Back to the blues again today. There was a brief respite from the constant flow of blues there for a while, but now a homeless CD has served up some more blues for the hard-drive. Just going to get right to it.
So I have no idea about this CD or even really how it got out of its case. I may have tried it out, I think I would break out every tenth blues CD and try and listen to it before moving on in favor of something weirder or more dynamic.
I was getting so many CDs that the ones that stood out were the ones that were essentially something I had never heard before. The wilder the CD the more likely I would end up listening to it. If it was at all what I expected I would keep digging. And so a lot of these admitidly fine blues CDs ended up buried. The blues, while many things, is rarely surprising.
Apparently he's a Philadelphia harp man who studied under Muddy Waters harmonica player Paul Oscher. This is kind of pure Chicago blues, really. Shuffle beats, electric guitars, early rock n' roll sound to it some of the time--especially in We Gonna Ride. We Gonna Ride is of course one of two back to back songs about getting a new car. The second the more direct My New Car. There's still time, perhaps Snake Oil will be about a new car as well...
Guyger uses that distorted harmonica sound with his band heavy on the reverb, giving his band a 'dirty' feel. It helps evoke that smoke filled dive with watered down whiskey.
Rib Shack Boogie is a straight boogie rhythm while Steve and someone else talk back and forth about how good a bar-b-que smells. And then, apparently their plan to head to a chicken shack afterward, interspersed with solos. I'm going to decide this is improvised. Or perhaps it was something they put together to pimp the rib shack they were playing at and they just got into doing it.
I crashed iTunes trying to use Ping and now I don't know where I was on the CD...
Monkey on a Limb almost doesn't fit. Gone is the distortion, the guitar comping is fairly jazzy, almost a bossa going on. I actually thought that the CD had ended and iTunes had moved on to the next one.
It was entirely rare that we'd actually get box sets as promos. More often we'd get these sampler discs as promos for the larger box set. This one is a five CD box set for Arhoolie records themed around its founder and his journey looking for 'roots' music. As a result the music on here is pretty eclectic. So far we've traveled through blues, zydeco, and something in French. Now we're on to Mexican music. And now back into country blues, beat up guitar sounds like it was recorded on one mic country blues. Awesome.
I have a new favorite lyric, "If it was raining soup, I'd be caught with a fork peoples, tryin' to live in this mad mad atomic age." Another country blues, Lady Luck by Mercy Dee Walton.
This must be what it's like to be a booking agent for A Prairie Home Companion. Rose Maddox's folksy and humorous Single Girl would fit right in, as would all of this music.
I mentioned that this would be eclectic? We're on to Klezmer music. I'm constantly surprised at how much saxophone there is in klezmer music. I have no idea how that came to be. There's a Charlie Parker anecdote about him picking up a bar mitzvah gig while hanging out at Milton's that was portrayed in the movie Bird. I didn't really have any coming of age rituals growing up, but having Charlie Parker showing up at one would have been pretty awesome.
Sweet, straight up boogie woogie piano. I love boogie woogie piano but I don't have any. Well, I do now. Awesome. I wish it was more than just this one track. Boogie woogie piano is the kind of piano that I would want to be able sit down and play at an unattended piano, it's the kind of piano that I imagine would be the closest to causing spontaneous dance numbers. That and stride.
There was a short period of time where I was listening to a lot of ragtime bands and I have no idea now what brought that on. (what brings on this mention is the selection by the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra playing Creole Belles. I think there was a snide comment that Willie "The Lion" Smith made on the album that went into the Albatross but I can't remember what it was. For a bit, though, I had a decent collection of ragtime band music. That's band music specifically, not ragtime piano, but ragtime bands. It went as mysteriously as it came. I don't dislike it in the least, it still sounds cool to me, I just don't listen to it...well, ever anymore.
This seems like it was the box set designed to fulfill my pretentious 'amateur ethno-musicologist' aspirations.
What I'm finding most is how much I remember of getting certain CDs more than I am how much I forgot about getting others. I think I remember getting one of today's CDs, while the other is a complete and total mystery to me. They clearly come from different places in my collection because they are in entirely different conditions.
Let's get started.
Barrington Pheloung Soundtrack to Hilary & Jackie
Every once in a while a promo gets taken home completely by accident. You're taking home a big stack of promos, and somehow one of these promos that's only in a sleeve slips in with them. You can't do anything about it, you can't sell them, they usually only have enough information on them for ordering when ordering was relevant, so when you discover them months later you really have no idea what they are or what to do with them.
I probably picked this one up on purpose, though, it's a soundtrack and it's a classical CD, so it was 'up my alley' so to speak.
