I just spent the last 15 minutes, which should've been spent getting read to face the day, writing about my attempts at compiling a Top 10 list. Then Blogger told me it couldn't upload because a couple edits were happening and please click Back and try again.
When I clicked Back the title of the entry was there, but the text was gone.
You people suck.

How many good albums were there?

Had I KNOWN that this was saved in the edit file, it would've run a month ago. (See two posts ago.) I still say you people suck. Not you, the one over there. Everyone else.


A few months ago, I attempted to come up with a Top 10 albums of the year list for Blurt. But I ended up copping out because I could only come up with five things that I really knew for the year and really liked. Oh, I searched around awhile, looking at the list of albums I reviewed during the past year, hunting down my list of albums I purchased for the year, to no avail. Last year I swore that I'd stay on top of all of it. My goal was to get my rock chops up to snuff so that somehow I'd be able to justify a trip to SXSW to hang with the Harp crew. Or was it IAJE I wanted to go to? ("International Association of Jazz Educators" that is.) Both of the above, really.
But as fate would have it, Harp had the plug pulled on it, and IAJE dissolved after this year's convention amidst controversy. Blurt will be a noticeably presence at SXSW but at this point their one wise-ass CD reviewer won't be there.

Which reminds me I ought to go check out their website. The holidays took me away from that.
But in case anyone wonders how my list for 2008 would've started, here is the unfinished collection:

TV on the Radio - Dear Science (Interscope)
Ida – Lovers Prayers (Polyvinyl)
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive (Vagrant)
Mates of State – Re-Arrange Us (Barsuk)
Fiery Furnaces – Remember (Thrill Jockey)

In other news, 2008 has already had its first rock death - Ron Asheton of the Stooges was found dead at his home. RIP, Ron.

Ron and Russell's high water mark

Playing right now: Sparks - Propaganda

This is the second night in a row I've sat at the computer with my big honkin' headphones on me head, with Propaganda shooting into the ears. What a masterpiece.
A couple weeks ago I had to review Sparks' latest album, Exotic Creatures of the Deep for Blurt. I really wanted to like it, but it was lacking a lot of the things that made Propaganda great. Not that I was using that criteria alone when reviewing the album. But the new disc made my pull out this 1974 classic. Listening to it again reminds me of what was so great about them. The lyrics on this album really shoot out fast and furious like bullets. If you miss them, the melodies still grab on to you and say, "Follow the lyric sheet the next time."
And when you do, it's easy to see that nobody was twisting classic lyrical scenarios like the Maels - military metaphors ("Reinforcements"), a song about those who didn't make it onto Noah's Ark ("Bon Voyage," which is funny just thinking about the subject and title), a kid conflicted between his overprotective parents and wanting to take candy and rides from strangers ("Thanks But No Thanks"). The latter song is also interesting in the fact that the real story is left a little vague: are his parents really overprotective, or is it that little Russell is too naive to realize that the people to whom he's apologizing are really child abusers? It's like a John Vanderslice song.
"Thanks..." also has a lyric that's both pithy and simplistic: "My parents think the world is cruel/ I think that they prefer it cruel." I love how vulnerable Russell sounds in this song too.

Usually, they go in threes

But let's see, last week we lost Yma Sumac, Jimmy Carl Black, Miriam Makeba and Mitch Mitchell. What a jam session that would be in the afterworld.

Yes, some respect for David Sanborn

Playing up until a few minutes ago: Disc 6 of The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton
What can I say about it? Nothing right now. I have to review it, so you can read all about it later.

Instead, I'm going to weigh in on something that's been around the house for a while now. But since this fellow is on the cover of the new JazzTimes, I suppose I can opine and not seem too behind the times.



