Brief Timeout

Guitars & All That Jazz is taking a brief timeout. Posting resumes Aug. 8.

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Various Artists - Planetary Pebbles, Vol. 1: Surfbeat Behind the Iron Curtain

Do you find the idea of surfing music in countries that were under the influence of the Soviet Union a bit strange? Me, too.

Although there are some fine instrumental sounds, recorded from 1963-66, to be heard on this CD released in 1997, the surfing influence isn't the strongest one on display. Most of the groups seem to be influenced by The Ventures (U.S) or The Shadows (U.K.), neither of which can be described as a surfing band.

The title of this album is also misleading on another front: Only about half the bands are actually from behind the so-called Iron Curtain. The rest are from West Germany, Japan, Italy, Holland and the U.K. Among them were The Capras, a West German outfit that was mainly a vocal group. Beginning of Autumn appears to be their only instrumental, which you can sample below.

Beginning of Autumn

Planetary Pebbles, Vol. 1: Surfbeat Behind the Iron Curtain is readily available from most of the major online merchants. The cheapest prices appear to be in the Amazon Marketplace. Be aware that all this stuff was dubbed from vinyl and surface noise is quite noticeable on some tracks.

Three volumes of the Planetary Pebbles series were released. Here's a video sample from Vol. 3, an East German group, Satelliten, playing something called Scary Night.

Sonny Stitt - Pow!

I've spotlighted saxophonist Sonny Stitt (1924-1982) once before, for a 1965 session that also featured organist Don Patterson.

The same year, Stitt entered the studio for another session that resulted in the album Pow! (not released until 1967), again for Prestige, this time in the company of trombonist Bennie (sometimes spelled Benny) Green. Also on the date were pianist Kirk Lightsey, bassist Herman Wright and drummer Roy Brooks. Below is a shortened version of one of the album's tracks, Blue Lights, taken from a promo 45 single. The full track on the LP runs about 7:40, but this'll give you a taste.

Blue Lights

Pow! had a brief release on CD in 1992 courtesy of Roulette Records. Copies are still around, but they aren't cheap. Used vinyl copies are likewise expensive. A legal download of the album isn't available.

Chet Atkins - Sails

When Chet Atkins left RCA for Columbia in 1982, he seemed to leave country music behind as well. Many of his releases for his new label fell into the categories of new age or that evolution of easy listening that's known as smooth jazz. There's a quite a bit of smooth but precious little jazz (where's the improvisation, for example?) as far as I can tell, but I digress.

No matter what genre he plays in, Atkins always brings a touch of class and elegance. Such is the case with Sails, a 1987 release that falls squarely in the new age category. There are guest appearances by fellow guitarists Earl Klugh and Mark Knopfler, but you'd never know it unless you read the liner notes. It's not a bad album -- it's just that nothing on it really grabs your attention. Maybe that's the point.

In any case, from it comes Why Worry, a Knopfler composition. The MP3 is taken from the vinyl album.

Why Worry

Sails has been almost constantly available since its first release and the album can easily be bought as a CD or a download. Both are reasonably priced.

Here's Chet and Steve Wariner performing the title song from Sails on a TV show. What show and the date of the performance aren't specified. Sound and picture quality is good.

Charlie Byrd, Barney Kessel & Herb Ellis - Great Guitars at the Winery

Charlie Byrd, Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis formed an unsurpassed jazz guitar supergroup and billed themselves as the Great Guitars, recording half a dozen albums for the Concord label, beginning in 1975.

After Kessel was incapacitated by a stroke in 1992, he was replaced by Mundell Lowe and Larry Coryell on the final Great Guitars album. Most of the recordings were live, including their third release, Great Guitars at the Winery, which came out on vinyl in 1980. A CD release followed a decade later.

The Benny Goodman-Charlie Christian classic Air Mail Special comes from that album, with the MP3 taken from the vinyl release.

Air Mail Special

The Great Guitars at the Winery CD has been out of print for a while, but inexpensive used copies are easy to obtain. It's not available as a download, but a couple of other releases by the Great Guitars are.

