Friday, September 29, 2006

Love Grows on the White Oak Playlist

Coffeetime, September 29, 2006

bed
Red Garland / A Garland of Red / Prestige / 8.17.56

set 1
Horace Silver / Silver's Blue / Shoutin' Out / Blue Note / 7.17.56
Richard Williams / New Horn in Town / Raucous Notes / Candid / 9.27.60
Benny Carter & his Orch / All of Me / Bluebird / 11.19.40
Harry Bidgood & his Broadcasters / Russian Lullaby / Broadcast / London 7.27 / vocal = Arthur Vivian (aka John Thorne)
Connee Boswell / On the Isle of May / Decca / LA 1.19.40 / with Victor Young & his Orch
Gene Phillips & his Rhythm Aces / My Baby's Mistreating Me / Modern / LA late 1940s
Dinah Washington / Dinah Washington / These Foolish Things / Roulette / 8.24.62

set 2
Jimmy Raney / A / Some Other Spring / Prestige / 3.8.55 /
John Coltrane / Soultrane / Theme for Ernie / Prestige / 2.7.58
Artie Shaw & his Orch / The Hornet / Musicraft / LA 11.16.45
Rex Stewart & his Feetwarmers / Finesse / Swing / Paris 4.5.39
The Ink Spots / Mamma Don't Allow It / Brunswick / 1.4.35
Les Brown & his Orch / There's No You / radio transcription / Hollywood (Palladium) 7.26.45 / vocal = Doris Day
Freddy King / Now I've Got a Woman / Federal / Chicago 1964

set 3
Junior Mance / At the Village Vanguard / Letter from Home / Jazzland /2.22, 23.61
Quincy Jones / The Great Wide World of Quincy Jones / Ghana / EmArcy / 11.4, 5, 9.59
Charlie Parker / Drifting on a Reed / Dial / 12.17.47
The Smoothies / Love Grows on the White Oak Tree / Bluebird / 8.23.39
Ella Fitzgerald & her Four Keys / When I Come Back Crying / Decca / 1942
Sammy Davis Jr / When the Feeling Hits You / These Foolish Things / Reprise / Las Vegas ("recorded wild in…") 4.30.64 / with Sam Butera & the Witnesses

set 4
Buddy Collette / Buddy Collette in Italy / Hunt and Peck / Ricordi / 1961
Barney Kessel / Barney Kessel, vol. 1, "Easy Like" / Tenderly / Contemporary / LA 11.14.53
Julia Lee & her Boyfriends / When a Woman Loves a Man / Capitol / LA 8.23.46
Johnny Hartman / Just You, Just Me... / Tormented (Why Must I Be) / Savoy / 12.12.47
Eskew Reeder (aka Esquerita) / We Had Love / Minit / New Orleans 9.62
Golden Gate Quartet / The Prodigal Son / radio transcription (NBC Thesaurus 1000) / fall 1941

last soul song
Patterson Twins / I Need Your Love / Malaco / Jackson, Mississippi 1976

Friday, September 22, 2006

Woman with a Playlist

Coffeetime, September 22, 2006

bed
Red Garland / Prestige Moodsville 6 / 11.21.58

set 1
Lee Morgan / Delightfulee / Need I? [CD bonus track] / Blue Note / 4.8.66
Jackie McLean / New Soil / Davis Cup / Blue Note / 5.2.59
Russell Procope's Big Six / Right Foot Then Left Foot / HRS / Fall 1946
Sophie Tucker / I Can Never Think of the Words / Columbia / London 10.30 / with Ted Shapiro on piano
Erskine Hawkins (The Twentieth Century Gabiel) & his Orch / Polka Dotty / Bluebird /4.8.39
Joe Liggins & his Honeydrippers / Ten Toes / Exclusive / LA 1947
Anita O'Day / Cool Heat / Easy Come, Easy Go / Verve / LA 1959

set 2
Oliver Nelson / Nocturne / Man with a Horn / Prestige Moodsville 13 / 8.23.60
Harry "Sweets" Edison / Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You? / Moonlight in Vermont / Verve / Hollywood 3.29.57
Wilbert Baranco & his Trio / Rosetta / Black & White / LA 1947
Larry Clinton & his Orch / Zig Zag / radio transcription / 1937-38
Comedian Harmonists [aka Comedy Harmonists] / Night and Day / RCA / Munich (?) 9.15.33
Louis Jordan & his Tympathy Five / We Can't Agree / Decca / LA 11.24.47
Frank Sinatra / Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim / If You Never Come to Me / Reprise / LA 1967