David Sanborn
Here and Gone
(Decca)

I've developed a level of respect for David Sanborn ever since he hosted Night Music in the late '80s and early '90s. Many people have probably said as much, but there was one particular instance that made me rethink my original position on the frizzy-haired (now shorn off) alto man. Tim Berne was on the show once with his group and Sanborn sat in with them on Berne's "Hong Kong Sad Song." In the middle of the piece, it wasn't Berne but Sanborn who took the first alto solo. He cut loose with a shriek that rivaled the bandleader and drew on Dave's early years, hanging out with the pre-AACM guys in St. Louis.
Then, a few years later, Sanborn appeared on Berne's Diminutive Mysteries album, where they played the music of Julius Hemphill. Somewhere around that time, he also released Another Light which featured Charlie Haden in the band and covered the Velvets' "Jesus." Kind of made you think there was more to this guy than just smooth stuff. If Pat Metheny ever had a chance to really beat Kenny G to a pulp, Sanborn might've been the one holding that chump down.
Which brings us to Here and Gone, Sanborn's latest, which pays homage to Hank Crawford, who played alto with Ray Charles and released numerous r&b sides of his own. For starters, he doesn't try to take Crawford's style and transpose it into some limp, electric context. There aren't any moist keyboards here.
The first thing that struck me on the opening "St. Louis Blues" was how much Sanborn's tone sounds like John Zorn: they both have that pungent, reedy quality. (As Mort Sahl would say, is there anyone I haven't offended yet?) It's not exactly gutsy or down and dirty, but the arrangement puts Sanborn in the presence of a group that sounds like a good, modern day swing band.
Among the guests on the album, Eric Clapton plays and sings on "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town," which he pulls off because he pulls back. He doesn't try to be Louie Jordan, or whoever else did the song, and he focuses on the old time lyrics without trying to make them cute. Joss Stone on the other hand really does the little-chick-trying-to-sound-big-and-sassy shtick and while she has the pipes, it still sounds a little forced.
Guitarist Derek Trucks appears on "Brother Ray" and his leads, the call and response of the horns and Sanborn's attack all sound pretty tight.
The only problem is the record is mixed in the frequency that makes my fillings hurt. Maybe it's Sanborn's tone, but that high end can really take some getting used to. But Zorn does the same for me too. (Has anyone ever observed how often he enters with that one really high shrill note, on all those Naked City tunes?)
Hmmm, that connection has me thinking that for Sanborn's next album, he ought to collaborate with ex-Naked City keyboardist Wayne Horvitz. With that guy's writing and Dave's tone, that could be an amazing album.

Coping devices

If I listened to Anthony Braxton's For Alto album every morning while getting ready for work, maybe I'd have a better outlook on things.

October update

Geez, I didn't mean to be away for so long. Since I last wrote, saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa came to Pittsburgh for the International Festival of Firsts and premiered a new piece that was spellbinding. I wrote a review for JazzTimes that should be up on their website by the time you read this. (Check out www.jazztimes.com) I picked up a copy of Rudresh's 2004 album Mother Tongue last week, and it has me thinking that this guy is really on the cutting edge of something big. He has amazing technique on his horn and his compositions are really astounding - going to places that haven't been gone before without any cliches or highminded ideas about "this is world music," or anything like that.

Yet again, musicians have left the earth. And while the three I'm thinking of didn't die right around the same time, the old "they always go in threes" adage seems to apply. Guitarist Hiram Bullock died in July as did tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin - something I didn't hear about until last week! - and then arranger Neal Hefti died on October 11.

I grew up hearing Hefti's name because my folks were into big bands and they had a Count Basie album that he arranged. He also composed an obscure but really good ballad called "Falling in Love All Over Again" that Phil Woods did on an album called Woodlore. So the story goes, he was in Pittsburgh with some band and my mom called him at his hotel room to get a chart of that song for some even that she was staging. (I believe because she's not known to tell tall tales.)

But Hefti is probably best known to people my age due to a song for which he was supposedly credited with "word and music": the Batman theme. Like any simple song that became a hit, he said that it was really hard for him to write. It took a lot of time to come up with that 1-4-5 riff. Where would the music world be without it?

Johnny Griffin is one of the last tenor giants of the early 50s era. I know I say that everytime one of those guys dies, but damned if it isn't true. 80 years old, he was. Heart problems were listed as the cause.

Griffin came to Pittsburgh several times for the Pitt Jazz Seminar and was a really gracious guy. Who knows how many times he was asked what it was like playing with Thelonious Monk, but he still was willing to tell me stories about the pianist hiding the written music from Griffin, insisting he learn it by ear. Listening to Monk's Misterioso on Riverside, Griffin is amazing enough playing with the band, but then a few choruses into solos on a couple of tunes, you hear, "I got it, I got it," and the rest of the band drops out. Griffin just blows away without any need for a safety net.

