Day 68: Louisiana Gumbo & Sonny Rollins "Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert"

This doesn't have anything to do with the Albatross or music or anything, but I really really hate the Rock Hard Weekend ad. Had to get that off my chest.

Various Artists
LOUISIANA GUMBO

Putumayo is back with another anthology of a style of music, this time Louisiana. It's in promotional packaging so I don't get any liner notes on the selections or performers. I do, however, get filing suggestions. I should either put it in 'blues' or 'Putumayo.'

Actually that's not as ridiculous as it sounds. We did have a floor display spinning rack for Real World CDs that is now one of my CD racks that hold the Albatross.

The CD so far is not strictly blues in the sense of previous compilations. Well, except for It Ain't the Same Thing (this happens a lot, as soon as I feel I can make some sort of declaration about the nature of the CD some track will start that contradicts that...I could edit it so I don't look silly but that seems like cheating. I could wait until the CD is over to comment on it, but it seems cooler this way. Besides, I'd forget.) It's as advertised, really a "sizzling collection of blues, soul, and R&B from New Orleans and the bayous of Louisiana."

And of course, there is accordion.

This is actually about what you'd expect to hear if someone was trying to portray a Louisiana cookout or something. And it has a contender for awesome track title, Festis Believe in Justice.


Sonny Rollins
Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert

Sonny Rollins is one of the best shows I've been to. He played in Berkeley with Branford Marsalis, it was a pretty incredible evening. It wasn't about 9/11, and it wasn't this concert, but it was pretty cool.

Sonny Rollins is one of the prototype saxophonists for me. I'm not really sure what hooked me or who, but he was the first saxophonist I went after when I started to want to get albums by other saxophonists. That album, that first album that I got is still around kind of in the form of the tape I made of it so I could listen to it in my old car. On one side was Sonny Rollin's trio recordings and on the other was Where Flamingos Fly by Gil Evans. Until I started to get other jazz albums those were it for me.

I later went on to try and imitate Stan Getz sound, Rollins' was too 'big' a sound for me at the time. But I love his kind of raw, almost breaking sound and the way he drifts from melodic to chaotic and back again.

It doesn't take an expert to figure out about when this album came out. So it had to be one of the last promos I recieved. It was actually taking a ride in another case on top of another CD, so I have no idea where its sleeve is. I'm pretty sure I didn't get a regular jewel case for this.

I have no idea what the line up is on this album, but there's a trombone player on it.

Now I have two tracks called Global Warming but I don't know if they're actually the same song. Nope, it appears they are not. That's a slowly growing segment, songs with the same name but are not in fact the same song...

Of course I don't need liner notes because there is a one minute long track of introductions. Also, the only brief address of the theme of the concert so far.

This is almost as long as a CD can actually be, shy only thirty-seven seconds. I think I would have felt compelled when mastering to fill those last thirty-seven seconds. "This is as much Sonny as we could fit on one disc!" It's a pretty neat trick when you consider it's a live album, too. That length comes from only five music tracks.

That took some getting used to going to jazz shows. One set would contain maybe four, five songs but last almost an hour and a half.

Oh Suzanna must have been stuck in his head because he's quoted it a bunch during this CD. And maybe Absolute Beginners? Seemed like I heard a little Quiet Life in some of the solos...

That might be part of what I loved early on about Rollins, that low "blat!" he does from time to time. I like the low end of the sax and he has always been more than willing to use it.

Various Artists
Basquiat Salutes Jazz

So, total fake out here. What I thought I was about to listen to was a recording of bass and piano duets led by Denny Zeitlin. After all, that's what this was a case for. Sure, it also contained the Sonny Rollins disc, but surely the one underneath is the proper one right?

I was so convinced of this that I didn't even look when I told iTunes to transfer, so when Miles Davis started playing when I hit play, well...that was unexpected.

So what I have instead is a themed compilation of, as far as I can tell from my rudimentary search, music someone thought famous graffiti artist Basquiat liked. He apparently included a lot of jazz artists in his work or referenced them (I'm not going to pretend to know anything about the artist himself) and these are the recordings someone thought best represented that.

