Category: Music

Friends, somehow this spring’s book sale sneaked up on me, so I only found an opportunity to visit it on half price day today. Which worked out all right for me, as I only spent thirty some dollars on records.

Which is 61 LPs, double-albums, and boxed sets.

I got:

1. Asilos de Abandonados Miguel Aceves Mejia
2. Entre Copa y Copa Miguel Aceves Mejia
3. Canta…Los Huapangos de Oro Miguel Aceves Mejia
4. Con Mariachi Los Panchos
5. Midnight Time The Three Suns
6. Help Is On The Way Melissa Manchester
7. Romantic Jazz Jackie Gleason
8. Trumpet A Go Go James Last Band
9. El Nuevo Trio Los Panchos Trio Los Panchos
10. Greatest Hits Boots Randolph
11. Court and Ceremonial Music of the 16th Century Roger Blanchard Ensemble with the Poulteau Consort
12. Songs of Italy 101 Strings
13. Sings Spanish and Latin American Favorites Connie Francis
14. 1100 Bel Aire Place Julio Iglesias
15. The Sound of Boots Boots Randolph
16. The Best of Vicki Carr Vicki Carr
17. The Yakin’ Sax Man Boots Randolph
18. Heart Like A Wheel Linda Ronstadt
19. Songs of the Seasons in Japan 101 Strings
20. The Manhattan Transfer The Manhattan Transfer
21. Maynard Ferguson Maynard Ferguson
22. Forever Gold The Isley Brothers
23. Fall Into Spring Rita Coolidge
24. Love Me Again Rita Coolidge
25. Everything Under the Sun The Three Suns
26. Men of Brass Massed Brass Bands of Foden’s, Fairey Aviation and Morris Motors
27. 1980 Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson
28. Como Swings Perry Como
29. Miriam Makeba Miriam Makeba
30. Lead, Kindly Light The Three Suns
31. Cocktail Piano Frankie Carle
32. So Early in the Spring Jackie Collins
33. 30 Hits of the Tuneful ’20s Frankie Carle
34. Look to the Rainbow Al Jarreau
35. El Gallo Colorado Miguel Aceves Mejia
36. A Treasury of the Award-Winning Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass The Longines Symphonette Society
37. Lo Mejor De Miguel Aceves Mejia (box set) Miguel Aceves Mejia
38. Lo Mejor De Amalia Mendoza (box set) Amalia Mendoza
39. Lo Mejor De Jose Alfredo Jimenez Jose Alfredo Jimenez
40. It Must Be Him Vicki Carr
41. Le Monde Musical de Baden Powell Volume 2 Baden Powell
42. Ecos de Cuba Trio Matamoros
43. Even in the Quietest Moments Supertramp
44. Sweet Talk Boots Randolph
45. Spanish Fly Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
46. Love Is A Season Eydie Gorme
47. Louis and Keely Louis Prima and Keely Smith
48. Cocktail Time Frankie Carle
49. The Fantastic Boots Randolph Boots Randolph
50. Portrait of My Love Steve Lawrence
51. Golden Saxophones Billy Vaughn and His Orchestra
52. Come Waltz with Me Steve Lawrence
53. Cantos de Amor Campriano Miguel Aceves Mejia
54. Para Cantar Yo Naci Miguel Aceves Mejia
55. Classical Cats
56. A Man and a Woman (Un Homme et Une Femme) Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
57. Die Große Stereo-Starparade – Folge 3
58. Soulful Dionne Warwick
59. The Road to Romance Dorothy Lamour
60. Bourbon Street Pete Fountain and Al Hirt
61. Also Sprach Zarathustra Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Honey, I didn’t buy 100 LPs, I told my beautiful wife via text message to soften her up.

I am not sure it worked.

I jumped on someone’s former collection of Miguel Aceves Mejia; on first listen, it’s more traditional Mexican music than the pop that I have tended to favor. I got a couple of other box sets akin to his that will likely prove similar.

I got some more Frankie Carle, The Three Suns, Boots Randolph, and Vicki Carr to add to my catalog of their LPs.

I’ve also started the slide into 80s pop (Supertramp and Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam) since that music is coming on 35 years old now. As close to today as Sinatra was to us. You might hear a song or two on the radio from these bands, maybe, but I really need to pick up the source material because the stuff on radio playlists is so shallow in breadth. Can you be shallow in breadth? On this blog, you can!

I also got some books, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what I got.

You know, my beautiful wife owns a number of Styx albums, including at least one on vinyl, but I really don’t like many of their songs.

But one, “Show Me The Way”, struck a chord with me.

It came out in 1990, when I was transitioning from an awkward high school student into an awkward college student. I moved from small town Missouri back to the city of Milwaukee, and I certainly could have used some guidance.

I still can.

I often think of Styx as a seventies band, but this hit was from 1990.

Kind of how I think of the Rolling Stones as a sixties band, but they charted records well into the 1980s. But the radio playlists really focus on the greatest hits of both bands, which are the early hits.

Well, Gimlet didn’t say this recently. He mentioned in 2012 that I was not familiar with Iron Maiden’s “Phantom of the Opera”.

You know, when I worked in an office, I played Iron Maiden at my desk all the time. My beautiful wife’s Iron Maiden, if I must confess all.

But working remotely, I haven’t listened to much Iron Maiden in the home office. Sometimes I do, but it’s not the go-to metal. Perhaps I rely a lot on my latest metal albums too heavily. I don’t even have any Iron Maiden on my gym playlist.

