A Great Lost Album From 1975

Pop quiz!  Name the group in the photo below.  No peeking.

Give up?  Here's a hint, it's the back cover photo from one of the most neglected albums of 1975.  Despite the growing scourge of disco and punk rock, 1975 was still a pretty good year for rock music.  Among the classic releases that year were Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks, Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen, Rumors by Fleetwood Mac, Katy Lied by Steely Dan, A Night At The Opera by Queen, Still Crazy After All These Years by Paul Simon, Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin, One Of These Nights by the Eagles, Young Americans by David Bowie, and Patti Smith's Horses.  Alright, 1975 was no 1969, but it was no slouch either.

As happens every year, there are some really fine albums that fall through the cracks, don't find an audience, and don't sell nearly as well as they should.  Assuming you haven't guessed the group in the photo, it's the back cover from the album Change by Spanky & Our Gang (front cover photo way down below).  Not only was Change one of the best albums of 1975, I'd argue it's pretty high up on the list of all-time great neglected albums.  Yeah, yeah, just hear me out.

New Wine Singers - first album, 1963

In the early 1960s, Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane (b. 1942) left Peoria for Chicago where she hoped to make it as a singer.  Her first paying gig was in 1962 with a jazz-based vocal group called the Jamie Lyn Trio.  By 1963, she was singing in a folk group called The New Wine Singers.  The New Wine Singers had some modest success and put out two albums of folk and protest music in 1963 and 1965.  

For the purposes of our story, The New Wine Singers are important because it was here that McFarlane got the nickname "Spanky."  Reports vary as to why, but in a 2012 interview, McFarlane says that the band liked to watch reruns of Hal Roach's "Our Gang" comedy shorts, and the resemblance between the name of the child actor who played Spanky -- George "Spanky" McFarland -- and McFarlane, was too hard to resist, so she became Spanky McFarlane.  It was also during her time with The New Wine Singers that McFarlane met multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Hale, who would later join Spanky & Our Gang.

By late 1965, The New Wine Singers had split up, and McFarlane headed to Florida.  The story goes that she met musicians Oz Bach and Nigel Pickering when they were trapped for three days by a hurricane.  They apparently hit it off, and McFarlane invited the guys to come see her in Chicago sometime. 

Mother Blues nightclub in Oldtown Chicago

Some months later, in early 1966, McFarlane was living in an apartment over a Chicago club called Mother Blues.  (It's unclear, but she may also have been working at the club).  In any case, the club's co-owner, Curly Tait, knew McFarlane and knew she was a singer, and asked if she could put together a house band to open for the headliners at his club (including the likes of Jefferson Airplane and Muddy Waters).  McFarlane quickly convinced her Florida hurricane buddies, Pickering and Bach, to come up to Chicago, and together they formed an acoustic jug-band trio, with Pickering on guitar, Bach on bass, and McFarlane singing and playing kazoo and washboard.  Since they didn't have time to rehearse a lot of songs, the group mixed in silly costumes, gags and novelty bits.

The trio called themselves Spanky & Our Gang, which was originally meant to be a joke.  After (somewhat surprisingly) getting some favorable press and attracting a local following with the name, they decided to keep it.  As word spread and the group began to play bigger venues, they brought in McFarlane's old bandmate from The New Wine Singers, guitarist and percussionist Malcolm Hale, to fill out their sound.  Soon they were in demand at the hottest spots in the Windy City.  Curly Tait signed on to manage the group.

First single, 1967

Mercury Records was based in Chicago, and pretty soon the label took notice of the up-and-coming group in their backyard and offered Spanky & Our Gang a contract.  Once the group was on board, the label shipped them off to New York to give them more exposure and assigned their NYC A&R man Jerry Ross to help polish their sound and get them ready for the studio.  Their first single (which had been rejected by The Mamas And The Papas) was "Sunday Will Never Be The Same."  It was released in May, 1967 and quickly charted, reaching #9 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Two more top 40 hits, "Lazy Day" and "Making Every Minute Count" followed in short order.  By late summer, the group added drummer John Seiter to the line up, and Mercury sent them to Los Angeles to record tracks for their first LP.  

First album, 1967

The eponymous Spanky And Our Gang album was released on August 1, 1967.  Unfortunately, as Bruce Eder writes on Allmusic, "The group's debut LP demonstrates what can go wrong, even with a group enjoying a trio of hit singles.  Though those hits are here, the album is the least representative of what the group was about and a mixed bag for fans."  

Indeed, the stylistic confusion of the material -- which included everything from the spoken-word song "Trouble" (from the Broadway show The Music Man) to a make-believe "Commercial" for pot to John Denver's "Jet Plane" to the depression-era dirge "Brother Can You Spare A Dime" -- made it difficult to get a handle on the group's style.  Historically, they've been lumped into the category of bubblegum pop, but that really just applies to their hit singles and doesn't do justice to their gorgeous multi-part harmonies and McFarlane's world-class vocals.  Unfortunately, the goofy Vaudevillian patter, the novelty songs, and the collage of "old-timey" photos inside the jacket showing the male band members in turn-of-the-century costumes with stiff, high-collared shirts, straw boaters, bowler hats, leather football helmets, and handlebar mustaches, all combine to make it difficult to take the group seriously.  

1968

For their second album, Like To Get To Know You, released in 1968, the high jinks continued with a 1920s gangster theme complete with Tommy Guns, fedoras, and Keystone Cops (on the back and inside the gatefold).  Though buoyed by two top 30 hit singles "Like To Get To Know You" and "Sunday Morning," the album was once again a confusing mish-mash of slick pop singles, a novelty song about paying bills, a terrific cover version of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," all topped off with Hoagy Carmichael's 1942 classic "Stardust."  Eclectic doesn't begin to cover it. 

