TWO PAIRS OF LOCKED HANDS

André Persiany - Milt Buckner

Requiem Pour Un Chat

LP LIFDIS / Le Chant Du Monde ‎– A.J 1010 - France, 1973

The locked hands technique developed by Milt Buckner might not be everyone's idea of jazz piano. Some people - starting with my good friend Paul D. - do not like it.  I do and I have always considered this album a must for fans of « old style » piano : stride, blues, swing and boogie woogie.  The first track “Requiem pour un Chat” is a terrific piano blues duet. I just love hearing Milt's grunts as he gets deep in the groove.  The whole album is pretty good and has been a favorite for over thirty years.

Milton Brent "Milt" Buckner (10 July 1915 – 27 July 1977) was an American jazz pianist and organist, originally from St. Louis, Missouri. He was orphaned as a child, but an uncle in Detroit (trombone player John Tobias) taught him to play. Buckner pioneered the parallel chords style which influenced Red Garland, George Shearing, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson.

He first played in Detroit with the McKinney Cotton Pickers and then with Cab Calloway. In 1941 he joined Lionel Hampton's big band, and for the next seven years served as its pianist and staff arranger. He led a short-lived big band of his own for two years, but then returned to Hampton's in 1950. In 1952 he formed his own trio, concentrating on the Hammond organ. He often played in Europe in the late 60's and recorded prolifically for European labels such as Saba, MPS and Black & Blue.

Buckner pioneered the use of the electric organ. He died in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of sixty-two.

Buckner's brother, Ted Buckner, was a noted jazz saxophonist.

André Persiany was born André Paul Stephane Persiani in Paris on November 19, 1927.  He was a versatile bebop accompanist who led his own groups from 1946 on. Influenced by Milt Buckner, Persiany played in the pianist/organist's familiar locked-hands style. He recorded in Paris with American expatriates like Sidney Bechet, Buck Clayton, Lionel Hampton, Bill Coleman and Mezz Mezzrow until 1956, when he came to America. Persiany spent most of the 1960s working in trumpeter Jonah Jones' quartet.

Persiany's career hit a peak in the 1970s after he returned to France. His expat collaborations continued with Buckner, Cat Anderson, Arnett Cobb, Buckner, Charlie Shavers and Budd Johnson. Among Persiany's own recordings were Swinging Here and There (1958, Pathé), The Real Me (1970, Black & Blue) and Every Night at Furstemburg (1977, Open).

This LP was recorded on March 21,1973 at the Steinway Studio in Paris.

Tracklist

A1       Requiem Pour Un Chat           6:59

A2       Stinky                                     7:09

A3       La Très Jolie Gwendoline       6:37

B1       What A Mess For A Bass        7:15

B2       Tophie's Dream                       5:05

B3       Boogie-Woogie For Edith        4:15

B4       Slide, Jimmy Slide, Flash        1:30

Credits

Piano – André Persiany, Milt Buckner

Bass – Roland Lobligeois

Drums – Roger Paraboschi

Cover by Pierre Mas

With special thanks to Paul D. for the rip, especially considering that he is no fan of block chords / lock hands style.  Merci Paul pour ta patience.

Little blues and nothing revolutionnary

The Revolutionary Blues Band 

LP Coral (US, 1970)

It’s summer time, very hot here in Morocco, so I’ll go for the least effort solution.  Posting albums that I own in my collection but re-using rips collected from the net over the years.   Too hot for new rips, and anyway I’m 3000 km from my vinyl collection.  So I’ll cheat.

This one was another discount bin perennial.  I must confess that my friends and I were somewhat disappointed when we first heard it (in the early seventies).  My friend Dédé had bought it (Place du Jeu de Balle, probably) because of Tom Scott playing on it.  We all had bought a copy of Rural StillLife (on Impulse) and we were hoping for something similar. It wasn't. By the way, Rural Still Life remains my all time favourite Tom Scott album.

Then the band had “blues band” in its moniker and in terms of blues we were into Butterfield Blues Band, Dirty Blues Band ... and here was the name of Rod Piazza, of Dirty Blues Band / Bacon Fat fame. Second disappointment, the band did not sound at all like any of those blues bands. 

