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

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

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

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

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

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

Funny the value people put on stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

How could I forget these?

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

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

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

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

Dawn of the concept album

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

"It was 40 years ago today."

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

The first big vinyl hunt of '07

Playing right now: Miroslav Vitous - Universal Syncopations II (upcoming CD on ECM)

This story happened about two months ago, but it was the kind of adventure for which this blog was created, so better late than never....

I was looking around on Craig's List and saw a posting for jazz and soul albums that I guy in Pittsburgh was selling. Ha cha, I thought, that's for me. I've never taken action on a Craig's List posting before but figured there was gold in them hills, so now was the time. It was about 11:30 on a weekday morning when I called and spoke to the seller's mother, who said the guy was still in bed. It was hard to tell from her voice how old she was or how old the guy might be. Between that call and a callback a few minutes later, we made arrangements for me to come and check them out the next morning. I had to work at 2, so 11 would be a good time to stop by.

When I went into work that afternoon, I mentioned my upcoming journey to a friend of mine who's as fanatical about vinyl as me. I asked if he wanted to come along and he said sure. The ad had mentioned something like "rare soul and jazz" and "make a deal for anyone buying a lot" so I figured this wasn't going to be a case of finding Hank Mobley Blue Notes or original Coltrane Impulse albums for a buck a piece. He probably wanted to sell things for what they're worth. My friend and I both decided we'd limit ourselves to $50 so we wouldn't go crazy.

The next morning we were greeted by a guy who didn't look a day older than 25. He took us up to his bedroom and let us run wild through the shelves of vinyl that he had. And it was insane. Doubles of original James Brown albums on King. Almost all of the Pharoah Sanders albums on Impulse. The Jazz Messengers (WITH MOBLEY!) on Blue Note, with the West 63rd Street address on the label. The Silhouettes album on Segue. I think there was some Nathan Davis on Segue too. This kid knew his stuff. I meticulously pulled bunches off of the shelves and looked at covers while my accomplice just made a big stack of stuff that looked interesting to him.

After about an hour we reached the saturation point. Neither of us wanted to look at anything else. Between the two of us, we scoured the shelves anyhow. There was an additional rack of psych and rock stuff which included Love's first and Forever Changes, but nothing I wanted.

I kept telling myself to keep a poker face when it came time to figure out a price. I had grabbed $70 thinking that the extra $20 might give me a little bit of leverage, to perhaps talk him down to $50 and get a better deal with the extra cash that I forgot I had.

Well, that mindset changed when he told my friend that his stack, about 70 albums high, would go for $300, to which my friend didn't bat an eye. Damn, brother, you're better at this than I am!

My stack was $150, or $100 without the Silhouettes album. I finally paired it down to $70 and got the following:

The West Coast Pop Arts Experimental Band - s/t
Jackie McLean Plays Fat Jazz (on Jubilee)

Dizzy Reece - Possession, Exorcism, Peace (a '70s album by the Jamaican-born trumpeter who did some albums on Blue Note during the '50s; unfortunately this isn't very good)

Bill Evans - Further Conversations With Myself (yellow label promo, mono)
Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers - Jazz Cornver of the World Vol. 1 (see reference above)
Pharoah Sanders - Karma (my friend was cool enough to let me have this one, since I've wanted it for a while)
Joe Henderson - In 'n Out ('70s Blue Note reissue, still haven't played it yet)

Seemed like a good take: $10 per album, some of which were worth more than that, some less.

Oh and my friend? He bought $50 worth of his pile that day and went back the next day for the rest. Crazy, huh? He brought another co-worker who is even more into collecting than us.

the weird 45 of the day that I loved in 1974

Playing right now: WJAS-AM. "My Kind of Girl" which I think is by Steve Lawrence.

When I visited my folks on Mother's Day, I grabbed a handful of 45s that I got from a neighbor when I was about 7 or 8. They were all radio promos, and most of them had the same song on either side, mono and stereo. Well, some of them are pretty rare, according to the Goldmine book. One is a 45 by Nolan Porter on ABC. I played it a lot and really liked it. Luckily it's not beat to crap because the book says a mint copy is worth $100. That's for the stock copy with an A and B side. Wonder how much a promo is worth.

