Jimmy Smith-Prayer Meetin' (Blue Note)
Compact Jazz: Buddy Rich (Verve)
Dizzy Gillespie: Swing Low Sweet Cadillac (Impulse)
Art Blakey-Mosaic (Blue Note)
Art Blakey Jazz Messengers (Impulse/MCA)
Freddie Hubbard-Night Of The Cookers (Blue Note)
6 Jazz CDs for two dollars a piece. The Jimmy Smith has two bonus track of note, Sam Jones is playing bass. Usually Smith doesn't have a bass player, interesting in theory though. The session features Stanley Turrentine on sax and it's a decent session with Quentin Warren on guitar and Donald Bailey on drums. The Two Art Blakeys feature Wayne Shorter on sax. The Buddy Rich best of got slammed by AMG but it does have Stompin At The Woodside and a drum battle with Max Roach on Toot Toot Toosie Goodbye. Rich could be bombastic on drums but he can swing with the best of them on the mellow side with Late Date. That's him singing on Between the devil and the deep blue sea, which eventually Rich decided to get behind the drums and away from the mic. Night Of The Cookers is a two cd four song selection of 20 plus minute versions of Free Jazz and afro cuban rhythms, there's a since of humor, of Hubbard stealing a few notes of Camptown Races, but the out of tune trumpet sounds like a clash of Canadian Geese and the only decent track is Breaking Point. The previous owner of this CD says good straight ahead jazz but way too many drum solos. Which the latter was the reason why I bought this in the first place.
Salvation Army Finds
The Heat In Harlem S/T (Sire/WB)
Grandpa Jones Live (KRB)
MCA Vintage Hits Volume 19 and 20 (MCA)
It's a shame we don't have a decent overview of Grandpa Jones and this KRB is 10 at a EP timing of 19 minutes and has some poorly recorded live performances. He could play banjo with the best but this is too much Hee Haw (just as bad as Josh "Hee Haw" Hawley) and not enough bluegrass. Back to donation pile. The Heat In Harlem is a very good overview of soul and R and B classics plus 8 new songs from Lavern Baker, Little Jimmie Scott, Betty Boo, Paul Evans and Little Richard produced by Andy Paley. The 16 originals are classics from Elmore James, Bo Diddley, Clarance Henry and the forgotten Willows with Church Bells May Ring. The Paley produced tracks are a bit too polished for my liking. Back in 1986 MCA issued 20 Vintage Rock albums, remastered with great care by Steve Hoffman (Volumes 1,10) and 1987 added Volumes 11-20. While Hoffman's name isn't on the the volumes, the guess is that he had something to do with the mixes. Nowadays, these are nothing more than mixtapes of the past and Time Life has done them better but Hoffman did polished up the vintage tracks, probably way too good (the version of Born To Be Wild is complete including a messed up ending. 19 and 20 goes for the deep tracks like Nobody (3 Dog Night) Sookie Sookie (Steppenwolf) and Rock Around With Ollie Vee (Decca version) from Buddy Holly. I should knock the grade a half point for Incense And Pepperments (already on another Vintage Oldies album Number 3) but it's a classic song so I'll let it be.
For Iowa basketball, the Men's team led by Luke Garza had a great run at times but faltered when it counted. Iowa did beat Wisconsin in the usually one and done Big Ten Tournament but Illinois whopped them big time Brad Underwood's Illinois squad did beat Ohio State in the Championship. For Iowa effort, they get a number 2 seed starting off with playing Grand Canyon Saturday. As for Garza, the Sporting News called him the player of the year and Iowa has retired his number 55 once he gets done playing. For the Iowa women, Caitlin Clark was named Freshman player of the year as she dominated the big ten. Iowa had a nice run of their own in the Big Ten Tourney up till Maryland outclassed them but Maryland is a great ball club. The Hawk women played 4 tough games in 4 days. Great job girls.
The Grammys TM. yep that happened.
Billie Enlish won record of the year (yawn), Taylor Swift took home album of the year with Folklore. The Strokes took rock record of the year with their crappy album. Miranda Lambert, despite the efforts of Jay Joyce won Country Record for Wildcard. Body Count won best metal with Bum Rush. The late Chick Corea won 2 Grammys TM in jazz, the late John Prine won two for his last song. Kayne West got best Gospel album (yeah you read that right had you read this far), Billy Strings won best Bluegrass album, Bobby Rush's Rawer than Raw best blues album, The late great Toots Hibbert won best Reggae album with Got To Be Tough. Andrew Watt won Producer Of The Year. If anything this 2021 edition gave tribute to the ones that passed away with (Corea, Prine and Toots) and it shows that Miranda Lambert can never be counted out, even tho I didn't care much for Wildcard but perhaps another listen I should take consideration. The Highwomen won for a country single off a album I didn't care much for either (the blame might be leveled at Brandi Carlisle who tends to oversing or Dave Cobb's cardboard box production). but the Dan and Shay with Justin Beaverbiscuits is a reason why the Weeknd boycotted the GRAMMYS TM in the first place. As for up and comer Megan Thee Stallion, like Enlish, I have no use for their music. The Body Count metal win is a surprise. Black Pumas are the one to watch for the future.
