What took ya so long?

Now this, I think, is nifty, also surprising because I would have thought a King, Douglass, Carver, Attucks, et al, would have made it on before, although the state-themed quarter thing hasn't been around all that long.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Jazz legend Duke Ellington is the first African-American to appear on an American coin, the U.S. Mint says in introducing the latest in its line of state-themed quarters.

The District of Columbia commemorative quarter showing Ellington playing the piano will be introduced by U.S. Mint Director Ed Moy at a news conference Tuesday at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Ellington won the honor by a vote of D.C. residents, beating out abolitionist Frederick Douglass and astronomer Benjamin Banneker.

... and David, we'll miss ya

Listening again to It's Mr. Fathead last night and this morning I was struck by two things. First, I just love hearing him play Hard Times. Second, he got impressive range out of his horn, which can sound like an alto one moment and a baritone the next and also features a lot of the kind of tenor sweetness that gives me goose bumps when I listen to Sonny Stitt. What a loss.

Happy (25th) birthday, Mac

So long Fathead...

Glad I took the opportunity to see David "Fathead" Newman when he was at the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis in recent years.

He was a guy, like Sonny Rollins, who seemed to get better with age. But you could always hear that Texas tenor sound (big as the open range, of course, like everything in Texas) in his playing.

While his new stuff was always good (I'm partial to Chillin' and Song for the New Man, both on High Note), my favorite David Newman CD buy remains the old 32 Jazz set It's Mr. Fathead, where you get four of his early LPs (including one with Ray Charles) for the price of one, sort of. Mr. Gentle, Mr. Cool, a set of all Ellington pieces from Kokopelli, also is another real good 'un.

Things I learned...

...that I wasn't looking out for.

Never thought about how much Bess, You Is My Woman relates to Rhapsody In Blue until I listened to Richard Twardzik render the former on Pacific Jazz Piano Trios, Mosaic. He's a big band on whatever he plays in any event. Stunning, classical rendition of Round Midnight, too, which says a bunch about Monk the composer. I'll Remember April is not like any version I've heard before, and that's a trick.

Top 10 reasons to buy Kind of Blue again...

The 50th anniversary edition, that is (so two reasons per decade).

10) So What.

9) Freddie Freeloader.

8) Blue in Green.

7) All Blues.

6) Flamenco Sketches.

5) What the hey, it might be the last version you can hold in your hand.

4) Cool blue LP in the box, even though you probably haven't had a turntable in years.

3) Nifty posters and 8x10s of Miles, Trane, Cannon and the rest of the guys.

2) The making-of DVD.

1) It's only maybe the greatest collection of American music ever.

Miles Davis, Ascenseur pour l'echafaud, Verve

One of Verve's recent Originals reissues, which I just bought for $11.99, which is a good thing since it lasts for just over 36 minutes, but it's worth it at that.

I don't know whether there's a more concentrated example of Miles working the mute than this French movie sound track he did, eventually issued as an LP. I'll import it into iTunes as a single, megamute track.

Plus you've got European jazz legends Wilen, Urtreger and Michelot in support, not to mention seminal bop drummer Kenny "Klook" Clarke. Michelot lays down an all-time bass solo on Visite du Vigile and Miles and Wilen are, like, Miles and Cannonesque on Au Bar du Petit Bac.

Oh, and it leads to Kind of Blue.

This plays behind the flick of my noir life.

Gabriel's new trumpetmate

Forget (no, don't) Freddie Hubbard's own great sessions, Ready for Freddie, Breaking Point, Red Clay, Straight Life, First Light, et al; this list struck me in reading his L.A. Times obituary today:

"Seemingly the first choice for artists of every stripe, he was present on many of the most significant jazz albums of the '60s, among them Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, John Coltrane's Ascension, Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch, Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth, Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil and Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage." And, I would add, Sonny Rollins' East Broadway Run Down (and Coltrane's Africa/Brass as well). Now that's a list, and it doesn't even include his stellar Jazz Messengers stuff, like Caravan.

I got to see Freddie Hubbard twice this year, first at Yoshi's in San Francisco in April for his 70th birthday celebration performance. Still working on overcoming a series of health problems, he was, frankly, awful on the horn(s). But with the good soul, and the sense of humor, he exhibited and the effort he exerted despite everything, you just had to pull for him. Plus, the band he had around him, which included Bobby Hutcherson, James Spaulding and George Cables, among others, was fabulous.

