Day 56: Bobby Hucherson "The Kicker" and Cuba Caribe

Yesterday I noted that there was a surprising concentration of Latin music, most of it Cuban. Well, actually now that I think about it it's either been Cuban or Brazilian. I've already talked about why there was an explosion of Cuban music in record stores, so having them makes sense. I just didn't expect them to all be in one place. There is another one today and tomorrow I can see another bossa nova CD waiting to be listened to.

Today brings the Albatross up to 20 gigs. It's going to be a bit until we get to the point where it won't fit on an iPod Touch. I think at this rate it will fit its entirety on an iPod Classic. If only this blog had actual readers, I could get one...ah well...

Bobby Hucherson
The Kicker

Fun fact (alright, not all that fun), Joe Henderson appears on this album called "The Kicker" and has his own album called "The Kicker" which is what I, in my sax-centric ways, almost put in the player instead.

There are three vibes players now on the hard drive with no repeats. Not an easy feat.

I have some sort of Joe Henderson connection (not the six degree kind, rather that he was someone of some importance at some point, like I had an album of his I liked or he appeared a lot on things I liked or an instructor really liked him so I listened to him a lot...I don't think any of those are it though...dammit) that I can't remember now. I wish I could remember it because it would give me something to build on here.

It's another Blue Note CD and another Rudy Van Gelder recording. I wonder if this dude ever just got sick of awesome jazz. "How was work, honey?" "Ah, you know...just another set of legendary performers laying down another set of landmark tracks that players will be wearing their record players out on...same ol' shit...gah. Whats for dinner, anything good?"

This CD barely survived, and whats worse is I think the damage is recent because the card doesn't look too worn out. That's the back of the CD, obviously. I just have that card and barely enough ring left to hold the CD. I really need to get a handle on the CDs or this is going to become really difficult.

Huh, according to Wiki (which may not be true, obviously) this album wasn't released until 1999 even though it was recorded in 1963. No reason is given.

The whole album has a kind of laid back feel to it, as you would usually expect with a group headed by a vibe player, but still enough groove to it that it doesn't become too mellow.

I feel like I should have been including the line ups for all these CDs to track how much cross polination there is between them. Not too long ago a Grant Green CD went on the hard drive and now here he appears as a side man on Hucherson's CD.

Various Artists
Cuba Caribe

Aaaaand more Cuban dance music. This is from Hemisphere.

All of this scrambling to capitalize on Buena Vista Culture Club didn't really work. Unless it was actually someone from the film most people weren't interested. The movie had opened them to a new style of music, but the exploration stopped right there and no further.

Even a sampler like this was just too much for a lot of the people to venture into. It was a safe philosophy to have, I guess. They had been presented with a relatively successful film that assured them that these guys were cool, anything else they'd have to start making their own selections, which actually might mean buying some stuff they didn't end up liking. The cynic in me wants to say that was the greatest fear right there. They might 'not like' the wrong thing, and then their new found connoisseurship would collapse. Better be predictable and within the lines then venture out and have to pretend to like stuff you don't.

Though really it was probably an economic issue. They already knew they liked the people in the movie, they don't know who any of these people are, they're not going to spend $100 just to explore Cuban music when they're going to be listening to their Peter Gabriel and U2 and Paul Simon and Sting CDs most of the time anyway, just buy what you already like. Can't really fault them for that, I guess.

This music kind of sneaks up on you. I don't really know that much about Cuban music (despite my recent volume of listening...) so I don't readily make the distinctions between the different groups. Instead I allow myself to be distracted while the music plays and then all of a sudden I find myself halfway through a song going, "Wait, this is pretty cool."

Indulgence--Now You Can Listen, Days 1-10 Sampler

Well, I found a way to do the super indulgent thing I had mentioned earlier with less effort and more importantly, no cost to me. I still secretly hold out hope that this will somehow raise enough money for an iPod Classic which would fit the entire Albatross on it, but that isn't likely so there's no need to make it worse by actually spending money...

So here it is, I've always been a little frustrated that all you can do is read me talking about music with, at best, 30 second samplers from the Amazon player. If I was still in college, this would have taken the form of a weekly radio program where I pull out the best of the weeks music and play it for you. Well, now I can do that without having to come up with radio breaks.