1969

Spanky & Our Gang's third and final studio album, Without Rhyme Or Reason, was released in early 1969.  Although the album received more favorable critical reaction than their first two LPs, it didn't sell as well.  It featured only one charting song, a beautiful and powerful protest song called "Give A Damn."  Otherwise it was another hodge-podge of styles and genres, this time including hard rock, another Hoagy Carmichael period piece ("Hong Kong Blues"), alongside some signature pop ballads with beautiful harmonies.

Graphically, however, the album was a big departure.  The cover, with the band all in white with puffy shirts and peace chains, looks like a lost Fifth Dimension album.  Which might help explain why the album didn't sell so well.  I suspect that many of their fans, who were charmed by the nostalgic, retro style of the previous albums, may have been put off by the full-blown psychedelia of the new release.  In addition, the band didn't tour to promote the album because by the time it was released in early 1969, the group had already broken up.  Oz Bach left in early 1968, and then Malcolm Hale tragically died (either from pneumonia or carbon monoxide poisoning) on Halloween night.  Soon after, drummer John Seiter accepted an offer to join The Turtles, and then McFarlane announced she was pregnant and was quitting to raise a family.  Though Mercury would release a bootleg live set in 1970, Spanky & Our Gang phase one was over.

Change, 1975

Which (finally!) brings us back around to Spanky's great lost album.  In 1974, six years after the original group broke up, McFarlane decided to put together a new gang.  With her old friend Nigel Pickering -- the only holdover from the original band -- she recruited Bill Plummer on bass, Marc McClure on guitar, banjo, and steel guitar, and Jim Moon on drums.  After some touring to tighten up the band and compile a set list, the Gang (Mk II) went into the studio to cut their only album, Change, released in 1975 on Epic Records (right).

In his liner notes for the album, Jim Charne, who was head of marketing at CBS Records, writes: "I had instructions not to call Spanky & Our Gang "country" (even though they are - sort of), and instructions not to call Spanky & Our Gang "rock" (which they also are - sort of)."  In fact, the new group was very much in the style of a wave of mid 70s country rock artists like Marshall Tucker, The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, The New Riders Of the Purple Sage, Loggins And Messina, and The Flying Burrito Brothers.

Nashville Cat and
Producer Chip Young

The details of the recording of the album are unclear.  Radio World (an industry trade publication) reported in their July 5, 1975 issue that the new Spanky & Our Gang "have signed a long-term contract with Epic Records" and have completed recording their first album for the label with producer (and noted Nashville Cat session guitarist) Chip Young (left) at his Young'un Sound Studio in Murfreesboro, TN, about 35 miles outside Nashville.  (Young had recently been working with Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge.)  

However, the credits on the jacket note that only track A1 ("I Won't Brand You") was produced by Chip Young.  The rest of the album is "Produced with Spanky & Our Gang."  I can't say for sure, but it sounds like the band at some point took the reins back from Young and did it their way.  Paul Grupp at the Record Plant in L.A. is given credit as Associate Producer, and the mixing was done at Mama Joe's Studio in Hollywood by Alex "The Turk" Kazanegras (who did a lot of work with Loggins And Messina and Poco, among others).  A photo of the test pressing for the album on Discogs shows that it was mastered at Allen Zentz in San Clemente, CA.  Epic Records was a subsidiary of Columbia, so the album was pressed by Columbia Records.

Regardless of the provenance, Change sounds great and delivers a first-rate selection of tracks by songwriters like Guy Clark, Ronee Blakley, Tom Waits, and Gary Busey (yeah, the actor guy).  In contrast to Spanky's first three albums, this time the songs fit together to create a coherent feel - ballads skillfully mixed with more up-tempo folk/country rockers that all flow together nicely.  

In addition to the core band, a long list of crackerjack studio pros and guest artists lent their talents, including legendary Nashville arranger Bergen White, banjo wizard Herb Peterson, Richard Thompson (from Fairport Convention) on piano, Jerry Yester (late of The Lovin' Spoonful) on backing vocals, the Tower of Power Horns, Juke Logan on harmonica, bass player Ray Neapolitan, and guitar ace Rick Vito.  Thompson and Yester also scored gorgeous string arrangements for several songs.  Gone are the sunshine and lollypops and the goofy gags.  The music on Change is sophisticated Americana, beautifully-arranged and tightly played, with Marc McClure's ethereal steel string guitar and the heavenly multi-part vocal harmonies floating over it all.  

If all you know about Spanky & Our Gang are the hit singles from the 1967-69 albums, you are in for a pleasant surprise and a musical treat.  I've listened to the LP three times in the last couple of days and it still raises the hair on the back of my neck.

The album has never been released on CD or re-released on vinyl.  If you want your own a copy of Change, your only choice is the original 1975 LP.  Luckily, copies are easy to come by and available (as of this writing) for less than $10 (plus shipping) in NM condition.  Cheap for a forgotten gem. 

Enjoy the music!

Deciphering Dave Brubeck

I've always been a little ambivalent about Dave Brubeck.  While I appreciate his genius as a composer, musician, and jazz innovator,  most of the time I don't really connect emotionally with his music.  Don't get me wrong, I have 55 (!) Brubeck albums and play and enjoy many of them regularly.  But while Brubeck often gets my toes tapping, I find that I don't always get into the music as much as I should because I'm busy thinking about key changes, time signatures, and poly rhythms.  Something that never happens when listening to a record by, say, Bill Evans. 

Bill Evans moves me.  When I'm listening to him play I don't think about keyboard technique or the structure of the tune.  I'm just transported by the lyricism and the beauty of the music.  It's kind of like how I can enjoy and admire a painting by De Kooning and appreciate the tension between his use of form and color and space.  But when I look at a painting by Van Gogh, I just marvel at the beauty without thinking about his brushwork or technique.

After recently reading the 2020 biography "Dave Brubeck: A Life In Time," by British musician and musicologist Philip Clark, I think I finally figured out what's going on.