In August, I thought about heading home before his appearance at the Indy Jazz Fest. I stayed and was so glad (now, even more) that I did. He was never going to be the Freddie Hubbard of the '60s and '70s again, but he sounded a lot better and seemed to me to have figured out how to cope with his limitations, judiciously employ the chops he still had and maximize them in the context of the band. It was a memorable show. I'm sorry I won't see another one like it.

Good enough to eat...

Herbie Hancock Maiden Voyage, Joe Henderson Page One, Lee Morgan the Sidewinder today.

I could probably live fulfilled on the classic Blue Notes.

But I did throw in Monk Underground and Mingus Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, the latter a classic, or classical, in any company.

Happy Holidays

Henry's 2008 Xmas card
Originally uploaded by mrgreg

The 2008 Xmas card from the great bassist, and artist extraordinaire, Henry Grimes, which appeared in my inbox yesterday.

Many thanks and happy holidays to Henry and Margaret, and the rest of you, too.

How to have a good morning...

Chester Arthur Burnett, aka Howlin' Wolf, (Cause of it All) makes me want to get nasty.

Anthony Braxton (Mosaic box) gets my neurons firing like little arc welders.

Eddie Harris blowin' the Love Theme from the Sandpiper (The In Sound) makes me glad to be alive.

Jolie Holland, The Living and the Dead, Anti

So this morning I'm reading Ted Gioia's excellent new book Delta Blues: The Life and Times if the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music, in particular a discussion of the dark nature of some of Robert Johnson's most popular songs, which would seem to be oxymoronic. But I think people, myself included, are often attracted by raw emotion and tragedy in art, whether it is paintings, movies, plays or music (not to mention books, try Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle on for size.)

This occurred to me over breakfast and Jolie Holland's latest, The Living and the Dead, which is mostly every bit as dark as Hellhound On My Tail and might have made me think of Robert Johnson, or Son House and Skip James, even if I hadn't been reading Gioia's book when I first heard it. Holland's music isn't the blues, although it doesn't lack for blues elements, along with folk, pop, rock and a smattering of jazz.

But her lyrics are certainly emotive in the manner of the great blues songs and the way she uses vocal modulation reminds me of some of the tools employed by a James or a Johnson. (I've always loved her voice, which is kind of twangy, truth be told. Then again, Son House's was not exactly Ella Fitzgerald's, nor Louis Armstrong's for that matter. It's what he did with it that counted.)

Mexico City, and especially Corrido por Buddy, leave me feeling like I do when I walk out of the theater after seeing something like No Country for Old Men or finish a book like The Road (talk about dark, just check out Cormac McCarthy). Like I've been through an emotional wringer, sad, yet exhilarated, too.

Well dust my broom...

Woke up this morning, coffee maker wouldn't heat...

Woke up this morning, coffee maker wouldn't heat...

Woke up this morning, coffee maker wouldn't heat...

Thank the gods for my micrcrowave, and for Earl Grey hot tea.

Broken Mr. Coffee Blues.

Al Gallodoro, Out of Nowhere, Basta

With the Beau Hunks, a Dutch retro pre-swing pop jazz band in 1999. Chops like Pee Wee Russell on the clarinet and Benny Carter on the alto sax with the verve of a youngster like Anat Cohen, even though the Paul Whiteman, TV and other orchestra vet was well on at the time (he passed Oct. 4 at 95).

Great versions of Back Home Again in Indiana and Struttin' with Some Barbecue and a cool original, dedicated to his guitar-playing grandson, in Kevin's Tune. It may be rooted in before-Ellington jazz, but there's nothing "old" about it. Need more Al Gallodoro. Just sorry it took his death for me to find him.

I am woman, hear me roar...

I find it ironic and really cool that the blues musician I am almost certain is the best interpreter today of thoroughly male-dominated traditional Delta blues, both singing and most certainly guitar playing, is a 59-year-old woman who is, frankly, hot, although I'd probably be in love with Rory Block even if she looked like Son House, the legend she pays tribute to on Blues Walkin' Like a Man, Stony Plain. She was just as lovely on The Lady and Mr. Johnson, Rykodisc. If she's going home on the morning train, or driving her Terraplane, I'm in for the ride.