Along with The Blast Furnace Band & the Grapevine Singers' "Hammerin' Hank," the other oddity is "Take Away Her Heart of Stone" by someone/some band named Kenny, on Atco. It's kind of a soul-doo wop '70s tune because there are back-up guys doing accompanying vocals. (My friend Eric and I always got a kick out of the basso guy's counter melody under the other's "HEART! Of stone." After the third shout of that phrase, bass dude comes in with something like "going to leave me on myyyyyy ownnn." Then the lead voice comes in. It's kind of falsetto and sounds like it was recorded from across the room, with reverb coming across it in the process. When I first heard it, it was hard for me to make out lyrics to songs that weren't on the level of "I Love Trash" but all these years later, it's still hard to make out what this shrieker is saying. But it's still catchy, with a good four-on-floor beat.

One of the producers on the record is Bill Martin, who could very well be the same Bill Martin that wrote songs for the Monkees. I think he wrote "The Door Into Summer" and definitely wrote "All of Your Toys" which didn't make it onto Headquarters because he wouldn't give up publishing rights. (It's on Missing Links and the complete Headquarters box.) The other producer is Phil Coulter who doesn't ring a bell to me.

Any Google search of the artist and song title only yielded copies of the single that people were selling. The title alone brought up bibilical references.

So the question remains - who is Kenny and what is the story behind "Take Away Her Heart of Stone"? My guess is it was recorded as a one-shot and when it didn't take off, Atco gave Kenny the heave-ho. But I'd love to hear any info that anyone has.

And by the way, I'm not going to part with this record. Too much sentimental value. And the stereo side is pretty scratched up anyway.

Where's Howard Devoto?

Played a little bit earlier: Shelly Manne - Daktari
Music inspired by, or from, the tv show of the same name - can't say which, because I haven't read the liner notes yet. But it's a hoot, from cover (Shelly sitting at a drum kit surrounded by a sitting lion and two monkeys, one blowing a clarinet the other playing a guitar) to vinyl (a lotta percussion, not unlike one of those Visual Sound RCA albums; plus several reed players including Bud Shank).
This was one of the records Grant gave me when he was in town, the weekend before Donovan was born.

(Right now, nothing is playing because the baby just went down for the night. I just wanted to make sure this didn't have another "nothing playing right now" opening.)

Every couple of years I go through a phase where I'll pull out one album by Magazine and play it, then feel compelled to pull out all of their first three albums, plus the singles collection. I was really into that band when I was in high school. Of course there was the Buzzcocks connection (vocalist Howard Devoto was on their first EP) but I remembered my brother bringing home Secondhand Daylight when I was all of about 10, and I was impressed by it. I bought their first three albums pretty quickly and loved all three. The live Play was kind of pointless, except for one new song, so I sold it. During college my friend Frank gave me a new copy of it and Magic Murder and the Weather, their final album that I never got around to buying. Now I have the complete set. (Note: the red US version of After the Fact is a much better singles collection that the green UK counterpoint.)

All this comes into play because this morning over breakfast, I pulled out Secondhand Daylight and played side two. A couple of the songs had been going through my head at work and I couldn't take it any longer. I needed to hear them for real.

It's taken me awhile to realize that this album is inconsistant. It short circuits three songs in, after a strong showing, but it regains momentum on side two and holds its own until the end. Once, post-high school, I played the instrumental "The Thin Air" for my friends Patty and Tim (at that time current and future bandmates, respectively) and they both infuriated me by saying the song sounded like Pink Floyd. But they were right. It's mid-tempo with a metronomic beat and there's a sea of keyboards. However, there's more of a melody to it. This is followed by "Back to Nature" which is also pretty art rocky, starting with Devoto's voice and piano, before murky synths (played by Dave Formula, a rather homely Brit whose name I love) cue in a jumpy riff marked by some especially skiterring bass lines from Barry Adamson (later of the Bad Seeds).

After "Believe I Understand" comes a song that sums up the smug, intellectual cockiness that Magazine/Devoto was known for. The song is called "Permafrost" and it depicts the narrator running into an ex. The chorus consists of the lines "As the day stops dead/ at the place where we're lost/ I will drug you and fuck you/ on the permafrost." Nasty, nasty line, but such delivery. Plus John McGeoch plays one of the nastiest guitar solos in that song, which is really simple but escalates into a tumbling cascade of notes that get more dissonant and icy as they proceed. The whole thing is creepy and great.

Maybe tomorrow, I'll pull out The Correct Use of Soap, their third album. That's good breakfast music.

