mjzee

For Kottke, check out a live recording, "My Feet Are Smiling" (Capitol). I used to play it for my friends, and they couldn't believe there was only one guitar playing until they heard the applause. For later Kottke, check out "Greetings From Chuck Pink" (Private Music), but this is more music-, as opposed to guitar-, centric. For Fahey, a good introduction is the 2-CD Rhino compilation, "Return of the Repressed." It spans his entire career, and has excellent liner notes by Fahey's friend Barry Hansen (aka Dr. Demento). I also love this later Fahey work: "God, Time and Causality" (Shanachie).

This has always been one of my favorite Grant sessions. His guitar sounds so warm, Herbie's just great, and Billy Higgins...oh, man! A classic.

Where is the bitrate stated? Just started my second month; already used up my 90-song allotment. Too bad buying add'l songs isn't as good a deal.

I have something...it's actually a little hard to describe. It's an English 3-LP set called "Revelations." Came out around 1973. It was to raise funds for the Glastonbury Fayre. Some tracks were recorded there (care to hear 24 minutes of the Edgar Broughton Band sing "Out, Demons, Out!"?), others were donated, the most notable being the Dead doing a really out version of Dark Star from their Europe '72 tour. There's also all this stuff inside the package: booklets, pyramids, what have you.

Most albums I've downloaded have sounded fine. Some albums have poor sound or other problems: Dexter Gordon/Al Grey "True Blue" (Xanadu) has noise artifacts, and Don Wilkerson's "The Texas Twister" (Riverside) has about 3 minutes of silence at the end of the first track.

Can you burn these "Passalongs" onto CDs? Do they come with artwork and liner notes?

Last I've heard, they decided they are no longer a "country" act, and don't want to be referred to as one. No word yet on how they now characterize themselves. And they are still big in country music. CMT still plays their videos all the time, and they're played on country stations, at least in the Northeast.