I never understood at what type of audience such an album was aimed.  Not the blues fan, not the rock fan, not the straight jazz fan ...  The album was produced by Bob Thiele and is very much in the line of some instrumental MOR albums on Flying Dutchman.  It’s gently soul jazzy / funky. It's not smooth jazz yet but, with hindsight, one could see the direction Scott was heading to.

David Bennett Cohen (of Country Joe & the Fish fame, remember "Section 43"?) was on piano (and perhaps guitar also).

David Cohen (source: his website)

Soul Blues stalwart Arthur Adams (Crusaders, Jimmy Smith ...) plays the funky guitar.  No idea about the bass and drums.

Arthur Adams (Source:BlindPig Records)

Arrangements are by Gene Page (Love Unlimited, Philly Sound).  All tracks are instrumentals but one "That's The Truth Baby" featuring vocalist Lightnin Red Jones (no idea who that bloke could be).

I had not listened to this album for ages until Red Telephone66 posted it a few years back (that's where this rip comes from).  It’s not half as bad as I thought.    If you like late 60s  jazzy bluesy instrumentals in the vein of Monk Higgins, Freddie Robinson, Phil Upchurch  ... you’ll probably enjoy this album.  Last year my friend Dédé gave me his copy (and a few other LPs) and I'm quite happy to have it in my collection.  Thanks mate!

Track Order:

01.       Juicy

02.       Milkman, Milkman Leave Me Some Cream Today

03.       Lanoola Goes Limp

04.       That's The Truth Baby

05.       Have A Little Bit More

06.       Take Me Back To Tennessee

07.       Cutting The Mustard

08.       Ring My Chimes

09        Funky Lady

10.       Dirty Town Blues

Never re-issued on CD.  Thanks to whoever put the cover photos on Discogs.

RAGS, JUGS & STEAM

THE GREAT METROPOLITAN STEAM BAND  (USA, 1969)

LP Coral ‎– COPS 2162  (Germany)

This album has been in my collection for some 40 years.  A discount bin classic, very typical of the eclectic variety of records one could find in discount bins in the early 70s.  Jugband music had never been especially commercial apart perhaps for a short time in the late twenties / early thirties (Hokum as it was called then).  There had been some attempts at revival during the Sixties “Washington Square” folk boom, with aggregations such as Jim Kweskin Jug Band, the Even Dozen Jug Band and the Holy Modal Rounders and even in UK during the blues boom (Panama Ltd Jugband …).  The Great Metropolitan Steam Band is pretty much in the same vein, they only came five years too late and (probably) from Boston area.

The Great Metropolitan Steam Band appears to be a few years late on a couple musical fads, both for its freaky cover art and the old-timey risque jazz/blues music contained within. This is a faithful and well-executed example of the genre, though, despite using what sounds like an electric bass rather than a stand-up.

This LP is often listed as “psychedelic” because of its artwork (and to try to cash on the vogue of psych’ records among collectors).  There is absolutely no hint of psychedelia or even rock music, just good old unadulterated jug band blues / hokum.

The album was released on DECCA in UK and MCA in USA.

The Great Metropolitan Steam Band: Decca Recording Artists. Ca. 1968-69.

l to r : Rocky Rockwood, Elliot (rhymes with Lenin) Kenin, Bonnie Bagley, Peter (Sy) Simmonds.

Credits

There is no indication of the participating musicians.  Some researches on the Net yielded results.  It seems the band was made of:

Bonnie Bagley, a fairly impressive singer in the Ethel Merman's excentric vocal tradition. But it works well!    She  worked with various old style / trad  jazz bands over the years (New Black Eagle JazzBand ). Think of an American Ottilie Patterson.

Rocky Rockwood on guitar, mandolin & harmonica

Eliot Kenin (banjo) – also listed as producer

Peter (Sy) Simmonds (bass ?)

Guests were apparently Gary B. White, Paul Geremia and Frank Wakefield.

Geremia is a pretty well-known guitarist & singer with a LONG recorded history, including a very rare LP from the late 1960s on Sire/London.  Frank Wakefield is a renowned bluegrass performer who was associated with the Old And In The Way family (Jerry Garcia & all).