Introducing Project:Albatross' new 8tracks.com play lists. Every ten days of the blog, I'll make another play list highlighting tracks from those ten days that I either really liked, was surprised by, or at the very least mentioned so that you can hear them in their entirety. Or you can listen to them, go, "Hey, I like that, what the hell?" and then go back and find the blog entry on it.

Enjoy.

Day 55: Los Hombres Caliente V.2 & Jose Rizos Jazz on the Latin Side Allstars V.2

I'm back into mystery territory, I don't really know when or where today's CDs came from. And another mystery that probably won't be solved until we're much deeper into the process. Also, today is the day for second volumes.

Los Hombres Calientes
Volume 2

Usually I just take the liner notes out and scan them, but I was too delighted by the sticker on the cover of this one insisting that 30% of the music was free. During the set up I've been trying to come up with how that was supposed to work and I haven't yet. It's not like this is a re-issue of an old LP, this was recorded in 1999, Jason Marsalis is the other other Marsalis brother, the drummer. With the father being a piano player I was really hoping there was just one more in the wings that played bass and we could have the Marsalis Sextet.

I don't think that this CD sold at a particular discount. All CDs have the same capacity. I'm not really sure how the 30% became free.

Alright, enough of that.

I may actually have this album twice. What's worse is I may have bought the other copy not realizing I had this unwrapped copy already. Or I have both volumes and I'm thinking of the first one, but the first one has a different cover and this is the cover I remember. With Bill Summers, percussionist from the Headhunters, leading this expedition it is heavy on the afro-cuban side of things. Not surprising given the title of the group. But with two percussionists on top of the bill, it's going to be rhythm heavy.

Mayfield's trumpet is recorded or mixed in an odd way to make everything sound like its in the same room, a more 'natural' approach to recording that essentially feels like the trumpet is further away than the rhythm section. It's kind of distracting, if I'm being honest. Though I don't know if I would have noticed if I wasn't listening to it on headphones.

Blues De Enredo finally delivers on full on percussion feature you'd expect from an album like this where the whole toy box is brought out. I have to admit I really like that kind of thing. It's the closest thing I imagine there getting to that 'musical moment' where people walk in and pick up a percussion piece and join in. I always end up with the stupid fish, though.

The best possible way to end this album would be to revisit Bill Summer's Headhunter days with a latin version of Chameleon, apparently paired up with We Want the Funk. Naturally this means we're not getting the nearly 20 minute long progression that Chameleon can take on, but it's still pretty rump shaking.


Jazz on the Latin Side All-Stars
Jazz on the Latin Side All-Stars 2

So, because I wrote down and hit 'publish' my whole disbelief regarding the whole idea of 'cubop,' which of course means that a bunch of other CDs would pop up with references to cubop, including a label.

This is apparently an all-star super band of Latin jazz performers from the LA area brought together to perform in celebration of a radio program of the same name.

According to the liner notes, what makes this special is they didn't just get together for an extended jam session but actually rehearsed and came up with new songs.

I'm kind of stunned at how much the Albatross is grouping together. There today two Latin jazz albums, there's at least one more in the wings. I had that run of blues and the gathering of hard bop Blue Note CDs. There has been no real effort to organize the Albatross by any stretch of the imagination. On top of that, once I'm about a quarter of the way into a bag it becomes a giant jumble anyway. And yet the music does seem to be grouping together. Either that or I'm about to find out that there really isn't that much drift in the Albatross after all.

All of the truly out of line CDs ended up in rotation. There was about 400 CDs that were stolen when my bus was broken into 3 weeks after I installed a stereo in a vehicle with no door locks. I really miss having a stereo in the bus, though. But anything that really stood out made it into rotations like that and are either lost now like in that theft, damaged beyond playability, or already on the hard drive. Like the best promo I ever got is already on there. I've wandered into pre-amble style writing here, but it's just a good live performance of afro-cuban jazz. I don't really know what else to say.

It does end with the coolest track with the coolest title, McKibbon Walks the Talk, which goes from smokey to smokin'...alright, I feel bad for having written that sentence. I'm sorry.

I hadn't quite realized that the last track is just over twenty minutes long. It's managed to go through a few evolutions, I imagine to showcase each of the all-stars on the stage as a sort of grand finale.