Here's Nat Hentoff in today's Wall St Journal: Up for Bid: Intriguing Grace Notes To the Magic of Jazz By NAT HENTOFF February 16, 2005; Page D10 New York The first auction wholly dedicated to jazz -- ranging from John Coltrane's tenor and soprano saxophones and more than 100 pages of his handwritten music to Thelonious Monk's Stuyvesant High School notebook on what makes a good newspaper -- will take place on Sunday, Feb. 20, with previews on Friday and Saturday, in the Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Hall, Broadway and 60th Street. Arlan Ettinger, owner of Guernsey's Auction House, assembled the 430 lots, amounting to thousands of items, most of them from the families of the musicians. Guernsey's previous singular auctions have included those focusing on John F. Kennedy and Elvis Presley, as well as the first auction of Soviet Union artwork (held during the Cold War). "But this one," Mr. Ettinger told me, "gave me a particular thrill because I was able to get to visit the homes and families of these musicians. Also, since these items did come from the families, there is no question of their authenticity." For instance, in the auction is the upright player piano from John Coltrane's childhood home, on which he first learned to play music. The player piano came from Coltrane's cousin, Mary Alexander, to whom he dedicated "Cousin Mary" on one of his breakthrough albums, "Giant Steps." What gave me a thrill are scores by Luckey Roberts, the dean of the swinging stride school of Harlem pianists. Roberts influenced James P. Johnson, Duke Ellington and George Gershwin. I recorded Luckey Roberts in 1958 for the Good Time Jazz label and marveled at how he created an orchestra from the piano. One of the auction items is inscribed to Luckey by W.C. Handy. While a last-minute dispute between family members and the seller may keep these scores out of the auction, at least historians will now know that these important pieces of jazz history exist. At my preview of the auction at Guernsey's, I saw the drum sets of Buddy Rich and Roy Haynes; an array of Benny Goodman's clarinets; correspondence by Dexter Gordon and by that prolific, buoyant letter writer, Louis Armstrong. "The name of this great POET who is so anxious to book my ass, in Siberia (of all places)," Armstrong wrote to his booking agent, "[is] Yougeny [Yevgeny] Yevtushenko," who courageously denounced Stalinism. An especially rare item in the auction belonged to Bill "Bojangles" Robinson -- his tap shoes, which he gave to another legendary dancer, Howard "Sandman" Sims, in 1931. As a child, I went to see Shirley Temple in the movies, but it was the magical "Bojangles" Robinson who stayed in my mind. The nearly 200-page catalog for the auction will be an instant collector's item and, I expect, will someday be part of a lot in an auction. Among the extensive illustrations are historic photographs and reproductions of Miles Davis's original paintings and Franz Klein's "The Jazz Murals." In the text, the meticulous descriptions of the items, placed in historical context, are useful additions to the history as well as the lore of the music. There is "Charlie Parker's King Super 20 Alto Sax: The Holy Grail." It was made specifically for Parker by the King Instrument Company and became part of his legend as its "broad internal bore, enlarged bell and silver plating served to enhance and project Parker's robust tone quality; and the instrument's key mechanism, modified to provide a faster action than before, was perfectly suited to a man whose effortless dexterity redefined notions of virtuosity in music." I did not expect to find, from an auction catalog, this clue to that stunningly creative dexterity that has never ceased to exhilarate me whenever I play a recording by "Bird," as he was called by his colleagues and lay admirers. This catalog and its forms are required for anyone who wants to participate in the auction. For complete details on how to get it and on the various ways one can bid -- the auction is open to the public as well as to institutions -- Guernsey's can be reached by phone (212-794-2280); fax (212-744-3638); and on the Web (www.guernseys.com1), where you can see a number of the items in the auction. The auction house's email: auctions@guernseys.com2). For those who can't get to the auction, there is an Absentee Bid Form toward the end of the catalog that can be FedEx'd, mailed, or faxed to Guernsey's before the auction. Or you can contact the auction house to find out how you can bid by telephone during the auction. There is yet another alternative. In "real time," you can be part of the auction online through eBay Live Auctions. All the other terms and conditions are in the catalog or can be clarified by contacting Guernsey's directly. Although I was impressed seeing the storied instruments of musicians who have become vital parts of my life, what most moved me during my preview was a "Negro History" book made by fifth-grader John Coltrane. He had cut out red letters to place on its blue construction paper cover; and the 12 pages include newspaper clippings about Booker T. Washington and Joe Louis; and copies of Langston Hughes's "The Negro" and "O Southland" by James Weldon Johnson. Guernsey's Mr. Ettinger told me that for years he had thought of composing, as it were, a jazz auction. "In the auction world," he said, "we're pioneers in introducing topics, such as popular culture, that had not been considered important enough by the other major auction houses. That's how the Elvis Presley, Jerry Garcia and Mickey Mantle auctions came about, and now this one." In the introduction to the catalog, Ashley Kahn, who is an occasional contributor to this page and author of the deeply researched "A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's 'Signature Album'" (its scores are a significant section of the auction), writes: "Jazz is such ephemeral stuff: improvised, of the moment, here and gone. Few and valuable are the objets du jazz that hold on to that fleeting magic: a saxophone; a smoking jacket [like Thelonious Monk's gold brocade favorite attire]; a simple, timelessly significant piece of staff paper." It turns out there are many more than a few of these valuable finds -- intriguing grace notes to the music of these musicians who were, in Duke Ellington's phrase, "beyond category." I'm tempted to bid on Charlie Parker's gold pocket watch. It still keeps, like Bird, the right time.

I like country music, and watch CMT regularly (that is, until Cablevision recently took CMT off the lineup...DirecTV, here we come!). Natalie is a very good singer, and has great vocal chops. But I don't much like their outlook. It's not just that I'm pro-Bush. Have you heard their song, "Goodbye Earl"? Earl's a bad husband, so his wife is justified in killing him. It's a happy song! What an obnoxious outlook! So I don't care much for them, and change the channel when one of their videos comes on.

What was the first session that Benny Golson's composition "Whisper Not" appeared on?

