Daddy-O Daily Jazz Notes Played Improvisationally

From www.smoothviews.com : an interview with Chicago pianist Ramsey Lewis:

In 1953, many members of The Cleffs took off for the Korean War. From what was left of The Cleffs’ rhythm section emerged a trio with 18-year old Mr. Lewis on piano, Eldee Young on bass and Redd Holt on drums. They’d play clubs around Chicago on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.

“We’re not The Cleffs!” They came to the realization that the trio needed a new band name. Mr. Lewis recalls, “It was Daddy-O Dailey, an important jazz DJ who had been coming to the club on the south side, Lake Meadows Lounge, and heard us play. He says, ‘You guys are pretty good. You guys should have a record deal.’ Of course we should, but it’s not that easy. He said, ‘Let me see what I can do’ and took us under his wing. He later got us an audition with Chess Records. They liked us, signed a deal, and a few months later, recorded us. They asked, ‘So what’s the name of the group?’ We didn’t have one. Daddy-O said, ‘I want you guys to go home and each one of you write down two or three names and we’ll pick the best.’ We came back with 20 names, The Spiders, The Bugs, and so on. Daddy-O said, ‘Look, it’s a piano trio. The piano is taking the lead most of the time, so let’s call it The Ramsey Lewis Trio.’ And he said, ‘Now, first time out, first album, you’re going to want to have a hook. Nobody knows your name anyway because it’s the first album. We need a hook. The way I see it, guys, you’re gentlemen and you play jazz.’” And that’s how the first albums were named: The Gentlemen of Swing (1956). The second album followed as The Gentlemen of Jazz (1958). It took some time for Daddy-O’s influential airplay to get the records and the trio launched. But succeed, he most certainly did.

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Some Great American Guitarists to Dig:
1) Teddy Bunn--a wonder on the acoustic guitar--no one like him since--Teddy died early.

2) Bern Nix--Bern Nix when I knew him briefly I thought was the coolest cat I'd ever met. I had the privilege of doing a gig with Bern many years ago--to me a unique guitar stylist.

3) John Lee Hooker--thought by some American bluesologists to be the greatest blues guitarist to emerge from that legendary crossroads--staying on top for many wonderful long years.

4) Albert Collins--check out where Albert used to strap on his capo.

5) Jesse "The Guitar King" Cohen--Never heard of Jesse? Too bad. He currently lives in Upstate New York and plays with a local band in that area.

6) Roy Buchanan--a White boy born with a sad soul; eventually hanged himself in a jail in Maryland--I think it was Maryland.

7) Eddie "The Dread" Gregg--last time I heard, Eddie was working down in the Miami area.

8) Eric Warren--from New Orleans; blind; an absolute Jimi-Hendrix-in-his-blood whizbang guitar player--last seen at a New Orleans Folk and Jazz Festival several years ago now.

9) Herbie Ellis & Barney Kessell--one from Texas (Herbie), the other from up in the heart of Oklahoma (Barney). Both heard Charlie Christian before the rest of the USA, Barney knowing of Charlie when he was not yet discovered and playing on the radio and in clubs in Oklahoma City. Herbie was a graduate of the North Texas State College School of Music. Both Barney and Herbie were part of the Oscar Peterson Trio, Barney first. Barney gave up the trio because of the traveling and went on to become an A&R man and studio musician in L.A. Then came Herb Ellis...and for the years throughout the 50s up until 1960, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, and Herb Ellis were the most in-sync and swinging jazz trio in the business. I mean, check out how integrated these guys were (with the passing last year of Herb Ellis and drummer Ed Thigpen, all the most-famous OP Trio members are now deceased). Wow. And swing! Whoo boy could these dudes swing. And Herbie could play his Gibson like it was a set of bongos--check out the Trio's playing on Bags's "Bluesology" from the phony "Oscar Peterson Trio Live at the Concertgebouw" Verve recording--it was proven later to be a live recording in a Los Angeles auditorium, Norman Granz not letting the cat out of the bag until confronted with it much later and then defending it saying OP and the Trio were scheduled to play the Concertgebouw but it had been canceled--but the album was already scheduled--and they had this concert already in the can...so, hey, dig the record and screw where it was recorded. Anyway, it's a great album even if it is a phony in terms of it being OP and the men in Amsterdam at the Concertgebouw.

