Friday Night Prayer Meeting

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Another piece (of several posted previously) masterminded by one of the most ubiquitous music men of the past 60 years.



I can't remember what I've written about Quincy Jones in the past and don't feel like looking it up, but his fingerprints are all over jazz, pop, rock, and movie scores that even people somewhat familiar with the man wouldn't suspect. The Wikipedia writeup covers a lot, but misses interesting projects. He worked for, with, or over everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Lesley Gore, Billy Eckstein, Michael Jackson, and Steven Spielberg. He did lay his share of stinkers along the way, unfortunately. His "Soul Bossa Nova" is loathsome, and practically ruins his 1962 album Big Band Bossa Nova to my overly delicate sensibilities (it's that stupid, flutey theme used in Austin Powers movies). Also, his experimentation with trying to make Louis Jordan into a rock and roll star on Mercury is interesting for an occasional listen, but the results are fairly sickening to a Jordan fan even if they sound swell in a way.

The album where this track originates, Walking in Space, is a record that made a number of alienated white high-school boys feel pretty hip. In listening, you can probably tell why. It's lush, it swings, and it's easily accessible to anyone who wants to hear. Upon recently repurchasing this album on CD, I find that I'm not quite as enamored with it as I was in 1969. Of course, I'm also no longer enamored of railroad-stripe bell bottoms and my electric blue spread-collar button-up type shirt purchased from Chess King.

Even when I was a teenager, there was a thing or two that sat wrong with me about the sound, but I couldn't put it into words. (I was just then emerging from my Leaded Gasoline Phase.) Today I'd express that uneasiness as two related criticisms. One is that the whole project pretty much talks down to many jazz listeners, even younger ones, with its relentless mellowness and too-easy solos. That recording session was staffed with major stars of all jazz eras up to that time, including "moldy figs" like Kai Winding and Snooky Young as well as younger giants like Roland Kirk, Ray Brown, and Eric Gale.  My other beef is that Jones uses only background vocals throughout without any prominent lead. (Even the solo vocal on the title track is produced like a background.) The orchestral setting seems designed to showcase a strong vocalist, but instead Jones arranges for an ethereal collection of background voices who serve roughly the same purpose here that go-go dancers served in mid-sixties rock. Today, this strikes me as somewhat creepy.

But I'm being too much of a dick about it. There's no reason to be any more of a snob about the sound of this album than Thriller, which I really enjoy a few times a year. I have plenty of space in my life for hookey, easy listening music, which is why I put it on the player tonight.

Killer Joe, Quincy Jones (1969, from "Walking In Space," Verve 314 543 499-2 [2000 CD reissue]) via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.

Friday Night Fish Fry

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Tonight, for some reason, I feel like offering something violent for our entertainment. But not cheaply topical with respect to certain national news events of the week. So put this in your pipe and smoke it:



In case you can't understand the words, this performance is a medley of perspectives on nonapproved drugs---namely, bassist Mark Sandman's musings on his own daily drug experimentation upon himself sandwiching a succinct description of US war-on-drugs policy. I selected this specific video to show this oddly instrumented power trio in action. If you like the feel of it, find a higher-resolution version of this song on YouTube and play it back at earbleed level through your little earbuds. You really need to hear their studio performances on CD-grade recordings to hear what this combo is all about.

There are half a dozen reasons why this is one of my favorite bands of all time, but I won't use the present space to tell you why, and it doesn't matter anyway. I'll just say that I can't think of any other band that sounds so unusual and accessible at the same time.

Test Tube Baby/Shoot 'em Down, Morphine (live at Nightstage, Cambridge, MA, 26 May 1992 [recording provenance unknown] ), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.

Saturday Evening Prayer Meeting

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First, read this. Read it all, including this.

Then, listen to this:



...while reading the following (provided by YouTube uploader Charles Van Driel, whomever he may be):

"Original Faubus Fables" performed by Charles Mingus. Taken from the 1960 "Charles Mingus presents Charles Mingus" record. Composed by Charles Mingus.

It was written as a direct protest against Arkansas governor Orval E. Faubus, who in 1957 sent out the National Guard to prevent the integration of Little Rock Central High School by nine African American teenagers. This composition was also released a year earlier on the "Mingus Ah Um" record as "Fables Of Faubus" but only instrumental as record company Columbia refused the lyrics.