Clark spent 10 days shadowing Brubeck's quartet during their 2003 tour of the UK.  Brubeck rented a house in London as a home base and hired a bus to shuttle the band back and forth to gigs around England.  During the sometimes lengthy bus rides, Clark and Brubeck spent long hours talking about Brubeck's life and discussing his music in microscopic detail.  (Brubeck's wife, Iola, and other members of the band often take part as well.)  Clark mines these conversations to provide insights into Brubeck's life and music.  

While I do recommend the book, be aware that a lot of it is tough sledding.  The first hundred pages or so are an in-depth look at Brubeck's musical influences, with long sections devoted to explaining the theories of Brubeck's primary teacher, the French modernist composer Darius Milhaud, with whom Brubeck studied at Mills College in Oakland, CA.  You will learn far more than you probably ever wanted to know about Milhaud, George Auric, Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc, Louis Dorey and a host of other French composers who, under the influence of Cubism and surrealism, attempted to rewrite the rules of classical composition.

In a not atypical passage, Clark describes an early Brubeck composition called "Playland-at-the-Beach" thus: "The opening section darted agitatedly between three distinct keys, with jolts and collisions in the orchestration -- like a trumpet line being snatched and sucked inside the texture like a Venus flytrap -- matching the non sequitur upsets of Brubeck's harmony."  Venus flytraps eating trumpets, yep, my thoughts exactly.

Of another Brubeck composition, Clark says it: ". . .re-accented the 3+3 of 6/8 to become 2+2+2 of 3/4, a neat rhythmic pun to chew on as Brubeck's harmony feasted on another, more existential ambiguity: Was this music in the major or the minor?"  Very good question.  I took piano lessons for ten years and I have have no idea what he's talking about.

While there is a fair amount of interesting background information about Brubeck's life and family, the book isn't a normal biography.  Instead, it's a detailed dissection of Brubeck's music with hundreds of pages devoted to analyzing Brubeck's choice of time signatures and keys, his use of counterpoint, rhythm, and tonal contrast.  Reading the book didn't tell me a lot about Brubeck the man (except that he was a complete egghead), but it did give me a much better understanding of why his music sounds like it does.  Brubeck combined jazz with French modernism -- a classical movement that embraced polyrhythm and polytonality -- that is, musicians playing different time signatures and different chords at the same time.  My takeaway is that Brubeck was not a classical musician who became a jazz composer, he was an avant-garde classical composer who became a jazz musician.  [Hmmm.  Discuss.]

Even though this interpretation of Brubeck's music only came to me after reading Clark's book, Brubeck's place in the history of jazz has long been a subject of debate.  As one of the originators of "West Coast" jazz, Brubeck and his mostly white contemporaries were often dismissed by the predominantly black East Coast beboppers.  In his harrowing autobiography "Straight Life: The Story Of Art Pepper," white West Coast alto saxophonist Art Pepper describes how at some gigs the black musicians he was playing with were so disdainful of a white jazz musician from California that they wouldn't even acknowledge his presence.  He says they resented him and other white jazz musicians who they felt were appropriating "their" music.

Miles Davis apparently had similar feelings.  He was famously quoted as saying that "Brubeck doesn't swing."  Not all black musicians agreed however, as Charles Mingus wrote a letter to Downbeat magazine upbraiding the (at the time) very young trumpeter for his comment, saying: "At Newport and elsewhere Dave had the whole house patting its feet and even clapping its hands.  If a guy makes you pat your foot, and if you feel it down you back . . . then Dave is the swingingest by your definition."  I don't know if anyone but Mingus could have smacked down Miles like that and lived to tell about it.  But it apparently had an effect.  Clark reveals in his book that some time later, at a late-night jam session at the famed Black Hawk night club in San Francisco, Miles sidled up to Brubeck at the bar and by way of a grudging apology, said: "You swing. Your band don't swing."  (It helps if you think about how that would sound in Miles' raspy voice.)

In addition to the obvious racial component, the schism between East Coast and West Coast jazz was based on the feeling that East Coast was the true jazz idiom pioneered by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke and other black jazz musicians.  Real jazz had its roots in the blues and evolved organically from juke joints and jam sessions in the black bars and clubs of Harlem, Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis, where young, hungry black musicians (like Miles Davis) took part in late-night cutting sessions, challenging each other and showing off their chops.  Only the best players survived.  As Miles Davis latter said of his early days playing jam sessions in New York City, "If you got up on the bandstand at Minton's (in Harlem) and couldn't play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you, you might get your ass kicked."  

While white, West Coast musicians like Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Shelly Manne, Bud Shank, Shorty Rogers, Zoot Sims, (and Dave Brubeck of course), had impressive chops, on the whole the West Coast style was more lyrical than East Coast jazz.  The audience for many of the West Coast groups were suburbanites and white college students.  What's more, the West Coast cats often played from charts (for goodness sakes) and many of them earned a living playing sessions for television shows and movie soundtracks, or backing up crooners like Frank Sinatra.

The music press and record labels lost no time in promoting the rivalry between the two styles of jazz in an effort to sell records.  There were a number of albums (including the one above) from the 1950s that played up the West Coast - East Coast split.  It is telling that in the photos of the musicians on the cover of the West Coast Vs. East Coast album, only two of the West Coast players are Black, while only two of the East Coast musicians are white.

Which brings me back to Dave Brubeck.  As Clark relates in his book, Brubeck struggled for years to sell albums and find an audience for his cerebral style of jazz.  The turning point came in the early 50s when he began to focus on performing at colleges, where he finally found a receptive audience of young, white college kids.  Brubeck quickly became a media darling -- a safe, white, jazz musician who didn't use drugs, didn't drink or smoke, and didn't scare the bejeebers out of the parents of white kids.  By 1954 Brubeck was on the cover of Time magazine (below), and his career and record sales took off.

