PopWars

Tom let me go through thirteen boxes of 45s that he was getting ready to put out on the floor. About half were from his own collection. He told me he would bring stuff home and put it on the shelves but he had never taken the time to organize them. When he did he realized he had duplicates and triplicates of all sorts of stuff. Very little jazz in there but a very enjoyable few hours thumbing through.

I came home with six gems. Two Sun Ra 45s, “Plutonium Nights” and “The Sky Is A Sea of Darkness,” a Lightning Hopkins single from 1965, one of Jack White’s Chess reissues, Muddy Waters “Manish Boy,” Otis Redding double A, “Hard to Handle” and “Amen,” a clean copy of Wreckless Eric’s “Whole Wide World” Captain Beefheart’s “Abba Abba.”

Every week it seems we read about another musician from the 1960s that has passed away. Today it was Country Joe. Steve Hoy, had the first Fish album when we were roommates. I loved their first single, “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine.”

Because we all grew up with that music it was always a reference point when we were performing as Personal Effects. At least three times during that period we played out as “Boat”. They were odd ball dates like Halloween (above) or a Pyramid Art Gallery event. That one was in a cavernous upstairs space connected to the old Visual Studies Workshop.

Kevin, who did sound for Personal Effects and eventually played bass with us, was in bands in the sixties that performed a lot of the songs we did as Boat. Phil Marshall, from Colorblind James Experience at that time, played guitar. They helped transform Personal Effects into Boat. Peggi recently came across one of our setlists. Looks like we all sang and we had guest aoppearences from Martin Edic and Pat Mosciano.

I have picked over these boxes many times. I let a few months go by and then revisit them. There were only six boxes marked “Jazz” when I first came across them, so I guess it is a good sign that there are now nine. The ninth, out of view in this photo, is all boxed EPs. I found a couple of Bud Powell beauties in there. I didn’t see any new ones yesterday — well, all of them are old; I mean newly added. And I worry that the old-timers who had these items in their collections have already moved on. The selection is certainly drying up.

I listened to a short stack and came home with five. “Bacchanal” by Gabor Szabo is a winner. The Hungarian guitarist fell in love with jazz listening to Voice of America and wound up playing in Chico Hamilton’s chamber jazz combo. I picked up a Coleman Hawkins track on the Impulse label, a crazy version of “Little Liza Jane,” a song written so long ago (1917) that Hawkins could put his name on it.

I grabbed another Gerry Mulligan disc, another of those four-song 45s on the Pacific Jazz label (think cool jazz). I have four now. I wish they hadn’t done that. 7-inch records were designed to carry one song on a side. A or B. You like it or you don’t play it. Nobody wants to have to cue up the one song on a side that you like. And it certainly wouldn’t work in a jukebox setting.

For me, I can’t get enough of the slow, moody Mulligan. He plays baritone sax. There is no piano player in his band, and Chet Baker plays trumpet with him. (Nobody wants to hear an upbeat Chet Baker.) The two horns on the late-night, “Darn That Dream,” “The Nearness of You,” and “My Funny Valentine” sound like heaven.

Ray Brown has got to be the greatest bass player who has ever lived. No, that can’t be right. Charlie Mingus, Richard Davis and Charlie Haden could all be that guy. But Ray really shines on “Song of the Volga Boatmen.” I found a copy of his version of the Russian folk song in a trio setting with Hank Jones and Buddy Rich. Here you get to savor the attack, the swing, and the shape of every note.

The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble opened last night’s sold-out show at the Bop Shop with Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints.” Kahil played a hypnotic pattern on his drums with mallets while Corey Wilke and Alex Harding added precision and then the enchanting melody. We’ve seen them over twenty times, and it is always a treat. We’ve heard Kahil in other settings as well, with David Murray and Billy Bang, and the lineup never includes a bass player. They have a uniquely sophisticated, primal sound. It is from the heart.

Kahil wrote “Great Black Music” for the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and they played a version of that with different lyrics last night. “Keep on Marching” was the refrain. Kahil reminded us that Mother Nature is much stronger than the crazy man in the White House. He did a spot-on impression of Ornette Coleman when he told the crowd how Ornette called him after he heard Kahil’s song “Ornette” on a New York radio station. The band played “Ornette” and then one of Ornette’s, “Lonely Woman,” to cap a perfect night.

Our neighbors at the end of the street brought two freshly made, still-warm cinnamon rolls down to us. We were already making dinner, so we thanked them and said we would have them for breakfast. On the way out, they wanted to know what our secret was. “How do you keep your driveway so clean?” They speculated that the pavement may be heated. “We shovel,” we told them. Pretty simple. We’re home most of the time, and when it snows, we shovel. It’s a great excuse to get outdoors. Most of our other neighbors either have a plow contract or a snowblower, and we hardly see them in the winter.

CalZone gave us a heads up about PBS’s American Masters show on Friday, and we built our day around the broadcast. “Sun Ra: Do the Impossible” is available to stream now, and I would call it required viewing for human beings. The producers did a great job touching on all facets of the poet, philosopher, and music visionary’s life, but the section on Sun Ra cranking out LPs with custom covers on his own label was mind-blowing. Those original Saturn LPs sell for thousands today as the world is catching up with Sun Ra.