My first stop was Jovita’s, a popular Tex-Mex restaurant and bar in South Austin where radio station KDHX was sponsoring two days of its “Twangfest” parties with performances by a whole bunch of folky/rocky/country singer-songwriters including Ray Wylie Hubbard, Chuck Prophet, and Tim Easton along with the band I went to hear, the Waco Brothers. Spearheaded by the irrepressible Jon Langford, they began as an offshoot of the Mekons; the Wacos have included other members of that long-lived UK punk band, although other than Langford I couldn’t have named any of the people on stage at Jovita’s with any certainty.

The Waco Brothers still play with the energy, enthusiasm, and ragged edges one might expect of a band formed fifteen days rather than fifteen years ago. None of these guys can sing any better than I can (one reason why I don’t listen to their records) but I’ve always found the Wacos’ uproarious rebel spirit to be utterly contagious. Packed in with the crowd at Jovita’s, I was singing/yelling/cheering along from the second chorus of the first song and I don’t even know any of their songs. The set also included what was either the worst or the best version of George Jones’ “White Lightnin’” ever performed anywhere.

WACO BROTHERS – “TOO SWEET TO DIE” (Live at Jovita’s, 3.20.2010)

From Jovita’s, I moved on to Friends of Sound, a South Congress record store, where the Milwaukee soul band Kings Go Forth were set to play a mid-afternoon set on the patio. KGF’s Luaka Bop debut album, The Outsiders Are Back (released 4.20.2010), is likely to be one of my favorite non-reissue releases of 2010, and I’d be saying that even if I hadn’t been hired to write the band’s press bio (which you can read here).

A.S. and Andy Noble of Kings Go Forth.

KGF rock the patio at Friends of Sound.

Although hewing close to their recorded arrangements, Kings Go Forth sounded great at Friends of Sound. There is much more to their instrumental sound than, say, a straight-up homage to the JB’s or the Stax/Volt house band. The Latin percussion adds a Curtis Mayfield/Major Lance flavor, the bass and drums have a churning rock power, and in the trumpet/trombone unison lines I heard the cavalry-charge quality of the horns on a classic reggae track by Burning Spear (to name one example). I also loved the harmonies of the three-man vocal group up front led by Jesse Davis a/k/a Black Wolf with Dan Fernandez and Matt Norberg. Check out this clip and see if you agree:

KINGS GO FORTH – “ONE DAY” (from the Luaka Bop album The Outsiders Are Back)

I got back in the car and drove under the I-35 overpass into East Austin. I found a small down-home gallery called Birdhouse, located in the ground floor of an aging two-story house on César Chávez Boulevard, and an mixed-media art show  entitled “Where They At”. Curated by photographer Aubrey Edwards and journalist Alison Fensterstock, the show examined the New Orleans hip-hop sub-genre known as bounce music.

“Bounce music [is] a phenomenon born out of New Orleans housing projects,” wrote Edwards and Fensterstock. “Mardi Gras Indian chants, brass band beats, and call-and-response routines equally inform bounce music, which almost invariably samples the Showboys’ ‘Drag Rap’ (a.k.a. ‘Triggerman’). Its lyrical patterns focus on sex, parties, and dancing, and invites — even demands — audience participation by calling out dance steps or prompting replies.”

"Where They At" crowd feeling DJ Jubilee despite chilly temperatures.

DJ JUBILEE: New Orleans' godfather of bounce at Birdhouse.

Now, until about a week earlier I’d barely heard of bounce music, which seems to have spread beyond New Orleans only recently  even though the earliest recordings (cf. “Buck Jump Time” by Gregory D) appeared more than 20 years ago. But I’d been enlightened by John Swenson’s excellent essay, “A Lucky Bounce,” published in the March issue of Off Beat. Thanks to Swenson’s article, I made sure to add the Birdhouse show and Saturday night’s bounce showcase at Submerged to my SXSW must-see list. I’d also learned that bounce music, at least as practiced in New Orleans, welcomes gay, lesbian and transvestite performers — something I’d never seen at any of the hip-hop shows I’ve attended since the early Eighties.

The Birdhouse exhibit was small but well-assembled and intriguing. It include excerpts from interviews with and color photo portraits of leading bounce artists (Katey Red, Big Freedia,  Magnolia Shorty) along with other shots of some pretty scary-looking New Orleans clubs where they perform.  I discovered that “Where They At” had run for nearly two months in New York at the Abrons Arts Center on Henry Street (i.e. a 15-minute walk from my apartment) and I’d missed it completely. (Edwards, Fensterstock, and their “Where They At” co-conspirators have created a deep and ever-expanding archive covering two decades of bounce and hip-hop music in the Crescent City.)

It was now around 5:00 p.m. and a small but enthusiastic crowd gathered outside Birdhouse for a brief front-porch performance by DJ Jubilee. You know all that post-Public Enemy talk about “having skills” and “conscious rap”? About how a DJ’s greatness lies in his or her ability to blend the unlikely and the unexpected into a mind-melding new creation? Well, all that stuff went out the window with  Jubilee and his DJ (mixing from a laptop — I didn’t catch his name). Because bounce music is dance music — first, last, and always. And if there’s a message in that music other than the demand to shake dat azz to a walloping monolithic beat (the sampled bass line of “I Want You Back” surging from the noisy murk), then I failed to grasp it.

But:  There are times when shakin’ dat azz feels like not only the most fun you can have standing up but an almost profound act of personal and cultural liberation. “Put your key in the car and back it up, now back it up!” commanded DJ Jubilee as he mimed his instructions — ridiculous, right? Kindergarten hip-hop, right? Except immediately everyone started doing like DJ Jubilee. It was wonderful — a total blast of fresh air amidst the white-guitar-band overkill of SXSW and a tantalizing taste of things to come later that night.

Holly George-Warren, Geoffrey Himes, and Geoff’s old friend Greg Timm got in my car and we drove to Manor Road for a very good Southern-style dinner at Hoover’s Cooking. Holly and I then plunged back into the Sixth Street maelstrom to Red-Eyed Fly, where Exene Cervenka gave a very good if not galvanizing account of herself with the help of an all-female band featuring violinist Tahmineh Gueramy and Dead Rock West vocalist Cindy Wasserman. I enjoyed Exene’s new and recent songs including “The Sound of Comin’ Down” and “(It’s Tuesday) I’m Already In Love,” and her son Henry was kind enough to snap a souvenir photo of the occasion.

Holly George-Warren, Exene Cervenka, A.S. at Red-Eyed Fly. (Photo by Henry Mortensen)

I left Holly and went off to catch Kings Go Forth again, this time outdoors in the backyard of Galaxy. This set was at least 30% hotter than the one they’d played seven hours earlier and really lit up the crowd, few of whom seemed to ever have heard of the band before. Whatever time, effort, expense, and hassle it took to get these guys to Austin — at that moment, it felt worth doing.

It was now about 11:00 p.m. and over near the Austin Convention Center the bounce showcase was well underway at Submerged — in fact, I’d already missed Ms. Tee, Big Freedia, and (based on later YouTube research) the awesomely filthy-mouthed Magnolia Shorty. I’ve spent, like, no time in titty bars but Submerged sure looked and felt like one, with a mirrored wall at the back of its foot-high stage.