Lyrics:
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em shoot us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em stab us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em tar and feather us!
Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!
Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!

Name me someone who's ridiculous, Dannie.
Governor Faubus!
Why is he so sick and ridiculous?
He won't permit integrated schools.

Then he's a fool! Boo! Nazi Fascist supremists!
Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan)

Name me a handful that's ridiculous, Dannie Richmond.
Faubus, Rockefeller, Eisenhower
Why are they so sick and ridiculous?

Two, four, six, eight:
They brainwash and teach you hate.
H-E-L-L-O, Hello.

Charity toward all and malice toward none, my foot. In 5 years all we will have on the national political stage is Republicans and dissidents.

Original Faubus Fables, Charles Mingus (1960, from "Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus," Candid CCD 79005), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Friday Night Fish Fry

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Not in Lent yet, but we're having fish on Friday anyway, so there!



First things first: this is one that needs to be listened with earbuds jammed brainstem-deep and cranked.

One of the reviews on the YouTube page refers to Chicago Transit Authority as one of the best-engineered albums of its times, and I agree. I first borrowed this album from Larry K. as a high school sophomore and listened to it on one of those tube-driven phonographs like the gradeschool AV department had, where the left stereo speaker is built into the lid over the turntable. This cut, the first on the "CTA" album, floored me with its brassy ensemble riff, percolating bass, and swells of Hammond organ. I'd always enjoyed horn-heavy arrangements, like The Buckinghams often used, but this was the first rock band I'd ever heard built around the core voices of big band instrumentation. I listened the shit out of it until I had to give it back, but soon scrounged $4.95 (it was a double album, you know) to get my own copy at Zayre.

Within a few months I'd bartered something (probably some Playboys I had stolen from Doug Pearson's garage) for a Heathcraft phono amp, and by means now forgotten cobbled together a more powerful record player. This was the first album I played on the Heathcraft, and again I was not disappointed in the results---more presence and excellent-quality bass response; a nice improvement over the bare phonograph. CTA also was the first album I played on the old man's Kenwood rig in the family room, pushing out 100 (peak) watts! And so over the years, Chicago Transit Authority---and "Introduction" in particular---became my reference song for every new stereo component upgrade. The other night I discovered that I've had my nifty B&W speakers bi-amped improperly for 3 years or more, with right bass and left treble coming from the left side, and the converse coming from the right. So I fixed it, and tonight I cranked "Introduction" to 60 (because 11 isn't high enough).

To me there's a certain poignancy to this fantastic chart and performance because I think it's the best thing Chicago ever did. One might say I think everything after this track was downhill for Chicago, even though most of the cuts on this album are at least in the same league as "Introduction." (Actually, I think "Questions 67 and 68 is its equal.) The most impressive thing to me has always been how many changes the band walks the listener though so easily. In fact, it's brilliant, and they show off every single thing they can do, except for Terry Kath's Hendrix-type guitar neck-wringing (which comes later on the same album). The tragic flaw of Chicago, though, is that they kept coming back to the same well for years and years thereafter. Horn ensembles based on minor variations of Jim Pankow's signature trombone arpeggio; no more trumpet solos of note from Lee Loughnane as far as I can recall; and no tenor solos ever, to my knowledge, from Walt Parazaider. Maybe the fellows tried to extend themselves later, but if so I lost interest long before then. After hearing Hot Rats in 1969 and upon being disappointed by Chicago 2 in 1970, Frank Zappa soon became my jazz-rock pied piper.

There was some material I liked on Chicago 2 (the "25 or 6 to 4" album), but it didn't compare to CTA. Plus, even to my immature ears, I thought the sound was abominable. The bass had no presence and the horns sounded like they were recorded off a transistor radio somewhere in the next studio. The lyrics were even more contrived than before (lyrics were always their weak point, in my opinion), and the vocals seemed self-conscious and even awkward. By the release of Chicago 3, it sounded to me like the band was just going through the motions. Nevertheless, I was lucky enough to see that original lineup at Soldier Field in Chicago, summer 1970, and they opened their set with this song. The sound was abysmal (due to Soldier Field "acoustics," not record producer malpractice this time), but I appreciated the thought and felt the presence.

