The Resurrection of Late to Jazz

Never mind about my composer’s studio (which is coming along but still in the works). It’s time to resurrect the blog itself.

After writing 1700+ product reviews over a little less than eleven years, I had slowly and carefully worked my way up to become Amazon’s 156th ranked reviewer. It was a good run, and I enjoyed it, but then something happened.

They kicked me out.

Amazon's "You suck" email, delicately worded in Indiaglish.

And because they are Amazon, they don’t tell you why they are kicking you out. They simply inform you that you have broken one of their rules or terms of service, you are a terrible human being, and we (Amazon) don’t associate with terrible human beings except for Chinese manufacturers of worthless, dangerous, easily broken, and unnecessary products, and then they “suppress” all your reviews. Then it occurred to me: since they no longer publish my reviews, those reviews revert to being my work, and that means I can publish them.

And so, as a slow and calculated way to resurrect my once bright but now faded  blog, and in anticipation of retirement and more time to devote to stuff I want to do, I decided to resurrect my blog by republishing my jazz recording reviews. Some of them have appeared in this blog before in altered (non-Amazon-rule-breaking) format, so those that are duplicates will be a good lesson in avoiding copyright infringement. The others will show what I really thought about a lot of these recordings.

Anyway, it’s great to be returning to my roots. Writing, opinionating, and learning and teaching about jazz. Today I will finish cleaning up the blog. Tomorrow, I’ll post a review, and we’ll be on our way.

Again.

At least they didn't call it "Kind of Kind of Blue"

Until just a few months ago, I’d never heard of Mostly Other People Do The Killing. As of right now, still the only thing I know about them is they recorded an exact copy of Miles Davis’s album, Kind of Blue.

If you don’t know anything about Kind of Blue, Google it now and come back when you are finished.

The cover of one of the most iconic jazz recordings of all time. No exaggeration to say it changed not just jazz, not just music, but changed the way people thought about making and listening to music.

So, why would a band want to make a copy of an album, note-for-note, second-for-second? You can Google MOPDTK and Blue and come back, if you want, but I don’t think you will find the answer in any of the interviews and articles that have been written about this “controversial” and “audacious” musical work.

Similarly, hard not to mistake this cover for something else, either, although a friend from school did have something remarkably similar for his Facebook cover photo for a while.

Of course, this didn't stop me from buying, listening to, and weighing in on the album on Amazon. Here’s what I wrote: 

Compelling in so many ways 

After first reading about this remake of the great Miles Davis album in the Wall Street Journal, I was partly scared and partly excited to hear what MOPDTK could do with the music from the album. There were just so many questions I had. Would it be indistinguishable from the original? Would it be nothing at all like the original? Would I even be able to listen to it? And, most importantly, why in the heck would a band go through all that trouble to make a note-for-note copy of the greatest jazz album of all time? The mind boggled. 

Then, maybe a month later and still before I’d gotten around to purchasing the recording, there was another article in the Wall Street Journal, this time calling the recording “controversial” and “audacious”. Really? I mean, yes, I’m still confused by the intent and purpose and the artistic value of the project, but does that make it a “controversy”? There was nothing to do but buy the thing and sit down and listen to it.

And all I can say is, this is, no matter how you cut it, an amazing piece of music, an amazing work of musicianship, and I am utterly in awe of the people who conceived and executed this work. And I must also admit that I am struggling to put into words what I thought about the whole thing. It is, first and foremost, a faithful, note for note, second for second, copy of the original album. The playing is clear and precise, and the recording is faithful to the original, in depth, tone, and overall reproduction. It swings, but it swings in a predictable, previously pioneered way. The first few times listening to it, you hear everything you are expecting to hear, so it is very difficult to put your finger on what it is different. But there’s something else there, or rather, something else missing. The “presence” of Mile Davis and Bill Evans and John Coltrane is absent (if that’s even possible). What’s left? Just the music. And the music is as interesting and as attractive and as absorbing as it has always been. The back of my brain kept saying, it’s not real, but the front of my brain kept saying, damn I love this music! I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I suddenly felt like Miles and his band had somehow transcended time and space, but I felt like I owed a debt of gratitude to Moppa Elliott, Jon Irabagon, and the other band members for achieving what is, to me, a nearly impossible feat. As a student of music, I’ve more than a few times been required to transcribe a piece of music as part of my study, and I can think of no more odious and difficult task. That multiple members of a band would spend ten years or so transcribing in meticulous detail an entire album is, as I’ve said already, mind boggling. That they achieved it at all is stunning. That they achieved it with such clarity and accuracy and musicality is nothing short of a miracle.