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A couple weeks ago, I got word that the band Fake Brain broke up. They were from New York and played a few shows with the Mofones and we hung out both here, after shows, and in New York when I went up there. All good things must come to an end, and they had a good run while they were around: three great CDs, lotta tours, a rock opera. And the rock opera could've broken them through to bigger audiences if someone decided to back them. Jennie and I saw them perform it in New York in the fall of 2005 and it was hilarious.

But it makes you wish that bands like them - smart, funny without being jokey, catchy - could've gotten somewhere before they decided to call it quits.

I'll miss those guys. They'll always remind me of the period of my life where I had just bought a house and Pulp was really getting its sealegs and the Mofones were reaching their potential. Those were the days........

.......now I'm thinking of the kick-ass omelettes we had with Fake Brain at DeLuca's the day after one show.....................it all comes back to food..

Andrew Hill RIP

Playing right now: Ron Carter - Dear Miles, (Blue Note)

The June issue of JazzTimes was in the mailbox this morning and I have about six reviews in it. But that moment of euphoria was cut short when I read the death notices. Pianist Andrew Hill died on April 20. That's the first I'd heard about it. (The lesson here is that I need to look at the magazine's website more frequently, but at the same time, a newborn will often prevent that...)

I suppose it was only a matter of time. Andrew was 75, and was diagnosed with cancer just as he was making he return to Blue Note with his album Time Lines (which is reviewed here in a post from about a year ago. Look it up. Read it. Buy the record.) It's hard to say whether he went out on a high note (no pun intended) in that he was finally getting the recognition and respect that eluded him lo these last 40 years, or that he's going to join the roster of jazz innovators that will be bigger in death than in life (a la Mingus, Parker, Herbie Nichols).

But at the same time, Hill probably wouldn't like to be judged by which side of the success meter that he falls on. He'd prefer that people listen to the music. That's my guess at least. He never stopped making it. There are over a dozen albums on Blue Note that are still in print and all of them have the kind of music that makes you stop in your tracks and say, "Wait, what's he doing here? It starts in a familar setting but the music is going places that I never thought of. Two basses? That's crazy. They aren't playing together but they're moving together." Alfred Lion, who started Blue Note Records, considered Andrew the last big innovator on the label, someone on the same scale as Thelonious Monk.

In addition to the Blue Note ones, there are solo albums, some weird sessions for Arista-Freedom that include Lee Konitz and a bunch of large ensemble albums, which are especially deep.

Do yourself a favor and find a couple of them for yourself. Listen closely. And tell Andrew, thanks.

There's such a lot of world to see....

Playing right now: The Best of Mancini, specifically "Moon River"

On Sunday afternoon, I played my son - who is five weeks old as of today - this album. It was my first attempt to, uh, educate this newborn on some of the music that impacted his old man at a young age. And I couldn't resist making him listen to "Baby Elephant Walk," truly one of the greatest songs there is.

Before you write me off, please don't take this story at complete face value. I know the kid didn't comprehend any of this. He won't remember any of it. He won't pick up on the nuances of the way Hank Mancini uses low brass and drums in "Hatari."

That's why it's funny. It wasn't about him. It was really about me. Me reliving a period of my life when the greatest thing in the world was when the 8-track tape of this album finally made it's way to that point in track 3 when the calliope started up and the trombones (muted bass trombones seem to be a Mancini trademark) kick it. (The family 8-track of the album eventually wore out and I bought the album.)

And there's something about "Moon River" that makes me rather wistful these days. Maybe it's due to that episode of "The Simpsons" where Nelson gets all choked up when Andy Williams sings that song. Or maybe it was that time, about 10 years ago when I heard it on WJAS and got REALLY EXCITED. Then I stopped and wondered what that was all about.

"Days of Wine And Roses"......that's so wistful too. There's a headstone in Homewood Cemetery with the entire lyrics carved into it. Wow. Those two loved each other. I love the movie of the same name with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. It rips your heart out, but it's so well done. Jack Lemmon doing drama is intense.

writing writing writing

Playing right now: Nothing, but the new Tanya Kalmanovitch/Myra Melford CD was going a little bit ago. And "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" will be on pretty soon. So I want to hear that.

This week was a big one for me and reviews. I turned in four to JazzTimes on Monday and four for Harp between Thursday and Friday, and I wrote a mini-feature for them this morning. The piece was about Gang Font feat. Interloper, which is not a hip-hop band or a jazz group w/a dj, but in fact a band that features the Bad Plus' drummer Dave King and Husker Du's Greg Norton, who hasn't really been in a band in over 15 years. I interviewed him probably two months ago and was sitting on it until now. The stuff is kind of prog-y, with a little bit of Captain Beefheart guitar in it.

