Core Collection – A Picture

When I first became interested in jazz, I picked up the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings and decided that acquiring the entire core collection – 187 (in that edition, the eighth) “must have” historic jazz recordings – would be the best way to learn about jazz. So I went through the book and made a spreadsheet and then set about finding all the recordings. Some of my efforts over the years have already been documented in this blog. In March of this year, I was able to track down and purchase three very hard to find, pretty expensive CD’s and announced to Mrs. S that I had completed my collection. The next step was to photograph it.

Several times, I stutter-started the project (much like my piano restoration effort), usually giving up due to lack of space, lack of time, or general resistance to the huge effort it would take to lay out that many CD’s so that they would be more or less visible in one photograph. But after the tornadoes rolled through Alabama last April, I’ve sort of been on a mission of getting rid of “stuff”. “Stuff” is nice, don’t get me wrong, but if a tornado blows it all away, you won’t have any “stuff” and you won’t have much of a way of getting it back. So, I thought it prudent to lighten my load. And now that I’m much more mature and knowledgeable about jazz music and my likes and dislikes, I decided that I should sell off the CD’s that I’m never going to listen to. Before that, however, I needed to make a concerted effort to take a picture of the collection as evidence that, at one point in my life, I did in fact have possession of the entire core collection, all at one time. Here’s what it looks like in chronological order:

Me and the core collection: CD's are in chronological order

This was actually the second layout I did, and it’s good that I did, because the first layout was missing three CD’s. This was due to working from a bad list and oversight on my part, but the chronological list was complete and accurate. So, with the initial layout and this one, I was invested for about two hours of my time. Even though I was sweating bullets for all the bending and moving around without stepping on CDs, Mrs. S still talked me into rearranging them once more, to get the original shot that I set out to take: an alphabetical shot with me in the middle of them. So, here’s what it looks like in alphabetical order in five blocks of 36 CD’s, with some sets pulled out so as to not block the view.

Me and the core collection: Alphabetical order

Let me put that picture in perspective now: three years of collecting, three hours of arranging, one photo. This is, I believe, also the first time all the CD’s of the core collection have been photographed together. That is “photographed together” and not “PhotoShopped together”.

Although I am tempted to keep this collection together, simply because of the achievement, but also because I might fancy updating it with the selections from Penguin’s current edition, I believe I have proved all I could hope to prove by assembling this collection, once, and so now, for many of the reasons I mentioned above, I’m comfortable just liquidating this and getting rid of what I don’t want to listen to and trading them for some that maybe I do.

If you fancy you want to have your own core collection, you need to go to amazon.com and ebay right now and buy up the CD’s I’m selling there. Some of them are really hard to find.

Advanced Jazz CD Collecting: A Quick “How To”

The basis for my jazz music collection has always been the Penguin Jazz Recordings Guide’s “Core Collection”. Remember that I started out in jazz without owning a single jazz album, except for three culled from a Wall Street Journal article about “must have” jazz recordings and some average stuff borrowed and burned from the library (I don’t do that anymore, so don’t call the FBI.) . So using the core collection of the Penguin Guide eighth edition, I began buying jazz CD’s.

As is to be expected with a list like the core collection, probably more than half the CD’s are common, relatively inexpensive, and easily found on amazon or ebay. But as you pick what I call the low hanging fruit, you are left with high hanging fruit that gets increasingly harder to find and more and more expensive. Some of the recordings are downright rare, and as I’ve written before, some can’t be had for love or money. They just aren’t out there. Be that as it may, I am dangerously close to completing the core collection with only one or two substitutes, but no integral gaps from the 188 selections.

Notice there that I say “selections” because some are multi-disc sets and some recordings are now available either as parts of boxed sets or other compilations. That complicates matters. So here’s the “how to” for completing the core collection:

1)  Get the easy ones first. Lots of artists can be had for just a couple of bucks: Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, etc. Most every selection on amazon will have a “People who bought this also bought…” underneath with a bunch more of the selections you will need to complete the collection. Pick up what you need.
2)  Buy used. Used CD’s are almost always half the price of new, or less. There are some CD’s I literally picked up for the cost of shipping. 
 3)  Keep track of what you have and what you don’t. You will quickly form a mental database that will help guide your search and will alert you when you come across something rare or hard to find.
4)  If you see one of the rare ones, buy it. You have to convince yourself that money is not an issue here, because there are some that I have seen and failed to purchase because I thought it too expensive, and then I never saw the thing again. It’s frustrating. More frustrating than breaking the budget.
5)   Search ebay and amazon everyday. The foreign amazon sites are also worthwhile. I found some on amazon Japan that I couldn’t find anywhere else. Use the wishlist (amazon) and watchlist (ebay) to keep your eye on prices and availability.
6)  Spend the time and money.
7)  Listen and enjoy your collection. You deserve it.

