Shelly Manne (Charlie Watts Jim Keltner Project) (LP 2436)

Charlie Watts Jim Keltner Project  The Charlie Watts/ Jim Keltner Project (CDR, 2000) ****  

Genre: Jazz 

Places I remember: Roger Marbeck made me a copy of this.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Art Blakey

Gear costume: Shelly Manne

Active compensatory factors: An interesting experiment - to provide a musical portrait for many of Charlie's favourite jazz drummers - each track is named after one.

Each tune aims to recreate the vibe/mood presence of the source of inspiration. It's a terrific idea and the two drummers carry it off superbly.

It feels very modern curiously enough. 

Where do they all belong? A definite one off. Much like the two drummers themselves!

Old sugar bear (Bill Frisell) (LP 585 - 586)

Bill Frisell gone, just like a train (CD, Nonesuch, 1998) ****

Bill Frisell Unspeakable (CD, Nonesuch, 2004) ****

Genre: Jazz (filed in the ECM label section, as that's where he started his career and I have a compilation of his three ECM albums - so I wanted them all together - such is my system for filing records and CDs!) 

Places I remember: Middle East and Virgin Megastores in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Lookout For Hope (gone, just like a train)

Gear costume: Stringbean (Unspeakable)

Active compensatory factors: I love it when musicians make it all appear effortless - I'm thinking of Ry Cooder, J J Cale, and Bill Frisell.

I've selected a couple of my favourites above which are sort of jazz fusion at work (one of my preferred genres), but Bill is very adaptable and varied in his approach - hence another reason for positioning him in the ECM collection rather than the jazz fusion one.

His acoustic guitar style verges on being ambient at times, and I really like that too.

Where do they all belong? Selected Recordings on ECM is your next stop.

Let's talk turkey (Attitudes) (LP 213 - 214)

Attitudes Attitudes (Vinyl - Dark Horse, 1976) *
Attitudes Good News (Vinyl - Dark Horse, 1977) **

Genre:  Apple/Dark Horse/ Ring O Records

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records (Auckland) 

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Being Here With You (if you listen to this, I don't blame you if you don't, keep in mind that the first 30 seconds are one of those fake - we're about to open the door to the studio - moments so the sound is muted and distant, then the door opens and - we're into the funky studio party of the second Attitudes album).




Gear costume:  Turning In Space

Active compensatory factors: Here we have a great example of session guys who know their chops but struggle for original song writing ideas and have zero charisma.

What emerges is well played pleasant (some would say 'bland') songs without any real staying power.  

George Harrison used these guys for his Extra Texture album (one of his worst albums, if not the worst) and then added them to his Dark Horse label. He did them a solid.

Apparently, Ringo plays on the title track of the second album, but who would know? All a bit silly really considering Jim Keltner is in the band. 

Of the two, the second album is funkier/punchier, the horns help, with more varied and with much stronger harmony vocals. All things are relative though - that debut album is dire! 

Where do they all belong? Sadly, Attitudes were typical of the Dark Horse adventure. Luckily, they didn't put out anything else for me to want to collect. Being a label completist can be a trial at times. 

Laying in the park, jamming in the dark (Attitudes) #1 and 2 of 300 singles

My old buddy Gregarious sent me a link to a blogger who is writing about the 3000 albums he owns in 3000 different posts. A great idea huh (a link is under Expert Texpert down the left hand column if you want to check it out).

I like the freedom to write about whatever strikes my musical imagination at the time, rather than being tied down to a format like that, although from time to time in the blog I've used an arc, such as posts on record covers or lists of various sorts.

The basic concept of writing about your collection is interesting though.

I thought I'd write about the largely forgotten format of 45s for a while. I have nowhere near 3,000 of them so I'll concentrate on 300 instead. To keep it interesting I'll be judicious in my selection of Beatle and solo Beatle singles.

I loved singles - they were cheap when I started out listening to music and they were usually the cream of the crop. Funny how itunes has reinvented the single but with a 45 you got two songs and the B side was often a quirky and interesting avenue for bands.

As singles fell out of favour over 20 years ago this will mainly be a trip into the sixties and seventies.

Being me I have them in alphabetical order on my shelves. Some I've posted on already, like America's Sandman, so I'll leave them out when they crop up.

First up then is a pair of singles by Attitudes - Ain't Love Enough/ The Whole World's Crazy from 1975 and Sweet Summer Music/ Being Here With You from 1977.

You what?

Attitudes?

They were a band made up of session musician friends of George Harrison (Jim Keltner, Danny Kortchmar, Paul Stallworth and David Foster) who played on his dire solo album Extra Texture, and so he plonked out some of their singles and albums on his Dark Horse Records label. Hey he was rich!

As you know I love George and I love Apple Records.
I thought he might have the same magic touch he had at Apple (Jackie Lomax, Doris Troy, Billy Preston, Radha Krsna Temple, Badfinger etc) with Dark Horse. Sadly lightning didn't strike twice. Jiva are exhibit one m'lord.

Like Jiva, Attitudes were terrible. Slick soulless sessioners sounding sensationally sad. Boring boring boring in other words.

Sweet Summer Music was the more successful of the two singles, charting at number 94, but it's still a weirdly unappealing song. See if you can stick it out for the duration.



Didn't think so.

Hidden gem? Ha ha - you're having a giraffe aincha?