set 3
John Wright / Mr. Soul / Now Hang in There / Prestige / 4.10.62
Frank Foster / The Things We Did Last Summer / Vogue / Paris 4.4.54
Joe Morris Orch / Bottletop / Atlantic / 12.23.47
Joe Venuti's Blue Four / The Wild Dog / Okeh / 3.28.28
Sarah Vaughn / I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance / Musicraft / 7.2.47 / with George Treadwell & his Orch
The Four Buddies / Got Everything I Need But You / Savoy [unissued] / 3.3.53
Gene Kelly / soundtrack to American in Paris / Love is Here to Stay / MGM / Hollywood 7.21.50

set 4
Lee Konitz / Indian Summer / Prestige / 3.13.51
Julius Watkins / Julius Watkins Sextet, Volume 2 / Garden Delights / Blue Note / 3.20.55
Dave Bartholomew / Basin Street Breakdown / DeLuxe [unissued] / New Orleans 1950
Horace Henderson & his Orch / You're Mine You! / Vocalion / Chicago 5.8.40 / vocal = Viola Jefferson
Benny Gordon & the Soul Brothers / Gonna Give Her All the Love I've Got / Wand / South Carolina (?) 1968
Jackie De Shannon / For You / Are We Dancing? / Imperial / LA 1967
The Soul Stirrers / Sinner Run to Jesus / Specialty / Hollywood 4.19.57

last soul song
The Originals / Moment of Truth / Soul / 1969

Friday, September 15, 2006

Playlist Addict!

Coffeetime, September 15, 2006

bed
Barney Kessel / Solo / People / Concord / 1981 // George Van Eps / Legends / The Man I Love / Concord / 1976


set 1
Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers / Originally / Lil' T / Columbia / 6.25.56
Les Spann / Gemini / It Might As Well Be Spring / Jazzland / 12.8.60
Glen Gray & the Casa Loma Orch / Dancing on the Ceiling / radio transcript / mid-40s
Anson Weeks & his Hotel Mark Hopkins Orch / Rain, Rain, Go Away / radio transcription / San Francisco 1932 / vocal = The Three Rhythmsters
Ivory Joe Hunter / Are You Hep? / Pacific Records / San Francisco 1947 / vocal = Aurelia
Dakota Staton / Dynamic! / Little Girl Blue / Capitol / 1958

set 2
Thad Jones / The Magnificent Thad Jones, Volume 3 / I've Got a Crush on You / Blue Note / 7.14.56
Tommy Flanagan / The Cats / How Long Has This Been Going On? / New Jazz / 4.18.57
Fats Waller / Carolina Shout / Bluebird / 5.13.41
The Chocolate Dandies / Got Another Sweetie Now / Columbia / 12.3.30 / vocal = Jimmy Harrison (also on trombone)
The Three Peppers [Roy Branker, Bob Bell, Walter Williams] / One Potato / Gotham / Philadelphia 12.1.48
Jackson Blues Band / Run to Me, Baby / Delta Records [unreleased] / Jackson, MS 1950s
Anita Ellis / Forbidden Fruit / Epic / 2.7.57 / with orch conducted by Leroy Kirkland

set 3
George Benson / The New Boss Guitar of George Benson with the Brother Jack McDuff Quartet / Shadow Dancers / Prestige / 5.1.64
Candido / The Spanish Side of Jazz [also Congo Soul] / Long, Long Summer / Roulette / 1962
Sonny Criss / Calidad / Mercury / LA 9.22.49
Virginia Four [aka Norfolk Jazz Quartet] / I'd Feel Much Better / Decca / 1941
Peggy Lee /I Don't Know Enough About You / radio transcription/ Hollywood? summer 1947 / with Dave Barbour & his Orch
Charles Trenet / Morceaux Choisis Par L'auteur / Ma philosophie / Capitol / 1950s, early 60s
Jimmy Ricks /Jimmy Ricks / You'll Never Know / Signature / 1961

set 4
Bob Cooper / Coop!: The Music of Bob Cooper / Easy Living / Contemporary / LA 8.27.57
Hal McKusick / Isn't It Romantic / Coral / 2.4-6.57
Django Reinhardt / Menilmontant /Bluebird / Rome early winter 1949
King Cole Trio / Boulevard of Broken Dreams / radio transcription / LA 7.26.49 / with Irving Ashby (g), Joe Comfort (b), Jack Costanzo (bgo, cga)
José Feliciano / Feliciano! / Just a Little Bit of Rain / RCA Victor / Hollywood 1968
Bobby Blue Bland / Yum, Yum Tree / Duke / 1971
Dorothy Love Coates & the Original Gospel Harmonettes / That's Enough / Specialty / Hollywood 1.20.56