Before this post reaches an ungodly (and unreadable) length, let me just say: This show killed for the entire two hours I spent there. It had a blizzard of cross-cultural references, gender/identity switch-ups galore, some wild-ass (literally) audience participation, and a beat you couldn’t not move to. Not surprisingly, there was a large and avid multiracial gay/lesbian contingent in attendance. I couldn’t see too well from the back of the crowd, but it appeared that at various points in the show some female audience members took to the stage as unpaid extras to (you guessed it) shake dat azz.

KATEY RED and her new pint-sized sidekick "Shrinky Schwartz" at Submerged.

I watched in wonder as the mind-bending Vockah Redu (wearing a visor constructed from cigarettes and “smoking” a stick of incense) was followed by the towering transsexual rapper Katey Red with her cheerful rhymes of anal sex, prostitution, and drug-taking. I also dug  the versatile straight male rap duo Partners N Crime (who mixed some nice reggae bits with their NOLA funk) but after the sex-party-in-outer-space atmosphere created by Vockah and Katey, the dire street-warfare warnings of MC Black Menace’s “Put On A Vest” (“or you gonna need a blood donor, nigga”) seemed almost quaintly old-fashioned. Joining me for this wildest of SXSW parties were a few other middle-aged rock-crit types  including John Swenson, Bill Bragin of Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and the New York Times’ Jon Pareles, who later called the Submerged show “one of the best events at the festival.” For a 41-second taste of the vibe of this unforgettable show, click on this YouTube clip of Katey Red live in 2007.

Andy Schwartz at South X Southwest 2010 (earlier posts)

Day One – 3/17/2010

Day Two – 3/18/2010

Day Three – 3/19/2010

OAR FOLKS: A.S. and Peter Jesperson, Austin Convention Center (3.19.2010)

A month later, no wonder I can’t recall what I did all afternoon on my third day in Austin. But at some point, in the cavernous confines of the Austin Convention Center, I ran into my old friend Peter Jesperson. In 1975-1977, we worked together at Oar Folkjokeopus Records (Minneapolis MN) when he managed the store for owner Vern Sanden; today, Peter is senior VP of A&R for the estimable New West label, where he’s worked with John Hiatt, Drive-By Truckers, and Kris Kristofferson to name a few.

We hopped in my rental car and drove across the river to the Congress Avenue parking lot of a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store that — like every other available space in town, it seemed — had been converted into a music venue for the week. In so doing, we enjoyed that rarest of SXSW commodities, “quality time” — precious minutes of relative peace and quiet in which to carry on an actual audible conversation, catch up on each other’s lives, etc. Peter was another old friend of Alex Chilton who was coping with the shock and pain of his death amid the overwhelming hub-bub of Austin; I think it helped, a little, for him to tell a hilarious Chilton anecdote dating from the re-formed Big Star’s first gig, in 1993 in Columbia, Missouri. Anyway, we soon arrived at our destination to see the L.A.-based country rock band Leslie and the Badgers.

Peter’s enthusiasm for this group is boundless — I remember him carrying on in much the same way over David Bowie’s Station To Station in 1976 — but in this case did not prove wholly contagious. Leslie Stevens is a good singer, reminiscent of Emmylou Harris or Nicolette Larsen, but not an exceptional one; likewise, her band played well but not with any special fire or left-field surprises. My favorite song of the set was the Patsy Cline-inspired “My Tears Are Wasted On You,” a country weeper with a touch of jazz in the chords and melody. Leslie & the Badgers play the Mercury Lounge in NYC on Tuesday, 5/17/2010 — you can listen for yourself on MySpace.

My next stop — and last for the day, as I ended spending a good three hours there — was St. David’s Episcopal Church for a night of new-school UK folk music under the heading “Looking For A New England.” This show was made possible by funding from Arts Council England, i.e. the UK government’s cultural wing. I mention this fact because (a) the gig was truly great, the best multi-act showcase I attended at SXSW, and (b) it could never have happened without that government support. (Did you know that a US visa for a UK touring artist now costs upwards of $4,500.00?)

In any case, it was with a genuine sense of relief that I took my seat alongside a few dozen other listeners in the church sanctuary, an oasis of calm and tranquility just two blocks from the alcohol-fueled din of the Sixth Street club corridor.

It was now 9:00 p.m. so I’d already missed Gadarene and Olivia Chaney, but vocalist/violinist Jackie Oates (who’s from Dorset) had me from her first number, flawlessly accompanied by Mike Cosgrave on piano and acoustic guitar and James Budden on acoustic bass. I was especially taken with Jackie’s take on the traditional English ballad “Young Leonard” and a very moving lost-love song called “Past Caring,” but the whole set was excellent and later compelled me to purchase Jackie’s latest recording, Hyperboreans, which did not disappoint.

JACKIE OATES – “HYPERBOREANS” with James Dumbleton (acoustic guitar) and Mike Cosgrave (accordion)

Next up was Jim Moray (vocals, electric guitar), who offered a more rock-and-funk infused version of the folk music of the British Isles. Although he didn’t mention it, Jim is Jackie’s brother and he produced her aforementioned Hyperboreans CD, possibly at his own studio in Bristol (there’s no facility credited on the disc). His band included drums, violin, programmed bits from a laptop DJ, and another chap who doubled on violin and hurdy-gurdy. Jim seemed a bit nervous and talked a little too much between his numbers, of which my favorite was a twin-fiddles rendition of “The Wild Boar.” For a Child ballad (the title of which eluded me),  Jim brought up rapper named Bubz. This combination almost worked as intended but not quite, and the same could be said of set closer “All You Pretty Girls,” a game attempt at an audience sing-along on this centuries-old sea shanty.

TREMBLING BELLS of Glasgow, Scotland

Trembling Bells, from Glasgow, may have sounded great. But at this point, exhaustion caught up with me and I confess to having nodded off for much of their set. Through the fog of half-sleep, I was stirred occasionally by the combination of Lavinia Blackwall’s pure soprano voice and the buzzing psych-rock flair of Mike Hastings’ lead guitar. Simon Shaw plays bass and the TBs’ excellent drummer Alex Neilson writes the songs. Fans of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, and the like should give a listen to Trembling Bells on MySpace.

AT ST. DAVID'S, A NEW CONVERT: A.S. with singing sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank.

It was Geoff Travis of Rough Trade who, earlier in the day, had urged me to see The Unthanks: “If you ask me who you should see, Andy, I’ll always name one of my bands because of course I think they’re the best!” I must thank Geoff publicly and profusely for this particular recommendation, because I loved the Unthanks. Initially I thought their name was some kind of punk-rock gesture, like calling your band No Thanks or Thanks For Nothing. In fact, it is the surname of the lead singers Rachel and Becky Unthank, as I would’ve discovered had I ever listened to an earlier version of the group known as Rachel Unthank & Winterset whose 2008 CD The Bairns was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in the UK.

The Unthanks were at full strength for their SXSW shows with pianist Adrian McNally; Chris Prince on guitar, bass, and ukelele; Dean Ravera shifting with equal skill from drums to acoustic bass; cellist Jo Silverstone, and the radiant violinist and harmony singer Niopha Keegan. They opened with “Twenty Long Weeks,” from Winterset’s 2006 album Cruel Sister, but much of the set was drawn from the Unthanks’ new Rough Trade CD Here’s The Tender Coming. Becky Unthank even did some lively clog dancing on “Betsy Bell,” the hidden bonus track that closes the album.