I like Earl Klugh's LP "Magic In Your Eyes." Sort of an acoustic jazz/disco fusion, but very sweet.

I'm becoming interested in a drawer-type storage arrangement. The Can-Ams are too much $ for me, though. Thinking of going to a local woodworking shop & seeing if they can adapt a bureau for this concept, or have one ready-made.

Ikea offers something similar. Take a look at: http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/serv...517&cattype=sub Take a "Billy" bookcase and add a shelf insert. Results in mucho CD storage.

Fans of Buell Neidlinger should check out Leo Kottke's "Greeting From Chuck Pink." Neidlinger produced it and is all over it. Results in some of Kottke's best work.

Did she do any work on other leaders' dates?

Very, very sad news. Jimmy brought much joy into our lives, and man could he play!

This is from today's Wall St Journal: After 70 Years, The Village Vanguard Is Still in the Jazz Swing By ASHLEY KAHN February 8, 2005; Page D9 New York Try repeating it out loud: VIL-lage VAN-guard, VIL-lage VAN-guard. For 70 years, that alliterative name has swung in 4/4 time, marking the center of the known jazz universe to an international circle of musicians and music fans. To the uninitiated, the small club at the bottom of 15 well-trodden steps below street level may seem little more than a cramped, triangular-shaped room. But to a hip populace its where the ghosts of past jazz giants still play, where the best living jazz talent aspire to record, and where sound waves seem to reverberate in a manner unlike any other club, anywhere. "I call it the Carnegie Hall of jazz because most jazz clubs just don't have the sound that that place has," says pianist Jason Moran, whose last album was recorded at the Vanguard. "It's the place where Moses and Mohammed and Jesus walked!" Saxophonist Joe Lovano, whose most recent live album was also a Vanguard gig, agrees. "It might affect you to be sitting in that room, imagining, 'Oh, [Thelonious] Monk was here!' 'Man, Miles [Davis] and Hank Mobley played here, and Bill Evans's trio!' You're feeling the spirits. Well, that's how I feel when I record there -- we're calling the spirits." Other jazz venues once claimed that kind of primacy. "The corner of the jazz world" was the boast of the original Birdland at Broadway and 55th. But the Vanguard, seven decades old this Feb. 21 -- still at 178 Seventh Avenue South, still with a seating capacity of 123 -- has survived them all. [This historical photo of the building that houses the Village Vanguard (its entrance sign can be seen just below that of the Rialto Cleaners') was taken in the 1930s. The triangular shape of the building has been said to help project the sound.] "Years ago there was Birdland, the Five Spot, Cafe Society and the Royal Roost and all of 52nd Street. It's a shame that's all gone," says Lorraine Gordon, who inherited the basement room from her husband Max when he passed away in 1989. "Why did the Vanguard last? I mean Max was not a pretentious nightclub man. He just loved what he did and loved the people he booked." Gordon first opened the Vanguard in 1935 as a variety venue presenting sketch comedy, poetry and dinner. Since then, the club's tradition of left-leaning politics and irreverence -- Yiddish poets in the '30s, absurdists like Professor Irwin Corey in the '50s -- is reflected in the progressive jazz it still presents. "The club has followed a roadmap that began with the poets, to the folksingers like Pete Seeger, to vocalists like Harry Belafonte and finally to almost every phase of jazz," maintains Ms. Gordon. She sees the club today as a star landmark in a landmark neighborhood ("it's made the Village more important because it's been so steadfast") and the city agrees. Not for nothing does a street sign on the nearest corner read "Max Gordon Place." Of wiry build, Ms. Gordon is usually at the Vanguard six nights a week, overseeing the club with an energy unhindered by four-score years. She is "Lorraine" to all musicians, whom she first-names as well: the trumpeter Wynton (Marsalis), the saxophonist Sonny (Rollins), the singer Shirley (Horn, who chuckles: "Lorraine? I call her the Sergeant.") Ms. Gordon speaks in energetic bursts from her command post -- a desk in the club's former kitchen that continues to serve as the offstage area for generations of musicians. "I never had an office -- I wonder what that would feel like," she says with a laugh, noting that like any other club "the Vanguard has gone through all kinds of problems. We've