Hiram Bullock's death really came out of left field. He was only 52 but he supposedly was suffering from a throat tumor. He did a lot of slick music, and for a time was best known as the original guitarist on David Letterman's NBC show. But he also played on many of Carla Bley's albums, so he had pretty diverse qualities.

A talk with Bernard Stollman of ESP

Alfred Lion, Neshui Ertegun, Orrin Keepnews - all started record labels that released records that shaped musical history. (Blue Note, Atlantic and Riverside were their labels, in case you didn't know.) Bernard Stollman deserves to be on that list too. Without him, the world might've never heard the Fugs, Patty Waters, the Godz, Pearls Before Swine or Burton Greene. Albert Ayler might've recorded a few early sessions in Europe, but it was his ESP album Spiritual Unity that really presented his approach to the saxophone.

At the time of their original releases, these albums might not have sold huge amounts, but like the old comment about the Velvet Underground (or was it the Stooges), everybody who bought them started a band.

After reading my post about Giuseppi Logan last week, Bernard Stollman got in touch with me. What follows in the first installment of our conversation, about Mr. Logan and the label itself. As I transcribe the talk, I'll post more of his insight into the origins of the label.

How did you find out about Giuseppi Logan?

Bernard : He was brought to me by Milford Graves, the percussionist. I hadn’t heard him before, but Milford recommended that I record him. I trusted Milford’s judgment, tastes and recommendations. So that’s what I did. It happened throughout the history of the label: musicians have been brought to me and I frequently, perhaps almost invariably, listened to their recommendations. This label has been shaped in large measure by the ideas and thoughts and tastes, if you will, by its artists.

Did Milford take you to a show to see Giuseppi or did he just say you should record him?

I hadn’t heard him play. I didn’t really no what he sounded like. Milford felt really strong about him. As I’ve done many times with the label, I would take the risk, if you will, and provided the opportunity if one of my colleagues felt very strongly about it.
The session took place at Richard Alderson’s studio. I remember standing at one end of the room. At the other end of the room was, single file, where the artists were going to perform. They were walking into the recording studio. They didn’t come towards me. They were at a distance. And at one point Giuseppi passed and from that distance, about 20 feet away ,he said clearly, “If you rob me, I’ll kill you.” And that was the beginning. Kind of an inauspicious beginning to a relationship. It got better from there.

So he didn’t know you were the man from ESP?

Oh yes, he did.

So he meant, “If you rip me off, I’ll kill you”?

Yes. Exactly. Coming up very defensively. He knew nothing about me really that I could imagine. It was just this stance, posture. We weren’t personally acquainted. Milford was mortified. He was very embarrassed.
So we went into record. I had no idea who they were going to be, except for Milford, or what they were going to do. There were no exchanges. They went in and did their music. I sat in the control room with Richard Alderson listened to the sessions go down.
I’ve stated before, we stood there and at some point we got very spellbound. Engaged - that’s the word for it. What they did was so engaging. Everybody thought it was totally improvised, like a group of, oh I don’t know, people in a souk in Morocco or something. Playing just to express themselves. And we were actually spellbound. [Alderson] was a producer too.
So were standing there listening to the session and it’s going forward, and all of a sudden, “thwuck,” the tape had run out on the deck in the middle of the performance. I thought, Oh my God, this gorgeous thing is going on and it’s blown because we weren’t paying attention.
So Richard got on the intercom and said, “Giuseppi, we’ve run out of tape. What do you want to do?” Logan says, “Run it back, so I can hear to right before it cut off and we’ll take up where we left off.”
That’s exactly what he did. He ran the tape back and played two bars so he could tell where they were, and they kept right on playing. He hit the record switch and there was no loss whatsoever. If you listen to the record, for the life of you, you couldn’t tell that it was suspended and redone.

Do you remember which track?

