Ragu

In case you haven't heard these... This can be told in anyone of a number of politically incorrect settings, but let's go with white settlers crossing the plains into hostile Indian territory. They know they're being followed and feel it's only time before they'll be attacked. One night they make camp and realize that from a distanced they are surrounded by hostile natives. Suddenly they hear the sound of war drums coming from the surrounding natives. One settler turns to the other and says, "I sure don't like the sound of those drums!" From a distance in the Indian acmp comes the reply"...It's not our regular drummer..." ----------------------------------------- A club group has a regular gig and one night before they kick off the first set the leader says to the drummer, "Hey listen, on our opener it's a straight groove tune, do you think you could kind of slightly rush and then slow down like you have no idea where the pocket is. Then on the ballad kind of overplay and fill in all the spaces and distract from the trumpet solo. Then on the stop time piece, kind of hesitate like your not sure if it's stop time at all. OK?" The drummer says "I don't know if I can do all than, man." The leader says, "Why not, you did last night?" ------------------------------------------- And as Ronnie Scott use to say, "Tonight Ladies and Gentleman, you've made a happy man feel very old."

They are all great but I vote for the Velvet Whip of Kenny Burrell...so musical, so confident, so passionate, yet ...so cool.

There is a CD called Soulero which is a comp of Kenny's Chess material with songs from The Tender gender, Ode to 52nd Street, and My Favorite Things from a Christmas Album. The Tender Gender tunes are cut with a regular piano, bass, drums rhythm section but some of them have a lot of the feel of Midnight Blues in my opinion.

There is his playing with the Electric Mud Band as shown in the film "Godfathers And Sons," part of the Martin Scorsese presents the Blues series.

"Why does someone pay $16 plus shipping for an in print RVG? " Because it's used?

One of my favorite assessments of Ray Charles comes from a story I heard about the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. It seems that after gigs, most of the group wanted to go out and party but one member, Mel Lyman, liked to sat in his room and play Ray Charles records. One time they asked him why he only played Ray Charles records and he is quoted as saying"...ALL MUSIC IS IN RAY CHARLES..."

I'm looking for the Classics Records DAD version if anyone has one, or has seen one lately.

PM sent!

Last I heard, he was musical director for Clint Holmes, who is a Las Vegas star and works there year round.

Koch is a very reputable independent multimedia (CD and DVD) distributor. They carry lots of good labels that do not have affliation with distribution from one of the majors. I've dealt with them over the years, and they run a good company.

FYI-Borders is running a sale this month: Jazz CDs and DVDs Buy3 Get the 4th Free and there also doing a 20% off one item coupons to their newsletter subscribers and in some newspapers.

The Babs bio "I paid my dues-Good Times No Bread" IIRC, is a fun read but take it with a grain of salt. And I think he did do a second volume

I've had all the CD reissues and the latest bactch by Bob Irwin are easily the best. I don't think they're going to sound better in CD format. I kept older versions of Takes Off and Surrealistic Pillow for the addtional mono mixes, but in stereo there's no contest with the new versions.

It is what it appears to be, a CD sampler that came out in the 90's of songs from various Mosaic releases. I don't believe there is anything unique (otherwise unavailable songs) to the CD as opposed to the Verve Elite sampler.

I picked up Comin On Home this weekend and feel the electric piano adds a very nice 70's sound to the 60's groove.

I like the series, but found I like some more than others. I was looking for that greasy sound and really found it in the Ivan Boogaloo Jones Vol.1 & 2. I also enjoy the Sonny Stitt. But I got and traded away the Billy Butler and Groove Holmes. They are both great musicians, no doubt about it, but I found the Butler uninteresting and the Groove Holmes didn't match his Pacific Jazz stuff in my opinion. But man does that Boogaloo Jones groove...

A lot of audiophiles swear by the out of print DCC version mastered by Steve Hoffman. You can still find it occassionally but usually it's pricey. However for a reasonable price you can get the version released last year that has Mono, stereo, and 5.1 surround mixes in DVD-Audio, Dolby Digital, and DTS. It also has some video stuff like "the making of" some early videos, and lyrics.

Well assuming you really want an answer, as opposed to typing so you can what it looks like online...I would say that the Nat King Cole Trio actually went back as far as 1937 as a performing unit and that their unique sound came from drummer Lee Young (Lester's bro) not showing up for the first night of a gig and the trio deciding a drummerless group had a winning sound. Kind of like when Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker didn't have room onstage at the Haig for a piano becuase there were vibes on the stage (Norvos?) so they formed a pianoless quartet and realized they were onto something. Other groups followed Coles lead like Johnny Moore's Three Blazers (Johnny being the brother of Oscar Moore, Nat's guitar player) featuring Charles Brown. The Cole Trio continued to develop and record and get popular until eventually Nat shed the trio to go more or less pop. And while all were excellent musicians they chose not to play straight bebop when that movement came along, probably because they'd already found something they were good at and that was popular. A lot of musicians around during the bop era chose to not to throw everything they'd learned up to that point out the window, but rather let bop influence their playing in subtly harmonic and rhythmic ways. Check out a 1997 Capitol 3CD set called The Cocktail Combos for great examples of the Nat Cole Trio, Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, etc.

