Day 39: Bud Powell "Paris Sessions," The Cherry Poppin' Daddies "Zoot Suit Riot" and W.C. Fields "The Best of W.C. Fields"

I think I hit a vein. This bag must have represented a portion of CDs that I listened to in rotation until a move when they were lost in the shuffle. The grab for this was a series of bittersweet moments. What I thought I was grabbing was Sun Ra's Angels and Demons at Play, which is a fantastic album which I would love to have on my iTunes. It's an album I not only bought on purpose, but I special ordered (well, I was the buyer for that section, so I just ordered it, but it never made it to the floor because I ordered it for me.) Although now that I think about it, I believe I've seen that CD loose before, so I should have known.

Instead, however, it was the major label compilation for The Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Zoot Suit Riot. Which is cool in its own way. I actually love this band. I can feel you cringing from here. I'll get to why in the review. However, since it's a compilation I already have most of that album on iTunes, so I kept digging.

There was a CD case for a box set of Beat Generation recordings that I have already ported to iTunes, but learning from my earlier experience I checked. Sure enough, inside was Sex Mob's Din of Inequity. This, too, is on my iTunes. It actually makes me a little sad, because I was sure this CD was lost and I also love Sex Mob, so I re-bought the CD through the iTunes store a few years ago. It seemed easier than scouring the collection to find out where it went. Turns out it was sitting in the Beat Generation CD case...

But that CD is already in, so digging I go and we come up with my second radio program. Finally. Though now I really just want to go through the bag to find out what else is buried in there...

Bud Powell
Paris Sessions

I've already commented about how Europe loves jazz more than Americans (being the backdrop of the movie Round Midnight). This CD is a product of that phenomenon, a collections of sessions from 1957 to 1964 with a pretty comprehensive whose who on it.

It has two saxophonists on it that I was into pretty early on in my discovery of jazz, a product of being taught by my own set of old jazz men. So early on I was hunting out recordings of Zoot Sims and Johnny Griffin. As a result this has the sound of 'the jazz I listened to before I knew what the hell I was listening to or for.'

Ideally there would be some sort of profound realization, like retroactively going back to my head and unlocking the secrets of the music that moved me to want to be a jazz musician. Unfortunately, I got nothing. I just liked it. I like it now. My tastes have grown more 'refined' in what I like specifically, so when going through the giant rolodex of what is available in jazz I might skip over a Bud Powell CD despite him being a legendary player. But it's still good, and I could close my eyes and easily transport myself back to my old Chevy playing this over my 40 watt Radio Shack car stereo (with equalizer!).

This is also the second version of Satin Doll to go in since I started using it as my go-to 'generic jazz standard.'

It's hard to come up with something to say here, I mean it's Bud Powell. I feel like I should though, with how hard on piano players in general I have been.

This doesn't have that Rudy van Gelder edition style cleanness about it, there is a definite difference in the quality of each session. Not to say that it's a messy as the Nat King Cole album, but it certainly retains a lot of its, lets call it 'analog charm.'

I've talked before about jazz piano players revisiting those classical lessons they endured in childhood and trying to 'jazz them up.' This however just contains a short track of Bud doing some straight, unidentified Bach labeled Bud on Bach.


The Cherry Poppin' Daddies
Zoot Suit Riot

I don't have a cover to go with this one because it was mislaid in a Sun Ra CD case. I thought I had lost this and that is still technically true, because I actually got three of these. I think I gave one away and then lost the other and got the third to replace it. Then, apparently, it made its way into a Sun Ra CD case. I let it go because of a few reasons. First, if I lose three that might be a sign. Second, this was their 'breakout' album that made them a one hit wonder to everyone else who hadn't been collecting their CDs. Third, it was really just a compilation of the first three albums that I already had with four new tracks added in.

This was their major label signing, which happened to coincide with the sudden and inexplicable flash in the pan popularity of New Swing music. Sadly, The Daddies were picked up on that, so the label went through their albums and pulled out all the swing related songs on their previous albums and put them on this one. Even sadder, this didn't happen until new swing was on its downward arch where it had become a bigger joke than it was something people genuinely 'liked.' So The Daddies became the face of a ridiculous trend that they weren't really following.

In a lot of ways there were a more genuine extension of jump jive bands rather than a revival. They didn't go for 'authentic,' often they didn't even go for swing at all. The album before this one barely contained any swing elements at all. There's as much rock influence from bands like Oingo Boingo as there is Cab Calloway. And their subject matter was not really poodle skirts and derby hats--their one hit, after all, is about a race riot.

Since it is a compilation I already have most of the songs, I just needed the four new tracks loaded up. Having made all the excuses for them, all four of these songs are about as traditional jump jive as they ever get. I like to think that there was some angry "Told you so!" yelling when they went for their second album, because that one was the funkiest in their catalog. Not that it made any difference, they were the poster children for the Swing fad. Singer Steve Perry (different Steve Perry) went and got a degree in molecular biology, released a glam rock album under another name, and eventually came back to The Daddies.

W.C. Fields
The Best of W.C. Fields

In theory I should like radio comedy more than anything. It was the first of the radio theater I had found. At some point someone had recorded a Jack Benny program either off the radio or a record or something that also contained Who's On First and an episode of Burns and Allen. I wore that tape out listening to it, pretty close to memorized the whole thing.

But it was later when I discovered mysteries and sci-fi radio dramas that I finally realized my love for old time radio.