Introduction, Chicago (1969, from Chicago Transit Authority, Columbia CS-9809), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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It seems that Johnny Otis departed the scene on Tuesday. Listen to this.



It was only recently that I learned Johnny Otis recorded the hit version of "Willie And The Hand Jive." It's a song I never cared for, so that never registered with me. I know of Johnny Otis mainly through some of his popular recordings on Savoy that were compiled by that label as part of a 1977 double LP called The Roots of Rock 'N Roll. And, unlike many other compilations of that same name, that one is aptly named. Roots includes the cut featured here.

This recording is from an era in American pop music that has interested me for a long time, which began right quick after World War II. For economic reasons, big swing bands were no longer affordable to maintain considering that musicians made their big money from touring; a big band, like an army, travels on its stomach. So different things began happening to jazz, most of which involved pared-down orchestras exploring different sounds. One group brought jazz instrumentation to the blues---the "jump blues," to be more precise---retaining a brass section and featuring the emerging electric guitar more prominently than it had been used in most jazz. Others went in a more vocal-oriented direction, sometimes featuring full-harmony groups that provided roots for doo-wop.

I can't find any quick reference to the personnel comprising the Johnny Otis show, but I recall that it was on the largish side---maybe 7 or 8 guys plus vocalists. This cut features "Little Ester" (barely a teenager at the time) and the Robins. It starts with the characteristic arpeggiated chord played by Otis on vibes, which opened many of his sides during the Savoy era. The structure is a simple 12-bar blues, but listen to how much is going on in the mix. In back of Esther there's classic rock-sounding fills, a hyperactive rolling piano, and a bit later lots more vibes. Then there is Robins close harmony buoying Esther's melodic taunts and accusations all the way, and in the third chorus "Daddy" ripostes with his own denunciations. Finally, they spend the fourth chorus dueling to the bitter end.

So to summarize, in this Johnny Otis production, you can hear jazz vibes, rock guitar, doo-wop backgrounds, plus blues vocalists and piano. More roots than you can stake a shick at.

Incidentally, Otis had an extremely interesting career that you can read a bit about here and here. At the latter link you can hear parts of a 1989 interview Terri Gross did with Otis. Worth a listen if you have 20 minutes.

Double Crossing Blues, The Johnny Otis Show featuring "Little Esther" Phillips (1949, 78 rpm recording Savoy 731-A), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes. 

What Child Is This? or whatever

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Gurlitzer, consider yourself jak sie masz-ed! Let's call this one a Christmas carol for the minister's daughter. I suppose it's at least as much a Christmas song as "The Anacreontic Song" is a national anthem.



I don't know much about music theory, but I'd bet that Jimmy Smith and other monsters of the Hammond organ probably play 10-part harmony from time to time, at least for punctuation or other purposes intended to excite the startle reaction in the listener. What do you think, Gurlitzer---have you ever read a part that calls for all ten digits to hit a different tone in the chromatic scale at the same time?

During the 1950s and 1960s, there was this practice in the jazz recording industry of putting a really "white," lame song on an otherwise straight-ahead album. A classic example is John Coltrane's 1961 rendition of "My Favorite Things" from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway production "The Sound of Music." Although there's nothing necessarily wrong with any such given performance (although Sinatra's rendition of "Forget Domani" is certainly wretched), the choice of material always seems dicey to me. I'm guessing it was a way for the label to get the Little Lady of the house listening to bop (or whatever), just like they put "Stairway" on Led Zeppelin IV or "Layla" on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs so the hippie chicks would listen to their "old man's" vinyl.

Any-hoo, "Greensleeves" seems to me like a weird choice for Jimmy Smith, maybe even weirder than a show tune would have. But he plays all the shit out of this traditional melody, along with trio-mate Kenny Burrell's guitar. I especially like the little two-chord vamp that begins the cut and recurs throughout. More generally, I'm a big fan of this Hammond/guitar/drum power trio format, and there's a lot of it on tape. (Buy it on CD or vinyl so "The Cloud" can't take it away from your computer without a warrant or habeas corpus, which seems to be on the horizon.)

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, lady!

Greensleeves, Jimmy Smith (1965, from "Organ Grinder Swing," Verve CD reissue 314 543 831-2 [2000]) via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical commentary and educational purposes.