Air Mail Special is included in this nine-minute medley from a Great Guitars concert. No date or venue for the performance is given.

Esquivel - Other Worlds, Other Sounds

Quirky doesn't begin to describe the arrangements of Mexican orchestra leader Juan Garcia Esquivel (1918-2002). His use of exotic percussion and wordless vocals in the late 1950s and into the following decade made him the king of what later came to be known as bachelor pad or lounge music.

There was renewed interest in Esquivel when the lounge music revival began in the early 1990s, but he was never more than a cult figure whose off-the-wall musical ideas never really caught fire with a mass audience.

Still, his recordings are never less than interesting. Check out his imaginative stereo experiment on Begin the Beguine, from his ground-breaking 1958 LP Other Worlds, Other Sounds.

Begin the Beguine

Other Worlds, Other Sounds had a brief CD release in 1997 on the Bar None label. It was paired with the more straight-forward Four Corners of the World. This 2-on-1 CD is long out of print and super expensive on the collectors market, as are copies of the original RCA Victor LP.

However, a company called Master Classics has now reissued this 1997 release as a manufactured on demand CD-R or as a download. The source of this release is unclear, but I suspect it may be copied from the Bar None CD and is only being made available because it's out of copyright under European law. In any case, it's available from Amazon. Probably best to check the quality of this reissue before purchase if you can.

From YouTube, here's a second sample of Other Worlds, Other Sounds, Poinciana.

Wes Dakus & the Rebels - Cavalier Twist

Guitarist Wes Dakus and the Rebels emerged from Edmonton, Alberta, in 1958 as Canada's answer to America's Link Wray and Duane Eddy. But the mainly instrumental band made little impact outside of Alberta and other areas of Western Canada, despite airplay by stations across the country. In fact, most Canadians have probably never heard of them.

Many of Dakus's recordings were cut at the studios of producer Norman Petty in Clovis, N.M. Petty also recorded Buddy Holly and another mainly instrumental band, The Fireballs, in that facility.

Dakus's records were released on the Quality label in Canada and by various companies in the U.S., including Dot. Cavalier Twist was issued by Quality in 1962. The MP3 comes from a cassette compilation that was packaged with a Canadian-published instrumental discography in 1986.

Cavalier Twist



Cavalier Twist is available as a legal download from iTunes in Canada, the U.K. and Japan, but apparently not in the U.S.

In 2006, Super Oldies, a Minnesota-based company run by a former Canadian DJ began issuing all of the recordings of Wes Dakus and the Rebels on CD. There are now three volumes (Vol. 1, which includes Cavalier Twist, is pictured above). The only place these seem to be available is the company's website. I can't personally vouch for the quality of the product or the reliability of the company. The website is simple but professional and care appears to have been taken to put out well-packaged, remastered CDs aimed at collectors. The tracks also seem to have been properly licensed for CD release and there are glowing testimonials, including one from a former member of the Rebels. But the CDs do run $18 apiece, so I would probably proceed with slightly more caution than ordering from Amazon, for example.

Having said all that, this YouTube video of Dakus's recording of the lounge music favorite Taboo indicates that the technical quality of the Super Oldies CDs (from which this audio is lifted, according to the poster) is excellent. You be the judge.

Readers, please note the important information on the Super Oldies CDs in the comments below.

Gene Ammons' All Stars - The Big Sound

A session by tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons (1925-1974) at engineer Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack, N.J., on Jan. 3, 1958, resulted in two complete albums -- The Big Sound and Groove Blues, both of which are available almost everywhere on CD and as downloads.

Flutist Jerome Richardson, along with pianist Mal Waldron, bassist George Joyner and drummer Art Taylor, are on all four selections on The Big Sound. Richardson sits out one of the four tunes on Groove Blues and there are guest appearances on both albums by John Coltrane (alto sax), Paul Quinichette (tenor) and Pepper Adams (baritone). All eight selections are lengthy (the shortest runs 8½ minutes), with Ammons's own composition Blue Hymn, from The Big Sound, clocking in at just under 13 minutes.

