Nothing is more iconic for street performers than a lone tenor saxophonist. I've put up bands, a weird animal act, but when people think 'street performers' they either think mimes, or lone saxophonists. That might be some kind of personality test, but I digress.
Rodney was, in a way, my grail. The kernel that started this project was the fact that I would pass Rodney almost every time I went into the city. Then there was a day I passed him and he wasn't playing, but talking to someone in some sort of animated conversation.
That's when it occurred to me that I really didn't know anything about these guys and it might be interesting to find out.
So I stopped and talked to him and asked where he'd be the next day. Of course, when I did come out to see him, he wasn't there. Street performers, as seems obvious, work on their own schedule. But I was able to find the Supa Lowery Brothers that day and found Rodney eventually.
He was in turns the most enthusiastic interview subject and the most reluctant, sometimes within the course of a single sentence. When I met him the first time he was intrigued by the idea and seemed into the interview. When I met him the second time he didn't seem to remember who I was and was hesitant, but then really got into it.
In a lot of ways I thought of Rodney as my main motivation for finishing the interviews, because every time he saw me afterwards he would grill me about the progress.
Tip Your Street Performers! Photo: Kevin Hazelton
Every street performer has a little bit of the philosopher in them, Rodney has that in massive doses. When you interview someone where you intend to take yourself out of the interview you try and instruct the subject to include the question in their answer. We usually give the example of "So, if I ask you your name, you say 'My name is Rodney' instead of just saying 'Rodney.'" Which makes it sound a lot easier than it is. That's why, when you watch reality show interviews a lot of people seem to be asking themselves questions they then answer.
Street performers more or less just ignored me and every minute I spent interviewing them they weren't making money, so I never belabored the point to avoid making them angry.
But with Rodney, it was nearly impossible. But what did happen were these awesome stream of consciousness rants that my questions could never unlocked in a normal interview.
Photo: Kevin Hazelton
So, you'll notice some differences. (if you've been actually following the blog from the beginning you'll notice a lot of differences, like the second player I added for each post and the slightly new look. I'm not sure which one I prefer, they both have their pluses so for the time being I'm keeping both up). But specific to Rodney...first is what I call the 'usable interview,' the part where Rodney stayed on topic and more or less answered the questions in a way where it wasn't necessary that you heard the question. Mostly, I did have to include my question in at least one so you get to hear my nasally voice in the distance.
But in addition to that, I've strung together some of his rants over some more of his playing. I'm not religious, but this is about him not me, so there is some proselytizing in there. I apologize that I really didn't have as much room to let you just hear Rodney play, but I do encourage you to take a lunch time stroll on Market between 1st and 2nd (I'm a little disappointed that the Google Streetview car didn't catch him) and listen to him play. Be sure to tip him and tell him that interview guy sent you. No guarantees he'll remember, but he just might.
I hate the bottom of a bag. I don't even know why. Sure, some of the self selecting that insures that some of the bottom of the bag is not going to be all that great. But ultimately, this stuff is randomly assembled, no one bag is any different than the other, but so far I get pretty anxious to move on to the next bag, like I'm convinced that next one has all the treasures I've been looking for, and I could get right to it, if it wasn't for these blah CDs I have to do first. I wonder if it actually makes me meaner to the bottom of the bag CDs.
Jack Jezzro Jazz Elegance: The Trio Recordings
Not the greatest sign when iTunes thinks that this is an easy listening CD, despite the complete insistence of the title that it is in fact jazz elegance...
But yeah, it's winery jazz. A little guitar trio playing some mellow standards and some original bits. Good enough to listen to, not aggressive enough to disturb your wine tasting experience.
I was fairly sure that this is what I was going to end up playing. I'm always down on it in these posts because it isn't as dynamic or weird or whatever as the other CDs, but I don't really have a problem with it ultimately.
The liner notes flip the order of things a little bit, almost like the person sensed that he'd have to address up front that this was going to be a light weight set of recordings. He goes into all the 'flash' criteria people use to determine the value of an artist and implies that another measure, 'taste,' should be applied. Then the usual tour through the selections, timeless melodies etc. But usually the resume comes before all of this, but instead it follows. Ah, and it's because it includes him having released a few 'easy listening' CDs before this album, as well as apparently television soundtrack work. The salesmanship had to flip there a little bit to sell him as a jazz artist in spite of some of his background instead of because of it. His resume as a studio musician and bass player in an orchestra aren't the usual jazz bonafides that you can build on, so on the second page of the notes they go.
