Better than the P!%#$ this weekend

**BLUESNIK'S REVOX** · 01-08-15, 14:59

We are all "Canadians" now.

I see Gerry Mulligan's "Walking Shoes" from the 1954 Salle Pleyel concert is coming up on JRR. I think this was prob the very first jazz EP I ever bought. Move over Fats Domino. Still love it hugely and their "Moonlight in Vermont" is seared in my mind for ever.

I think from Alyn's interview with Bob Brookmeyer, he and the semi- crew cut Baritonista were barely on speaking terms by this point. Or eating terms. Still a wonderful group record/period.

BN. no crew cut no mo'

**Serial_Apologist** · 01-08-15, 15:30

I think I just heard Betty Roche quote "Ooh Bop Sh-Bam" in a sub sub-Ella manner. Bit naughty, wannit - in the Duke's band in 1952?

**BLUESNIK'S REVOX** · 01-08-15, 15:43

Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post

I think I just heard Betty Roche quote "Ooh Bop Sh-Bam" in a sub sub-Ella manner. Bit naughty, wannit - in the Duke's band in 1952?

She was the kind of woman who would cheerfully vote for Jeremy Corbyn. Just to make Liz Kendall cry bucketfuls.

Didn't realise that JRR started at 4pm this week. The sound of suuuuurprise.

BN.

**Ian Thumwood** · 01-08-15, 15:56

Originally posted by BLUESNIK'S REVOX View Post

She was the kind of woman who would cheerfully vote for Jeremy Corbyn. Just to make Liz Kendall cry bucketfuls.

Didn't realise that JRR started at 4pm this week. The sound of suuuuurprise.

BN.

I think most people will cheerfully vote for Jeremy Corbyn as he is just what the country needs - a genuine conviction MP. He will get elected in a landslide but, more importantly, I would suggest that faced head-to-head with the unpopular George Osborne in the next general election, he will become Prime Minister with a substantial mandate. I am sure he will wipe out most of the SNP's vote next time around. More importantly, I would envisage that he will take a considerable proportion of the Working Class vote away from the ridiculous but dangerous UKIP.

**Serial_Apologist** · 01-08-15, 15:59

Originally posted by BLUESNIK'S REVOX View Post

She was the kind of woman who would cheerfully vote for Jeremy Corbyn. Just to make Liz Kendall cry bucketfuls.

Didn't realise that JRR started at 4pm this week. The sound of suuuuurprise.

BN.

Sorry about that, Bluesie - my computer kept on cutting out for some reason, maybe the new battery in the smoke alarm my cable runs past, and I was unaware of the earlier starting time.

My feeling is that Liz Kendall is really a reject from the casting for Humans - which has kept me gripped Sunday nights for the past few weeks, but won't make any sense if you've not been watching. Must check if there's a wind-up key in her back, as per the bikinied lady on the cover of Soft Machine's first LP.

Your Mulligan's now on. Am I right in thinking there's an earlier version of Walking Shoes with Chet?

**Serial_Apologist** · 01-08-15, 16:16

Originally posted by Ian Thumwood View Post

I think most people will cheerfully vote for Jeremy Corbyn as he is just what the country needs - a genuine conviction MP. He will get elected in a landslide but, more importantly, I would suggest that faced head-to-head with the unpopular George Osborne in the next general election, he will become Prime Minister with a substantial mandate. I am sure he will wipe out most of the SNP's vote next time around. More importantly, I would envisage that he will take a considerable proportion of the Working Class vote away from the ridiculous but dangerous UKIP.

There's a danger we'll be spotted using this ecclesiastical thread as a pretext for warranted politicochat, Ian, so I'll keep KV.

Jeremy C has the right analysis as far as he is able to go, the trouble being that to effect political change requires a base, and with the likes of me thrown out when we didn't see the colour of what was coming that can't be found anymore in the LP - as is intimated by JC restricting his sights to envisaging a chance for "discussion" around alternatives to post-Thatcherite socioeconomics. My mate inside the party who researches and writes articles for Compass says there's no inner-party discussion today, let alone any democracy, and he speaks from the People's Republic of Lewisham. It really looks as back to basics as that, at the moment.

Lovely Messiaenic harmonies from the much-missed John Taylor with Richard Fairhurst on right now.

**BLUESNIK'S REVOX** · 01-08-15, 16:25

Yep, with Gerry and Chet, the original quartet. But I much prefer this one for Bob Brokesider and Red Mitchell's just fluid bass lines and hip fills. Great concert.

The best Liz Kendall opening line so far is, "Well, I think the economy is really important". Eh? Hey, who would have thought! Oxbridge education, can't beat it.

Jeremy Corbyn is a really genuine guy. Has been for years. So he'll have his brakes cables cut in heavy traffic.

BN.

**Ian Thumwood** · 01-08-15, 20:57

The best tracks tonight were two that I would have least expected. I loved the Armstrong version of "Rockin' chair" and it made me realise what a great song writer Hoagy Carmichael was. The poise and gravitas of that recording was terrific. However, I was staggered at how good the Kenton recording was at the end. Normally I am underwhelmed by his work and been suspicious of the logic behind his work. Someone once wrote that he was a 1950's version of Paul Whiteman although more in step with the contemporary leanings of that generation.

