Hamp’s wild weekend
Thanks Steve Talley.
(15 votes, average: 3.87 out of 5)
Loading ...Jazz
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Wax poetic
I love the recordings of Kerouac reading his works. He has a great voice and very cool, laid back style. Here’s a clip of him on the Tonight Show with Steve Allen on the piano.
Verve Records 1959. Cover photo of Kerouac by Robert Frank. Sleeve notes by Bill Randle. Kerouac reads extracts from “Old Angel Midnight”, “Desolation Angels”, “The Beginnings of Bop”, “Mexico City Blues”, “Neal And The Three Stooges”, “San Francisco Blues”, “The Subterraneans” and more. Unlike Jack’s previous two lps this one is him solo. Without Steve Allen on the piano or Zoot Sims on sax.
(34 votes, average: 4.59 out of 5) Loading ...
R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders
Artist and underground comic legend Robert Crumb created some great lp covers beginning with the classic cover illustration for Big Brother and the Holding Company’s “Cheap Thrills” album and including many for his own jazz band the “Cheapsuit Serenaders. Crumb amassed a world-class collection of rare 78 records and the Serenaders play classic jazz from that era. Here’s one on Blue Goose Records courtesy of frequent contributor and cover afficianado Kerstan Reineke.
(21 votes, average: 3.62 out of 5) Loading ...Wiggin’ with Wig
Anything on Dig Records is cool. “Wiggin with Wig” The Gerald Wiggin’s Trio. I think Johnny Otis started the Dig Label and he’s the producer here.
(25 votes, average: 3.36 out of 5) Loading ...Antiestablishmentarianism
Kenneth Rexroth organized and emceed the legendary Six Gallery reading on October 7, 1955, at which Ginsberg introduced the world to “Howl”. Rexroth’s work was composed with attention to musical traditions and he performed his poems with jazz musicians. Nonetheless, Rexroth was not wholly supportive of the dramatic rise in popularity of the so-called “Beat Generation,” and he was distinctly displeased when he became known as the father of the Beats.
A life-long iconoclast, Rexroth railed against the dominance of the east-coast “literary establishment” and bourgeois taste that was corrupting American poetry. While he refused to consider himself a Beat poet, his influence as champion of anti-establishment literature paved the way for others to write poems of social consciousness and passionate political engagement. His greatest contribution to American poetry may have been in opening it to Asian influences through his mystical, erotically charged poetry and superb translations. Kenneth Rexroth died in 1982 at 77 and is buried in Santa Barbara on a cliff above the sea.
Read more about Kenneth Rexroth at Modern American Poetry.
(19 votes, average: 3.26 out of 5) Loading ...Herd on Mars
“Men From Mars” (And women are from Venus) This is Woody Herman and his Orchestra (featuring the “Third Herd”) on Verve. This was released in mono in 1958 then re-released in stereo in 1963 at “Hey, Heard the Herd?”. But the cover was a classic! ( I don’t know who the guy on the cover is, but I think I have another album with his picture on it)
Numbering the Herman Herds was never easy but the leader himself named his early 50s group as the Third Herd. Although lacking the precision of the Four Brothers band and the raw excitement of the First Herd, the new band was capable of swinging superbly. As before, Herman had no difficulty in attracting top-flight musicians, including Red Rodney, Urbie Green, Kai Winding, Richie Kamuca, Bill Perkins, Monty Budwig and Jake Hanna. Of particular importance to the band at this time (and for the next few years) was Nat Pierce, who not only played piano but also wrote many fine arrangements and acted as straw boss. The times were hostile to big bands, however, and by the mid-50s Herman was working in comparative obscurity. Members of the band, who then included Bill Berry, Bobby Lamb, Kamuca, Budwig and Harris, wryly described this particular Herman group as the “un-Herd”. Towards the end of the decade Herman was still fighting against the tide, but was doing it with some of the best available musicians: Cohn, Sims, Don Lanphere, Bob Brookmeyer, Pierce, Kamuca, Perkins and Med Flory.
(18 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5) Loading ...“Out of this world!”
Mitchell-Ruff Duo “Appearing Nightly” at Birdland.
(13 votes, average: 3.38 out of 5) Loading ...Jailhouse Rock
“A little bit of LATIN, and a little bit of JAZZ” Ronnie Neuman at the Padded Cell. Rare Latin Jazz lp on Soma Records. The Padded Cell was a Minneapolis nightclub and restaurant known for it’s charburger and experimental jazz. This cover was featured in the “Incredibly Strange Music” books.
(28 votes, average: 3.93 out of 5) Loading ...On the wagon
One of my favorite covers and records too. Paul Weller took the photo. Paul Bacon designed the cover. “Monk’s Music” The Thelonious Monk Septet with Coleman Hawkins, Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Gigi Gryce, Ray Copeland, Wilbur Ware. Riverside Records. 1957.
Monk’s fifth for the label and the first to focus on his own compositions. The record begins with “Abide With Me” – a very short piece, (only 50 seconds long). This is an 18th Century hymn brilliantly arranged by Monk. “Well, You Needn’t,” more than 11 minutes long, gives everybody the opportunity to blow. Monk, first, in a masterful solo; then Trane (listen to Monk calling “Coltrane, Coltrane!” just before Trane’s solo). “Ruby,my dear” is played by Hawk, and is the perfect tune for Bean’s imperial ballad playing. “Off Minor” has great solos by Hawk, Copeland and Monk. Finally, the sumptuous “Crepescule with Nellie”, written by Thelonious for his wife, is mostly played by Monk. (FYI: ‘Crepescule” comes from the French word “crepuscule”, which means twilight, dusk).
(28 votes, average: 4.61 out of 5) Loading ...