I've played about half the songs on this album.
I had this elaborate plan on prom to play Prelude to a Kiss at some point in the evening on my sax and then we'd have a crazy romantic kiss immediately afterward. It was a long walk for a kiss, and of course not necessary. We just started making out when she switched to comfortable shoes. That was right before we found out that I had parked in the front yard of a church. This is a pretty ridiculous pattern of me wanting the names of the jazz tunes to do the thing that they are, Maiden Voyage, Prelude to a Kiss...I guess I should be careful now who I play Serenade to a Cuckoo around, that's a mixed message that won't be fun to unpack...
This album brings the number of versions of Round Midnight to four. I suspect by the end of the project I should be able to create a fairly substantial play list of just Round Midnight. This version is about what you'd suspect.
Alan Pasqua My New Old Friend
From guitar trio to piano trio, it's a light jazz day today. I don't know if this is going to be light weight or not yet, it's still loading, but Wichita Lineman is on here, so my chances are pretty good. I don't see any vocal credits on here, so at least there is that.
There are no liner notes to save me this time either, just a dedication to "you, the listener." What a weird affectation. "Oh, I'm the listener...I was wondering what my role was in this thing."
Alright, we're underway. Before reading the track list and the credits I was kind of looking forward to this CD because it was a different kind of case for the CD. That can be an indicator of music that is also different, a little out there. Or that the manufacturer had a different supplier for their CD sleeves. This time it's the latter.
Since I don't have liner notes I had to go to our old friend Wiki, turns out that he is the guy who did the theme to the CBS Evening News. And apparently played with a lot of 80s rock bands.
Ah, the whispery voiced back up 'aaah la da dah' girl usually reserved for bossa nova recordings. Highway 14 must be a pretty mellow stretch of road.
Not to be outdone, this album brings the number of versions of Body & Soul up to five. I should start taking predictions on what's going to be the most represented song by, like, the 150th day or something.
It may not be possible to do an instrumental version of Wichita Lineman and not have it sound like we should be in an elevator. Smile is the same story, but it's such a pretty tune it doesn't matter.
To begin I have to set what I'm going to attempt as ground rules.
First: I have to try and do at least two albums a day.
Second: I have to listen to the whole album. This rule is already chafing, more on that later.
Third: The CDs must be randomly selected, no picking and choosing. Pick a stack, take the ones off the top until the stack is on the hard drive, move on to the next stack. This is easy to do because these things are in no particular order and never have been.
Next, some clarification. I was only one of a few buyers at the store, and by the time I left, those buyer positions had been consolidated and I was relegated to 'books.' What I bought specifically was Jazz and Classical CDs and satellite genres as the store defined them. In a rock store with at the very least an indie affectation, I was the guy for that 'other music.' So that's what The Albatross is made up of, this won't be an "I Love the Nineties" parade of top artists of a past decade, those CDs went to everyone else in the store. These are the leftovers, the unwanted, the "Who the heck is that?" mixed in with some genuinely fantastic jazz and classical selections I was able to get even after I turned on the people above me to that kind of music.
Paul Brady What a World
Having said all of that, this CD is a perfect example of The Albatross because I have no idea why it is here. Looking at the cover, I thought it might be one of those new blues CDs where it's more watered down soft rock than actual blues. I was half right, just not about the blues part. According to the liner notes this is a collection of collaborations with other artists I equally haven't heard of to produce a bunch of...I guess I can call it soulfully sung...soft songs.
It contains tracks named I Believe in Magic, The Long Goodbye, and Sea of Love. I should have seen it coming.
This sounds like the soundtrack to that movie you catch on Encore at 3pm which has a star you recognize in it but you don't remember it coming out and all of the hair looks out of date. Or maybe an unlicensed Steve Winwood cover band?
This is very nearly a dangerous amount of synthesizer use without a rapid beat, flashing lights, and E. (Screw you, Vampire Weekend, I'm using the damn Oxford Comma and if you don't like it you can suck it.)
I am perhaps being uncharitable. This is certainly not something I would be prone to be interested in. I don't know who...maybe mid-aged secretaries that want to have music taste but don't have the time to bother? It's not bad really.