Of course, I hadn’t heard any of these songs before and perhaps it was due to this surprise factor — combined with a certain emotional susceptibility brought on by lack of sleep — that “The Testimony of Patience Crenshaw” brought tears to my eyes. The story told by the lyrics (in which a young woman coal miner describes her hellish working conditions), the beautifully performed music, Rachel’s heart-piercing lead vocal and even her distinctive Newcastle accent — on that night, in that room, the combination was just devastating. Here’s an earlier (undated) live performance of the song:

THE UNTHANKS – “THE TESTIMONY OF PATIENCE CRENSHAW”

Rachel Unthank later explained to me that this song is not of 19th century vintage but was composed in 1969 by the obscure English folk musician Frank Higgins — who based the lyrics on the written records of the Children’s Employment Commission of 1842, the official inquiry to which the real Patience Crenshaw gave her real testimony. For further insight into the nightmare world of female and child miners during this period of British history, just read this Wiki entry for “hurrying.”

On the road in Europe at this writing (4.23.2010), the Unthanks have a North American tour set to begin in late June including an appearance at Joe’s Pub in New York. I’ll see you there.

Andy Schwartz at South X Southwest 2010 (earlier posts)

Day One – 3/17/2010

Day Two – 3/18/2010

CUTTIN' UP: Kreuz Market counter man at work on the best BBQ in Central Texas.

A lunchtime BBQ road trip to Kreuz Market in Lockhart TX has been a SXSW tradition for some years now. In the past, this excursion was supplemented by other out-of-town drives, such as to City Market in Luling (more great BBQ) and even a (now-defunct?) catfish farm; but SXSW itself has grown so large and all-consuming that most attendees are loathe to leave Austin for even a few hours. I myself was glad for the chance to escape, especially with meat as exceptionally delicious as Kreuz’s waiting at the end of the 45-minute drive to Lockhart.

At some point either today — or was it yesterday? — I stopped in at Yard Dog, Austin’s premier folk art gallery, on the hip strip of South Congress Avenue. I ended up purchasing an enchanting small-scale collage entitled “The Gardener of Good Intentions” by the artist Bill Miller, and Yard Dog head honcho Randy Franklin threw in an official YD t-shirt with its evocative skeleton-buckaroo-on-bronco image created by Jon Langford.

From the Yard Dog web site: “Discarded linoleum and vinyl flooring is reclaimed as a medium for the artwork of Bill Miller. Creating an effect that lies somewhere between collage and stained glass, Miller’s innovative use of the linoleum’s pattern and

A HOME IN THE SHORT FOREST by folk artist Bill Miller

color is his signature style. Miller’s work has been recognized for rendering narrative moods and a sense of common memory. His unexpected use of patterns taps into the medium’s nostalgic familiarity striving to impart a sense of history and story within each piece.”

Nearly every SXSW I’ve ever attended has been marked (or marred) by one day out of four or five when I just couldn’t seem to get it together: to make intelligent choices among the vast array of performances, to successfully navigate the crowds and the traffic, or to keep up my dwindling reserves of physical energy. Today turned out be that day. I wasted some afternoon time in East Austin, looking for an art gallery event actually scheduled for the next day; tried without success to take a nap (impossible with this much adrenalin flowing through my veins), and stood around in the bright sunlight for about an hour at the New West Records party at Belmont, jabbering away like everyone else while some band or other “rocked” dully in the background (I didn’t even stick around for John Hiatt’s appearance).

JIM JONES (left) and GAVIN JAY prepare to blow the doors off Prague. (Photo by A.S.)

Nothing seemed to be going right until night fell and I ventured into Prague, a black box of a basement bar that felt like a firetrap and smelled faintly of untreated sewage. In a perverse way, it was just the sort of place where you’d want to experience a multi-band bill of the Batusis, with ex-Dead-Boy-turned-memoirist Cheetah Chrome and founding New York Doll Sylvain Sylvain; the Jim Jones Revue again; and the chronically underrated and hugely entertaining Kid Congo Powers leading his latest combo, the Pink Monkey Birds.

In the event, I was so on edge and uncomfortable in the venue that I took a 45-minute walk and missed the Batusis entirely (although this time-out afforded me the chance for an enjoyable accidental run-in with ASCAP’s Sue Drew). I returned to Prague and a now-packed house that included Maxwell’s owner Todd Abramson and Dr. Ira Padnos a/k/a “Dr. Ike,” presiding eminence of the Ponderosa Stomp.

If the Jim Jones Revue were really good the night before at Belmont, tonight at Prague they unleashed a veritable jukebox firestorm of unholy proportions — the same songs, probably in the same order, just wound up tighter and cranked up higher. It was unbelievable.

KID CONGO POWERS, in flight with Pink Monkey Birds.

Kid Congo did not try to match the JJR’s artillery power but merrily rolled through his set with a Farfisa organ-tinged garage sound and delightful new tunes like “Black Santa” and “Rare As The Yeti” from Dracula Boots — the group’s latest release on InTheRed Records, and one I fully intend to purchase in support of this punk-rock veteran (Gun Club, Cramps, Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds). The Kid’s not just dragging his tired ass around Clubland USA — he’s performing with real rock & roll flair and unpretentious musicianship combined with a distinctive up-front gay sensibilty. Catch him if you can!

Andy Schwartz at South X Southwest 2010 (earlier posts)

Day One – 3/17/2010

Holly George-Warren, Exene Cervenka, A.S. at the Bloodshot Records showcase @ Red-Eyed Fly (3.20.2010)

My memories of events from 22 years ago can be fuzzy, but I think my attendance at the South X Southwest music conference in Austin TX began in March 1988 with SXSW #2. I came back for 18 consecutive years until 2007, at which point I took two years off from this annual rite of spring before returning on March 15, 2010. I arrived in Austin shortly after 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday 3/17, picked up my rental car, and drove downtown to the Austin Convention Center to pick up the laminated, holographic, computer-coded badge that would admit me to the official showcases, the panel discussions, and all the rest. After checking into my room at the Embassy Suites hotel on South Congress Avenue, I walked with a couple of friends and fellow attendees over to Threadgill’s restaurant for dinner. Two hours later, Holly George-Warren and I were traveling in a hotel van across the Congress Bridge en route to Wanda Jackson’s set at Beauty Bar when another passenger announced — after receiving a call, email, or Tweet — that Alex Chilton had died suddenly at age 59, just four days before he was scheduled to perform at SXSW with Big Star.  Holly nearly screamed out loud before bursting into tears: She and her husband Robert Warren had been Alex’s friends for at least 25 years, and Holly had spoken with Alex just a few weeks earlier. I didn’t know what to say or how to comfort my friend and colleague on this shocking loss: Nothing like this had ever happened in all my years at SXSW, and it was a strange and painful way to begin this one.

Alex Chilton outside C.B.G.B. - NYC, 1977 Photo: Godlis

(Alex Chilton and I met only once, under strained circumstances in Memphis in 1979, and my memories of the occasion are not especially warm or pleasant. In no way did this encounter diminish my deep appreciation of Alex’s singular talent and especially the three original studio albums he created with Big Star. He lived according to his own code and if you didn’t dig it, that was entirely your problem.)