last soul song
Honey & the Bees / Love Addict / Arctic [Jamie Guyden] / 1969

Friday, September 08, 2006

Dance Little Playlist

Coffeetime, September 8, 2006

BG = album cover designed by Burt Goldblatt

bed
Tommy Flanagan / At the Village Vanguard / Blue Note / Village Vanguard 3.16.97

set 1
Hank Mobley / Another Night at Birdland, volume / JAMPH / Roost / live at Birdland, 4.10.57
Count Basie & his Orch / The Jitters / Columbia / 1.28.41
Noel Coward / Dance Little Lady / HMV / Hayes, Middlesex, England 4.28.28 / orch arranged & conducted by Carroll Gibbons
T-Bone Walker / I Wish You Were Mine / Capitol / LA 12.17.47
Cee Pee Johnson & his Band / When You're Alone / Apollo / 11.2.45
Paula Castle / Lost Love / Here I Am in Love Again / Bethlehem / 1955 (BG)

set 2
Stu Williamson / Stu Williamson / Darn that Dream / Bethlehem / Hollywood 1.56 (BG)
Hal McKusick / East Coast Jazz 8 / Lullaby for Leslie / Bethlehem / 1955 (BG)
Don Byas / They Say It's Wonderful / Savoy [7" EP] / late-40s (BG)
Ike Quebec / Tenor Sax / Scufflin' / Savoy [7" EP] / late-40s (BG)
Lee Patrick [playing Blondie White] / from movie Footsteps in the Dark / Love Me / MGM / Hollywood 1941
The Tramp Band [aka Cotton Club Tramp Band] / from movie Stormy Weather / Linda Brown (Dah, Dat, Dah) / 20th Century Fox / Hollywood spring 1943 / with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
Joe Tex / Pneumonia / King / 1956 / with Mickey Baker on guitar

set 3
Howard McGhee / Sharp Edge / Sharp Edge / Black Lion / 12.8.61
Frank Wess / Prestige Moodsville 8 / Star Eyes / 5.9.60
Bumps Myers Sextet / Memphis Hop / Selective / LA spring 1949
Pauline & her Perils [Six Hits and a Miss minus two Hits] / My Blue Heaven / Keystone transcription / 4.39 / solo the King Cole Trio (a little celeste by Nat King Cole) and vocal = Pauline Byrns
The Robins / Around about Midnite / Aladdin / LA 5.27.49
Bobby Darin / Nature Boy [45] / Atco / LA 1961

set 4
Bud Powell / The Bud Powell Trio Plays / Burt Covers Bud / Roost / 9.53 (BG)
Johnny Smith / Moonlight in Vermont / Vilia [from the operetta The Merry Widow] / Roost / 4.52 (BG)
Sonny Stitt / Jazz at the Hi-Hat / Every Tub / Roost / live at the Hi-Hat, Boston 2.11.54
Mildred Bailey / A Bee Gezindt / Columbia / 1.25.40Coffeetime, September 8, 2006
Camille Howard / I'm Blue / Specialty / Hollywood 3.1.50
Walter Huston / from movie"Knickerbocker Holiday" / September / United Artists / Hollywood 1944 / / http://www.dandugan.com/maytime/f-knicke.html
Earl Gaines / Sixty Minute Man / unissued Hollywood or DeLuxe / late-60s
Swan Silvertones / Singing in My Soul / Move Somewhere / Vee Jay / 1960

last soul song
The Admirations / Wait Til I Get to Know You / One-derful! / Chicago 1967

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Alex Served Coffeetime

Thanks again to Alex McNeil for sitting in for me last week. Here's the playlist from that fascinating show:

Teri Thornton - Open Highway (Route 66)
Bernie Green - Mr. Peepers
Harry Betts - Cain's Hundred
Leith Stevens - M Squad Theme
Ralph Marterie - Richard Diamond
Mundell Lowe & His All Stars - Riff Blues (Mike Hammer)
Buddy Morrow - This Is the Naked City
Johnny Williams - Checkmate
CBS Orchestra - Gunsmoke
Marty Gold - Wagons Ho (Wagon Train)
Bud Wattles - Wanted Dead or Alive
Bernard Herrmann - Have Gun Will Travel (opening)
Johnny Western - The Ballad of Paladin (closing theme)
Buddy Morrow - Rawhide
Herschel Burke Gilbert - The Rifleman
Warren Barker & Frank Comstock - Maverick
Richard Gleason - Tales of Wells Fargo
ABC Orchestra - William Tell Overture (Lone Ranger)
Richard Gleason - The Restless Gun
P.F. Sloan - Danger Man
Edwin Astley - High Wire (from Secret Agent)
Lionel Newman - The Lieutenant
Edwin Astley - The Saint
Barker & Comstock - 77 Sunset Strip
Carl Brandt - The New Sunset (second theme from 77 Sunset Strip)
Laurie Johnson - The Avengers
Richard Gleason - Toy Parade (Leave It to Beaver)
Carl Brandt - My Favorite Martian
Tony DeSimone Trio - Oriental Blues (from Ernie Kovacs)
Lionel Newman - The Dick Van Dyke Show
Robert Maxwell - Song of the Nairobi Trio (from Ernie Kovacs)
John Barry - The Persuaders
Barker & Comstock - Pete Kelly's Blues
David Fanshawe - Flambards
Geoffrey Burgon - Brideshead Revisited
Eugene Ormandy & Philadelphia Orch. - Liberty Bell March (Monty
Python's Flying Circus)
Simon Park - Danger UXB
Buddy Morrow - Sea Hunt
Mundell Lowe & His All Stars - Perry Mason
Jim Helms - Kung Fu