10) Eddie Durham--the inventor of the electric guitar. Hear how the electric guitar sounded
when it was first invented on some of those Count Basie band early recordings--Eddie was also one of the top jazz/swing arrangers in the biz in the 30s and 4os.
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From Arthur Taylor's great jazz book Notes & Tones (Da Capo, 1993):
Excerpt from interview with Johnny Griffin

NOTE: Johnny Griffin died in France last year. He'd made his final "return to New York City" appearance years before, finally remaining until the end in his adopted France.

From the interview:
AT: What is your reason for living in Europe all these years?

JG: I'm trying to save my life, 'cause it's a cinch that if I had stayed in America, I would be dead by now. I was a stoned zombie when I left.

AT: Can you be more explicit?

JG: I don't have to be more explicit about saving my life. The events that were happening that were happening to me were too much. It was too negative.

AT: What's so positive about European society?

JG: I'm not involved in it, that's what's so positive about it. I'm a tourist. Just look at my passport.

AT: Come on now, Griff.

JG: You're a tourist, too. We're both tourists.... When I came to Europe on that first gig in December of 1962, I was actually coming here to make some bread for my family for Christmas. Instead of staying six or seven weeks like I was supposed to, I stayed three months. I went back for my kid's birthday instead of going to Copenhagen for the next gig. I went from London to New York, and as soon as I got off the plane, I felt like I was doomed. "What am I doing back here?" I just realized how negative everything was.... When I went back to work with the cats, everybody was back to the same thing I grew up with, but I didn't know any better. Everybody is the Great I Am. I am this and you ain't that. It's all me, M-E, and nobody else is anything. It was too much for me. I wanted to get away from it all. That was black, white and indifferent!

They've got all the black musicians on the run. Black musicians all over Europe, running away from America. But that's part of the white power structure that's killing us and our music. Just like they killed it with all that so-called cool school. West Coast jive. They sold us down the line. Took the music out of Harlem and got it in Carnegie Hall and downtown in those joints where you've got to be quiet. The black people split and went back to Harlem, back to the rhythm and blues, so they could have a good time. Then the white power structure just kicked the rest of us out and propagated what they call avant-garde. Those poor boys can't blow their way out of a paper bag musically. But the white power structure said they're geniuses, So-and-so is the natural extension of Charlie Parker. That's what they waited for. As soon as Bird died, everybody turned left, Bird had given them the message. They were so glad to see Bird gone, because he was the truth. I don't mean they all turned left, I mean the critics had a breathing spell so they could finish killing us. Ifit wasn't for the revolution that's taking place, they would probably be writing in fifty years that jazz was all white.
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Johnny Griffin telling it like it was and, I'm sorry to say, still is. In going on the most popular Internet jazz sites, most jazz new releases I see on those sites are by White musicians.

The Daddy-O Daily

Who Made Wynton Marsalis King of Jazz?
Who Made Eric Clapton King of the Blues?
It's creepy to see where Wynton (with dollar signs in his eyes) and Eric Crapton (with
dollar signs in his eyes) are teaming up to "play the blues" at Lincoln Center--and it's
sold out.

COME ON...HOW CAN WYNTON STOOP SO LOW AS TO WORK WITH A BRIT FOP WHO WHILE HE WAS BECOMING KING OF THE BLUES ALLOWED THE
ORIGINAL CREATORS OF THIS TRUE AMERICAN ROOT MUSIC TO DIE IN POVERTY (i.e., Jimmy Reed, et. al.)--and, trust me, folks, the greatest blues guitar
player who ever lived was JOHN LEE HOOKER and don't you forget it.

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Who Made Wynton Marsalis the King of Jazz?

On the Blog-ee-O with The Daddy O'Daily Post #4
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Who Made Wynton Marsalis King of Jazz?
I watched a video of Wynton Marsalis and his Lincoln Center Jazz Band (what a privilege; how many jazz dudes would love to have their own band paid for by the City of New York?) playing over in Liberty State Park in Jersey--and, yes, OK, it was filmed outdoors on a summer's afternoon and, yes, I know the sound quality was minimal, but still.... The band was juggin' along on a jazz standard (though it could have been one of Wynton's latest compositions) and I was just diggin' it, not criticizing it, when my attention was grabbed by the trumpet solo. It sounded so shaky, so plain jane, so diddled, I was curious--I thought Wynton stood down front and led the band, but, no, the camera panned up into the trumpet section and there he was, Wynton himself, blowing on his $20,000 custom-made trumpet (I mean, come on, Wynton had to upstage Dizzy Gillespie at something--and it certainly wasn't trumpet virtuosity! Hey, I'll stand up and shout it pretty loud, Dizzy Gillespie is the greatest jazz trumpet player ever bar none--and that includes Satchmo and Miles--though I'll admit, Clifford Brown came closest to outblowin' Dizzy on the trumpet--had he lived longer, who knows?).