I'm back....I mean, I'm still here

Playing right now: in my mind, a song from Rahsaan Roland Kirk's Natural Black Inventions album. But nothing on the cd player or turntable

Dadgum, I haven't posted in ages. I got overwhelmed with freelance writing and auction stuff. Then my son was born on April 3.

But I will start posting more. I have a bunch of stories that date back a while. And a pile of discs that I'd like to talk about.

In the meantime I'll leave you with a quick thought: I just read in JazzTimes that Anthony Braxton is a big Johnny Mathis fan.

Crazy, huh?

Look here.....

.....Just discovered that the Vandermark review is up: http://www.jazztimes.com/reviews/concert_reviews/detail.cfm

Shanley reviews online

Playing right now: Paul Chambers - Go
(It's actually the Mosaic box set that compiles everything Chambers and Wynton Kelly did on Vee Jay. I was looking through the Mosaic catalog recently, wondering if I should get the Mosaic Select box of Chambers' Blue Note albums. I think I was piqued by the fact that Coltrane plays on a lot of it, so I figured it must be good......Rather than buying it, I figured I'd pull this out. The main problem with it is that nearly every song has an alternate take, which dilutes the strength of the whole album.)

I spent the day writing. Both Harp and JazzTimes took me up on concert reviews for their websites. For Harp, I reviewed Savage Republic's performance from last Friday. AND IT'S ALREADY UP ON THE SITE! Go to http://harpmagazine.com/reviews/concert_reviews/detail.cfm to check it out.

Since last weekend was the big double-shot of music, I went to the Warhol Museum for the Vandermark 5 show the night after Savage Republic. I'd tell you about it, but I'd rather you read it too. Not sure when that will be up on the JT website, but you can go to http://www.jazztimes.com to see.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Norton from Husker Du is a band again. Or at least he's recorded a new studio project that includes the drummer of the Bad Plus Dave King, keyboardist Craig Taborn (plays with Tim Berne) and guitarist Eric Fratzke (who plays in Happy Apple w/King). It's kind of proggy and little like Beefheart at times. I'm hoping to interview Mr. Norton. Keep your fingers crossed.

New Wave Cabaret; Brian Allen CD

Playing right now: Judy Henske - Little Bit of Sunshine...Little Bit of Rain



Last night was the New Wave Cabaret; the first one in 5 years. The 31st Street Pub was packed, which made me glad. When we got there at a little after 9, it was still fairly empty, but I guess that's because most folks didn't believe it would really start that early. It did and not only that, it ended early because everyone was good about getting on and off the stage so things were ahead of schedule.

The Yes Darlings' set went over really really really well. We played the B-52's "Strobe Light," with me doing the Fred Schneider part and Hille and Aimee doing the Cindy and Kate parts. Then we did the Human League's "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" with Hille moving onto drums and Mike switching to French horn and singing. He looked really good standing with the mike and singing, and the French horn was a great idea.

Amoeba Knievel was up next, which made things easy for me. Since we didn't get a chance to practice last week as a 4-piece, we were sort of winging it. Mike, Tommy & I got together last Monday and the two of them got together with Bob yesterday. Things were a little slippery but it held together pretty well, for the most part. We did Ian Dury's "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" which has an absolutely crazy bass line. Man, who played that - Jaco Pastorius? Steve Swallow? It's in F, and it's hard to maneuver on the neck.

But that one held together pretty well. PiL's "Rise" was a little fast to begin with and then some of the cues were a little sloppy. At the same time, we were the only ones who could pick up on that. It went over really well with the crowd. And it was the perfect song for Tommy to sing.



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Dadgum, it's cold. I brought a space heater up here to the office for extra warmth and blew out a fuse. So I'm going without it. And actually in here, it's not too bad.



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BRIAN ALLEN WITH TONY MALABY AND TOM RAINEY

Synapse (Braintone) www.braintone.com





Among the legions of musicians that play in a style often called free jazz, very few of them are trombonists. AACM vet George Lewis is probably the first one that comes to mind, with Albert Mangelsdorf and Steve Swell being uncovered after further brainracking.