What's next, Wynton Marsalis hiring a woman horn player for his Lincoln Center band?

Never mind.

Jake Langley, Movin' & Groovin', Alma

Remember Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith on, say, Dynamic Duo? Well, this is right there. You can talk all you want about how they put a modernist touch on it, blah, blah, blah, but the fact is, it's just an old-fashioned organ, guitar, drums trio romp, and a butt-kicking one at that.

Joey DeFrancesco (and though the Jakester leads this session, this is, in fact, Joey D's working trio) plays the Hammond JS left him when he passed and I figure Jimmy must have been taking a break at Club Heaven and channeled some inspiration the way of this session. I don't think Langley was playing Wes Montgomery's old guitar, but he might as well have been. You walk away from Bobby Timmons Dis Here drenched in bluesy soul. They're flat-out symbiotic on Canadian Sunset. Great stuff.

Happy birthday to me...

For which I bought The Complete Dean Benedetti Recordings of Charlie Parker from the wonderful folks at Mosaic, which Scott Yanow on allmusic refers to as "quite unlistenable." Now, I like Scott Yanow's AMG entries and books and find them to be, generally, useful guides. But here, he's plain wrong, especially if you've delved into the accessible Charlie Parker (Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Collection and JSP's Charlie Parker: A Studio Chronicle come to mind) and want more, more, more.

The first more, more for me was The Complete Savoy Live Performances (mostly at the Royal Roost) and more recently The Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings (which is basically what you get on the JSP set, plus all the alternate takes, which, as this is Charlie Parker, inevitably are different every take and instructive, if not scintillating, which they often are).

So comes the Benedetti recordings, by a guy who was actually an accomplished musician and musicologist, not a degenerate heroin dealer, as thoroughly incorrect legend has it, who put a recorder (tape and disk, not wire, again as legend has it) to Parker live at performances in California and New York, after Bird's stint in rehab in Camarillo and his return to New York, which is to say at the height of his powers.

Dean Benedetti, more or less, turned on the recorder when CP soloed and turned it off otherwise. Would I like to hear all of every set? Sure. Does it matter that I am listening as I type this to one Charlie Parker solo (more or less) after another? No. The music is incredible. I kept waking up last night with it playing in my head after listening to it before bedding down. That's powerful. The sound is fine, even really good, if you consider where it came from. The hair on my body stands on end sometimes listening to this stuff.

An observation...

2 CDs of Best of Miles Davis on the juke at ye olde Esquire Lounge in downstate Illinois. I slip in 3 bucks and spin up 8 tunes. As they play, I notice people moving their heads to the rythm, tapping feet, mouthing it. While talking about Dwight Yocham. Somehow, I don't think Dwight will translate as well 40 or 50 years from now.
-- From Mr. Greg's Sidekick II

Melvin Jackson, Funky Soul, Limelight/Dusty Groove

Exhibit A in the anti to the notion that those guys from the Art Ensemble of Chicago only went abstract because they couldn't play (semi anyway) straight. King Curtis would have been impressed by Roscoe Mitchell here and Lester Bowie sets the pace for about any rock, soul trumpet maven. Melvin anchors it all with his double bass fed through an electronicizing device to a point where it reminds me of Michael Henderson's effect on Miles Davis' electric bands, years before Miles Davis copped Henderson from Stevie Wonder. The title track is George Clinton funk-eee and the rendition of Eddie Harris' Cold Duck time is precious. But it's all good.

Silence, David Murray and Mal Waldron, Justin Time

Gotta wonder if Mal Waldron recording Soul Eyes, his composition, one last time knew it was the last time, because he sure puts every bit of heart and soul into it.

And David Murray, on bass clarinet in this instance, is right there with him. Amazing affinity between the two on the whole CD, as a matter of fact.

Sitting here now, I can't bring up a better piano and reeds duet session, and I rate it as one of my favorite, in a long list of them, Murray disks of any sort.

What they do with the Miles Davis electric tune Jean-Pierre says a lot about their skill, and the elemental musicality of Miles' electric stuff as well.
-- From Mr. Greg's Sidekick II