Day 65: The Country Gentlemen "On the Road (and more)" and Rodney Jones "The Undiscovered Few"

I wish I had some sort of Halloween theme to today's entry, but the CDs are still more or less random (alright, I threw one back because it would have meant a triple day.) There is a change up in the style of CD but really, not out of character. Ah well, I hope your Halloween is cool if you do indeed celebrate it, if not, here are some CDs that don't have anything to do with Halloween anyway, so you're not missing out.

The Country Gentlemen
On the Road (and more)

What Buena Vista Social Club did for Cuban music, O Brother Where Art Thou? did for folk and bluegrass. Truth be told it didn't take much to prompt some sort of sudden stampede to a certain type of music. A song by Iz appears on E.R., suddenly everyone is a fan of Hawaiian music. But a full movie, documentary or not, that can send people into a fury.

Of course, I have this CD, so that means that I had to have gotten caught up in it somehow, though there are even odds I picked it up merely because it said "On the Road," which is probably even more of a poser move, really.

Which is not to say that I don't really like bluegrass, and even had picked up some promos before O Brother Where Art Thou came out. But I'd be kidding myself if I didn't admit that there was a sharp increase afterward, both from heightened interest and from increased availability.

This is pretty straight O Brother style, it turns out. The Country Gentlemen are well known enough that I knew about them before I looked at the CD, so it's not entirely certain I have this promo just because of the movie. But it's standard issue, 'folksy' vocal harmonies, simple danceable rhythms.

Not the Rawhide I was hoping for.

Now they're doing an Englishman singing bluegrass music...strange. There is a lot of banter with a corny dry wit. There's a section where he 'introduces the band'...to each other.  He almost introduces a feature player with 'here comes trouble." It's hokey but also has a charm to it.

And of course there is plenty of religious music going about.

Rodney Jones
The Undiscovered Few

I have well noted trepidations about guitar, and as I had discussed earlier, often you can judge a CD by its cover. But if I had thought about it this really would have fit into Blue Note's pattern, it's not really a weird angle, but there is that forced perspective putting the guitar in the foreground, so it's just a modern version of their classic cover picture.

But even though the electric guitar almost always makes things sound a little fusion-y, this is a progressive modern jazz CD like Terrasson or Kirkland or any of the other modern jazz players that I've put in so far. Which is great, because I love that stuff.

The liner notes are fairly philosophical, kind of bordering between the land of a pop Buddhist, a twelve step program graduate and a self help book. It's the usual artist statement, the commitment to the (in this case unnamed) influences that formed his understanding of music, a little wax nostalgic about his early encounters with music ("As a young child of six or seven I remember sitting underneath an old cabinet-style record player. I would listen and dream.")

But then it wanders into contimplation of the human journey and that whole "Who are we and why are we here," bit. The Undiscovered Few, it turns out, are his four principles that have some sort of importance to (at least to him) human existance. They are-

1. The Desire to know myself
2. The Experience of finding myself
3. Being Myself
4. Willingness to take the next step

Each principle of course is followed by a detailed description of how this is important to his life and life in general and how it made him a better person and guitar player. None of this shows up on the track list, you have to read the liner notes for that.

That's sort of the advantage/disadvantage of wordless jazz. The album, with certain restrictions, can be more or less about whatever you decide it's about and you can assign whatever meaning you want to it. But unless the person listening to it reads the liner notes (and presumably agrees with you) they're pretty much going to assign whatever meaning they want to it. And it might be, "This is some smooth music to play while I try and make it with my lady." Or just decide that My Favorite Things is about someone's favorite things. Or a tribute to John Coltrane. Or just a chart you dig.

There isn't a set group on the whole album, there are various larger and smaller groups depending. Greg Osby makes a few appearances on alto saxophone. Violinist Regina Carter does a duet with him on Through the Eyes of a Child. In that regard there is a lot of variation on the album.

All of this is making the Australian V8 Supercars race at Surfer's Paradise a little more mellow, despite the knife fight for first place in the last few laps.

Regina Carter returns for another duet, this time called Tears of a Forgotten Child. Makes you wonder what that child saw through his eyes in the first duet...

The album opens and closes with barn burners, holding a soft gooey center of gentler tracks. Ah, but it ends on the still enigmatic jazz fade out. Still don't get that.

Day 64: Betty Page Private Girl:Spicy Music & Tim Berne's Blood Count "Memory Select: The Paris Concert"

Even though they're not a huge, raging success I kind of am digging the playlist posts because it gives me short term benchmarks to look for. Like, I'm kind of excited that we're almost halfway to the next one.


