Whats on your turntable tonight?

•Taylor's Wailers - This is a late 50's mono set that is drummer Art Taylor's first recording as a leader. High energy set that features Ray Bryant's swinging and harmonically advanced piano playing, and Art Taylor's powerful but nuanced drumming. The horn players; Charlie Rouse, Donald Byrd and Jackie McClean blend beautifully and have immediately recognizable solo voices. John Coltrane, Red Garland and Paul Chambers are on one cut. The high points of the record are the two Monk tunes that close the set; Minor Swing and Well You Needn't. Apparently, Monk wrote the arrangements and conducted these tunes during the recording session, and it shows. All the rhythmic quirkiness and signature chord changes featured in Monk's own recordings are in evidence. Great record.

•Miki Honeycutt - Soul Deep Late 80's recording from a Rounder affiliate that simply cooks. This lady has that big, brassy soul queen sound, but with a distinctively bright vocal timbre. Stylistically, less Gopspel and more Broadway, which works great here. Excellent, hyper-tight, backup band cooks throughout. No question that these folks know their way around 60s and 70s Blues and R&B.

So far:
Josef Suk "String Quartet, Op.31" Suk Quartet (Supraphon 1111 3370) Intimate, very well recorded small ensemble string music
John Coltrane "Blue Train" (Blue Note ST-46095) a Rudy Van Gelder gem.

coming up:
Haydn "Symphony No. 100, Symphony No. 101" Dorati/LSO (Mercury SR90155)

Tuesday night music sessions with the gang. This is what I remember, (we played other titles).

Peggy Lee, 1956 mono LP, "Black Coffee."
Rickie Lee Jones, "Traffic From Paradise."
Ella Fitzgerald, 1960 Stereo, "Let No Man Write My Epitaph"
Vitaly Gnutov, "Balalaika Favorites" Rudolf Belov, Osipov State
Carmen McRae, 1990 Stereo, "Carmen Sings Monk"
Billie Holiday, "Lady In Satin" (45 RPM)
Tina Brooks, "Back To The Tracks" (45 RPM)

Not much over the past several days - raking leaves, Thanksgiving, sports on TV, and then I tore apart the system and vacuumed and cleaned everything down, and readjusted my shelf heights to make way for the ExactPower so I could get it off the floor. The tube monoblocks are removed 'cause my upgrade coupling caps just arrived and it's off to the tech shop they go, so the backup SS stereo amp has taken up residence for the time being. During the last 24:

LP:

The Jimi Hendrix Concerts (2LP, Reprise 1982) I have to admit I do not yet own any of the more recent Experience Hendrix silver disk reissues or compilations, so for all I know this release may be obsolete now, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it either, except for some naturally variable sound quality among the different venues. Seems mastered a bit on the mellow side though, which some might consider a good thing given all the distortion (of the performances, that is).

CD:

The Equals - First Among Equals (2CD, Ice UK import collection, 1994) Eddy Grant's original band, he of "Electric Avenue" and "Romancing The Stone" 80's fame. The Equals were a genre-busting, racially integrated late-60's English band that combined elements as diverse as ska, British Invasion-style pop, Caribbean calypso, American-style R&B, psychedelic rock, and bubblegum (their minor American hit was "Baby Come Back" in '68, on RCA). The Clash covered their song "Police On My Back" for the Sandinista album, and several English and Australian 60's bands covered other of their tunes.

The Blue Things (expanded reissue, Rewind/BMG 2001, orig. rec. 1964-'67) Midwestern garage-beat, folk-rock, pop-psych band originally on RCA (one of that label's first post-Elvis signings of a rock band in the 60's, before the Jefferson Airplane, recorded with good sound at their famed 'Nashville Sound' studio by Felton Jarvis). Derivative but but quite accomplished and enjoyable period stuff for fans of bands like The Beau Brummels, The Lovin' Spoonful, etc.

Tonight...
Bartok - various compositions based on the folk tunes he collected, all on Hungaraton LPs from the 1970s. Hungaraton did a full series of all of Bartok's music and these are largely wonderful performances and recordings. Tonight's are all orchestral with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra with either Korodi or Erdelyi conducting:
...Four Old Hungarian Folk Songs
...Four Slovak Folk Songs
...Hungarian Folk Songs
...Slovak Folk Songs
...Rumanian Dance 1 - Orch Version
...Wooden Prince Suite
...Vn Conc 1 (1908)

And continuing this evening of Bartok into chamber music:
...44 Duos for Two Violins, performed by the legendary Wanda Wilkomirska (love her playing)
...Seven Pieces from Mikrokosmos, for two pianos
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