Purists will doubt the intent and the result of this album, probably for ever. Arguments for and against the pretext are likely to continue. Miles fans may have their hackles raised and it is obvious that not all jazz fans will appreciate this work. Regrettably, I feel a lot of people just won’t “get it”. Personally, I don’t think there is anything to “get”. This is a tremendous work, a monumental musical achievement, and its very existence hails the value of the original, heightens the enjoyment of both versions, and makes the brain work overtime in its euphoria and enjoyment. It may not be the single most compelling musical work ever recorded, but it’s worth as many stars as anyone will let you give, which in Amazon’s case is 5.

There’s more to this story, but I need some time to think about it. I am going to get to the bottom of this, one way or another.

Take your brain back thirty years

Here’s an updated review of a book I skimmed through a few years back and have since revisited and read cover-to-cover in the last month.

Although The 101 Best Jazz Albums is getting quite long in tooth, I still found it to be one of the most useful and interesting looks at jazz records, possibly second only to Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings. (Or maybe third after Leonard Feather’s Encyclopedia of jazz, although that, too, is getting quite dated and as an "encyclopedia", is not a "sit down and read" type of book.) Still, as a study of jazz and jazz recordings, 101 Best has a lot of value and impact, in part because it was written so long ago, before CD’s and way before MP3’s, iTunes, and the digital music era. So, when Mr. Lyons says something like, “This was a great recording that, sadly, (some record company) has decided to take out of its catalog”, the reader can discount such comments and although one maybe can’t assume it’s available somewhere, you can still fire up Google and maybe track down a vinyl, or even digital, copy. So, if you’re using this book as a buying guide, it becomes a little tricky, but if you’re using this just to learn about the history of jazz through records, this book is unparalleled.

The author breaks the book down chronologically, but as most historians and jazz fans will know, dividing up jazz chronologically leads to easy divisions of the kind of jazz being talked about. So, in Mr. Lyons’s telling you end up with (roughly) Pre-1920: Ragtime, Dixieland; 1920’s: swing; 1930’s: big band, dance; 1940’s: swing to be-bop; 1950’s: bop and post-bop; 1960’s: modal; 1970’s: fusion; later than that: free jazz. Again, roughly. In addition to the 101 albums cited in the book, Mr. Lyons makes mention of many other albums that were recorded, either as precursors to the ones mentioned in the text, or as follow ups. He is careful, also, to provide some reflection and analysis on the impact the recordings had on the artists’ careers and their overall outlook on jazz. There are black and white graphics of the albums that are called out, and there’s a section of black and white photos of some of the more famous musicians during their more “impactful” sessions. (Serious jazz fans will have seen most of these photos before.) Sometimes the author allows himself to get a little subjective, and there were a few (just a few) times where he made what I thought were rather personal statements and comments that really had no place in discussion of the recording or were just plain wrong. But everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, and this is Mr. Lyons’ book, so I’m willing to look past that and move on to the next discussion. (Plus it was fun to read what the author thought about, for example, Miles Davis’ hiatus and what sort of music Miles might break into in the twilight of his career – before he died, of course.)

