Back to facing the music

 I'm still working on the listening guides in Jazz Styles, a book that (except for the listening guides) I just finished reading recently. I've also added a bunch of interesting chunks of musical history to my collection, that I thought I would brag, er, write about.

I like the early pictures of Duke, because he doesn't show all the weariness of 50 years in the music business that his later pictures do. Just a happy, confident musician.

The top of that heap is the 3 CD set of Early Ellington: The Original Decca Recordings. This is an increasingly rare set that could be had on Amazon and E-bay forever, but almost always at ridiculous prices. So, when I happened to be surfing around and found one for less than $20, I was all over it. I really consider it a cornerstone of my collection, even though I've only had it for a few days. Of course, Mrs. S put it on for me the other night as our dinner background music, and she quickly thanked me when I walked right over to the iPad and put something else on. "I thought you wanted to listen to it," she said. I told her simply, that's music to study while listening to it, not to eat dinner. She said, "Well, thank God." Which is not to say there's anything wrong with the music, just, it's old, and it really takes a lot of focus and energy for a person living in the 21st century to listen to.

A subdued and simple piece of cover art, oddly compelling, that requires a second look, and then a third, just like Haig's music. 

Next is Al Haig's Will-O-The-Wisp, a collection of four ten-inch LP's from the '50's. This can actually be played during dinner to no great detriment, but it too is music I bought to study. I didn't know it, but Al Haig really is the grandfather of post-bop piano (Bud Powell fans: please give me a break on that one), and because of his work with the bop masters, he really laid the groundwork for a lot of the great pianists that were to come, like McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans, Ramsey Lewis, Ahmad Jamal and others. I find Haig's simple statements quite attractive because they are approachable to untalented players of little skill, like myself, making a decent sound not only attainable, but manageable.

How do you take a tax-deductible trip to France: Record your latest CD while you're there!

Then, speaking of Ahmad Jamal and getting some music we could listen to, we picked up the latest by "armadillo", as he's known in our house. ("Ahmad Jamal" in spoken Japanese sounds remarkably like "armadillo".) As I've indicated in my side bar: "It’s scary to think that Ahmad Jamal has been playing jazz piano for something like 20 years longer than I’ve even been alive. Maybe that’s why he sounds as good as he does. His original compositions also have a way of sneaking into your head for long periods of time, which means the best solution is to just put him on the iPad and leave him on." His music is just a joy.

Ah, it feels good to write about music again. I must do more of this in the very near future.

Day 6 – Monday, May 31 – Success!

Goals: Remove the strings; remove the tuning pins, remove all the last of the screws holding down the sounding board/pin frame; remove the frame; clean up the inside.

Music: Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s “Rip, Rig, and Panic”; Bill Holman’s “The Original Bill Holman Band” (both disks); Ahmad Jamal’s “Cross Country Tour” (both disks); Dexter Gordon’s “Go”; Bill Frisell’s “Have a Little Faith”; and Stan Getz’s “Focus”. (Yes, that’s about eight hours’ worth of music, because that’s about how long I worked on the piano yesterday.)

Started off by continuing with the string removal. This was deceptively difficult, not only because the strings are so brittle and rusted onto to the pins, but also because I attempted to keep the strings in some kind of order for possible future reference. What makes this hard is the curly ends of each string, which I kept in case I have to refer to the length of any of the wires in the future. I can’t imagine I would, but never having done this before, I’m just not sure how important that is. But those curled up ends all gathering at about the same location can really get infernally tangled, and they catch on everything: each other, parts of the pianos, tools laying around the piano, my clothes, and stuff hanging in the garage where I attempted to hang the strings. Toward the end, with the little strings that just kept breaking anyway and where I was missing one to begin with – and because my patience had run out, I admit – I just cut all the ends off. Note, however, that I didn’t have a choice, because those upper end strings are run through a sort of holder through which the curled end never would have passed anyway. So, I did what I could, but had the strings off by lunch time.