Actually, as I look through the accumulated grime (this CD was still in its wrapper, so that was some persistent grime) it's actually mostly the work of composer Barrington Pheloung. I don't feel too bad, iTunes thinks the whole album is Elgar's Concerto for Cello.
I don't know very much about this movie. And by 'very much' I mean I don't know anything about it. Apparently it's a biopic about famous cellist Jacqueline du Pré from the point of view of her sister who wrote the memoir the film is based on. This explains the dominance of cello music and the inclusion of cello pieces from noted composers. The opening recording is by du Pré herself, the others are by Caroline Dale.
I've never heard of du Pré before, despite having a love for the cello. I'm not sure if I should feel ashamed of that or not. Apparently the movie was well received and nominated for two Oscars. What the hell was I doing in 1998 that I completely missed this?
It might have been right after I quit the movie theater where I had been a projectionist for a number of years. There was about a year or so I just stopped watching movies because for the previous years I had almost literally watched every major release to come out.
The music is dark and deeply emotional. The cello is really an expressive instrument. For a CD I really knew pretty much nothing about, this is kind of a treasure.
I was going to mention this on the Canadian Brass album, but there is something about classical music that makes people cough. I guess people cough at every concert, you can just hear it in classical. Even in recordings that don't appear to be 'live' recordings.
This provides a much classier soundtrack for the climax of Days of Thunder and this episode of Miami Vice, by the way. I don't know why I don't turn the TV off to do this. I have really good headphones, so I can't really hear it. I'm just used to having it on even if I don't particularly pay that much attention to it.
I'm kind of surprised that this CD has survived this entire time. To be as dirty as it was it must have been in some of the more neglected piles. I'm glad it did, I can always do with some good cello music. I might have to dig this movie up, it sounds kind of racy if not completely depressing.
Buddy Guy and Junior Wells Real Blues
Once again, I am completely stunned by the amount of blues in the collection so far.
There are no liner notes (disappointing for a blues CD, as I mentioned earlier) and I can find virtually no information on the CD except that it is widely available for download.
This is clearly a live recording, including his announcements to the audience and thanks to an unnamed sponsor for the concert. The first half is Buddy Guy who is joined on the second half by Junior Wells.
The instruments are recorded well enough, but the voice mic sounds like he was using a pair of headphones.
I've never heard a blues version of Satisfaction...interesting. Also, by the time this song started they have apparently improved the voice mic, it's not great, but it's better.
So far the Albatross has dealt up Chicago Blues, we just keeping getting older and older.
Well, the mic problem is back, which is too bad because I love Messin' With the Kid. Now it seems like they're running the guitar through the same amp. All in all this has a bootleg quality to it. But really, for blues, that might lend a legitimacy to it. Talking about the recording quality of a blues CD might be akin to complaining the seats aren't comfortable in a vintage sports car. This kind of recording gives it a kind of authentic feel. But the recording can't be that old that they can't mix it properly.
Well, we had a fade out on the last live CD, now we have a fade in. That's a little weird. I would guess that this is an anthology, but the recording quality is consistently poor. The copyrights on the back are 1994 and 1999. The CD was still in its wrapper. The performances are pretty good, obviously, and if you don't have a problem with that 'bootleg' sound, then you wouldn't have a problem with this.
I'm kind of floored at how little info I have on this recording. It's another short one, too, at 42 minutes.
Feedback even. Was this recorded in a school gym? This is probably the best known blues artists to go in so far and it sounds like it was recorded on a $10 budget.
Still and all, it's kind of cool not in spite of its flaws but because of them, in a very weird way. What could I expect for free, I guess...
Double digits, should be a milestone of some sort. That means that today will mark 21 CDs from the Albatross processed onto the hard drive.
I've also plugged in the scanner so that I can include the artwork for at least the cover. The blog looked a little drab, plus now you can see what condition most of this is in.
The first of the blues CDs has come up, as well as the organizational issue. It's getting closer and closer to the time that I have to decide what happens to the CDs once they've been transferred. I'm no closer to a conclusion. In fact, I've put no more effort towards it than has been witnessed. By that, I mean, I think about it while writing the intros, write down that I'm concerned, and then do not revisit the idea again until a few days later while writing an intro. Safe thinking - only acknowledging a problem when you're safely involved in something else and cannot address it. I live by that...
Anyway, onto the music:
James Cotton, Billy Branch, Charlie Musselwhite, Sugar Ray Norcia Superharps
I just got done talking about the phenomenon of 'super bands' and it seems to have popped up again, except in a different way. Every once in a while there is a 'super band' that's actually just a gathering of notable performers on a single instrument. That's what Superharps is, a gathering of four exceptional harmonica players.
