Friday, November 16, 2007

That special kind of place...

...as my friend Rodd Zolkos says of the Churchill Arms in London, where
nothing bad can happen and, I add, I am sure to be content.

The kind of place I think about when I am having a root canal.

The Velvet Lounge in Chicago. Especially when saxophones are wailing,
two of them, both tenors no less (Eliel Sherman Storey and Paul Pakisa Fenner, although the former does alto and soprano as well). Drummer Su Ra Ramses' E.S.P. Project, which belongs to the Chicago AACM lineage and is well worth catching.

The Old Style is cold, too.
-- From Mr. Greg's Sidekick II

Monday, November 12, 2007

Lanny Morgan, Pacific Standard, Contemporary

Coleman Hawkins ruined Body and Soul for everyone else if you ask me. I mean, what are you going to do for an encore after he takes possession of the song in 1939?

Likewise, Charlie Parker and the alto saxophone in general. Sonny Stitt, about as good a player as there ever has been, quit playing it for a long time (switched to tenor) largely to get out of Parker's shadow.

Benny Carter didn't, however, I have to think because he was such a great arranger and composer as well as a sax player that he felt secure enough as a musician to keep doing what he did. This must be the case with Lanny Morgan as well, who has pieces of Parker and Carter (listen to Broadway) in his own alto sound, which I think of, as I listen to this disk, as pristine.

He gets at least a slice of Body and Soul back from Hawk on a really nice rendition and I think his version of I'll Remember April is groovy. Nifty Latiny, bluesy, uptempo version of Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most. Yardbird would surely have dug it.