Joe Scott - A Symphony of Our Time

JOE SCOTT
A Symphony of Our Time
1970
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from MRL 307

Movement 1 (excerpt)



This is the second of two albums Joe Scott put together for Bob Shad's newly revamped Mainstream imprint, Mainstream Red Lion. The first, Motion Pictures: The NOW Generation, was a pretty straight-forward orchestral take on the hits of the day with some dope guitar fuzz by Jay Berliner (who would release one of the funkier albums on MRL, Bananas Are Not Created Equal) and some fine electric piano/organ/old skool analogue synth sounds from the keys of session man Frank Owens (check out his sole solo LP over at never enough rhodes) accentuating the arrangements. Personally, I very much enjoyed the set as it was anchored by some boffo bass from a youngish Chuck Rainey and provided a much meatier take on the "hip hits orchestra" meme that pervaded the sonic landscape from the mid-60s to mid-70s.

The line up for A Symphony of Our Time stayed much the same, with minor differences in the horn & string sections, with Romeo Penque added on flute while swapping Owens for Dick Hyman and Rainey for Joseph Macho (he previously played with Owens in support of Bob Dylan and in the group The Restless Feelin's and he would also go on to contribute to one of my all-time fave albums, Van Morrison's Veedon Fleece). Although the personnel changes were slight, the compositions took on a whole new level of complexity as Scott used the pop material as a spingboard to a true symphonic arrangement, rather than simply arrange the songs to be played by an orchestra.

In the intensely informative liner notes replete with massive music-geekery, Scott explains in detail his process and the manner in which he conceptualised the songs as themes to be developed in a classical mode. A case could be made for this recording to be considered as Third Stream, although academics would likely cringe at the thought since the improvisational aspect is hard to discern, the focus is much more on the "rock" than the "jazz" and the compositions do teeter on the precipice of being fugal. I would conjecture that the very act of melding the different themes together into a single movement would avoid its fall into the latter, but I'd have a hard time arguing the case in classicist court.

There are some surprisingly sublime moments here where Scott's gambit pays unexpected dividends. However, at times he overreaches (not necessarily a bad thing in itself) or keeps the structure too rigidly poppy or classical and winds up a bit too predictable or slightly cliché. However, you've gotta give the man an A+ for effort at connecting people with music from the other side of the fence and trying to create something new and completely different in an idiom that was all too often rife with ivory tower elitism, artistic laziness or outright crass opportunism. Years later this kind of treatment would be adopted by struggling symphony orchestras to get bums in the seats or by pretentious prog-rockers searching out a certificate of authenticity for their oeuvre.

I would love to have been able to provide some biographical info on Mr. Scott since the slightly generic name shows up in different roles from the 40s to the 00s and I wanted to get the facts straight. Was he the Trumpet player & arranger who worked with who worked closely with Bobby Blue Bland since the 40s? Was he the singer for mid-60s art rock act Ford Theatre as some claim? Was he the arranger & conductor for a plethora of rock and C&W acts in the late 60s and early 70s? Was he the bass player who worked with Aretha Franklin, The Staple Singers and Curtis Mayfield? Is he the guy who fronts a popular wedding band on these days? All of the above? AMG lists no less than 15 artists with the same name or variations thereof and speaking to the man himself would help nail it down.

I was hoping to do so before posting because the fine Mr. Bostrom, who hosts the other Scott album linked to in the first paragraph, sent me Joe's email over a week ago but I haven't heard back from the man yet. Unfortunately, time is of the essence since I'm aiming to post the last five remaining MRLs yet to appear in the blogosphere before the 12th of the month - Bobby Shad's 90th birthday! Rest assured that if Mr. Scott does reach out, I'll update the post with any info he feels like sharing with us...


1 Movement 1 (Sonata Allegro) - Introduction: House of the Rising Sun; Theme I: Ruby Tuesday; Theme II: A Day in the Life
2 Movement 2 (Andante) - White Room
3 Movement 3 (Moderato) - America
4 Movement 4 (Finale) - Theme I: Dandelion; Theme II: We Can Work It Out; Theme III: Yellow Submarine


Savour Scott's symphonic sonics courtesy of Soundological HERE or HERE.