As I watched Wynton blowin' on this long unimaginative solo, I asked myself, "How did this M-F-er get to be the King of Jazz?" And then I remembered it was Rudy "Mussolini" Giuliani--NYC mayor at the time the Lincoln Center Jazz Center was opened and Dizzy's C___ C___ Lounge was created who made Wynton King of Jazz.

As an aside: I won't dishonor Dizzy's name by associating it with a commercial tag--fucking Coca Cola--yeah, old jazzmen used to do Coke and Aspirin--I guess that's the closest Coca Cola came to catering to the Black culture--otherwise it was by pumpin' 'em full of sugar water juiced up with cocaine in the original Old South Coca-Cola (it's from an Atlanta chemist (druggist)). And Old South Coca-Cola, too, by the way, was the first sugar-water manufacturer to use Monsanto's phony sugar Saccharin (think carcinoma) in their colas. These colas starting off as medicines. I know Dr. Pepper was created by a Waco, Texas, druggist as cough syrup--same thing with Pepsi-Cola, that Pepsi standing for Syrup of Pepsin--an old-line original cough syrup--replaced during World War II by the wonderful codeine-laced cough syrups--and many an old jazzman knew about codeine highs--and also during World War II the old jazzmen knew about the Benzedrine nasal inhalers that were introduced during the war and became so beaucoup popular (I myself as a kid had my Benzedrine inhaler--I constantly complained of bronchitis in order to keep from having to go to school--that got me my steady Benzedrine fix until it was finally banned in the pure White 1950s)--that Benzedrine came packed in those plastic bomb-shaped tubes; those tubes you broke open with a hammer and extracted the yellow cotton out of them--that yellow was the Benzedrine soaked into the cotton, and all you had to do was put that cotton in your mouth and suck all that great Benzedrine juice out of it and down the hatch or you pushed two pieces of the cotton up each nostril and breathed Benzedrine for the next 15 minutes or so--and hell, on a Benny high, you could gig 'till 4 in the morning and then go play a five-hour breakfast jam on that one stick of Benzedrine-soaked cotton. (As a kid, my mom also kept a bottle of codeine cough syrup in the medicine chest, plus a small green-tinted glass bottle that contained something called paregoric. Only later as an adult did I find out paregoric was an opiate--derived from the finest Afghanistan heroin. So, damn, as a kid, my parents made me a drug addict--as a kid, too, I was a pianistic phenom--thanks to those drugs? Enhancers. Elevators.)

That really pisses me off naming Dizzy's Lounge just Dizzy and not Gillespie, too; they spelled out Coca-Cola's full name--otherwise why isn't it Dizzy's Coke Lounge?--and anybody who knew Dizzy knew he may have done Coke but that wasn't his elevator of choice--his elevator of choice was pot--the herb--the viper--the tea (in Dizzy's original "Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac" he ends it with a 4-note be-bop riff that fits the words Dizzy says to end the tune--"Ten-der-leaf Tea")--or pot was called the mezzroll or just mezz--named for Chicago clarinetist and pot dealer, Mezz Mezzrow, a Jewish boy who wanted desperately to be Black--his book Really the Blues is a jazz masterpiece--though the White critics put it down as bullshit, I think it very honestly exact in terms of street-level look at the life of a Black or White jazz musician back in those days. So they could have named it Dizzy's Mezzroll Lounge...or Dizzy's Tea Lounge...or Dizzy's Mary Jane Lounge.

I never thought much of Wynton Marsalis's playing. Yes, I took his side in the famous debate between Wynton and Herbie Hancock--after Miles took jazz toward a totally new direction--starting I think with the In a Silent Way Columbia LP--the long original version released a few years back--in that debate, I got pissed at Herbie because I hadn't yet realized Miles's total influence on young Herbie so I kind'a went along with Wynton's wanting to stick to the traditional aspirations and inspirations of historical jazz, to build certain jazz composers, like Duke Ellington jazz compositions up to concert hall levels--though mostly Wynton seems to have concentrated on the sounds his father taught him were the most considerate of "pure" jazz, whatever the hell that is.