I was fairly certain that this was to capitalize on the film about him, but the copywright on the CD is 2005, so now I'm wondering how the hell I have this CD. It's clearly marked as a promo, but by 2005 I don't think I knew anyone left in the music retail business. I was graduated and working in film by then...seriously, why do I have this? And I listened to it, and then put it in the wrong CD case. None of this makes any sense.

But on the plus side, bonus Sonny Rollins track. And 'Round Midnight takes the lead as most represented song.

This CD also right at the edge of how much you can put on a CD, this time though with a 51 second cushion.

This is a pretty decent sampling of the kind of performers and standards I like. Kind of a greatest hits approach to compilation instead of a compilation of discovery, like the Putumayo CD would be. I never really thought of that kind of divide in compilations but it's pretty obvious.

Ah, and I get to (re)learn the name of a be bop tune I hum all the time but long forgot where I would listen to it. Conveniently enough, it's called Be Bop, I should have been able to remember that. The version I would listen to, I believe, was a pretty poor quality live recording, not like this one. Both, however, performed by Dizzy himself.

Bonus points for finding a live version of one of my favorite Mingus songs Haitian Fight Song that approaches it in a slower shuffle rather than the frantic album version we're all used to.

And Anthropology! How could I forget that, I spent so much time trying to do that in the Charlie Parker Omnibook.

Alright, some of my initial spite is over for this compilation. My tastes and the tastes imagined to be Basquait's line up rather nicely.  They paired up the "-ologys," this is Fats Navarro's version of Anthropology and it's followed by Bird himself doing Ornithology. Ornithology is another one of those bop tunes I hum unconsciously.

Day 67: Miles Davis "Boppin' the Blues" & Traditional Jazz The Language of New Orleans V.4

I'm going to hurt myself. It's going to happen, I complain about it happening every time and every time I do it. And I'm perpetuating it again, today, with today's choices. Though this time it's going to manifest itself as an impossibly long post in the next few days. Because I'm a deer in the headlights apparently.

Miles Davis
Boppin the Blues

This I believe puts Miles Davis in the lead as the most directly represented artist in the Albatross. There was of course that rash of Duke Ellington tributes, but only two of those were actually Duke Ellington.

So, from what I can gather from the liner notes this is a recording thought lost from a time when Miles was a trumpet player in Billy Eckstine's band. Eckstine's band also included such talents as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. This is a small unit recording from the larger band. How this makes it a Miles Davis recording is a little dubious. Certainly Miles Davis is in the band and featured (even if it's a young Miles, how can you not feature him?), but these aren't his tunes and from the rather confusing liner notes there doesn't seem to be an indication that Miles led the session. I suspect that someone rightfully assumed that the CD would be a much larger success as a Miles Davis recording than a Billy Eckstine recording. In fact, the liner notes go into great detail about how Eckstine's band was a 'musicians band' that never got the audience it deserved, largely due to poor recordings. And, apparently, Eckstine isn't on this recording, instead it's Earl Coleman. That might be another reason to not call it an Eckstine recording.

So this recording, this release actually, is for me. It's for the 'jazz historian' who wants that sample of early (20 years old at the time of the recording) Miles Davis, just after some sessions with Parker, a Miles in mid-development. Thus the completely listener unfriendly set up of the tracks. Each song gets anywhere from two to four 'takes,' all laid back to back so you can listen to the same song four different times, which is fantastic if you want to listen and compare the subtle differences between each performance, how the artist adapted and developed his approach during the session. Real jazz nerd stuff.

However, if you just want to listen to some Miles you might think that you accidentally putting the player on repeat. Sometimes you can get away with it in jazz, people won't notice that they've listened to the same song twice, or have been listening to the same song for half an hour. But these have lyrics, and that can throw the whole thing into focus.

And not only that, if you picked this up to get some Miles Davis it's like picking up a bunch of rough recordings of The Beatles doing Buddy Holly covers. Sure, you can hear the germ of the band that eventually recorded Rubber Soul, but it ain't Rubber Soul.

There is no information on the complete line up. I know who the singers are and who Miles is, but no idea who the saxophonist is. He sounds familiar, so I have this sinking feeling if I found out I'd be embarrassed to not know. And thanks to Google, now I know, Gene Ammons (I don't feel bad) but the drummer is Art Blakey, which is awesome.

