Evidence" or "Straight No Chaser." They were definitely tight and swinging, but overall I couldn't get completely into them. Maybe it was the lack of sleep that was catching up with me.

As I walked through the blocked off streets by the stage, it astounded me that so many people had come out for the show. It was the equivalent of Pittsburghers coming to Point State Park for Fourth of July fireworks. For the ones who couldn't see the stage, there was a huge jumbotron held high over the stage for everyone else to see.

I went back to the hotel after they were over, and the jam session was in full effect. I didn't see anyone I knew (musician or writer or publicist), so rather than getting a drink and falling asleep in it, I decided it was time to hit the hay. After all, I had to get up early for the tour of the Motown Museum. More on that next time.

Detroit International Jazz Festival

Just got back today from Detroit. Too much to say and one post won't cut it. But I'll start with one of the final moments. Ran into TS Monk in the hotel bar last night. His group had played "Off Minor," using the big band charts from the Town Hall Concert, which is my favorite version of that tune. It got me right here and I had to tell him that. The younger Monk proceeded to testify on the power of his father's music and the simplicity of it. So much so that I wasn't sure I was going to get away from him without an hour-long oration.
Not to say that I didn't enjoy hearing it. The guy is cool.
So it made three hours of sleep and a 5 a.m. lobby call worth it.

Yes, you read correctly......

In case you missed the off-hand reference in the last posting, I am finally playing in a band again. And not just as a support player, like I was in Amoeba Knievel. This is probably the post-Mofones band that I hoped to start four years ago. Aimee DeFoe and I have tried with varying degrees of success to try to get something together since then, with schedules and babies getting in the way. But now, we're playing with Buck Knauer (guitar) and Erin Dawes (drums) and it looks like we're called the Love Letters. (Aimee plays keyboards, I'm on bass.) Buck has been playing in bands as long as I have. When I was 18 he was 16 or 17 playing in Cousin It, one of my favorite local bands of that era. More recently he's been in Liverball who have also made a comeback with their heavy sound. Erin works with me and I never heard her play drums until we got together. But she has great tastes in music and played drums in high school, so I figured she was a natural. I was right. At practices we've had moments where all four of us sing at once. It's exciting.
We're debuting at a work-related party in a couple weeks (eek!) and at the Thunderbird in October. More details to come.

Number One Cup - an appreciation

The only way I am going to be productive, I've decided, is get to bed early and get up early before everyone else, and do things like blog entries first thing.

A few days ago, I woke up with a song by Number One Cup in my head. And I'm not completely sure why that happened. They were a Chicago band in the 1990s who put out a few pretty good albums and one amazing, should've-been-on-every-smart-critic's-year-end list album before breaking up. I came across them when a guy put their song "Dive Bomb" on a tape for me. It was sort of a Pavement-y, catchy simple sound with the hook coming from the way they used a keyboard with one of those whammy bars to bend the pitch. And they used it on every chorus to simulate the dive bomb effect. Since the sound was more whiney than catastrophic, it was pretty funny and made me think these guys have something going for themselves.

In 1999, I bought Number One Cup's album People People Why are We Fighting? which is a pretty brilliant album name (coming from Mick Jagger's comment at Altamont after the stabbing). I always forget it came out a year earlier and I always want to put it on my "Last great albums of the millennium" list, beside Olivia Tremor Control's Black Foliage (which never seems to get its due) and Neutral Milk Hotel's In an Aeroplane Over the Sea (which does). It was a purchase based on what I read on a press release about the band and it ended up being a smart buy. Their first two albums were mixed bags (as I'd find out when I worked my way backwards in the discography), but People really comes off as a strong diverse album. The songs all sound pretty different but they work together to create a complete project.

Three out of the four guys take turns singing lead. Drummer Michael Lenzi, who does a lot of it, has a voice like a cross between Big Dipper's Bill Goffrier and the Cure's Robert Smith. He sounds really tense on some songs which goes along with the loud power chords and simple but perfect one string leads ("Low Sparks"). After he gets you all riled up, Patrick O'Connell shifts vocal gears and calms things down (in "Ice Melts Around My Battery," for example). "Canada Disappears" is a two-minute piece that quietly rises up at the end of the first half of the album (I don't know if it appeared on vinyl, but this was the logical place for Side One to end). Later on, "Caught on the Crown," another soft, piano driven piece, emerges out of an extended coda of metallic noodling in the previous song, all low-register, haunting minor key vocals, providing a good contrast to the high vocals and counter melodies you just heard. The title track is a six-minute sound sculpture, for lack of a better word that begins with a rainstorm and piano meanderings and climaxes with some really loud sounds from a noise generator.

I think what put Number One Cup in my subconscious had to do with "Remote Control," my favorite song on the album. In it, Patrick sings in Michael's register over a simple three chord riff that gets overlaid with "doo doo doo" harmonies, a great countermelody and a vague lyric that could be the thoughts of a spy. (It has the "metallic noodling" coda mentioned above.) This is one of those times that proves how simplicity can be irresistible if it has the right amount of enthusiasm behind it.

I've always had this song figured as a cover and I'm in a new band that has a show coming up and our set is still coming together. So maybe I was thinking in my sleep that we should learn "Remote Control."

On September, 10, 2001 I wrote the band a letter which was returned a few weeks later. I tracked them down via email a little while later. They had disbanded by then, with some moving on to another band, Fire Show was the name.

Flydaddy Records released People People and they went under a few years later. So finding the album is probably impossible now. But it's worth the search. And if you see it on vinyl, somewhere let me know.





PS In searching for an image of the album cover I came across this, http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2009/02/24/lost-classics-number-one-cups-wrecked-by-lions/ a rather back-handed after-the-fact shoutout to the band's second album, followed by a comment from Seth Kim-Cohen from the band.

Snorings, and pictures of those Fiery Furnaces

It's Saturday night and I........... am falling forward at the computer. I have things to say but I'll tell you more later.

In the meantime, go to http://www.blurt-online.com/concert_reviews/view/183/ and read my review of the Fiery Furnaces show in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago. Blurt put it up this past week.

Since they didn't run my pictures of the Friedbergers, here's an exclusive for you.

CD Review: Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins

Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins - The Classic Prestige Sessions, 1951-1956 (Prestige/Concord)

It's hard to think of Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins as just another couple of guys (cats, as it were) working on finding their own unique voices in a still developing genre of music. But in 1951, that's not too far removed from how they were on the earliest of these recordings.

Continuing to mark the 60th anniversary of Prestige Records, Concord Music - who now owns the label that Bob Weinstock started - has compiled the 25 tracks that these giants-in-the-making recorded together over a period of five years. Granted Davis and Rollins were at the head of their classes on tenor and trumpet, but much of the first disc has a tentative feeling to it.

That's not to say this isn't good listening. John Lewis's "Morpheus" opens things at a clipped tempo with some fast lines not normally heard from Davis. A version of "Conception," with Jackie McLean joining the frontline, updates the sound that originated with the fabled Birth of the Cool sessions. The rest of that session, released on the album Dig, has some fine blowing but not a whole lot of band chemistry. This was McLean's first session and he sounds like an able soloist, but the rhythm section doesn't seem to drive the band. Part of this could be the sound quality itself, which is especially echoey on "Dig," like fake stereo is being used. Beyond that, one of the more remarkable things is the appearance on "Bluing" of Davis' voice, pre-rasp, heard when Art Blakey keeps playing after everyone else has stopped: "Play the endin', man. You know the arrangement." (Dig is probably the only Miles album I bought and later sold when money was tight.)

Disc two is a different story. These sessions later appeared on the albums Collector's Items and Bags' Groove capture Miles and Sonny really digging into the music. The first session includes Charlie Parker (credited as Charlie Chan originally, due to contractual obligations) on second tenor sax, giving Rollins a run for his money. The next includes Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke, as well as the debuts of several tunes that have gone on to become stalwarts of jam sessions - and recording sessions - everywhere: "Airegin," "Oleo" and "Doxy," all written by Rollins. Supposedly Sonny just whipped these out for the session, and whether or not that's true, the players respond with the enthusiasm of a group digging into a tune for the first time knowing they're onto something big. The final session includes a Brubeck tune Miles would redo soon after with Coltrane, oddly enough at the same session where the tune caled "Vierd Blues" would be rechristened "Coltrane's Blues."