had a flood, part of the ceiling's fallen down, but the walls are still filled with photos of great artists that are no longer with us, who are here in spirit." The Vanguard's enduring stature as the jazz mecca -- calling the faithful to hear, to play and to record there -- owes much to a half-century's worth of classic albums recorded in the basement room, from Sonny Rollins's "A Night at the Village Vanguard" in 1957 and John Coltrane's and Bill Evans's famed Vanguard titles, both from '61, to Art Pepper's "Thursday Night at..." in '77, Tommy Flanagan's "Nights at..." in '86 and Wynton Marsalis's voluminous seven-disc "Live at..." in '99. A dozen more in the past two years alone have brought the number of titles generated at the club to close to 150. "The words 'Live at the Village Vanguard' do have a direct and positive influence on an album's sales," claims Bruce Lundvall, head of Blue Note Records, a leading jazz label with over a dozen "Live at the Vanguard" titles in its catalog. A "Live at the Vanguard" album has become a rite of passage for modern jazz players, many of whom credit the room's unusual shape as the secret behind the club's complimentary acoustics. "The way the band can set up in that triangle-type corner, the sound really projects out," maintains Mr. Lovano. "It has a real opera house kind of a feeling -- there's nothing that goes behind you or on the sides." Kurt Lundvall, engineer on the recent Moran and Lovano sessions at the club, explains that "other clubs are like boxes, but in here, you have hardly any parallel or reflective surfaces, so the Vanguard is the best venue on the East Coast for recording jazz, period." The forces that originally shaped the Vanguard make for an interesting, "only in New York" story. In 1914, the City tore a nine-block swath through the upper heart of Greenwich Village, to add a subway link between Seventh Avenue and 12th Street and Varick Street. Entire blocks were razed and the corners of buildings were sheared off. By 1917, Village geometry had changed forever, leaving a number of unusual triangular lots along the newly created Seventh Avenue South. In 1921, developer Morris Weinstein hastily erected a thin, cake-slice building on the southern tip of one of those half-blocks and began renting space to various businesses, including a cleaner on street level and a speakeasy in the basement that was aptly named The Golden Triangle. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 the tavern closed, and a young Max Gordon discovered the room that for two years had been "closed for alterations," and offered all he needed: "two johns, two exits, two hundred feet away from a church or synagogue or school, and with rent under $100 a month," as he wrote in his 1980 autobiography. Though Ms. Gordon declined to disclose the Vanguard's current rent, she notes that in 70 years the club has never missed its monthly payment. Today, time and the eternal bottom line have distilled the Vanguard experience down to the essentials: music, drinks (no coffee or tea) and history. The angled walls display generation-old photographs and posters of those who once regularly played the room: Charles Mingus. Dexter Gordon. Elvin Jones. A battered tuba breaks the array, and an unusual double-belled euphonium (a gift from trumpeter Jabbo Smith, it turns out) hangs above the bar. It may seem so artfully minimal, but then jazz culture has always prized economy over embellishment. Still, Ms. Gordon feels that "this little old club deserves a birthday of its own. It's going to get a cake and a buffet: a real party for a 70-year-old grande dame." The celebration will last a full week, from Feb. 14 to 20, featuring a new or established Vanguard favorite headlining each night: trumpeter Roy Hargrove, the jazz-rock trio Bad Plus, guitarist Jim Hall, Philadelphia's famed Heath Brothers, and pianist Bill Charlap. "It's a very well-rounded group -- each one has their own incredible style," notes Ms. Gordon, who is reaching uptown for a little extra dazzle. "Wynton Marsalis I've invited as my guest -- and I'd be thrilled to have him. Who wouldn't be?" What of the club itself: Will there be any special banners, a big "7-0" out front? "You know those restaurants that are so chic they don't even put their name outside? I think the Vanguard has been chic for 70 years," Ms. Gordon chuckles. "But I will have the awning cleaned." Mr. Kahn is a music journalist and author of "A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album" (Viking, 2002).