So Brian Allen is one of the few, with five releases to his name, and a backlog of performances with people like Anthony Braxton, Ellery Eskelin and Roswell Rudd (another 'bone man, though not someone who still takes things out.)

On Synapse, tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby (Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band, among others) and drummer Tom Rainey (almost everyone, most recently with Tim Berne and Mark Feldman) join him for eight tracks that presumably were totally improvised. All three players receive writing credits and most of the albums sounds like two- and three-way conversations where moods are expressed rather than musical structures. The whole album (which lasts 50 minutes) could very well have been one continuous performance banded into separate tracks.

Allen doesn't get caught up exploring his instrument's flatulent possibilities (one personal turn-off with free brass players), instead concentrating on the mid-range, with which he displays a brawny tone and a strong melodic sense even in the freer moments. Without any chordal instruments to ground them, Allen and Malaby could have easily opted for stratospheric blowing. But that doesn't come until the second half of the 12-minute closer "Espancino." Before that, they engage in a pointed dialogue ("Tageshif"), egg each other on ("Briesrock") and keep things spare to create suspense ("Tenrayle"). Rainey again proves himself to be a drummer who can both support a band and build ideas around them as they play.

Steven Byram, who has designed many an a CD cover for Tim Berne, has done the same for the cover of Synapse. His unhinged style, which captures the essense of the music inside, is highly distinctive, and hopefully free fans who recognize it will be compelled grab Allen's work off the rack and check it out.

Hamilton, Joe Frank, Reynolds, Dewey, Cheatham & Howe

Playing right now: Nothing, but I was playing Duke Ellington's Anatomy of a Murder soundtrack a little earlier.

I've been away from this blog for too long.

For a week or so I thought that maybe I should only buy new releases. That way I could get caught up in what's happening now instead of just rehashing the past. I also thought, after getting a series of reviews done for both Harp and JazzTimes, as well as an article for a new local magazine, that I should stop buying anything and just listen to what I have here.

Well, that lasted..........maybe.............a week. Maybe 2 weeks. But today I traded in a pile of things at Jerry's and got three new albums. One is the Duke album above, then Johnny Griffin Live in Tokyo (Pittsburgh native Horace Parlan is on it, so I couldn't pass it up) and Judy Henske's Little Bit of Sunshine, Little Bit of Rain, which I wasn't too keen on at first. This sounds crazy but she sounded like she was oversinging and it really clashed with the string arrangements. By side two I was warming up to it, so maybe it just takes some getting used to.

A couple weeks ago at an estate sale, there was a copy of the Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds album with "Don't Pull Your Love Out" on it. I had that album when I was in second grade. My folks got it for me for my birthday and I really liked it. My theory is that Dunhill Records saw them as a cross between the Grass Roots and Three Dog Night. I think I wore out the album and put it in the free box at a record store during high school. So when I saw it at the sale, I thought about getting it. The group came up in conversation at work a few weeks prior, so things were pointing in favor of buying it. Then I remembered some of the sappy songs on it..........looked at the record.........I think it had a warp..........naw, put it back, I thought.

So today I decided to look for a 45 of the song that I really like from the album, which is "Goin' Down." Fat horn arrangement, soul lick, gravelly vocal (I think it's Joe Frank, but I'm not sure), had to get it. And I've played that sucker a couple times today and have enjoyed it every time. Now I imagine myself fruitlessly trying to explain to people that they had other and better songs than "Don't Pull Your Love."

One thing: I still can't understand the chorus line. "I can't see/ turn around...." then I always thought it was "....gonna be/goin' dowwwwwwwwwwwn," but it always sounded like "gonna we," which my 8-year old mind never questioned. Maybe I should listen to it again.

Losing two giants

Playing right now: Nothing

Woke up this morning and read that Alice Coltrane died on Friday. She was only 69 years old. She seemed like a really cool lady, really spiritual in a way that was genuine and not flaky. And she made some pretty great music. That was a really big surprise.

And if that wasn't bad enough, a few minutes later, I heard that Michael Brecker died. He had been sick for a while with a rare strain of a bone marrow disorder. A lot of musicians and non-musicians tried to help him when he needed marrow donations and it seemed like he was on the road to recovery. Maybe that's a naive thought, but I was hopeful. Just read that he recorded one final album too.

It's said that these things happen in threes................