Ira Gitler provides liner notes that recount the history of these players' affiliation, along with some personal recollections from the sessions. (Gitler wrote liner notes and occasionally acted as something of a producer for Prestige.) The best story comes from the Parker session where Bird was the first to show up for the recording (a rarity, if not a first) and chugged the bottle of gin and Miles nearly walked out after Gitler came down to hard on him.

If you don't already have the two albums on disc two, you ought to go out and by the whole thing.

If It Sounds Too Good to Be True, There's No Gig

Playing right now: John Surman - Brewster's Rooster (ECM)
Yes, a very ECM-sounding ECM album. I have only a little bit of saxophonist Surman so when it was offered as a review item, I thought, why not.

At the start of the summer I got an email about a national tour by a few psych bands, with the connection being that they all got their big start in 1966. Indeed - these weren't third or fourth generation bands but the progenitors, if you don't mind the $9 college word. The tour consisted of the Electric Prunes, Sky Saxon and Love "featuring Johnny Echols" (in other words original Love guitarist Echols along with the band that backed Arthur Lee in his last days, Baby Lemonade).

Then Sky died about a month ago. I kept wondering if the tour was still happening but never actively combed through my email to find the publicist's name to ask and find out. Then on Sunday night, I came across an email dated August 3 that said the tour now included Jerry Miller from Moby Grape, taking the spot vacated by Mr. Saxon. My heart skipped a beat. I love Moby Grape, and immediately set about trying to make plans to make it to the show and get a chance to review it.

Well, if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Or let's put it this way: If you haven't heard anything about a show beyond two emails, it's probably cancelled.

Monday afternoon, as I walked into the Three Bears' house at Storybook Forest with Jennie and Donovan, my phone rang. It was a guy involved with the tour who said the Pittsburgh show was cancelled because the venue did bupkis to publicize it. Somehow I knew that was going to happen. I guess I won't be touching the sleeve of a Moby Grape member any time soon.

My favorite band and my big break = incompatible

I'm going to the 30th Annual Detroit International Jazz Festival on Labor Day weekend! This is the first time I've covered something outside of Pittsburgh for JazzTimes. And the first time I've been to any big jazz festivals. The list of performers includes Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Hank Jones and our hometown hero Sean Jones.

It's almost a shame that Mission of Burma is coming to town while I'll be up therein Detroit. I've only waited, oh, 29 years to see them in Pittsburgh. And they're playing Club Cafe, which ought to be an unusual venue since they're so freaking loud and liable to shatter the windows that are right behind the stage.

In case I never said it here, I was listening to Mission of Burma when I decided that I wanted to seriously try to start a band playing bass. During the summer of 1985, I was obsessed with the Minutemen and Mission of Burma and noodled away on the bass hoping that something would happen than would put my fingers on the right frets and know what to play. That happened while listening to Burma's "This is Not a Photograph." It all fell into place and I wanted to be Clint Conley, via Mike Watt.

It will be a shame to miss them but, then again, [copping a mock-haughty voice] I've already seen them twice since they got back together. I know they'll rock.

Remember Rashied Ali

I came home from work tonight and after Jennie and I talked about our respective days and about the kid, she said she heard that Rashied Ali had died. What can I say that I haven't said previously when blogging about a jazz great dying. "It's a damn shame"? "Not again"? How about this: It's bad enough that we lost Les Paul...

(Although I have to say it always made me feel good that Les lasted as long as he did, playing until almost the very end.)

So now, only two people who played with John Coltrane during his seminal quartet/quintet years are still alive: McCoy Tyner and Pharoah Sanders. A lot of people (non-free jazz fans, that is) might put Ali down because of his loose, wild style of playing, but the guy knew what he was doing. You talk about a flowing sound - that's what he did on the kit. I have two CDs he did as a leader, one with Leroy Jenkins and the other w/a quintet that included James Blood Ulmer. I'll have to get them out tonight.

Bird and the heat

I'd really love to sit around all day, drinking iced coffee and listening to live Charlie Parker records. But I have a feeling this heat is going to be too much for me and I'm going to hightail it to an airconditioned coffee joint and try to weed through some promos. My brow is getting wet as I type.

What's up with the Dirty Projectors?

I started reading about the Dirty Projectors about a month ago when their Bitte Orca album came out. They seemed like the new critic's fave band: write-ups in Sunday New York Times, Rolling Stone (which I only caught because I got a free copy at work).... And somebody somewhere along the way started asking me about them. I can't remember who though, although I feel like it was someone from work. If it was you, speak up.

So anyhow, I saw that Bitte Orca was available on vinyl, which made them even more appealing to me and someone I put on my mental music list. I wound up getting the CD anyway last Monday. (A few bucks less and I was able to walk out with two items instead of one.) I was writing reviews all week, so I didn't get to listen to it until last night.

What's the story with these folks?! Don't get me wrong, I'm really into getting my senses challenged by new music these days. For instance, St. Vincent's latest is really intriguing for reasons that I still can't pinpoint. Plus it reminds me of Lida Husik a little (another Shimmy-Disc vet whose name I meant to drop in a previous entry).

But these Projector peoples seem to have taken the math rock thing and fused it to a chamber pop aesthetic. (I guess it was only a matter of time.) My wife said some of it reminded her of Shellyan Orphan and I'll take it further and say that if you cross that band with the Fiery Furnaces, you'd be dead on. I'm a Furnaces follower and feel like there's always a pop song at the core of what they're doing. With the Dirty Projectors, I'm not sure. Sometimes it seems like they just slapped some off kilter twist onto a steady 4/4 type background to see how it works. I can appreciate that, but I'm not sure how often I'll reach for that CD.

But I'm not ready to pass judgement yet. I need at least one more listen.

CD Review: Warren Smith Composers Workshop Ensemble

Warren Smith Composers Workshop Ensemble

Old News Borrowed Blues (Engine)

Drummer/percussionist/composer Warren Smith brought together 14 musicians plus himself to record these five brilliant pieces. Five saxes, four brass, guitar, African percussion and two drummers sound like the next generation of the Sun Ra Arkestra, although their influences stick with the various inhabitants of Planet Earth, rather than pulling more inspiration from the cosmos.

"Rivers State Suite" consists of a three-part tone poem inspired by villages Smith visited in Nigeria and the songs griots sang there about their cities. Vibes set up a dreamy mood over reggae groove in the first part before the lower horns come in with a folk-like melody. The laid-back feeling shifts into a more urgent tempo for part two, where the harmonies go to church. The third movement is built on an equally simplistic riff, but the way the percussion kicks it along and the way Smith layers the horns keep it exciting.

"The Hungarian Gypsy Song" also sounds true to its name, with haunting diminished chords, some gypsy guitar strumming and those dreamy vibes again. "Lock the Toilet Door" presents the group playing no nonsense hard bop, with a strong trumpet solo and a lot of fire from Smith and second drummer Lloyd Haber. "One More Like for Harold Vick," recently saluted by Sonny Rollins, pays tribute to the late tenor player with a theme that seems more like an emotional rendering than an attempt to emulate his style. Sounding a bit like a Mingus piece at times, it feels as if Smith is trying to explain the tragedy that Vick wasn't heard by more people.

Smith explains in the notes that "Free Forms 1-4" comes from a set of ten interconnected compositions that utilize free improvisation. Each is marked by a sketch of a theme, followed by free blowing, that eventually cues in a vamp. The final section features Smith, presumably, reading a poem over a slow waltz with Craig Rivers' soprano and the vibes moving behind him, with the rest of the ensemble adding some dark chords and a few well-placed honks and blats. Jazz poetry can be a scary (read - bad) idea, but Smith avoids speaking in the cliched poet cadence and the text ("a love song, sort of") sketches a thoughtful image that feels appropriate after the frenzy that came before it.