I’m not really sure. But it was certainly really….[laughs] all of his songs were really engaging in that sense. I couldn’t tell which one it was.
What amazed me, what absolutely amazed me was the realization that what I had heard was not essentially chaotic pandemonium, or just a freewheeling exercise. Everyone one of those musicians knew exactly what he was doing, from a fraction of a second to a minute. And there were doing it without the slightest hesitation, winding out the songs, letting the music unwind. That was very sobering to me. It dawned on me at that point that I hadn’t a clue what was going on. It was not chaotic. This is a dialogue. It was grounded, they knew exactly what they wanted to say. And that was just……. you have to experience something like that to appreciate just how extraordinary a phenomenon it is. I owe that to Giuseppi. That was quite a lesson to me. We were fooled.

At the Town Hall concert, he played at that and we put that out as a second album. Many years later, at least 10 years ago, we were listening to a tape of the {Albert Ayler] Bells concert from that same Town Hall show, and lo and behold there was seven minutes of music at the begin of that tape. And it was the remainder of Giuseppi’s performance that somehow had gotten separated. So we’re going to reissue that record with the additional seven minutes.

When will that come out?

We’ll get it out probably in February. There are so many things waiting to be done.

During that session or any point before that, did you think, I’m really onto something. Art is being created here.

The whole experience of doing ESP was a serious shock. A very, very pleasant shock. I never ceased to be astonished by what happened.
Paul Bley’s first album with Dewey Johnson, which we’re going to reissue now, is an extraordinarily beautiful album. And it’s not at all like his Closer album. Very very free album. I want to put it out again.
[Laughs] I mean every single one, they all surprised me. They all took my quite unaware. There’s no way I could’ve prepared me for what they did. I didn’t know what to expect and I wasn’t disappointed.
The New York art Quartet - I went to the studio around 5 o’clock in the afternoon. Roswell Rudd and John Tchicai were there and they had this little kid with them. I thought what’s he doing here? Of course, I didn’t ask. And they introduced me and it was Leroi Jones, Amiri Baraka. He wasn’t a little boy, he was just a rather short individual, but a very serious one. That too. I had no idea what to expect and I wasn’t disappointed.
So this has been the course of my career in music.

Shanley online

Some of my recent reviews for Blurt can be found here:

http://www.blurt-online.com/reviews/view/353/

This should take you to the ZuZu's Petals review that I did. But if you scroll down on the right, my review of Love's two Blue Thumb album is a little further down the column (August 28), along with Juliana Hatfield (dated August 22; I'm really happy with this review by the way) and going way back (July 17) the Wedding Present and Veda Hille a few days before that.

This week, I reviewed two CDs on the MCG Jazz label for Pittsburgh City Paper too. Read them here: http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A51592

Bloodcount - Seconds

Bloodcount - Seconds (Screwgun)

I figured this set would generate a little more fanfare upon its release. Bloodcount was one of the more exciting of the explolatory jazz groups during the mid '90s. Lead by Tim Berne (alto, baritone saxophone), it included Chris Speed (tenor sax, clarinet), Michael Formanek (bass) and Jim Black (drums). As good as Berne's group around the late '80s/early /90s was (which included drummer Joey Baron and bassist Mark Dresser), he really hit the mark with this quartet which sort of set a standard that he seems to continue with his current projects. They specialized in extended compositions, some lasting upwards of 40 minutes. Jagged melodies would often cut off on weird beats or suddenly change your perception from freedom to riff; Black whacked his kit like Elvin Jones doing repair work on an old car, while Formanek would hold down the fort with solid lines as Berne and Speed would run at each other like crazy.

Seconds consists of two live discs and a DVD of a performance film which, in keeping with their other work, consists of one 50-some minute composition. Berne's deadpan humor comes across in the packaging, describing Disc One as "live in the middle of somewhere," recorded with "an obsolete format no longer used by professionals." I can only wonder if it was recorded in Pittsburgh, where they played that year or thereabout. He had a DAT machine set up to record, which might be said antiquated format. Disc Three was recorded at the Children of the Corn Festival, which is probably another wiseguy description.