Not exactly a purported image of Jesus in a piece of French toast

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But it's even better! See the outwardly mediocre photo below and try to find the super-awesome subliminal image embedded within it.

Shot at the Cowboy Monkey, Champaign, Ill., Friday evening whilst Big Rock Head was blowing some section work with the Parkland College In-Your-Ear Big Band.

And I will hasten to add that, no, the ugly motherfucker at center left is not your genial host. How could you even think such a thing?!?

Click to enlarge. Taken with an iPhone 4s in available light using its digital zoom capability. The camera in the thing is quite impressive. I'll share some of the landscapes I made over Thanksgiving in western Iowa, on the estate of one of this blog's correspondents.

Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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Here's something out of the ordinary for this place. I first heard this track playing in the defunct and missed Record Service in Campustown almost 20 years ago. I bought the album without hesitation. Being out of touch with emerging pop music styles back then, I wasn't really sure what the hell I was listening to. The kid in the store told me.



The Digable Planets made liberal use of samples from jazz classics, which was what immediately caught my ear in juxtaposition to the rap setting. But throughout the album the Planets repeatedly profess their adoration of Jimi Hendrix... and yet, no Hendrix samples are used anywhere. Their lyrics were readily intelligible to me, which has been a relative rarity throughout my entire life when listening to rock, blues, or soul (ear dyslexia?).

On every track, the lyrics present vivid impressions of black urban life; not always pretty (but, then, often they are), and there's not one word dedicated to misogyny or glorified violence. The difficulties of urban life come through loud and clear, though, without sweetening.

The trio delivers psychedelic hiphop poetry in mellow rap cadences, with some kind of backstory involving extraplanetary aliens, bugs (or alien bugs), and Hendrix. (Yes, the album has many amusing facets, too.) The horn sample used on this featured song was lifted with permission from Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers; other tracks borrow from Sonny Rollins, Curtis Mayfield, and the Crusaders among others.

There is one problem with this otherwise-tight video, though. Someone in postproduction seems to have overdubbed highly "stereoized" synth fills in places, and they sound kind of ridiculous and out of place. I can listen through that, though, because before tonight I'd never seen a video of this group. I think they're cool. I hope you like it.

Rebirth Of Slick (Cool Like Dat), Digable Planets (1993, from "reachin' [a new refutation of time and space], Pendulum Records 61414-2), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Saturday After Hours (Prayer Meeting)

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That's death
That's what all the people say

On this day in history, 14 May 1998, Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra flew the coop (i.e., this mortal realm) with the parting words to his wife, "I'm losing it...." (I believe the Wikipedia account of this is incorrect or incomplete based on my memory of news coverage at that time.) But tonight I will bypass the obvious choice for commemorating the occasion---"That's Life"---and defer to my ultimate Sinatra cut.



For my money, his phrasing on this is perfect---immaculately understated, which often it was not when he felt the urge to play the aging ring-a-ding hipster or just goof around in live performances. As much as I esteem the vocal, I feel that the real star of this cut is the Nelson Riddle arrangement and the way he conducts his orchestra through it. It sparkles, reflecting the interplay of reedy cross-breezes both near and distant, with clear water surfaces lapping easily at beachfront sand. I've never been able to describe to myself in words what I find so artful and organic about this chart, where string tremolos emerge at the end of a jaunty, muted-horn line and muscular but laconic reed figures leave holes for the similarly reedy organ in the higher registers. Speaking of the organ, the way it is "stopped" fascinates me. In any other setting I think it would sound cheesy and trivial, but here it supplies an essential vibe to the entire mix; the sound would be impoverished without it.  (Editor's note: Mr. Crutch does not consider this to be an adequate verbal account of the "feel," but he tried nevertheless. Please make a note of it.)

As an aside, I don't think it's too geezerly to argue that in 1966, in Chicago and all over America, both radio (AM!) and pop music were much richer and more urbane than they ever were again. It was the closing of a sort of innocent era in broadcast mass media, where the music sales charts weren't fragmented ad infinitum by age group, region, race, and purchasing power for the benefit of advertisers. "Top 40" really did mean "Top 40," and it didn't matter whether the performers on "the survey" were the Stones, or The Four Tops, or Simon and Garfunkle, or Sinatra, Roger Miller, The Sandpipers, Dusty Springfield, Ramsey Lewis, or Mitch Ryder, the Hollies, Martha and the Vandellas, or... Nancy Sinatra. If you listened to WLS or WCFL during this brief era, you heard it all on an equal footing, presented by trusted curators such as Dex Card and Ron Riley. Sure, a kid wouldn't necessarily admit to his friends that he liked "A Walk in the Black Forest," by Horst Jankowski; or "Sweet Talkin' Guy," by The Chiffons, but many of these sounds wormed their way through his tender little auditory cortex to next in the memory stacks, there to vibrate deep within for decades or more.

