Best track you heard all week

[Neal Pomea]

Prohibition Blues, The Missourians

[WorldB3]

Pumpkin Pie - Organissimo

[Sundog]

James Brown- Honk Tonk (Parts 1 & 2)

[B. Goren.]

Great version of "Cry Me A River" on this album:

[Brad]

Tadd's Delight from Lovano's 52nd Street Themes.

[BillF]

Tadd's Delight from Lovano's 52nd Street Themes.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

John Hicks 'Mind Wine'

[ghost of miles]

The Purple Chick mix of the Beach Boys' "Wind Chimes" from the original SMILE sessions:

Wind Chimes

Beats hell out of the SMILEY SMILE version IMO. Haven't heard Brian Wilson's 2004 version yet, though.

[JSngry]

I keep hearing people preferring this version to the one on Smiley Smile, but...not me. For my money, the SS version is one of the most...envelope-pushing works of an era where envelop-pushing was more than a little common. A lot of Smiley Smile has an air of "giving up" to it, but this one is actually more elaborate/considered/fleshed-out/whatever than its predecessor in terms of both performance and production.

And if you've not yet heard the fully-realized Smile...GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR. BUDDY!!!

Seriously - everybody and their Dutch Uncle has their own "mix" of the original Smile (Google around for Beach Boys blogs and you'll see what I mean...), but the bottom line for me is this - these "mixes" are all from the same source materials, and those source materials are unfinished as far as fitting together go. That's why on this version of "Wind Chimes" it suddenly breaks off into that variant of the "Heroes & Villains" motif and never comes back (and that happens on a LOT of the Smile raw material..., which is why I prefer the SS version of the tune - they make an entire piece out of it instead of leaving it as a beautiful piece of a puzzle that never gets put together..).

All of which is to say - the 2004 Smile is nothing but a triumph. It works, it works, it WORKS! The original....doesn't. Not ultimately. Give fullest props to Van Dyke, the Wondermints, and everybody else involved as well as to Brian, but this is essential music for anybody American Art-Pop aficionado. It's a glorious piece of work!

[Dan Gould]

Powerful piano & bass on "Smack Dab in the Middle" and its not Gene Harris and Ray Brown.

http://www.divshare.com/download/11101605-3da

[ghost of miles]

I definitely plan on checking out the 2004 SMILE. Re: the late-1960s "Wind Chimes" tracks, to me the SMILEY SMILE version sounds like Brian's gone on a bad ludes trip. And while yeah, there's definitely artistic merit and even a weird kind of honesty perhaps at work there, I still dig the luminous spell of the earlier version much more. It's genuinely beautiful--and that's so rare that I find myself going back to it, brief as it is.

Track grabbing me right now: Artie Shaw, "Fred's Delight" (Tadd Dameron tune).

[colinmce]

Monk w/ Johnny Griffin - "Rhythm-a-Ning" at the Five Spot.

The only other Griff/Monk I'd heard up to this point was the Blakey album. This was a revelation.

[JohnS]

"Autumn in New York" by Clifford Brown All Stars. Emarcy

[save0904]

"Tickle Bath" Dave Liebman Group on Conversations

[jeffcrom]

The two new-to-me tracks that got all over me this week were:

"When the Levee Breaks" by Bonerama, from the Hard Times EP. It's nine minutes long and goes through lots of changes of direction and mood.

The slow "lining hymn" (I don't know the name, and it's not listed as a separate track) that follows Dr. Bob Wilson's 1969 sermon "The Crisis of Identity" on an ACR LP. It's strange, eerie, and goosebump-inducing.

[Peter Friedman]

Estate - Rich Perry Quartet

From his recent cd "Gone" on Steeplechase.

[Matthew]

Heard this about a week ago, and now I can't get it out of my stupid head.

Elvis Presley: Rubberneckin' Paul Oakenfold Re-mix.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=pC7-NzEK9xY

Edited May 16, 2010 by Matthew

[paul secor]

Hank Williams: "A House of Gold" from Just Me and My Guitar

[kinuta]

Chocolate Pork Chop Man - Pete ' Guitar' Lewis

[BillF]

"The Fish Horn" - a great blues with Zoot Sims on soprano (not usually my favorite horn) from I Wish I Were Twins

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Les McCann - Yours is my heart alone; from Comment - Atlantic.

I've had this album for a long time. I think it's the best vocal album Les made. The title track is a splendid civil rights anthem - "If all men were born to be free; what about you? what about me?" And that gets me every time.

But what REALLY got me today was the last track, "Yours is my heart alone" (the Franz Lehar song). It's sung very, very slowly, and heavy with passion, but calm and completely NOT like a jazz record.

MG

[B. Clugston]

"Soul Mate," Andrew Hill, from the Mosaic Select (Blue Note version).

[mikelz777]

Muskrat Ramble from Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens box set. As I was listening to it I just had to say to myself, "Man, Pops could play!".

'

[BillF]

"Lester Left Town" from The Mel Lewis Orchestra's Soft Lights and Hot Music (Musicmasters). Ralph Lalama's tenor solo on this one is a gas!

[alankin]

Donald Byrd -- title track to "Free Form" on Blue Note, with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Butch Warren and Billy Higgins.