The only setback with Old News Borrowed Blues is that individual soloists aren't singled out. While the recycled chipboard cover includes notes from Smith on the music, it's not clear which drummer plays vibes (or if they take turns) or whether Cecil Bridgewater or John Carlton take the trumpet solos. Ultimately, that can be chalked up to nitpicking, though. With soloists that include Claire Daly (baritone sax) and Craig Rivers (soprano sax), and recent Art Ensemble of Chicago bassist Jeribu Shahid as part of the group, this is definitely one of the strongest releases of the year and needs to be heard.

Moving the albums; remembering Kramer's Guilt Trip

Playing right now: Donovan's various renditions of the ABC song/Baa Baa Black Sheep/Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - none of which ever get finished. They're emanating from the next room.

Last week I began the arduous task of moving our albums into the den (we call it the Skinny Room due to its 35' X 10' dimensions) from the small storage room behind it (we call it the Mistress Room, since the sliding mirrored doors are the perfect place to house your backdoor dame). The Mistress Room has been sort of damp since the big flood of '04 and when rain came in last month during a particularly heavy downpour, enough was enough. Some of the CDs were getting musty already, and a couple of the walls are showing signs of must. Luckily the records were against the dry wall, but still it's only a matter of time.

We have one of those IKEA shelves w/five sections across and five down. And to move that heavy thing I had to take all the records out, carry most of them to the front room and pile them up. Getting them back in was pretty easy, but I still have a bunch that have never even been on that shelf. So there's been a lot of reorganizing. At first, I left some space open in the M's because that always seems the tightest. That way, if more room was needed on either end of that grouping, they could be adjusted accordingly. Of course that lasted about a day. It's all very tight around there now. Now the major slack can be found around the Horace Silver section. We'll see how long that lasts.

It's always funny to see what artists sit side by side. Allan Sherman is still sharing company with Archie Shepp. But that's not nearly as funny as seeing Phil Ochs next to Ted Nugent.

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Kramer's 3-record deluge The Guilt Trip was sitting out since it's better to keep it off the shelf due to the amount space that it swallows up. That album came out in 1993 and it was one of the most anticipated albums for me at that time. For about three years, up until then, I was a Kramer fanatic, buying all the Bongwater albums and checking out every release on his Shimmy-Disc label. When he called me back for an interview for my fanzineonce, I about died.

So after the crushing break-up of Bongwater, I eagerly awaited this humongous solo project box. (It came out about a year later.) There's something about a new release spread over three records that makes it a must have. I remember buying it on a Friday and taking it to Jennie's place that night. We only got through maybe two sides of it before it became clear that we couldn't listen to it and have a conversation.

Today it sounds... okay. I mean sonically it sounds great. Kramer's swirly, psychedelic production is what made his early work so good, and also what made his post-1993 work so lacking. He started to abandon his trademark sound around that time. (Only a few of the songs on Bone of Contention's Kramer-produced Fun CD have his telltale trimmings, which really bummed me out when someone mentioned that to me.)

But I'm digressing. The Guilt Trip is loaded with instrumentals. Some sound pretty good on their own. The opening couple minutes of the album ("Overture")sound absolutely mind-blowing, for instance. It's like the intro to Sergeant Pepper played by Blue Cheer and looped. Some tracks sound like they were ready for Ann Magnuson to add her parts. In fact all the Kramer harmonies on "Wisdom Sits" (he was always very skilled at singing all of them) make it sound like a Bongwater outtake. But other wordless tracks sound like unfinished sketches with layers of overdubs to cover up the riff-not-necessarily-a-song quality of them.

The vocal tracks are great though. It occurred to me that "Welcome Home" might be sung from the perspective of his baby (at the time) daughter, since it's being sung to a mother who has come home and is begged to "forget that awful day." Plus, there's a snippet of a squawking baby in the background before the guitar solo. The trippy vocal on "Stupid Summer" (who's he sound like? Donovan? Syd?) sounds better than it did 16 years ago. And I almost forgot about the sped-up vocal on "I'm Your Fan" (which at the time could've been about me). I might have to get out record three and play that.

Still, the best example of Kramer's post-Bongwater work from that era has to be Who's Afraid, his first Shimmy album with Daevid Allen. It's consistent from beginning to end with all the trippiness and noodly qualities reined in by conventional song structures.

I wonder where his daughter Tess is now. She's probably about 17.

CD Review: Fred Anderson

Engine is a New York based label that recently landed a distribution deal with ESP. A couple of their discs showed up with the latest batch of ESP items. On initial inspection, what's interesting about Engine is their econo packaging: a 10"X 5" piece of recycled chip board with the album cover artwork and info printed on it. (Very similar to what the early Screwgun discs were wrapped in, only a little more basic.) The disc itself stays in place courtesy of a piece of foam that's glued on good and tight. Unless you try to rip it out, or compulsively put the CD on and off, that little pad won't fall off. Smart packaging.

I just looked at the Engine site, hoping find some background info or label history. While I agree with much of what founder Steven Walcott says (I'm assuming it's him) about getting press, the tone is rather grouchy. I mean I know it's hard to get reviews when you're a small label and that most of the people who end up reading your website will be "with you," but damn, brother, do you have to an us v. them thing? Why not talk about how great your CDs are?

Oh, I guess that's where I come in.

Fred Anderson
Staying In the Game (Engine)

On the credits to this CD, tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson "thanks God for keeping him here so he can play jazz." Whether or not you're a believer in a higher power, we should all give Fred an amen on that. In fact, let's hope the 80-year old Chicago veteran never dies because he still has an unending font of ideas to drawn on.

Staying in the Game is a trio session with bassist Harrison Bankhead and drummer Tim Daisy. Recorded last November in Chicago, these six tracks sound like spontaneous inventions. The 24-minute "Sunday Afternoon" opens the album, with Anderson working on a "Giant Steps"-like idea, while his conspirators play a walking waltz underneath. The dynamic level doesn't vary a whole lot, which means it stays at a similar volume throughout the duration. Even when things get free, the trio doesn't resort to crazy blowing. But the way Anderson brings out a series of melodic tricks -rather than going for the easy wail, for instance - will win over discerning listeners.

"The Elephant and the Bee" describes the combination of tenor and bass in duet, although it's hard to tell which instrument represents which creature. Bankhead's rich bowing, with its scraping harmonics, could symbolize the lumbering elephant. Then again, his fleet plucking moves like a bee too. Anderson seems to play on a parallel line, but he's clearly in tune with the bassist's movement. As the track ends, one of them - probably Bankhead since he finishes last - is heard marveling at the performance, out of breath, and it's easy to agree with the sentiment.

In "Springing Water," Daisy gets his chance to play alone with Anderson. Together they create a sound that evokes the track's title, ebbing and flowing in a stream of ideas. Then the album climaxes with "Changes and Bodies and Tones" full of rolling cymbals, arco bass (is he using two bows?) and tenor sax lines that ring out like deep thoughts. It's off-the-cuff and loose but it's also a textbook example of how this music should sound.

Check it out at http://www.engine-studios.com/

Next up, Warren Smith's Composers Workshop Ensemble - Old New Borrowed Blues (also on Engine).

Almost a Sonic Youth review

Playing right now: Burt Bacharach - Make It Easy On Yourself (Wanted to hear the version of "Do You Know Way to San Jose" because it's top-shelf exquisite pop, but man, even the slow poke title track and Burt's "rumpled baritone" sound good right now.)

Having said that...

I've had Sonic Youth on the brain for the past couple of weeks, in anticipation of getting their new album. We were talking about them at work a few weeks back, and discussing how their last few albums haven't exactly knocked it out the park like they used to. I remember liking Rather Ripped when I bought it, but it's been quite awhile since I played it. My friend Toby said that Washing Machine was one of his favorites, to which I said I bypassed that one completely at the time, due to a combination of lack of funds to buy it and feedback from friends that it wasn't very good. Toby loaned it to me and I listened to it in the car for a few days while driving around. It's not as lackluster as I heard, but it wasn't great. And it seemed like Kim Gordon hardly played bass on it at all.