Several of the songs on Seconds have appeared on previous Bloodcount discs. "Yes, Dear" even appears here twice, making its third or fourth documentation. "Mr. Johnson," "Byram's World" and "Screwgun" have also appeared previously. But they all deserve another examination even if all of Bloodcount's discs -three for Screwgun, plus three more originally on JMT - line your CD shelves. I've listened to everything several times and I've yet to be able to pinpoint the similarities between the two "Yes Dear"s for instance. Berne has certainly crafted his own style and sense of soloing but newer tracks like "Scrap Metal" and "Sense and Sinsemilla" reveal new qualities in terms of melody and group interaction, sealing the deal and making this a mandatory purchase.

Guitarist Marc Ducret, a frequent member and a Berne collaborator in current projects, appears in the film. Eyenoises doesn't work like a traditional performance film, giving more space to off-center closeups of faces and instruments. It seems like the audio and video don't exactly match most of the time. In fact, the former sounds a lot to these ears like the version of "Eye Contact" on the band's JMT release. So in the end, it's more of a quality bonus to a strong package.

The year is 1988. The band is Animal Time

Playing right now: Bill Coles - Proverbs for Sam (It's been quite some time since I've been able to list something here)

So I did talk to Bernard, a little about Giuseppi, quite a bit about the label itself and even more about Esperanto. Details to follow. Along with thoughts about a few recent releases.

But first.......

Tonight while I was doing dishes I listened to the album Jacked Up? No More by a band called Animal Time. In 1988, these guys were a big deal to me. It was started by brothers Jeff and Jay Norem. Originally Jay played drums and sang and Jeff played the Chapman stick. On this album they were a quartet. Jay was just on vocals, and they had another guitarist and a drummer.
The band was this great combination of Minor Threat-like barked vocals and taut music with weird elements thrown in: harmonica that could sound like screeching tires (intentionally and effectively), riffs that sounded like they were appropriated from soul and of course that Chapman stick.

The album contains a bunch of really solid songs. Some are almost great, but even the lesser ones has something going for them. "You Don't Live Around Here," aside from a set of lyrics that don't give Jay a chance to breath between lines, is catchy and hard hitting, lyrically. "Rebel Game" is a pretty spot-on indictment of people who dress the part but don't really have a cause. "It's Like I'm Being You" is really a post-thrash song with a stop at the beginning of each verse: "You're like a Christmas tree with it's lights unplugged"; "Got a heart full of lies and a soul full of gimme." Later that song has the line, "You and me we're a lot alike/ you disgust me, get out of my sight." And for the coda, a trumpet and tenor sax jump and blast an off-kilter (again) mutant soul riff.

In the fall of '88, Animal Time played a show at a short-lived Pittsburgh venue called the Foundry, which is just a block down Penn Avenue from the 31st Street Pub. They played with this awful band that was in the Athens, GA film who were adept at ugly songs and screamed singing but couldn't blend the two of them together.

I bided my time in the back until Animal Time went on and they were amazing. Afterwards, Jay couldn't believe I was singing along to the songs. He was shocked and appreciative. I was probably hopped up on coffee. I had yet to become a java freak. The band later went to a party that I was also going to and we swapped band stories.

Then I never heard from them again.

But I still have the album. If you ever see it, buy it.

I looked up their previous EP, Double Veteran, on eBay and saw a copy for $10. I would've sprung for it had it not been a radio station copy with call letters written across the front.

The man behind the music

Tonight I'm going to talk to Bernard Stollman, of ESP Records. I could probably throw questions at him all night, but I'm going to try to be polite and stay on topic.

Giuseppi Lives!

I just received a message today from the fine folks at ESP who say that Giuseppi Logan is still alive and well. After having posted about so many musicians who have passed on, it's good to know that many people lost track of is still around.

And speaking of ESP, check out the response to the previous blog.

Giuseppi Logan re-examined

I got on the press list for the rejuvenated ESP label and received a package of discs in the mail a couple of weeks ago. In addition to reissuing their infamous back catalog, they've also started putting out new recordings. And not just newly released works by folks like Albert Ayler and Don Cherry. New music from new bands. I'm going to review a few of them for JazzTimes, so I figured I'd devote a couple blog entries to the back catalog.







