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.


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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.