Depending on the availability of one or two CD’s and whether I opt to substitute or not, I should finish my core collection by the end of March. I plan to take a picture of me sitting in the middle of all those CD’s. It’s going to be exciting.

Something else that is nearing completion

At the end of last year, I tallied up the number of CD’s I have from the Penguin Core Collection (Eighth edition) and found I had reached about 75% completion of the 188 or so CD’s. And as I have said in the past, all or nearly all of the ones that I have are “low hanging fruit”: easily purchased from amazon or ebay for a few, or sometimes maybe twenty, dollars. Now, I’ve got around 40 to go to complete the collection, and I’ve begun pushing it. In fact, I was lucky to find some of the missing ones for as low as $5 here and there, usually on ebay. Some of the others are semi-low hanging fruit, in that they require some surfing around and they are often expensive (more than $20, sometimes $50 and up), but at least they are out there and available. That can’t be said for all of the remainder. Some are as rare as a unicorn and cannot be had for love, money, or anything else.

A good example of the latter is the Art Ensemble of Chicago 1967-68 CD. I’ve only ever seen two. The first was on ebay for “$125 or best offer”. I offered $77 but it ended up selling for $100. The other was listed for $200 and it sold in a day. I haven’t seen one since. Another one I’ve never seen is Humphrey Lyttelton’s Parlophones, volumes 1-4. I’ve only ever seen volume 1, and they were asking $100. That would push the price of the set up to $400, (if you could find the other three in the first place). That’s just not worth it. I suppose if I get all the others and  it comes down to it, I might spend that much to complete the collection. (After all, if they are selling for that much, they can probably be resold for that much, or possibly even more, at some point in the future.) Personally, I just want to see the collection laid out on the floor to see what it looks like. I think it will make an awesome picture. (I plan to sit down in the middle of it.

I briefly toyed with the idea of downloading MP3 for some of the ones missing from my collection. I nixed that idea because usually, the recordings are esoteric enough that the MP3 isn’t available either, but I also felt that downloading MP3’s constituted a bit of cheating or forgery. Having collected stamps for forty years now, I would never stoop to making a color copy of a stamp just to fill a space in my album. That just doesn’t make sense. I considered an MP3 file that same thing: it’s a color copy of an original, and just not the same.

Although I have nothing against Martin Luther King Day, with so many CD’s in transit, I’m aggravated that there won’t be any mail delivery today. I’m itching to size up my current purchasing activities, narrow down my focus, and do what has to be done to complete the collection. Not getting mail or package deliveries slows down my efforts. I did, however, get my oversized tuning pins and shims on Saturday, so I have plenty of other things I could be doing, if I felt up to it. I’m saving that for Saturday though. Honestly, it just feels good to write about something other than my goofed up piano.

Yoity Tot Big Band CDs

So, as I said some time ago, I thought that in order to get more CD’s on the Yoity Tot list, but to be fair to all, (that is, never have to relegate any CD from the list because I come across something I like better) I thought it expedient to break the list into two. One is for “regular” jazz CD’s, the other for big band CD’s. (I could go even farther in expanding genres, and I might someday as the list expands.) My big band CD collection is not that big (oops) yet, so the list is basically everything I own that is big band. The regular list is my top 25 as I see them today.

I still have some CD’s I haven’t even listened to yet, leftover from my crazy buying spree a month or so back. I’m having fun and enjoying them, going through them slowly, finding gems, learning things, just loving jazz.

Anyway, check out the lists over on the right.

Admitting to going a little crazy of late

The job is literally killing me, sending me to the doctor every week as bad things happen to my body, such as my arm going numb one night (better now, thanks), gaining eight pounds in two weeks (dropped four since), and even losing a crown from my wisdom tooth. To cope, I just decided to keep myself occupied with music. And since I’m studying jazz arranging, I’ve been focusing on big band stuff to keep my muse energized. Here’s what I’ve acquired, just in the last two weeks:



By far the CD getting the most listening right now is Abdullah Ibrahim’s Bombella. The WDR Big Band just blows Ibrahim’s arrangements right out the door and halfway up the street. If you could hear the sound of energy, this is what it would sound like.