It is weird how Kenton was so divisive. Many modernists distrusted him and a coterie of musicians who worked with his band seemed only to say negative things about their experience. Most of the "positive" comments centre around the writers and arrangers who contributed to the band's library. Despite his "progressive" labelling, Kenton never seemed to be held un much affection by fans who liked more progressive styles of jazz. On the other hand, I grew up listening to big bands and many people who encouraged me to explore the music found his music too modern or cold. Strangely, Kenton is one of the musicians you generally have to be a fan of to like - there doesn't appear to be much middle ground. A former college lecturer of mine was keen of jazz (generally from Benny Goodman through to Blue Note although he got in to ECM stuff after I had put him on to it) and he always said the best jazz gig be ever went to was by Stan Kenton. The track chosen tonight was one I had never heard before and I was hugely impressed. I think that Kenton's reputation was undone by his pretentions to be serious long after his band could seriously be credited with being ahead of the curve. He was innovative in the period up to the 1950's but probably would have seemed quite conservative by the mid 50's when Gil Evans turned big band writing on it's head. However, the JRR track was suggestive of a band that would swing, produce convincing jazz and present Broadway show tunes in a manner that belied the negativity associated with this orchestra.

Nice to hear Bennie Moten's band get an airing too - one of the historic old bands that I wish I had had the chance to hear perform live.

**Serial_Apologist** · 01-08-15, 21:50

Originally posted by Ian Thumwood View Post

I was staggered at how good the Kenton recording was at the end. Normally I am underwhelmed by his work and been suspicious of the logic behind his work. Someone once wrote that he was a 1950's version of Paul Whiteman although more in step with the contemporary leanings of that generation.

It is weird how Kenton was so divisive. Many modernists distrusted him and a coterie of musicians who worked with his band seemed only to say negative things about their experience. Most of the "positive" comments centre around the writers and arrangers who contributed to the band's library. Despite his "progressive" labelling, Kenton never seemed to be held un much affection by fans who liked more progressive styles of jazz. On the other hand, I grew up listening to big bands and many people who encouraged me to explore the music found his music too modern or cold. Strangely, Kenton is one of the musicians you generally have to be a fan of to like - there doesn't appear to be much middle ground. A former college lecturer of mine was keen of jazz (generally from Benny Goodman through to Blue Note although he got in to ECM stuff after I had put him on to it) and he always said the best jazz gig be ever went to was by Stan Kenton. The track chosen tonight was one I had never heard before and I was hugely impressed. I think that Kenton's reputation was undone by his pretentions to be serious long after his band could seriously be credited with being ahead of the curve. He was innovative in the period up to the 1950's but probably would have seemed quite conservative by the mid 50's when Gil Evans turned big band writing on it's head. However, the JRR track was suggestive of a band that would swing, produce convincing jazz and present Broadway show tunes in a manner that belied the negativity associated with this orchestra.

Since you mention Kenton, I guess I was one of those put off by receiving his bad reputation at second hand, so to speak, when I first got into jazz in the early 60s. Then when that series on Kenton was broadcast on R3 a few years ago (was he COTW? And was Alyn the commentator?), the concentration on the overblown settings of the 1940s and '50s appeared to confirm my prejudices... until someone requested this little Bossa in five from 1963 - not by Kenton and only manifesting a smidgeon of the old Kenton bombast, mostly at the start. For me it encapsulates that hard-to-explain atmosphere of its period that big band jazz of certain eras used to do better than any other genre, including even pop hits. You could be back in 1963 walking home from a great gig through London's near-silent nocturnal streets with just the street lights, and illuminated shop windows (which today would probably all have their shutters down), and this tune would manage impressionistically to capture some ineffable atmosphere in the after-buzz - the way the scherzo movement of Vaughan Williams's London symphony did one of the city squares at night back in the Edwardian age as the sound of a solitary harmonica player drifts into the background to leave a mysterious aftervibe in the air contained by the walls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxpXJvgjTZ8

**BLUESNIK'S REVOX** · 01-08-15, 22:46

Great! It would have made a perfect theme for an early sixties noir or hip US private eye series with someone like Cassavetes. Not "The Sweeny" obviously...

BN.

**Alyn_Shipton** · 02-08-15, 13:28

S-A Definitely not me who did the Kenton series - so much of his work is bombastic and vacuous. I've never been able to take him entriely seriously (the odd track like last night's apart) since I heard this - Kenton-arama from about 2.30ish.

**Ian Thumwood** · 05-08-15, 19:05

S-A

I agree with you about the fact that a lot of this big band material evokes a certain period. When I was getting in to big bands I discovered that there was tradition that extended well in to the 1950's and beyond the period when singers, r n'b and be-bop became the dominant force in popular music. Increasingly the music becomes less interesting as the "cutting edge" aspect of the music that had dominated big band music from the late twenties to the mid forties was no longer present with so many bands increasingly catered for a middle aged and conservative audience. There are loads of these bands such as Billy May, Vaughn Monroe, etc, etc but they never appealed. Kenton seemed part of this era and the fact that he was signed with Capital Records only seemed to emphasize the conservative nature of the music. I suppose Ted Heath filled the same bill in the UK.

I agree with Alyn's assessment but also think that Kenton was eventually marooned by the era in which he worked. The 1950's may have produced some classic jazz but it was also deeply conservative in many musical respects. He may have been considered "progressive" at the time but the passage of the years showed that he wasn't as ahead of the curve as he or his fans imagined.

Better than the P!%#$ this weekend

Better than the P!%#$ this weekend

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