Tell me about Mabel Mercer

Playing right now: Mabel Mercer - Midnight at Mabel Mercer's
A few years ago, Mabel passed away and there was an article about her in the New York Times. She was a really popular dinner club singer, a contemporary of Bobby Short (with whom she recorded at least one album). The article said that a lot of people hated her singing voice, including - I think - Cole Porter. He couldn't stand her, and told her so.
I'm not sure why, but after reading the article, I started to wonder if she was on Mr. Rogers when I was a kid. I remembered seeing a lady singing for King Friday, and one of the songs she did was "Lazy Afternoon." For a couple years, I've come across her albums at Jerry's and every time I'd look at them and think that some day I had to get one. I bought this one back around November.
I'm still not sure if she was the woman on Mr. Rogers, but she does sing "Lazy Afternoon" here. That song occupies a weird space in my head because as a kid, I used to listen to a record by a folk group called the Serendipity Singers (you know the New Main Street Singers in A Mighty Wind? Same idea. A million members, too many guitars, too many big, toothy smiles.) and they covered "Lazy Afternoon." So did - at the other end of the musical spectrum - Cecil Taylor in his early days. And Grant Green, who played it in 5/4. (I have the latter 2 versions on their Mosaic boxset collections.)
Anyway, it still very well might have been Mabel on the show.
As far as the album goes, it's funny because sometimes I listen to it and she sounds like a matronly lady with a warbly voice. She's not a jazz singer, certainly not like Billie Holiday who used any technical shortcomings to her advantage. This is music from a different era, when people would go to supper clubs and listen with rapt attention to singers. (The liner notes talk about Joe DiMaggio "and his former bride" once being in the audience.) No one has the attention span for that anymore. Or the scratch to spend a night out on the town that way. And no one wants to shut up for that long.
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This morning I finally finished what seemed like a marathon of CD reviews that have been hanging over me for a couple weeks. Four for JazzTimes (filed on Monday), two for Harp (finished this morning). Yes, I got a few more things in Harp! Ed Masley isn't stealing everything from me. (Just kidding, Ed.)
I also had do an interview on Saturday for an article that was due Monday morning. It's for a new magazine called Table. It's a local, really nice looking quarterly about food.

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Since I had yesterday off from work and the Harp reviews were short, I didn't do any writing during the day. Instead I spent the morning cleaning a batch of 45s that I picked up a couple weeks ago at a flea market. While that was going on, I listened to the Decemberists' The Crane Wife CD which I picked up last week. In all that time, I hadn't had a chence to listen to it. It sat on the kitchen table for a week!

At first it sounded kind of ...................normal. I was expecting and hoping for something a little weirder. But with each song it started sounding a little better. This is a typical thing for me. It takes me a while to get used to it. Several albums didn't grab me until I hit side two, at which point I started reevaluting side one. Have to spin this CD again. Maybe there will even be time to sit and follow along with the lyric sheet.
Yesterday's listening also including Judy Henske's High Flying Bird, which I bought the same day as Mabel. I love Judy. She has such a great voice; a real belter.

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On Saturday, I went to my first estate sale in a while. There were a bunch of 45s. (What is it with people in Squirrel Hill getting all these promo 45s?) I walked out with 23 of them, some as curiousities, some as genuine "finds." The biggest surprise was a record by Michael Blessing. If the name doesn't sound familiar, it's Mike Nesmith's pre-Monkees stage name. According to the Goldmine book, a near mint copy of it is worth $150. And this one isn't too too far removed from that.
Not that I expect to get three figures for it. But I should be able to make back the $5.75 I paid for all 23 discs.
It's time like that that I remember, yes, sometimes it's worth it to get up at 7 on a Saturday.

addendum

Playing right now: Duke Ellington - Money Jungle

Followup to previous post: I was sitting on New Year's Eve, listening to a mix CD made from a few years earlier and "My Little Red Book" came on, making me realize that I didn't mention Arthur Lee in the list of folks we lost in 20-ought-6. Didn't list Syd Barrett either. D'oh.

Then a spirit from the dead snuck up behind me and whacked me upside the head and yelled, "HEY!" in a raspy voice.

It was James Brown.

I'm not only about jazz, peoples. One of my resolutions was to get back into more of the rock saddle.

Last entry of the year

Playing right now: Marty Krystall - Plays Herbie Nichols

Looking back on 2006, we lost a lot of good music folks. Locally, WDUQ personalities Ken Crawford and Len Hendry, and pianist Walt Harper passed on. D.C. Fitzgerald. On a national level, the year had barely started before Jackie McLean died. Maynard Ferguson, Dewey Redman.......I know I'm forgetting a lot of important folks. These are all coming off the top of my head. And I know remember several times this year saying "Oh no," or "damn" everytime I turned around and saw that someone else had died. At this point, I can't recall if Jimmy Smith died in 2006 or at the end of 2005.