Harmonica is a tricky instrument. It can either be an awesome sounding blues/folk instrument or a grating tool of annoyance by that bastard in the corner who won't shut up. Obviously this is the former. It's easy to kind of get lost in the blues. I mean, largely it's that same progression of chords (it's even called 'the blues progression), even if people don't necessarily religiously follow that, it certainly can run together.
But aside from the progression, it's got lots of other cool things with its name on it, things like 'blue notes.' There is just something about the sound of the blues that transcends its repetitive chord structure or iambic lyric structure. (I'm really hoping that I come across a Bernstein CD I have that has on it a demonstration of blues' iambic pattern by turning a line from Macbeth into a blues song. It's predictably awesome.) Something that makes it infinitely listenable.
This must have come in a narrow period at the store, because we had an avid harmonica player that worked there and I'm surprised that I have this and not him. I think there was a period where I worked there and he didn't and this must have come in during that time. Or it just went in a box and since it said "Telarc Blues" (Telarc is the label) I wound up with it and the poor harmonica player got shafted. Too bad, because it's a pretty cool album.
Even with good harmonica it's hard to find people who don't overwhelm their microphones so much that it doesn't really matter what they play or people who just hyper-ventilate into the poor thing. Or both. All the familiar harmonica flourishes are here, but it's distinguishable.
This is the kind of music that makes you want to drive around in a patina-covered old American convertible. Like a Bonneville or Cadillac or Buick. Ah, as if to hammer that home, they play Route 66. Perfect.
These may be the most succinct and perfect narratives available. They state the condition, restate the condition for clarity, identify the cause, and then let you know the consequence. All in three stanzas.
I read enough comics as a kid (and adult) to automatically associate 'super' with a hero of some kind, so staring at the comic style cover I imagine a traveling quartet of blues harpmen who also fight crime with their blues-like super powers. I don't know what those powers would be, but I'm sure they'd be awesome.
I'm also wondering what it is about the name "Ray" that attracts the prefix "Sugar." A "Sugar Ray," while I'm on the subject, would be an awesome super power. Again, I don't know what it would do (sweeten drinks from a distance? Beam some lovin' in a concentrated blast?) but I'm pretty sure it would be awesome.
For the most part this album has been trading back and forth, one or two performers on each track. Of course, you have to go out swinging, so there's a full-on easy groove blues at the end that's all four of them that goes 11 minutes. It's this kind of open ended jam session all comers thing that's part of what makes blues so awesome. Especially when you're there.
You're taught jazz by cool old men. Sure you might run into or have a hip young cat teach you some things, but it's only a matter of time before he (or she) introduces you to the cool old men that taught him, that he learns from. And one of the things that cool old men that teach you jazz will tell you, is that everyone likes jazz more than Americans even though it was born here.
Because of this you get cool Finnish orchestras performing some incredible Miles Davis tunes, broadcasting union orchestras stretching to find the rare charts in the Ellington library, and Japan releasing new albums from hot young jazz talent.
I don't really know who the cool old men who taught James Carter to play are, but they're probably the ones who told him to check out Japan. (According to his website, Marcus Belgrave).
James is one of those 'new guys' that I bemoaned yesterday, actually, except that I am much more into this than I am into yesterday's 'super band.' Rather than being part of that 'new fusion', he's part of that 'new progressive' that has Greg Osby and Branford Marsalis. Not jazz for the faint of heart, even if the play list is a set of standards. (Marsalis had named an album "Crazy People Music" after a friend of a friend came to a show and said that what he played sounded like the music 'crazy people would listen to).
This I love. The CD had been unopened until just now. Maybe I looked at it as a source for standards, if I needed to know how a tune went I'd dig this up. These imports were (and are, though you can get the version of Jurassic Classics if you're not into Japanese liner notes) expensive. And usually were some of the best jazz available. It meant a few things: I wasn't allowed to open one for in-store play (but even if I was able to, it would get vetoed by some floor staffer for sure) and even if I could get someone into it the price would wave them off. We had a small handful of people that would buy these, and that was it.
So it meant not many promos and I couldn't really afford them even with my discount. And yet, when I get one, the poor thing doesn't even get unwrapped. Really is a total shame, because this is really exactly the kind of jazz I'm into. I get the feeling I say that a lot. There are a lot of jazz styles I respond to, and this is certainly one of them.