Then I started on the tuning pins. Seeing that I would have to slide the frame to get it out from under the front edge of the piano, I knew they had to all come out. My piano has 85 keys, only eleven of which consist of one string. That’s one hundred and fifty nine tuning pins. As I took them out, I put them in little trays in groups of 20 sprayed thoroughly in WD-40 and stored that way. Although I finally took out that last pin at about 8:30 in the evening, I ran out of WD-40 and had to just line up the pins for storing this evening, as I will buy some more on the way home tonight.

With the pins out and the screws out, I tried to lift the frame, but it wouldn’t budge. There was one kind of cap looking thing right in the center, which upon further examination turned out to be holding the frame on some kind of screw. I removed that. Finally I could lift the frame, but I banged into the pins sticking in the side of the piano that hold the arms that support the top when it is open for playing. I removed those four pins. I lifted one end of the frame and set it on the side of the piano. I lifted the other and moved it over and the far end dropped right down on the sound board, nicking a pin block on the way down but fortunately, missing the pins and doing no damage to the soundboard. I went out to the garage and got a bunch of plastic tool holders that I had and they were just the right height and strength to put under individual sections of the frame so that eventually, the frame sat above the piano about two inches, supported along its entire length by these tool holders.

Now make no mistake: this frame is frigging heavy. I’d guess in the neighborhood of 100 pounds. But what makes it so hard to move is that it is six feet long and it is not perfectly rectangular. I decided my best bet was to slide it out of the piano. I went to the garage and got our old carpet runner and set that at one end of the piano. I started to slide the frame but quickly realized I was going to tear up the wood at one end of the piano if I wasn’t careful. I went and got a couple of old towels and covered the edge of the piano, and slowly, carefully, determinedly, lowered the frame to the floor. I had Mrs. S. takes pictures before the elation wore off.

I started to wipe down the soundboard and noticed that it has cracked in at least two locations, luckily, both at the edges of the soundboard and not very severely. I should be able to repair them pretty easily. The book on piano refurbishing that I bought has an extensive section on repairing soundboards, as this is a pretty common repair.

Next will be the legs and pedal assembly. I bought a pair of sawhorses to support the piano on so I can remove the legs and pedal stuff. I’m still undecided how deep inside the piano I want to go. I need to look at it some more tonight.

I bought a special key cleaner and will use that to determine if I need to replace the keys or not. I asked the guy to send me a sample of the replacement keys he sells as well, but I’m not sure he’s going to send them to me. I guess I should also start working on the damper assembly and the soft pedal assembly, or at least, I need to be shopping for leather and felt for replacing those parts. There is still so much work to do.

So Memorial Day was by far the toughest and longest day so far in my piano project, but it was certainly the most rewarding. You can tell by my face as I stand next to my “trophy”, even with the eight day shadow.

Finally: Yoity Tot updates

These have been long overdue, so let’s get right to them.

Although I’ve been listening to a lot of different stuff lately, mainly because of having bought a lot of new stuff, there really aren’t any recordings that have been getting steady, consistent play, but Cross Country Tour by Ahmad Jamal comes closest. I just love what he does with his trademark bright chord voicings. Songs like Poinciana and Surrey with the Fringe on Top stick in your mind for hours after hearing Jamal play them. His Billy Boy is reminiscent of Red Garland’s on Milestones, but again, brighter. He does things with Broadway and My Funny Valentine that are just amazing. A great work that is hard to get away from.

My greatest surprise after Jamal has been the Modern Jazz Quartet’s Complete Last Concert. Like many of my “discoveries”, I just can’t believe how long I went before I found them. The vibes with rhythm section had me seriously out looking to purchase a vibraphone. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (they call it “England’s Carol”) is simply phenomenal.

And finally, Mingus, Ah Um. When I don’t know what I want to listen to, this gets pulled down and put into the CD player more often than anything else I own. Just an amazing work and it runs for more than seventy minutes. Great stuff.

Moving off the Yoity Tot list and onto the B-list are Motion by Lee Konitz, Time for Tyner by McCoy Tyner, and The Sidewinder by Lee Morgan. Of course, it goes without saying, there is nothing wrong with any of those great works. They are all three, tremendous recordings. They just aren’t high on my play list right now. What would be the next three to move to the B-list, I have no idea. It was hard enough relegating these three. I’ll worry about that when I find my next Yoity Tot candidate.