Anyway, back to the libretto: here's hoping that Frank didn't really lose it on that 14th day of May. And as for the sarcastic-seeming epigraph at the beginning of this post; no disrespect is intended. I intended it as a tribute of sorts to Sinatra's legendary crudeness on and off stage, well documented in Kitty Kelly's biography of him. These things about Sinatra you have to take alongside the pensive stylings of this gifted, juvenile, complex, and often-tortured guy.

Summer Wind, Frank Sinatra with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra (1966, from "Strangers In The Night," Reprise Records, catalog information not available), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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John Mayall twin spin twin spin twin spin DOINNNGGG!!!



Marginalia wrote from across the deep blue sea to give us a few more details about Mayall's 1960s British R&B laboratory, the Bluesbreakers, which served as a training ground for British pop music royalty, including Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Mick Fleetwood, and many others. With hindsight it seems sorta weird to me that Mayall wasn't much bigger in the United States, at least in the late 1960s. Don't think I ever heard a peep about him from the Beatles, either---also strange considering their own reverence for American "roots" music and Mayall's role as a champion of it.

This cut is the opening track on The Turning Point; the YouTuber clipped off a portion of the band introductions, but the song is intact. It's a standard 12-bar blues construction, but that easily cliched form doesn't jump right out at me because the arrangement is so interesting. It's a good example of how the band uses their instruments so effectively to make percussion unnecessary. The harp is sharp as razors, the bass bubbles and pops along, and the tenor works as a rhythm instrument while infusing the sound with the jazzy warmth that is so important to this quartet's sound. There's also a bit of mouth percussion on the track, which is the central feature on "Room To Move," another track you can find on YouTube.

To my ears, Mayall on this album sounds like a graduate of the Dudley Do-Right School of Voice. I don't mean that in a mean spirit at all, but that association baked itself into my skull upon first listening. And I call this a "school of voice" because I've heard it in a number of other places; the one that comes immediately to mind is J.W. Hodgkinson, who was lead vocalist for a unique-sounding UK band called If. I have to wonder if they're emulating the style of an American blues hero I'm not aware of.

One other distinguishing aspect of this cut is the lyrics. It's an unusual protest song that invokes the memory of American free-speech hero Lenny Bruce, who fought obscenity charges in the courts for the better part of two decades. He was also a pot smoker and a junkie. Mayall makes the case that weed should be legal, but since it's not then you shouldn't blame cops if you get busted for possession---you should respond with political activism, instead. I remember thinking the lyrics were somewhat "square," but not really objectionable. Looking back, I think Mayall's presentation was remarkable during an era when the terms "police" and "pigs" were synonymous with many, many youth in the United States.

Acknowledgment: I thank my old friend Gurlitzer, known to some people in southwest Cook County as Janet, for scraping up the catalog information.

The Laws Must Change, John Mayall (1969, "The Turning Point," Polydor Stereo 24-4004), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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This may sound like too laid-back of a band to call "experimental," but that's what I'd call it anyway. Listen to John Mayall's impressions, jamwise, of California.



This four-piece string-driven band was recorded in 1969 and released on Mayall's album The Turning Point. It was a Easy Rider-era favorite amongst the high school outcasts who started growing our hair about then since we didn't fit in with any other group and couldn't get near girls except in marching band.

I don't know much about Mayall even though he was so influential in the British blues scene, and his Bluesbreakers band was a proving ground for many players I admired in other settings, including Sugarcane Harris and Aynsley Dunbar (violin and drums, respectively, with Frank Zappa), and Dick Heckstall-Smith (reeds with an under-known British jazz-rock band called Colosseum). (I'll bet Barry or Sam can offer some interesting facts.)

