Search the Community

Sorry about the changes in type face. I wrote this on "word" and them copied it into the forum. I don't know why it came out this way. (I hate Word.) Can anyone tell me how to fix it? 1”.Southside”: Wardell Gray The Wardell Gray Story Proper Box This is from the same session as Twisted : Al Haig, Tommy Potter and Roy Haynes 11/11/49I thought this might fool people because it doesn’t sound quite like Wardell. Notes to the set say he sounds “uncannily like Stan Getz”. I don’t know about that but he does sound like he could have been a fifth brother. 2. “Throw a Little Salt on the Bluebird’s Tail”: Eddie South and his International Orchestra 1933. From a cd that came with the book "Playing the Changes: Milt Hinton’s Life in Stories and Photographs". Milton Hinton (bass and vocals) Clifford King (clarinet), Eddie South (violin) Antonio Spalding (guitar), Jimmy Bertrand (drums).I thought someone might recognize Eddie South and remember Milt played with him. 3. “Bag’s Guitar Blues”: Milt Jackson and Ray Charles. From Soul Brothers and Ray Charles Complete Atlantic Box set. Milt on guitar! ( Are there any other records with him playing guitar?) Ray on piano and alto sax. Billy Mitchell on tenor. Rhythm section of Skeeter Best, Oscar Pettiford and Connie Kay. Note that it's Ray on alto sax 4.” Swapping Horns”.: Charlie Parker on tenor, Allan Eager on alto. From Allen Eager in the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee. The Allen Eager sessions on the Mosaic Savoy box got me interested in his work. That this Uptown release also contained some live Bird was a terrific bonus. From “possibly during April 1947” with Bud Powell, Specs Goldberg and Max Roach. It was recorded at a jam session in Milton H. Greene’s photography studio. (There’s also a cut with Eager switching horns with Serge Chaloff.) 5. “Blues in My Case”: Lenny Breau on guitar and Dave Young on bass. 2cd set entitled “Live at Bourbon Street”. Recorded by our own Ted O’Reilly. (What was the date Ted? I couldn’t find it on the cd.) Nelson Symonds (no 9) made me think of Sonny Greenwich (no 12) whom I’d seen sitting in with Nelson. The Greenwich cd I chose was with Ed Bickert so I figured I should add Lenny Breau and have all four great 20th Century Canadian jazz guitarists. 6. “Dark was the Night”: The Kronos Quartet. I guess we’re hearing plucked viola and violin strings and not a guitar. The “moaning” is probably from a cello. This is from a very nice 2 cd set entitled “Dark was the Night: A Red Hot Compilation.” It’s part of the series of cds issued to raise money for AIDS related charities. Kronos is a bit of a ringer as everyone else on it would probably be described as “Indie Rock” (e.g. Feist, Grizzly Bear, Arcade Fire, and—my favorite—Bon Iver). 7. “Sweet Sue:” The Kenny Clarke Kvintett (honest). Recorded in Stockholm in 1938. Clarke on Xylophone, Eddie Gobbs, guitar, Edgar Hayes piano, Rudy Powell, clarinet, Henry Goodwin, trumpet and no drums. Clarke was in Europe with the Edgar Hayes band. I found this on a 4 cd Proper set called “Klook’s the Man”. 8. “Bird Count”: The Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra From” Live at the Jazz Standard--Days of Wine and Roses.” 2000. Soloists are Frank Kimbrough piano, Ingrid Jensen trumpet, Larry Farrell trombone and Scott Robinson Bass Saxophone. I really like Maria Schneider and I like this cut but to be honest it’s not typical. Most of her work is more ethereal—very influenced by her mentor, Gil Evans. I bought her first record because of her connection to Gil and that led to me getting everything she’s done since. (This one was originally only available as a bonus with two bottles of Riesling. To get it I searched every fancy grocery store near me in Southern California and I don’t even like Riesling.) I thought people might recognize Scott Robinson (who plays with her a lot) since there are so few bass sax players. I once bought a copy of a Robinson record for my late friend Josef Skvorecky because he wrote a story called The Bass Saxophone which I think is the best work of fiction ever written about jazz. 9. “Getting Pesonal”: Nelson Symonds from cd of the same name. Symonds guitar, Jean Beaudet Piano, Normand Guilbault, bass, Wali Muhammad, drums. 1991. Between fall 1961 and spring 1965 I probably saw Nelson play 50 times. He played with The Charlie Biddles Trio which had Biddles on bass and Charlie Duncan on drums and they played in various clubs around Montreal nearly every week. I saw them by themselves and also backing Benny Golson, Jackie Mclean, Art Farmer and Thad Jones amongst others. I’ve been told that Nelson had sat in with Trane and Miles and that both had offered him jobs which he couldn’t take because he couldn’t get a green card. Those were probably apocryphal stories but I believe that this did happen with Brother Jack McDuff and George Benson got the job instead. I didn’t know Nelson had ever made a record but one day I was in a cd store in my small home town and came across a used copy of this. Thirty years after I first saw him Nelson had lost some of his steam but it’s hard for me to be objective. (Just found some better examples of his playing on YouTube where in one comment someone claims they first heard about Nelson from Wes Montgomery.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9GUA8fJWgM 10. “Bluefish”: Gil Evans. 1971. Gil on electric and acoustic piano, Joe Beck guitar, Herb Bushier bass, Billy Harper flute, David McDonald drums and Warren Smith percussion, synthesizer. The first two minutes reminds me of Maria Schneider. Written for a documentary film, this was included on a Folkways record called New American Music along with pieces by Milford Graves, Mary Lou Williams, San Rivers and Sunny Murray. I got it as a CDR from the Smithsonian. ( I’m a Gil completest—yes I do have the Johnny Mathis record he worked on.) 11. “Abide with Me/Blue Monk” : Richard Stoltzman . 1985. Stolzman clarinet, Bill Douglas piano, Jeremy Wall synthesizers, Eddie Gomez bass. Stolzman is regarded as a great classical clarinet player. I have several of his non-classical records and have seen him perform a Steve Reich piece he commissioned. I used to run into Bill Douglas in Toronto at the John Norris/Bill Smith Jazz and Blues record store. Bill was a huge fan of Bill Evans so it's fitting he got to play with Eddie Gomez. 12.”Lily”: Sonny Greenwich and Ed Bickert. 1979. Terry Clarke drums, Don Thomson bass. According to John Norris’s liner notes “Sonny Greenwich is the principal carrier of the melody” so we can hear this as Sonny backed by the same rhythm section that backed Paul Desmond so well. 13. “Hey Troy, Your Moma’s Calling You”: Trombone Shorty (Troy Andrews). This is from a terrific cd done to raise money for Katrina victims, called "Sing Me Back Home " (even though that song is not included). Other cuts are by three different Nevilles, Dr. John, Wilie Tee etc. I thought this had disappeared but finally found it by looking on Amazon under “New Orleans Social Club.” I first heard Trombone Shorty when he showed up with a band at a friend's wedding in N.O. as a replacement for the Rebirth Brass Band who had been booked. After our initial disappointment we ended up loving the band and dancing the night away. I’ve seen him in concert twice since though the last time he seemed too James Brown influenced for my taste. This is such a happy song if I’m down it always cheers me up. BTW there are no liner notes for this. I presume Shorty is on Trombone but he plays trumpet a lot of the time so maybe he overdubbed himself and is playing both instruments.