While Brubeck certainly benefitted from his status as a clean-cut, white jazz musician, this is in no way meant as a criticism.  The fact is, Brubeck was a stand-up guy in the fight against racism in the United States and abroad.  In 1958 he refused an offer to tour South Africa when he was told that his bassist Paul Morello (who was Black) would not be allowed to play.  And in 1959, Brubeck cancelled most of the dates on an extensive (and highly lucrative) tour of southern U.S. universities when the schools said that Morello could not appear on stage with the quartet.  What's more, wherever they played, Brubeck insisted that audiences at his shows not be segregated and demanded that Morello be given the same treatment and be allowed to use the same dressing rooms and facilities as the rest of the band at a time when blacks were regularly forced to use the back entrance or segregated toilets.  And for what it's worth, Brubeck was said to have been mortified that he was on the cover of Time, as he thought the honor should have gone to his hero, Duke Ellington.  (For the record, Ellington got his own cover two years later.)

All this is by way of saying that Brubeck was a genius and an upstanding human being who is rightly considered one of the greatest jazz innovators of all time.  His work forever changed the history of jazz.  But in the end, as much as I appreciate and enjoy Brubeck's music, it just doesn't resonate with me like the work of many other jazz artists.

Here's another way to put it: If my house is on fire and I only have time to save Brubeck's Take Five or Kind Of Blue, by Miles Davis, I'm taking Miles.

Enjoy the music! 

The Definitive Burt Bacharach Songbook By Trijntje Oosterhuis?

During the 1960s and early 70s, no popular singer was more closely identified with a songwriting team than Dionne Warwick was with Burt Bacharach and Hal David.  

Beginning in 1962 and continuing for a decade, Warwick released a string of 39 consecutive chart hits, all penned by Bacharach-David.  Among the (now) standards were such great songs as "Walk On By," "Don't Make Me Over," "I'll Never Fall In Love Again," "Make It Easy On Yourself," "Anyone Who Had A Heart," "Alfie," and "Do You Know The Way To San Jose."  

Although dozens of other artists have recorded songs by Bacharach and David, Warwick's interpretations were without question the definitive versions of their great catalog.  That is, until now.  (Well, maybe.)  Let's take a look.

The contender for Warwick's title, believe it or not, is Trijntje Oosterhuis (pronounced) "train-chi oh-ster-haus"), a 48-year-old Dutch singer born in 1973 (the same year that Bacharach and David split up).  In the early 1990s, while she was still in her teens, Trijntje and her brother formed a band called Total Touch and began gigging in music bars around their native Amsterdam.  In 1994, Dutch alto saxophonist Candy Dulfer  (who has played with Van Morrison, Prince, and Maceo Parker among others) caught a show by Total Touch and promptly asked Trijntje to contribute vocals to her 1995 album, Big Girl.  That same year, Trijntje accompanied Dulfer's band on a world tour to support the release.  

The next year, back home in the Netherlands, Trijntje and Total Touch had their first big EU hit with a 1996 single called "Somebody Else's Lover."  Following the release of a couple of successful Total Touch albums, Trijntje decided to go solo.  Her first album was 1999's For Once In My Life - The Songs Of Stevie Wonder.  That was followed by two more EU-only CDs.  In 2004, Trijntje signed with Blue Note Records and released her first album for the label, Strange Fruit, a slightly odd mash-up of songs made famous by Billie Holiday, together with a handful of George Gershwin standards.  Then, in 2006, Trijntje put out The Look Of Love (above), the first of three all-Bacharach studio albums.  The second volume was 2007's Who'll Speak For Love (below), and the third (and final?) album was Everchanging Love (further below), released in November, 2021.

Even though I had heard and enjoyed some of the tracks from Trijntje's first two Bacharach albums, I didn't really sit up and take notice until I saw that all three of the albums were slated to be released as limited vinyl editions.  Since the team of Bacharach-David is, for me, right up there with Lennon-McCartney as one of the great songwriting teams of the second half of the 20th century, I immediately put in advance orders for all three LPs.  [There is actually a fourth volume, Best Of Burt Bacharach Live, which came out in 2009, but as of this writing, there is no indication that it will be released on vinyl.]

All three studio albums were made with the cooperation and limited participation of Burt Bacharach (he plays piano on several selections).  While volumes one and two are heavy on the great 1960s and 70s Bacharach-David hits, 2021's third volume (a double album) brings things up to date by including later Bacharach collaborations with Steven Sater, Bill Conti, Marvin Hamlisch, Carole Bayer Sager, and Elvis Costello.  In addition to more great interpretations of Bacharach tunes by Trijntje, the third volume includes a duet with Gregory Porter (also a Blue Note recording artist) on one track.  

The LPs are released by the Dutch-based Music On Vinyl label.  They are pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands on 180-gram vinyl and sound superb.  Volume one and two were recorded and mixed by legendary engineer Al Schmidt.  Schmidt died in 2021 and was replaced by Dutch recording engineer Tijmen Zinkhaan for volume three.

Bernie Grundmund did the mastering on volume three, while the lacquer was cut by Rinus Hooning at Artone Studio (the in-house mastering shop at Record Industry).   

Vince Mendoza did most of the arrangements and conducts The Metropole Orchestra (based in Amsterdam) for all three volumes.  Volumes one and two are limited to 1,000 copies, while volume three is limited to 1,500 copies.  Serial numbers are individually stamped in gold on the back of the jackets.  The three releases are on different colors of vinyl, including a striking translucent turquoise color for volume one, orange for volume two, and "Blue Note" blue for volume three.

OK, back to the question of whether Trijntje sets a new standard for interpretation of the Bacharach songbook.  The answer is (waffle, waffle) -- it's complicated.  Trijntje has a marvelously expressive voice, with great power, range, and control.  She brings a compelling new take to Bacharach's classic canon.  Dionne Warwick's voice is more contained, but also more vulnerable, with a world-worn quality that conveys more emotion; when she sings "a house is not a home" or "say you'll be my guy -- if not I'll just die," you believe her.  And let's be honest, you can't undo 60 years of hearing Dionne Warwick sing Burt Bacharach.  So from a vocal and nostalgia perspective, Dionne Warwick is still the one to beat.