Of course this puts Don't Explain to Me Baby in contention for most represented song on the hard drive with four off the same CD. Sort of unfair, but I have a feeling that it will hold at four for a really long time.

With all the repeated tracks, the album still manages to be just over half an hour long. Which is just long enough since it's the same four songs over and over again.

Various Artists
Traditional Jazz: The Language of New Orleans Vol. 4

So I've come across another water damaged CD. This one is a sampler of traditional or 'dixieland' jazz. It seems to range from the earliest jazz, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, to Kermit Ruffins.

Where the last CD's liner notes were confusing, these are just fused together and therefore unreadable.

I've never been as into traditional jazz as other forms of jazz. Mostly because it's 'pre-saxophone' and I tend to not like the clarinet (despite the fact that one of the contenders for 'most represented' is actually a clarinet player...). I grew up to a rather large traditional jazz festival, so every spring I had plenty of traditional jazz on tap (though as I've related before, I spent most of that time listening to a Scottish jump jive band.) It might be a by-product of what I talked about yesterday, context being everything. Traditional jazz, good traditional jazz, top performers, were not in anyway a novelty to me, just something that was seasonal. So when I listen to traditional jazz I just think 'spring' and maybe being the dorkiest kid to ever cut a class to go watch jazz downtown.

Having said all that, I love second line music, the marches. I love the idea of a band just marching down the street until there is enough people in the street and turning around and having a party. That's just awesome, how can you not like that? Well, I guess if you had to get out of your house and there was some jazz band party parade blocking your way...

South Rampart Street Parade even comes with a raging marching drum solo.  Not uncool.

These are all pretty clear recordings. Yeah, see, that's an electric bass on Whitle We Danced at Mardi Gras. These are not old recordings.

Maryland My Maryland sounds suspiciously like O Tannenbaum...and sure enough, it is.

Also, fantastic first line of a song, "I ain't gonna give you none of my jelly roll..." Awesome.

Ultimately, even when it's sad, traditional jazz music and related forms are 'feel good' music. It's hard to be in a bad mood when listening to it.

Day 66: Keith Jarrett "The Survivors Suite" & Fred Hersch "Songs Without Words"

I'm getting a late start today. I don't really have a reason for that, we had all of three trick or treaters last night, no parties. Just, late start. That's it. Anyway, on with the show...

Keith Jarrett
The Survivors Suite

Well, Keith Jarrett is back in the Albatross and if you read the previous Keith Jarrett post it's not a surprise that this CD was unopened. Like the other day's Tim Berne CD, this is only two long tracks, though neither reaching even thirty minutes much less Berne's fifty-plus minute single track.

This one isn't a solo piano piece the same way the other one was, in fact it took almost nine minutes for Jarrett to even get on the piano after dabbling with the bass recorder, celeste, soprano saxophone, and osi drums. Here he is joined by Dewey Redman on sax and percussion, Charlie Haden on bass, and Paul Motian on drums.

While I have to admit this is prototype pretentious music--not much air, really between the first eight minutes of the first track and the World Flutes 1 CD from early in the project, I actually am growing to really kind of dig this once they got underway. Truthfully, though, I tend to like pretentious music if a little self consciously. Obviously, with almost thirty minute long tracks, they come and go in waves.

The liner notes contain a single sentence:

"And those that create out of the holocaust of their own inheritance anything more than a convenient self-made tomb shall be known as 'Survivors'."

It's in quotations, but it doesn't attribute who the quote belongs to, so presumably Jarrett? To Google! Yep. And people quote it a lot when they write essays about abuse, apparently. I'm not even sure I understand it, to be honest. Like, if you don't take the horrible things from your situation and end up in a ball in the corner you're a survivor? I think people make it out to be an inspiration but it seems to set a lower bar. I'm probably missing something but I don't feel like reading any of the essays that use this quote right now.

Not that the track names shed any light on anything. They are "Beginning" and "Conclusion." No doubt this would have been one uninterupted suite had it been recorded in the time of CDs (or digital music) instead of LPs where he had to split it up into two sides.