A close second is the Bill Holman Big Band compendium. Talk about fun music! I’ve only listened to about five songs so far because I can’t stop myself from going back for seconds and thirds. The thing is just amazing.

In third, I have to go with Buddy Rich for two reasons: one, he and his bands embody the west coast sound and are similar enough to Stan Kenton as to be confused with those great works, and two, his version of Love for Sale is probably the best ever recorded. Brilliant.

And this recent trend gave me a good idea that I’m happy to announce here: I’m doing away with the Yoity Tot “B” List and breaking it out into The Yoity Tot Big Band CD list and the “regular” Yoity Tot CD list. It’s going to take me a little bit to put those together, so keep watching this space for that change.

Keep it jazzy, folks!

Halfway There

With the recent acquisition of the recording Air Time by Air, I have officially managed to obtain 93 of the 185 recordings of the "core collection" as set out in the eighth edition of the Penguin guide to jazz recordings. (And yes, I know there is a ninth edition, but I started the eighth edition and that is the list I'm working to.) When I started my jazz recordings collection almost two years ago, it was a relatively easy task to find recordings in the core collection that I didn't have and to learn about the stars and great recordings over the history of jazz. Having progressed this far, however, now I am encountering certain "issues":

1) Most of the low hanging fruit has been picked. Of the 185 albums on the list, some are obvious classics, multi-million sellers, and are sort of like "Witness" T-shirts in Cleveland: they're everywhere. Now that I've got those, I'm left with fruit that is well up in the tree. Hard to find, yes, but in some cases, even impossible.

2) The higher-up hanging fruit is not only harder to find, but more expensive. Remaining single CD's on the list mostly go for $12-17, even used, and sets for anywhere from $20 to $77, and higher. One example: early last week, I found a copy of The Art Ensemble of Chicago 1967-68 on e-bay. The seller wanted $150 for it. It normally sells for between $125 - 180 on various music websites. Since I don't much care for the avant-garde work of Roscoe Mitchell, I certainly wasn't going to shell out that kind of money for a set I wasn't going to get much play out of, so I offered $35. One other buyer offered $78, which is what it eventually sold for. But with $5 CD's pretty easy to find and less than $10 the norm, I find I like my jazz music the same as my wine: Why pay $35 for one you might not like when you can get three for $30 that you will probably like at least as much, if not more?

3) The remainder of the list is pretty esoteric and often, not even enjoyable. Even jazz musicians and fans I talk to don't always know what I'm talking about when I ask them "What does Alexander von Schlippenbach sound like?" and, "Where can I pick up Tomasz Stanko's latest CD?" I mean, I once went to great lengths to track down a boring record by Evan Parker - The Snake Decides - buying it from the UK for about $20. I listened to it once. I even found Stanko's Leosia at a decent price last week. (Haven't got it yet, so don't know if that's going to work out.) Nothing sucks more than spending two months and $25 to get a recording that you just don't like. It's one of the perils of jazz music collecting, however, so I'm putting up with it, but that won't stop me from griping about it here.

So, why do it?

Well, the thrill of the chase, and all that. But really, you only have to look at the Yoity Tot list to find a number of records you may or may not have heard of (at least 95% of them were completely unknown to me two years ago) that really are worth hearing and will more than make up for the money and time spent ending up with duds. It is a collection, after all, and it's mine.

But let's not forget: I might as well keep going, because...

I'm halfway there.

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.

I'm helping the economy, a little. You?

Back in August, I bought a new car that included an XM Radio introductory package. After the free 90 days was up, I had the opportunity to sign up for another three months for $6.99 per month, which I did, and after that, the price was to go up to $12.99 per month. Right before the price was due to go up, I decided I would cancel the membership anyway. My logic was simple: I'm only in my car for 40 minutes a day five days a week, mostly, and it isn't worth $13 a month to listen to a handful of songs a day, especially with my burgeoning jazz music collection to keep me company on drive time. Naturally, I used this fact as a catalyst to start buying some more CD's for my collection. Then I called XM to cancel.

As soon as I told them it wasn't worth the high price to renew, they offered me five more months for $3.99 a month. Now, I sort of figured they would offer me something, and I thought that they would likely give me another three months for $7 a month. With this much improved offer, I was hard pressed to say no, and in fact, said "OK".

But I didn't stop my CD buying.