However, where Trijntje has the edge is in the consistently superb sound quality of her albums.  Mendoza's arrangements are fabulous, the Metropole Orchestra is shimmering, and the third-row-center feel that Al Schmidt (volumes one and two) and Tijmen Zinkhaan (volume three) capture is off the charts.  And while we're at it, volume four, Best Of Burt Bacharach Live, is a two hour and twenty minute, 21-song, live performance available as a double CD or on Blu-ray video (with 24khz 48bit audio) that also sounds terrific.  Bottom line, with some small personnel changes, you get four volumes of Trijntje singing Bacharach (five hours of music), all arranged, performed, conducted, produced, recorded, mixed, mastered, and released by the same team.

Fortunately, there is no reason to chose between Dionne and Trijntje.  In fact, I've had fun queueing up versions of the same song by each singer and playing them back to back to enjoy the different interpretations.  If you dig Bacharach, I'm assuming you already have many or most of Dionne Warwick's interpretations.  You owe it to yourself to check out Trijntje's take on these classic tracks as well.

And just so you know, Trijntje isn't completely fixated on Bacharach.  She now has some 20 albums to her credit, ranging from standards to jazz to R&B (as well as some really awful Dutch Europop).  Blame it on her youth.  

If you are looking for a non-Bacharach album, I highly recommend her fine 2011 release called Sundays In New York, where she is backed by the the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra.  In addition to one original by Trijntje, it has a great mix of jazzy pop and R&B hits, written by the likes of Sam Cooke, Valerie Simpson, Stevie Wonder, and Curtis Mayfield.  Sadly, it's not yet available on vinyl.

Enjoy the music!

How Many Chet Atkins Albums Do You Really Need?

My music room has custom LP shelving that covers a wall which is 17 feet long and 9 feet high.  I have approximately 120 linear feet of shelf space, designed to hold about 8,000 records.  When we moved into the house, I had about 3,000 records and thought I would never run out of room.  Seven years later, I literally can't wedge any more records onto the shelves.  And there are about 150 records piled up on the floor with nowhere to go.

An "after" picture once I started to clear out some albums working from the left

For a while I tried to delay the inevitable by moving groups of LPs that I don't listen to very often to overflow shelves in the garage.  First to go were the classical and big band albums.  Next were the vocal and light jazz albums.  Then I moved the soundtrack albums, "various artists" collections, stereo demonstration discs, comedy albums, assorted box sets -- all out to the garage.  At this point all the low hanging fruit was gone, and there was nothing left but the "core" collection of classic rock and jazz.  There appeared to be no solution except to build a bigger house.

Well, ok, there was one obvious solution -- I could quit buying so many records.  But a man has to know his limitations, and not buying records is one of mine.  After a period of indecision, I finally decided I had to go through the collection and get rid of some of the thousands of records that I like having around, but that I almost never listen to.  Some of them are former favorites that I've grown out of, and many others are strange and sundry albums that I picked up at estate sales or thrift stores for 50 cents or a dollar apiece.  Among these are a bunch of fun and even classic albums by Doris Day, The Lettermen, Jonah Jones, Eydie Gorme, Melanie, Jerry Vale, The Limelighters, Johnny Mathis, Andre Previn, and so on.  I do occasionally listen to some of these old gems, but life is short, and I realized that I was sacrificing a lot of shelf space on the off chance that I might have an uncontrollable urge to hear Al Martino's heartfelt version of "Torna A Surriento" off the classic The Italian Voice Of Al Martino album (above left).  So, I pulled out several hundred of these orphans and plan to see if one of the local used record dealers will buy them or maybe give me some store credit for the whole bunch.

So far I hadn't touched any of what I consider my core collection - the thousands of classic rock and jazz albums that I listen to 95% of the time.  However, it finally dawned on me that I don't need every album by every artist that I like.  

Which brings me to the title of this post: How many Chet Atkins albums do you really need?  Before you take a swing at me with your Gretsch hollow body guitar (Chet Atkins signature model), let me start by saying I'm a big fan of Chet Atkins.  In the 50s and 60s, he was the man -- a virtuoso on the electric guitar and a seminal figure in the development of modern recording technology.  [Fun fact:  Chet was one of first musicians to have a full-fledged professional recording studio in his home -- partly visible on the LP cover above.]  But as much as I like Chet Atkins, I don't listen to him very often -- maybe a few times a year at most.  And when I do have a yen to hear some Chet, I almost always listen to one of the same four or five favorite albums.  Hmm, maybe I don't really need 22 Chet Atkins albums.  The thing is, all of Chet's albums are pretty good.  But, to be honest, most of his 91 albums (!) sound pretty similar.  Almost every one is a tasteful collection of (then) current pop and country hits, show tunes, maybe a few standards, all done in the breezy and seemingly effortless Chet Atkins style.  And of course nearly all backed by a crackerjack group of "Nashville Cats," which is to say some of the top session players in the business.  In addition, the sound quality on many of them (mostly on the RCA label) is outstanding.

Ready - Take One

Once I got going, it was fairly easy to pare down a number of other artists as well.  A good example is Erroll Garner.  I love Erroll Garner and have 41 of his albums.  But like Chet Atkins, the majority of the 140 albums (!) that Garner released have a certain sameness.  By and large they feature a selection of show tunes, popular standards, and tracks from the great American songbook, all done in the incredibly inventive and imaginative Erroll Garner style.  But (like Chet Atkins), as much as I dig Erroll Garner, I just don't play his albums all that often.  And when I do, I usually reach for the same five or six discs that I like best.  As a result, I have albums by Garner that I'm pretty sure I haven't heard in 10 years.  If I keep a core collection of, say, 8-10 LPs, (including the fabulous Ready - Take One, above left), that gives me room for another 30 or so albums.  (I should also point out that I have 87 Erroll Garner albums ripped to my hard drive in case I do want to hear a particular title.)