Tracks

01.       Blues Ain't Nothin'

02.       Keep Your Hands Off Her

03.       Doctor Jazz

04.       Cocaine Blues

05.       Spare Change Rag

06.       It's Tight Like That

07.       I Want A Big Butter And Egg Man

08        Jackass Blues

09.       How Sweet I Roamed From Field To Field

10        Cold In Hand

11.       Basin Street Blues

The track “How Sweet I Roamed From Field To Field” is actually a poem by William Blake and was recorded by the Fugs on their first album in a mock-bluegrass arrangement.

Song: How sweet I roam'd from field to field

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

How sweet I roam'd from field to field,

And tasted all the summer's pride,

'Till I the prince of love beheld,

Who in the sunny beams did glide!

He shew'd me lilies for my hair,

And blushing roses for my brow;

He led me through his gardens fair,

Where all his golden pleasures grow.

With sweet May dews my wings were wet,

And Phoebus fir'd my vocal rage;

He caught me in his silken net,

And shut me in his golden cage.

He loves to sit and hear me sing,

Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;

Then stretches out my golden wing,

And mocks my loss of liberty.

Here we are with an obscure and forgotten jugband album with links to William Blake, the Grateful Dead / Jerry Garcia extended family (Old & in the Way) and the Fugs.

The rip is not mine, it comes from an old post on Red Telephone 66.  It’s 192 k.  If you want a better sound quality, check Eliot Kenin. (but the info dates from 2010).   I hope he won’t mind me posting this (low bitrate) rip.  I certainly don’t want to rip off the old guy.

BACK TO THE BLUES!

SAM LAY IN BLUESLAND

Blue Thumb, USA, 1970

 Great rare blues LP

I haven’t posted a real blues album for a long while.  Blues music was my first musical love affair.  And close to fifty years later, I’m still in love with the Blues.  The blues paved the way for my discovery of rhythm & blues, soul, funk and jazz.

If it wasn't for the blues, I'd be nowhere, musically speaking.  And all that because of a few British white boys called The Stones, The Animals, The Yardbirds ...  They opened a door for me, they introduced me to Jimmy Reed, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Elmore  ...

Here is a long-forgotten, never re-issued album by great blues drummer SAM LAY (Howlin’ Wolf band, Muddy Waters, Butterfield Blues Band a.o.).

There is no mention of the musicians in the sleeve notes.  

Based on aural and historical evidences, the following line-up is usually suggested :

Sam Lay : Vocals & Drums

Mike Bloomfield : Guitar  (not credited)

Nick Gravenites : Vocals

Mark Naftalin : Piano, organ  

Jerome Arnold ??? : Bass (not credited)

Paul Butterfield ??? : Harmonica   (not credited)

Side 1

01. Maggie's Farm (5.20)

02. Mean Mistreater (4.32)

03. Sam Lay & Mississipi John (5.05)

04. Crying For My Baby (3.25)

Side 2

01. Sloopy Drunk (3.15)

02. My Fault (3.59)

03. Roll Over Beethoven (2.50)

04. Asked Her For Water (7.30) - Vocals by Nick Gravenites

05. I Got My Mojo Workin' (3.24)

Recorded in November 1969 in San Francisco.  Produced by Nick Gravenites & Mike Bloomfield.

Encore!

Leo Wright Combo

Flöte + Alt-Sax = Leo Wright

LP AMIGA ‎– 8 50 056, German Democratic Republic (GDR) - 1966

Here is a contribution from an anonymous visitor who sent us a rip of the this rare album via onxidlib. It is the companion album to the one I posted in December.  The Leo Wright Combo was a Quintet that was built by Leo Wright for a Concert-Tour in the former German Democratic Republic in 1965.

In addition to Wright's excellent work on flute and alto sax, this album is another opportunity to hear the virtuosity and melodic invention of Andre Condouant, probably one of jazz most underrated guitar players.

A blues-drenched album not to miss!