In addition to discovering the Jazz Heritage Society, I also started scouring e-bay for things on my music want list. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because my first search of e-bay for "jazz cd" turned up 140,000 matches! Still I was able to pare it down, and between my five introductory CD's from JHS and my purchases on e-bay, which average around $4 each, including shipping (!), I picked up the following:

Cross Country Tour by Ahmad Jamal
The New Crystal Silence by Chick Corea and Gary Burton (signed)
Milestones by Miles Davis
Focus by Stan Getz
The Complete Last Concert by the Modern Jazz Quartet
Head Hunters by Herbie Hancock
Concert by the Sea by Erroll Garner
some Stan Kenton
some Kathy Kosins
Bingo by Rova
Blue Train by John Coltrane

Ahmad Jamal and MJQ both will be on the Yoity Tot list, just as soon as I figure out who to shunt out of the list in their favor. (Don't worry. I plan to start a "Formerly on the Yoity Tot List list".) Most of the other stuff I haven't even had a chance to listen to yet, since I'm still listening to XM in the car and practicing playing music almost all the time when I'm at home. Anyway, the point is that e-bay can be a valuable resource for purchasing music on the cheap, as can the JHS (which has the advantage that everything you purchase is new), and that when I find new resources, I like to use them.

As always, I continue to do my meager part to get the economy rolling again. I say, Let's Jazz America!

New Addition to Yoity Tot List

Since becoming interested in jazz music, I've always been a big fan of the big band sound. Something about all those horns and winds and rhythm instruments, coming down different roads headed in different directions all arriving at the same location at the same time. I don't know if it is the virtuosity of the players, the cleverness of the arrangers, or the resulting sound that appeals to me - probably some mixture of all three. Which is why when I was given the chance to play in a big band, I jumped at it: All that is something I wanted to experience firsthand for myself.

Which is a round about introduction to how I arrived at my latest addition to the Yoity Tot list: The Complete Atomic Mr. Basie. Before we started working on our Valentine's concert tunes, we took a look at a tune called, Teddy the Toad, which is a Neil Hefti arrangement done for Count Basie's orchestra. I couldn't play it for crap, but it sounded vaguely familiar and I liked it's swing moves. Yesterday, our first post-concert practice, we got handed a bunch of new music, including another Hefti-for-Basie arrangement of a well-known swing tune called, Splanky. One of the trombone players in our big band had brought it in and mentioned it was on Basie's album "E=mc2". I seemed to remember that album being the backbone of TCAMB. Again, we beat our way around Splanky, but I couldn't do anything with it right out of the box, not knowing the tune very well on top of not being the world's most talented sight-reader. What a relief to find I had those two tunes on the CD, and listening to it at dinner, I sort of wondered to myself, why hadn't I been more intimate with these great tunes and arrangements.

When I looked at my Yoity Tot list, I was actually surprised that TCAMB was not on it. I can only describe that as some kind of oversight on my part. Oh sure, I've got some other big band stuff on there, like Duke Ellington (with what I call his "medium band"), the Grammy nominated Gordon Goodwin, and of course, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. And though I can't put it ahead of those overall, there is no doubt in my mind that TCAMB needs to be included in the Yoity Tot list, too. And now it is.

If you are a fan of big band and you don't have that CD, or at least an old LP of E=mc2, you need to go ahead and add it to your shopping cart on your favorite music site. It's one of the swingingest CD's around and killer cool!

AND, WHADDAYA KNOW? That's the 25th entry on the list, completely filling it out for the very first time. From here on out, I'll only be editing the list - taking out what I haven't listened to in a while, putting in what I am listening to - at least until I think the list could do with some growth. Which may be sooner than I think (I've bought ten new CD's in the last week. Who knows how I'll feel about the list after I've listened to them all...)

Two additions to the Yoity Tot CD List

Just in time for Christmas (well, not really), here are two CD's I highly recommend. I love them both so much, I'm going ahead and adding them to the Yoity Tot CD list. Tony Bennett's "Jazz" makes it on the strength of his interpretations of many great jazz standards. I especially love his takes on Ellington's Don't Get Around Much Anymore and Solitude. Also, the recording is chock full of other jazz superstars, like Herbie Hancock, Count Basie, Stan Getz, Art Blakey, and many more.