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Last night Amoeba Knievel played at the Brillobox. We tore the joint up, but unfortunately, by the time we started tearing, the crowd had thinned to just a few devoted and loyal listeners, so there were only a few select minds left to tear at.

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Tonight at midnight, I'm hoping to crank up the old victrola and blast (there's only one volume and "blast" is a pretty accurate description) Guy Lombardo's "Auld Lang Syne." Hopefully that mickey mouse arrangement of it won't put us to sleep. It's pretty doggy.

Be safe out there tonight, folks. Or if you're reading this in 2007, it means you were safe, so good going.

Catching up, with a look back....

Playing right now: Charles Tolliver - With Love
(It's a new album that Blue Note is releasing, but it's not out for a few more weeks.)

So the holidaze kept me away from here for a while, so I'm going to catch up by posting some old reviews. I wrote these three reviews in 2004 for a magazine that never published them. A couple weeks ago, I came across them on my hard drive and thought it couldn't hurt to bring them back now. They're three far-flung albums deserving of more attention. And I always felt like Azita's cheerleader anyway.

CRAIG TABORN
Junk Magic
Thirsty Ear/Blue Series

Keyboardist Craig Taborn’s musical experiences include time with straight-blowing saxophonist James Carter, Detroit techno whiz Carl Craig and avant-garde saxophonist Tim Berne, so Junk Magic brings a lot of expectation to the table. The intrigue gets raised even further with a glance at Taborn’s band: drummer David King of the Bad Plus, violist Mat Maneri – an equally experimental microtonal jazz improviser - and tenor saxophonist Aaron Stewart, who has worked with Anthony Braxton and Steve Coleman. Like recent discs in Thirsty Ear’s Blue Series, the album Junk Magic strikes a balance between groovy textures and heady improvisation. The opening title track is something of a misfire; an off-center groove, with a programmed beat that sounds like a CD skip, quickly gets under the skin since no soloist jumps in for contrast. But “Mystero” quickly changes the scene. Taborn’s keyboards create a sea of texture over which Maneri and Stewart add dark solos. The drums initially sound looped, but by the end King definitely sounds live as he alternately holds the pulse together and breaks it apart for fun. Later on “Prismatica,” roles change when Taborn takes a solo and Maneri and Stewart hold down the fort. Sometimes the album’s sea of sounds is hard to penetrate, but the closing 11-minute “The Golden Age” indicates that Taborn’s crew is on to something when they have a chance to stretch out. (www.thirstyear.com)




DAVE BURRELL FULL-BLOWN TRIO
Expansion
High Two

For its first release, the Philadelphia imprint High Two chose to spotlight a musician whose all-encompassing approach to the piano has probably been heard in supporting roles more than as a leader. Dave Burrell has appeared on albums with Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and David Murray and while he has led sessions, none have appeared domestically since 1966. Accompanied by bassist William Parker and drummer Andrew Cyrille - both prolific heavyweights in the world of avant-garde jazz - Burrell turns in seven challenging, diverse tracks that put this gifted solos and compositions in the spotlight. In “Double Heartbeat” the group sets up an interesting dynamic with Cyrille exclusively playing toms and bass drum while Parker plucks away and Burrell adds splashes of notes that evolve into clusters. Cyrille shifts exclusively to cymbals for “In the Balance,” a meditative piece that also has Parker switching to kora, a West African harp, to add to the texture. “Cryin’ Out Loud” is a piano and bass duet, in which Parker’s skilled bowing technique creates emotional wails and scrapes. It contrasts with the following track, a bright solo reading of Irving Berlin’s “They Say It’s Wonderful,” with Burrell showing of his stride technique. “Coup D’etat” closes the album with a jaunty theme that evokes both Thelonious Monk and “Giant Steps,” although Cyrille ensures the trio puts their own stamp on the sound with the way he drives them. Hopefully more people will discover Burrell with Expansion. (http://www.hightwo.com/)