Musicians

Leo Wright - Flute, Alto-Saxophone

"Dr. Blues" Candy Green - Vocals, Piano, Claviola

André Condouant - Guitar

Wolfgang Kraesse - Bass

Hartwig Bartz - Drums 

Tracks

A1       Encore                                              (Sonny  Stitt))

A2       It Might As Well Be Spring               (Rodgers)

A3       Down Home Kansas City Blues       (Candy Green)

A4       Kidney Stew                                     (Eddie Vinson)

B1       Every Day I Have The Blues            (Memphis Slim)

B2       Blues March                                     (James Moody)

B3       Grooving High                                  (Dizzy Gillespie)

I shall be eternally grateful to the Anonymous visitor for giving us the opportunity to hear this tremendous music.

And thanks to the person who uploaded the album pics on Discogs.

GOING DUTCH

GOLDEN BLUESSONGS

THE GUIDELINES QUARTET + KAZ LUX

LP Cherry Red Records CHLP3622,  NL, 1988

OK, the tracklist may not be especially enthralling, a collection of old jazz blues warhorses (hence the “Golden Bluessongs” of the album title) but this album has its moments.

It was recorded before it became fashionable for aging rock singers to record an album of jazz standards as a mark of respectability.  As it goes, this album works pretty well.  Kaz Lux‘s voice is well suited to the material and the Guidelines Quartet is top, they really swing these numbers!  No wonder when you look at the credentials of the four musicians making up the Guidelines Quartet:

Peter Guidi is one of Europe’s great jazz flautists (listen to his soli on “Need you by my side” or “What I want”).

Rob van Bavel is a well regarded Dutch jazz pianist and educator with extensive jazz credentials. In the late eighties he was a member of the Ben Van Den Dungen-Jarmo Hoogendijk Quintet (see my old post on the Brand New Orleans album to get the idea how those guys sounded).  

Hans Mantel is a well-known Dutch bassist, musicologist, producer and presenter for jazz on Dutch radio and television.

Drummer Hans van Oosterhout has performed with almost everybody, from Toots Thielemans to Randy Brecker  He has played on over 60 albums.

Vocalist Kaz Lux was the lead singer of 60s Dutch beat band Brainbox.  He also collaborated on a few albums with guitar virtuoso Jan Akkerman. 

Credits

Kaz Lux                      vocal

Peter Guidi                  sax & flute

Rob van Bavel            piano

Hans Mantel                bass

Hans van Oosterhout   drums

Tracks

•       I’m walking
•       Lost and looking
•       Ain’t nobody’s business
•       Need you by my side
•       Please send me someone to love
•       You are my sunshine
•       Route 66
•       Counting my tears
•       What I want

Recorded in Tilburg, NL - 1988

BOOGIE FOR EVERYBODY

Blues & Boogie 
Miriam Klein - Oscar Klein - Henry Chaix - Bob Carter - Hans Peter Giger ‎
LP Europa – E 385, Germany. 1969

Blues and boogie woogie were among my earliest musical loves and this LP has been a favourite for nearly 40 years.  

It’s on the Europa label, a discount label that was often sold in supermarkets.   The same label as the Emil Mangelsdorf album posted earlier and the St Tropez Jazz Octet posted on OIR a good while ago.

It is not even a rare album, it keeps on poppin’ up in used record bins.  I have three or four copies at home, each bought for about 1 Euro.  It probably deserves the title of the Most Overlooked Record– at least in Belgium where nobody seems to have the least idea of the quality of the musicians playing here.

So who do we have here?  Three Swiss, one Austrian and one American-Hawaiian!

Vocal : Swisss vocalist Miriam Klein first came into the public eye when she performed in Paris in the 1950s with Dexter Gordon, Pierre Michelot, Don Byas and Art Simmons. Later she attended Music School in Vienna and went back to Switzerland to work with the ensembles of her husband, trumpeter and guitarist Oscar Klein. It was in the 1960s and 1970 that she became known internationally.  In 1978 her album 'By Myself' was produced by concert management tycoon Horst Lippmann for the L+R label.  

