Artist - Tune - Album
Charles Mingus - Pithecanthropus Erectus - Pithecanthropus Erectus
Ralph Towner - Special Delivery - Old Friends, New Friends
GoGo Penguin - Protest - Man Made Object
Pharoah Sanders - The Golden Lamp - Wisdom Through Music
The Dells - Love Can Make It Easier - Give Your Baby A Standing Ovation
Cab Calloway - Jumpin’ Jive - “Stormy Weather” soundtrack
Leon Redbone - Ain’t Misbehavin’ - On The Track
Bobby Darin - Mack The Knife - The Bobby Darin Story
Charles Lloyd - Sombrero Sam - Dream Weaver
Chet Baker - Un Poco Loco - You Can’t Go Home Again
Brian Auger & Julie Driscoll - Tramp - Open
Joni Mitchell - Paprika Plains - Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
The song that introduces Jazz Gumbo is “Music Evolution” by Branford Marsalis and Buckshot LeFonque.
You’ll find a complete record of all past Sets at jazzgumbo.blogspot.ca
After many years of being a Mingus fan, I recently got hold of his “Pithecanthropus” lp, and I’m excited to feature the great title track here. I’d never heard this music before. Though I started buying vinyl lps almost 50 years ago, I’m not a true collector. While I cherish my roughly 2,000 albums, and the artists they represent, I’ve never been methodical or obsessive about them. I don’t have the complete works of any artists, except perhaps the Uruguayan jazz fusion group Opa, who only ever issued two albums.
There are so many holes in my collection. I could easily produce a Greatest Albums list of classics that I don’t have. And it would feature all of my favorite artists, including, Coltrane, Miles, Sarah Vaughan, Corea, Hancock and Joni Mitchell. Sure, I’d love to have all those albums I don’t have. But I’m not rolling in money, and from the beginning, a huge percentage of my lps have come from second hand stores, where buying choices are very much constrained by opportunity. In recent years, many albums have come from yard sales, the odd few from thrift stores, and I’d estimate that a good 20% of my music came to me by way of friends and acquaintances giving me the collections that were growing mold in their basements.
A few albums were given new, as gifts, like my very first albums by Dianne Reeves, B. B. King and Bob Moses. I won my first Pat Martino album from a Boston area jazz station, by answering the question, “What was the original name of the Crusaders?” (answer: the Jazz Crusaders). I won one of my Stevie Wonder albums in an amusement park arcade. And let me not forget the early Miles, Trane and Dinah Washington albums I lifted from my parents’ collection when I went away to school.
Just last year, I bought 38 albums at $5. a pop from local radio station Jazz FM, after they converted all their music into digital files. And among them was the Heath Brothers’ “Passing Thru”, which I’d added to my wish list about 35 years ago and just never got around to buying. That was a time I might have bought the album at the concert where I heard the Heaths perform. I probably didn’t have the funds. But this week's featured Chet Baker album was bought at a similar concert, an all-night affair in a church – and no, Baker wasn’t there to perform.
Adding albums to my collection has very often been a matter of exploration or gut feeling. The very best is when I buy an album because it’s by a sideman from another album I like, or features tunes or instrumentation I like, or because the album art appeals. Then taking it home, playing it and discovering a gem. And let me not forget the great many discoveries that have come by way of hearing something played on the radio, in a friend’s home, on a film soundtrack, or by word of mouth.
Getting back to the Mingus album this essay started with: I think that Mingus is one of those artists that simply never issued a bad album. There’s always feeling in his work, which when coupled with artistry equals “can’t lose”. So I’m always on the lookout to add more of his work. And one of the great benefits of collecting music on vinyl as haphazardly as I do, is that there’s always more out there to find. Always another Mingus album still to discover, or an album by some phenom whose name I don’t even know.
Thrive & Enjoy!
Kirby