The depressing and I guess re-enforcing thing is that he's not much older than I am. I was never even close to being this good. I guess that doesn't matter, but sometimes with something that has a history like jazz, you can blame things on time and place. Like, if I had been playing at the time of Benny Carter or Lester Young, I would have been so much better because of what was around me. But really, jazz was one of the few art forms that benefited from the oral tradition being broadcast nation-wide and carried on cylinders, records, tapes, and other recordings. I can hear as much of all of that as I have patience for. In fact, I have a mound of it following me around with gems like this sitting unopened inside of it. So there isn't a 'time and place' as much as I'd like to blame it on that.
Interesting, while on his youth, when he recorded this (1995) he considered Equinox (Coltrane 1960) as much a 'Jurassic Classic' as the standard of all standards, Take the A-Train (Strayhorn 1941). I guess at a certain point it all starts to collapse. There's so much that happened in the world and in jazz from A-Train to Trane's Equinox. Carter manages to bridge that difference by adding things that had happened to jazz since Equinox and this recording.
He kind of has that big, harsh sound reminiscent of Sonny Rollins. I hate saying things like that because it always comes off as "Oh, he just sounds like this guy..." and that's not really true. There's no mistaking Carter and Rollins, it's just that in the great venn diagram of music, their circles are close.
Another day, another rendition of Oleo. It's hard not to smoke through this chart. I find myself humming the head and then end up doing a gibberish scat to it until I become self conscious. I guess it would be natural to compare this to yesterday's Oleo on The JazzTimes SuperBand, but it also seems unfair. I guess it's clear which one I prefer, but I don't know if that's the final arbitrator of which one is better.
That was awesome. I feel bad that I never opened it. I feel bad that I never tried to play it in the store. I feel bad that it had to come from Japan. But I feel great having finally listened to it and put it on the drive.
The prime stack that was the arbitrary beginning of the project is now shorter than the stack of CDs that have been uploaded. This raises a question I have been putting off: what exactly am I going to do with the CDs that have already gone through the process?
I don't really have an answer yet, so I'm going to continue to put that off.
Also, one of the Project CDs has made it onto the closest thing I have to regular rotation: I loaded the Henry Mancini music onto my diminutive MP3 player (a cheap 2GB Coby I bought for I think $30 that likes to do things like reject a track at random, or only import half of one, or its best trick yet, take the several hours of radio shows and music I loaded for the long flight to Germany and leave me with three The Shadow programs I already knew pretty well...)
This is the biggest tragedy of The Albatross. I've never had more than a portable CD player. I at one point ran it through an old 70s tuner from my parents, but not even that anymore. I don't even have a portable CD player anymore. Nothing. Not in my car, not anything. The only things I have is my beat up old Mac and my often ignored PlayStation 2. I've been dragging around thousands of CDs without having much in the way of actually playing any of them.
Today's selection consists of artists that I would instinctively say I know, but if follow-up conversation ensued it might be revealed that I am not 100% sure what they even play. I mean, I know the styles, but not the instruments.
Stan Kenton and his Orchestra Stompin' at Newport
Sometimes big band music can sound like I'm coming in at the middle even though it just started. Such is the case with The Opener.
I should know more about Stan Kenton, but I don't. I wasn't sure if he played trombone or piano (piano) and I don't really know which pieces he's famous for. I mean, everyone plays everything. Hell, I'm sure I've played Stompin' at the Savoy before.
That's a problem I have with big bands, through high school and both stints as a music major in college, most of that was spent playing in big bands. It's a love/hate thing. I can't help but hear even the best big bands scholastically, but then I spent so much time playing in them that it's probably the style I can most identify with.
It's a live CD with a polite audience, recorded obviously at the Newport Jazz Festival. Sometimes that produces some cool things, like Frank Sinatra saying "I feel sorry for people who don't drink, because when they wake up that's the best they're going to feel..." or Cannonball Adderley telling the story of Jeannine to an audience only to realize he was in France speaking English. So far, this is just polite introductions.
There's dirty jazz...lowdown jazz where the trumpet player plays into a dancing woman's breasts (true story), where people throw their hands up like a revival meeting, and then there is polite jazz. Sit quietly, tap your toe if you must, dance in a very orderly fashion jazz. That's this jazz.
I don't think it was always like that. I don't think it's even meant to be like that. It just grew up. It can't keep up with the kids...and it worked hard to get where it is, it doesn't have to impress you (though it really should), these days it likes to just take it easy.
I feel uncharitable describing it that way. I mean, it's Stan Kenton. It's good. If I wanted to sit down to some clean, well executed big band music, this would be it.
Holy Crap, Lennie Niehaus. Well, that changes things a bit. I forget he's a saxophonist (for shame) and tend to think of him as an arranger and soundtrack composer. This is kind of cool to hear him in his 'original' element. I had never thought of it, but he has the trajectory I thought would be cool for me, play sax for a while, enjoy that and then start composing scores for movies. Somehow, this was to make me famous enough to appear on The Muppet Show. Long story.
