Stompin at the Savoy

Well I have listened to the other two Jimmy Rushing albums on this set: VRS-8505 Jimmy Rushing And His All Stars VRS-8513 Jimmy Rushing – Listen To The Blues Rushing and his all stars was actually pretty good and fit pretty well within the rubric of 'small group swing'. Listen to the Blues is a real stretch to be considered small group swing! When they start playing pentatonic electric guitar licks a la Chuck Berry its not a gray area. I think the set would have been stronger if they cut it off at 5 disks and only included the second of the Rushing albums: And His All Stars. Marlowe Morris' playing has not aged all that well. Even the fellow who wrote the notes was kind of apologetic about the Marlowe. The whole album - A Night at Count Basie's - is pretty forgettable. I liked hearing Basie talk. The music - eh. I'll probably never listen to it again.

In his autobiography Basie said something to the effect that Rushing had been pigen-holed as a blues singer but he actually had a background in jazz and pop song or something like that. So I was expecting more of a jazz bent here.

It's a bit of a surprise, coming after four disks of jazz, and certainly confounded my expectations. I have to give it another listen after a bit and see what I think but it sounded sort of like Basie with the rhythm dumbed down to something more elemental. Which felt like a loss to me.

Yeah, I agree with that. It's meant to be a blues album, even though the band is a Basie alumni gathering.

I'm fond of Jimmy Rushing but have to admit being underwhelmed by the first of the Rushing albums on this set - Going to Chicago. The band, while all fine players, seems unfocused and unrehearsed. They are playing mainly 12 bar blues and Walter Page often plays one note ostinato, four to the bar, for each chord. I find this boring and surprising because Page played way better than this with Basie. Jo Jones also seems to be having a bad day and plays in an old fashioned way, with bass drum on the beat like Krupa. Rushing brings back some of his hits from his time with Basie, but performs them less well than on Basie records. I can't figure out what happened here but this album is unlikely to get a lot of play. I'm about to listen to the rest of the Rushing material on here but not optimistic. Nevertheless I really do like the rest of the set and am happy to have it.

I was trying to get a copy of the Mosaic Select just now but somebody outbid me. An elusive set!

The arrangements are mostly Bill Holman and Marty Paich. I listened to the entire album on youtube and ordered the cd. Some wonderfully in the pocket stuff in there. Mel Lewis!

Ted Gioia has a nice article on Terry and the Dream Band: https://www.honest-broker.com/p/terry-gibbs-celebrates-his-100th

That live Basie Roulette set is one of my favs. I have listened to it a lot. You might also like the Live at the Crescendo set, same time period, also great.

I never owned any of their records but PP&M were a sort of backdrop in the early sixties. You heard them on radio and TV. Folk was a big thing and everybody was learning to play guitar. As these guys die off it invokes a sort of nostalgia for me and a sort of slightly horrified cognitive dissonance because in my mind's eye I still hold the vision of them as the young folk musicians I saw on TV.

I really agree with this. In the context of Cisco, one of the tracks he was putting down, she plays like crazy, thousands of notes. Complex runs that go on and on . She is not holding back, taking big risks attempting ambitious things and she pulls them off cleanly. To me this dwarfs any minor flubs she may or may not have made.

Knowing something and having opinions is intelligent. Knowing when not to blurt out what you are thinking is wise. The fact that numerous people have to make this point to you should prompt some reflection. You are a well-known musician and historian; it's unbecoming and small of you to go around pedantically pointing out Emily Remmler's 'wrong notes' and snarking that they must be because she was using. As far as free speech goes, you are falling into the trap occupied by so many right wing nincompoops: Free speech is not the same thing as speech without consequences or pushback. You can say whatever you please; that does not immunize you from criticism of what you say.

What bothers me is the assumption wrapped up, and the meanness of 'i guess she was screwing up because she was on drugs'. I listened to one of the singled out tracks and thought she was playing well, not screwing up. if you play guitar listen to the Cisco sample track and tell me she doesn't have chops aplenty

I don't really know Remmler's work that well but I have listened to her and watched some videos. As a guitar player myself, I see her as having very good control of lots of basic technical stuff; pretty good chops and good time. That's my opinion which anyone can agree or disagree with - neither is a problem for me. Same with Lowe, who knows more about music than I do: I kind of disagree with him about Remmler but he has every right to his own opinion. The part I don't get: why trash her publicly? Is there something good or helpful about that? Trashing her and blaming it on her drug use adds insult to injury. edit: I just listened to the sample at Bandcamp called "Cisco". It's a slow intro followed by Black Orpheus. I liked it. Were there a few flubs? Possibly. I was looking for them but nothing really stood out to me. She has a very nice technical ability to play complicated ascending and descending figures and carry them out all the way - fingering on guitar is difficult. Lowe is nit-picking!

I always liked her early work a lot. Her later stuff has a sameness to it and her guitar playing, so inventive early on, came to often utilize the exact same chords over and over on an electric guitar. My worst mistake was watching a youtube interview of her several years back. She was putting down the boomers and I remember her sneering at the 'free love' of the sixties, which struck me as awfully hypocritical, considering who she was back then. I discovered in that interview that I did not like her much as a person and since then I seldom listen to her.