Anyhoo, although it's somewhat subtle, one will notice that this combo uses no dedicated percussion instruments. The guitars, bass, and Mayall's impressive harp-sucking are deployed throughout the album in highly rhythmic and percussive ways, yet the overall sound is predominantly mellow. In addition to that innovation, Mayall added a straight-ahead jazz component with Johnny Almond's sax and flute. Almond isn't that dazzling, technically speaking, but he really doesn't have to be---it's a goddam blues band, after all. Listen how the crowd responds when Almond hits the altissimo register at the end of his tenor solo; it doesn't require virtuosity, but he uses the sound to excellent climactic effect.

Altogether, what impresses me most about this band is how well everyone fits with everyone else. I think this is a sound that has been under-explored over the years.

California, John Mayall (1969, "The Turning Point," Polydor [catalog information not available because I can't find the damned album in my junk]), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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As I've maybe mentioned here before, many self-described "jazz purists" either dislike or make excuses for Charlie Parker's interest in large band and orchestra formats near the end of his life. I don't share either of those views. The quality of each recorded effort varies, of course, just like in real life. And the observation---not a profound one, really---that Parker did these performances to sustain or enhance his income is immaterial to me. As they used to say in England during the Renaissance, "Shakespeare got to get paid, son."



Entertainment corporations tell us that rock and roll is "the soundtrack of our lives," but I'd argue that for individuals born before, say, the Kennedy administration, this style of music is every bit as much a part of our "soundtrack" as rock is (at least those of us who grew up in a major urban area). I'm not saying that Parker, specifically, was necessarily a component of our collective unconscious, but rather the orchestral setting for musical treatments of jazz standards and show tunes that our parents used to have on the car radio, during folding and ironing time, and so on, was endemic and burned deeply into our little neuro nets.

To the postmodern youthful ear, which often hears pop music from the past through a filter of campy irony, this cut may sound like something that "Mad Men" used to boink the secretary to after hours. But the best of the lush sounds from this era---say 1950 through 1960---have a deep resonance to those of us who were innocent kids waiting to be fed homemade burgers and fries on Saturday night or cruising southwest down U.S. highways toward a vacation in the era immediately before rock ascended into prominence. So to all those ultra-hip jazz purists who look down on Bird's big band and orchestral digressions, I say "fuck you, asshole."

My feeling is that this track could have been the outstanding gem of Parker playing in a big band setting were it not for one inexcusable "clam" that would have sent Buddy Rich on a spree with a butcher knife had he been conducting the band. It's in the last 10 seconds of the track; should be easy to hear. The perp, Danny Bank on baritone sax, was not slaughtered after the session, however, and went on to record an estimated 10,000 tracks in his distinguished career.

I Can't Get Started, Charlie Parker with Big Band (1952, originally issued on 78 rpm single as Mercury 11096-B), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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I start out clean each day/
Shoot 'em down shoot 'em down shoot 'em down shoot 'em down



Music like this confirms to me that I'm not the typical older-generation crank to think that pop music became pretty uniformly bad starting in the 1980s. Why? Because along the way I've found a nontrivial amount of bands that have dug deep to innovate on the root forms, whether extending them in terms of form or rethinking how rock and pop should sound. I think that what this relative handful of groups has in common is that you can't point to much that obviously identifies them as eighties, nineties, or tenties music. Another thing is that they do not sound like the product of teen focus groups and coke-sniffing producers. In my view, they say something... whether there are lyrics or not.

Here is one of my favorites: Morphine. No historical or critical essays tonight, except to say I think it's funny that the recurring phrase they use in the framing passages sounds like a mild perversion of the famous Joe Walsh riff from "Rocky Mountain Way" (find it on YouTube if you don't recognize it by name; you should recognize it right away).

Now, you know the routine here at the fish fry: mash those earbuds into your head and turn up the volume to 11.

Test Tube Baby/Shoot 'm Down, Morphine (1993, from "Good," RykoDisc), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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As of this afternoon I neither knew that James Moody was still alive nor that he died yesterday of cancer at age 85. My first acquaintance with this great saxophonist's music was in the 1970s, on a reissue of Eddie Jefferson's 1959 "vocalese" album The Jazz Singer. Jefferson was a genius at composing lyrics for famed instrumental melodies and performing them in a bop style, including all the inflections and phrasing idiosyncrasies of the originals. Moody's best-known melody originated in 1949 as an improvised solo based on an older composition called "I'm In The Mood For Love." Ten years later Moody played tenor on Jefferson's rendition, and in a funny turn of fate, he ultimately embraced the vocalese version and staked his own claim on it. Here is a 1991 performance of Moody's Mood featuring the great man on the vocal, in the company of other giants including Lionel Hampton, Sweets Edison, Clark Terry, and Hank Jones. Just listen to how the melody unfolds, with inventive flourishes surely inspired by Charlie Parker.



