Enjoy my new series with Records from the Shelves
I started out in the 1960s buying vinyl records and some 78’s. Most of the records I bought at any price because I just had to have them. My mother could send me out with money to buy new trousers, but I came back with a record. In the beginning it was mostly the milestones of classic jazz and records by blues artists alone with guitar, because that was the music that I wanted to play myself.
When the CD’s came in the 90s I bought many recordings again since they were more practical to work with, and they often contained transfers of better originals. Furthermore, you could sometimes get everything recorded by a special artist in chronological order. Today I’m back to buying vinyl again most often because I find them cheap, and thus I can take a chance to listen to music that I may or may not like.
I have made many discoveries over the years. Things that may not be as important to me as the cornerstones of classic jazz but are still enjoyable and that gives me a wider spectrum.
Now I’m going to play a record every day and present a tune with a short comment. Early jazz, blues, modern jazz, operatic arias maybe and some bygone popular artist’s recordings. Let’s listen together, and we’ll see what comes up!
From the Record Shelves #136 – Fourth Street Mess Around. In the 1960s there was a radio program of half a hours’ length in which Olle Helander went around in the south of the USA interviewing and recording the original blues men. In one of the programs (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #135 – Adam and Eve Had the Blues. Side two of the LP has eight numbers where Louis Armstrong and Jimmie Noone played together in the accompanying group, with many glimpses of their virtuosity. I may come back to that, but today (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #134 – Magnolia Blues. In 1937 a Broadway Musical called Babes in Arms with music by Rogers and Hart included songs like The Lady Is a Tramp and My Funny Valentine. Andrew Sisters had a hit with By Mir Bist Du Schön and Maxine Sullivan (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #133 – Candlelights. I have listened many times to this record with, and it’s special. I probably found it at a sale for a low price. The music is recorded in 1953 and the album was originally called Syncopated Chamber Music (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #132 – Farewell Blues. There are many similarities between this 1923 recording and the one that King Oliver’s Dixie Syncopators made a couple of years later, especially in the attitude of the hot final choruses. Isham Jones played tenor sax (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #131 – Your Love Has Faded. To some extent Ivie Anderson could compete with Billie Holiday as a singer of sad songs. Especially around 1940. I love her warm voice and sensitive singing on tunes like this. (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #130 – Take Your Time. This trumpet player should not be forgotten. It was in the summer of 1968 that I bought the LP. The holidays from school had just started and when I got home and turned on the record I got a shock because (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #129 – Up and At ’Em. Today I listen to another LP with California Ramblers. Their output on records is enormous until 1930 when they dropped the name and became Ted Wallace and his Orchestra on records (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #128 – Tell Me Woman Blues. This rare LP contains a lot of good jazz and blues, mostly with female singers with cornet or trumpet accompaniment. The best of them could have a job in a cabaret or tent show but also in bars and cafés (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #127 – So Tired. I have an inevitable association with this record. In the beginning of the 1980s the English very elegant and polished Pasadena Roof Orchestra came to Malmö to play an engagement during couple of weeks. I went to listen (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #126 – Hey! Young Fella!. I bought this LP in 1967. I think it was cheap. But the music on it is anything but that. It’s rich and almost every track is a masterpiece. In February 1933 violinist Joe Venuti brought his fellow musicians (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #125 – Everything I Have Is Yours. This well produced CD contains vocals by 18 crooners, some of them like Gene Austin worthy of more remembrance today. The angle of the album is to present music from the art deco era, and we get (…) read more and listenread more and listen