“Jazz in the Space Age” (1960) on Decca Records. George Russell and his orchestra featuring Bill Evans at the piano.

George Russell’s third release as a leader combines two adventurous sessions. The first features two pianists, Bill Evans and Paul Bley, and a large ensemble including Ernie Royal, Dave Baker, Walt Levinsky, Barry Galbraith, Milt Hinton and Don Lamond, among others. The three-part suite “Chromatic Universe” is an ambitious work which mixes free improvisation with written passages that have not only stood the test of time but still sound very fresh. “The Lydiot” focuses on the soloists, while incorporating elements from “Chromatic Universe” and other Russell compositions. The second session adds trumpeter Marty Markowitz, valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, alto saxophonist, Hal McKusack and drummer Charlie Persip to the earlier group, in the slow, somewhat mysterious “Waltz From Outer Space,” which incorporates an Oriental-sounding theme, and “Dimensions,” described by its composer as “a sequence of freely associated moods indigenous to jazz.”

(15 votes, average: 3.73 out of 5)

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This has been one of my all time favorite records since I was a kid raiding my father’s record collection in search of something different. This live set of Louis Prima and his wife Keely Smith knocked me out. I think it was a best seller in 1958 so you see this in most used record stores, but it remained my personal discovery for many years until David Lee Roth did a cheesey remake of “Just a Gigilo” and the Gap used “Jump, Jive and Wail” in a ubiquitous TV commercial.

As fun as Louis Prima and the high-voltage swing of Sam Butera and the Witnesses, it was also the sweet and seductive singing of Smith that hooked me. Both when joking around with Louis and singing soft and pretty, Keely remains a favorite.

(14 votes, average: 4.36 out of 5)

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“Mickey Katz plays music for Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and Brisses” Capitol Records. Yiddish, klezmer and comedy!

Side note: Katz is the father of actor Joel (“Cabaret”) Grey.

For the straight klezmer side of Mickey Katz, check out the CD “Don Byran’s Plays the Music of Mickey Katz” (Elektra Nonesuch, 1993).

(19 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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“The Horn Meets the Hornet” – what a concept!   I imagine the Green Hornet going backstage after an Al Hirt concert on Bourbon Street in New Orleans to meet when this candid photo was snapped.

(17 votes, average: 3.35 out of 5)

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Roy Haynes’ excellent bop session, from original Swedish Metronome recordings.

Roy Haynes was a member of Lionel Hampton’s band when the band toured Europe. At the time, Famous Swedish label Metronome recorded so many sessions by the members of Lionel Hampton band. This is one of them.

As far as I know, this LP is Roy Haynes’ first leader session through his entire career. Featured musicians include members of Lionel Hampton band and top Swedish jazz artists. The result was superb – a typical good example of bop sessions in 1954. A few years later these four tracks were reissued on Jazz Abroad coupled with some overseas Quincy Jones sessions.

Roy Haynes was born in Boston, March 13, 1926, and was keenly interested in jazz ever since he can remember. Primarily self-taught, he began to work locally in 1942 with musicians like the Charlie Christian inflected guitarist Tom Brown, bandleader Sabby Lewis, and Kansas City blues-shout alto saxophonist Pete Brown, before getting a call in the summer of 1945 to join legendary bandleader Luis Russell (responsible for much of Louis Armstrong’s musical backing from 1929 to 1933) to play for the dancers at New York’s legendary Savoy Ballroom. When not travelling with Russell, the young drummer spent much time on Manhattan’s 52nd Street and uptown in Minton’s, the legendary incubator of bebop, soaking up the scene.

Haynes was Lester Young’s drummer from 1947 to 1949, worked with Bud Powell and Miles Davis in ’49, became Charlie Parker’s drummer of choice from 1949 to 1953, toured the world with Sarah Vaughan from 1954 to 1959, did numerous extended gigs with Thelonious Monk in 1959-60, made eight recordings with Eric Dolphy in 1960-61, worked extensively with Stan Getz from 1961 to 1965, played and recorded with the John Coltrane Quartet from 1963 to 1965, has intermittently collaborated with Chick Corea since 1968, and with Pat Metheny during the ’90s. He’s been an active bandleader from the late ’50s to the present, featuring artists in performance and on recordings like Phineas Newborn, Booker Ervin, Roland Kirk, George Adams, Hannibal Marvin Peterson, Ralph Moore and Donald Harrison. A perpetual top three drummer in the Downbeat Readers Poll Awards, he won the Best Drummer honors in 1996, and in that year received the prestigious French Chevalier des l’Ordres Artes et des Lettres.

Another nice one from “If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger” ¦” 

(18 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

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One of the classic Miles Davis recordings on Prestige in the mid-fifties.   A beautiful set and cool cover.

(20 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

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Another nice one from “If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger…”  

(21 votes, average: 3.86 out of 5)

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Wow! This hits the sweet spot. I found it trolling blogs at a really cool site called “If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger, there’d be a whole lot of dead copycats” Lots of cool pictures, videos, quotes and commentary here. And some groovy covers too! Check it out and please let me know if you ever see a copy for sale.

Here’s a cool quote highlighted at the site:

“And, of course, that is what all of this is – all of this: the one song, ever changing, ever reincarnated, that speaks somehow from and to and for that which is ineffable within us and without us, that is both prayer and deliverance, folly and wisdom, that inspires us to dance or smile or simply to go on, senselessly, incomprehensibly, beatifically, in the face of mortality and the truth that our lives are more ill-writ, ill-rhymed and fleeting than any song, except perhaps those songs – that song, endlesly reincarnated – born of that truth, be it the moon and June of that truth, or the wordless blue moan, or the rotgut or the elegant poetry of it. That nameless black-hulled ship of Ulysses, that long black train, that Terraplane, that mystery train, that Rocket ’88’, that Buick 6 – same journey, same miracle, same end and endlessness.” — Nick Tosches, Where Dead Voices Gather

(36 votes, average: 4.61 out of 5)

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Another nice Jim Flora.   A Pete Jolly Duo 45 sleeve for RCA.

(22 votes, average: 4.45 out of 5)

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