Unfortunately and oddly, I can neither find a version of Jefferson's rendition nor Moody's 1949 seminal performance, so you can't gain a full appreciation for development of the melody or its nuances. Moody was a saxophonist, and his vocals were mostly novelty affairs along the lines of how his mentor Dizzy Gillespie would sing. His performance of Moody's Mood here, like others I've heard, is both heartfelt and hilarious, but it doesn't communicate the stunning greatness of the solo. But it definitely conveys something about the man.

I've recently bought several late 1940s recordings of Dizzy Gillespie's experimental bop big band---an ill-fated venture due to postwar music industry economics---and discovered that Moody was right there with Diz at the beginning of an era. I intend to pay closer attention to liner notes as I listen to these discs in coming weeks so I can try to better appreciate James Moody's earliest excursions into bop, even before Moody's Mood.

Moody's Mood For Love, with Lionel Hampton and the Golden Men of Jazz (1991, "Live At The Blue Note," Telarc Jazz), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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A seasonal perennial for you: "Autumn Leaves," performed by Stan Getz, plus a guitar, brushes, and a high-hat. This tune has been performed live more than once at the RubberCrutch party sanctuary on New Year's Eve, featuring Big Rock Head and others. The YouTube poster didn't provide any record or session information, and I have no way to venture a credible guess. Anyway, this one's just to listen to. If you like, compare with the inexplicably upbeat versions on YouTube by the great Bill Evans or Chet Baker and Paul Desmond. I think most would agree that this composition is intended to be played slower and quieter, in a pensive mode, like autumn... and like Getz does here.



Autumn Leaves, Stan Getz (date and performance information not known), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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As Hedley Lamarr once said, "My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives."



Just cuz! An all-too-rare specimen of Lummox Rock from Frank Zappa leading (in my opinion) his best band ever, period. (Thank you for your attention to this matter.) As much as I love Zappa, I feel he spent way too much time expressing obscenity, disrespect for women, and pointless vulgarity. This performance, however, is not any of those: it's a straightforward and witty expression of an ultra-lewd sentiment that probably has overtaken every gentleman reading these words at a certain point. I'd be very interested to hear any version of this viewpoint as expressed musically from the female point of view, preferably in a Lummox Rock format. In fact, I may know of one from the '90s, but that will have to wait. Meanwhile, if you know of any, do tell.

And as with all Lummox Rock, plug in your headphones and turn it up louder than you can stand. Just fuckin' do it!

Dirty Love, The Mothers (1973, from "Over-Nite Sensation," DiscReet MS 2149), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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Being a bit lazy here, , for expediency --- going back to my favorite iteration of Blood, Sweat & Tears, masterminded by Al Kooper with very nice, bluesy white-boy vocals and a little psychedelic guitar around the edges. I dedicate it to my old friend, the daughter of a preacher man, who digs horn bands from the late '60s and who was evidently moved by her own political passions to utter the word "fuck" on this very blog a few days ago. Shame on you! Haha!



I Can't Quit Her, Blood, Sweat & Tears (1968, from "Child Is Father To The Man," Columbia CS 9619), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Another birthday boy: The Bird (29 August 1920)

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Today Charlie Parker would have turned 90. His birth date has been lodged in my head since 1980, when I listened to a live birthday tribute concert from the Chicago Jazz Festival on WBEZ-FM. It featured Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, and other luminaries that I don't remember at the moment. Anyway, here's the Bird with big band recorded in March 1952, one of a handful of sessions he did in the studio with a big band, as opposed to small combo or strings.



Yes, it's that "Night and Day," featured on this very blog last night as performed by Earl Bostic. Both sides were recorded within, at most, 3 or 4 years of each other --- one being a dance tune for teen parties, the other being bop in a jazz/pop setting.