Wynton came up via Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers--though to me, Freddie Hubbard was Art's greatest trumpeter--and speaking of great old trumpeters, I forgot to mention Kenny Dorham--and I forgot to mention Maggie, Howard McGhee--somewhere out there is a recording of Howard McGhee playing on a South Pacific island that is almost as out of this world as Clifford Brown's solo recorded during that jam in Philadelphia. And may I add in here as a young man I was very impressed by a trumpet player named Frank Motley--Frank played "dual trumpets"--two trumpets at once--later picked up and popularized by Lonnie Hilliard in the late 50s and early 60s.

So, I was just wondering not only who made Wynton the King of Jazz but also why is he the spokesman for all jazz? Of course, here in NYC we have Phil Schaap, the Mister Know-It-All of jazz.

By the bye, I'm looking for a copy of one of Ravel's Piano Trios that's got that blues movement in it--also, anybody remember when Phineas (pronounced Fine-us) Newborn introduced one of his specialty tunes by playing the intro to a Ravel sonatine? And oh what an enigmatic jazz character Phineas was. One of B.B. King's first pianists--with Phineas's brother Calvin on guitar.

Oscar Peterson goes against the grain in the video Life in the Key of Oscar and says he considers jazz as transcendent over classically executed music (classical music). That he as a jazz pianist was much more virtuosic and versatile than any of the greatest classical executioners--what Virgil Thomson wittingly called classical musicians--music executioners. I like that.

My best to Wynton Marsalis--at least his father named him after a jazz great, Wynton--Daddy-O Daylie called him "Wine Tone"--Kelly--but then I used to go listen to and very much appreciated Wynton's father, Ellis, all around New Orleans when I lived there in 1964-1965--he played the hotel lounges and music bars around town--he and a guy named Art Hodes.

Until we meet again,

Long John From Bowling Green

thegrowlingwolf Goes to the Grammies--Daddy O'Daily Issue #3

How 'Bout Those Grammies!
What was Mick Jagger doing there? It's the American Academy of Music Awards. Oh, I forgot, Brits are considered American musicians aren't they. Hey, I've admitted I met Jagger one time and he wasn't a bad sort; he, like all Brit rockers, was eager to prove to American dudes he was hip and cool. On the other hand, he can be quite embarrassing, which he was Sunday night on the Grammies when he did a tribute to Solomon Burke by covering "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love." And Mick, like all Brit musicians, came out trying to put big-man depth in his nerdy imitative voice, trying to sing Black, and, to me, he made a mockery of Burke's works. EXCEPT, I must admit, Jagger put on the best show in terms of getting the audience stirred up and focused back on where all those Brit boys stole their fame and fortune from by mocking American Black musicians, and getting filthy rich doing it while the artists they claimed to admire mostly died in poverty. I don't know if Solomon Burke died in poverty, he was having a very successful come-back tour in Europe when he dropped dead in a Netherlands airport, but I'll bet you anything, he didn't die as rich as Mick Jagger's going to be when he dies--and as skinny and anemic as old Mick now looks, I'd say he'll be buying the farm--shall we say "soon."

