Good Music Cheap!
by NIH modern living editor Jason Capodimonte.As you loyal readers know, the literary types here at the HEAD like used bookstores and the remainder tables in bookstores that sell new books. At used bookstores you find books which have stood the test of time rather than books which have been relentlessly marketed. On the remainder table you find books which have failed to appeal to the audience of suggestible, trendy types at whom the big publishers aim their books – in other words, books which are more likely to appeal to those of us whom the big publishers are not trying to please.
This week we're going to look at the music store equivalent of the remainder table, the delete bin. In the delete bin you find CDs deleted from company catalogues. In the last few years the delete bins have been featuring a lot of specialty recordings which probably failed to find audiences because they didn't have promotional budgets. A few of the better ones I've bought recently are described below. Some of them may already have disappeared from your local delete bins, but they'll still give you an idea of the quality of the music in delete bins these days, on CDs which usually go for ten bucks Canadian or less.
Freddie Hubbard's Blues for Duane is a recording of part of a concert in Warsaw in 1991. Other albums featuring tracks from this concert also appear in the delete bins. Look for one which has "Bolivia," the first cut on this CD. Mr. Hubbard has been accused of frequently letting pop music influences creep into his work (okay, I'm being a bit cute about it – he's been accused of trying to sell out) but "Bolivia" is twelve minutes of uncompromising, intelligent hard bop trumpet (a commodity which I consider never to have been thick on the ground, but which is endlessly enjoyable when found). The other cuts are pretty good, too, and if "Bolivia" weren't on the album I'd probably be raving as enthusiastically about them. No pandering nowhere. With Don Braden, Ronnie Matthews, Jeff Chambers, and Ralph Penland. [Since you can't order these records I'm not supplying their catalogue numbers; you have to go dig for them.]
Rock oldies collections are everywhere in the delete bins, most of their selections dating from Elvis's arrival on the scene. This little beauty goes back a bit earlier, providing a mix of the types of music which merged to create rock and roll – rhythm and blues, jump blues, and western swing. Merrill Moore's "House of Blue Lights" and Bill Haley's "Crazy Man Crazy," demonstrate the important effect western swing had on rock and roll. Many of the cuts remind us of the sameness of much early 50s R & B, which was alleviated by the addition of elements from other types of music as rock developed.Despite their similarity, the old R & B and jump blues cuts still have the advantage over most contemporary pop music that the musicians sound as if they're enjoying themselves. I particularly like Milt Trenier's "Squeeze Me," which has one of the wittiest lyrics a pop song has ever had. And I can't get the Du Droppers' infectious "Bamalam" out of my head.
Other notable selections include Big Jay McNeely's "Nervous Man, Nervous." Big Jay was banned from performing in Los Angeles county because his music was thought to be deleterious to the morals of youth. It certainly was very hot and quite weird. Also included are the original version of "Hound Dog" (by Big Mama Thornton) and "KC Lovin'" by Little Willie Littlefield, which when recorded by Wilbert Harrison became "Kansas City." Lots of other good stuff, too – 28 (twenty-eight) cuts on the album!
Bebop was like art nouveau – at its best it was excellent, but few people had the skills necessary to play good bebop. Charlie Parker was arguably the most accomplished saxophonist ever and a seminal figure in bebop (if not its inventor), and the twenty cuts on A Night in Tunisia show him at his best. Two cuts ("Salt Peanuts" and "Shaw Nuff") have Dizzy Gillespie, another bebop great, as leader, while the rest are from various bands led by Mr. Parker. And the cuts are tunes for which he's known – the title piece, "Ornithology," "Scrapple from the Apple," "Yardbird Suite," etc. etc. And you know, Charlie Parker played really beautiful saxophone. These days we don't consider beauty to be an essential characteristic of art, but it don't hurt.
