Louis Armstrong/King Oliver
Alpha and Approximately Pi
Louis Armstrong: The Complete Town Hall Concert 1947 (Fresh Sound '04)
Less than brilliantly recorded, though most '40s jazz boots are much worse, this May 12 experiment, featuring the template for the All-Stars combos he led for the rest of his life, is the Armstrong I play when I want the whole package. Quickly this mode gravitated toward the standard repertoire that dominates the albums I go to for late Louis: the American Icon set and 16 Most Requested Songs. But here the sell was a return to the format of his youth after years of mediocre big bands, so it begins with "Cornet Chop Suey," "Dear Old Southland," "Big Butter and Egg Man." Later there's newer stuff, though "Back o' Town Blues" and "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans" are a long way from "Mack the Knife" and "Hello Dolly." Either way the committed, ebullient performances have something to prove. And as a bonus this is Armstrong's only recording with genre-hopping powerhouse Sid Catlett, who should have been his drummer forever but quit fast and died all too soon. A
King Oliver: Off the Record: The Complete 1923 Jazz Band Recordings (Off the Record '06)
Renowned for the care and skill with which it digitalizes pre-owned, pre-electric, one-mike shellac, this two-CD, 37-track package is worth the time of anyone with a fan's interest in the ongoing Africanization of American pop. The audio is clearer and warmer than on any Oliver I've heard, acoustic or electric, and the repertoire packs plenty of musical charge as well as historical charm, both of which it needs. Not for nothing do David Sager's excellent notes include phraseology like "upon careful listening," "interesting to notice," "contain evidence of," and "a kind of text," because this package is intended for study as well as pleasure. That's fine‑-the first recordings of both a seminal bandleader starting his decline, King Oliver, and a young man about to change the world, Louis Armstrong, are worth studying. But nobody makes 37 records in a year without substantial fluctuations in quality, and the style here, in which traditional New Orleans ensemble playing is yielding to Armstrong's hyperactive virtuosity, does sound quaint to any but committed jazz buffs. Oliver is more prominent than Armstrong, but most prefer it when the kid comes forward (dig the slide whistle on "Sobbin' Blues"). Over many listens, I was struck by how some tunes never connected‑-three stabs at the promisingly entitled "Workingman Blues," for instance‑-while "Mabel's Dream" and the Thomas Dorsey-cowritten "Riverside Blues" always did. In chronological order, my picks, which forgive sloppiness, enjoy hokum, and include two also on Armstrong's fast-disappearing Portrait of the Artist box (I agree with Sager that the hot parts of "Tears"' don't make a whole): "Just Gone," "Chimes Blues," "Weather Bird Rag," both "Dipper Mouth Blues," "Froggie Moore," the second "Snake Rag," "Sweet Lovin' Man," "Sobbin' Blues," "Alligator Hop," "Krooked Blues," "London (Cafe) Blues," "New Orleans Stomp," "Buddy's Habit," "I Ain't Gonna Tell Nobody," the first "Riverside Blues," and the second "Mabel's Dream." That's plenty, wouldn't you say? A MINUS
We near 260+ deserved comments on a gorgeous thread regarding ancient (SPADE-SPADE) jazz & its descendents. I recognize that sharpsm my boy-ee is a genius whose carefully selected words typically validate him as such, and that Milo-good-Miles is a measurably accomplished brain whose words here always bolster what intellectual victories are acheived herein. Let their voices echo as if in a monument's history-bedecked stone chamber. Both are brilliant, a legitimate brilliant, and I hope neither finds himself silenced at any point for reasons **** and fleeting. One day a far-longer-in-the-tooth-than-this Xgau will look back on this thread, a distinguished valley amongst mountains of comparative magnificence, and brim with pride as he recognizes what a uniter it was. Let the record show that wayward valueless weiners like myself walk away from such discourses with the intended effects having played their desired parts. I have long ago purchased Portrait de la Artist as a Young Man, purchased as in Given Money To, and absorb the mammoth muffled thing intermittently as my life trudges on. Were I not so unlikely-ly captivated by Franco, another figure whose estate is a recipient of my hard(?)-earned-cashish, in this impermanent moment, I would spend my nights studying the likes of this post as such.