I like this book for how it ties the history of jazz to the recordings that were made over the years, and I like how it weaves together the recordings, players, studios and producers to give an overall tapestry of the business of jazz recordings from its inception to the modern day (in the late 1970’s, mind you). It provides lots of ideas and suggestions for adding to one’s jazz music collection, and for fans of specific genres of jazz, it provides a lot of ideas for introduction of, study of, and listening to genres with which the reader might not be so familiar. For whatever reason you choose to read this book, it’s a clear and open window to some interesting jazz history, so even in its dotage, I give it five stars. (If this were my Amazon review...)

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.

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.

Core collection update

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I have been actively pursuing jazz music for just about three years now, using the eighth edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings’ core collection as my guide for purchasing music. There are 187 recordings listed in the core collection, and I recently acquired my 110th. Since for the purposes of the core collection, I don’t really try to discern beforehand if the recording is something that I’m going to like, I’ve ended up with a lot of recordings that, after I listen to once, I can almost never bring myself to listen to again. The most recent of these is Peter Brotzman’s Machine Gun. Christ on crutches, what a bunch of crap. I will contend to my dying day, that if you listen to a “song” and you can’t hum it afterward, it cannot even be considered music. This heretical opinion has gotten me into a lot of trouble with various jazz enthusiasts whose tastes run to the esoteric and avant-garde. I’m not going to belabor the argument here. Let me just say, I picked up Bix and Tram and Maxine Sullivan and Dick Hyman as well, and as dated as they sound, and as poor the recording technology and what have you, those are, to me, far more valuable and meaningful pieces of jazz than any well-regarded somebody blowing pointlessly into an instrument of any type, meant for blowing or not. Cast me out of the jazz world if you must, but you might want to at least listen to some of these recordings and see if you don’t agree with me.

Or, just read about them on my blog. Lots of reviews will be forthcoming as I get farther and farther into my recent purchases.

Busy, busy, busy

I've been so busy at work and getting ready for the jazz combos concert, my blog has fallen into cobwebs. Sorry about that. The good news is, after tomorrow, I won't have any music that I'm rigorously practicing or working on, so I'll be freed up to do some listening of new music I bought, and some reviews of jazz books I've got on hand. I plan to use the four day holiday weekend to accomplish that and hanging the Christmas lights, since Mrs. S will be away visiting her family.

It's a good feeling the day before the concert, because there's no going back.

By the way, saw "Mamma Mia" live last night. It was fun, but I felt the music was dragging the whole time. I guess having grown up listening to ABBA sort of jades me when it comes to remade versions. Plus, since it is a traveling Broadway show, they have to have some recorded stuff instead of live. Still, I recommend that show (the movie not so much) if you haven't seen it yet.

Critical listening project update

Well, in the face of a two week furlough from my regular job, things are looking up for my various jazz related projects, in more ways than one.

Regular readers of this blog will recall my critical listening project. Knowing that I am going to be off for two weeks, I've spent the better part of the last three weeks acquiring some new recordings, so I was only a little surprised when I revisited my CLP notebook and found I hadn't listened critically to a recording in over two weeks. I was happy that I chose to revisit the CLP with The Amazing Bud Powell Volume Two. It's a wonderful record that suffers a little from technological limitations, but not as many as Volume One, and not enough to detract from the enjoyment of the music. I also think the song selection is better on this recording. Bud seems to have more fun with the songs. Anyway, this was a good one to kick start the project again.

It will be important that I fire on all cylinders in the project during the first week of the furlough, because the second week of the furlough I'm going to be in New Orleans with Mrs. S., soaking up the live jazz scene. I might even do some remote blogging and if I win enough money at the poker tables when I'm not in the jazz clubs or out picking up some fresh gris-gris at the voodoo shop, I might stay even longer. Hell, my company doesn't care if I take time off (saves them money), so maybe I just need to oblige.

Folks, jazz is where it's at, and I'm there!

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.

