One of my favorite finds this summer was this classy vanity lounge LP on the mysterious SAMHOT label which also boasts the legendary Gordon Thomas. There are some strange similarities between the two men's vocal styles, and also a persuasion for singing odes to their favorite girls. I decided to post this one up now because one of my favorite songs on it is actually a really swell original Christmas song, "Christmas Time". Just so nice… I also included one of his 'girl-songs' for 'Gloria', which is tops, and includes one of the best sung pick-up lines ever, "Jeans, jeans, jeans, jeans, jeans, jeans, jeans, looking good in your blue jeans" (you kind of just have to hear him do it), followed by lively supper-club soloing on trumpet, guitar, keyboards, and organ. What's odd is that when you flip the LP over its the same band but a little funkier and backing a Bermudan singer named Julia Steele. It's actually pretty great too… And all topical songs about the island! Totally oddball record with a great atmosphere I like to revisit when it gets cold outside.

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I'm not usually so big on big band/stage band music these days, but there is still something about a tight, well played, forward thinking arrangement that can still hook me in on any given day. This LP from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside's premier jazz ensemble from 1979 is a case in point. I picked this up on a whim one day because basically I was having trouble finding LPs to actually buy. I'm pretty glad I did because even though it's from a time period I don't usually like too much it's actually a really good listen throughout, well recorded and you can tell that the band, as well as their director Tim Bell knew what they were doing. Judging by the liner notes, this group was pretty well regarded in it's day, travelling out of state to play and receiving "Outstanding Band Honours" at the 1975, '78 and '79 Midwest Jazz Festivals. This LP is full of good stuff in a very modern jazz vein, the soundfile below is pretty indicative of the sound, recommended and should be easy to find.

Phonk A Trois

I have been freaking out the last couple weeks trying to find this, er, "gem" in time to post for Xmas. I tore through box after box, knowing that I'd set it aside just for this occasion, but it was nowhere to be found! I gave up a few days ago. Of course, today I found it in a random box. Yay!

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If you are like me, you have always had some vague notion of what Kwanzaa is. I always understood it as an 80's creation, mainly as a non-Christian non-Capitalist multi-cultural holiday alternative to Christmas. Something defined by what it IS NOT rather than by what it IS. You get me? Well thanks to this little record from Philadelphia, any questions I may had have been answered. And Then Some! HAPPY KWANZAA EVERYBODY!!

Every Easter weekend since 1963 has seen the National Jazz Festival held in my home city of Tauranga, New Zealand. For a number of those early festivals through to the 1980s, highlights were recorded & released on a compilation LP. This one documents the sixth festival from 1968. Granted, although I haven't actually lived in Tauranga for a bit over ten years now, I am still a semi-regular visitor there & try to make it down there to see family & some decent beaches at least a couple of times a year. I am usually a patron of what passes for the jazz festival these days (see corny trad faux New Orleans style rave ups & mediocre boogie blues bands have been abundant the last few years) and there are usually a handful of quality performances to be seen even though it seems at times as though the culture of drinking alcohol eclipses the musical offerings to many of the festival goers.

This LP definitely harkens back to something of a "golden age" for New Zealand Jazz and here we can witness the stirrings of local musicians starting to think away from the Trad styles of the early 20th Century (1968 falling towards the end of the sixties Trad revival movement) and expanding the Bop styled Modern Jazz ideals away from the 1950s Bop/Cool et al. hybrids. So we see local musicians embracing not only the popular Bossa Nova style but also hinting toward a Soul Jazz & more free style of modern Jazz explorations. Read more