I should probably listen to some now. Care to join me?

Iron Maiden’s repetoire is so literate.

This week’s Bleat by James Lileks has a banner image of a comely woman reclining on a scattered collection of LP covers (and, presumably, LPs, but it’s a drawing, so we’re actually assuming everything).

Last year, I did a couple of posts about the album covers hanging at Classic Rock Coffee and how many of the albums I have (I and II).

So how did I do vis-à-vis the Bleat banner?

2. Frank Sinatra’s September of My Years and Dean Martin’s Houston.

And that’s a good thing.

A new jazz crush: Morgan James, here with Postmodern Jukebox, covering Aerosmith’s “Dream On”:

I may not have used Amazon’s official social media buttons, but I’ll share with you, gentle reader, that I just ordered her albums Hunter and Reckless Abandon.

What can I say? When I fall, I fall hard.

Springfield native Molly Healey has a new album coming out.

She plays cello and violin and sings, but she’s a is a little too folk to be in my wheelhouse:

But if I run across one of her CDs at a silent auction, I’ll probably overbid on it.

I had to take a trip to Kansas City on the Ides of February, so I stopped by the library to check out a couple of audio courses to listen to on the way up and back (in a day–it was seven hours of driving for about an hour of work appointment).

Since I liked Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion, I picked up this course to supplement what I learned from the earlier course. All the way up and back, I swapped discs between this course and one on the Old Testament (that I’m still listening to, so don’t expect to see it any time soon).

But I didn’t like this course as much.

For starters, it begins (hem) with a couple courses on listening to jazz where the lecturer talks about the sounds of jazz, the elements (hem) and how they evolved, and the instructor illustrates a bit on the trumpet (his instrument). But then the bulk of the course is a name-checking of jazz musicians and who they played with de-coupled from the sounds of the jazz they’re making. For some reason, probably rights issues, the courses themselves do not have music samples inline to illustrate what the lecturer is saying. Instead, the course includes a two-CD collection of jazz that originally accompanied another book or textbook, and the lecturer refers to sample songs by track number, and the bulk of this course has no music in it whatsoever.

The lecturer’s presentation was a little flat and a little uninspired, too, especially compared to the enthusiasm and humor expressed by the lecturer in Elements of Jazz.

So the whole course pales in comparison. Perhaps it would seem better if it was the only course you listened to or if you listened to them in the opposite order. Or if this was your only dabbling in jazz lectures. Or if you wanted more of a history of jazz.

As this was a library edition, I had to hasten it back to the library before I read the guide book that came with it, so I don’t really get to count it as a book read this year. Much like, perhaps, The Count of Monte Cristo.

For my birthday, my beautiful wife got me a two CD collection of Angela Bofill’s greatest hits. As you know, I’ve been accumulating her records for a couple of years now, and she’s becoming one of my favorite R & B musicians if not one of my current musical crushes:

A couple years ago I picked up the Walter Murphy Band’s A Fifth of Beethoven based on the weight of the title song which also appears on the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever and because one of the guys I know made a gag about it. My favorite song from that album is actually “California Strut”:

The booklet that came with the Angela Bofill CDs points out that she provided the vocal tracks for that particular song.

Coincidence? Or a discerning ear?

Please, choose the option which reflects best upon your host.

Because President’s Day was a holiday for only some of us, I took the boys out for the day so my beautiful wife could work in peace. We went bowling and to the (relatively) new Wonders of Wildlife museum and aquarium where I basically paid $50 to see a museum of things I try not to hit with my car.

To cap the day, we stopped at Relics Antique Mall to extend her worktime by another forty minutes or so.

I found the end cap where I’d spotted an unpriced Phoebe Snow album last year no longer had any albums, so I just picked through a couple bins on the middle row.

I spent less than $20 and got:

• City Kids by Spyro Gyra. Now that I know they’re Buckwheat Zydeco, I’m picking their stuff up here and there.
• Hero by Clarence Clemons, the E Street Band saxophonist. Apparently, the first song, “You’re a Friend of Mine” with Jackson Browne, was a hit, but I don’t remember it.
• Quincy Jones Plays Hip Hits
• Swing Along With Jonah Jones; he’s a jazz trumpeter who sounds like he might be trying to imitate Louis Armstrong a bit too strongly to stand out on his own. Still, it’s cool jazz. I saw another of his albums that I did not pick up this time, but I’ll look for it next time.
• She Works Hard for the Money by Donna Summer. So now that we’re almost to forty years past disco and thirty some years past the Eighties Sound, apparently I think they’re old enough to buy on vinyl.
• Hall of Fame featuring The McGuire Sisters and the De John Sisters.

It’s enough to keep my burgeoning record collection accumulation from seeming stale. For a couple of weeks.

I really enjoy the samba beat in this single, “You or Me”, from Janet Evra’s new album, Ask Her To Dance.

Although I’m only guessing samba; although it was briefly covered in Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion, I’ve already begun to forget what I might have learned from the course.

Janet Evra is also from the Saint Louis area (which explains why I saw her mentioned on WSIE’s Facebook page). I expect to get her new album when I feel comfortable just ordering new CDs on a whim again. Or for my upcoming birthday, since I spelled ‘Janet Evra‘ to my beautiful wife. Although I guess I did spell my last name to my beautiful wife at some point before I made her practice writing it over and over.