Now they're mixing it up. La Suerte de Los Tontos (Fortune of Fools), a 6/8 Latin piece that's actually pretty groovy. And pertinent, the last film I made was called Fortune's Fool for a quick-bake film festival. This would have actually been a little appropriate for that short, I think. But we had a good composer for the short, so it's all good.
This I think sadly falls into the category of CDs I think I should have. It's good, no doubt. But I think after years of playing in big bands I might have become immune.
Toots Thielemans The Live Takes V.1
How kick-ass a harmonica player do you have to be to take an awesome name likeJean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans, and go by "Toots"? This good. I'll admit I had to look him up because all I knew was "good" and it was something that was supposed to be in the collection, like poor Stan up there. He's been everywhere. He's on the Billy Joel song Leave a Tender Moment Alone and in Old Spice ads, apparently... the tone is unmistakable... as soon as you hear it you have that "Ooooooh, that's that guy?" It's like finding out all the movie trailers were voiced by the same guy (there are actually a few, but one really well known one).
But even through all of that...it's...the harmonica. Taking the harmonica seriously feels like trying to frame your kid's paintings. But here it is. This isn't blues or bluegrass...there isn't a hoedown in sight...just this gentle Belgian breezing through a Gershwin medley.
So many friends have tried to turn me on to Bela Fleck, but it just doesn't matter if he's the Jimi Hendrix of the banjo, it's still the banjo...and this uncharitable attitude kind of carries over here.
Except I can find a niche for this, I think. Because listening to the second track, Começar de Novo, I kind of feel like pouring out some heavily accented monologue about lost loves or something while driving a convertible along a Mediterranean coast. AH! How did all these clapping people get in my convertible? Oh, right...live album...
An aside, the album opened up with I Loves You, Porgy, which I remember best from the dramatic reading the CSU Sacramento piano player gave the lyrics when preparing for a Gershwin concert. In that context, they're kind of embarrassing. But, as I remember, funny as hell.
I've never had a stronger urge to skip ahead than just now...it's not that I don't like what I'm hearing, heaven help me I like Stardust, and Body and Soul is next and I like that, too. But there's a track at the end called That Misty Red Beast and I have to know how this gentle string infused sound manages a title like that.
It's also a title I wouldn't have known when I got this CD. There were several ways to distinguish promo CDs from 'for sale' CDs. The most common way is to hole punch the bar code or a slot cut in the spine. If you've bought a used CD from a store go check and see if any of the bar codes have been punched. If that's the case, someone like me has sold their promos to the store. For a while it was the only way for me to make 'ends meet,' as they say. Other promo packing methods included cardboard sleeves instead of jewel cases, like the Mancini promo, or a giant sticker that reads:
LEGAL NOTICE
License. This CD is property of Record Company [sic] and must be returned on demand. It is licensed for promotional use and has not been sold. This CD cannot be transferred without consent of Record Company [sic]. Use or retention of CD signifies acceptance of this license.
I have a friend who is a lawyer, I really should ask him why legalese abhors the word 'the.' That's how it's referred to, "Record Company." I guess labels were too lazy to come up with their own sticker? Anyway, this giant sticker that in no way prevented the sale of CDs to used record stores generally covered up some of the best information on the CD; In this case, the name of the last three tracks.
To date, no record company has ever asked for their disc back. I guess I'm tempting fate by posting this to the internet, but at the moment I have, like, five readers so I think I'm good. Besides, if this isn't promotional use, I don't know what is...I have the Amazon widget and everything...
Three Views to a Secret is a pretty cool name, too. Sounds like a really pretentious short film. The funkiest track on the album so far, too.
Not, so far, something that can be said about That Misty Red Beast. Rather this 'smooth jam' could be playing in the lobby of your favorite dentist. Oh, it progresses, because that piano solo was pretty smokin'. Ah, I see, it cools down for the start of someone's solo and then works itself into a lather. At 11+ minutes long, it allows for a slow cook...also, cool French in the middle of the song as the band remarked to each other briefly.
Now why include the 'encore clap' after the last track. I can see it didn't work, or at least didn't make it onto the album. Just seems mean.
Anyway, Day 4 is in the books. On to what tomorrow brings...
if you're not into Japanese liner notes) expensive. And usually were some of the best jazz available. It meant a few things: I wasn't allowed to open one for in-store play (but even if I was able to, it would get vetoed by some floor staffer for sure) and even if I could get someone into it the price would wave them off. We had a small handful of people that would buy these, and that was it.