Giuseppi Logan Quartet (ESP)

The big criticism that was lobbed at free jazz/avant garde/new thing players in the early days of that music was that the musicians couldn't play their instruments. Otherwise they'd do something besides creating that racket. Anyone who listens to Cecil Taylor - even his greatest detractors - would have to say that he has technique out the wazoo. Albert Ayler might not have been too adept at straight ahead jazz (the clunky themes on My Name is Albert Ayler hint at this), but listen to the tracks on In Greenwich Village where he plays alto. He makes it sound like a tenor, and it's only then that you may realize what an amazing tone he had. It sounds like the entire alto should be vibrating from the gale force airstream he's blowing through the horn. It gave me more appreciation for his tenor sound. He found a way to take his skill and create his own niche with it. Ornette Coleman too - he carved out his own movement and was able to get the sounds in his head out onto the bandstand. You think Prime Time is eight guys playing different things at the same time? Then explain how they all manage to stop on a dime together.

All this leads me to Giuseppi Logan, a saxophonist who the Music Hound Jazz Guide said encapsulated the "I can play that" line of thought. When liner notes of that era defended Archie Shepp and dissed "other guys who can't play," they were referring to guys like Logan.

On this album, recorded in October of 1964, Logan plays Pakistani oboe, alto and tenor saxes and - they're listed but I didn't quite hear them - flute and bass clarinet. Pianist Don Pullen, making his recording debut, bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer/ESP regular Milford Graves back him up. I'm not here to bury Logan or praise him, but to shed some light on the album. First of all, his tone is pretty weak. As a one-time alto player who never stuck to it long enough to develop a good tone, I know of what I speak. On "Dance of Satan," track number two which introduces us to his alto work, he sounds wobbly, in some cases as if his embouchure failed him as he tried to get into upper register.

Had Logan stuck to just alto, he might have progressed at least a little bit more. There are moments, especially in "Dialogue" where he sounds like he could become a player in the same vein as Jimmy Lyons, the altoist who spent most of his career playing with Cecil Taylor. But he dabbles in too many reeds. He switches to tenor in "Taneous," making the bigger horn sound like it's half asleep.

Then there's the whole issue of the oboe, which opens the album in "Tabla Dance" a totally free excursion in which Graves plays tablas and Logan wails while Pullen and Gomez pluck and scrape. It's chaotic and loose, but..... they're all playing with a sense of restrain. It's not like the over-the-top screaming that marks Sunny Murray's ESP album. And that aspect of the music makes this album worth revisiting.

There are moments where Logan's expression reaches beyond his raw playing, like in "Dialogue." As loose as it sounds, this track even follows something of a structure. Sure it features bleating quarter notes in the bridge, if you can call at that, but they keep threatening to turn it into a ballad. "Bleecker Partita," the 15-minute epic that closes the album, and takes it well over the 35-40-minute length of most albums of that time, is built upon a droning riff that Logan uses as the background for a mournful, emotional solo that proves he does know his way around his horn.

Having Don Pullen, Eddie Gomez and Milford Graves back you is bound to put you in a better light anyway, or at least provide some high points when Logan stops soloing. One of the weirdest elements of the record is the sound of the piano on "Dance of Satan" which sounds just like a banjo when Pullen hits a certain chord, making the whole thing transform itself into a free jazz hoedown for a split second, only to shift back to its shambolic, New York City origins. I'd like to think Logan meant for that to happen.

The Giuseppi Logan Quartet is not classic ESP material and bellweather free jazz like Ayler's Spirits Rejoice and Spiritual Unity. But it's not awful-in-an-intriguing way like Erica Pomerance's You Used to Think (not a jazz album, but the polar opposite in the ESP canon). Instead, it's somewhere in between, a curiosity that can stand up to repeated listens.

Chances are anyone who has been curious about it picked up one of the myriad reissues of the album in years gone by. If not, ESP's package is essentially as simple as the original. Bernard Stollman offers a quick memory of the album's sessions, although a little more bio or background on Logan's affiliation with the label would've been nice. Everything written about him indicates that no one knows his whereabouts or if he's even alive now. Maybe I'll try to interview Stollman about the disc. We could run the interview here. Bernard, you listening? Enquiring minds want to know.

You know you're a Grade A jazz geek when....

....you listen to a CD/record and think, "Hmm, this must've been recorded before 1957 because Coltrane hasn't really developed his sheets of sound style on this," and you're right.