Carmen McRae - I Want You

CARMEN McRAE
I Want You
1964
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from MRL 387

Here's the last of the Carmen McRae releases on the Mainstream MRL to be shared in the blogosphere. As usual with her MRL reissues, this one was compiled from various sources and tracks are culled from the same session used for Alfie [Mainstream S-6084] & Haven't We Met? [Mainstream 56044], except for #8 which is taken from Woman Talk Live at the Village Gate [Mainstream S-6065].

Despite the seemingly haphazard way Shad programmed the tracklists on the reissues, there is very little to no overlap when it comes to tunes and those who do not own the originals should find these to be new to their Carmen collection (again, that may depend on what other reissues you have on Sony's Legacy label, who bought Shad's Mainstream catalogue from his daughter in the 90s). No surprises here either way since the magical voice and introspective interpretive style that she made the cornerstone of her career are present in all their intimate glory.

However, as opposed to her stripped-down sessions she recorded live, the orchestration can get in the way once in a while, especially on the Peter Matz-produced tracks. Those overseen by Don Sebesky show the usual tasteful arrangements he was known for, ones Creed Taylor would regularly put to good use on his CTI imprint a few years later. At any rate, fans of this amazing vocalist will not be disappointed since she is never completely overshadowed by the string swells thanks to the strength of her voice, which was at its peak during the period these songs were waxed.

Carmen McRae: Too Good

schuon25 | MySpace Video

Highlights for me include the spine-tingling "Too Good," an excellent example of the lovelorn fatalist role she played so well, along with "And I Love Him," her restrained reversed-gender take on Lennon & McCartney's well-worn ballad which would have still been a relatively new tune at the time of recording. Special mention also goes to the opener, which leans a bit to the saccharine side but features Carmen playing with the tempo of her phrasing to create a layer of tension within the song's static time signature (a technique for which she was renown), highlighting her mastery of the craft and demonstrating the intensely personal individuality she brought to her repertoire.


1 The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
2 Too Good
3 Don't Ever Leave Me
4 Sweet Georgia Brown
5 And I Love Him
6 In Love in Vain
7 Fooling Myself
8 The Shadow of Your Smile
9 My Reverie
10 Winter in May


This time I was too lazy to split out the musicians from the different sessions but a quick trip over to the Carmen McRae Discography site will pay dividends to the uber-OCD trainspotters. For the rest of our readers, below is a list of all musicians from the three sessions who participated in these recordings.

Carmen McRae (v)
Ray Beckenstein (f)
Phil Bodner, Leon Cohen, Charlie Mariano, Stanley "Champ" Webb (f, af, pic, cl, as, ts, o)
Shelly Gold (f, af, cl, o)
John Bello, Burt Collins, Mel Davis, Bernie Glow, Jimmy Maxwell, Jimmy Nottingham (t)
Wayne Andre, John Messner, Charles Small, Bill Watrous, Chauncey Welch (tb)
Ray Alonge, Dick Berg, Jim Buffington, Earl Chapin (frh)
Don Butterfield (tu)
Paul Faulise, Tony Studd (bt)
Barry Galbraith (g, elg)
Joe Puma (g)
Paul Breslin, Aaron Davis, Richard Davis, Victor Sproles (b)
Norman Simmons (p)
Eugene Bianco, Margaret Ross (hrp)
Archie Freedman, Mel Lewis, Frank Severino, Ed Shaughnessy (d)
Jose Mangual (bo)
Doug Allan, George Devens, Phil Kraus (per)

Strings:
Adriana Broone, Fred Buldrini, Peter Buonconsiglio, Max Cahn, Norman Carr, Bernard Eichen, Arnold Eidus, Leo Kruczek, Walter Legawiec, Charles Libove, Carmel Malin, Joe Malin, Marvin Morganstern, David Nadien, George Ockner, Gene Orloff, George Polikian, Raoul Polikian, Max Pollikoff, Aaron Rosand, Tosha Samaroff, Michael Spivakowsky, Jack Zayde (vn), Al Brown, Harold Furmansky, David Mankowitz, Emanuel Vardi (vl)
Maurice Brown, Alla Goldberg, Charles McCracken, George Ricci, Harvey Shapiro, A. Sophos (cll)


If you want Carmen as much as she wants you, get her from Soundological HERE or HERE.