Not really knowing what else to do, Holly and I continued on to Beauty Bar (a venue with all the warmth and charm of a large storage shed) where Wanda Jackson gamely gave her all while backed by the worst band I’d ever heard her play with. At first I attributed their fumblings to a lack of rehearsal, but as the hour wore on I began to think this was about the best these guys could do — a few days’ rehearsal would have made little dent in their innate lack of feeling for the songs, arrangements, etc. Holly, at least, seemed temporarily lifted just to be in the warm glow of Wanda’s presence, and at one point remarked to me that she held out the faint hope that Alex Chilton had faked his own death “just to get out of playing SXSW with Big Star!”

VINTAGE WANDA JACKSON – “SPARKLIN’ BROWN EYES” (“JUBILEE USA,” 1959?)

When the set ended, Wanda and her husband/manager Wendell retreated backstage — “backstage,” in this case, being a cramped, darkened hallway, piled up with other bands’ equipment and without even a chair for the 73-year-old singer to sit down on. This, I guess, was the best that the staff of  SXSW and/or the proprietors of Beauty Bar could do for a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee whose recording career began in 1954. For shame!

TEAR IT UP! The Jim Jones Revue on stage at Belmont, 3.17.2010. Photo by A.S.

I’m not sure what made me so determined to see The Jim Jones Revue from England: I didn’t own their first album, didn’t know that front man Jim Jones had been in the overlooked Thee Hypnotics (1988-1995), and wasn’t aware that the current band had been in the studio recently with an old NYC acquaintance of mine, Jim Sclavunos of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds. At midnight, a decent-sized crowd gathered on the patio of a bar called Belmont and waited patiently while drums were set up, sound levels checked, etc.

Guess what? These guys killed. The Jim Jones Revue lift all their song structures straight from Fifties R&B, bolt on some witty and/or bitter lyrics, then drive the whole thing through a howling wind tunnel of overdriven guitars, pounding Jerry Lee/Jim Dickinson piano, and an unstoppable rhythm section. It’s kinda like Richard Hell & the Voidoids playing the music of Fats Domino, and it had me rockin’. (Come to think of it, the Voidoids did play Fats Domino a few times — a live cover of “I Lived My Life” — and while Jim Jones and Rupert Orton may not be the sophisticated jazz-influenced guitarists that Robert Quine and Ivan Julian were, they’ve still got that go-for-the-throat intensity.)

THE JIM JONES REVUE – “ROCK ‘N’ ROLL PSYCHOSIS”

It was after 1:0o a.m. and tomorrow would be another day at South X Southwest. This one, for me, was now over.

A.S. and Woodstock Festival founder Michael Lang, author of THE ROAD TO WOODSTOCK.

I know there are quite a few Hall of Fame haters out there — some of whom I count as friends — but I’m not going to take the time and space here to address their assorted beefs ranging from “Why isn’t Link Wray in the Hall of Fame?” to “Why isn’t Yes in the Hall of Fame?” I take pride in my past work on the program book and have had a blast at the induction dinners, even if a lot of the event’s spontaneity was sacrificed years ago to the strictures and rituals of a televised awards show. Here are my thoughts on the 2010 ceremonies, in chronological order by inductee:

GENESIS: Sorry, prog people, but I never did and never will “get” this group in any of its stylistic phases and personnel lineups. It was therefore entirely appropriate that guitarist Trey Anastasio of Phish should have inducted the venerable British band, since I never “got” Phish either, even after attending one of their endless concerts (April 1998, Nassau Coliseum). I could relate to Trey’s fervent fan-boy appreciation: He spoke with the detail and devotion of a true believer and referred to Selling England By The Pound (1973) as “my all-time favorite album.” Certainly, this was preferable to Bobby Brown saying of Wilson Pickett, back in 1991, that he’d never really heard of Wilson Pickett until being asked to induct him a few weeks earlier.

[Perhaps it was just as well that Pickett was not even present for his own induction. I remember Seymour Stein portentously announcing from the stage that "Wilson Pickett is fogged in." Since at the time Pickett was living in Englewood, New Jersey -- roughly 90 minutes by car from Manhattan -- I took this explanation to mean that maybe the defroster on his car had conked out.]

Phish then performed two long, meandering Genesis, er… compositions is what I’d have to call them, since they sure didn’t sound like “songs” as I define the term. After this mildly excruciating interlude, the honorees (minus former lead singer Peter Gabriel) took the stage, genteel expressions of gratitude were aired, and…oh fuck it, let’s get to

Triumph and heartbreak: Iggy Pop at the R&R Hall of Fame.

THE STOOGES: Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day began his induction speech in a curious but effective way. Having been born one year before the release of the Stooges’ Raw Power in 1973, Billie Joe had no personal memories of the original band performing in its own era. Therefore he chose to begin by quoting at length from Dictators guitarist Scott “Top Ten” Kempner’s account of the Stooges live at Ungano’s in NYC in 1970, as told to Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain for their 1997 book Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. (Anybody still with me?)

Probably this is as close as Kempner, the Dictators, McCain and/or McNeil will ever come to actually being in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — which, for some observers, will sum up all that’s heinously wrong with the thing. Indeed, following a few heartfelt remarks of his own, Billie Joe proceeded to reel off a long list of his favorite bands not yet inducted into the Hall, ranging from the Germs and Social Distortion to DEVO and the obscure UK group Penetration (with Pauline Murray).

A.S. with an oddly enlarged James Williamson, Stooges guitarist.

The Stooges’ acceptances were very moving. Drummer Scott Asheton and guitarist James Williamson were thoughtful and touching but Iggy Pop was positively gripping. He began his speech by saluting the audience with both middle fingers upraised and ended by nearly breaking into tears.

A.S. with Stooges bassist Mike Watt. Time to induct Watt's genius former band, The Minutemen!

Maybe Pop was thinking of all the dead Stooges: bassists Dave Alexander and Thomas “Zeke” Zettner (neither one made 35), road manager-turned-guitarist Bill Cheatham, and especially founding guitarist Ron Asheton. Asheton died of an apparent heart attack on 1/6/2009, still aggrieved and mystified that his band had yet to be inducted into the Rock Hall after 15 years of eligibility and at least one prior appearance on the ballot.

“Here we are, in the belly of the beast,” intoned Iggy. And: “A lotta money and power in this room…But music is life, and life is not a business.” And: “Ron Asheton was cool.” And: “Danny was cool” – a nod to the thankfully-still-living Danny Fields, who signed the Stooges and the MC5 to Elektra Records over the same weekend. And: “The poor people who started rock and roll, they were cool.” Joined by bassist Mike Watt (on board since 2003) and veteran Stooge sidemen Scott Thurston (piano) and Steve Mackay (saxophone), the Stooges tore it up with their two-song set of “Search and Destroy” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” They succeeded at least partially in breaking through the audience’s well-fed placidity and offered a thrilling taste of the tour that will follow on Sony Legacy’s deluxe reissue of Raw Power.

