This is it (Freddie Hubbard) (LP 729)

Freddie Hubbard  Ride Like The Wind (Vinyl, Elektra Records, 1982) *** 

Genre: Modern jazz 

Places I remember: I bought this at Marbecks for my dad and when he passed away in 2009 I inherited his record collection.  I always remove price stickers from covers when I buy a record or a CD but he didn't bother - $10.99 apparently for this one - it's still there on the cover. Records were cheap back in 1982!

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Birdland 

Gear costume: Ride Like The Wind

Active compensatory factors: At the time, I liked this version of Christopher Cross' Ride Like The Wind and I thought dad would like this horn driven modern jazz album too. So I bought it for him.

At the time, I'm not sure if he did like it or not but now that I look back on it, I'm not sure he would have. His collection was heavily piano jazz and swing oriented. So a trumpeter may not have been his cup of tea.

It's not really mine either. I have a few Miles Davis records but those are mostly with a famous sax player joining him at the session. Jacky hates the shrill trumpet sounds so I don't ever have much opportunity to play trumpeters, no matter how seminal they are. 

Where do they all belong? Once I clean it up a bit, it goes back into the modern jazz section. Although it plays well, for some bizarre reason side 2 has a coating of something on it which I've only just noticed. Dad was fastidious with his records, and so am I, so I have no idea what happened to this one. Maybe he did play it a lot after all.

What am I here for (André Previn) (LP 614)

 

André Previn A Touch Of Elegance (Vinyl, CBS Coronet, 1960) ** 

Genre: Piano jazz 

Places I remember: My father's record collection. I can distinctly remember the cabinet that housed this and dad's other  records in our house at 18 Korma Ave., Royal Oak, Auckland, NZ, Earth, The Solar System, The Universe. The long, narrow cabinet was used to house dad's stereo and records at one end (on a bottom shelf) and was also used as a drinks' cabinet on the top shelf. At some point the small bottle of purply/red bitters must have fallen over and leaked and was then soaked up by some record covers. Mr Previn's album has tell tale signs of this stain some 60 years later (and a very faint bitters smell). The pristine vinyl was unaffected. Phew.

Back cover and stains on display!

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: It Don't Mean A Thing

Gear costume: Sophisticated Lady   

Active compensatory factors: Dad loved Duke Ellington and so I guess this album was a sought after purchase for him in 1960 as the album is an excuse to cover a whole lot of his songs. I was 3 years old so I only know this album from a distance.

André Previn employs his orchestra to bolster his piano playing and it's all pretty schmaltzy apart from the more up tempo song I've featured (ironically the only one on the set and as the song goes - it don't mean a thing unless it's got that swing!).

Sidebar #1: this long playing album was clearly still a bit of a novelty back in 1960 as it makes sure listeners set their turntable speed at 33 and a third by telling them that THREE TIMES on the back cover!

Sidebar #2: I've just bought a copy of Duke Ellington/John Coltrane and it is in a different stratosphere to the André Previn set. Recorded in 1962, it's almost a contemporary of Previn's Elegance but clearly dad wasn't interested in it if he even knew it existed. Duke's piano playing is amazing and there is only ever going to be one John Coltrane but dad preferred the orchestral version. 

Where do they all belong? Another album I'll never get rid of because those stains on the cover are priceless!

Stranger on the shore (Roger Williams) (LP 531)

Roger Williams Mr. Piano (Vinyl, Kapp Records, 1962) ** 

Genre: Easy listening

Places I remember: My dad's record collection.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles/ Gear costume: Niagara Theme 

Active compensatory factors: I continue to own this for nostalgic reasons - pure and simple. The record itself holds nothing for a child of the Beatles (aside from the George Martin track - keep reading).

There's the ridiculously bad portrait on the cover, the schmaltzy string arrangements that accompany the piano, and the very mannered playing style of Roger Williams (born Louis Weertz, on my birthday - October 1, in 1924). Sounds interesting? There are 50 available via discogs for around $2.00 each!

But, thanks to dad - here it is! That cover was always around (the purply stain on the back cover is instant nostalgia) and the song selection holds it firmly in place (Themes from Dr Kildare and Ben Casey are evidence of that).