The critical listening project

The way I outlined the project was as follows:

"QUOTE"
Critical listening project

Goal: To listen to every CD in my jazz music collection once with minimal distractions and complete attention to the music
Time frame: One year from start date
Start date: May 11, 2009

Methodology: This is a critical listening project. That means I will listen to each CD while doing nothing else, other than making notations in a notebook for my own possible future reference. I'm not sure what my actual CD count is, but at three CD's per week, I should be able to finish within one calendar year. There is no specific order for listening to each CD, however, I will try to listen to sets together with one another. For those CD's that I have not written a review of yet, I will also listen critically with an eye toward writing a review for my Amazon.com profile page. I will also read the complete liner notes for each CD, if I haven't read them already. (For the majority of my collection, I have already read the liner notes.)
"UNQUOTE"

Already this has been altered, in that I don't just sit and listen. (Not to mention the start date; I've already started.) I found that my mind tends to wander too much if I'm just sitting and listening to the music (which is neither here nor there), but I also found I couldn't stand the sense of lost productivity. I have decided, however, that any activity I undertake while listening to music critically will be mundane enough that it doesn't detract from the music. So far, I've done things like clean out my e-mail inbox and organize my sheet music. I think that is fair enough and still in keeping with the spirit of the project. Plus I still keep the notebook handy and make notes as they come to me and as necessary.

This project came about primarily because I have purchased so much music in such a short period of time, that I'm not always completely sure what I have and have not listened to. (I do this at the end of each semester in anticipation of having more time to listen to music because I won't be practicing as much as I am during the semester.) That may be because the music is not that impressive, or it may be that I just haven't learned how to properly listen to jazz yet. Which is at least partly why I decided to undertake this project. That, and, I'm hoping to write a lot more reviews on Amazon.com and makes some additions and changes to the Yoity Tot list. It's a bigger undertaking than it looks on the surface.

A bit of a rant

I wrote recently about joining the Jazz Heritage Society in order to plug some holes in my music collection as cheaply as possible. I succeeded nicely in picking up some classics such as Dave Brubeck's Time Out and Miles Davis' Milestones, plus a number of others, generally for around $5 a pop, which I consider reasonable. I have been finding, however, that these pre-internet organizations, especially the ones that have not kept up with the technology and have not established a worthwhile internet presence, really are hard to do business with. Some of them, like the BMG music club, have even had to go out of business. I think the JHS may be close to having to do the same very shortly. Here's why I think that.

First of all, the "printed" materials that came with my introductory shipment were right out of the stone age. You could almost smell the mimeograph solution on the letters. I hadn't seen anything as quaint since seventh grade. The "catalog" they sent was printed on rough, cheap newsprint. It was in color, after a fashion, but looks not unlike those "colorized" black and white movies.

Now, let's be clear: I joined the JHS just to get music cheap. And, I have succeeded in that, so far. But the other shortcomings I'm about to outline are, I think, inexcusable for an organization calling itself a "Heritage Society". First, going back to the internet discussion, I'm inundated, almost daily but easily twice weekly, with "Featured Selections" that I am required to respond to. Some selections that I have declined (in fact, I've declined every one so far), have even returned as featured selections again. Like my mom used to tell us kids when we were growing up, "No means no". I don't understand why the JHS doesn't get something as simple as that and can't make their website operate properly.

Next is the music. Take last week's shipment for example: Miles Davis' Complete In a Silent Way Sessions, and a 10-CD set of Chet Baker. The Miles set was just like the regularly available commercial set, chock full of pictures, information, liner notes, etc. The Chet Baker set, on the other hand, contained NO information about the recordings. None. Zilch. Zippo. Okay, sure, I got ten hours of music for about three bucks a CD, and these were also my first Chet Baker (and Gerry Mulligan) recordings, but, come on! Is it really asking too much to at least have a listing of the musicians playing on each recording? Maybe a blurb about when some of the bigger hits were recorded. I mean, really, isn't this a Jazz Heritage Society recording? What about the "heritage" part. That includes understanding the heritage of the recording, right? Just buying and listening to the music doesn't promote the heritage of jazz, or anything else for that matter.

It is going to be really, really hard to learn anything about the 200+ songs on that 10-CD set. I'm going to have to try, anyway.

