Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Thelonious Monk - In Walked Bud



Thelonious Monk (Piano)
Ahmed Abdul-Malik (Bass)
Johnny Griffin (Tenor Saxophone)
Roy Haynes (Drums)
--
Orrin Keepnews (Producer)
Ray Fowler (Recording Engineer)

Thelonious Monk - Criss-Cross


Salt Peanuts



Salt Peanuts · Dizzy Gillespie · Charlie Parker · Don Byas · Al Haig · Curley Russell · Max Roach

Saturday, December 24, 2016

The Modern Jazz Quartet 1956 - England's Carol #1



Milt Jackson (vib), John Lewis (p), Percy Heath (b), Connie Kay (ds)
Album:"The Modern Jazz Quartet / At Music Inn"
Recorded:Live at "Music Inn"Lenox, Massachusetts, August 28, 1956

Oscar Peterson plays Jingle Bells


Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Bill Evans


Dexter Gordon Quartet - The Christmas Song



Personnel: Dexter Gordon (tenor sax), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Larry Ridley (bass), Alan Dawson (drums)

Charlie Parker - White Christmas (Live jazz, 1948),


Friday, December 23, 2016

The Quintet' - The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall [FULL ALBUM]



Perdido (Juan Tizol, Hans Lengfelder, Ervin M. Drake)
Salt Peanuts (Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Clarke)
All the Things You Are (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II)
52nd Street Theme (Thelonious Monk)
Drum Solo by Max Roach
Cherokee (Noble)
Embraceable You (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)
Hallelujah (Jubilee) (Grey, Robin, Youmans)
Sure Thing (Bud Powell)
Lullaby of Birdland (Shearing, Weiss)
I've Got You Under My Skin (Porter)
Wee (Allen's Alley) (Denzil Best)
Hot House (Tadd Dameron)
A Night in Tunisia (Gillespie, Frank Paparelli)


Jazz at Massey Hall is a live jazz album featuring a performance by "the Quintet" given on 15 May 1953 at Massey Hall in Toronto. The quintet was composed of several leading 'modern' players of the day: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach. It was the only time that the five men recorded together as a unit, and it was the last recorded meeting of Parker and Gillespie.

Charlie Parker - "My old flame"



Charlie Parker (alto sax),
Miles Davis (tromp.), Duke Jordan (piano), Tommy Potter (g), Max Roach (drums)

Charlie Parker - All the things you are

Some things have to be repeated just to remind folks how good it was, and still is.


Blue Note 27002 Bud Powell


Thursday, December 22, 2016

Dexter Gordon & Wardell Gray - The Hunt (Live 1947)


Disorder At The Border - Dexter Gordon & Wardell Gray




Dexter GORDON & Wardell GRAY - The Hunt 1947


Bass- Harry Babison (tracks: A, D) , Red Callender (tracks: B, C) 
Drums- Connie Kay (tracks: B to D) , Ken Kennedy (tracks: A) 
Guitar- Barney Kessel 
Piano- Hampton Hawes 
Saxophone [Alto]- Sonny Criss 
Saxophone [Tenor]- Dexter Gordon , Wardell Gray 
Trombone- Trummy Young 
Trumpet- Howard McGhee

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Al Cohn-Zoot Sims/Live at the Half Note/1959...Lover Come Back To ME


Zoot Sims & Bucky Pizzarelli - Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You


COOTIE WILLIAMS REX STEWART COLEMAN HAWKINS



1)-- Alphonse Et Gaston -- 2)-- I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues -- (C.Williams/R.Stewart/C.Hawkins) Charles Melvin ( Cootie Williams July 10, 1911 - Mobile, Alabama - September 15, 1985 - New York - (tp) - Rex Stewart (cnt) - L. Brown , J.C. Higginbotham (tb) - Coleman Hawkins , B.Freeman (ts) , H. Jones (pn), B. Bauer (g), M. Hinton (sb), G. Johnson (dm).