The latest recording by Gordon Goodwin and his Big Phat Band is the other going on the list and in the top spot. Honestly, I haven't heard the entire recording yet because I can't get past Senor Mouse, but this rousing, full-out, big band stuff just gets in my blood and sends shivers down my spine. My love for jazz just deepens whenever I hear jazz done right, and George and BPB do it right. That's all I can say. It's a freakin' great recording.

Personal note of (some) interest (maybe): It's a little funny that I discovered Gordon Goodwin the day before my birthday and his band's latest recording is titled "Act Your Age". I turned 45 today, so I'm officially "pushing 50". That means if I act my age, realizing my dream of someday conducting in front of a big band will be really, really hard to achieve. So to hell with that. I've decided to pursue that dream nonetheless. I'll save "my dream" entry for another day...

Zero to sixty in about eleven months

As attentive (and not-so) readers of this blog well know, since discovering jazz some two years ago, I have primarily relied on the Penguin Jazz Recordings Guide as my key reference to help me select jazz recordings to buy. I have used that book's Core Collection of 185 recordings as the list of what I should buy, basically using it as a checklist and picking up recordings by artists that catch my attention and have a selection (or two, or more) in the core collection. This has been helpful in selecting both dreams (like Helen Merrill with Clifford Brown and Portrait of Sheila by Sheila Jordan) and duds (such as The Magic City by Sun Ra and Sound by Roscoe Mitchell) to add to my collection - of course not knowing they are dreams or duds until after I get them - recordings that I never would have otherwise have thought or known to buy. Well, two days ago, I received After Midnight by Nat "King" Cole and yesterday, "At the Golden Circle" by Ornette Coleman, giving me a total of 60 recordings from the core collection list. (I have many more jazz CD's than that, however.) Pretty soon, I'll be adding a couple more, but the majority of my recent purchases are other things I have wanted that do not appear on the list. Anyway, I always wanted to mark the 60-point in my acquisitions, since it is almost one-third of the list and is quite a milestone in and of itself. I'll have to get on the Macintosh and check our iTunes and music database software to get a count of my entire collection for my next entry.

Nat Cole, by the way, kicks ass. It will definitely end up on the Yoity Tot list before long.

A site I wish I'd found earlier

I say I wish I'd found it earlier, but it's likely that had I done so, I wouldn't have known what to do with it. Anyway...

Here's a link to a site that for the most part does nothing but rank jazz albums.

http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/jazz100/

They do it by genre, all time, decade, new, classic, etc., so it is a very useful set of listings. Conspicuous in her absence is Helen Merrill, who didn't even make the top 200. That can only be considered an oversight of some kind. It's funny to me how the top 10, top 25, and to some extent, the top 100, are (relatively speaking) easy to agree on. There is a lot of uniformity with this list, the Penguin jazz recordings guide core collection and crown collection, typical lists of jazz standards, and so on. And I'd have to say that compared to the Penguin core collection, this list is much closer to how I would probably rank many of these recordings (at least, as far as the ones I've heard goes).

I find these types of lists quite helpful, because the depth of jazz recordings continues to overwhelm me. It's been about a month since I've added any significant amount of recordings to my collection, (though there was the Art Tatum and Charlie Parker stuff I picked up cheap) and even though I've plenty of titles I want to add, I've been more reluctant than usual, simply because I don't feel like spending money in this economy and because I could probably afford to spend more time with the recordings I do have. I think whatever happens, I'll try to hold off until I take my annual trip to Las Vegas (October 19-23), then plan on picking up a pile of stuff before the Christmas holidays, giving me something to focus on over the long vacation. Jazz ensemble class will be wrapped up by the end of November or so, giving me some more time to focus on listening as opposed to playing. (Sometimes it's hard to strike a balance between those two - sounds like material for a future entry to me.)

Where I'm At

My recently purchased 8 CD set of Charlie Parker, plus Volume 8 of the Art Tatum Group Masterpieces arrived just before the holiday weekend. So, that was all I listened to all weekend. I'm pretty sure both can go on the Yoity Tot list, for now, but I don't think Art Tatum will be able to stay there once I get farther along in my jazz music education. The depth of the Charlie Parker set is stunning, and I don't think I've ever had as much fun listening to music as I do listening to that.

I worked on altered chords in a 12-bar blues format. I got a little less than halfway around the circle of fifths in different keys, so I still have a lot of work to do.