My advice to readers is, go ahead and join the JHS for the cheap music, just be prepared to send lots of e-mails and fill in the blanks in your jazz education yourself.

Milestones

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of this blog, but with work and school, I decided to go ahead and commemorate the event a day early with this entry.

All I can say is, the blog has made me zero dollars, but I am still having fun doing it and I've had a lot of comments, both on and off the blog, from friends, family and new acquaintances who enjoy it. I truly think it has helped my music because I get the chance to sit and think about what I've been listening to, or what I've been playing, or what I've been learning, so it serves as reinforcement of what is going on in my head and heart musically. It's all good.

Speaking of Milestones, I just picked up that wonderful CD from the Jazz Heritage Society. The recording is really good and if you are into jazz piano, it is worth it just for Red Garland playing on Billy Boy. Gosh, that song is great and Garland's block chords are the bees knees, man, I'm telling ya!

So, congratulations to me for one year of Late to Jazz. Toast me when y'all think about it.

Coming soon:
-Yoity Tot List updates and changes
-My preliminary experience with Finale notation software and learning to arrange music
-Practicing hard during spring break

Stop back soon!

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!

Back against the wall

A while back, shortly after I joined the big band, I made the comment that I thought playing in the big band would balance well with playing in the jazz combo because I wouldn't have to work as hard in the big band as I do in the combo.

Well, I think I was wrong.

We are preparing for our April 17 concert, and we have a singer who does jazz workshops coming in to sing with us, Kathy Kosins. We will be doing two songs with her, plus an undetermined number of other songs, possibly including two Count Basie songs arranged by Neil Hefti. Long and short: there are critical piano parts in each of the Basie songs, and plenty of solo licks in the two vocalist songs, and it is very hard to practice the songs outside of the band because there is nothing for the piano to do when the singer is singing and the brass is blowing. I've taken to recording bits of our practice sessions to play back and play along with, but that hasn't gone so well (yet). Fortunately, I have the Atomic Basie CD, so I can play along with the two Hefti tunes. I also bought two of Ms. Kosins CD's (which haven't arrived at my house yet), one of which has one of the songs were doing with her on it, so hopefully, I'll be able to learn and swing those four tunes, plus our boogaloo tune which everyone is intent on doing (except me).

As if that weren't enough, our combo director wants us to work on Cherokee, which is a very difficult tune (for me) to play, and one I've given up on several times but now will not be permitted to give up on. Our drummer threw Keith Jarrett's The Magician in You into the mix, and I, unthinkingly, threw Falling Grace in (which I can play serviceably enough). And, last week when we practiced without our director, we came to the conclusion that I would be responsible for leading our group into and out of the endings of all our songs, a responsibility that I will not shirk, because I do believe the piano is "the key" to that part of the song, but it is something I'm not very experienced with and will have to work hard on.

So, even if I only do, say, fifteen minutes a day per tune, that's almost two hours, and that isn't that much practice when learning tunes. That's also more time than I have available to practice. Suffice to say, my back is now against the wall, and the only thing that can save me is focusing on these tunes in my private lessons and practicing my butt off every weekend and during spring break.

I asked for it, I got it.

Free music for late to jazz readers

OK, so this is not going to jump start the economy, but it might get you going a little bit:

Folks, I was contacted by "Tiffany" from the Gordon Goodwin Street Team. They liked what I wrote about Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band's new recording, Act Your Age, so much, they decided to reward me by offering my readers free jazz music. All you have to do to get your free music is send an e-mail containing your full name and mentioning that you heard about this offer on the late-to-jazz blog, and you would like to have your free download of "Jazz Police". Send the e-mail to [gordongoodwinstreetteam@gmail.com]. They should send it out to you right away. I checked it out and this is for real and the song they are giving you is great stuff: kind of Dragnet and Mannix theme-song-ish, but for this century. Really cool. And keep in mind: This is free. I don't get a kickback for a certain number of downloads, and Gordon will not be coming over to mow my lawn. I'm doing it because I love Gordon's music, and Gordon's doing it, because, he wants you to experience his music, too. Give it a try. It won't hurt a bit, I promise.