Various Artists
Private Girl

So before 'hipsters' became 'fucking hipsters,' there was the nineties. Well, alright, hipsters have more or less always been fucking hipsters, it's just that in the nineties the internet wasn't developed enough to pour so much concentrated and self-aware hate on them.

But all the conspicious affectations were there, vintage lunch pales and ironic t-shirts and a concentrated and meticulous air of not-actually-giving-a-shit.

The kitsch and irony of the time, as I've talked about before, had a lot to do with the lounge scene. Tiki gods, Mancini music, island themes. And an essential element of any kitschy vintage scene is and always will be Bettie Page.

In the great vin diagram of tastes, this is where me and 'hip culture' intersect. Lounge music is really just a variation of 'cool jazz,' and sometimes contains elements that I really like, like surf guitar or a growling saxophone. Hell, I even like the whole 'Tiki' look--there's a throw away Halloween decoration in my Bus I call Voodoo God (not Tiki, I know) who protects the Bus. (It is important to remember that Voodoo God does not protect the Bus from breaking down...a caveat I have been forced to add...)

And I really like Bettie Page. It all started with a copy of The Rocketeer a friend showed me when I was in junior high. He had been Dave Stevens' neighbor and had this signed copy of a book I had never heard of (it was years until the movie was made) that contained something I already dug, vintage action sci-fi and the romantic interest who I was later to learn was modeled off Bettie Page (Dave Stevens was later able to interview Bettie on a recording that is already on my hard drive).

So I snatched up these promos like a rabid dog. There are a few in this series, Danger Girl, Jungle Girl, and Private Girl. I have all three, or at least had. My favorite by far was Danger Girl, which I actually tried to load onto the hard drive years ago but was too scratched. I was only able to save my favorite track, Mood One by John Barry. Jungle Girl actually came up today but it was empty. So Private Girl is the only one to survive onto the hard drive.

Each one has a pretext for the selection. Danger Girl is "Burlesque music," Jungle Girl is "exotique [sic] music," and this one is "spicy music."

Though the music is just pretext. What these CDs really are is another collection of Bettie Page pictures fitting into the theme of each album. The collected music is just a bonus, really. But I really actually like some of the music, especially the ones on Danger Girl, obviously.

The music ranges from that 'cool jazz' variation to something you might expect on Lawrence Welk. It certainly starts to turn Sin City into a different movie...

The songs are short, too, twenty-eight tracks not even amounting to fifty minutes.

These collections are really reliant on context. Without them I'm not sure I'm going to associate it with this collection. It's just going to be more of that quirky 50s and 60s music I have lurking on the hard drive. A lot of flute, a lot of organ.


Tim Berne's Blood Count
Memory Select: Paris Concert 3

Here's a pretty sharp contrast. The second track on this disc is longer than the entire last disc. In fact, only two tracks make up this particular CD. It's stealth Winter & Winter, it came in a conventional jewel case instead of the corduroy one. Mostly because this isn't the Winter & Winter release but the Verve one. But there is a Winter & Winter release of this album.

But still, you can judge a CD sometimes from its cover. If it's a saturated picture of a man taken at a weird angle, it's probably a Blue Note CD from the sixties. If it's a picture of a man in blue collar settings, probably blues. If it's abstract art, good chance it's some high concept European free jazz.

Which is exactly what we have here. You know you're dealing with some really out there stuff when there are things like only two tracks on a CD that's over an hour long. Or there are no liner notes, just more abstract art.

The band is made up of Berne and Chris Speed on woodwinds and then guitar, upright bass, and drums. The music is rhythmically unteathered and full of the squawks and pops that people tend to associate with free jazz (if they know what free jazz is).

For all the 'freeness' in free jazz, modern free jazz has some pretty elaborate arrangements. The long piece, Eye Contact, have actual movements to it separated by wild solo segments. And this is not uncommon in modern free jazz, especially coming out of Europe.

I really dig this kind of stuff but it's hard to find other people willing to stomach it. Every once in a while you run into that Mike Patton fan that is able to relate in some ways to the music. Or I wear someone down and eventually ease them into the wilder elements of jazz. But usually, this music is the music I play to ensure I'm alone.

It's not without its melodic elements, they're just punched with chaos and walls of sound.

Day 63: Jack Jezzro "Elegance: The Trio Recordings" & Alan Pasqua "My New Old Friend"

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.