Then a few nights ago, I decided to dig out Rather Ripped to check it out again. (I bought The Eternal in the meantime, but I'll get to that shortly.) While going through the Sonic Youth section of my CDs I came across Sonic Nurse. "What the hell is this," I thought when I saw the spine. When I looked at the cover I recognized it, but I had absolutely no recollection of what is on it or when I bought it. It came out in 2004, which was the year that Pulp shut down so it might've come as a promo to the paper or maybe I bought it during the time I was out of work. (For an unemployed person, I bought a fair share of records and CDs that summer.) But as far as the songs on it, the only thing that rang a bell was the title "Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream," because Kim was interviewed in Bust and she explained that saxophonist Doyle had given Thurston some hand cream at a show.

I listened to about half of it last night while picking up in the kitchen. Not bad, but not exactly memorable either. Sounds like every song is in D, just like most SY albums. I'll probably keep it since I have just about all of SY's "rock" albums. (I can't do without the improv stuff.) It's good to have for reference, I suppose.

But this brings up a subject I've been thinking about for quite awhile - what's more important: between owning an album or CD or simply hearing what's on it? This question started to congeal in my head about a month ago when I went to Carnegie Library and checked out the Mosaic box of Hank Mobley's '50s Blue Note sessions. I have about 1/3 of the set already on vinyl, having been obsessed with those early, valuable Blue Note albums. My intention was to burn copies of the rest of the stuff so I'd flush from my system the desire to keep searching eBay in hopes of finding copies of the other albums for a reasonable price. (Ain't gonna happen; it's a waste of time.) I know I could find just about all of that stuff on individual CDs too, but that runs into money, time, etc...

And when I did that, I realized it wasn't so much that I wanted to possess copies of all this music (although a Blue Note album with the W. 63rd Street address would make a nice addition to the collection), but to simply hear all of it. It's not as if I have time to just sit and listen to records like I once did. Look at the time I had the chance to listen to Sonic Nurse.

I really like buying CDs and records and I want to keep up with different artists since I write about music, but I'm looking at the Revenant Albert Ayler box and wondering when I'll get back to that. The most recent St. Vincent album is on the desk in front of me. I definitely bought that because she's gotten good press and I felt like I better check her out. And she's good but how often will I putting it on? I'll be lucky if I get to know that album intimately before I have to review something or buy the next "I should check this out" disc.

And those Mobley discs? I think I've listened to one since I burned them. Just in case anyone from Blue Note is reading, don't bust my chops about copying the discs. Yeah, it's wrong, but it's not as if I would've gone out and bought Peckin' Time anyway.

But back to Sonic Youth's new album The Eternal. After about two decades (say it with me: Jeez-oh-pete!) they're back on an independent label - Matador, one of the best. Not only that, they're rocking like they haven't in a long time. On a Goo or Dirty level. With Pavement's Mark Ibold joining the fold, things sound really inspired. If the album hadn't been $15 more than the CD, I probably would've sprung for it. I just hope I'm not missing out on any bonus, vinyl-only tracks

I think I'm going to replay some of that Bacharach album. 'Scuse me.

CD Review: Talibam!

Talibam!
Boogie in the Breeze Blocks (ESP)

To call Matthew Mottel and Kevin Shea irreverent would be stating the obvious. They named their musical project Talibam!, after all. But aside from that, there’s the cover shot on Boogie in the Breeze Blocks, where their tousled-but-styling looks could help them pass for a couple of hip New York DJs. And then there’s the program on this release, which numbers somewhere around number 12 in a discography of CDs, CDrs, singles and 10”s, and has already been followed by a new release.
Boogie has a recurring bit that casts Mottel (numerous keyboards) and Shea (drums, “detritus”) as either ambulance drivers or cops. They receive radio dispatches, which sound like samples of real thing, and respond to them with zany comments (“Oh! That’s a strange thing!”) before the sound of motorcycles and sirens segue into the next blast of spazz jazz. Sometimes the group goes for pure noise (“Predetermined to the Master Plan”), sometimes they get downright funky (“Not Just Any Kind of Vegetable”) and sometimes they do all that and more (“Nike Rim Johb,” which includes some growling horns and bird field recordings).
Like with most of his work, Shea’s drumming often sounds like he’s dismantling his kit, throwing down a flight of stairs and making it sound good. Mottel who plays everything from piano to Rhodes to Roland, is the perfect co-conspirator for the drummer, being able to jump into any style at a moment’s notice. (If John Zorn every wants to get a new Naked City together, he should recruit these two.)
Thirteen guests show up on various tracks, including all of Shea’s bandmates from the jazz quartet Mostly Other People Do The Killing. Tim Dahl’s bass gives seven of the tracks some much needed bottom. Danielle Kuhlmann adds some chanteuse-y moments to various tracks, which is the perfect foil for the chaos of “Predetermined.”
I’ve only heard one other Talibam! disc, which was admirable for its focus but got a little tiring after numerous splattering, free form assaults, even as different musical guests moved in and out of the fold. Boogie in the Breeze Blocks has one track that goes over the top with spastic screaming in the not-so-background. But for the most part, the disc maintains interest because it keeps changing shape; some songs even sound like two different tracks fused together. Plus the crazy personas that keep popping up add some much levity.

(In case you haven't read my interview with ESP founder Bernard Stollman, here’s the first part and here’s part two.)

JazzTimes is back!

For the past month or so, I've been seriously thinking that music journalism as a whole is being systematically killed, jazz journalism in particular. Then, 20 minutes ago, I got an email from Lee Mergner, JazzTimes' editor, saying the magazine has been bought.

It's a Christmas miracle!

And it ain't even Christmas.

Here's the straight dope if you want to know. http://jazztimes.com/articles/24943-jazztimes-to-resume-print-and-online-publishing

And by the way, my CD reviews of the Cline Brothers (Alex and Nels) and Charlie Kohlhase have been removed from this blog because they're going to run in JT after all. Go out and buy it. You'll be glad you did.

Monday afternoon news

Playing right now: John Vanderslice - Romanian Names (only because I haven't played it since he was in town, not because I'm that obsessed with him. [http://www.blurt-online.com/concert_reviews/view/167/]

New Fiery Furnaces disc showed up in the mail today. Ohboyohboyohboy! And it's good. But I'll refrain from commenting until I review it for Blurt.

Last night's Harlan Twins show

Last night I went to the Harlan Twins' CD release show at the Brillobox. We almost didn't get in because the show had sold out. Imagine that - a local band that's still in the picking-up-speed phase selling out their release show. It's a good sign of things to come.

If you'd like to hear my professional opinion on them go here: http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A65602

If you'd like to hear my sitting-at-the-bar opinion, here IT is: this band ought to be huge. At least as big as the Modey Lemon. Some people might say that's not all that big, but I'm thinking that way after having seen umpteen local bands put out albums, get a lot of buzz going and either squander it or give up prematurely. I remember when Shopping broke up, I ran into their guitarist Nick (now of Centipede E'est) at Gooski's and yelling at him that the band should've stayed together because they were so good, etc. etc.

Anyhow, the Harlans have such a great sound and seeing them live, it's clear that all five of them are in sync with each other, and that they all belong together in this band. I told their guitarist James that if anyone wants to quit, he should pull a Charles Mingus and punch them in the mouth to discourage any quitters. I don't advocate violence but this is serious stuff.

I'm so bleeding happy

After months of wondering and fruitlessly searching throughout Blogger, I finally figured out how to change my template and add a list of blogs that I like. And now I'm able to allow peeps to subscribe to the blog. Believe me, it was often frustrating, but now I'm happy that it's there. I felt like I was really blogging off in the background, where no one could ever hope to find me.

Sky Saxon too??!

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, Gale Storm, Bob Bogle (of the Ventures), Karl Malden...... SKY SAXON too? Apparently the frontman of the Seeds died the same day as Farrah and Michael, which of course meant, we're only finding out about it now. (I saw it this morning on AllMusic.)

Jiminy crap - who's next?

On a brighter note, I just filed a story on the Pittsburgh band the Harlan Twins, who are releasing their debut CD next week. The band is amazing. If you're in Pittsburgh on July 10, go see them. I mean it.