In a slightly different exercise, I next started going through my collection looking for albums that I don't really like, even though they are by artists that I generally do like.  Case in point: Elton John.  Elton's first five or six albums are classics, great music that I bonded with in my teens and enjoy hearing regularly.  However, after about 1975, Elton's output is mostly all downhill.  But I kept buying his albums for decades because I kept thinking: The early albums were so good, surely he'll get his groove back soon, no?  Alas, no.  (Ditto Rod Stewart, Frank Zappa, Jethro Tull, Cat Stevens, etc., etc.)  I have 31 albums by Elton John, but I only ever listen to the early ones -- Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection, Honky Chateau, Don't Shoot Me.  I haven't listened to Victim Of Love since I found it in a $1 bin 20 years ago.  Cripes, no wonder I'm out shelf space.  So, 20 Elton albums are headed back to the $1 bin at my local used record store.

I'm making progress, but it's not all smooth sailing.  For instance, I pulled out the ten albums I have by The Youngbloods, most of which I haven't listened to in years.  They seemed like perfect candidates for the garage or maybe even the big heave-ho.  But before I sent them into exile, I thought I'd listen to a few sides.  You can probably guess what happened next.  I ended up playing nearly all of them and deciding that they are really quite good. Led by bassist/vocalist/songwriter Jesse Colin Young, The Youngbloods never reached superstar status (their only top ten hit was 1969's anthemic "Get Together"), but they were a talented band that released some solid records.  So I've spared them from the ignominy of the garage for the time being.  And even though I didn't gain any shelf space, a side benefit of my efforts to thin out the collection is that I've re-discovered a number of excellent, neglected albums that I haven't heard in a long time.

Long story short, I've moved about 1,500 records out to the garage or into boxes ready to take to the used record store.  My shelves feel downright roomy.  Which means, of course, that it's time to buy some more records!

Enjoy the music!

New Vinyl Roundup

It's a great time to be a record collector.  Between reissues from big labels like Blue Note and Verve, audiophile remasters from high-end labels like Mobile Fidelity, Analogue Productions, Music Matters, Impex, Speakers Corner, and Pure Pleasure, as well as an ever-increasing number of outstanding releases by quality-conscious smaller labels like Gearbox, Mack Avenue, Resonance, Sam, In+Out, ORG, and a bunch of others, it's hard to keep up with the flood of new vinyl.  Just about every day I see an email ad, an online review, or a post on Analog Planet about a new release, an audiophile remaster, or a limited edition box set that I really need to have.  As a public service for those of you who may not be following all the new releases as fanatically as I am, I thought I would list some highly-recommended new titles you might want to check out.  Fair warning: Many of these albums are limited edition pressings and will likely sell out quickly, so if you are interested, don't mess around.

First up is a terrific 2020 release by Ron Carter, the dean of jazz bass players.  Carter, 84, got his start with Chico Hamilton in 1959 and quickly rose to prominence as a member of Miles Davis' second quintet in the mid 1960s.  This double LP, called Foursight - Stockholm, is on the In+Out label and was recorded live at the Fasching Jazz Club in November of 2018.  In+Out is a German label which has been around since 1988, putting out 5-10 quality titles a year, including releases by artists such as Chico Freeman, Billy Cobham, and Art Blakey.  This set (by Carter's touring quartet, called Foursight), is straight-ahead melodic jazz, beautifully played and recorded.  The packaging is first-class, and the pressing (I believe by Pallas in Germany), is superb with a wonderfully textured, right down front feel.  Don't sleep on this one.  And while you're at it, check In+Out's 2021 Ron Carter release called Golden Striker, a live trio date recorded in Germany in 2016.

Resonance Records is a small, independent US jazz label that is actually a non-profit organization dedicated to discovering and supporting jazz artists.  They have become well known for unearthing unknown or forgotten live recordings from Europe and elsewhere.  Among their noted finds have been several previously unknown live dates by Bill Evans.  

Love You Madly by pianist Monty Alexander is a two-disc, 2020 release originally recorded in 1982 at Bubba's Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  The sound is phenomenal, recorded by Criteria Studios engineer Mack Emerman using a remote truck.  The tracks are a mix of Alexander originals and jazz and pop standards, including a smoking version of the chart-topping "Arthur's Theme" by Burt Bacharach.  The track starts off like a bit of light jazz fluff, but then the congas kick in and it morphs into a "churning urn of burning funk" (props to James Taylor).  The gatefold package is well done and includes a 12-page glossy booklet packed with photos, interviews, and background information.  The vinyl was cut by Bernie Grundman, pressed at RTI, and sounds wonderful.  This was a limited edition release and may be hard to find, but it's well worth the effort.

Talk about a labor of love, Sam Records, based in Paris, is a one-man operation founded by Fred Thomas in 2011.  To date, Thomas has reissued 29 albums, all originally recorded and released in France in the 50s and 60s.  He works only from original master tapes and recreates the look and feel of the original issues down to the vintage labels and flip-back jackets.  The Ronnell Bright Trio is a 1958 studio set recorded in Paris while Bright was there working as Sarah Vaughan's accompanist.  In a fascinating interview for Marc Myers' JazzWax blog, Bright relates how he was playing at a late-night jam session at a club in Paris when a rep from Polydor Records approached and asked if he wanted to record an album while he was in town.  Bright pulled together bassist Richard Davis (also from Sarah Vaughan's band) and English drummer Art Morgan (who was in town with the Ted Heath Band), and they cut the album.  Listening to The Ronnell Bright Trio, you are hard pressed to believe that it was recorded more than 60 years ago.  The sound is amazingly natural and the music swings like crazy.  Sam Records' press runs are fairly small and sell out very quickly.  In fact, The Ronnell Bright Trio was originally released on Sam Records in 2012 and has been impossible to find for years.  It was repressed in 2021, and at least as of this writing, is still available.  Stop reading now and go order a copy before it's too late.