Friday, September 01, 2006

Burt Goldblatt: a great artist passes on…


I was sad to hear yesterday morning that Burt Goldblatt, a great artist whose work graces the covers of many jazz LPs and 7 and 10 inch EPs from the heyday of the 1950s, has died. His wife Kathy phoned me. Burt and Kathy were very generous with their time when I was writing about jazz cover design several years ago and we had kept in contact since. Even though our get-togethers and phone calls were infrequent, they were like family. It was their way. Burt even appeared on Coffeetime a few years ago.

I'll be attending a memorial service for Burt today; Alex MacNeil will be sitting in for me on Coffeetime, playing crime jazz and other gems as he did a few weeks ago when I was overwhelmed by work.

Below is an amended version the introduction to the piece I wrote in 1999. You can read the whole inverview with Burt on my website. His brilliant energy will be missed.


Burt Goldblatt was born in 1924 in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He served in the army in World War II and afterwards studied at the Massachusetts College of Art. After graduation he worked in a printing plant where he learned all that went into production at that time: stripping, platemaking, retouching, lessons not taught in art school. After freelancing for a time in Boston, he moved to New York City and began a prolific career as a commercial artist and photographer, becoming especially prolific in cover design, creating about 200 cover designs in 1955 alone. That same year he won the New York Art Director’s Award for best cover design of the year and the Princeton University Library exhibited his work.

One of Goldblatt's first cover designs was on a bootleg album for Billy Holiday on the Jolly Roger label in 1950. He worked for Savoy, Emarcy, Bethlehem and many other labels. With his first covers he aimed for a visual simplicity and yet also a strength of image by eliminating song titles from the cover and by creating unique and intriguing illustrations. His drawings of musicians employ a dynamic, serpentine line. The variations in weight from thick to thin would alone mark the drawing as distinctively his, but it is his original use of unusual perspectives that distinguishes Mr. Goldblatt's line drawings from others of the same period, whether it’s a view of Don Byas from above or George Wallington from below.

His other illustrative covers are equally distinctive, for example, a broadly abstracted caricature of Frances Faye or a portrait of Bud Freeman composed entirely of tiny saxophones. He utilized a vast range of methods and styles, including collage, montage, even x-rays. In addition to his illustrative designs, Goldblatt also became one of the outstanding photographer/designers. His photographic cover designs for Bethlehem combine evocative pictures with restrained yet lyrical typography. These covers are timeless designs, elegant works unto themselves that never look outdated or old fashioned.

Amazingly, he was self-taught in photography. He kept himself unobtrusive in recording studios and nightclubs, capturing millions of filmed images, some of which later graced his cover designs. He was accepted by the musicians and, in fact, was friends with many. More than just a jazz fan, it is safe to say that Mr. Goldblatt was himself part of the jazz scene, not just a chronicler of it.

Mr. Goldblatt designed covers into the '60s, but the changes in the industry brought about by rock and roll caused him to follow other pursuits. He went from a prolific cover design career to a prolific writing career, publishing and co-authoring 17 books on topics as diverse as Mobs And The Mafia: The Illustrated History Of Organized Crime, The Marx Brothers At The Movies and The World Series A Complete Pictorial History. He has also published books of his jazz photography and on the Newport Jazz Festival. Today, living in Hopkinton, Massachusetts and traveling regularly with his wife, he still pursues many projects both as a visual artist and as a writer. His work has been honored many times, in 1962 at the Smithsonian and in the winter of 1993-94 at Harvard University. Despite numerous medical setbacks, Mr. Goldblatt stayed active and optimistic in his later years “I’m a survivor; I’ve had cancer and triple-bypass heart surgery. I walk three miles a day with my dog. I was very active as a kid. I feel good.”

He passed away on August 30 in Boston, with his wife Katherine Holzman Goldblatt by his side. He is survived by his wife, two daughters, and two grandsons.