Don't Stop Till You Get Enough

Playing right now: Talibam! - Ordination of the Globetrotting Conscripts (Whacked out improv featuring Kevin Shea. I hope to write about their new album in this spot during the coming week.)

Everybody's sounding off about Michael Jackson's death, so I feel like I'm entitled to add my two cents to the forum. For starters, it shocked and bummed me out a lot more than I expected. It probably had something to do with the fact that I get weird feelings about any musician that I like or liked passing away. (See posts on Andrew Hill and Bud Shank.) Having a kid can do that to you too, changing your perspective on the whole life and death thing.

And Michael did have a profound impact on my life when I was about 5 or 6. Before I discovered the Beatles, the Jackson 5 were it. (There was another group of family singers I liked at that time too, but we don't need to do the full disclosure thing here.) "I Want You Back" and "ABC" were little pieces of magic to me. Literally little pieces in my case: I got those songs on records that came on boxes of Alpha-Bits cereal. And when I first heard "Never Can Say Goodbye" on their Greatest Hits album, it was the first time I ever got knocked over by a real bonafide hook. I'm referring to the chorus, where the music does a descending riff while Michael sings the title line and the group ends up with those "no no no"s. Damn. I made my friend Eric play that over and over and over.

Years later I'd discover that the tight arrangements at Motown had a lot to do with what made the songs so memorable, but Michael's voice was part of that, standing front and center. At the time, Tito was my favorite member of the group because he was the guitar player and that was what I wanted to play. But I knew Michael's voice was leading the group. Somehow Eric and I convinced ourselves that everyone in the band also played an instrument and sang, and we thought Michael was the drummer.

In some ways, Michael is probably responsible for paving the way for the current spate of glitzy performances where singers have five dancers with them onstage, where the spectacle has become more important than the song their singing. But for Michael, it was all about the song and making come across the best you can. Those early Jackson 5 records planted the seed in his head and - if a press release I read this morning had any truth to it - when the Jacksons worked with Gamble & Huff in the late '70s, Michael picked up a lot from them about the nuts and bolts needed to make a song good. Of course, he worked with Quincy Jones too, who knew all about arrangements from his big band days. Their collaborations weren't about jumping on the latest trend to make a cheap buck. They were setting standards, coming up with songs that would withstand the test of time. That's why "Billie Jean" might be a corny song, yes, but I'll be doggone if that bassline isn't catchy. Or, ask Michael would say, "It's smelly."

So maybe it's the old mindframe about having respect for the dead, but rather than focus on all the freaky things from the last 15 years of his life, I think it's much healthier to remember the early things that prove that he was at one time a consumate performer.

JazzTimes in suspense

So I just received an email (actually it arrived last night) informing me that JazzTimes has "suspended publication of the magazine and furloughed its staff while it finalizes the sale of its assets." That's a direct quote from the website, so I'm not speaking out of turn. (I can't hyperlink where I am now, but you can find it at www.jazztimes.com.)

That's just beautiful. Not just another magazine on the chopping block, but one that's devoted to jazz and that writes very well about it. And I'm not talking about my writing by any means. Evan Haga, Bill Milkowski, our beloved guru Nat Hentoff, as well as the occasional sharp and witty two cents from editor Lee Mergner - it made me glad to be part of the publication. The magazine also proved that while jazz has a rich past, it has an equally important future that people need to know about. (And how. You know how hard it was to get a Mosaic review in there if your name wasn't Scott Yanov? No offense, Scott, you're the tops too. I did get to review a few Mosaics.)

I'm getting ahead of myself. The magazine's not defunct yet. I'm just worried. It's just that I've been through this before, you know.

Go out and buy the May issue of JazzTimes while you can. It has a great interview with John Zorn, who's on the cover. And when you go to the counter, slam it down and say, "I'm mad as all-get-out, and I'm not going to take it anymore."

If only that would happen on some sort of scale, maybe we could start a revolution.

SST Weekend - Grant Hart returns!

It was an SST weekend in Pittsburgh. Friday night the Meat Puppets played, although I didn't make it to that show. Last night, Grant Hart - the once and forever drummer/vocalist of Husker Du - played at Howler's. Opening the show was none other than Ed fROMOHIO, the once and forever vocalist/guitarist of fIREHOSE. Ed has lived in Pittsburgh for a couple years now, but, other than an appearance at the Who Tribute show earlier this year, this is the first time I saw him play a set. I think his arrival coincided with Donovan's arrival into this world.
Funny thing, the Meat Puppets' original drummer, Derrick Bostrom, didn't join the reunited band. He's working for the same company I work for, although he's in Tuscon and I'm in Pittsburgh. What are the odds? (Answer: not all that unusual).
Anyhow, the evening at Howler's began after the Penguins got crushed 5-0. (I'm tired of hockey [sorry, everyone] but even I know that was AWFUL.) Then Moonlight Motel played, which features one of my bff's Mike Moran (vocals), along with Steve Seel (bass), Steve Morrison (acoustic guitar), Sam Matthews (mandolin) and Kip Ruefle (hand percussion). Mike has an amazing voice and it's great to hear him in this context, which not only brings together guys of different musical backgrounds, but puts them in a context that could appeal to acoustic fans without loosing people who know them from the noisier settings. One of the songs was called "The Ballad of Edward Moran," which is about Mike's grandfather, and I swear in one verse he sang in a brogue and it sounded really natural.
I loved fIREHOSE and saw them nearly every time they played Pittsburgh in the '80s. Mike Watt was my bass hero but I always thought Ed was a great player and singer too. One song into his set, he had me wanting to pound my table to show my enthusiasm for his band. They were catchy and edgey with all kinds of chord changes that you didn't expect. He pulled out a couple of fIREHOSE tunes that took me back and he even did a spirited version of the Minutemen's "Corona," which also did my heart good.
Then a few minutes after Ed and his crew wrapped up, a thin guy dressed in a cap, with a guitar got up onstage and plugged in. "So that's him," I asked my friend John. "Yep," was the reply. Of course a lot of years have passed since Grant Hart had long ratty hair and was a little pudgy. Still it took me by surprise to see him, and when John kidded me, "Maybe it's a scam. Maybe it's not really him," I did wonder for a second. It could be his twin brother Brant. Or maybe someone named Harte Grant. However, his voice was pretty unmistakable so I knew it was really him.
The other surprise came with his set. John and I were kidding that we should yell out Husker song titles, thinking that if we did, we'd get our asses kicked. But sure enough, he played "The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill," [note the verb tense there, Post-Gazette] a couple songs in - right when I was at the bar trying to get a drink. Then, he started asking, "Anything you want to hear?"; "Any requests?" A couple times I yelled "Now That You Know Me" from Intolerance, but when that went unheeded, I yelled "Keep Hanging On" which I still find to be one of the most inspirational punk songs ever (if you've heard the version on Flip Your Wig you know why). His delivery last night wasn't as frantic as in the original, but it still got me feeling a tad ferklempt.
Other highlights included "Terms of Psychic Warfare," "2541" and one newer, almost torch song number, during which he stopped and asked a loud talker, "Am I interrupting anything?" After that one, he asked us, "Ok, who paid $16 to get in here tonight?" Silence. "Who paid $24?" Silence. "Who paid $32?" Silence. "OK, well let's have a little respect for the people who paid $8." He added some subtle-but-cutting comment about how it's always the hipsters who disrupt things. Whoever had been talking then shut-up.
Afterwards we were talking to him a little and without any prodding, he started trashing Bob Mould. I don't think it's telling tales out of school to mention this because he wasn't revealing any big secrets, and besides Bob's no angel. Some guy talking to him said it sounded like there'd be no Husker Du reunion and I wanted to smack him and say, "DUH!" That band fueled mostly by aggression anyway and the hostility that exists between the two of them wouldn't be a good way to run a band now anyway. Grant just said that it would be a shell of what it once was.
I asked him how it came together that he and Bob played a benefit for the late bass player of Soul Asylum. He said Bob called him about it and used it as a way to one-up Paul Westerberg, who also played the show. Notice he just kind of skipped over "Bob called me" to get to a rant about Westerberg. What was the call like? What was it like going onstage? Was it fun? At all?
By that time, I figured I needed to go home anyhow, so I left it at that. If I get to interview him when he comes through next time (he has an album coming out), maybe I'll follow up with him about it.