To add two really good ones: Positive Intensity (on Japanese CBS), with Ron Carter and Roy Haynes Let's (Play The Music of Thad Jones) (on Enja)

I've been using MusicMatch.

I don't recall the Hawkins. The original distribution was spotty (it wasn't a major label, and I don't think they even had a major indie distributor). There were alternate takes - the Mingus CDs have a track that wasn't on the original LP. The same label or owner or whatever later came out with other titles, like the Live at Bubba's that David Gitin and Dan Gould referred to. I have an 8-disk box set on the Pulse (Castle Music) label called "Black & White Box of Jazz" (no relation to the Black & White label) that has a lot of this material, arranged in a hodgepodge over the 8 disks. The box was extremely inexpensive ($30?). The haphazard order is frustrating, as are the many personnel errors. The music, though, is often very good. Besides the Hampton material and much of the Bubba's (including Wynton with Blakey), there's Getz from Cannes, Johnny Griffin, Paul Horn, Jimmy Hamilton, Pat Metheny with the Heath Brothers, and more, as well as some material they can't possibly have the rights to (Sonny Rollins playing "Everytime We Say Goodbye" with Sonny Clark, Percy Heath, and Roy Haynes, "date unknown" - obviously from the Riverside "Sound of Sonny" album). From this box set, here are the leaders of the Hampton-related dates: Dexter Gordon (w/Hamp, Hank Jones, Bucky Pizzarelli, George Duvivier, Oliver Jackson and Candido), Teddy Wilson (w/Gerry Fuller, Hamp, Teddy, Duvivier, Teddy Wilson Jr. on drums, and Sam Turner), Earl Hines (w/Hamp, Milt Hinton, Grady Tate and Sam Turner), Woody Herman (w/Hamp, Roland Hanna, Al Caiola, George Mraz, Richie Pratt and Candido), Gerry Mulligan (w/Hamp, Hank Jones, Bucky, Duvivier, Grady Tate and Candido), Charles Mingus (w/Bob Neloms, Dannie Richmond, Ricky Ford, Hamp, Mulligan, Paul Jeffrey, Jack Walrath, Woody Shaw and Peter Matt), Buddy Rich (w/Hamp, Barry Kiener, Tom Warrington, Candido, Steve Marcus, Gary Pribek and Paul Moen), and there was a Hamp-led date (w/Hank Jones, Milt Hinton, Grady Tate and Candido). The Italian Comet label has recently released some of these sessions; I have the Dexter Gordon. I think (but am not sure) that Comet is also releasing material originally on Vanguard.

I don't have the inside scoop, but as a shopper, what I surmise is that this series was on a label (probably partially) owned by Lionel Hampton. These sessions were all recorded digitally about the same one-month span in 1977, probably to honor Hampton's xx-anniversary in jazz (40th? 50th?). Most of the featured artists had some historical association with him, and he plays on every date. What I've heard from this series has been wonderful music, well-recorded with great arrangements. The Dex is fun (he plays soprano on some tracks), we get to hear Mingus's last date where he played bass, and there are others I've been itching to hear (the Mulligan, the Teddy Wilson). On the old BNBB, I floated an idea that a Mosaic be done from these sessions. The problem, as you've surmised, is that this material has been licensed to everyone, so there's probably no money to be made from it. Still, can you imagine if there are unreleased tracks?

I've just tried it. I signed up, downloaded Jimmy Raney's "A" and Art Farmer's "Farmer's Market," burned them to CD, then imported them into my iPod. Sound quality is OK. I'm impressed!

Another very good Japanese guitarist is Satoshi Inoue. He put out a CD a few years back with Larry Goldings that is very tasty.

He wasn't homeless. He dressed like a Nordic warrier. He had an apt in Manhattan and a small house in upstate NY.

There's a great Mosaic project: The Complete Jerry Newman Recordings. And, while we're at it, how about: The Complete Boris Rose Recordings.