I got my drum machine out and played everything with it this weekend, including scales, drills, the blues above, and all the songs that we've played in the ensemble so far. (My Funny Valentine, How High the Moon, Blue Bossa - from my audition, Donna Lee) I also used it to learn I Could Write a Book. I think that helped me more than anything. It will certainly make me a better ensemble player as I am never at liberty with the time and rhythm, and the drum machine helps enforce that in spades. I wonder why I wasn't using it as much before. I'll definitely make good use of it from now on.

And that's where I'm at. Tomorrow: More about the path I'm on and where I'm going.

New Addition to the Yoity Tot List

Well, it's been a while since I added to or edited the Yoity Tot list. One reason is that I haven't been on much of a music buying spree lately (hard times, you know), so I haven't been listening to that much new music. Another reason is that I haven't really found any CD worthy of the list. My addition today, however, while I consider more than worthy, I have a feeling it will eventually drop off the list. But, as I've been trying to play some of the songs on this CD on the piano, it has been getting a lot of play time, so I decided it deserved to be included for now.

The CD is Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil. Four songs from it are in The Real Book. It took a while for this one to grow on me, but after I read the liner notes and listened closely, also while looking at the lead sheets, I started to sense something deeper. I couldn't tell you why I like this recording. Something about it, I don't know, "spiritual" almost. It's hard to describe the effect it has on me. But I like it, and I'm going to learn to play some songs from it.

My jazz music textbook arrived. I've started reading it, having just finished reading the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on jazz music. I also rented the movie "Round Midnight". I may report on some of that this coming week.

Speaking of next week, have an evil free one, y'all!

Sticking with the plan

It's been quiet on the "learn jazz music" front. I've been practicing pretty often and usually for at least an hour, and often a lot more. A Child is Born is sounding pretty good. I still can't play Maiden Voyage worth a damn, but I can play the parts separately, so I just need to work on the rhythm a little more and then put everything together. I've also been going hard at the drills and I'm optimistic I'll be able to make my way through at least one drill book completely by the end of July.

This week, I'm taking two days off work, which will give me a five day weekend to work with. No piano lesson this week, since we did an hour last week, so those five days of practice should get me up to speed for next Wednesday's lesson.

Having exhausted all possiblities with Helen Merrill and Gordon Beck's No Tears...No Goodbyes, which is just not all that good, I'm currently listening to Larry Young's Unity. I forgot how good it is. I'm focusing on it because it probably needs to be added to the Yoity Tot CD list. We'll see how I feel in a day or two. When I posted four more reviews on amazon.com over the weekend, I noticed I hadn't done one for Unity yet, so I'm fixing to rectify that situation. There are more than 120 reviews in my profile now, probably about 80 of them being jazz CD's. Here's hoping all readers have a look (here's a link) and click on a few "yes" votes for my reviews being helpful. I'm looking to move up the reviewer rankings.

Progress on Maiden Voyage: A Report

Had another hour-long piano lesson last night. With only one week of practice between two, one-hour lessons, it was rough going, but still quite productive. We spent most of the time on A Child is Born, not only because I can actually play it, but because its intricacies are more varied and subtle. After all, it is a relatively simple ballad with several multi-bar phrases that repeat over and over, so it is challenging for the pianist to come up with something sonically interesting every time a similar bar comes along. We listened to the original and analyzed, played it through, listened, played again, so that almost half the lesson was on that song. Then we moved to MV.

Thankfully, my instructor knows my limits, so I was relieved when he realized I probably wasn't going to be able to play it then and there after just one week, calling it, "Oh yeah, our project." If I get lucky, I can play the intro in correct rhythm, but with my instructor behind me tapping to try and help me, I don't get lucky. I get confused. And of course, with that tricky rhythm, I can't possibly make the melody go, so, while pieces and bits are more or less tangible and useful, it only vaguely resembles the song that Herbie Hancock wrote. The good news, is that I did gain some insight and should be able to spend the next two weeks, which includes (for me) a five-day weekend, practicing enough to actually put everything together. We shall see in our next report.

The rest of the lesson consisted of a quick run-through of Falling in Love With Love, which I play Helen Merrill-ish, which is to say, schmaltzy and in the wrong time signature. (It's a 3/4 that I play in a quick 4/4 or slow 2/4, depending on if you're an optimist or pessimist). And, we did a quick blow-through of Ornithology, which has got to be the trickiest song I've attempted so far, but which, once I can play it, will be one of the gems of my repertoire, I'm sure.

One upshot: All that work on ACIB has made me leave Thad Jones in the CD player all week, further justifying its move into the number one position on the Yoity Tot list.