The only slight point of interest is his version of George Martin's Niagara Theme (George's song was done by his own Orchestra and issued in 1965). But it's not a great tune, I'm sorry to report.

Where do they all belong? Mercifully, that's the last album in my Easy Listening section.

Easy does it (Oscar Peterson) (LP 450 - 455)

Oscar Peterson  Blues Etude (Vinyl, Mercury/ Limelight, 1966) ****

The Oscar Peterson Trio  Canadiana Suite (Vinyl, Mercury/ Limelight, 1964) ***

Oscar Peterson Trio with Herb Ellis Hello Herbie (Vinyl, MPS/BASF, 1969) ***

Oscar Peterson and Count Basie  Satch And Josh...Again (Vinyl, Pablo, 1978) ***

The Oscar Peterson Trio In Tokyo, 1964 (Vinyl, Pablo, ?) ***

The Oscar Peterson Trio  Night Train (Vinyl, Verve, 1963) ****

Genre: Jazz piano 

Places I remember: All are from Graham Purdy's collection. I bought The Pablo and Verve albums for him when I worked at Marbecks.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Blues Etude (Blues Etude); Wheatland (Canadiana Suite); Blues for H.G., Seven Come Eleven (Hello Herbie); Lester Leaps In (Satch and Josh...Again)

Gear costume: The songs on Night Train spark and sizzle!

Active compensatory factors: My dad loved Oscar Peterson's piano jazz style. I don't know why, I never asked him.

The Blues Etude and Canadiana Suite albums were always in his collection from when they were released in the sixties, so his appreciation was well established by the time I was working at Marbecks in the late seventies. Roger got a huge shipment of Pablo imports in and I hunted these albums out for dad for his birthday presents.

I like his playing but I'm not as much of a fan as dad was - I keep them for sentimental reasons. Dad loved them, so they are a little piece of him that I can latch onto.

I suspect you need some understanding of piano playing (like dad had) to appreciate Peterson on a deeper level. I'm much more emotional in my appreciation. Most of those fab tracks (above) are the mid to fast paced ones, I'm not such a fan of the slow ones!

Where do they all belong? Safe and sound in my collection until I've gone and then either to my children or a good home. They belong to someone who will appreciate them.

Goin' out of my head (Peter Nero) (LP 351)

Peter Nero I'll Never Fall In Love Again (Vinyl, Columbia, 1970) ** 

Genre: Easy listening

Places I remember: Another album inherited from my father's record collection.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Something

Gear costume:  I 'll Never Fall In Love Again, Lay Lady Lay 

Active compensatory factors: Seemingly, the sort of album hip youngish executives put on the hi fi as they loosened their tie and made a gin and tonic after a day of meetings at work in Otahuhu while kids did their homework and their wife got dinner ready.

In 1970, my dad would have been 42 and my mother 40. At 12 years old, I was a naive and innocent bystander. My 10 year old brother was just annoying.

Yes indeed, this album is a memory bomb. Drop the needle on that first track, Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, and I'm back in the bosom of the Purdy family at 18 Korma Ave., Royal Oak, Auckland, NZ, Earth, the Solar System, The Universe.

At that time this kind of music washed over me. I was listening to the real thing on The Beatles Hey Jude album in 1970 - well the few weeks of 1970 after Christmas that is.

Now I listen to this album with a nostalgic tear in my eye for those much simpler days when I had my family intact around me! It's tough being a grown up. And I miss my mum and dad.


Where do they all belong? At the time I completely failed to notice what a distinguished musician Peter Nero was. Such is youth! 

I'll never ever get rid of this album! It sits happily in the Easy Listening section of my collection along with George Shearing, Herb Alpert et al.

Secret love (Oscar Peterson) (LP 282)

Oscar Peterson The Trio (Vinyl - Pablo, 1974) ****

Genre: Jazz  

Places I remember: Chaldon Books and Records  

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Blues Etude (sounds like Coltrane's frenetic blast during Chasing The 'Trane, but on piano)




Gear costume: Come Sunday

Active compensatory factors: While working at Marbecks Records in the late seventies, shipments of records from Pablo came in, in large quantities.

All were recording brilliantly, all used iconic black and white photos on the covers.

Knowing dad was a jazz fan I bought a few Oscar Peterson, Errol Garner, Duke Ellington titles for him. Although, not this featured Peterson album.