DAVID GEFFEN: With Hall of Fame honors already bestowed upon music biz moguls like Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, Clive Davis, Chris Blackwell, and Mo Ostin, I suppose this was inevitable. Jackson Browne spoke with what seemed like genuine fondness for the man, invoking Geffen’s boundless enthusiasm for his artists and relentless efforts on their behalf. He managed to slip in the names of David Blue and Judee Sill, two Geffen signings that flopped in the marketplace (the latter’s fate was especially tragic) but whose work is more appreciated today. Of all that Eighties corporate rock crap that Geffen served up, like Whitesnake and Asia — the less said, the better. The honoree himself was at his most charming and disarming, cheerfully admitting that “I have no talent.” Geffen noted that his introduction to the music business occurred “when my brother was dating the sister of Phil Spector’s first wife” and thus provided David with entree to some of Spector’s legendary hit-making sessions at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood.

Cher & David Geffen, early Seventies

Safely stashed somewhere far from the Waldorf Grand Ballroom were the countless tales of insatiable greed and lust for power, of Machiavellian plots and whisper campaigns unleashed to destroy enemies, ex-partners, and even longtime friends. Details may be found in Wall Street Journal reporter Tom King’s 2000 biography The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells The New Hollywood, which Geffen initially authorized (and co-operated with) before turning on King and doing his best to suppress the book.

Little Steven Van Zandt inducted the Hollies with what can only be described as an unfolding oration on the past, present, and future of rock & roll. Part William Jennings Bryan and part Silvio Dante, it was really something to hear in this forum, although as Steve rolled along I wondered if he was about to announce his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Like a 747 approaching Newark, Van Zandt circled over the subject of the Hollies for

Little Steven: Floating a trial balloon for his U.S. Senate campaign?

about ten minutes before he finally came in for a landing with astute praise of their compositional, instrumental and especially vocal prowess. In the last-named category, Steven ranked the Hollies second only to the Beatles, a judgment with which I concur.(Got time on your hands? Read the complete text of Little Steven’s speech here.)

With blandly competent vocal support from Maroon 5’s Adam Levine and Pat Monahan of Train, original Hollies Allan Clarke and Graham Nash sang strongly on “Bus Stop” and an exhilarating “Carrie-Anne.” I was particularly impressed by Clarke, who retired from music in 1999 and may not have sung on stage since then; he and Nash have been close friends for sixty-three years. Things got a bit weird with “Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)” when another of the Hollies, Terry Sylvester, tried to grab Pat Monahan’s microphone away from him during this uncharacteristic Creedence-style rocker that — although intended for an Allan Clarke solo project (his is the only voice on the record) — became one of the group’s all-time biggest hits in 1972. Two other founding members, singer/guitarist Tony Hicks and the dynamic drummer Bobby Elliott, were MIA — reportedly fulfilling tour commitments in the UK with the version of the Hollies they’ve co-led for nearly two decades.

As is customary at these events, time was set aside for a still-photo montage of performers and music industry personalities who died in the year since the last induction ceremony. Among those depicted were the brilliant “American primitive” guitarist Jack Rose; fearless six-string adventurer James Gurley of Big Brother & the Holding Company); Memphis roots godfather Jim Dickinson; ex-Wilco member Jay Bennett; Richard “Squirrel” Lester of the Chi-Lites; rampant Fifties rocker Dale Hawkins, and folk music legends Kate McGarrigle and Mike Seeger. They’re all dead, and we’re left with…Adam Levine.

JIMMY CLIFF: He looked terrific and sounded great on “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” “Many Rivers to Cross,” and “The Harder They Come” — all from the soundtrack of The Harder They Come, released in 1972. It’s anyone’s guess as to why this stirring singer and charismatic performer was never been able to match this early and groundbreaking success, despite extended major-label stays at both Warner Bros. and Columbia preceded in 1969 by a fine album for A&M, Wonderful World, Beautiful People. (The title track became one of Cliff’s only two US Top 30 Pop hits, followed in 1993 by a predictable cover of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now.”)

Cliff and 'Clef on stage at the Waldorf.

Jimmy Cliff was inducted by Wyclef Jean, who I find a little tiresome in his seeming ubiquity but who at least has a personal relationship to the artist. Years before Wyclef reached multi-platinum stardom with the Fugees, he recalled, his boyhood idol Jimmy Cliff accepted an invitation to crash at Clef’s modest New Jersey apartment after the two musicians worked a session at The Hit Factory.

ABBA: I collected a lot of their singles and occasionally still play their first two Atlantic LPs, Waterloo (1974) and ABBA (1975). These immaculately arranged and produced records are descended directly from Phil Spector’s greatest “Wall of Sound” hits, with added elements of Swedish folk music, French chanson, and Italian aria. Of the four members of ABBA, only Benny Andersson and Anni-Fryd (Frida) Lyngstad showed up at the Waldorf, and only Benny had something historically meaningful to say.

A most excellent ABBA album from 1974.

“We had no blues, not what you in America would call blues,” he said, but in Swedish folk songs Benny heard what he called “the sound of ‘The Melancholy Belt’ — sometimes mistakenly known as ‘The Vodka Belt’ — this region that stretches from Siberia to Finland to Sweden…If the sun disappears for two entire months, you can hear it in the songs, you can even see it in the eyes of Greta Garbo.” Swedish radio in the Fifties, he noted, consisted of one station that played very little music of any kind and no American pop or r&b. Record shops thus became the sole purveyors of the new sounds, and after Benny bought a copy of Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” in 1957, “there was no turning back.”

As for the importance of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Andersson noted that at present there are about 250 inductees in all categories: “Imagine what our world would be like if none of those people had ever existed, or ever created…I think it would be pretty dull.” The surviving Bee Gees, Barry and Robin Gibb, inducted ABBA in rather jovial fashion, reading awkwardly by turns from a teleprompter. With Benny Andersson on piano, Nashville star Faith Hill sang ABBA’s massive 1980 hit “The Winner Takes All” with what the late Lester Bangs (referring to another artist in another time) once described as “all the soul and passion of a doorknob.” Hill’s performance was not enhanced by the extravagant arm-waving and finger-pointing of the other keyboard player to her right, whoever he was.

Ellie Greenwich at work in the mid-Sixties.

SONGWRITERS:

The hour was growing late as a radiant-looking Carole King spoke, soulfully and unpretentiously, about the historic contributions of her fellow songwriters and now Hall of Fame inductees Jesse Stone (1901-1999), Otis Blackwell (1932-2002), Mort Shuman (1936-1991), Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, and Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich (1940-2009). By this time I had stopped taking notes, being more concerned with my table’s dangerously low stock of red wine. But I paid enough attention to know that Cynthia Weil’s acceptance speech went on far too long, given the number of other award recipients (or their family members) lined up behind her and awaiting their turn to speak. Weil didn’t clear the room, but she certainly depleted it.

Jeff Barry had lobbied as long and hard for his own induction into the Hall of Fame as any potential candidate since the hapless Chubby Checker. But when this magic moment finally arrived, Barry was unable to attend the ceremony due to flight delays from Los Angeles and instead Little Steven read Jeff’s acceptance speech from his Blackberry. Students of the Brill Building may wonder why Mort Shuman was not inducted back in 1992 alongside his former songwriting partner Doc Pomus; and why Jesse Stone — a crucial creative force in the early years of Atlantic Records — couldn’t have been inducted sometime between, say, 1988 and 1995 since he lived to the age of 98.