Eddie Cano - The Latin Magic Of Eddie Cano & His Orchestra

EDDIE CANO
The Latin Magic Of Eddie Cano & His Orchestra
196?
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Hurrah H-1053

Medley 4


Eddie Cano was a gifted LA-born Latino pianist from a musical family who played a considerable role in the creation and popularisation of Latin jazz. His early work with Tito Puente, Machito and Noro Morales in the late 40s led to stints with Les Baxter, Cal Tjader, Jack Costanzo and Buddy Collette then, thanks to his instrumental virtuosity and compositional skills as well as some strenuous support from Shorty Rogers, he was signed for a series of respected solo albums for RCA in the 50s. From there he would record for a considerable list of labels in the 60s, including United Artists, Pickwick, Reprise, Atco and Dunhill.

During the lion's share of that dynamic decade he headed up the resident band at the famous Hollywood hot-spot, P.J.'s, for numerous years and was a danceflloor darling of tinsel town jet set. It was there he recorded one of my favourite boogaloo bombs, Brought Back Live From P.J.'s, which would see its way to Soundological save for the fact the reissue is dirt cheap at Dusty's or on order from your local dealer. This was actually the second album he taped there; six years earlier he saw a hit with his interpretation of "A Taste of Honey" from Eddie Cano at P.J.'s.

Not nearly as exciting, this collection of cha cha medleys was recorded for Pickwick (who released it on at least three different sub-labels) at the outset of the 60s. Although Cano shows his chops and the horn section hits the mark throughout, it's the start of period of label restriction that saw Cano strait-jacketed by industry types out to exploit the latest Latin dance fads by covering and pop chart hits. Although proving to be a bankable payday, the piper called the tune and Cano was always clear that from the time he left RCA until he dumped Reprise for Dunhill, he had bupkiss by way of creative input on his albums beyond his actual playing. This would be rectified with Dunhill and later in the 70s with his participation in sessions on albums like Bobby Hutcherson's Montara and his continuous live appearances until his passing in the late 80s

According to Cano himself*, he "wasn't into a complete jazz bag or a complete Latin thing" and Latin jazz was his "bag" and what he had "always done." Thankfully this release was prior to the worst of this restriction so Cano's obviously still having some fun with the gig at this point and displays a palpable emotional connection to the material. Although it's basically your run-of-the-mill cha cha record meant to be played at parties and consequently upbeat by nature of the beast, each of the four medleys has a subtly different overtone ranging from bittersweet to bawdy. Not nearly as strong as his earlier effort at RCA, it's still an enjoyable representative of its genre albeit better suited as a soundtrack for social gatherings than as a piece for solitary appreciation.


Eddie Cano - Piano


1 Canto Karabali; Lunita Nueva; Candice: Ombo; Salud, Dinero Y Amor; Piel Canela
2 Mama Inez; Negra Consentida En Vano Te Espero; Cuando Yo Bailo Asi; Tru-Cu-Tu; Amor Y Mas Amor; El Suenito; Batiri
3 Manhattan; Yo Te Lo Dije; Rico Rica; Amapola; Senor Juan Cha Cha #5, Pan Con Queso; Teresa
4 Take Your Time; Cha Cha Chando; El Limpiabotas; TV Cha Cha; Ella, Ella; Cuba Cha Cha; La Santiaguera; Acere


Feel the Latin magic with Soundological HERE or HERE.

DISCOGRAPHY

1956 Costanzo, Cano & Bongos! w/ Jack Costanzo
@ Orgy In Rhythm

1956 Cole Porter & Me /1957 Duke Ellington & Me
[reissued 2003 as Cole Porter, Duke Ellington & Me] @ AvaxHome

1958 Deep In A Drum
[reissued 1993 & 2005] @ ELBROLLO

1958 Time For Cha Cha Cha
@ Schadenfreudian Therapy

1959 Cha Cha Cha Con Cano

1960 Jazz Heat Bongo Beat
w/ Buddy Collette @ Xtabays

1960 Dancing on The Sunset Strip
w/ Jack Costanzo

1961 Eddie Cano at P.J.'s
[reissued 2008]

1962 30 Latin American Favorites [Pickwick]

aka The Latin Magic Of Eddie Cano & His Orchestra [Hurrah]
aka Latin Discotheque [Cosmic]

