Without the state

Simply to share...

Jazz Discography Project

The Jazz Discography Project is a bare-bones, open-source, astonishingly exhaustive database of the hippest sounds on the planet.

It doesn't include Ellington or Armstrong, but look at who is included - Gene Ammons, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, Hampton Hawes, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker...

And the labels! - Blue Note, Mercury, Pablo, Verve...

Drummers should never lead bands

In response to this post by Brian Micklethwait about the Cream rerunion concert recently rebroadcast on TV I made this comment.

Disraeli Gears is also one of the greatest pop/rock albums ever! I have never understood however, how Ginger Baker could be so magnificent with Cream and so c##p afterwards. I saw him with his own band Airforce soon after Cream broke up and I have never been so disappointed. By and large drummers should never lead bands! (Gene Krupa and possibly Buddy Rich excepted)
[typos corrected]

I still don't know the answer, but I suspect that it lies in the fact that Cream were a real trio - not a backing group for one musician - while I  have no idea who was in Airforce except Ginger Baker and I still can't be bothered to google it.

The joy of mobiles...

Most people of my age see a phone as just that, whether mobile or fixed. For younger people it seems to have a much more vital role and is subject to all the vagaries of the must-have gadget. I have never understood this until my own mobile died on me. The new one has all the gizmos you can't escape including the ability to play .mp3 files.

Suddenly it dawned on me - I used to cringe when I heard the awful noises coming out of some phones, even before Dom Joly parodied it all. Now however, if you ring me, you get the sublime introduction to West End Blues by Louis Armstrong. If I have to inflict myself on others with my phone at least it will be good music!

Edit: Doh! If you ring me then  of course you don't get Louis, I do and so do all those lucky people around me. If you want to hear iy you'll have to click the link above - or better yet buy it on an album

Greatest ever movie score?

Norm bemoans the lack of Vertigo or Psycho from this list, but what about Ellington's amazing score for Anatomy of a Murder?

Cream reunion

Damn - I missed it

Radio Me

I love the way in which MP3 players can create such unexpected juxtapositions. The most bizarre in my case must have been George Melly singing 'Hot Dog' - and achieving the impossible by making the lyrics sound even more lewd than they already were - followed by "Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore" from Tosca!

A wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom!

Its out at normblog. Yes now we can find out the Blogger's all time top 10 Rock 'n'Roll songs. Well actually its the top 98, but that's good not bad!

I never got round to posting my list of 10 so here they are. Music being what it is I would probably post a different list if I was doing it again, but I can't see it being having much from outside that list of 98.

Sweet little 16 - Chuck Berry
River Deep Mountain High - Ike and Tina Turner
Summertime Blues - Who
White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
Voodoo Chile - Jimi Hendrix
Imagine - John Lennon
Strange Brew - Cream
Sympathy for the Devil - Rolling Stones
I wanna be straight - Ian Dury and the Blockheads
House of the Rising Sun - Animals

Country style

If you read Normblog you will know that Norm is pretty partial to country and western music. This isn't a taste that I share by and large, although Johnny Cash I often like, and Dolly Parton is a great songwriter.  Just recently however, I got a slight inkling of what  Norm means when I heard a song by Patsy Cline called 'I go to pieces'. She isn't a great voice, but this performance has much of the same rawness of Billie Holiday not something I expected.

I fall to pieces
Each time I see you again
I fall to pieces
How can I be just your friend

You want me to act like we've never kissed
You want me to forget, pretend we've never met
And I've tried and I've tried but I haven't yet
You walk by, and I fall to pieces

I fall to pieces
Each time someone speaks your name
I fall to pieces
Time only adds to the flame

You tell me to find someone else to love
Someone who'll love me, too, the way you used to do
But each time I go out with someone new
You walk by and I fall to pieces

(I fall to pieces)
Each time someone speaks your name
(I fall to pieces)
Time only adds to the flame

You tell me to find someone else to love
Someone who'll love me too, the way you used to do
But each time I go out with someone new
You walk by and I fall to pieces

Friday Fun Thread

This post at  Crooked Timber apart from listing dozens of people I've never heard of and so making me realise I have lots of music still to find, sounds pretty close to what I was looking at in the previous post here.

Last six tracks played here:

Night and Day - Ella Fitzgerald
Better be good to me - Tina Turner
Cecilia - Simon and Garfunkel
Layla - Derek and the Dominos
Solea - Miles Davis ( from Sketches of Spain)
Runnin' gun Blues - David Bowie

The sequence is simply a function of the shuffle option on the mp3 player, but it always amazes me to find that they somehow always make a satisfying sequence.