I can't believe I forgot to mention this part...in addition to the aformentined being pulled in 9 directions as a manager and having to deal with customer issues at the same time. Here's what happened tonight! I had to close the store as the only manager on a busy Saturday night (the supervisor scheduled to close with me, I had to terminate yesterday for theft, but that's another story). Because I have a cough and cold right now, I was hoping to get the store recovered (put everything back where it belongs) with the help of the staff and then do paperwork in a hurry and get out of there (usually I work a few hours after closing). But as I was getting ready to let my staff out they let me know they discovered what appeared to be a passed out junkie sitting on a tolet in the men's room with drug parphenelia nearby. They left and there I was by myslef to call 911. The paramedics came and roused the guy and then took him away in an amulance. The I had to wait for the police who came to collect evidence-a spoon, a lighter, a balloon, and a syringe. Then when they left I had to go count money and do paperwork. You gotta love retail. I'm really not complaining, all jobs have their good and bad points. And hey, just last week I got a free promo copy of the remastered "The Bridge" by Sonny Rollins. Every day is an adventure.

To turn it back to a Borders employee thread. I've had every job there from music clerk to General Manager and I've seen all aspects of this. And by the way GoM, corporate did send out something saying not to honor the 40% coupon except for the computer books, but in retail the name of the game is make people happy, so there are managers who will make exceptions. I think there are two important points to consider-it's the computer company who screwed up the coupon, not Borders corporate-but of course if Borders name is on it, the customer doesn't care who made up the coupon or whether someone in quality control was asleep. Also at 40% off Borders loses money on CDs. There's less margin in CDs than in books. The margin is in the 25-35% range. Now knowing thoses things, is it OK to go and demand 40% off a coupon you printed off the internet to buy CDs-hey that's for you to decide. I see it both ways. Certainly when, as a perk, a couple of times a year the company offers employees 40% off merchandise I have no qulams about buying CDs I know thery're losing money on. On the other hand, one of the reasons places to buy music are closing right and left these days, is because consumers want stores to stock lots of CDs that may only sell once a year or two, but want them at the deep discount you get on the internet. The way to make money selling CDs is to sell a handful of hot selling titles, realtively cheap to lots of people. Ask Wallmart.

I'm a huge Bloomfield fan and recently picked up "The Trip" soundtrack, but I wasn't that knocked out and ended up dumping it after a listen or two. Maybe I should have given it more time. FWIW, there were two CD issues of the soundtrack and the one I got had less music on it than a previous issue. There are some pretty great Bloomfiled/Butterfield in their prime boots. One called Live At The Unicorn Coffehouse 66 and On called Droppin' In. One of the most exciting sounds I ever heard in my life was the sound of the Butterfield Band blasting from inside a club playing a first set, while I stood in line waiting for the second set. The sounded better and more powerful coming through a brick wall than most bands did standing in front of their speakers.

I always found the original album to be very uneven for my tastes and mostly like it for Bloomfield's moments. The new live album I really enjoy. There is some sloppiness but...there is some killer Bloomfield playing-his sound, his style, his vibrato...if you're a fan, get it.

The Philly Joe story reminds me of another example of exploitation. About once a year I do a gig with a very talented musician and singer. In the 60's-70's he had a band that was pretty well known and wrote and sang a song that got lots of radio play. Well the band was signed to a horrible exploitive manager that has screwed everyone who's worked with him, including a couple other very famous bands from the era. This manager was so exploitive that he copyrighted the bands name and of course this meant that he alone had the rights to book a band with that name. So for many years offers would come pouring in for this band and my friend was not allowed to work under the name of the band that he created and was known for. So he got by over the years with some royalties, but mainly playing journeyman gigs as a musician, and occasionally having to scuffle with some non music gigs. So one time during his scuffling days the ex manager has the nerve to call him and tell him he's booking a band with the old name and has a tour lined up, and that he's calling to offer the guy a job in the band he founded ( and is only bookable because of this guy's music)! He said he's let him be in the band for $200 a week-but that's if they played 5 nights, any week that they worked less would be prorated! My friend told the manager,"Don't ever call me again." P.S. I believe after protracted legal action, my friend has fianlly gotten some rights to the name and money.

I played gigs as a musician, gigs as a comedian, gigs as both. On musician gigs when I couldn't cut it, other musician's probably thought I was being a comedian...anyway the thing about real comedy gigs is that you have to connect with the audience and get a certain kind of response (laughter) or you're not making it. As a musician at least you somtimes survive a horrible gig by locking into the tune and the other musicians when you can't connect with the audience. There were a lot of horrible paying gigs when starting out,but if you survive the money gets better. Notable gigs for weirdness: 1) Playing a prison where I literally got locked in the auditorium after everyone left...it was so foggy no one noticed I wasn't with the others til they were at the point of leaving. 2) Playing a nudist colony (they were, I wasn't) 3) Playing a day gig before my night gig for a bunch of people in Kentucky who'd seen my show and thought they'd hire me for a birthday party. First sign of trouble, one of the folks says on the way to the gig, "You'll have fun, we're all coal miners..." I ended up performing standing on top of the bar in a Holiday Inn while one guy held a flashlight on me. 4) Playing a club that had to be owned by the mob, because they kept paying decent money for me not to perform when the crowd was small. They wanted to prove to the city council they needed to have a strip show to draw customers. 5) Playing in between strippers in Alaska, all guys should see how bored and unsexy dancers are the second they are off stage. Well, the list goes on, but it was fun while it lasted, or in retrospect, or a little of both.