The musical tribute to these inductees featured a rough-sounding Ronnie Spector on Barry & Greenwich’s “I Can Hear Music” and “Be My Baby,” the two songs she sang at my wedding in 1995; Rob Thomas (ex-Matchbox 20) singing Pomus & Shuman’s Drifters classic “Save The Last Dance For Me” (bleh); and FeFe Dobson (who?) giving a good account of herself on “River Deep, Mountain High” (by Barry/Greenwich/Spector). This segment and the evening closed with an all-hands-on-deck version of Jesse Stone’s immortal “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” led by Peter Wolf of the periodically re-formed J. Geils Band — another real rock & roll group that has made the ballot in past years but has yet to be voted in, despite selling millions of records for Atlantic (1972-77) and later scoring a Number One album with Freeze-Frame (EMI) in ‘82.

This bargain price drew large crowds, including many attendees in town for the annual convention of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. Seats were almost impossible to come by for most sets, unless you chose to camp out at one club as early as 6:00 p.m. The rooms were often packed tight and some acquaintances told me they were unable even to get into certain shows, a problem I myself did not encounter.

On the up side, most sets started on time or close to it; change-overs were accomplished without undue delays, and the sound systems were good to excellent. Audiences were genuinely attentive and sometimes wildly enthusiastic, and it was a trip to hear actual creative music performed at a Bleecker Street tourist trap/frat bar like Kenny’s Castaways. (Not sure I’d even set foot in that place since the Eighties, when 1967 founder Pat Kenny was still alive and the Smithereens held forth regularly on its small stage.)

Here, in chronological order, are my impressions of the performances I witnesssed:

FRIDAY (1.8.2010)

(1) Jamie Leonhart @ Le Poisson Rouge – A very good young singer, although not one much in (my idea of) the real jazz tradition  — more like “alternative” pop/folk with jazz inflections. Jamie sang her own songs, no standards, and fronted a band whose odd instrumentation included two clarinet players. Deidre Rodman of the Lascivious Biddies was a subtle but strong foil, playing melodica and singing harmonies. The emotional peak of the set was the closing “Let The Flower Grow” — a

Deidre Rodman and Jamie Leonhart

pro-humanity/anti-military song, poignant but not sappy, composed by Jamie’s father-in-law, the bassist Jay Leonhart.

(2) Briggan Krauss Trio Coordinate @ Kenny’s Castaways – Krauss has been living and gigging in NYC since ‘94 but somehow I’d never heard of him until tonight. He’s made both jazz and electronic music recordings but here stuck to alto saxophone with bass and drums. Krauss had a floating sound with a lot of air around the notes, while drummer Kenny Wolleson’s playing reminded me a bit of Tony Oxley when I saw the latter duet with Cecil Taylor at the Village Vanguard in 2008. Trio Coordinate played what sounded like genuinely free improvisations of varying length — they definitely were communicating, although exactly what was being communicated is tough to put into words. My wife Leslie Rondin thought they sounded great.

Jeremy Udden + Plainville

(3) Jeremy Udden’s Plainville @ Kenny’s Castaways – Alto/soprano sax man Udden led an instrumental group of five or maybe six guys with a distinct Americana flavor: guitarist Brandon Seabrook doubled on banjo, Pete Rende switched off from electric piano to pump organ. The result sometimes sounded like Lee Konitz jamming with The Band — okay, not on that level, but good stuff nonetheless even if none of the individual tunes stuck in my head.

Like all tonight’s sets at Kenny’s, this one was part of a showcase put together by the youthful eager beavers of SearchAndRestore.com. At their info table, I picked up an entertaining pamphlet, The Jazz Pirate Press, with jottings by Roswell Rudd, Curtis Hasselbring, and Josh Roseman. SearchAndRestore’s mission statement reads, in part: “To build a sustainable jazz community, we need to make great jazz more open to the public…We only book double bills so the shows have a more communal feel. No drink minimum, no emptying out after a set. Standing room and seats. This more casual jazz environment lets people feel like they’re part of something.” Sounds good to me, although so far their Web site looks more like an aggregate of info on the regular NYC club calendar — I didn’t see many S&R-originated or sponsored shows there.

(4) Nicholas Payton SeXXXtet @ Le Poisson Rouge - The trumpeter and his group drew a full house for the last set of the night at this venue. The SeXXXtet included female vocalist Johnaye Kendrix and the wizardly Taylor Eigisti on electric piano; the overall groove reminded of some of Freddie Hubbard’s better Seventies tracks for CTI and Columbia. Payton played with his usual impeccable technique (and also sang a bit) but it was difficult to hear, through the band’s wall of sound, what if anything he was really saying on the horn. After about 20 minutes, I got tired of standing in one spot, there was no room to dance, and we headed home.

SATURDAY (1.9.2010)

(1) Carmen Consoli @ Le Poisson Rouge – Not her first time in NYC but my first exposure to this female singer/songwriter/guitarist (born 1974) who grew up in a village near Catania, Sicily.  A successful mainstream pop artist in Italy (seven studio albums, hit singles, slick videos, etc.) who in recent years has turned toward acoustic music, Carmen Consoli was the single most impressive performer I saw at Winter Jazzfest. Ironically, her music had less to do with “jazz” than any just about other act I heard all weekend. She employed the very effective stage strategy of introducing her songs in English, giving details of their story lines and inspirations, then singing them in Italian. She is a powerfully expressive vocalist, a superior melodicist, and a skillful if not virtuoso acoustic guitarist who used altered tunings and finger-picking patterns to give variety to her set.

This clip from a live MTV-Europe show gives some of the flavor of Carmen’s performance at WJF:

Here’s Carmen with orchestral backing, live in Taormina, Sicily:

(2) Ben Allison @ Le Poisson Rouge – The bassist led a quintet with Jenny Scheinman (violin), Steve Cardenas (guitar), Shane Endsey (trumpet), and Rudy Royston (drums). The music came across as stiff and overly composed, and the dutiful solos did not move me. This is the third band with which I’ve seen Jenny Scheinman play and I just don’t get what all the critical hoo-hah is about. A list headed “Jazz Violinists I Dig More Than Jenny Scheinman” would include Billy Bang, Charles Burnham,  Joe Kennedy, Ray Nance, Sid Page (ex-Dan Hicks’ Hot Licks), Stuff Smith, Eddie South, even Svend Asmussen (age 94, he still gigs occasionally in Copenhagen).

(3) Gretchen Parlato @ Sullivan Hall – A technically accomplished singer with a sensual, breathy tone, rhythmic acuity, and flawless diction whose limitations began to weigh on me over the length of a full set. She benefited greatly from the instrumental support of bassist Alan Hampton, drummer Kendrick Scott, and Taylor Eigisti running enjoyably rampant on electric piano.

(4) JD Allen Trio @ Kenny’s Castaways - Tenor saxophonist Allen played with both muscle and melodic invention in the first half of this set, i.e the part I heard. Rudy Royston’s drumming was livelier and more propulsive in this setting than with Ben Allison the night before.