There's a release that missed the boat at some point. I seem to remember (and I may have this wrong, I don't have the CD readily at hand for reasons I've exhaustively gone into) Eric Dolphy's Free Jazz fading out on the first track and fading in on the second to accommodate the two sides of the album. Where's the remaster where someone has stitched those two tracks together so we can hear them as one uninterrupted performance? If course this recording there is a clear distinction between the two tracks in tone, tempo, and approach.

I didn't hear it on the last album so I forgot about Jarrett's tendency to sing along with his solos. Put here it is, I can hear it just fine.

We've reached the free jazz section of our program. People who have been politely sitting quietly while this CD played may now get up and question the sanity of the person who put the disc on and insist it be changed, or worse, control of the music completely surrendered. I hate when that happens because to me this is when the music starts to get good. But it's definitely for a select crowd. I always want to go, "Look, I sit through crappy music I hate every day, can't you just stomach this one moment where there is some music that might be a little beyond you at the moment?" Nope, go listen to your weirdo music alone, freak.

Of course I'm getting this self-righteous to a Keith Jarrett recording, who last time I just whined about for an hour.

Fred Hersch
Songs Without Words

Another sampler of a larger box set, which I don't know that we actually carried or not. And another artist that I don't really know that much about. So far it's just solo piano, but there's no telling where it's going to go from there. I've been burned before guessing that a CD would go one way and have it take off in an entirely different direction. Especially one that is an anthology of a larger collection. I can't tell from the only note (that you can see right there) if it's a set of new recordings or if it is a collection of earlier recordings. But certainly each disc has its own set of themes.

So there's this story, or not so much story, but thing that happened, it was big on Stumble for a little bit, about a violinist going to a subway in New York and performing. Not many people stopped or paid attention to him. What he played was one of the most difficult violin pieces available, and the person who played it was Joshua Bell who had just played at a reputable hall for $150 a seat (or some such price). That story in part helped motivate a mostly stillborn project I hope to bring out soon (but no one is reading this, so I have to figure out this a little better so that people actually see it), but it also creates a weird little loop for me here.

I've gone on (and on) about piano pounders, the common room performers pumping their sustain pedal like they were inflating the piano. But then there is Hersch, who is playing standards and some of his own stuff, but it is more or less 'straight jazz.' The kind of 'straight jazz' that a piano player might play in a bar or casino lobby where a slightly drunk record store clerk/buyer might be egged on by head buyer turned label rep to stumble up and request Girl From Ipanema. Good times.

So it's easy to listen to solo piano performing 'straight jazz' and thing hotel lobby, or casino bar, or Nordstroms floor. But I've known a piano player who played on the Nordstroms floor and he was remarkable. It's conceivable that Hersch spent his time playing in hotel lobbies and casino bars.

Thing is, I do this a lot. I keep associating the music I'm listening to in terms of where I would be likely to hear it. And if I'm honest, it's at least partially derogatory. But, clearly, that's not entirely fair. It could easily be an undiscovered Hersch. A Joshua Bell conducting a social experiment. In fact Bell's experiment was about this, that the quality under which we rate music is largely, and embarrassingly, contextual. This is good piano because it's on a CD. Bar piano is not as good because it's just a guy at a bar. Perhaps, if I get sauced enough I'll put bread in their jar and ask what they're doing there, but I don't know that I'll mean it.

So sure, this is good. It's on a CD. He was allowed to record a three CD set no less. Nonsuch records endorses him and I'm given the CD and I listen to it and presumably I agree because it was on a CD and Nonsuch is release three at a time and it will be good. It is better than what you might hear at the bar or the casino or the hotel or Nordstroms because this is on a CD and Nonsuch and my record store said it was good. And it is good. I don't mean to imply that it isn't.

But I think that the notion of context, of having to do two of these every day and realizing what kind of short hand that I begin to use to digest the music, to put it in its place so I can find something to say about it.

Drums and a bass show up for Easy to Love before we get one of three variations of the title track. This one is labeled Aria. We have waltz and ballads to look forward to.

We also get some horns mixed in before we go to the mellow 'ballad' version of the title track to wrap up the collection. A rather standard way to put together a compilation, a little bit of solo, some piano trio, a combo, and the defining track in few forms.