AZITA
Life on the Fly
Drag City

From its clunky title to the obtuse mouthful-of-marbles vocals, Azita’s 2003 album Enantiodromia was an intriguing listen, and one that made listeners either love or revile the pianist and songwriter. At this point, I still haven’t found a kindred spirit who shares my fascination with Azita Youssefi, who once led the Chicago no wave band Scissor Girls. While her previous album sounded more like a pianist who enlisted friends to flesh out her songs, Life on the Fly sounds more like a band effort. Drummer John McEntire and bassist Matt Lux, of the bands Tortoise and Isotope 217, again play on all the tracks, with guitarist Jeff Parker and cornetist Rob Mazurek dropping in on a few to add to the texture. The sound shifts away from the noirish approach of its predecessor, but it in no way merits the Steely Dan comparison Azita has already garnered, in both the pejorative and positive sense, ironically. Granted her vocal delivery can be a challenge; when she sings off-key it sounds more like missed notes than intentional dissonance. The shifting rhythms and clipped quality to some of the musical phrases make standard verse-chorus hard to ascertain. But that again makes this music worth the challenge, from the catchy “Wasn’t in the Bargain” to the suspended “Antarctica.”
(http://www.dragcity.com/)

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So many people are flooding the atmosphere with year-end lists. I submitted one to
JazzTimes a few weeks ago, but I haven't done a rock one yet. I'm not sure how many new rock albums I heard this year anyway. A lot of what I bought at the start of the year came from 2005. Plus some friends were swapping lists to Best ofs and I never replied to them. So I think I should reply to them first. But we'll see.

Sing a Kris Kringle Jingle

Playing right now: Some anonymous Christmas Brass record that I had when I was a kid.

This is a cassette I made of the album a few years ago. The original record is in no shape to be played, so putting it on tape was the only solution back then. Maybe someday soon I'll put it on disc.
This isn't chamber brass Christmas songs. This record probably came out in the late '60s and has a very pop-rock backbeat feel to it, along with brassy arrangements that sort of bring Herb Alpert to mind, in tone not in feeling. Plus there's a lot of marimba and xylophone. I've been thinking of this record all week at work. The tape just happened to be sitting here next to the computer, probably having sat there for the last 11 months, so playing it was a natural.

The version of "Jingle Bells" has a solid beat, a walking bass line and more of that great marimba. Along with the classics (a Floyd Cramer/Roger Williams-style version of "Silent Night" in 4/4) there are originals with titles like "Sing a Kris Kringle Jingle" and "Mama Santa's Surprise," the latter including some great trombone-plunger mute action.

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If I could stay at home and do nothing but listen to CDs for, oh.....a week, I'd be happy. I have too much I want to listen to. And I don't mean put-on-while-I-do-the-dishes listening, I mean really listen to: get to know, start music to memory. Between things people have lent to me, promo releases and stuff I've bought, there's too much. Charles Tolliver and Steve Kuhn both have new things out on Blue Note and I haven't gotten to either one yet. I finally listened this week to a CD I got from trombonist Brian Allen that he did with Tony Malaby (tenor) and Tom Rainey (drums), which is pretty free and pretty interesting. And I'd like to post a review of it here sometime soon. Which, again, requires that I get to know it.

But then Tim Berne's new double CD with Big Satan just showed up this week. JazzTimes also sent me a package of stuff they want me to review.

A couple of weeks ago I bought Andrew Hill's A Beautiful Day which I've been meaning to get for a while. It was a session with a larger group and it was also the disc that seemed to really stir up renewed interest in him.

Plus I want to get back to that Odean Pope disc from a few months ago. Oh yeah, in case you thought I've totally forsaken all non-jazz music, I have a copy of the latest Pernice Brothers album waiting for me at Paul's. And I'd like to check out the Naysayer's new album again. I reviewed it for Harp and it's now on the "stuff I reviewed" pile, most of which I don't get back to, out of time and an ongoing quest for new music.

I don't like to think of this music as disposable. But there is this quest when writing about music to say, "Next!" as soon as you're done with one release, knowing that another one is sure to be on the way or is sure to be discovered in a used bin somewhere near you. When I worked at Pulp, opening the mail was always the most exciting part of the day because I never knew what musical excitement was waiting in the morning's pile. What would join the pile on my desk or the upcoming shows box, and what would wind up in the pile of CDs that would languish in the corner?

So much music, so little time. It's too bad more people don't release albums like this Christmas Brass album (I think they were called the Monterey Brass, I'm not sure): at about 35 minutes long at the very most, I could easily spin another disc after this is over adn still get to bed by two.

But it's off to bed soon.