I've spent the last five or six days in Mosaic-ville. I got the two sets that I mentioned in the last post. Things have changed in my life, let me tell you. Why, gawrsh, son there was a time when a Mosaic box came in the mail and time would stop. It took just about 2 days for me to get through the Cecil Taylor set when that came. And the Larry Young set? Eight discs in about three days.

And now.....

The box arrived on Thursday and I don't think I tapped into the Art Farmer-Benny Golson set until Saturday. True, I did listen to two of the three Chambers discs in one night, I think. And, man, is that good stuff. There are a lot of bass solos but they're all pretty amazing. I was listening to the Bass on Top album (the last one on the set) on earbuds today and Chambers didn't waste a note.

By the way, that Coltrane reference at top was going through my head during the first couple songs on the Chambers set. He's good, but the tone is a little softer and the five-notes-on-one-beat approach wasn't happening yet.

The interesting thing about the Chambers set as well is that most of the material is original or was written by one of his peers, in many cases, Benny Golson. These guys weren't stuck playing standards or rehashing Charlie Parker (although the set opens with a Bird tune and it is unique since the bass plays the melody with Trane). They were building on the triumphs of the early bop guys and taking it to the next level. You have to wonder why Whims of Chambers doesn't get the same kudos that Blue Trane does.

The Farmer-Golson set is also pretty hot, although the solo sets that end the box lack the power of the Jazztet recording on the first four discs. Golson was such a prolific, well-regarded composer that by the time the Jazztet made those albums, a lot of his tunes had been recorded by other musicians. Lee Morgan did a bunch of them on his early Blue Note albums. Benny was also in the Jazz Messengers, who recorded a number of them, including "Blues March." Farmer was a good foil for him, and they have trombone players on the frontline with them - Curtis Fuller, Tom McIntosh and Grachan Moncur III.

I need to dig back into it because I only finished my way through it yesterday and some of those spins were done while I was a little distracted.

Where've I been?

I get a comment - a real live comment, commenting on something I said in one of these entries - and yet I ignore it and retreat for about a month. Dadgum.

I've been deluged with music and it's really going to hit full tilt tomorrow. That's when my Mosaic package is supposed to come. I ordered not one but TWO sets from them. One classic big box design, the other a 3 disc Mosaic select set. The latter package is the Paul Chambers one I went on about last summer. Or at least I made reference to one of the albums therein in a posting about buying a bunch of jazz albums. The set features several sessions that Chambers lead for Blue Note and includes John Coltrane as a sideman.

The other set is the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet set. Mosaic was having a sale in July, where selected sets were 15% off. I scrolled down the list and was either uninterested in the selections or had the good ones already. Then I came upon this one. I'm not exactly a big fan yet of the group, though I do think Art and Benny are pretty underated guys, but there was a part of me that wanted to get this set. And another part that said once the set goes out of print, you'll regret not buying it in the summer of 2008. The same way I felt about not jumping on the Miles at the Blackhawk set. Don't get me started.

So that's what I'm waiting for. Next time I'll tell you what's been in my ears.

However....

I feel like I should say that I find Earwig, Blake Babies' first album, to be very good set of songs.

Oh, boy, Shanley's cranky again

After I posted the previous entry, I wrote a few reviews for Blurt as promised. One was the latest Juliana Hatfield album, How to Walk Away. I'm not going to go into my thoughts on the album because that would defeat the purpose of the Blurt review. And I want you to go online and check it out. (It's not up there yet, but my Modey Lemon review is.)

While writing the review, I did the usual things I do to make the process take forever: listen to the songs over and over. Which I must say was a bit of a challenge because - as the industry trend goes these days - I guess I contacted the p.r. folks too late to get a tangible copy of the disc, so I got, um, special access to a streamed copy. This wasn't your average "Download here so you can make a CD-R and listen to it while you're doing dishes or driving or changing the baby" stream. Hoo noo. This was a "click here and go to the page with one song on it, which will always be cranked up really loud before it starts, so brace yourself for loud opening chords, or else keep your earbuds out of your ears before the song starts, so you'll have time to turn it down."