What I'm listening to lately and some thoughts on the (possibly perceived as neglected) Yoity Tot CD list

Readers may well be forgiven for thinking that I have let the Yoity Tot CD list go to the dogs. Attentive readers will note the addition of Thad Jones' Consummation last weekend was the only addition since the launch of the list back in May, and that there've been no other changes or alterations to the list. "Eric's stopped listening to jazz and the list, once targeted to have 25 titles plus some past title-holder slots is stuck at 15 or 16 now and for ever. Lazy ***!" The fact of the matter is, I've been adding to my jazz music collection like crazy, so much so that Mrs. S sometimes doesn't even find time to upload everything to our iTunes library, or, with so many CD's coming in on a regular basis, isn't sure which ones have been uploaded and which ones haven't. What's more, I've been adding almost exclusively classic jazz recordings recommended as part of the core collection of the Penguin Jazz Recordings Guide, so there haven't been too many duds and slouchers creeping into my listening regimen.

This has created some problems.

First of all, listening time. Right now, I probably own ten CD's that I haven't even listened to yet. The reason is because, after I listen to something once, even if it is a casual listen while cooking and eating dinner or driving to work, before I listen to it a second time, I like to read the original liner notes, compare the musicians playing on it to other recordings, and maybe read up on it in the Penguin. So naturally, this process takes some time. I must admit also that this process sometimes get jumbled up and I forget what I have listened to so far, or I put in Dexter Gordon but think I'm listening to Wayne Shorter, or something like that. This makes for interesting listening and interesting results in formulating my opinion, which is what I'm trying to achieve anyway. But again, this takes time. Secondly, I have to say, despite the overload of what are considered jazz classics, honestly, I haven't found any that are worthy of the Yoity Tot list. One thing I am not interested in is recreating someone else's list. This is my list, so I'm careful about how I listen to and think about a CD and what qualifies if for Yoity Tot. And just to show that I have been doing what I say I am doing, here's a list of what I'm listening to lately and why they haven't made the list:

-Sarah Vaughn with Clifford Brown - Excellent. Really great stuff. But for my money, nowhere near as good as Helen Merrill with CB. Can't put them both on the list. Sorry.
-Love Supreme by John Coltrane - Legendary recording. Legendary work. Unmatched. Historic. But I bought the deluxe edition and the live version from France on disc two is nothing special and overall, I'm not moved by the pieces, original or bootleg. Somebody cries for John Coltrane when they hear this music, but sometimes, I just wish the noise would stop. McCoy Tyner almost saves it, but no, this is not Yoity Tot material.
-Destiny's Dance by Chico Freeman - Probably, this will make the list if nothing else comes along to impress me more. I listened to it once and thought it was crap. Listened to it a second time and "got it", listened to it a third time and was enraptured. The tracks that Wynton Marsalis plays on are especially dynamic. It's not great but it's as deep as the ocean, and that might be enough.
-Maiden Voyage by Herbie Hancock - Another legendary, historic, epic recording. But it only has five songs on it and only two of them are any good and none of them are that entertaining that repeated listenings don't become a bit boring. (I may be biased here.)
-Speak No Evil by Wayne Shorter - A list candidate. Still thinking about it.
-Our Man in Paris by Dexter Gordon - Another viable candidate. But, like John Coltrane, in places, I just wish it would stop.
-Blue Serge by Serge Chaloff - Probably this will go on the list, even if it will eventually be surpassed and have to be removed. This CD is very interesting and baritone sax is an instrument with a sound completely unto itself. A unique recording.
-The Amazing Bud Powell Volumes 1 and 2 - Great music, crappy recordings. I want them to be better, and that means, they're not good enough.
-The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson Volumes 1 and 2 - Great music, great bands, Clifford Brown, sharp recordings, these have a lot going for them. If Jay Jay doesn't make the list through Clifford (Volume 1 is on the Complete CB on Pacific set that I have, which I'm thinking about putting on the list), I may have to throw this one on there. It's probably good enough to be on the list.
-In My Time by Marian McPartland - Decent. Some interesting moments and a high level of skill, but, it doesn't stand out to me.
-Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery - Borderline. This recording really has its moments and despite my admitted bias against jazz guitar, this is very close to edging its way into the list.
-King Oliver's Complete Creole Jazz Band - Good God! I don't care how historic or trendsetting or timeless or anything the music is. If it was recorded on a street corner by a monkey turning a spindle on a prototype Edison recorder, it's crap.
-Complete Atomic Count Basie - Yeah. That's better. Good enough for the Yoity Tot list? Maybe. Just maybe.