Miriam Klein

Guitar, cornet, harmonica: Oscar Klein (5 January 1930 in Graz, Austria – 12 December 2006 in Baden-Württemberg) has, for many decades, been one of the top trad trumpeters/cornetists in Europe. In addition, he was a fine blues guitarist and a good harmonica player. Oscar Klein was an Austrian born jazz trumpeter who also played clarinet, harmonica, and swing guitar. His family fled the Nazis when he was young. He became known for "older jazz" like swing and Dixieland. In the early sixties he joined the famous Dutch Swing College Band in Holland as first trumpeter and he is to be found on several of their recordings. He was also a member of the Tremble Kids (MPS).  He played with Lionel Hampton, Joe Zawinul, Romano Mussolini ... and as a duo with bluesman Philadelphia Jerry Hicks.  In 1996 he was honored by then President Thomas Klestil.  

Oscar Klein

Piano: Henri Chaix, (21 February 1925, Geneva, Switzerland, d. 11 June 1999)  played piano from an early age, becoming professional while in his late teens. He played with a number of Swiss bands, eventually becoming a leader in the early 60s. He gained a strong local reputation and during the 50s, 60s and 70s was constantly on call as accompanist for visiting American jazz musicians. Among those with whom he played during these years were Sidney Bechet, Buck Clayton, Rex Stewart and Albert Nicholas. He also played an important role at many Swiss jazz festivals and throughout western and central Europe. A powerful and dynamic player, he displayed a marked penchant for the blues, and his solid accompaniment was of considerable merit. His solos demonstrated an imaginative approach to mainstream jazz. He occasionally played trombone.

Bass : Robert Kahakalau, better known as Bob Carter (b. February 11, 1922, New Haven, Connecticut) was an American jazz bassist and arranger.

Carter learned bass and guitar from his father, a vaudeville performer of Hawaiian heritage. He played in local orchestras from 1937 to 1940, toured from 1940 to 1942 and worked with his own trio in Boston in 1944. In 1944-45 he worked in various groups on 52nd Street in New York City, with Tony Scott, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Stuff Smith, and Charlie Shavers among others. Following time spent playing bebop with Allen Eager and Max Roach in 1946, he worked with Charlie Ventura from 1947 to 1949 and again in 1953-54. In the interim he played with Benny Goodman in 1949-50.

After his second stint with Ventura he studied composition with Wesley LaViolette. Later that decade his arrangements were used by Red Norvo, Bob Harrington, and Shelly Manne. He spent 1957-58 in Hawaii, then returned to New York in 1959, where he played with Bobby Hackett. In the early 1960s, he worked in Germany in the orchestra of Kurt Edelhagen. He did little playing after the end of the 1960s.

Drums :  Hans Peter Giger is a Swiss percussionist and bandleader with a musical career stretching over 50 years. In the sixties he worked as studio-musician in Paris, with Claude Bolling and others.  In then moved to Germany and took part in various experimental Kraut bands and projects (Dzyan, Drum Circus - with Joel Vandroogenbroeck) .  He joined the Albert Mangelsdorff Quintet in 1972. In 1977 he went out on his own with his project, the Family of Percussion, a percussion-only quartet, along with Trilok Gurtu, Doug Hammond and Tom Nicholas.

Peter Giger

Tracks

A1 Cafe Society Memories Written By – H. Chaix 2:20
A2 Black Sweet And Tall (Voc.) Written By – M. Klein 2:53
A3 Beatin' The Boogie Written By – H. Chaix 2:12
A4 Blue Valves Written By – O. Klein 2:58
A5 Two Timing Girls (Voc.) Written By – M. Klein 2:55
A6 Lazy Foot Written By – O. Klein 2:26
A7 Midnight Written By – M. Klein 1:48

B1 Story Telling Man (Voc.) Written By – M. Klein 3:42
B2 Boogie For Everybody Written By – H. Chaix 2:36
B3 Louisiana Sunset Written By – H. Chaix 2:08
B4 This Little Lamp Of Mine (Voc.) Written By – Trad. / M. Klein 2:02
B5 Red Head Blues Written By – O. Klein 2:47
B6 O.K., A Blues Written By – O. Klein 2:43
B7 Who's Groove (Voc.) Written By – M. Klein 3:11

Made in Germany by Miller International Schallplatten G. M. B. H.


14 tracks, quite generous for a discount label!  And all the tracks but one are originals.  
Now, don’t tell me it wasn’t a well spent Euro !

NOT YOUR USUAL BLUESMAN …

JULIO FINN BAND
RAINBOWS ALL OVER MY BLUES
LP BARCLAY 920 241T (1970).

