Curmudge's Sutff

something I am grateful for today

2026-04-09T00:18:05Z

regaining my love for free jazz

Every now and then, I spend a year (or two) (or three) immersed in a new musical obsession... and in the early eighties, I spent about three years where the vast majority of what I listened to was free jazz. [The Art Ensemble of Chicago and OM were particular faves.] Eventually I burned out on it some, and decided to wait til I was in the mood to hear it. And that mood rarely came. [I gather I'm not alone in finding that music demanding to listen to, it requires actual energy and focus.] Many years went by where I said "pass" every time the opportunity arose.

But recently I was browsing thru old albums, came across some free, and unexpectedly decided I could muster the gumption to tackle it. And it paid off. I was exhilarated and satisfied in the way unique to those sounds. Since then I've been going back there much more often, but no longer to the exclusion of all else. Pacing myself better seems to allow me to enjoy it more now, in my dotage. I've also discovered that new bands have been working in this area all along, and there are lots of new things for me to discover....

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something I am grateful for today

2025-04-11T13:28:50Z

Today is the release date for a new album featuring one of my all-time faves, The Mighty Scott Hamilton!

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my musical discovery of the year

2024-12-31T22:55:25Z

It seems that, every year, of all the music I discover, there is one particular standout artist for me who turns me into a major fan. Most often, it is someone new [to me]... but not always. For example, last year my musical discovery was Richie Kamuca — I was listening to records forty years ago that Kamuca played on, but at that time I wasn't focusing particular attention on his specific contributions to those records. Last year, I was given the chance to listen to him more closely and more widely, and finally became smitten.

But my discovery for 2024 is someone I had never heard until a couple months ago: Cory Weeds. He's an exciting find for me — not only for his own playing, but also for the record label he runs which issues work by many other wonderful artists, lots of whom are also new-to-me. There is such a wealth of good music to be discovered here! You can bet that Cory and other Cellar Music artists will occupy my ears frequently in 2025.

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So Rare

2024-10-10T23:37:11Z

Not sure why I get such a kick out of this story, but I do:

During the Swing Era of the late 30s and 40s, the big bands dominated the top of the charts. They were pop music. Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Harry James, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie, Duke Ellington... that sound defined an era.

But, by the 50s, that sound mostly died out, the hits stopped coming, and bands that size became too expensive to maintain. The charts became the purview of pop acts like Pat Boone and Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, Rosemary Clooney and The McGuire Sisters. Plus, in mid-decade, Elvis showed up and started breaking records, turning rock and roll into the hottest fad in music. The swing musicians still appeared occasionally in clubs and on TV, but on the charts they were mostly a spent force. Now and then, one of them would manage to interest a label in putting out a record for them, but nothing much came of it.

And then, in 1957, Jimmy Dorsey released So Rare.

God knows why, but in amongst all the usual 50s suspects, that record spent over half a year on the chart, made it to Number Two [Number One in Canada], and ended up being Billboard's Number Five record out of the Top One Hundred of the year. During those few minutes it would play on the radio, it was suddenly 1942 again. Out of nowhere. The Swing Era had a sudden last blaze of glory, and I think that is so swell.

[It was only today that I learned Jimmy Dorsey died in '57, but he lived long enough to see So Rare become a big hit and to receive a gold record for it. Talk about going out on a high note.]

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ars gratia artis

2024-05-25T18:25:09Z

Long ago I read that the only truly American artforms are jazz, comic books, and rock-and-roll. [The accuracy of all of those claims is easily disputed, but let's leave that aside for the time being so I can make my wanky statement about them]:

I got thinking about this and realized that all these artforms share a common element. Even if we break down jazz into its three major waves [Dixieland, swing, and bebop], the same process always took place.

When these artforms first emerged, all of them were originally dismissed as garbage for kids, the poor, and the ignorant. It took years for each of them to achieve some measure of artistic credibility, i.e., acceptance by well-to-do whites. I just find the consistency of this sort of reaction to creativity to be kinda intriguing.

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my ten fave singers redux

2023-07-01T17:13:15Z

It's been almost fourteen years since I posted my list of my ten fave singers. [Please follow that link to read the explanation for how I decide who makes the list.] In that time, I've been exposed to a lot of new voices, my tastes have morphed, etc. So, time to introduce some new names [and, alas, demote/lose a few, but I'm sure they'll survive]:

And an honourable mention for a recent discovery, Cliff Bennett!

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something I am grateful for today

2022-04-30T00:01:20Z

a special moment of peace today

I was out on my own, driving around, a lovely day, cool tunes playing.... and suddenly it occurred to me that my late brother Artie woulda liked to have been there, too. He would appreciate being out on the road on such a nice day. And he would appreciate such cool tunes. And for a while I felt closer to him.

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something I am grateful for today

2022-04-22T13:57:07Z

new Delvón Lamarr Organ Trio album out today!

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something I am grateful for today

2022-02-11T13:27:46Z

new Delvón Lamarr Organ Trio album drops today!

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#30DaySongChallenge - Day 27

2020-05-23T13:32:07Z

Day 27: A song that calms you down

Spring Ain't Here by The Mighty Pat

Anyone who can't grasp the exquisite chill-out groove of this number is best off just not talking to me, I guess....

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#30DaySongChallenge - Day 24

2020-05-18T16:38:51Z

Day 24: A song with lyrics you love

The Dear Departed Past by Dave Frishberg

Dave Frishberg is one of my fave songwriters, he's a worthy pianist, and I love his voice (which I once heard perfectly described as “avuncular”). He's also one of few who can get me to really pay attention to lyrics, and this is probably my all-time fave piece of lyric writing. Not just for its message, but for its level of craft. His accomplished use of internal rhyme, his skill in keeping long sentences coherent, his ability to use words like antiquarian or disenfranchised in such a way that they flow smoothly and fit perfectly and draw almost no attention to their own rarity. A master.

