Tonight, my friends tell me, is Super Bowl Sunday — or, for those more of my ilk, it’s also the Puppy Bowl. In real life and real time, the Ear Inn would not have featured music on this Sunday. But because this series of blogposts is (sweetly) in unreal-time, except for the swinging 4 /4 the EarRegulars manifest, we can violate those conventions. And the music, as always, is Super.
Come back with me to November 21 (Coleman Hawkins’ birthday), 2010, for a few touchdowns by Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Scott Robinson, tenor saxophone plus whatever else, Matt Munisteri, guitar; Greg Cohen, string bass.
You know, they called her “Frivolous Sal.” I still don’t know why:
that beautiful expression of romantic incredulity:
and (perhaps logically?) romantic optimism:
Optimism will sustain us. I’ll have a big bowl, extra hot sauce. And napkins.
The multi-talentedChris Smith has a YouTube channel, as I may have mentioned, that will reward your attention — he’s been uploading out-of-print music by Jim Dapogny, all wonderful, and other treasures. This morning, a “supermarket record,” an lp sold near the cash register in A&P or Bohack’s, perhaps for 69¢. The labels were often not terribly honest: Spin-o-Rama, Craftsman, Tops — but you could find RCA Camden there, and there were sessions created specifically for this market, wordplay intentional:
This recording is called DIXIELAND (a musical product as clearly labeled as Ajax or Comet) by “Matty Matlock and his Dixie-Men,” for those who didn’t know of Matty — clarinetist and arranger for twenty years and more before 1957. I know some readers will bristle my open use of the D-word, but the shoppers in Waldbaum’s fifty years ago weren’t as enlightened. Forgive them, Brother Matthew, for they knew not what they did: they just wanted some good music.
Speaking of good music, how’s this?
Although TISHOMINGO BLUES is First World War vintage, the band has an easy sophisticated glide. These were musicians who took an afternoon off from studio work — reading Matty’s minimal, shapely charts on familiar songs. But there’s no cliche, no fake-Roaring Twenties clatter: the band is more Forties-Basie (whisper it!) than Bailey’s Lucky Seven. Dick Cathcart, trumpet; Abe Lincoln, trombone; Matty Matlock, clarinet; Eddie Miller, tenor saxophone; Stan Wrightsman, piano; Al Hendrickson, guitar; Phil Stephens, string bass; Nick Fatool, drums. No striped vests, plastic boaters, club-date amateurishness.
Here’s the whole playlist — a wonderful aubade for those so inclined:
Let’s go shopping to this elegantly rousing soundtrack. Piggly Wiggly has chuck roast at 59¢ / lb. Don’t be late: we’ll have to ask the manager, Carmine, for a raincheck, and a raincheck won’t feed the four of us.
JAZZ LIVES 