Blue Hymn

From YouTube, here's Gene Ammons from 1962 with Pagan Love Song, obviously issued as a single and also on his album Bad Bossa Nova. The sound is much too clean to have actually been taken from the 45. It's also in stereo.

Rune Gustafsson - Rune at the Top

Swedish guitarist Rune Gustafsson, who died on June 12 at age 78, didn't limit himself to the world of jazz. He also composed film soundtracks, including for the 1992 Ingmar Bergmann release Sunday's Children.

Gustafsson was not well known in North America, although he recorded twice with saxophonist Zoot Sims -- The Sweetest Sounds, which came out under Gustafsson's name in 1980, and In a Sentimental Mood, which was Sims last album, released in 1984.

An early effort released in the U.S. in 1969 was Rune at the Top, but this collection of jazzed-up pop tunes received little notice. It's well worth a listen though, as you can hear on Wichita Lineman, available from the link below.

Wichita Lineman

Rune at the Top has not made the transition to the digital age, so your only legitimate source is used vinyl. Some of the prices are extravagant, but here's one that's not.

A few of Gustafsson's recordings are available as downloads. You can check here to see if there's anything that strikes your fancy. A couple of CDs are also still in print. They're available from Amazon at import prices.

Here's a black-and-white video of the Jan Johansson/Rune Gustafsson Quartet playing Night In Tunisia. No date is specified but it's likely from the early 1960s.

Quincy Jones - Quincy's Got a Brand New Bag

In the 1960s, many jazz musicians put out albums of pop and R&B covers in an effort to get more airplay (in some cases any airplay at all).

Quincy Jones was no exception and in 1965 he gathered the cream of Los Angeles session players to record Quincy's Got a Brand New Bag, a collection of a dozen short, radio-friendly tracks. Bassist Carole Kaye, guitarist Rene Hall and saxophonist Jackie Kelso were some of the studio stalwarts on the date, along with big band veterans like trumpeters Joe Newman and Bobby Bryant and trombonist Urbie Green. Ray Charles played piano on some tracks.

James Brown, The Supremes and Marvin Gaye were among the artists whose hits were given the big band treatment. The leadoff track was Gaye's most recent chart record, Ain't That Peculiar. The MP3 is taken from vinyl.

Ain't That Peculiar

Best bet on getting Quincy's Got a Brand New Bag in a digital format is to opt for the download, which is easily obtained. The only CD version is an ultra-expensive Japanese import. Used vinyl copies also tend to be pricey.

Here's a rare Quincy Jones 45 from 1962, via YouTube. Slob't is a tarted up version of St. Louis Blues.

The "A" side of this record (the song Mercury Records wanted DJs to play) was something called Twistin' Chicken. I probably don't need to tell you that neither side was a hit.

Roy Budd - Diamonds (soundtrack)

Gotta love those soundtracks for 1970s heist and private eye films -- lots of funk and jazz to accompany the action (or to try to maintain interest when the action is lacking).

British composer Roy Budd turned in a gem for Diamonds, a 1975 production shot in Israel. Robert Shaw plays dual roles and Richard (Shaft) Roundtree is along for the ride. Soul group The Three Degrees sing three selections, including the title theme.

Budd's score, which had a very limited release on LP in the United Kingdom and Italy, is full of jazzy grooves, including the boss-novaish Beauty and the Bass, which you can listen to and download from the link below.

Beauty and the Bass

The Diamonds soundtrack was reissued in 1999 on both LP (with a gatefold cover) and CD by the Cinephile label with this cover:

Copies of the CD version are easily available at a reasonable price. But an even better bet may be a 2011 release from Silva Screen which pairs Diamonds with another Roy Budd soundtrack -- The Stone Killer, a Charles Bronson film.

Soundtracks of both films are also available as downloads.