I could go on. Suffice to say, I listen to jazz everyday for at least an hour, not counting my own playing time. When I find a recording that you it to yourself to own, it will get listed.

My latest, arguably greatest discovery: Helen Merrill

The road to jazz knowledge continues to be frought with difficulty.

After eating too much curry at a curry cook-off at lunch yesterday (eight different kinds of curry, including coffee, dumpling, kimchee, spinach, strawberry, and three others), it is no wonder my stomach woke me at 2:45 this morning. Sleep was not an option. I've been listening to Helen Merrill with Clifford Brown the last two days, and I listened to it again to lull me to sleep last night. In the darkness before the dawn, I've spent the last half hour or so perusing my Jazz Recordings Guide and the Internet for Helen Merrill CD's. Lord, I'm in love with Helen Merrill. People who are familiar with her work will know what I'm talking about. I'm at a loss to explain her singing and song-stering, all I can say is, I really love to listen to her sing. The voice: so pure. The timing: unhurried but right on. The phrasing: impeccable and un-imitatable. What's that, two words invented already because I can't describe her and her singing?

Of course, the version of the CD I bought has only seven tracks and is a frighteningly short thirty two and a half minutes. That's why it is easy to imagine my consternation at finding a "complete" with Clifford Brown CD that has 19 songs. Son of a --! I have to say, this is where the Penguin Jazz Recordings Guide really fails me. It just doesn't tell you what's what, as I've pointed out before. Would it have been too much to ask for one line saying: "Helen's really good, so if you think you might like her, look for the "complete" recordings"? It would have saved me 11 bucks anyway, because, I have to have everything Helen Merrill.

I'm in love.

Oh, and yes, you better believe she's going on the Yoity Tot CD list. Right at the top.

Mel Torme Joins the List

Some things you may or may not have known about Mel Torme:
-He co-wrote the words and music to The Christmas Song (made famous by Nat "King" Cole). He claims he and his partner finished the song in about 40 minutes.
-In addition to writing over 250 songs, he also wrote a biography of Buddy Rich, a novel, and three autobiographical works.
-His nickname (which he didn't like very much) was "The Velvet Fog".

So, if I needed any justification for putting him on the Yoity Tot CD list, there it is. Simple fact of the matter is, Mel Torme Swings Shubert Alley is a really fun, highly exuberant piece of music entertainment and true to its name, every tune swings. I really only bought it because it wasn't that expensive and I never expected Mel to become a pseudo-hero of mine, but he did, and he did it in short order. This CD is hard to put on the shelf. It helps that I'm working on one or two of the songs that are on the CD, too. You know, you can listen to Sinatra anytime, but the same goes for Torme. Like I said in my amazon.com review, growing up, his was one of those names that you heard all the time, but you could only really associate it with "older people's music" and when you got older, you just never expended the effort to find out what he was all about. I bought the Shubert Alley CD on a whim, and it was after that I began to learn more about him. Like so many things in being late to jazz, at least I'm able to get on the boat the second time it pulls into the harbor. My entire life would be different if I'd figured out about jazz and people like Torme back in, say, 1972 instead of 2007.

More Yoity Tot CD's

Today, I’m up for some additions to the Yoity Tot CD list. To wit:

Night Train by Oscar Peterson. I could easily have put this in the first bunch of CD’s that I posted and I couldn’t tell you why I forgot about it, because by far, this is one of my top five most often played CD’s. I like it because it is up tempo, it has a great variety of songs, and Oscar’s performances are always so reliable and true. Mrs. S loves Hymn to Freedom, but I’m partial to the jazzy little rendition of Volare, which is not covered nearly enough in the jazz pantheon, I reckon.

Time for Tyner by McCoy Tyner. After my experiment, this dropped right into my playing rotation, and I’m pretty sure it went something like five or six days in a row in my car, which would be something like five or six complete play-throughs, before I decided to listen to something else, and only then because I started working on Surrey with the Fringe on Top and I wanted something other than McCoy’s perspective. (Wynton Kelly and Billy Taylor’s versions are just too high to aspire to, for not, so I’m now listening to Mel Torme Swings Shubert Alley’s version, which gives me the words, which helps with my phrasing.) Anyway, McCoy is a solid standby in our dinnertime music rotation, and like Oscar, a favorite of Mrs. S and I both.