1962 Here Is The Fabulous Eddie Cano
[reissued 2008]

1962 Mucho Piano!

1963 A Taste of Cano
[Mucho Piano! w/ different track sequence]

1963 Cano Plays Mancini
[reissued 2008]

1963 Danke Schoen
[reissued 2008]

1963 Jack Costanzo Meets Eddie Cano
w/ Jack Costanzo

1964 Broadway Right Now
[reissued 2008] @ Latin Jazz Descarga Directa

1965 The Sound of Music and The Sound Of Cano
[reissued 2008]

1966 On Broadway
w/ Nino Tempo [reissued 2008]

1967 Brought Back Live From P.J.'s
[reissued 2006]

More info on Eddie can be found at Descarga.com and in the pages of *Barrio rhythm: Mexican American Music in Los Angeles by Steven Joseph Loza (snippets here).

Carmen McRae - Carmen McRae

CARMEN McRAE
Carmen McRae
1965
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Mainstream MRL 309

Bye Bye Blackbird


Here's some Sunday-mornin'-comin'-down listening for you with yet another acoustic trio set, this time in the form of a live affair backing Carmen McRae. Carmen needs no introduction to regular readers of Soundological or the shad shack as she's appeared here before and there many times, with 5 releases (all reissues) on MRL. She's also one of the pre-eminent jazz vocalists of the silver age so there's all sorts of info out there on her and to keep this post short 'n' sweet we'll just make with the discographical data...

This set was most likely taken from her month-long stint at The Village Gate in November 1965 but not necessarily so according to the Carmen McRae Discography page which lists all tracks as being recorded on Jan 1, 1966 except "My Ship," which is listed as Nov 2, 1965. Couldn't find any corroboration of the former date so filing it under "maybe" for now. All of her other 60s live recordings on Mainstream come from the November engagement and were recorded on either Nov1, Nov 2 or Nov 21: Alive!, Woman Talk, Live & Doin' It, Live & Wailing. The exception is her other live set on MRL, In Person, featuring the same line up but was recorded 9/21/63.

There's something else that makes the dates as listed seem suspect and that's Shad's sloppiness for record-keeping when it came to artists and repertoires - if he couldn't remember your name he'd just take a stab or make one up, which is how bluesman Peppermint Harris got his moniker. In this case, the track listing on the affixed labels is actually incorrect and puts "My Ship" as track 1 on side 1 when it's really track 4 on side 2, meaning all songs are off by one as indicated on the labeling. Rather than change the song sequence by placing "My Ship" first, this rip maintains the one originally pressed on the vinyl and corrects the numbering and titles. It's a bit sharp in places since a minimum of filtering was done so there's a bit of crackle when the v/u is hot.


Carmen McRae - Vocals
Norman Simmons - Piano
Stuart Martin - Drums
Victor Sproles - Bass


1 Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most
2 Bye Bye Blackbird
3 Solitude
4 I'm Gonna Laugh You Right out of My Life
5 Long Before I Knew You/Just in Time
6 'Round Midnight
7 I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)
8 My Ship


Mellow out with Carmen and Soundological HERE or HERE.

Various - The Roar of the Red Lion

VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Roar of the Red Lion
1970
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Mainstream SRL-1

Joe Scott - Born To Be Wild


The previous two posts were actually subtle thematic set ups for the next few weeks here at Soundological. What are the unifying threads you ask? Well, how about the 70s, dodgy reissues and low budget productions using old school jazzbos? Those tags tend to evoke Bob Shad's Mainstream records MRL series in our mind. On the 23rd, our sister blog the shad shack celebrates its 1st anniversary so, in honour of this momentous occasion, we'll be featuring MRL releases exclusively leading up to that date.