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Sonny Stitt Quintet - The Nearness of You



Personnel: Sonny Stitt (alto sax), Hank Jones (piano), Freddie Greene (guitar), Wendell Marshall (bass), Shadow Wilson (drums)

Thursday, December 8, 2016

A headline from "The New York Times":  "

On Campus, Trump Fans Say They Need ‘Safe Spaces’ 


In other words  --  just run of the mill "Special Snowflakes"  --  poor little children in need of some additional "political correctness".

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Oscar Peterson - The Very Tall Band .1998 . ( Full Album)



Piano – Oscar Peterson
Bass – Ray Brown
Drums – Karriem Riggins
Vibraphone – Milt Jackson


1.Ja-da- 7:12
2.SKJ- 8:10
3.I Remember Clifford- 8:13
4.When Summer Comes- 4:23
5.Blues For JR- 11:00
6.Nature Boy- 5:44
7.Sometimes I'm Happy-8:43
8.Bass Solo Medley: Full Moon And Empty Arms, The Very Thought Of You, The Work Song- 7:32
9.Caravan- 9:13

Ben Webster - Solitude


Friday, November 25, 2016

Personal update.

I've had a horrible cold for the last few days.  One of those things that settles in your chest and doesn't want to leave.  Can't breathe, taking over the counter meds, and just being miserable.  I've finally reached the point where I think every sickness could well be my last.  That too is a bad place to be  ---  but, might be realistic (at least a little bit).

Will be back with music as soon as possible.  Meanwhile, let's all look at Mr. Trump with open and questioning eyes  --  who knows, he might just be rather unpopular with his base as reality sets in. 

Monday, November 21, 2016

Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie. Bird & Diz.



Tracks are: Bloomdido. An Oscar For Treadwell. Mohawk. My Melancholy Baby. Leap Frog. Relaxin' With Lee.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Charlie Parker. New Bird. Hi Hat Broadcasts 1953.



Charlie Parker
Trumpet: Herbie Williams
Piano: Rollins Griffith
Bass: Jimmy Woode
Drums: Marquis Foster

Charlie Parker & Brew Moore with Paul Bley Quartet at CBC Studios 1953



Charlie Parker and Brew Moore with Paul Bley Quartet at CBC Studios 1953

1) Cool Blues (Charlie Parker)
2) Bernie's Tune (Jerry Leiber, Bernard Miller, Mike Stoller)
3) Don't Blame Me (Dorothy Fields, Jimmy McHugh)
4) Perdido (Wahoo) (Ervin Drake, H.J. Lengsfelder, Juan Tizol)

Personnel: Charlie Parker (alto sax, except 2), Brew Moore (tenor sax, -2,4), Paul Bley (piano), Dick Garcia (guitar), Neil Michaud (bass), Ted Paskert (drums)

from the album 'CHARLIE PARKER - MONTREAL 1953' (Uptown Records)

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Ending the American Romance

From Paul Krugman's blog.  Please follow link to original.
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http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

I tweeted this out earlier, but for blog readers here it is in this form.
Some morning-after thoughts: what hits me and other so hard isn’t just the immense damage Trump will surely do, to climate above all. There’s also a vast disillusionment that as of now I think of as the end of the romantic vision of America (which I still love).
What I mean is the notion of US history as a sort of novel in which there may be great tragedy, but there’s always a happy ending. That is, we tell a story in which at times of crisis we always find the leader — Lincoln, FDR — and the moral courage we need.
It’s a particular kind of American exceptionalism; other countries don’t tell that kind of story about themselves. But I, like others, believed it.
Now it doesn’t look very good, does it? But giving up is not an option. The world needs a decent, democratic America, or we’re all lost. And there’s still a lot of decency in the nation — it’s just not as dominant as I imagined. Time to rethink, for sure. But not to surrender.

Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth 1967


Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Live: Joe Williams with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross - Every Day I Have the Blues


Live: Lambert, Hendricks and Ross with the Count Basie Orchestra - Avenue C


Lambert, Hendricks & Ross - Four LIVE 1961


1960 - Stan Getz & JJ Johnson -Sweet Georgia Brown




J. J. Johnson (tb), Stan Getz (ts),
Victor Feldman (p), Sam Jones (b), Louis Hayes (d)

Carl and Frank - Straight No Chaser (1968)



Straight No Chaser from "Jazz For a Sunday Afternoon" (1968)
solo order: Harold Land, Bobby Bryant, Pete Christlieb, Carl Fontana, Sweets Edison, Frank Rosolino and Tommy Flanagan

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Trump’s Enablers

This from Robert Reich.  Please read this, think about it, vow to relearn what The United States of America is truly about.  Also, please do not champion secession while calling yourself a "patriot" - it just makes no sense to espouse treason while wrapping yourself in the flag.