(5) Dr. Lonnie Smith @ Sullivan Hall – My third live exposure to this veteran organist was the best and hottest set I’ve heard him play to date. Guitarist Jonathan Kriesberg and drummer Jamire Williams, who are maybe half the leader’s age, seemed to propel the 68-year-old Smith to higher heights and funkier funk. The closing “Pilgrimage,” with its step-by-step modulations

The Turban-ator: Dr. Lonnie Smith

rising to an ecstatic climax, conveyed an almost Hendrix-like majesty and drove the crowd wild. (Note: Dr. Lonnie Smith is not the keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith of Cosmic Echoes fame.)

(6) William Parker Quartet @ Sullivan Hall – Great and I mean great. About Parker’s bass playing, I can’t say it any better than Chris Kelsy at AllMusic.com: “Although he does, to an extent, serve as a harmonic anchor in his groups, his more important role is as a source of energy. Parker drives a band like few other bassists; in combination with a powerful drummer, a Parker-led rhythm section is an inexorable force.”

The Engine Room: Drake and Parker

Here, with Hamid Drake absolutely killing on drums, the effect was like “inexorable” times five and a launching pad for the extended searching solos of altoist Rob Brown and trumpeter Lewis Barnes. Two tunes comprised the entire set: “Criminals in the White House” and “Malachi’s Mood.” Since I lack the technical vocabulary to describe this music, may these classic radical jazz album titles invoke its sound and spirit:

The Way Ahead…    Far Cry… Tomorrow Is The Question… Ascension… Universal Consciousness…    Destination Out!

After publishing the fanzines Jamz and The Rock Marketplace, the late Alan Betrock published the first issue of New York Rocker in the spring of 1976. Through Fall 1977, Alan published ten more issues and ran the magazine pretty much as a one-man show with some business/advertising help from his friend Ken Kristol. After living in Minneapolis for five years, I moved back to NYC in Fall ‘77 and later bought NYR from Alan Betrock, a dear friend of mine until his untimely death in 2000. 

I served as publisher and editor of NYR until the end of 1982: putting the magazine on a monthly schedule, obtaining national distribution, recruiting and directing a small but intensely dedicated NYC staff and a much larger group of freelance contributors in the US and the UK. We worked in a half-floor loft at 166 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan where the floor was never mopped and you never knew who’d be asleep on the sad salvaged office sofa when you came to work in the morning. We saw a million gigs, listened to a million records, and published at least a million words about all of it without the use of a single computer.

A.S. Atop Unsold NY Rocker Issues, 1982 | Photo by Laura Levine

Among those who made crucial contributions to this chronically under-financed but heroically creative effort were Byron Coley, Michael Hill, Ira Kaplan, Annene Kaye, David Keeps, Laura Levine, Glenn Morrow, Chris Nelson, Suzette Rodriguez, Roy Trakin, Elizabeth Van Itallie, Janet Waegel, and Drew Wheeler. It is one of the blessings of my life to have remained friends with nearly all of these individuals.

A total of 55 issues were produced until New York Rocker expired in late 1982. About a year later, the magazine was sold to a new publisher and briefly revived for a few more poorly distributed issues before going out of business for the second and last time. Through a series of contractual twists and turns, all rights to NYR then reverted back to me. I own the domain names nyrocker.com and newyorkrocker.com — I hope this SPD cover gallery will spur me to add more actual content to the site, which has for too long remained simply “under construction.”

Pops and neighborhood kids jam on the steps of his home, now the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

The Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens has been open to the public since 1994. But I’d never been there until Saturday (1.9.2010), when Leslie and I drove over in early afternoon for a free event featuring Terry Teachout, the author of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published December 2009). The book is excellent: carefully researched, well paced, written with open ears in a clear and candid style. I’d recommend it to anyone with any interest in Louis Armstrong, jazz, and/or American pop culture.

In taking on this Promethean subject, Teachout had an edge over his several precedecessors in at least two respects. Although presently the drama critic for the Wall Street Journal, he was once a professional bass player and thus the first trained musician to essay an Armstrong biography. Perhaps more importantly, Teachout was the first biographer to have had access to over 650 hours of reel-to-reel tapes recorded by Pops himself. These tapes capture Armstrong in uncensored casual conversations with friends and fellow musicians, playing trumpet along with records (both his own and those of other artists), even trying to coax his wife Lucille into the marital bed for a little pre-dawn action.

We may presume that the Armstrong archives were better organized and more easily accessible to Teachout than to previous researchers, and Louis’ own writings are excerpted often and effectively in Pops. “In between playing three hundred shows a year,” Teachout notes, “he turned out two memoirs, several autobiographical manuscripts, dozens of magazine and newspaper articles, and thousands of personal letters to friends and fans, as well as a number of strikingly frank autobiographical manuscripts that did not see print until long after his death.” The author sheds new light on some long-clouded episodes in the trumpeter’s life including his 1930 marijuana arrest — Armstrong was a lifelong pot smoker — and his entanglements with Chicago mobsters.

All that said, I’m not sure Teachout’s book is so vastly superior to its immediate predecessor, Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life by Laurence Bergreen (Broadway Books, 1997). This was the first Armstrong bio I ever read, not counting the great man’s own Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans, and it greatly enhanced my knowledge and perception of its subject. Until the arrival of Pops, Bergreen’s was the most comprehensive book on its subject but it seems to have gotten rather short shrift from both jazz and book critics, perhaps because Bergreen had never written about jazz or jazz musicians before. In his New York Times review of Teachout’s book, David Margolick referenced earlier biographies by Gary Giddins and James Lincoln Collier but not Extravagant Life; nor is it among the half-dozen books sold in the gift shop of the Armstrong House Museum. Witty, elegant, and warmly appreciative of its subject, An Extravagant Life moved me to pick up two more of Bergreen’s non-fiction works, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (also excellent) and Capone: The Man and the Era (bought but not read yet).

Armstrong on the cover of TIME in 1949, the year he was crowned king of the Zulu Krewe at Mardi Gras in his home town of New Orleans.

Meanwhile, back at the shack… After perusing the gift shop and helping ourselves to a bowl of complimentary gumbo, we joined the crowd seated on folding chairs in the low-ceilinged basement of the house. Following some opening remarks, Terry Teachout read excerpts from the first and last portions of his book, then screened a high-quality B&W clip taken from a 1958 TV appearance by Louis Armstrong and the All Stars. Pops sounded both vigorous and completely at ease singing “On The Sunny Side of the Street,” but the sweat dripping from his brow reminded me of the physical effort he put into his live performances. His trumpet solo, although described by Teachout as a “set piece” that varied only slightly from show to show, was  a soaring work of sonic architecture — the musical equivalent of watching a ten-story building erected in elapsed-time motion before your eyes. Teachout then took questions and comments from the audience. Among the speakers were trumpeter Jon Faddis, who recalled being transfixed by Armstrong’s mid-Sixties appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show”; and vocalist Melba Joyce, who recounted her guest appearance with Louis and the All Stars on a show in Dallas in 1961.

We then joined a small group for an abbreviated version of the standard house tour. Louis and his wife Lucille purchased the modest two-story dwelling at 34-56 107th Street in 1943. It was the first and only home Armstrong ever owned, and to him a treasured symbol of his rise from the dire poverty of his New Orleans boyhood. After her husband’s death in 1971, Lucille Armstrong lived on in the house until her own passing twelve years later. By that time, the property had been deeded first to the City of New York, then entrusted to Queens College which today administers the Museum and the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.