Here are the first few lyrics from this song, recalled from memory as I heard them in his first recording of this song on his Live at Vine Street album:

Am I hopelessly old-fashioned
'Cause I'm harboring a passion for the olden days?
Is my sense of time so out of joint
It's starting to distort my point of view?
Does my antiquarian brain contain
Imaginary memories of golden days?
Can one feel a real nostalgia
For a time and place one never even knew?

I anticipate times to come
With something less than jubilation
And I'm looking to times gone by
With something more and more like admiration

Here's to the dear departed past
The musty magazines
The sepia-tinted scenes
Of long-forgotten places
Here's to the dear departed past
The photographs you find
That seem to bring to mind
Familiar family faces

That's when every sky was bluer
Clouds seemed to disappear back then
That's when every friend was truer
Ah, but then again
Didn't they know you when?

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#30DaySongChallenge - Day 22

2020-05-17T12:49:03Z

Day 22: The song you'd play at your wedding

Begin the Beguine by Artie Shaw

When I was younger I went to a lot more weddings than I do lately, and it seemed to me that I almost always heard this being played at the reception. Once or twice when I hadn't heard it yet, I went up to the DJ to request it and he always had it. So, over the years, I came to think of this as A Wedding Song®.

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#30DaySongChallenge - Day 13

2020-05-07T19:03:27Z

Day 13: A song you like from the 60s/70s/80s
(You can pick one or do them all!)

60s - Slow Blues by Duke Ellington

70s - Lovin' You Ain't Easy by Pagliaro

80s - Mad Jack by The Chameleons

My sixties choice surprised me a little bit, but I realized that I once, purely for the helluvit, whittled down my Desert Island List® to a Desert Island Top Ten, as if my island limited me to only ten songs, and Slow Blues was the only song from the sixties that made the cut for that cruelly truncated list.

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#30DaySongChallenge - Day 9

2020-05-04T13:15:05Z

Day 9: A song that makes you want to h*ve s*x

Los Desperados by Gato Barbieri

In the late 70s, I knew someone who used Gato's Caliente! album as her Sex Soundtrack®. And, timing being what it is, when this song played was also usually around the time that at least one of us was cumming. So for me this song became The Sound of Orgasm®. Also, Gary King's bass playing is succulent.

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#30DaySongChallenge - Day 3

2020-04-28T15:01:08Z

Day 3: Your favorite post-breakup song

Maybe You'll Be There as recorded by Diana Krall

It's not that I associate this song with any particular breakup, but I find it does a great job of capturing my feeling in general. Diana's version is, for me, particularly touching. Some people dismiss her as being too commercial, on account of her phenomenal success, but when I listened to her work closely, I found more genuine quality and depth than I went in expecting. She clicks with me.

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something I am grateful for today

2020-02-12T00:38:28Z

The life and work and artistry of Pat Metheny Group keyboardist Lyle Mays, who left us yesterday. Lyle was always one of my fave keyboardists, and in fact at first I was listening to PMG for him more than for The Mighty Pat, who took me longer to appreciate...

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inspiration list

2019-05-05T19:34:57Z

Someone on Instagram recently asked us to name our current inspirations. I decided to share my own list as it occurred to me, just to show you where my head is at these days. So go nuts with it:

Tonči Zonjić
Alice Munro
Maeve Binchy
Alex Toth
Randy Reynaldo
Anthony Auffret
Jean-Claude Mézières
Tomas Kubowicz
Charlie Dowd
Delvon Lamarr
Hank Mobley
Mary Oliver
Pema Chödrön

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music in heavy rotation

2019-03-16T14:33:04Z

There is a group of musical artists that I tend to play every month, on average, and a group that I play about every other week. The odd thing about these groups is that it doesn't have a lot to do with how much I love their music -- many of my absolute fave artists do not appear on these lists at all. Also, these lists tend to slowly morph over time. But, for whatever reason, the lists do seem to occur and I can't help noticing. As things stand at this moment, here they are:

Monthly

Bye Bye Badman
The Chameleons
Collective Soul
Grant Green
The Mighty Scott Hamilton
Yusef Lateef
Love
The Mighty Pat Metheny
The Mock Turtles
Thelonious Monk
Rialto
Ride
Sonny Rollins
Horace Silver

Bi-Weekly

Adorable
Arctic Monkeys
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Donald Byrd
The Dream Academy
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio
Hank Mobley
Ocean Colour Scene
Shed Seven
Swim Deep

Notable exceptions: for about the past ten or fifteen years, I have been listening to The Charlatans every week. And for about the past seven years, I have been listening to Sulk every day.

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something I am grateful for today

2019-01-29T22:25:57Z

rediscovering -- as I do periodically -- the unique, self-contained musical universe of Duke Ellington

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something I am grateful for today

2019-01-17T17:42:47Z

filling a hole in my Mighty Chris collection

I've been trying to find this album for over twenty years. And sometimes I have been able to find it -- for $100+, used. Which has never been doable or justifiable for me -- not even for the sake of my Mighty Chris collection. At last, I managed to find a copy [used, of course] for $12. Now that's more like it. Cue sigh of relief and contented little smile.

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birthday wishes

2019-01-02T00:52:59Z

to The Mighty Chris Potter

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something I am grateful for today

2018-11-21T16:13:09Z

the performances and compositions of Hank Mobley

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something I am grateful for today

2018-11-06T16:23:09Z

driving to a soundtrack of Delvon Lamarr

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InkTober2018 Day 28 of 31 - "gift"

2018-10-28T10:42:54Z

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something I am grateful for today

2018-10-12T15:53:51Z

Paul Desmond

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