Vanderslice deadlines/ search for Panda - the band

Playing right now: Von Freeman - Have No Fear
(This Chicago tenor player in an elder statesman in Chicago, where he's admired by free jazz and mainstream folks alike. I was really excited to find this album by him. I've never heard of any of the sideman but they're great: John Young (piano), David Shipp (bass), Wilbur Campbell (drums). Never thought Henry Mancini's "Mr. Lucky" could have this much bite.)

Last week, I got an assignment to preview John Vanderslice's Pittsburgh show - and I thought I had to write the piece within the next 48 hours. Panicked, I happened to have John's number on my cell phone and even though it made me feel a little funny calling him (due to my fanatical feelings for his music) I gave him a ring. 30 minutes later he called back, ready to talk. And talk he did. Man, that guy gives such good quotes. We talked for less than 20 minutes and I got plenty out of him. It should go without saying that I'm totally stoked for the show, which is happening at the Warhol Museum.

Later than night, I reread the email about the article and it looked like I was a week ahead of time. Oh well. A few days later and I might have missed John since his tour is now in full swing.


###############&&&&&&&&&&

I guess listening to Vanderslice's new Romanian Names album had me thinking about San Francisco bands (that's where he lives). So I decided to pull out a CD from the mid '90s by an SF band called Panda. They were a male/female group that was into pop hooks wrapped in a rather scrappy garage sound. The self-titled CD was released by Kokopop, the subsidiary of Shimmy-Disc, which was how I got wind of it (I was into anything Shimmy-Disc/Kramer-related at that point).
The album had a song called "Parasol" that was built around a mid-tempo dreamy/nagging two-string guitar riff, and I used to play that song all the time. The problem was that the disc I had was really scratched up, and three of the first four songs wouldn't read on my CD player, and once I even tried to play "Parasol" on a radio show at WPTS, and it skipped.
CD player technology must have improved by leaps and bounds because my current machine played the whole disc with any hesitation. I don't think I heard the song "Ninny Cake Bake" (great call-and-response involving the title) since the very first time I played the disc. It was a good night. Although, I'm tempted to burn the disc just to make sure I have it for all times.
Panda put out another album on Kokopop, which I never bought, but I feel like there's probably a copy or two sitting around a used disc store in town somewhere. In the meantime, I wonder what ever became of Alyssa Wendt, Jefferson Parker, Carolyn Engelmann and Andrew Rush, the four that were Panda. Are you guys out there?

Very Best of Prestige Records: Mandatory Listening

I'm not much for compilations of music that's otherwise available. I'm not opposed to the concept, and I greatly enjoy hearing stuff programmed together. But when it comes to plunking down money, I'd almost prefer to go straight to the original albums and hear the songs that way. But The Very Best of Prestige Records is quite the exception to the rule.
As the Prestige label celebrates its 60th anniversary (well it would, had it survived in its original independent form. Technically it's now owned by Concord, although they're releasing the back catalog.), they've released a 2CD/ 25 track overview of its heyday, from 1949 to 1969. Some of it ranks as some of the most significant recordings in jazz: Miles Davis' first, extremely lyrical version of "My Funny Valentine" which made all the ladies swoon; "Tenor Madness," the only recording that unites John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins; Lee Konitz & Lennie Tristano's "Subconcious Lee,"; James Moody's "Moody's Mood for Love," his reworking of "I'm In the Mood for Love," which he has been playing at every gig sense then; the Modern Jazz Quartet's tranquil and moody "Django."

And that's just the first disc.

I have no idea how Bob Weinstock was able to release such a plethora of albums in such a short time. Regardless, unless you have unlimited funds and time to burn, or you already started collecting the Prestige catalog back in the '80s when they returned to print via the OJC (Original Jazz Classic) series, the prospect of purchasing all these albums seems close to impossible. In lieu of that, buy this set. All of these tracks are mandatory listening for anyone trying to get a thumbnail sketch of '50s jazz. The music leaps out through the speakers with an energy that conveys how new and exciting it was back then when it was being documented for the first time. And that energy hasn't dissipated in the 60 years since. Thelonious Monk sounds so animated as he plays "Blue Monk" and to hear that between a Sonny Stitt/Bud Powell track and a Miles cut, simply boosts it even further.

Image of Bud

Playing right now: John Vanderslice - Romanian Names

(I think I rushed to get a phone interview with Mr. V tonight, when I don't need to write the piece for another week. Oh well. It was good to chat with him.)

I borrowed the Bud Shank 10" from my dad that I referred to in the 4/14 entry. Here's the cover:

New vinyl on the porch

Playing right now: A CD mix of Satie, from the other room (music to lull a child to sleep)

This morning I was making coffee when I heard the front door thump. It's probably the Post-Gazette landing on the porch, I thought. But it sure would be cool if it was the mailman delivering the new John Vanderslice album that I pre-ordered. (The post office usually makes priority deliveries between 7 and 8 a.m.)
Turns out I was right on both counts: the paper was on the porch but there between the screen and storm doors sat the thing I love to see first thing in the morning - a record mailer. And therein in was a sealed copy of Romanian Names, the aforementioned John Vanderslice album. Hubba hubba.
I've already heard the album because, when I ordered it, they automatically gave me access to a free download (which was the reason I bought it on vinyl; why not have it in both formats?). But I had to play the record over breakfast. It's good and it seems to have a slightly different feel to it. It's not as tense or nervous as his last few albums. Maybe married life has calmed him down. It's still magical, though.
The first 100 people that preordered it got an extra treat - a letter-pressed wallet with a piece of analog tape from the cutting room floor of Tiny Telephone, Vanderslice's recording studio. Unfortunately I wasn't one of the first 100 to order. :( But I'll live.

New releases on Uptown

(I started writing this on Friday, but it didn't get completed until Sunday night.)

For every time that Miles Davis - allegedly of course - reacted harshly to an inane comment from an audience member, for every time that Charles Mingus fired his band only to rehire them the next night, or finished out an engagement by playing solo piano - in other words, while these musicians got away with rash behavior in the name of their art, how many more musicians were given their walking papers simply because they stood up for themselves? How many were told, "Ah, yeah, we'll call you"?

And while I'm throwing rhetorical questions out there, how many "pretty good" albums got lost in the sea of "really amazing" albums during jazz's prime years of the '50s and early '60s? Not every album was Six Pieces of Silver or Saxophone Colossus. But the test of time might show that a record or a musician that didn't exactly measure up to the big guns might still have had something going for them. (To extend that idea further, it seems funny today that Blue Note founder Alfred Lion once described an unreleased recording as such: "This session would be okay for release, but it is just not up to Blue Note standards." Funny because so many unreleased sessions have been dragged out of the vaults and released, many of them good. So maybe "not up to Blue Note standards" still means pretty good.)

Anyhow, all these questions came into my head while listening to two new releases on Uptown Records, Dupree Bolton's Fireball and Lucky Thompson's New York City, 1964-65. Both were musicians who were on the fast track for success that could have put them in league with people like Lee Morgan and possibly, Sonny Rollins (Bolton played trumpet and Thompson played tenor and soprano, like these two respective players). For various reasons, though, things never panned out for either and they're more like footnotes of the era. (Bolton died in 1993, in poor health; Thompson died in 2005 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease.) The two Uptown albums act as a way to reexamine them.

The Bolton set opens with the trumpeter playing on a radio show in a sextet lead by tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy. The Amy-Bolton unit had just released an album on Pacific Jazz called Katanga and they play the title track here, along with "Summertime" (cleverly utilizing the Gil Evans/Miles Davis arrangement of it) and "Laura," as well as a blues. Bolton's bright, inventive sound seems like the new logical step after Clifford Brown, and a strong rival to Carmell Jones, the West Coast brass man who released a few albums and Pacific Jazz and joined Horace Silver's group in time for Song for My Father.