Here's another sampling of the Diamonds soundtrack, Thief on the Prowl, from YouTube:

Tommy Tedesco - Carnival Time

Tommy Tedesco was billed as the most recorded guitarist in history and he certainly seemed to live up to his reputation with his thousands of sessions in almost every conceivable style of music.

He was a member of the group of Los Angeles session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, which also included keyboardist Leon Russell, bassist Carole Kaye and drummers Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer.

I first became aware of Tedesco as the lead guitarist on some of the early releases in producer Tommy Garrett's 50 Guitars series. He was also, I learned later, front and centre on recordings by The Marketts, whose Surfer's Stomp was a Top 40 hit in 1962. But his list of pop and rock credits was seeminly endless, and included the Beach Boys, Frank Zappa, The Monkees and the Partridge Family.

Tedesco was also active in the TV and movie soundtrack scene, lending his guitar to such series as The Mickey Mouse Club, Bonanza and The Twilight Zone.

Jazz became Tedesco's primary focus beginning in 1978, and there were half a dozen albums over the next five years, including Carnival Time, a live set by his trio released in 1983. The link to the title track is below. The MP3 is from a cassette version of the album.

Carnival Time

Jimmy Bruno and Jon Kurnick were the other guitarists in the Tommy Tedesco Trio for Carnival Time, with Bruno composing the title tune.

All of Tedesco's jazz albums are out of print, with Fine Fretted Friend, his final offering released in 1992 (Tedesco died, age 67, of lung cancer in 1997), the easiest to obtain on CD at a reasonable price. Only his 1986 album Hollywood Gypsy is available as a download.

Here's Tommy Tedesco playing a wonderful solo version of Nature Boy at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles. Uploaded to YouTube by Tedesco's son, Denny.

Gene Ludwig - Blue Flame

Ever notice how many of the great jazz organists came from Pennsylvania? Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, and from an earlier era, Bill Doggett, all hailed from the Philadelphia area. And from Pittsburgh came Gene Ludwig, who was the last major jazz organist from the 1960s still active when he died in 2010.

Ludwig switched to organ from piano after seeing Smith perform at a Pittsburgh club. Although he never achieved the level of popularity of Smith and McGriff, Ludwig performed steadily for nearly 50 years.

Blue Flame was the B-side of a one-off single recorded for singer Johnny Nash's Jocida label in 1966. Listen to and download it from the link below.

Blue Flame

The A-side of this single was Mother Blues and here it is from YouTube.

Neither of these tunes has been released on CD to my knowledge nor are they available as legal downloads. However, about half a dozen of Ludwig's albums are widely available on CD and as downloads.

Chris Barber's Jazz Band - Wild Cat Blues

Chris Barber was the man who spearheaded the British trad jazz movement (its American equivalent was the revival of interest in Dixieland jazz), beginning in the late 1950s.

Barber's Jazz Band had a worldwide hit in 1958 with Petite Fleur, an update of a much earlier recording by clarinetist Sidney Bechet. The new recording spotlighted Monty Sunshine on clarinet.

On the flip side of Petite Fleur was Wild Cat Blues, a traditional jazz tune written by Clarence Williams and Fats Waller. Sunshine is again featured on clarinet, while Barber puts his normal instrument, the trombone, aside to play the upright bass. Lonnie Donegan, who was backed by the Barber band on his hit recording of Rock Island Line several years earlier, plays banjo. The MP3 is taken from vinyl.

Wild Cat Blues

A plethora of Chris Barber's recordings, including Petite Fleur and Wild Cat Blues, is available via downloads from numerous sources. Best bet on CD for Barber's classic recordings from 1956-58 is The Pye Jazz Anthology. It's out of print but copies are still available in the Amazon Marketplace and elsewhere.

From a Berlin concert in 2011, Barber and the band perform Wild Cat Blues. Barber begins on the upright bass, the instrument he played on the original recording, then switches to trombone. He was 81 years old when this concert took place.