I got this as a set of CDs that contained highlights of various radio dramas on the cheap. Apparently it's not available anymore because even the ISBN doesn't come up. I hadn't been exposed to much W.C. Fields so I wanted to at least have a sampler.

All I remember from the first time I listened to this was how odd it was to have a ventriliquest dummy as a character on a radio show. I know that the show is done in front of an audience, but it's still a radio program. It's such a strange device to use in the comedy. Today they might call it 'meta.' Or maybe not.

Most of this is essentially sparring matches between Fields and Charlie McCarthy the dummy and have the host of The Chase and Sandborn hour set him up for his rambling stories where he would flaunt the rules of the broadcast as a way to seed his movies and the show's sponsors.

Day 22: Various Artists "'Til We Outnumber 'em" and Orson Welles First Person Singular "Dracula"

As much as the Albatross reflects my whims, it fairly decently reflects my interests as well. The perils of the Albatross and my ability to enjoy all of that on demand are well documented at this point.

I have to admit that while I have more or less complained about that in virtually every preamble (I'll eventually reach a point where I can convince myself that I don't need a preamble), there's a big part of me that I think in a way prefers it. I mean, I still listen to it on shuffle in iTunes. My favorite way to navigate the internet is through the StumbleUpon button. I have unwatched TV shows sitting on my TiVO and on the hard drive while shows I'm far less interested in scroll by in front of me.

I like to be entertained passively, and I might be the last of that breed, as even people in my generation, who didn't grow up with internet but instead grew up to invent it as we know it today, have taken to on-demand entertainment. And I don't blame them. It's awesome. But for some reason I like having the programing just happen.

That's not to say that I'm totally alone. The aforementioned Stumble does that for you, as does the rightfully popular Pandora. Technology has just enabled it to be rather fine tuned.

But for discovery to happen, sometimes you have to open things up for complete accidents.

This would be a better preamble for stuff I didn't think I would like, but today is as right up my alley as it can be without any jazz in it.


Various Artists
'Till We Outnumber 'em

After A Mighty Wind, it's hard not to approach a gathering of folk singers without a little chuckle. And this is a pretty mighty collection of folk singers, gathered to pay tribute to Woody Guthrie.

The various performers perform their versions of various Guthrie songs, and some people share stories about Guthrie or how Guthrie affected their lives. The nice part about folk music is that the music isn't really sacred, so covers open themselves to stylistic interpretation. As mindbogglingly interesting as the Pete Seeger album was, musically it was pretty flat and similar track to track. That's just the kind of music it is.

But here the takes are wide ranging, as rockers like Springsteen take on songs, or 'modern' folk artists like Ani DeFranco and Indigo Girls take on songs in their own ways.

Interspersed are some readings, almost Beat-like, including Tim Robbins reading Born Naked through a megaphone.

This album was released when that whole new folk thing was pretty big, about the right time to do that. About the only one missing from it is Tracy Chapman.

And of course the concert ends with an all-star rendition of This Land is Your Land lead by Arlo, who apparently is also telling a story over the top of it. Arlo, of course, is an awesome story teller. Turns out it's the story that forms the title of the concert.

The brevity of the post (relative to most others) might lead you to believe that it wasn't that much to write about, but it was fascinating, I ended up just listening to it instead of typing. This was pretty good.


Orson Wells Mercury Theater on the Air
The Best of Old Time Radio Starring Orson Welles V.3 Dracula

To me, first, he was the man who would sell no wine before it was time. Then he was the man who provided "the standard rich and famous contract" for Kermit and his Muppet friends.

Finally, he was the voice of the living planet in the original Transformers movie.

Eventually he was the guy who fooled everyone with his famous Halloween broadcast of War of the Worlds, though much more was made of that than it was.

I hadn't realized it at the time, but before all of that, he was The Shadow to me.

When we would drive home late at night we would have to drive through a tree-covered grove on a two lane road. Late at night, my dad would tune to a radio station that would play old time radio programs, including what would become my favorite, The Shadow. Welles was the original voice of The Shadow as we know him (there was a Shadow that was a host to an anthology program, but The Shadow that solved crimes himself, that was Welles first.)

This formed the basis for an early love of radio theater. A large portion of my on-purpose collection consists of collections of radio theater, including this Orson Welles collections, of which Volume 3 has come up, Dracula. I don't know where the rest of the CDs are, I think one of the six is already on the hard drive (the Shadow episodes, not surprisingly). I also don't remember if I got this as a promo or if I bought it. It's a screaming bargain for what you get, which includes a Welles interviewing Wells recording (Orson and H.G.).

I don't know that I can come up with something to say about Welles that hasn't been covered by, well, anybody. As I studied film, he obviously became an important figure again.

Welles does a fairly faithful abridged adaptation, complete with the wanton blood transfusions by anyone with a vein to save Lucy from the vampire's efforts. Of course it also has a centuries old man who sucks blood to live and can turn into a bat and a wolf, so...

I have to admit that, like many people, I'm about vampired out. But there's no glittering here.

Dracula adaptations tend to leave out or marginalize my favorite character from the novel, Renfield. He is not present in this adaptation either.

Orson Welles has a knack for drama, and of course it's on display here. A lot of my favorite elements are missing, but that happens.

Agnes Moorehead was Mina Harker. For me, Moorehead will always be Samantha's mother and Darrin's meddling mother in law. And Margo Lane.