Category: Music

Sometimes, it’s not what you play, but who you have played it with

This AAJ review of Curtis Fuller and Louis Hayes at Jazz Standard made me think about one of the ways we often discuss and write about jazz artists.

We often define players in terms of who they have played with, instead of what they have played. Curtis Fuller is more noted in the article for having played with Coltrane, than for being one of the greatest jazz trombonists of all time. Louis hayes is also described by his companions more than his music.

I don’t mean this as a knock on the writer of this particular article, because it is common practice. But I still wonder, Why do we do this? Are we so obsessed with personality or celebrity that we can only take an artist’s music seriously if he has received the endorsement of being allowed to perform with someone more famous than himself?

Rediscovering music through (old) technology

Due to a variety of circumstances my turntable had been unused for a year or more, and due to a different variety of circustances I decided to set it back up in my office and get all of my vinyl out in plain view.

This has caused me to listen to things that I haven’t heard in quite some time. Stuff that I never bought on CD because I had the vinyl, but never listened to because the vinyl was hidden away.

A couple of gems that I’ve rediscovered in the process:

Money Jungle Cover

This album proves the theory that good musicians will make good music in pretty much whatever situation they end up in.

Dig Cover

Miles , still in bebop mode, with Sonny Rollins and Jackie McLean. This reminds me why I like primary source material.

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

A very cool project fron UC-Santa Barbara, documenting and modernizing the early history of recorded sound.

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

Cylinder recordings, the first commercially produced sound recordings, are a snapshot of musical and popular culture in the decades around the turn of the 20th century. They have long held the fascination of collectors and have presented challenges for playback and preservation by archives and collectors alike.

With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the UCSB Libraries have created a digital collection of over 6,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections. In an effort to bring these recordings to a wider audience, they can be freely downloaded or streamed online.

Downloads, CDs, both?

For a while now, my head has been trying to deal with questions of downloads vs. CDs, and various realms of making CDs cheaper and easier to produce, including alternative packaging and the like.

In a post that is only tangentially related to the subject, Dave Douglas shared the following view on his Greenleaf Music blog.

The most common question I get when I tell people we’re doing an internet-based recording outlet is: “So you’re doing downloads only? But I like to have the CD.”

We’re still making CDs. You can get them right here. Downloads are also available. But please consider ordering the CDs as they contain full liner notes, Steve Byram artwork and a beautiful Todd Weinstein photograph.

He’d rather have you buy the CD. Interesting.

There is definitely art in the music, but sometimes I forget about the art in the rest of the package.

Simon Lott’s Things @ Snug Harbor

I had the pleasure of hearing Simon Lott’s Things last Friday night at Snug Harbor. These weekend free midnight shows at Snug are turning out to be very cool. Simon and the guys really stretched out…much farther out than one usually hears at Snug Harbor, and there were still people there listening. Tally one for open-eared fans of good music.

The band was Simon Lott on drums, Tony Barba on tenor sax, Will Thompson on piano and Rhodes, and my fellow Lucky 7s member Matthew Golombisky on bass and likeable noise. People had sheet music on stage, so I am sure there were compositions, but most of what I heard sounded improvised. The music was heavy on texture and groove, sometimes simultaneously. This was the first performance by this particular combination of players, but the energy and communication could lead you to believe otherwise.

Keep your ears open for these guys, collectively and individually. They are making good music.

Soul Rebels and “They all axed for you”

Last Sunday afternoon, I had the pleasure of playing with George Porter, Jr and the Runnin’ Pardners at the Audubon Zoo for a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser. Good music, good cause…it was great, plus playing a famous song about the Audubon Zoo, at the Audubon Zoo, with one of the writers of the song was kicks.

I knew playing with George would be fun, it always is. What I didn’t know was that the Soul Rebels brass band would be playing before us. That was a suprise treat. These guys sounded great. Be sure to check them out if you get a chance.

Yockamo All-Stars

Through a happy accident tonight, I am sitting here listening to a great album that I haven’t heard in a few years.

Yockamo All stars cover

Yockamo All-Stars – Dew Drop Out is an all star collection of New Orleans musicians. It was recorded in 1998, and is full of good old New Orleans groove and joy. Many of my favorite musicians, like Tim Green, Clarence Johnson III, and Herlin Riley are on it, and I’m especially digging Leroy Jones and Craig Klein.