The CD compilation on which this tune appears, Charlie Parker Big Band, collects several sessions from the early 1950s. The bands are staffed by both veteran and rising stars of the era. This performance boasts a rhythm section with Oscar Peterson (p), Ray Brown (b), and Freddie Green (g). Another session features Charlie Mingus (b) and Max Roach (d), not to mention Miles Davis french horn blower Junior Collins (from Birth Of The Cool). A third session features Fifty50 hero Buddy Rich.

Strangely, this YouTube clip appears to come from one of the virtual radio stations --- "Jazz Nation Radio 108.5" --- embedded in the Grand Theft Auto video game. And judging from the YouTube comments, at least a few shorties think it's awesome.

Happy birthday, Yardbird.

Night And Day, Charlie Parker and big band (1952, from "Charlie Parker Big Band," track 6; Verve reissue of Mercury 11068), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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As a birthday indulgence to one Big Hussein Otis on this, his happiest day in the whole wide year, I present an encore performance by Earl Bostic. BHO says he really enjoyed Flamingo, which I embedded as part of this post a few weeks ago. So here's another Earl Jam with the same vibes-infused combo: a swinging up-tempo arrangement of the Cole Porter standard, "Night and Day."



Not my favorite recording of Earl playing this song, but a reasonable facsimile of it probably from several years later. Like you, I have no idea what was on the mind of "Dadreno" when he attached the awful, geezerly railroad slide show to this nice Bostic dance number. Probably ultra-lameness. Don't blame me. Or Big Otis. And especially, don't blame Earl Bostic.

Night and Day, Earl Bostic (1955, King 4765, b/w Embraceable You), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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Some 1970 big band soul jazz from the ubiquitous Quincy Jones:



I had the first pressing of this album, thanks to a tip from my high school pal, the late great Count. Being a fan of all things jazz-rock in the era of Chicago Transit Authority, BS&T, and Chase, this album puzzled me and still does. It's hard not to like the sound now, as an adult, but even back then I sensed something exploitative about the album that I didn't have the language to express. This is the music of Hugh Hefner and Playboy After Dark, marketed to youth at a time when hippie culture was being ravenously co-opted by establishment impresarios and entertainment moguls. The entire first side of the album on which Killer Joe appears is dedicated to Dead End and Walking In Space, "from the American Tribal Love-Rock Musical Hair" (speaking hip-sploitation).

Usually I despise the flute as a solo jazz instrument, but I make a provisional exception for certain muscular-sounding performances by people like Herbie Mann and Roland Kirk (and Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, of course, although not a jazz musician). I forgive this performance because it was original and of the time. I also think the arrangement is marred by the dainty female chorus during the last half; they seem to festoon Quincy's wall of sound mostly as an audio version of Hef's mansion playmates --- mere decoration, pleasant or slightly creepy. Because of these details, both then and now I experience a mild embarrassment to admit that I enjoy this cut. And for that matter, I'd probably chat up Miss July 1970 if I ran into her at The Esquire this weekend (but she'd be lucky to snag me).

It may sound like I'm disparaging Jones a bit with these thoughts (which were pretty much unknown to me until I started typing), but no harm is intended. Quincy Jones is a monster in American musical history, and not only for his early associations with legends like Lionel Hampton, Ellington, Basie, Ray Charles, and a latter-career collaboration with Miles Davis (the trumpeter's last recording). He was behind the scenes literally everywhere as an arranger and producer, from an ill-fated 1950s effort to transform Louis Jordan into a rock star, to the top of the charts with Lesley Gore (It's My Party) and Michael Jackson (Thriller), a Sinatra collaboration, and a zillion movie soundtracks and TV show themes. His highly irritating, flute-featuring 1962 tune Soul Bossa Nova was even resurrected for the soundtrack of an Austin Powers movie and as the theme for the 1998 World Cup games. (I own it, regrettably.) Jones was responsible for any number of stinkers, but statistically that would be expected of someone involved in virtually every important aspect of postwar American jazz and pop music. The man knows how to arrange a chart exactly how it should sound, whether for good, or for... eev-ill.

Killer Joe, Quincy Jones (1970, from "Walking In Space," A&M Records)

Apropos of something: Killer Joe was composed by Benny Golson, whom we learned last week was influenced by our unlikely hero Earl Bostic.