Please follow link to original.
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http://robertreich.org/

Even if he loses (and I believe he will), Donald Trump has done incalculable damage to America – eroding the trust and social cohesion the nation depends on.  
But he couldn’t have accomplished this without three sets of enablers. They must he held accountable, too.
The first is the Republican Party.
For years the GOP has nurtured Trump’s xenophobia, racism, fact-free allegations, and wanton disregard for democratic institutions.  
Republican fear mongering over immigrants predated Trump. It forced Marco Rubio to abandon his immigration legislation, and, in 2012, pushed Mitt Romney to ludicrously recommend “self-deportation.”
During this year’s Republican primaries, Ben Carson opined that no Muslim should be president of the United States, and Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz suggested Syrian refugees be divided into Christians and Muslims, with only the former allowed entry.
Trump’s racism is nothing new, either. Republicans have long played the race card – charging Democrats with coddling black “welfare queens” and being soft on black crime (remember “Willie Horton”).
Trump’s disdain of facts is also preceded by a long Republican tradition  – denying, for example, that carbon emissions cause climate change, and tax cuts increase budget deficits.
And Trump’s threats not to be bound by the outcome of the election are consistent with the GOP’s persistent threats to shut down the government over policy disagreements, and oft-repeated calls for nullification of Supreme Court decisions.

The second set of Trump enablers is the media. 
“Trump is arguably the first bona fide media-created presidential nominee,” concluded a study by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy. 
By mid-March, 2016, the New York Times reported that Trump had received almost $1.9 billion of free attention from media of all types – more than twice what Hillary Clinton received and six times that of Ted Cruz, Trump’s nearest Republican rival.
The explanation for this is easy. Trump was already a media personality, and his outrageousness generated an audience – which, in turn, created big profits for the media.  
Media columnist Jim Rutenberg reported CNN president Jeff Zucker gushing over the Trump-induced ratings. “These numbers are crazy — crazy.” CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves said, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS. The money’s rolling in and this is fun.”
Not only did the media fawn over Tump but it also failed to subject his assertions, policy proposals, and biography to the scrutiny normal candidates receive.
Fox News, in particular, became Trump’s amplifier – and Fox host Sean Hannity, Trump’s daily on-air surrogate.
Trump also used his own unceasing tweets as a direct, unfiltered, unchecked route into the minds of millions of voters. The term “media” comes from “mediate” between the news and the public. Trump removed the mediators.

The third set of Trump enablers is at the helm of the Democratic Party. 
While Republicans played the race card to get the working class to abandon the Democratic Party, the Democrats simultaneously abandoned the working class – clearing the way for Trump. 
Democrats once represented the working class. But over the last three decades the party has been taken over by Washington-based fundraisers, bundlers, analysts, and pollsters who have focused instead on raising big money from corporate and Wall Street executives, and getting votes from upper middle-class households in “swing” suburbs.
Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and jobs.
Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.
They stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class – failing to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violate them, or help workers form unions with a simple up-or-down votes.
Partly as a result, union membership sank from 22 percent of all workers when Bill Clinton was elected president to fewer than 12 percent today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains.
Both Clinton and Obama also allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify – with the result that large corporations have grown far larger, and major industries more concentrated.
The unsurprisng result has been to shift political and economic power to big corporations and the wealthy, and to shaft the working class. That created an opening for demagoguery, in the form of Trump. 
Donald Trump has poisoned America, but he didn’t do it alone. He had help from opportunists in the GOP, the media, and at the highest reaches of the Democratic Party.
The pertinent question now is: What, if anything, have these enablers learned?

