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 #88 – Just You, Just Me. Five minutes of bebop inspired jazz played in front of an enthusiastic audience in Hollywood. The clarinetist that is the centerpiece in Arnold Ross Quartet is the young swede Stan Hasselgard (Åke Hasselgård) (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #87 – The Eel. There is a lot of good music on the LP especially among the 1933 recordings, but I simply can’t pass over Bud Freeman’s “pièce de résistance”. The title is good, if you never saw the action of the slippery creature (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #86 – Blue Blowers Blues. The LP has two contrasting orchestral sounds. On side one there is a lively washboard and kazoo group, but today I chose to put the attention to the other side with Cutis Mosby’s Blue Blowers and (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #85 – Indiana. When I hear this I can’t help thinking about a passus from Eddie Condon’s book We Called It Music. In a chapter called “Young Man with a Cap” it reads: “The next day we got up as the train came into Cleveland (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #84 – Five Pennies. On the record label of this Brunswick 78 rpm we can read the lineup of the group, Red Nichols and his Five Pennies and our ears can easily confirm it. The timpani of Vic Berton starts off this rather peaceful performance (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #83 – Really Blue. On the LP we find a couple of classic Venuti-Lang recordings in two takes each which is good for comparison. Their routines are well worked out with virtuoso playing and the capacity to fill three minutes (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #82 – When the Jazz Band Starts to Play. When I heard about and found records by Portena Jazz Band in the 70s I understood that there was a “hot spot” for early jazz in Buenos Aires, Argentina (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #81 – Why Couldn’t It Be Poor Little Me. I had trouble with the lady in the music shop. At this time in the beginning of the 60s you could not go through the piles of LP records like you do today. They were all behind the counter, and (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #80 – Tessie! Stop Teasing Me. Today I listen to a very good CD, thanks to the producers at FROG records and to John R. T. Davies whose restoration and transfers of the originals from 1924 make them sound like new (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #79 – Somebody Stole My Gal. The Spanish-American pianist Fred Elizalde played an important part as a jazz pioneer in England in the 1920s. As a student at Cambridge he organized a band and after having a certain success with this he (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #78 – Honolulu Blues. This performance is a bit crazy or maybe one should say experimental. Red Nichols and his Five Pennies keeps it down to six musicians on this date in September 1931. Vic Berton’s use of his timpani is (…) read more and listenread more and listen
From the Record Shelves #77 – Through Train Blues. Tampa Red had a sound, one of the best within the early jazz and blues idiom. It was based on his National guitar, on his open “E” (Vestapol) tuning and his glass bottle slide. But the control over these elements and (…) read more and listenread more and listen