Kickin' off this month(ish) of Mainstream is a promo record and one-of-kind glimpse at the start of Shad's Red Lion record label. Culled from the first four sets in the MRL series, none of these tracks will be a revelation to regular followers of the shad shack, since the Ron Frangipane, Joe Scott, Dean Christopher and Phoenix Authority have all been linked up there some time ago (except for Joe Scott, follow the links to preview clips provided by original posters). If you haven't grabbed them yet, this will act as a suitable sampler for the goods therein as it compiles most of the best bits from each. All are orchestral renderings of the groovy hits of the day, with the latter being the strongest since its line up was somewhat of a dry run for the monstrously funky studio creation known as Afrique.

It would actually take at least a dozen albums of this brand-x-plays-the-hits material peppered with a few reissues from his old Sittin' In With label and earlier Mainstream catalogue before the MRL series finally found its groove. For a couple years it would become a jazz refuge where perennial sidemen, has-beens and unknowns could head up their own sessions and a place where taking chances was often OK - as long as you didn't take too many takes taking them!

Shad may have been frugal (some felt he was shady or worse) but he understood survival of the fittest and, as both an A&R man for major labels and owner of a string of independent imprints, he made a comfy career cashing in on a small percentage of the numerous new artists he set down in the studio for their first sessions. He laid a little bit down on a lot of long-shot bets and that meant a lot of artists got a shot the bigger boys may not have shelled out for. In the MRL era he had found a niche in bop-laden jazzfunk and soul that was neither as slickly urbane as CTI and Blue Note nor as spicy as Concord and found himself jostling for dwindling jazz shelf space not only with them or other giants like Fantasy, Atlantic and Columbia, but for the most part with smaller outfits such as Pablo, Flying Dutchman, Strata-East, Groove Merchant and Muse.

They would all prove to be more than considerable competition in the conflict for a shrinking subset of a declining number of jazz consumers and Shad's MRL imprint was ultimately a short-lived endeavour. Within a hundred releases of getting its sea legs, the Red Lion was on its last legs as Shad started picking its carcass for out-take compilations while it was leaning heavily on licensed material from outside sources - meaning no publishing royalties. No shame on Shad since few of those labels made it through the 70s intact but his horse never really had a hope of coming in on the track he was playing.


1 Ron Frangipane - Wedding Bell Blues
2 Ron Frangipane - Holly Holy
3 Ron Frangipane - Venus
4 Joe Scott - Born To Be Wild
5 Joe Scott - Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head
6 Joe Scott - Suicide Is Painless
7 Dean Christopher- Eli's Coming
8 Dean Christopher- Alice's Restaurant
9 Dean Christopher- Lady Madonna
10 Phoenix Authority - Spinning Wheel
11 Phoenix Authority - Honky Tonk Women
12 Phoenix Authority - Everyday People


In that short run though, there was a high ratio of excellent releases that have withstood the test of time including a few re-issues reviving classic, and sometime definitive, sides. Stay tuned to Soundological for many more MRL morsels, including some rarities and curiosities, most of them will be blogosphere firsts but some space will also be given to sonic upgrades of old standbys as well. In the meantime, hear the Red Lion's first roars HERE or HERE.


PS - Got the first DMCA takedown notice today and as a result pulled material from a post. Not too surprising though, since the nebulous nature of its OOP status was speculated upon in the original write up (which still remains). One more mystery solved. What have we learned from this? You never know when these notices will come up in the future so get 'em while they're hot folks!

Mark Allen - Every Little Breeze

Sweet Georgia Brown


The Lady Is A Tramp


MARK ALLEN
Every Little Breeze
1978

256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from T-bow (no cat#)


Totally obscure private press recording of some straight-up jazz with a boppish flavour by saxophonist Mark Allen. Actually, it's more of a collaboration between Allen, the Aurèle Lecompte Trio ca. '78 and the duo of Joe Turner and Robin Moir. In the local region it usually sells for anywhere from $5-$10 but elsewhere in the country and internationally it seems to fetch $50 or more, as is often the case with private press albums. Unfortunately, I couldn't dig up any info on Mark Allen himself and his exceptionally commonplace name wasn't much help, so I gave up my pursuit after a few weeks of dead ends. Apparently the only release by T-Bow Records, there's no other reference to the label name outside of this album.