So in addition to each song being loud as hell, each song was on a separate webpage, so there's no way to get a good feel for how things flow as an album. "Use your imagination, you lowlife hacks," is the message it sends. "We'd rather have you do that than take a chance on you letting your friends listen to this CD and decide they don't like so they won't buy it." Tell ya what they ought to do. Buy some old shellacs and an old record cutter and press up promo copies and mail that out to us. We music critics love everything on vinyl, so you'd be doing yourself a big favor. (Yeah, I know the last part is ridiculous and stupid. I just don't feel like deleting it all now.)

But I didn't start this entry to opine about that.

I started because as I was looking stuff up on the web, I came across the allmusic.com entry for Juliana's band Blake Babies' second album, Sunburn. I was thinking as the review came together in my head that Juliana became a much better songwriter post-Blake Babies, at least as far as hooks were concerned. "Super Model" and "My Sister" seemed infinitely more catchy to me than anything on side two ("the second half" to all of you who never owned on vinyl) of Sunburn. In fact, most of that album seems pretty dull to me; verses without chorus, or if they have a real chorus it has the same quiet-to-a-loud-E major chord transition. (That in turn reminds me of another irritating and extremely overrated band from that same time period - Slint. But I'll talk about the green light they gave to inarticulate indie elite boys some other time.)

So imagine my incredulous surprise when the allmusic guy says that not only was Sunburn the best Blake Babies album, but the last great college radio album, leading up to Nevermind. Geez, now I know what so many people my age don't mind blandness. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? DON'T YOU KNOW HALF-BAKED WHEN YOU HEAR IT?

Okay, "Out There" is a great song. And it really hits an emotional chord with me since it deals with that coming-to-grips-with-disillusionment feeling. And a few of the other songs on side one are good too. But that stupid "Girl in a Box" song, oy. "Gimme Some Mirth" has the same climax as "Sanctify" on the other side.

I hear a lot of songs at work on satellite radio by people who probably came of age when that album came out, as well as other nice, safe but unadventurous college radio bands. And these bands don't have a hook or a clever lyric to save their lives. And they owe it to bands like that.

...and another thing, you goddam kids stay outta my yard. (Figured I should end on a lighter note before I start going off about everything that's wrong with music.

Make It Rain

Jennie and I went to see Tom Waits in Columbus on Saturday night. We didn't realize until we got to our seats that we WERE IN THE FIRST ROW. That's right - orchestra pit, three feet from a speaker on the edge of the stage. We could see all of his wrinkles and sweat.

It was a great show too. By tomorrow, my review of it should be visible on Blurt's website, http://www.blurt-online.com. I'll stop talking and you can check out what I really thought of the show there.

Gotta go review a few CDs for them now.

Rambling thoughts

Playing right now: David Murray Black Saint Quartet - Sacred Ground

In keeping with my tradition of buying new albums six months after their release, I picked this David Murray album up today, along with last year's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album. Of all the band with high-pitched, somewhat whiney singers - Arcade Fire, Shins - I think CYHS ranks pretty high. Well at least I liked their sophomore effort more than the Arcade Fire's album last year, which were pretty strong but not exactly Woh my god, this is amazing (the Shins do that to me sometimes). CYHS's Some Loud Thunder reminds me of Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control at times, which in my book really takes the cake.

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They were playing bad nu country at work yesterday. Things really reached the bottom of the moonshine bucket when they played a twang version of the reggae classic "The Harder They Come." Whose stupid idea was that? Yeah, they thought, it fits the sentiment of a country singer's style, so just strip away what makes it unique and give it backbeat that appeals to people who drink too much. Wham. I can see the numbers adding up.

I was also inspired to come up with a country parody for the next time my friend John and I have a session with our made up band the Wayback Machine: "I Like Music When I Don't Have To think." None of the songs I heard have one iota of creativity behind them, a buttload of annoying melodies and they probably won't be remembered 9 months from now.

Re: that song title: it'll probably require some tweaking to get the thought to be concise. But you get the idea, right?

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I haven't heard the song "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo" in at least 30 years. (I had it on a record of '70s hits by some no-name cover band, which was a birthday present at age 7.) I've heard the original version - by soft rocker Lobo - about three times in the past month.

Thanks WJAS. You're going down the drain.

More Gogi Grant please.