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Trump Is an Existential Threat - Charles M. Blow

This from Charles Blow, in the New York Times.  Please follow link to original.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/opinion/campaign-stops/trump-is-an-existential-threat.html?_r=0 
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There are only a handful of days until Election Day and an end to this phase of a nation’s — and the world’s — ebb and flow of anxiety. The day after the votes are cast and counted that anxiety will either dissipate or become a fixed feature. Which of these it will be is very much in flux.
While Hillary Clinton still maintains a lead in the polls and a built-in advantage on the electoral map, recent polls suggest that Donald Trump is closing the gap. There are now plausible — however improbable — electoral map routes to victory for him.
I leave it to others to make predictions about how all this will play out, but I feel that I must say again, and until the last minute and with my last breath: America, are you (expletive) kidding?!
I simply cannot wrap my head around how others with level heads and sound minds can even consider Trump for president of this country and leader of the free world. The logic simply escapes me.
I try to view it through the lens of economic anxiety, diminished economic mobility and global pressure. It all seems understandable, but then I’m reminded of Donald Trump, a billionaire whose businesses have on more than one occasion gone bankrupt, who stiffed contractors, who outsources the making of many of his products and who brags about not paying federal income taxes. All of which brings me back to: Are you kidding me?
I try to view it through a purely ideological lens in which people simply tend to vote for the party nominee. It makes sense, but then I’m reminded of Donald Trump, a man who isn’t really an ideologue but a demagogue interested only in self-aggrandizement. And again I return to: You’re kidding, right?
I think of the family values voters on the right with whom I’ve become acquainted over the years. Although I might have vigorously disagreed with their positions and their inherent myopic anachronism, at least I could say that they were as principled in their adherence to their positions as I was in opposition to them. But then, again, I hit Donald Trump, who is dragging traditional conservative paternalism into the muck of perversion, who brags about sexually assaulting women, who makes fun of the disabled, who savors a lust for vengeance, who says he has never needed to seek forgiveness, even from God. Again, are you kidding?
I try to think of it from a strict constitutionalist’s perspective, to understand how strongly they want the vacancy on the Supreme Court to be filled by a constitutional purist. But then I think of Trump, whose Muslim ban would fly in the face of the Constitution, whose threats to the press strike me as constitutionally hostile, whose advancement of torture would seem to me constitutionally questionable (to say nothing of its legality in the face of international norms and treaties). Are you kidding, America?

I try to think of it in terms of weariness with Washington and with D.C. insiders, the Clintons in particular, and dynastic democracy in general. I try to think of the intense Clinton distrust and even hatred that exists in some quarters, sentiments only exacerbated by things like this never-ending email saga. But then I hit Donald Trump, a real estate scion who has been sued nearly 1,500 times and is currently being sued for Trump University deceptions and the rape of a 13-year-old girl. You have got to be kidding.
There is no way to make this make sense. Believe me, I’ve tried.
Donald Trump is a bigot.
Donald Trump is a demagogue.
Donald Trump is a sexist, misogynist, chauvinist pig.
Donald Trump is a bully.
Donald Trump is a cheat.
Donald Trump is a pathological liar.
Donald Trump is a nativist.
Donald Trump’s campaign has proved too attractive to anti-Semites, Nazis and white nationalists, and on some level the campaign seems to be tacitly courting that constituency.
Donald Trump — judging by his own words on that disgusting tape and if you believe the dozen-plus women who have come forward to accuse him of some form of sexual assault or unwanted sexual advance — is an unrepentant predator.
To put it more succinctly, Donald Trump is a lowlife degenerate with the temperament of a 10-year-old and the moral compass of a severely wayward teen.
There is no way to make a vote for him feel like an act of principle or responsibility. You can’t make it right. You can’t say yes to Trump and yes to common decency. Those two things do not together abide.
If you are voting for Trump, you are voting for coarseness, corruption and moral corrosion. Period. And if you are not actively voting against him, you are abetting his attempt to hijack American greatness and sink it with his egotism.
On Election Day, America faces a choice, and it’s not a tough one, but a stark one. It is the difference between tolerance and intolerance. It is the difference between respect and disrespect. It is the difference between a politician with some flaws and a flaw threatening our politics.
Donald Trump is America’s existential threat. On Tuesday, America has an opportunity to defend itself.