It was a bit easier to find some info on Aurèle Lecompte since he's still active on the supper club circuit and was holding down resident duties as recently as last year, performing at chi-chi resto gigs in Ottawa and the adjacent Gatineau region of Québéc. There's scant biographical info available, limited to a mention of him having played with Louis Armstrong and Liberace and reference to a position at the Ottawa office of Radio-Canada in the 70s. Recently he's worked often with québécoise chanteuse Jo Bocan, particularly at the upscale St-Estèphe Restaurant and they accompanied its master chef, Stéphane Paquet, to Nice in France for a special cultural exchange event in 2006. According to Tom Lord's extensive Jazz Discography, Lecompte has two performance credits from 1978 but I can't find hide nor hair of the other. The standards "Lullabye Of Birdland," "For All We Know" and "Lady Is A Tramp" are basically showcases for the trio since they lack participation by Allen, Turner or Moir.

Bassist Gilles Champagne had a few other credits in the local Ottawa music scene including a stint in the Orpheus Theatre orchestra in 1979, where he was listed as an organist in the production credits along with drummer Robb. Champagne appears to have ended up at one of the hippie havens of the Canadian West Coast, Saltspring Island (a major source of BC Bud) where he popped up as a member of local classic rock cover band Lookinglass sometime in the mid-90s. Since then he's been replaced by another bassist and seems to have dropped off the map.

Glenn Robb is still very active member of the jazz scene in his native Ottawa, regularly playing drums at the supper clubs of both the Monterey Inn Resort and Villa Lucia as part of various trios (The Monterey, Jazz'oo and Art Lawless Trios to name three) and he gigs weekly with his band Magnolia Rhythm Kings. In his 40+ year career, he's performed on many Canadian TV and film soundtracks and has shared the stage with legends such as Benny Goodman, Bud Freeman, Bud Shank, and Cab Calloway as well as holding membership in the orchestras of Ron Milne, Ken Campbell, Gerry Heike and Champ Champagne.

When it comes to the husband-wife team of music moguls Joe Turner and Robin Moir, however, there's no shortage of info on them or their many projects. Cutting their teeth in Ottawa with a party band called Fizz, they've branched out and built a veritable empire with Isle of Skye Productions that includes a bustling recording studio, music publishing business, artist management, broadcasting and not one but three party bands: The Jaguars, Moetown and the Fifth Avenue band. This album captures them at a relatively young age and early stage in their career and the vocal tracks "Lush Life" and "Little Girl Blue" portray Moir's talent as an interpretive vocalist.


Mark Allen - sax, clarinet
Aurèle Lecompte - piano
Gilles Champagne - bass
Glenn Robb - drums
Joe Turner - guitar
Robin Moir - vocals


1 Petite Fleur
2 Lush Life
3 You Light Up My Life & I Can't Get Started
4 Lullabye Of Birdland
5 Sweet Georgia Brown
6 Send In The Clowns/Michelle/Like Someone In Love
7 Lady Is A Tramp
8 Little Girl Blue
9 For All We Know
10 Louise


Shoot the breeze with Soundological HERE or HERE.

Update: Forgot to mention that the album was produced by Gene Perla, who will be here in Montreal at the venerable Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill this weekend, August 7th & 8th, with Al McClean, Andre White and Dave Lang.

Moe Koffman - Things Are Looking Up

Stanloo


Lighthouse


MOE KOFFMAN
Things Are Looking Up
1978

256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from GRT 9230-1078


Yeesh. Listening to this LP is almost physically painful for me. It's not just the fact it's a textbook smooth-jazz snoozer, although that does have quite a bit to do with it. The aversion I have to this album is mostly related to its (and my) time and place in history more than anything else. You see, I was 8 years old when this was released and, for me, it's the sound of sitting in doctor/dentist waiting rooms and getting dragged to the supermarket in the late 70s and early 80s.

Heck, this album - especially the production techniques - pretty much sums up everything I wrongfully associated with post-bop jazz (exceptions being the soundtracks of Spider-Man, Space Ghost and Johnny Quest) until I started listening to soul-jazz and proper fusion in junior high. Whaddaya expect? I was a white kid without older siblings growing up in a mid-west medium-market city where the radio choices were Top 40, C&W or AOR and my parents listened to Babs Streisand, Neil Diamond, Willie Nelson and Roger Whittaker. I think I overcame that handicap pretty well, thanks very much, but sounds like these still tend to make me cringe reflexively.