Meade Lux Lewis - Out of the Roaring Twenties

This 1956 album for ABC-Paramount came late in the career of Meade Lux Lewis (he died in 1964 at age 58), one of the three great boogie-woogie pianists, along with Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, who helped start the boogie-woogie craze when they appeared at impresario John Hammond's 1938 Spirituals to Swing concert in New York.

Lewis had made the classic boogie-woogie recording Honky-Tonk Train Blues in 1927 when he was playing regularly in the Chicago area, but was reportedly working in a carwash when Hammond called on him to appear at the '38 concert.

Lewis worked in music pretty steadily after that, although by the time the session for ABC-Paramount came around he was largely forgotten.

Admittedly, this isn't one of his better moments in the recording studio. The piano sounds tinny and he's joined by an unidentified drummer and bassist on some tracks. Still, Lewis manages to coax some pretty sweet sounds out of his inferior instrument on Ain't She Sweet, which you can listen to and download below.

Ain't She Sweet

Out of the Roaring Twenties is widely available as a download (but not on CD). However, it comes from the British imprint Hallmark, infamous for its substandard transfers from vinyl. Definitely listen before buying.

This video, date and source unknown, has some good footage of Meade Lux Lewis at the piano. Couple of audio and video glitches, but still well worth three minutes of your time.

Ronnie James & the Jez Hot Swing Club

Ronnie James and the Jez Hot Swing Club were a product of the swing revival in the 1990s and this 1995 self-titled release on Intersound appears to be their only album. Some copies of the CD were entitled Wanna Swing? and had a different cover.

For me the tracks to concentrate on are the three swing classics -- Sweet Georgia Brown, Basin Street Blues and China Boy -- that come at the end of the album. Most of the rest of the songs are James originals and just don't resonate with me.

See what you think about Basin Street Blues, available from the link below.

Basin Street Blues

There's little information available about Ronnie James and the Jez Hot Swing Club, other than that they come from Philadelphia and for this album at least had Vince Montana, former leader of disco's Salsoul Orchestra, on vibes. James is a guitarist.

If you're intrigued by the band's sound, new and used copies of their CD are available for next to nothing in the Amazon Marketplace. There's no download version.

London Studio Orchestra - Endless Love

Here's yet another in the seemingly endless series of anonymous recordings credited to the London Studio Orchestra and its twin the London Starlight Orchestra. Many of these are entirely electronic in nature and are best left in the thrift store bins where they normally reside.

Endless Love is somewhere in the middle of the pack, quality wise. There's a real instrument or two amidst the synth strings and drum machines. Of course, some people actually prefer ersatz orchestras. No accounting for taste, etc.

In any case, you can listen and download the London Studio Orchestra's version of George Michael's Careless Whisper. The MP3 is from a cassette version of the album.

Careless Whisper

The two-CD set of Endless Love, released in 1988, is no longer in print nor is it available as a legal download. However, a quick Google search there are several blogs that have posted this album in the last couple of years if you really must have it. And check those thrift store bins!

Clark Terry/Bob Brookmeyer Quintet - Tonight

Horn greats Clark Terry (trumpet) and Bob Brookmeyer (trombone) made three LPs with their quintet for the Mainstream label between 1964 and 1966, the first of which was Tonight. This was reissued in 1971 as Clark Terry-Bobby [!!!] Brookmeyer Quintet as pictured below.

From the original album, the tracks Blindman, Blindman and Straight No Chaser were paired on a 45. Both selections were short so neither was edited (in other words, faded after about three minutes as was common for jazz 45s) for the single release. Listen to and download Blindman, Blindman from the link below. The MP3 is taken from the 45.

Blindman, Blindman

All three Terry/Brookmeyer quintet albums were combined on a double-CD release in 2005 on Spain's Lone Hill Jazz label. Complete Studio Recordings is still available.

As well, all of the quintet's studio recordings are available as downloads from the usual sources.

Here's a video (no date or source given) of the Clark Terry-Bob Brookmeyer Quintet performing Straight, No Chaser, the slip side of the Blindman 45.