This is all particularly timely as I've just signed up to play in one of the big bands at UAH, while also continuing with my Wednesday night ensemble. This is going to be a musically busy spring with lots to write about. I'm excited.

Keep it jazzy folks!

Christmas music I recommend

Thanksgiving is gone and Christmas is around the corner. While stringing your lights and decking your halls, here's some suggestions for what to listen to:

The Christmas Songbook by Helen Merrill

Verve Presents: The Very Best of Christmas Jazz

Of course, while checking these out you can use some links to go to my other reviews and find a jazz recording or two you might like, just to spice up the Christmas mood.

And for heaven's sake, don't forget to go shopping. Our economy needs a boost!

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.)

Voyage on the Maiden

Well, let me first say that practice does pay off. I had a rather productive piano lesson last night, an hour long to make up for missing last week, but none of the time wasted and lot of pertinent discussion and practice on my playing at its current state. We talked about block chords, easing movement in the left hand, diminished chords, relevant minor chords, ...oh, many things. Even more to the point, we've got a road map for next week's lesson, which will also be an hour long, and it involves a lot of different themes and skills while working on Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage.

I recently purchased the CD of Maiden Voyage, and while I was unimpressed at first, I've been pleasantly surprised as the CD has grown on me. The title track itself I have always liked, and I think that while the MV voicings have become overused almost to the point of cliche, for a new pianist like myself, they lay a foundation of tonality that is easy to build on, because the chords range over a good portion of the register and include a seventh and what amounts to (I guess) some kind of suspended chord. What I mean is, the chords are really only useful in one context (playing Maiden Voyage and songs that sound like that), but in that context, they are extremely useful and reliable. (Of course.)

Because bashing out chords is, however, so one dimensional and not all that much fun and only improves one aspect of my playing, we also decided to try a different sort of Parker lick, so I'm going to have a go at Ornithology this week. I'm pretty sure I've got a recording of it around, pretty sure on one of my newer CD purchases, so I'm going to have at it pretty good this week. I mowed the grass Tuesday and don't have any plans for this weekend, and Mrs. S has a few things going on that she will be out of the house here and there, so this should be a big practice week for me and I hope to report a lot of progress between now and next Thursday when I run down next week's lesson in this spot. The only thing that will take some time away from practice is going through my CD collection and updating my list of songs that I have recordings for so I can listen and play along if necessary. That is not easy to maintain with the number of CD's I've been purchasing and what with trying to write reviews about them on amazon.com and, obviously, listen to them.

And something a bit off the track: We've had a traffic light installed at the entrance to our subdivision. There've been some accidents (a fatal one a month ago) and a lot of close calls, and the soccer moms on their cell phones can barely get in and out as it is, so the city deemed they deserved some help. I was against the light because I saw the issue to be more one of lack of driving skill than of needing to control traffic, but after two days, I now see this is a great advantage for me. Since I turn right coming out in the morning and left going in in the evening, I was required to make a stop (at the stop sign) coming out before I could go right, and could proceed if there was no traffic, else I had to wait for it. Coming home, I could proceed right through (turning left) if there was no traffic, but would often have to wait a while for traffic, or worse, for some dumbass to make a turn in front of me. Now, in the morning, if I'm coming out and the light is with me, I get to proceed right through and if it isn't, I'm no worse off than I was before, stopping, waiting for traffic, and then pulling out. So that's a plus. Coming back, I have it even better: I may have to stop for traffic, in which case after a while, I get an arrow, but if I'm lucky and there's no traffic, I can proceed right through any way. I can't see how I lose, other than the occasional time when I would have gone right through but I have to wait because somebody is pulling out and has the right of way. Say I save five minutes a week because of the light, that's over four hours of extra piano practice time a year! Groovy!