Between his solo projects, his Trio, and his Big Band, Christian McBride is one of the hardest working men in jazz.  His most recent Big Band outing is the 2020 release called For Jimmy, Wes And Oliver -- a theme album dedicated to organist Jimmy Smith, guitarist Wes Montgomery, and saxophonist and arranger, Oliver Nelson.  The release is on Mack Avenue Records, a Detroit-based label which has been around since 1998, but only began releasing vinyl in 2005.  Since that time, they have turned out a string of consistently excellent and excellent sounding records, no fewer than eight of which are by Christian McBride.  McBride's bass playing is rock solid throughout the session, but organist Joey DeFrancesco and guitarist Mark Whitfield (recreating the chemistry between Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery) steal the show.  The whole package from Mack Avenue is superb from top to bottom, with a lacquer cut by Chris Muth at Taloowa Mastering in Yonkers and pressed on dead quiet vinyl by RTI.

Just to prove that I listen to other things besides jazz, next up is an excellent all-analog reissue of the stone cold classic blues LP, Born Under A Bad Sign by Albert King.  This is a 2018 reissue from Speakers Corner Records, based in Germany.  Speakers Corner began releasing LPs in 1993, focusing heavily on classical reissues for several years before they began to add more jazz and popular titles.  Speakers Corner features "pure analog" prominently in their logo, and they claim that they "produce lacquers using only original master tapes and an entirely analogue cutting system."  Born Under A Bad Sign was originally recorded at Stax Records in Memphis in 1966 and '67, with the house band, Booker T and the MGs, playing backup, and the Memphis Horns joining in on some tracks.  Sadly, the original 1967 release is not a great recording.  The Speakers Corner version is punchier with more detail and separation than the original.  Kevin Gray cut the lacquer and probably got about all he could out of the original tapes.  The pressing, by Optimal in Germany, is flat and quiet.  This version is from the stereo master.  Gray also recut a mono version for a Craft Recordings reissue which came out in 2019.  I have not heard the Craft version because it was a limited edition Record Store Day release that sold out immediately.  Since used copies of the Craft reissue are going for upwards of $200, I am quite happy with the Speakers Corner version which is available for about $35.

Finally, I've been watching with some interest the introduction of two new ultra high-end reissue series: The Mobile Fidelity UltraDisc One-Step, which began in 2019 and now has 19 titles; and Analogue Productions' UHQR (Ultra High Quality Records), which also started in 2019 but to date only has produced four titles.  You can read online about the technical reasons why these are superior to normal pressings.  I will just note that all of the releases are limited editions and originally retailed for $100-125.  Some of them are now approaching $1,000 on the resale market.  Clearly they are an incredible investment, but are they worth it?  Well, the up side is that if you can afford them, you can feel confident that you own (probably) the ultimate vinyl expression of some truly great, classic records.  In my case, I already have nice original or reissue copies of 19 of the 23 discs in both series (the only ones I don't have are two Eagles LPs and two Stevie Ray Vaughn LPs).  Nearly all my normal copies sound fine, and some of them, like the original of Donald Fagen's The Nightfly, sound fantastic.  

However, when Analogue Productions announced they were giving the Ultra High Quality treatment to Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue (KOB), I decided to take the plunge.  I've never been able to snag a reasonably priced copy of an original or early repressing of KOB.  (About ten years ago in a thrift store in Lockhart, Texas I found an absolute first edition mono copy that looked like it had been used as a Frisbee, but that's as close as I've come.)  I have the 2010 Kevin Gray remastered stereo version, as well as the 2013 mono remaster by Ryan K. Smith.  They both sound very good to me.  But after reading numerous online comments about how great the new UHQR version sounds, I figured I'd see what the fuss is about.  The UHQR version cost $100 and comes in a massive presentation box.  It is pressed by hand (possibly by elves) on clear virgin vinyl.  Yes, it sounds fabulous.  It just might be the best-sounding record in my entire collection of 10,000 discs.  Is it worth $100?  Not really.  If I do a one-to-one comparison between my 2013 stereo disc and the new UHQR stereo disc, I can reliably tell them apart and hear that the UHQR is better and quieter.  But when I just play my 2013 copy, I never think: Wow, there is a touch less air and "space" around Miles' horn compared to the UHQR copy.  What I think is: Wow, wow, wow, this is amazing music.  Bottom line: The new super duper pressings sound terrific, but for the same price I would rather have four or five other records that I don't already have.

Enjoy the music!

The Incredible Jimmy Smith

The other day I was re-shelving my copy of guitarist Johnny Smith's fine 1968 release titled Phase II.  Since my LPs are alphabetized by last name, right next to Johnny Smith was Jimmy Smith, the wizard of the Hammond B-3 organ.  I'm a big fan of Jimmy Smith, and since I hadn't listened to any of his albums for a while I took a couple down for a spin.  They were so hot and funky that after the first two I pulled out a couple more, and then a couple more.  Next thing you know it's three days later, and I'm still listening to Jimmy Smith.  To quote from the title of one my favorite Jimmy Smith albums, Damn!

The Incredible Jimmy Smith at the Hammond B-3

Smith was born in the Philadelphia suburb of Norristown on December 8, 1928.  As a child, he learned some piano from his father, but was largely self taught.  While just a teenager, he began playing gigs in the Philadelphia area, earning a reputation for his stride style technique.  When Smith was 15, he quit school and joined the Navy where he played piano and bass in a segregated Navy band.  After his enlistment was up, he came back to the Philadelphia area to study music on the G.I. bill and once again began gigging in clubs.  Beginning in 1951 and continuing for several years, he played off and on with an R&B group called Don Gardner's Sonotones.

In 1953, Smith heard Wild Bill Davis (below), a pioneer of jazz organ, at the Harlem Club in Atlantic City.  Davis' playing had such an impact on Smith that he decided then and there to switch from piano to organ.  After the set, Smith had a chance to talk with Davis and told him about his decision.  Davis cautioned Smith that it wouldn't be easy, warning that it could take years just to master the foot pedals on the organ.  Undaunted, Smith spent the next couple of years continuing to play piano at night in clubs while teaching himself to play the organ during the day.