But like all tragic stories, Bolton's life didn't follow such a smooth trail. He spent a lot of time in and out of jail, to a point that it seems that he was rather unstable during the years he was free, never really capable of getting his life back in order. A particularly sad tale recounted in the CD booklet talks about how the trumpeter once badgered Dexter Gordon to hire him and insulted the great tenor player when the latter refused. Dexter responded to the insult with an angry rejoinder from the stage.

Two tracks on Fireball come from an aborted session lead by alto saxophonist Earl Anderza, where the two horn men argued about solo space and producer Dick Bock finally called things off. Before he did, they managed to capture two strong tunes, including the ballad "Midnite Lament," which shows off Bolton's lyrical smarts.

The rest of the disc is taken up by some recordings Bolton made as part of the Oklahoma Prison Band while incarcerated. Sloppy at times, with one melody sounding like something off a Chuck Mangione album, and another welding a new melody to Miles Davis's classic "All Blues" chord changes, they do offer a better understanding of a musician that even those in his scene didn't really know. The booklet helps with the background info, and includes an exhaustive 40 pages full of biography (writer Richard Williams really went out on a limb to find out about the trumpeter), photos and reviews from downbeat of live Bolton performances.

Tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson played on two seminal recording sessions in the early '50s: Thelonious Monk's final Blue Note session, which included a few of the pianist's most odd ball early compositions which he would never revisit; and the Prestige session that spawned Miles Davis' "Walkin'" and gave the Prince of Darkness a new musical lease on life when he needed it. Thompson also recorded on his own, spent a good deal of time in Europe and maintained his own music publishing company to ensure that he wouldn't get ripped off. That latter decision ruffled some industry feathers and helped steer Thompson away playing music actively after 1974.

New York City, 1964-65 features two performances on two discs that reveal both a gifted instrumentalist and arranger in Thompson. The first finds him fronting an octet and playing a set of originals at the Little Theatre from a series of "Jazz on Broadway" concerts produced by famed critic Dan Morgenstern. The opening and closing theme for the set has a rich sonority similar to Gerry Mulligan's tentette recording. "Minuet in Blues" has a multi-section design that might sound a little disjointed but still makes for interesting listening, as does the 12-minute big band bop of "Firebug." Thompson's band includes pianist Hank Jones and bassist Richard Davis.

The original "The World Awakes" appears on both the octet concert and the 1965 performance on disc two at the Half-Note, recorded for radio with host Alan Grant, just like the John Coltrane two-disc set that came out a few years ago. Both versions of the song have Thompson on soprano sax, which he had picked up in Europe, oblivious to Coltrane's use of the straight horn here at home. Thompson's melodic approach was a far cry from Coltrane's - the latter came out of the big toned style of Don Byas and Coleman Hawkins - but his soprano tone sounds similar, especially on the Half-Note set. The tune begins on a vamp before going into blues changes for the theme, yet it doesn't have a derivative or trite feeling to it.

With a quartet of George Tucker (bass), Paul Neves (piano) and Oliver Jackson (drums), Thompson tears through "What's New," Tadd Dameron's "Lady Bird" and "Strike Up the Band." Between songs, he makes gracious banter with Grant, who sounds almost too casual as he chats up the group. Both discs clock in around 40 minutes each, just a little too much to have crammed it all onto one disc. Despite the wealth of material, they leave you wanting more since both sets end right at a point where Thompson sounds like he's really warmed up. It's easy to say the album served its purpose - to generate more interest in an unsung talent.

Bolton's disc might not be as consistent in terms of the music's strength but it too could compel listeners to look for the Curtis Amy Mosaic Select box, which contains Katanga, or to hunt down Harold Land's The Fox which also featured Bolton.

You have to wonder why these guys fell through the cracks while others were lucky enough to see their stars shine. If Dupree Bolton had straightened himself out or found a benefactor, who knows, he might've gone onto be like Frank Morgan or Art Pepper - a survivor of the dark side of jazz who could channel that history into his music. Had Thompson stayed in Europe, he might still be alive today.

But what ifs don't sell CDs. Hopefully enough curious ears will find it worthwhile to check these discs out.

(Neither disc seems to have a website listed for Uptown Records.)

Another Post about the NPs???

OK, so I didn't get around to writing the AC Newman concert review until last week. And as I was sending it, I thought, hey, maybe I should hold onto this and do a double-review that includes the New Pornographers show at the CMU carnival. I emailed Fred at Blurt and he said, sure.
I managed to make it through the whole piece without waxing effusive about "The Bleeding Heart Show" (see entry from 4/14/08 for details). But a wise journalism teacher taught me that you can't put everything in an article, so it made sense to skip over my fave song. And that's what blogs are for anyway: the stuff that wound up on the cutting room floor.
First of all, I really felt like the NPs show was their best out of the three I have seen in Pittsburgh. And Neko Case wasn't even with them. (Caveat: If the NPs to you means "Neko Case's other project," you're hurting Carl Newman's feelings. He writes the stuff, y'know.) Second of all, they did "The Bleeding Heart Show" towards the end of the set. I was busy wagging my head as it reached that magical moment and when I looked up as they hit that great crescendo, what did I see?? The heavens opening up over CMU? Birds sitting in the trees adding to the harmonies? No, I see keyboardist Blaine Thurier standing there drinking a can of something, not playing or anything. IN THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF ARGUABLY THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SONG OF THE DECADE! How can he stand idly by during a moment of bliss?!
Well, maybe he's heard it more often that most people.
And actually, it was funnier than it was shocking.
Considering my obsession with that song.

Bud Shank Remembered - the context

After posting my memories of Bud Shank, I figured it might be a good idea to add a little context to explain what he was all about. Everything written about him within the past decade or so seems to focus on one thing: that he was part of the West Coast supposed cool jazz scene, but that there was a lot more to him than laid back versions of what was happening back east.
And I'm here to agree with that. For one thing, the Bud Shank of '80s and later had a much more rugged sound than the young, punk-rock-looking Shank of the '50s. By then, he was kind of at the corner of Art Pepper and Jackie McLean. The national obit for him in last week's paper drew a comparison to McLean, which I hadn't thought of until them. But it makes perfect sense. His tone wasn't as tart as Jackie's but there definitely had an edge. I have an album that he did with Shorty Rogers (trumpet) back in the early '80s and the version of Billy Strayhorn's "Bloodcount" will rip at you, it's so intense.
The 1950s Shank is definitely more in that Art Pepper style: dry, no nonsense tone with good melodic ideas in his solos. It's not as adventurous as, say, the early Gerry Mulligan Quartet stuff - which is pretty much the standard for top shelf West Coast cool, if we're going with labels - but it's by no means dull.
Shank did veer off into questionable waters, though. I once owned a copy of Magical Mystery, in which he covers the songs from Magical Mystery Tour with echoey flute and bass clarinet runs between some of the songs. Although he pulls off a solo of almost Dolphy-esque proportions in "Blue Jay Way," the whole thing is pretty ridiculous. "I Am the Walrus" doesn't really translate well into instrumental territory. I've never heard Spoonful of Jazz but the entry on allmusic.com slams it pretty hard, saying it's only for Shank completists. It's pretty easy to come by at used stores, but I'll hold off until I see it at an estate sale for buck.
When he played with tenor saxophonist Bob Cooper, Shank really performed a setback for mellow jazz - or an advance depending on how you look at it - by picking up the flute, and Cooper played oboe. Maybe these albums have some charm to them, but it sounds pretty sanitized to me. And although Bud knew his way around the flute, the one LA4 album I heard was pretty dull. And coming from a group that included Ray Brown and Laurindo Almeida, that's saying something.
Thankfully, Bud devoted his playing entirely to the alto in his later years, which was smart on many levels.
Last weekend, I went to the weekly flea market in Elyria and came across a couple of Shank's commercial '60s albums. The Windmills of Your Mind, conducted by Michel Legrand, and Girl in Love, conducted by Oliver Nelson were in a pile along with some CTI albums. I was torn because I felt like I needed to buy them in memory of Bud, but the slickness turned me off.
Turns out both looked pretty unplayable, so the decision was made for me.