He would have really appreciated the dexterity on display her. Peterson is in breath taking form and displays his talents over a range of jazz styles.

Where do they all belong? He was extremely prolific, but the Pablo material is all top notch.

So danco samba (Sergio Mendes) (LP 245 - 246)

Sergio Mendes The Great Arrival (Vinyl - Atlantic, 1966 ) ** 
Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 Equinox (Vinyl - A&M Records, 1967 ) ***

Genre: Easy Listening  

Places I remember: Inherited from the Graham Purdy collection

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Night And Day (from Equinox)




Gear costume: Monday Monday (from the Great Arrival)

Active compensatory factors: Apart from jazz, dad loved the then topical genre that was 'Easy Listening'.

That genre cruises around the peripheries of piano jazz, world music, kitsch, lounge, and pop.

All of the above can be found somewhere on these two albums.

The first one is an instrumental piano jazz album that just floats by in a very pleasant, some might say, innocuous, manner. 

The second adds the faux pop vocals of Brasil '66.

It's so cool and hip! 

When I was growing up, listening to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Uriah Heep, I hated these albums.

Now, I can appreciate the nostalgic sounds on offer and can see the appeal for young executives like my dad. After a hard day in the office he could unwind with a drink and the uncluttered, exotic sound of Sergio Mendes.

Where do they all belong? With dad's other easy listening albums. Sounds Orchestral is on the way!

The spatial effect of stereo (LP 124)

Phillips Presents Super Stereo Demonstration (Vinyl - Phillips, no date anywhere but it's old, okay) * 

Genre: Comedy (because of the sketches and sound effects)

Places I remember: My dad's collection. It has always been around. I can remember this being played when I was still in single figures.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles/Gear costume: Fab and gear is pushing it but the Philip Morgan Super-agent sketch was useful when Greg Knowles and I did our crazy tapes!




Active compensatory factors: A relic from a distant age, when mono made way for stereo and early adopters like my dad needed a stereo presentation record to...erm...actually I'm not sure why he needed this.

Its principal format is, on side 1, a narrator examining the benefits of stereo separation. There are snippets of songs and sketches - like a motel room skit (weirdly put onto YouTube by some weird weirdo above) and 'an overworked commercial traveller desperately trying to get some sleep' - cue the clock ticking, a tap dripping and a brigade of mosquitoes!

Side 2 features the New Westminster Orchestra playing standards, like Hello Dolly, in an easy listening style that my dad was particularly fond of, and I hated. Still doesn't do anything for.

But the whole record is all wonderfully comforting for me - a real, tangible link to my musical history. It's nuts, but I can't imagine my collection without this record.

Where do they all belong? File this in the barking mad category - which, I guess is why I have it nestled into the comedy genre.

I don't particularly like New York City (GNP) #320

Graham Purdy Live In New York/ - (Mutoscope, 1967)

Well, it's a single, and it's in my collection so it occupies its rightful position in the countdown at number 320.

My dad recorded this direct to disc in a voice-o-graph booth on the 86th floor observation deck, at the top of the Empire State building (then the world's tallest building) in 1967. I was 9, going on 10.

Why was he in New York? It was part of his big overseas trip to Canada, America, England and Europe when he was working for Burroughs Wellcome - the famous biomedical drug company. He was away for months, I recall.

GNP and his boys
a few years before his trip

During the record he says 'don't worry about me, I'm having the time of my life' but he generally hated this kind of overseas travel. This was a big but necessary sacrifice on his part.

My mother, younger brother and I stayed home at 18 Korma Ave., Royal Oak and eagerly soaked up dad's only method of communication which was by post. We received this record as part of a package he sent us during the trip.

It's weird hearing his voice again from nearly fifty years ago. He was young and sounds it. During the message he tells us that he got some sneakers for me and my brother, and 'a wiglet' for my mother in Woolworths.

This was exotic fantasy stuff beyond compare. Sneakers? That was on our shopping list for him but we didn't dare to hope he'd actually get them for us.

I remember when we got them finally on his return. High top sneakers from America!!! Who would have thought it.

Anyway here's dad from the Empire State building in 1967:

https://Purdzilla.opendrive.com/files?M183MjAyNzQwNV81WnVsNg

Hidden gem: No B side on this item.