A little-known album by American blues expats’ in Paris.  The album was released on the French BARCLAY label and was not distributed outside of Europe.   

BUT WHO IS JULIO FINN ? 

It may come as a surprise but Julio Finn is NOT  … Jerome Arnold as I had written here earlier on the basis of erroneous  information gathered from the web (see Stefan Wirz comments).

Si ce n'est toi, c'est donc ton frere!

.Et oui, according to Salla Day - whom I thank profusely for setting the record right (see comments)  - Julio Finn is Augustus Arnold and therefore the brother to harmonica player Billy Boy Arnold, and to Jerome Arnold, bass-player for Howlin Wolf and the first incarnation of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
Thereby Julio Finn is NOT the man who played bass at Newport 1965 for Bob Dylan's debute electric performance.  .

Jerome Arnold who is NOT Julio Finn

Julio Finn who is NOT Jerome Arnold

I could not get much biographical details about Julio Finn.  It seems that he moved from the States to Europe (France?) by the late 60s/early 70s. where he played harmonica with jazz acts, including Archie Shepp (for instance on the album Black Gipsy) and the Art Ensemble of Chicago (Certain Blacks, recorded in Paris in 1970). On the 1970 eponymously-titled album by Archie Shepp & Philly Joe Jones, Finn is credited as composer of the 21-minute-long ‘Howling in the Silence’, on which he contributes vocals as well as harmonica. 

In 1981 he was asked to write the sleevenotes for the UK label Charley’s album Crying and Pleading, by his brother Billy Boy Arnold. He agreed, mentioned their relationship in his notes but still signed as Julio Finn. Interested in gay rights and in black history, he wrote the 1986 book The Blues Man: The Musical Heritage of Black Men and Women in the Americas, which was published in London by Quartet Books. 

Finn still keeps open his playing and academic options, and still ranges widely without abandoning the blues. In 1998 he played harmonica on the Linton Kwesi Johnson album Independent Intavenshan; in 2000 he was the respondent at a panel discussion on ‘The Blues as Individual and Collective History’ at a conference on ‘The Blues Tradition’ at Penn State University.

The band / 

Credits

Harmonica, Vocals – Julio Finn
Vocals – Chicago Beau
Saxophone – Jimmy Conley (B2 only)
Guitar [Lead] – Eddie Tuleja
Piano – Ron Altbach , Memphis Slim (on B2 only)
Bass – Didier Alexandre
Drums – Wells Kelly

Lincoln T. Beauchamp, Jr. AKA Chicago Beau is also a bluesman with a keen interest in jazz and in writings: As a writer, Chicago Beau has written numerous articles and three books: Great Black Music-The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Blues Stories, and BluesSpeak: Best of the Original Chicago Blues Annual,  published in March 2010 by the University of Illinois Press. He was working with trumpeter Lester Bowie on his Autobiography at the time of his death. 

Eddie Tuleja, Ron Altbach, Didier Alexander and Wells Kelly recorded an even more obscure blues rock album as KING HARVEST on the Calumet label (“I can tell”).  If anybody has this album, I’d love to hear / post a rip.  

Tracklist

1. Chicken Shack Written-By – J. Finn ?????? 4:17
2. I Wish You Would Written-By – Billy Boy Arnold 7:10
   Vocals – Chicago Beau
3. Misha's Blues Written-By – J. Finn 6:12
   Vocals – Julio Finn
4.  Think You're So Fine Written-By – L. Beauchamp 3:09
   Vocals – Chicago Beau
5.  Change My Way Of Living Written By – E. Cobb 3:31
   Vocals – Eddie Tuleja
6. Memphis-Chicago Blues Written-By – L. Beauchamp, P. Chatman 8:45
   Piano – Memphis Slim / Saxophone – Jimmy Conley / Vocals – Chicago Beau
7. Women's Liberation Blues Written-By – J. Finn 3:50
   Vocals – Chicago Beau
8. Ain't Nobody Gonna Steal My Jellyroll Arranged By – J. Finn 4:00
   Vocals – Chicago Beau

Chicago Beau

Thanks to SALLA DAY (see comments) for litfing the mystery of Julio Finn true identity.