The real question I'm wrestling with is why the hell is it here? There is a chance that it was mislabeled as 'world' at the store because the singer is from Dublin, which would have landed it in my box. But this is a pretty decent aping of inoffensive American soft rock. There's nary an Irish influence to be heard, not even in the affected twang in the singers voice. He's traveled the world, apparently, to find collaborators throughout the 90s, but I really can't even hear that. He does admit, however, that out of the 'around fifty' songs he wrote at that time, these are the ones that bore his imprint the most.
Oooh, Travelin' Light has some slide guitar. Like salt on a potato, it almost becomes about the salt since it is suddenly the spiciest thing going on.
This CD has successfully traveled through four cities and six moves. It's a poster child for The Albatross, the jewel case is smashed, the liner notes wrinkled from hopefully some mild water damage. There have been a few culls over the years, but usually I was unwilling to throw out artists I hadn't heard just in case, but during culls I don't have time to listen to everything. So this poor bastard has been following me around waiting for its moment in the sun only for it to be this. To make matters worse, I know the next artist and like him. So this is just excruciating.
I wonder about its journey, because somehow it's wound up in the 'prime pile.' The one that is actually in my room and not the shed, that was readily visible and easiest to access. Presumably these would be CDs that I actually selected or listened to, but I honestly don't have any memory of it. I have a feeling I'll be hitting shuffle in a few years and having to run to this blog to remind myself who the fuck this is and why it's on my iTunes, so here's a note to my future self: You didn't understand it then, either.
Jay Jay Johnson The Eminent V.2
This is the other side of the Albatross coin. I know who J. J. Johnson is. I like J. J. Johnson. I probably made a big deal out of getting this CD, dragged it around the store and bored my co-workers with how awesome it was that I got it and that they should be jealous. I had even formed an arbitrary obsession with the main buyer in the store over trombone players, and when you have an arbitrary obsession with trombone players, there's not a lot of places to go. This CD was a score. It even had Charles Mingus on half of the tracks, and then Horace Silver and Paul Chambers on the other half. I mean, how awesome is that?
And yet, 8+ years later it's sitting in a random pile under Paul Brady unopened. Even Brady had shed his wrapper at some point, but this is the first that this CD has seen the light of day, factory fresh, as it where.
Blue Note had a big rash of re-issues with alternate takes and other such goodies, promising clean remasters (this particular one a "Rudy Van Gelder Edition"), also a big thing at the time. Here's my guess: I got this CD along with a batch of awesome Blue Note CDs and this got left out because I was too into Kind of Blue and poor J.J. was shuffled off to the forgotten heap, the white noise of apartment filler that was to become The Albatross. Which is a shame, because it's pretty awesome.
Somehow, even in its wrapper it has managed water damage (I hope it's water...some of my living arrangements have involved pets...I'll just leave that implication...) so I have no access to the liner notes (which the outside of the sleeve informs me are not the original ones because these are the 'actual sessions' and not the hodge podge (paraphrasing) of the original 12". Seems kind of a gyp, now that I think about it, for a fan of the 12" who was looking forward to his CD clean remaster. Jazz is in the solos, if it's not the same session that means his favorite solo is no longer there.)
I'm listening to this on a pair of studio monitor headphones (Sennheiser HD 280 Pro, if anyone cares), but I left the TV on...this is making an interesting soundtrack to the 'silent movie' version of the Secret Girlfriend re-run that's on. I have to say it's an improvement...it's also classing up the ads for the porno channels and chat lines, giving them that old school "Playboy After Dark" feel.
This is really is hard bop at its best. (As a side note, I always thought 'hard bop' was mislabeled.) I used to want to play this, heavy arrangements in small combos with plenty of room for soloing. If I had opened this at the time I would have likely imagined myself taking Hank Mobley's solos on the second half of the album. Hell, I'm doing that now...
I was never able to do those breaks at the beginning of solos...too much pressure to do something awesome right away. Part of the reason I'd make a terrible rap artist, after the hype-man got done hyping me, I'd crumple from the weight of expectation. Maybe I could manage as a low-key hype-man, "Dudes, this guy is awesome...get ready to check him out, it'll be cool, I swear. No, really...just...you won't be sorry...hear him out for a few, if you don't like it get a drink and come back for the next act, that'll be cool for sure."
That was awesome (see? I'm a natural!). I wonder now if The Albatross will spit up V.1 at some point.
That's Day 1 of Project:Albatross, and it's managed to deal a pretty good snapshot of the beast, music I love but for some reason never cracked open and stuff that makes no sense as to why it's here.