Let Me Down Easy is a collection of 60s soul. Unfortunately, some of the cuts are not the original recordings, and most of the rest are pretty forgettable. But you ain't buying this CD for those cuts. You're buying it for one cut, Peggy Scott's "When the Blind Lead the Blind." Miss Scott got hold of that song, let me tell you. I strongly recommend that before listening to her you do some stretches, because afterward you're going to have to bend way over and pick your mind up off the floor. The catchphrase which comes to mind is "raw intensity of emotion," but the emotion here isn't raw, it's distilled. This song is strong. it makes Lorraine Ellison's "Stay with Me" sound like a ballad. You also get Betty Harris's original "Cry to Me" and Bobby Bland's "Take Off Your Shoes" – not one of his best numbers but everything he does is at least good.
Miles Davis' and John Coltrane's Abstract Impressions is a reissue of an old monaural LP. If you young people are puzzled about what that was, a monaural or mono LP is a long playing album which has only one channel instead of two, so if you play it on a stereo system you get the same sound coming out of each speaker. Weird, eh? Anyway, the album features excellent renditions of six standards: "On Green Dolphin Street," "Walkin'," "So What," "Round About Midnight," "Impressions," and "Everytime We Say Goodbye" (the last two cuts do not include Davis, but they do include McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and Jimmy Garrison).
There are a lot of blues collections in the delete bins, most of them presenting a fairly narrow range of the genre. The songs on this two-CD set, though, range from Lightnin' Hopkins "Let Me Play with Your Poodle" to Billie Holiday's "Jim," and the performers range in time from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith to T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters.You get country blues, you get city blues, you get early blues shouters, you get band singers. You also get a couple of more typical cuts from Mr. Hopkins. In fact, most of the singers have multiple cuts.
There are also a lot of jazz piano collections in the delete bins, and this is a pretty good one. Styles range from boogie-woogie to post-bop. I particularly like Eddie Thompson's "Watch for the Light," but there's something for everyone. Only twelve cuts, but when the twelve cuts are accomplished performances by Oscar Peterson, Earl Hines, Erroll Garner, Count Basie, Art Tatum, Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, Memphis Slim, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, and Mr. Thompson, you have plenty to listen to. Another deleted piano collection I recommend is a two-CD set, Café Jazz, especially if you like Nat King Cole.
The Latin Bird is an early supergroup album. In 1948 Norman Granz had the idea of having Charlie Parker and Flip Phillips record with Machito and his Orchestra. I can hear you asking, Who and his Orchestra? Why, Machito, aka Frank Grillo. Machito and his Orchestra was one of the best, if not the best Afro-Cuban orchestra of its day. Among its members over the years were Johnny Griffin, Cannonball Adderley, and Herbie Mann. In 1982, then known as Machito and His Big Salsa Band, it won the Grammy for best Latin album. This 1948 record was well received, but it hasn't been seen in music stores for a long time. The Czech label, Tasty Jazz, which reissued this also reissued some other good albums, but now seems to be out of business. So run down and look for this now – I saw a copy of it in a delete bin just this morning (August 24, 2005).
Take Five is one of several jazz anthologies issued by Prism Leisure. This particular one provides a good variety of postwar jazz. Dave Brubeck's "Take 5" is the title cut. You also get Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Dexter Gordon, Wynton Marsalis, Sonny Stitt, Gary Burton, Sonny Rollins, and Stan Getz.
Now, some of these guys' music I don't like in general (I've already had to excise several comments about Charles Mingus, whom I have a very big bee in my bonnet about), but the cuts on this CD are all good jazz – accomplished and thoughtful.
The last selection is a four-CD set. It's called Jazz Station because the idea is that you put all four CDs in your player, press the random selection button, then listen to it as if it were a jazz radio station. Not a bad idea, really, since the selection is pretty good. Most of the cuts were recorded between 1930 and 1960. And none of them features Ornette Coleman.
In fact, you could play this radio station game with any of the CDs selected here (except maybe Let me Down Easy, which I'm recommending for one cut). The only reason people listen to radio any more is that they're not allowed to bring CD players and iPods to work.
So there is a lot of value in those delete bins. Do you like value? Do you like variety? Do you like good, good music at low, low prices? Then find a bin and start digging.
Good Music Cheap! © John FitzGerald, 2005
