The Vinyl Adventure: Morning Light

Day 2: Morning Light
Here's what I put on the plate today: The Charlie Parker quintet & sextet vol. 3, Roy Ayers Ubiquity Everybody Loves the Sunshine, and The Calvin Jackson Quartet Rave Notice.

 

+++

This Charlie Parker collection is probably one of the first jazz records I ever owned. For obvious reasons the names Miles Davis and Max Roach jumped out at me and it didn't hurt that someone had placed a sticker on it that said "Great Music". Records, at least old and random collections like this, are the one thing I don't ever apply my completist nature to. I mean with comics, it's like, I need to have the full miniseries or the full run of a certain writer's or the whole series of a failed title. As great as this record is, I just feel like it'd be too overwhelming to try and hunt down volumes 1 and 2. As many collectible records as I own, and as much free time as I may have, it's just exhausting looking through dusty dollar bins. So, for stuff like this, I kind of just take what I find. Of course if it's touted as a must have, then maybe I'll put in the work and look for more. But realistically, I don't know enough of which records had the smallest runs and what pressings to look for and what differentiates some records from others, so it's too much more clutter in my head to deal with things that'll just collect dust on my shelf. Another great afternoon easy listen and I'm happy to have picked it up.

+

Everybody Loves the Sunshine, as well as Rave Notice, I know for a fact I've never dropped the needle on. For this record, I bought it at a crazy time and it just kind of got forgotten about. I was getting ready to DJ a wedding and was looking for old polka records because it was a Polish wedding and they said polkas would be heavily requested (more on that in the future...maybe...). I went out of my normal path to dig some of that polka up and this caught my eye at the shop. I had work to do though listening to accordions and this got lost in a pile of records I kept buying and never listening to.
Who doesn't love that snippet off the title track, "my life - my life - my life...in the sunshine! Everybody loves the sunshine! " This album, though, is not the typical clunky piano jazz that I'd used to. It's a lot more frantic and erratic. I actually had to take a break from listening to it before flipping it over. What it lacks in smoothness of the early days of jazz, it makes up for in its more modern experimentation. Plus, this cover just makes me happy!

+

Finally, The Calvin Jackson Quartet Rave Notice.
Bluntly, I have no idea who these people are. The sleeve says Calvin Jackson, at the point of this record's release, was living in Toronto because he toured the area and grew to love it. One of the quartet's members was actually a Toronto native. This I've learned strictly from reading the back of the cover. My own reasoning for picking this up: I bought this purely because I liked the juxtaposition of 1950s piano-based jazz versus the modern idea of a rave... I was trying to figure out what exactly a Rave Notice was though. It doesn't really seem like a common phrase of the time that's just gotten lost as language grew. I think it simply means exactly, and to be honest kind of boringly, what it says. This was the quartet's third or fourth album and they were referring to the enthusiastic response of their getting recognized. As well as these dudes strung notes together, they for sure were not in any way wordsmiths.
Besides the title, what drew me in to picking this up was how it features the classic Stompin' at the Savoy [sidenote: remember how great Savoy was before it changed ownership and eventually died? I miss that spot]. This record was a lot more upbeat, as you'd expect with a lead in track like Stompin' at the Savoy. If I knew how to Charleston better and had the energy in the afternoon and were in the midst of a hot summer day in the 50s reeling off of the excitement of having successfully built a time machine, I might dance to this.

+++

Well, that's it for this edition. I promise tomorrow I'll veer off the jazz path.

Keep listening to good music!

The Vinyl Adventure: Talkin' All That Jazz

So, I've decided to make February a month dedicated to listening to every record I own. It's a perfect time, I figure: my laptop's messed up (I'm writing this from my old desktop); I'm not really working; and I'm getting a little tired of watching TV and playing iPhone games. Really, the point of it is to eliminate distractions and read and write more. Also, I don't want to berate my social networks with photos and status updates about what's playing. So, in turn, bing, bang, boom, I've decided to write about what's playing on this ol' thang.

If it actually happens, I'll talk about where the records came from, why I bought them, what the songs or artists mean or meant to me and I'll get to make fun collections and sets of records (i.e. picture discs, records I didn't pay for, records from trips). It's really just High Fidelity-biographically organizing my records. I've always had stories for my records and wanted to share them, but I'm sure that no one wants to come to my house and listen to me blabber on about why I have each of the 300 or so records I have.


blah blah blah...
Well, as you can see by the eloquence of how I've introduced this whole thing, I need to get back into the flow of writing, because one, I haven't done it in a while and two, I really need to get my bearings back. So, let's get to the fucking point. Here we go.

The Vinyl Adventure

Day 1) Talkin' All That Jazz

In order to read a book, I figured I'd start with a quiet bang. Plus, there was a one night showing of a Thelonius Monk movie that I skipped out on. So, with those two things in mind I whipped these out.

+

I don't think I've ever listened to Ella and Oscar in its entirety. I blame this completely on the timing of when I bought it. I remember it completely: a random pickup from the record shop on a sweaty summer day. I ran into two homies looking at shoes in the shop next door, one of whom, a self-professed amateur jazz singer, the other knowing full well that the first person was a self-professed amateur jazz singer. The latter asked me what I'd bought and reacted with, "oh cool!" and showed the former, who reacted like any young elitist would with a shrug, a "yeah, I guess that's cool," and a I'm-going-to-just-keep-looking-at-shoes-and-pretend-like-I'm-really-not-into-that demeanour.
None of this actually tarnished the record for me. What actually kept me from listening to this all the way through is the fact that the second track on it is Miss Fitzgerald and Mr. Peterson playing How Long Has This Been Going On. I don't think I could ever get through this song without deciding to immediately switch gears and just put on the Verve Remixed albums. Those motherfuckers were the heat at the time and I will stand by them to this day even though they get played at like every Second Cup now.

+

Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill is one of those diversity hires in my record collection. I bought it out on a trip to Vancouver while I was determined to make my collection more than just hip hop and electro. [BTW, I do know it isn't jazz by any means. I'm just listening to records, you dick. Are you going to take that enjoyment away from me because of the title of a blog post?! You're a terrible person. WAIT! If you didn't think that, then you're not a terrible person and hopefully we're still cool and you keep reading.]
This album has some Creole spice all over it. Like, to the point where while I was eating a bowl of ice cream, Jambalaya came on, and I felt so odd because jambalaya and ice cream don't taste good together and I was freezing yet so warm at the same time. It also made me think about how much simpler times were when songs about just kissing hit the tops of charts whereas now songs are just about straight up fucking. Then I realized times weren't simpler because while Fats Domino could sometimes break into the top 40, his songs would be propelled to number ones when covered by artists like Pat Boone. Oh, racism...

+

I don't really have much to say about Miles Smiles. It's a jazz record. I have it. I actually have absolutely no recollection of buying it. I listened to it. It's one of those records you put on on a Sunday afternoon and read a book to.

+++

Well, that was kind of fun. Until next time!