I didn't watch many of the other touted celebrity acts, like Lady Antebellum--god what a god-awful singer she is. I did watch Dylan's big moment. I never liked Dylan's music--I considered him as copycatting Woody Guthrie--Arlo can imitate Bob better than Bob can imitate Arlo's father, in other words. Even when he confiscated the Canadians and Lee Von Helm and made them The Band and made "Like a Rolling Stone," I still heard Woody--even Bob's lyrics followed the same rhythmic patterns and vocal embellishments as Woody's. But, recently, I've come to dig Bob as a individual since I saw that Frances Ford Coppola docu on Folksy Bob. I liked Bob's attitude in that puff piece. I liked his attitude toward the music he heard when he was a kid; the same music I heard when I was a kid--and Bob and I are related in age and the small-town growing-up environment--I chose a piano as my instrument and jazz and blues as my genres, which meant rather than hit Highway 51, I had to stay embedded with my instrument and learn it further than picking out some chords and sticking to them (again a la Woody's guitar style)--plus, I had to learn much more complicated melodies and polytonal and atonal lines--as Jaki Byard taught his students, I tried to accomplish a little technique in all styles of jazz and blues. Bob instead hit the road and realized he had to get to New York City...whereas, I stayed in Texas--and, yes, I withered on the vine where Bob went on to fame and fortune and a place in American music celebrity and history that earned him a documentary by Frances Ford Coppola. The closest I've ever been to Frances Ford Coppola was about 20 feet--he happened to be in his restaurant, Coppola's on Third Avenue, while my wife and I were eating there and not enjoying the rather bland Italian food that we were served by a snotty actor-waiter--actually the woman manager came over and apologized for this asshole's bad attitude--I should have demanded F.F. himself come over and apologize by picking up the check. As a result, I've never again entered a Coppola's restaurant--in fact, I don't even think there are any Coppola restaurants left in NYC. If there are, I could care less. I wouldn't drink his fucking celebrity wine either--all these Hollywood phonies (all actors are phonies) going into the wine business. I'm not a wine snob. I find a nice bottle of Gallo Hearty Burgundy just as savory and inebriating as a bottle of $500 French Burgundy that the Japanese used to buy up every year overpaying for it. In fact, I have no idea what wines are what these days--I'm still marveling at the rise of Shiraz wines--especially those from Australia. All of this 'round Bob's barn to say, yes, I dug Bob's coming out and singing "Maggie's Farm." Plus I love the star way old Bob treated his youthful and adorational back-up bands, two brothers's bands I've never heard of, both of whom sounded like a reemerging of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Of course these young men were brilliant technicians and they did their best to swing their folksy pseudo-bluegrass picking--bouncing straight up and down pogo style like good little obedient White boys. Bob blew 'em all out of the holy waters even if his voice is shot and his demeanor is other world, he's still paid so many dues, you gotta love the guy even if you hate him.

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler

Music From an American Roots Perspective, Issue #2

O'God, Another Blog

This blog is named after famed Chicago DJ from the Golden Age of Jazz, the 1950s, Holmes "Daddy-O" Daylie. Dad-E-O on the Rad-E-O. "The music host who loves you the most." Sunday nights on one of Chicago's 50,000-watt stations, WMAQ, was time for Daddy-O's Jazz Patio. Daddy-O was a man of poetic patter and fluid-drive jive. And Daddy-O came in clear on clear nights though you had to keep fine tuning with the pots or moving the antenna around if there were weather disturbances between wherever you were and Chicago.
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Jazz Giant Buddy Collette Passes at 89

William Marcel "Buddy" Collette (August 6, 1921 – September 19, 2010) was an American tenor saxophonist, flautist, and clarinetist. He was highly influential in the West coast jazz and West Coast blues mediums, also collaborating with saxophonist Dexter Gordon, drummer Chico Hamilton, and his lifelong friend, bassist Charles Mingus.

I remember the first time I heard Buddy...it was in the 1950s on an off-label label out of Los Angeles--the musicians on the album cover were wearing masks. There was no personnel listed on the album--you were supposed to guess who they were. One was Buddy Collette and I recognized him from his flute and saxophone playing and the fact that one of the tunes writers was given as "Collette."
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Jazz Art
Beauford Delaney (1901-1979)

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Romare Bearden (1911-1988)

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Charles Ellsworth "Pee Wee" Russell (1906-1969)

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Las Mariachis del Mexico
Once a year, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, pays respects to its being the mariachi capital of all of Mexico by bringing together in one huge concert several of the best mariachi bands in all of Mexico backed by the Jalisco Philharmonic.

Serenading mariachis and charros (cowboys) scattered across Mexico and the world return to the motherland, Jalisco state, for the annual Guadalajara International Mariachi & Rodeo Festival. Admire their typical wide-brimmed hats and fine regalia at concerts, parades and contests. Mariachis and cowboys fill Guadalajara's city centre with music and the clip-clop of horses on the first day. Mariachi concerts, many accompanied by the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra, take place in the Degollado Theatre and Telmex Auditorium throughout the festival.