This blog and its contributors will one day be regarded as the sort of history the world should be grateful to have been graced by. (To end a sentence in a preposition [assuming by is a preposition].)
You all -- you all.
Let THIS discourse build itself upon itself.....................................
Avec la utmost[e] sinceritie,
Professeur B. Alexendre
Post-script: let the sunrise provide its casual context regarding a moment I shall Wake Up wishing I'd reconsidered, et viva U ALL
(post-post script [you will oneday treasure the words of a balletic suicide]: New York itself, the remastered cassette, has fallen victim to my very own $9.99 ----)
[Michael Tatum: Ryan has been kidnapped by well more than the liner notes to
({[ROCK & ROLL note no. 7: I shall wake up regretting
No prob, Ryan -it happens.
Actually, upon perusing the Nebraska lyric sheet, I was reminded that Bruce actually did write the day my number comes in" for the final refrain/chorus. So, my angst toward the Boss was not so well-founded after all and I should apologize.
Speaking of embarrassment, the group of that name did not release their Retrospective on LP, so I'm almost positive it was the only tape I ever bought. I always understood why people liked cassettes for their portability, etc., but I never liked the sound quality. Only other "store-bought" tapes I have are Thompson, et. al's Live, Love, Larf and Loaf and Mayall's Bluesbreakers, both of which were given to me. Haven't heard them in many, many moons as my cassette deck has been out of commission for at least 5-6 years.
Don't even get me started on 8-tracks. Blech!
Which made me think about 1983. Was that the first year cassettes outsold vinyl after all? Do you have any cassettes still from then?
I think 1982 was the year that cassettes first outsold LPs. I didn't start buying them with any regularity until much later, when record labels started phasing out vinyl (CDs were out of my price range). I still have about 300 albums on cassette that I've never bothered to get in any other format, mostly from the early to mid-90s, incl. Xgau faves like Omona Wapi and Brazil Classics Vol. 4 and Nevermind and Latin Playboys and Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and The Marshall Mathers LP and Hillbilly Music... Thank God! and the expanded The Who Sell Out.
Anyone ever buy any of those ROIR albums when they were reissued on CD? (Ska Beats 1, Mekons New York, MC5 Babes in Arms, Buzzcocks Lest We Forget)
("Mr. the day the lottery I win...")
Great song but, ooh, that line always made me cringe. Long ago, Xgau took Joan Baez to task for writing "upon the four winds scattered" and making sure her objects followed the predicates. I know there's a term for this rather repulsive poetic, um, "device" that I've long forgotten. Perhaps one of you English majors can re-enlighten me. Whenever I hear something similar, it just screams "laziness" at me. "Come on, dammit! Rewrite! Rewrite!" Yet another of my interminable, trifling cavils.
Far be it for me to give Bruce Springsteen songwriting advice, but I always wished he'd a thunk a little longer and came up with "Mister the day my number comes in". It sure scans, (and sings), a helluva lot better.
Ah, what treasures await us tomorrow?
Until I found the Laurie Anderson today I thought the only cassette I still owned was The Mekons New York ROIR. I didn't know it was available on CD so no sale here. (Well lookee there. Available on iTunes for 9.99.)
Another fave line of mine from Bob in that review: "Dim ROIR sound adds to the aura by subtracting from same."
Which made me think about 1983. Was that the first year cassettes outsold vinyl after all? Do you have any cassettes still from then? I definitely had In a Special Way on cassette first. And I'm pretty sure home taping didn't manage to kill the music business.
especially on a subject neither of us gives a shitlist about.
Hey -- a first sighting of internet mind-reading on EW. (A pernicious disease.) I care. I'm not raising an issue just to stir up crap. The exact question I stated before has been interesting to me since I was stashing my stuff in a locker. Why do some of my friends know culture and some know none?
about the blogger
Starting in 1967, Robert Christgau has covered popular music for The Village Voice, Esquire, Blender, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He teaches in New York University's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, maintains a comprehensive website at robertchristgau.com, and has published five books based on his journalism. He has written for MSN Music since 2006.
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