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The new City Paper with my cover story on Sean Jones, hit the street yesterday. Today it might be up on their website, http://www.steelcitymedia.com/. Check and see.

And another thing I've been meaning to say: the first hard copy of Blurt showed up in the mail a couple weeks ago. It looks really good. Lotta writing, good layout. You should buy it for a couple reasons: you'll be helping to support a good music magazine, at a time when so many are falling by the wayside. It'll help stimulate the economy, and every little bit helps. (Hey, if 72 people read this and go out and buy a copy..........start of a revolution.) Plus, many years from now, if your copy is still in good shape, it could bring you big bucks in resale value.

Remembering Bud Shank

Bud Shank's name entered my world at a very early age. My parents were Bud fans and had a few of his albums. In my post-toddler years, I probably remembered the alto sax player's name because it sounded onomatopoeic, in the same way as "oop bop sh'bam." In fact, it sounded quite a bit like the noises that our stereo would make as it was preparing to play a record. The gears would move and there would be a bunch of clicking sounds before - "sh-BANK" - the spindle dropped the record onto the turntable. (This sound is documented for all to hear at the beginning and end of my band Bone of Contention's second album/first CD Stay Calm, by the way.) So that noise was kind of like a re-spelling of Bud's name.

We had a copy of Bud's album I Hear Music, which had the same picture as the one seen here, of Bud laying on the Sunday comics with his alto.

Except the photo on I Hear Music was used vertically, kind of losing something in translation. The record was made of cheap plastic and there was a pretty serious crack through half of the vinyl. I always tried to line up the pieces in hopes of getting it to play, but the drop from the spindle always separated them, and thwarted me.

The only other Shank album I recall the folks having was his a later, more commercial album: California Dreaming, which I would later realize was funny because Bud's flute takes the solo in the original version by the Mamas and the Papas. I have no recollection of this album, but I'm sure I threw it on once or twice.

My next real Bud memory came about 20 years ago when my mum unearthed a bunch of 10"s that had been stashed in the basement for about the previous 15 years, probably to make sure us kids didn't trash them. Along with a copy of Chet Baker Sings there was a copy of Bud's 10" on Nocturne, The Compositions of Shorty Rogers. I tried finding the image to post here because it's priceless: Bud standing stoically with alto in hand, with a buzzcut that made him look like he could've been a member of a '90s band like Naked Raygun. Funny how your musical tastes can cross over into your parents' world, with a few added bonuses.

I bought a used copy of I Hear Music a few years ago. It's actually a cheapo compilation, but it's still damn good.

I was sad to hear that Bud passed away last week, due to a lung ailment. This is my personal reminiscence on him. I might add an entry assessing his career, but it has to start with the personal jazz.

When it rains, the assignments come in

All the interviews have been conducted and transcribed for my Sean Jones story. That's actually the hardest part - the transcribing, that is. Now comes the, uh, easy part: writing the article.
Then when I'm done with that, I have to do an interview for another music preview. And then I have to write 2 reviews for JazzTimes. Then I have to do an interview and write another article for the following week.
Why do I have a day job? Or rather, where did all this writing stuff come from? I wish I wasn't such a fragile person, who enjoyed sleep so much. I'd be set.

Checked out the Blue Note 7 last night at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild. Great band. I thought about hanging around in hopes of meeting Ravi Coltrane afterwards, but there was already a handful of people by the stage door. I figured, if I did get to meet him what would I say? Then in the car, I answered the question: Blending Times is a really cool album. Maybe he would've appreciated that. Maybe he'd be relieved not to asked about his dad. Oh well, too late. Ravi, I do really like album, just so you know. He looked cool up there. Actually the whole band did, in that kind of classic, dead-serious/ready to play Blue Note kinda look. I dug that.

Of Pornographers and cheap reissues

Playing right now: My pal Erin on WYEP.
I'm listening online while blogging, and I was on Facebook while listening, moments ago. I'm so technologically savvy at long last [sarcasm]

I saw AC Newman at the Warhol on Saturday night. My full review of the evening will appear on the Blurt website, hopefully, by the end of the week. So I won't say too much here. Suffice to say, it was a good time. Carl had a six-piece band including a violinist and keyboard player who doubled on trumpet.

I used to be completely uninterested in those Charlie Parker budget-line live albums that seem to pop up all over the place. The sound quality is often dubious and since I'm no longer a scholar of the alto saxophone, I didn't think I needed another version of "Hot House." But everytime I go to Jerry's, that whole series of live Bird records on Everest are usually there in triplicate, all for about $4 or $5 each. So when I was on vacation in February I picked up a couple of them, and was glad I did. The sound is so-so but I'm used to lo-fi, so when Bird is having a good night, his playing makes up for the lack of technology.
Today I picked up an album called The Happy Bird on Charlie Parker Records. This one also looked like a knock-off cheapo. That is, until I saw who plays on it: Wardell Gray (an unsung tenor player with a very limited recorded output) and Richard Twardzik (who was the same to the piano, only his recordings are even smaller in number than Wardell's), besides Teddy Kotich and Roy Haynes. I haven't had time to play it yet, but maybe I will over breakfast tomorrow.
There was also a Mingus album on Everest, which looks like it was some of his Debut stuff. Normally the purist in me shies away from these reissues, thinking that I'll eventually get the original album. Whether on CD or an original pressing, I prefer to have the artwork and liner notes. But I've reached a point where there's a good chance that I won't hear it if I wait to get the original so I ought to buy something like this. I even bought 2 Prestige two-fers last year for that reason.

Now it's time to transcribe interviews for an article........

Writing about music

I think I turned a corner today, as far as my writing voice is concerned. I made a pun in a CD review. That's unprecedented. And puns usually rub me the wrong way. Nothing makes me think of lazy journalism more than hearing or reading "The Beatles are about to go down that long and winding road," or "David Bowie, once again, is going through ch-ch-ch-changes."
OK, those aren't puns but they're not funny either. Or imaginative.
Anyhow, I'm not going to tell you what said pun is, but when the review appears, I will link it. It's going to be on the Blurt website. Speaking of which, the magazine is about to do its first print issue. Everyone needs to go out and buy one. Someday it'll be worth lots of money. And in the meantime, you'll be helping to keep the institution of rock journalism alive and well. You think I'm kidding. Find my entry from this time last year about the death of Harp.

The Best and the Worst

I might've said it before in this blog, but I can't remember, so I'll say it again. It is my opinion that Simon & Garfunkel's version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is one of the most perfect songs ever. Artie sounds more like an angel than he ever had or ever would. When he goes for that last "Bridge" and hits that high note......[one hand on the forehead, the other on the heart], it just gets me. He just makes the weight of the lyrics believable, what one person would pledge to another.
Except for that "sail on silver girl" line. But maybe Clive Davis made them put that in.
The song is so good, nobody else should ever sing it. Nobody. It wouldn't be as good. And I'm sure some awful versions have been attempted (high school choirs, anyone??)
Well, maybe Rufus Wainwright could do it justice.
And my son. He's too young now, but I'm sure that some day he could pack the same emotional wallop.

On the other end of the spectrum, I heard one of the latest in an ongoing serious of awful modern Adult Contemporary songs at work the other day. I forget the singer's name, which is probably a godsend, but the song is called "Live." As in "live your life." The song was awful because it's one of those "my life is really really dull and I have nothing to say about it, but I'm going to keep on living" songs. She wakes up in the morning and there's a pizza box on the floor. She has to go work, where her boss is a jerk. Geez, too bad she didn't have to go to school to learn the golden rule, or gaze at the moon in the month of June.
Maybe it's Jerry Seinfeld's fault - for being successful in a medium where nothing supposedly happens. All this banality is suddenly supposed to be interested. Well, it ain't. I want to find the chump who sang the song a few tracks prior to "Live" - the guy who sang "I wish the real world would get off my back" - and bump his head against this Jennifer's, and make them read a damn book and come up with something more imaginative to say than just how hard it is to do nothing in a boring world.