And that's what I watched on Mexican television last night--I suppose it was the closing concert--and it was beyond the normal in terms of music, performance, the virtuosity of the performers, the exquisite voices, all full of that special Mexican macho one finds especially in confident men like these mariachis represented in this concert. It was wonderfully produced--in the absolutely super old Degollado Theater--it looks like La Scala--and the Jalisco Philharmonic is a groovin' orchestra and they provided a proper backdrop of lushness needed for the absolute perfection of the mariachi performers in their knowledge of the songs and the arrangements--without sheet music--though the Philharmonic did have scores. The show brought together the famous Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan who have been around for at least 50 years. I remember when I lived in Mexico City in the 60s, Mariachi Vargas was one of the top most popular mariachi units--under the direction of Miquel Vargas. Besides Vargas, there was also America; and the very popular band of Nati Cano's, Mariachi Los Camperos (it's 50 years old this year, too); and a very interesting raw sort of band from Lake Chapala, Jalisco. Yes, the same old tunes went around the horn, but they were played diffently than I'd heard them before--and I've heard several of these concerts over the years--Guadalajara, Malaquena Sala Rosa, Besame Mucho, La Bamba, Cielito Linda, Jesusito in Chihuahua, etc. Here's Mariachi Los Camperos Website, check it out:

www.opus3artists.com/artists/mariachi-los-camperos

They all finished together on the bandshell in the Plaza de Armas, the plaza where mariachi was born.

Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan
I lived in Mexico City in 1965 for most of that year. I was married to a Tex-Mex lady who spoke Spanish so I was able to go where most Gringos fear to tread without much of a problem. I had bought before leaving the States a set of bamboo flutes, a soprano, an alto, and a big baritone one. By the time I moved to Mexico City, I was playing jazz on them fairly proficiently. Having already been a lover of Mexico and the culture and the people since I was a kid--I visited La Frontera cities many times over the years with certainly an interest in mariachi music, a music I had listened to enough I knew several of the classical tunes by heart. One day, with my wife as my guide, I took my flutes down to Garibaldi Square to the Tenampa Nightclub (it was still open as was the Santa Cecilia Restaurant). My wife and I ordered a bottle of tequila, a bowl of limes, a shaker of salt, and soon we were approached by one of the mariachi bands out of the hundreds in this huge place--each band moving from table to table--charging in those days 18 pesos for a song, which was like $2.50 in US money. I listened to about 10 bands and then this band fresh in from Guadalajara came up--the leader of the band was El Leon--they were a regular guitar, a bajo sexto, two violins, two trumpets, and El Leon singing and playing the Mexican harp--an amazing little instrument that is so celestial in its sparkling sound when it is played right. I bought a tune from El Leon--I don't remember the exact tune, but it was one of the songs off a Mariachi Vargas LP I had back in the States--and after they got it going, I took out my alto flute and started playing along with them. It worked like a charm. What happened was, I hired El Leon and his band to stay for a couple of hours--bought them all a round of tequilas, and I played with them the rest of the afternoon. It was not only fun, but profitable for El Leon, to boot, as crowds of people would gang around our table and get into El Leon and El Gringo playing together--why, I made El Leon so popular, after my couple of hours were up, they got a wedding gig off a young couple. After that first day, I went back to Garibaldi faithfully once a week, each time taking my bamboo flutes with me and hitching onto a mariachi band for a couple of hours of good drinking and tapas and good music--I mean, these young mariachi musicians were so dedicated and cojunto in spirit, they truly intrigued and amazed me. Some of them were classically trained, mainly the trumpet players and the violin players, though their interest was unity and hitting notes in unison exactly--making a mistake--like blowing a clam on the trumpet or missing a lick on the bajo sexto is enough to get you run out of a band on a rail. Mistakes are serious violations in mariachi bands. Mariachi Vargas, by the way, has one of the most laid back but absolutely miraculous Mexican harp players I have ever been amazed by.

Garibaldi Square, Mexico City

Today the Garibaldi Square area is very dangerous. It's in the Colonia Centro district, which in 2009, was the area of the heaviest crime in Mexico City.

El Senor Gringo
(Miquel Verde)
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Music From an American Roots Perspective--FIRST EDITION!

O'God, Another Blog

This blog is named after famed Chicago DJ from the Golden Age of Jazz, the 1950s, Holmes "Daddy-O" Daylie. Dad-E-O on the Rad-E-O. "The music host who loves you the most." Sunday nights on one of Chicago's 50,000-watt stations, WMAQ, was time for Daddy-O's Jazz Patio. Daddy-O was a man of poetic patter and fluid-drive jive. And Daddy-O came in clear on clear nights though you had to keep fine tuning with the pots or moving the antenna around if there were weather disturbances between wherever you were and Chicago.