In a 1994 interview with former Bay Area DJ and B-3 aficionado Pete Fallico, Smith explains how it worked:  "I got my first organ from a loan shark and had it shipped to a warehouse.  I stayed in that warehouse, I would say, six months to a year."  Smith says he treated it like a job, packing a lunch and practicing all day by himself.  "Nobody showed me anything, man, so I had to fiddle around with my stops."  In the end, Smith says, "I pulled out that third harmonic and there!  The bulb lit up, thunder and lightning!  Stars came out of the sky!"  Fallico comments that "Jimmy emerged from that warehouse a new and different organist with a truly original approach and registration. His new sound would prove to be the standard for Jazz organists who followed."

By 1955, Smith was ready to strike out on his own, working with a drummer and guitarist in what would become his signature trio style.  In the summer of that year, Smith was back in Atlantic City to play some dates - this time with his own trio - and the jazz world began to take notice.  Babs Gonzales, a jazz vocalist and well-connected NYC music writer, says that when Smith opened in Atlantic City, "Within three days the news reached me about this insane organist, and I drove down to "dig" for myself.  What I heard was a cat playing. . .futuristic stratospheric sounds that were never before explored on the organ."

Gonzales got word to Alfred Lion at Blue Note Records and told him he had to hear this dynamo named Jimmy Smith.  Some months later, in January 1956, Smith and his trio played their first New York gig at Small's Paradise in Harlem.  They followed that with a date at Cafe Bohemia in Greenwich Village, where Alfred Lion was in the audience.  Lion was blown away by what he heard and immediately signed Smith to record for Blue Note.

Lion wasted no time getting Smith in the recording studio.  On February 18, only a few weeks after the show at Cafe Bohemia, Lion booked a session for Smith at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack, N.J.  Along with Thornel Schwartz on guitar and Bazeley "Bay" Perry on drums, Smith cut ten tracks at his first recording session.  Nine of them ended up on Smith's first Blue Note release (BLP 1512), titled A New Sound - A New Star - Jimmy Smith At The Organ (above).  [Fun fact: Gonzales wrote the liner notes for Smith's first Blue Note album.]

As an indication of Alfred Lion's commitment to Smith and his confidence in Smith's marketability, the first release is billed as Vol. 1, and the back liner lists the cuts for the upcoming Vol. 2, which would appear as Blue Note BLP 1514 only a month later.  In all, Blue Note released five albums by Smith in 1956 and another seven albums in 1957.  Eleven albums in two years' time!  Before Smith left Blue Note for Verve in 1962, he had put out 19 albums.  But Blue Note wasn't done with Jimmy Smith.  Lion had plenty of unused session tracks in the vault, and the label put out 10 more albums by Smith over the coming decades, including a final album in 2007 called Straight Life containing unreleased tracks from a 1961 session.

After moving to Verve, a bigger label with a bigger budget and more promotional muscle, Smith's popularity and sales grew exponentially.  In contrast to his trio and small group recordings at Blue Note, legendary Verve producer Creed Taylor put Smith in the studio with large bands and crack arrangers like Claus Ogerman, Oliver Nelson, Gerald Wilson, and Lalo Schifrin, creating a more contemporary and marketable sound.  Smith's first album for Verve, called Bashin' (left), made it into Billboard's Top 10 album chart.  Over the next six years, Smith had an incredible 18 albums in the charts.  You could probably win a bar bet by challenging someone to name the best-selling jazz artist of the 1960s: It was Jimmy Smith by a mile.

An unbylined obituary on the NBC news website nicely sums up Smith's place in the jazz Pantheon.  "Although Smith wasn’t the first to play jazz on the Hammond B3 organ, his virtuosity over the instrument combined with his brilliant infusion of gospel, blues and R&B riffs and melodies into bebop-inspired improvisations place him alongside other jazz pioneers, such as Charlie Parker, Art Tatum and John Coltrane – artists who revolutionized the way their respective instruments were played and who are continuing to have a profound influence over other instrumentalists."  

According to Discogs, Smith released 107 albums during his lifetime, not counting compilations or guest appearances on other artists' albums.  I have 37 of his LPs, and another 50 or so CDs ripped to my computer.  Since there is some overlap between my LPs and CDs, I am still missing at least 30-35 albums.  Sadly, a number of Smith's later releases have never appeared on vinyl, including the aforementioned Damn! (right), which came out in 1995 on CD only.  [Damn! features a killer version of James Brown's classic "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag," which is worth the price of admission all by itself.]  The sessions for Damn! (and a subsequent album called Angel Eyes) were the last times that Smith recorded for Verve.  On the off chance that anyone at Verve ever sees this, end the madness and release Damn! on vinyl.

Smith's early Blue Note LPs are the most prized by die-hard bebop fans and are by far the most collectible.  The good news is that even the deep groove, mono first pressings of Smith's Blue Note albums can usually be found for a couple of hundred dollars or less - which is very reasonable by Blue Note standards.  Reissued versions of Smith's Blue Note catalog are also available and reasonably priced for the most part, although finding copies in NM condition can be a challenge.  Smith's Verve output sold so well that original releases in nice shape are not hard to find; I see them pretty regularly for $5-10.

Last fall, Blue Note reissued Smith's terrific 1964 album Prayer Meetin', which features tenor saxman Stanley Turrentine (below left).  It's part of Blue Note's wildly successful Tone Poet audiophile reissue series, and is well worth picking up before it sells out.  Blue Note also recently announced a reissue of Smith's 1963 classic Back At The Chicken Shack (below right) as part of a different series called Classic Vinyl Edition.  Both of these reissues are cut by Kevin Gray using the original master tapes.  Chicken Shack is due out in June, and is available for preorder now.  I've already reserved my copy.

Verve Records began its own classic jazz reissue series in 2020, but so far they have not announced any albums by Jimmy Smith as part of the lineup.  Damn.

Enjoy the music!