The epitome of poor format in both musical and technological terms

Of course, with the team involved here there are a few enjoyable (and eminently samplable) moments, regardless of the childhood-trauma-induced baggage I've saddled on this old grey mare. And an old grey mare it is, since Moe's sound, she ain't what she used to be. I can get past most of those memories but this is still a paint-by-numbers, overproduced piece of pap that's so watered-down, "smooth" is a misnomer. It would be better described as "thin and runny." Even then it's a crime against nature, defying the laws of fluid dynamics by having an exceptionally low viscosity yet it somehow still manages to completely hamper flow and restrict movement.

If the two preview tracks don't do it for you at all, you probably shouldn't bother grabbing the full release since those are a cut above the rest. I find myself enjoying Lighthouse quite a bit since it's the odd-man-out and its cinematic feel is the closest thing to what I would call real jazz. Stanloo is a bit more representative of the other tracks, although it's funkier than the rest by at least a furlong - yikes!

It's fairly obvious the fleeting moment of Moe's funky(ish) flute fusion had finished and he really should have put that filly out to pasture prior to this. Thankfully, like most artists of the era, he returned to straight-ahead jazz by the early 80s and regained the critical acclaim that had steadily eroded as the 70s wore on. This helps explains the "black hole" effect of the 70s jazz era in Canada that was briefly touched on in the comments for Dr. Music's Bedtime Story.

As far as the roster is concerned, we've already covered most of the players in some detail. Ed Bickert is a massive star in the Canadian jazz constellation and extremely influential on canuck guitarists from the 60s to the 90s but his popularity and reach extend much further as a precursory search on the google will quickly reveal. His relationship with Moe goes all the way back to the 50s as well, appearing on Moe's debut Cool and Hot Sax in '56 which included Moe's smash hit "Swingin' Shepherd Blues".

As wonderful as Bickert's works book-ending this session were - Down Beat spoke of his stint with Paul Desmond two years prior as having an "understated eloquence matched only by such masters as Jim Hall" and the year following he was touring the world with Milt Jackson to great acclaim and forming his relationship with Concord Jazz as Rosemary Clooney's guitar player - he's pretty much restricted by the "smooth jazz lite" format here. Sure his tone is excellent as always and he plays superbly but he is sometimes (and unfairly) pegged as more of an adept technician than soulful artist and this set does more to exacerbate that perception than it does to dispel it.

Ed, Moe & James (Jimmie) Dale in 1965 backing Guido Basso from The Boss Brass

Marty Morell's biggest claim to fame is definitely as part of the Bill Evans Trio from 1968 to 1974 - the longest any drummer stayed with Evans. You can hear some of his work with the trio at Soundological's post of Evan's From The 70s or on a slew of his albums covered by master Simon at never enough rhodes. His web page seems to have died out since we last checked in but thanks to the wayback machine at archive.org, you can still read up on his activities with Evans, The Boss Brass and on the Broadway circuit. Personally, my favourite work with his presence on percussion is probably Gabor Szabo's classic The Sorcerer. For some reason, his participation on this particular Koffman piece doesn't make his "selected" discography. Go figure.

Not much info on Rick Homme out there besides assorted credits on dozens of Canadian albums. As far as Moe's 70s output is concerned, he played on the ones with the most appeal to jazz purists: Solar Explorations, Live at George's and Museum Pieces. He remains active in the Canadian jazz scene, still doing some recording and a good deal of gigging across the country but especially in the Greater Toronto Area.

Moe Koffman - Flute, Bass Flute
Don Thompson - Keyboards
Rick Homme - Electric Bass
Marty Morrell - Drums, Percussion
Ed Bickert - Guitar
Bob Mann - Guitar (5)
Doug Riley - Keyboards (1,4)
James Dale - Keyboards (5)


1 Things Are Looking Up
2 Freefall
3 Sempre Con Tigo
4 Minstrel's Hymn
5 Stanloo
6 If You Ever Went Away
7 Lighthouse
8 Some Moe Bossa


Look up, look waaay up, with Soundological HERE or HERE.