Among the many intact period features of the house are Lucille’s custom-built kitchen cabinets, with their nifty jet-age design and turquoise enamel finish; Pops’ upstairs den, with LPs from his personal collection and his reel-to-reel tape decks; original Sixties oil paintings of both Armstrongs, and the bed in which Louis died on 7/6/1971. As we stood in the den, our guide clicked on a wall switch and the room filled with the sound of Armstrong’s inimitable voice on segments from his private tape stash. Pops was right there with us, in the home he loved.

Louis Armstrong – “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” (1943, with the Luis Russell Orchestra).  “Even on the simplest of the big-band sides, his playing is charged with an expressive depth that seizes the ear…There is an underlying seriousness in his light-hearted art that recalls a remark made by the film director Howard Hawks, who claimed that ‘the only difference between comedy and tragedy is the point of view.’” (Teachout, page 146)

(1) Al Grey & Jimmy Forrest Quintet – AllMusic.com states that trombonist Al Grey (b. 6/6/1925) spent his first professional decade in big bands including those of Jimmie Lunceford, Lucky Millinder, Benny Carter and Lionel Hampton. Grey and another big band veteran, saxophonist Billy Mitchell, formed a co-op band in 1962. I have a copy of their Argo LP Night Song (recorded November ‘62 and issued under Grey’s name), on which the group is joined by vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. Al Grey served three separate stints in the Count Basie band; when the last one ended in 1977, the trombonist formed a group with saxophonist Jimmy Forrest (b. 1/24/1920). This was 25 years after Forrest had a Number One R&B hit with his immortal “Night Train,” but I’ll bet he still played it a lot. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Al Grey and Jimmy Forrest were still playing together when the latter died 8/26/1980; Grey lived another 20 years and died of diabetes-related illness on 5/24/2000.

(2) Vera Auer – The Austrian-born vocalist (b. 4/20/1919), who also played vibes and accordion, was the grand-niece of the noted Hungarian classical musician Leopold Auer. In Vienna circa 1949, she formed the Vera Auer Combo, a trio with guitarist Attila Zoller that for a short time included pianist Joe Zawinul, later a founding member of Weather Report. In 1954, Vera moved to Frankfurt, Germany, where she worked with trumpeter Donald Byrd and drummer Art Taylor. In 1959, Auer married an obscure American musician named Brian Boucher, and the couple moved to the US the following year. In her Stateside career, she “was associated not only with boppers such as trombonist J.J. Johnson and tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims, but with a modern breed of blower including trumpeters Cal Massey and Ted Curson,” wrote Eugene Chadbourne for AllMusic.com. “In the late Seventies she co-led a group with yet another trumpet player, Richard Williams, resulting in in an album release with the cheerful title of Positive Vibes.” Vera Auer died 8/2/1996.

(3) Chuck Wayne/Joe Puma – I would’ve enjoyed hearing these two fine though little-remembered guitarists as a duo. Chuck Wayne (born Charles Jagelka, 2/27/1923) started out as a teenage mandolin player and switched to guitar in the Forties when he began to make the 52nd Street scene. An early exponent of bop, he recorded seminal sides with Dizzy Gillespie and Little Benny Harris; worked with the Woody Herman band in 1946-47, and joined pianist George Shearing’s quintet for three years, 1949-1952. Wayne toured with Tony Bennett from 1954-57, then came off the road to concentrate on Broadway, studio, and TV gigs. He released a half-dozen albums as a leader, and later taught at Westchester Conservatory in White Plains, NY. Chuck Wayne died 7/29/1997; his recording of “My Baby Just Cares For Me” was including on the 2005 Sony Legacy box set Progressions: 100 Years of Jazz Guitar.

Born into a family of guitarists, Joe Puma (born 8/13/1927) was a professional musician by 1949. He played with more “name” musicians than I can list here, ranging from Artie Shaw to Gary Burton, and also recorded as a leader for the Bethlehem, Dawn, Jubilee, and Columbia labels. The New Grove Dictionary states: “Puma formed a duo with Chuck Wayne in 1972, which appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in New York in 1973; when the duo broke up after five years, Puma led his own trio.” Joe Puma died 5/31/2000; sadly, he was left off that Sony Legacy box set.

YouTube: “Bernie’s Tune” – Mike Morreale Quartet featuring Chuck Wayne (date/location n/a)

(4) Bob Cunningham/Kenny Barron/Scoby Stroman – Considering the hazards and rigors of the jazz life, I’m pleased to report that two out of three members of this group are alive and still gigging regularly.

Born 12/23/1934 in Cleveland, bassist/composer Bob Cunningham moved to NYC in 1960. On his Web site, Bob says he played with Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Abbey Lincoln, and Sun Ra; with Yusef Lateef, he traveled the world and appeared on Seventies Lateef LPs like Gentle Giant. Among other Bob Cunningham credits, AllMusic.com lists Ken McIntyre’s Way Way Out (‘63), Walt Dickerson’s Impressions of ‘A Patch of Blue’ (‘64, with Sun Ra on piano), Freddie Hubbard’s Backlash (‘66), and Sam Rivers‘ Crystals (‘74). The bassist may still be leading Monday night jam sessions at the headquarters of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) on West 48th Street in Manhattan.

Bob Cunningham, still swinging

Pianist Kenny Barron played Jazz Standard just last week (January 7-10, 2010) but unfortunately I missed the gig. Born 6/9/1943 in Philadelphia and a professional musician since his teens, the nine–time Grammy Award nominee — it seems he’s never actually won the damn thing — has a six-page list of album credits posted at AllMusic.com. The discography includes sessions with Dizzy Gillespie (1962-1966), Freddie Hubbard (1966-1970), Yusef Lateef (1970-1975), and Stan Getz (late Eighties) as well as five discs under the leadership of his much older brother, saxophonist Bill Barron (1927-1989). Kenny Barron served on the music faculty of Rutgers University from 1973 to 2000; was an original member of the Thelonious Monk tribute group Sphere, founded in 1982; and more recently co-founded (with Joanne Klein) an independent label called Joken Records.

YouTube: “People Time” by Kenny Barron and Stan Getz (live in Munich, 1990 – Getz’s final concert performance)

Drummer C. Scoby Stroman’s NY Times obit noted that he was tap dancing at age five: “As an adult he became known as a master sand dancer and an innovative leading performer of scat dancing, a softshoe rhythm-dance that involves the upper body as well as the feet and legs and draws on American popular dancing and African and Brazilian ethnic styles.”

So far, pretty mainstream…but if AllMusic.com has it right, Scoby also played drums on at least two Sun Ra LPs (Secrets of the Sun and Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy) and also on College Tour, the second ESP-Disk album by the pre-Diamanda Galas gonzo vocalist Patty Waters. (“Contorted shrieks and wails that could be downright blood-curdling…Waters has to be acknowledged as a vocalist who has tested the limits of what the human voice is capable of…” Thus sayeth Richie Unterberger of AllMusic.com) Scoby Stroman must have been quite a showman and character, one of the many artists I caught up with too late. He died 3/28/1996 from complications of a stroke.

YouTube: “Scoby” by the Rick Stone Trio (live at Bar Next Door, NYC, 1/15/2009)