Here's Daddy-O's bio from thehistorymakers.com

"The music host who loves you most," Holmes "Daddy-O" Daylie was born May 15, 1920, in Covington, Tennessee. His mother died during childbirth and his father five years later, leaving him to be raised by an older brother, Clinton. The family moved to Chicago's South Side when Daylie was a child. He attended John D. Shoop Elementary and Morgan Park High schools. A talented athlete, after graduation Daylie played professional basketball with the Harlem Yankees and the Globetrotters. However, he soon tired of the lodging discrimination encountered while traveling across the country, and he returned to Chicago to begin a new career.

Affectionately called "Daddy-O" long before his entrance into radio, Daylie was known for his linguistic gymnastics and sense of humor. These qualities proved the key to his success. Daylie was discovered in 1947 while working as a bartender in the Beige Room of the Pershing Hotel where famous disc jockey Dave Garroway was impressed by the artistic rhymes Daylie used while serving his clientele. On Garroway's suggestion, Daylie enrolled in radio school to refine his skills and, in 1948, Daddy-O's Jazz Patio made its debut on WAIT.

Daylie's relaxed style and hip improvisational rhythmic monologues during the 45- minute program were an instant success. In addition to introducing audiences to the innovative sounds of jazz, blues and swing music, Daylie used his program as a platform to further the cause of civil rights and to highlight other social maladies in African American communities. One of his proudest achievements was Operation Christmas Basket, which helped feed hungry Chicagoans during the holiday season.

After leaving WAIT, Daylie first joined the staff of WMAQ radio and then WAAF. He retired in 1988. Daylie died on February 6, 2003.

There were three 1950s DJs (disk jockeys) that influenced my life's directions growing up out on the rather isolated plains of West Texas. I heard their voices and the music they played over three very powerful radio stations, 50,000-watt clear-channel AM radio stations (there was no FM yet; there was no stereophonics yet either) I was able to pick up late at night on my Hallicrafters shortwave radio. These were DJs who I devotedly listened to night after night from my early teens until I went to college when there were suddenly a plethora of local FM jazz stations...and then suddenly there was stereophonic sound, too, and two-channel stereophonic recording and broadcasting. But at that time, these three DJs kept my young naive and growing-up self up-to-date in one of those future devotions that had already materialized in my young life and had grabbed my musical directions by the reins. And I respected these guys, their delivery, their knowledge, their coolness. Through these guys, I became enchanted by the lady Duke Ellington called Madame Zzaj, the mother symbol of that great American classical music I grew up living in and getting to know and love as Jazz. And Jazz Music became my mistress (Duke Ellington's autobiography was called Music Is My Mistress)--Progressive Jazz Music in my case--Contemporary Jazz Music it was also called--Modern Jazz Music it was also being called...a Jazz that became one of my life-long mistresses...and passions. (Listen to McCoy Tyner playing "Passion Flower.")

Jazz became the music that ruled my everyday life: through my speech, my thinking, my actions, my look, my clothing styles, my cultural understandings, my life-long habits.

The main DJ I always tried to catch was Daddy-O Daley out of Chicago. Why him? The reason, and this is true: he was Black and I knew straight up he was Black and he played the best Black Jazz and sent out the best Jazz comments along with the music. And I emphasize this because most of the other famous JAZZ DJs in that age were White, like my other two favorites: Wes Bowen who came in on week nights around 1 in my mornings on KSL out of Salt Lake City and then my main man, Dick "Doc" Martin, whose "Moonglow With Martin" Jazz show came in from 11:30 pm to 1 am every week night via WWL in New Orleans. I actually communicated for awhile by mail with Martin, who always started his replies by addressing me as "Doc Mike" and then giving in shorthand his answer to a question I had asked him or saying he was going to play one of my many requests on a certain coming night.

I also devotedly read both Metronome and Down Beat magazines every week. And I would especially excitedly hurry to read all the reviews for new album releases that came out week-to-week. It was fun too to check out the various record company ads where they listed their new releases along with old releases still hot and also published stock photos of their new album covers. For a while, Jazz albums carried contemporary art on their sleeves (covers), which was called "cover art." Like Andy Warhol did some covers for Victor and Blue Note, one for Victor a famous one for an Artie Shaw album. Pacific Jazz covers contained the works of contemporary Californian artists. And David Stone Martin became Jazz famous as a cover artist for Norman Granz's early Norgran, Clef, and Verve albums.

An Andy Warhol JJ Johnson-Kai Winding-Benny Green Prestige Cover: It's a 16 rpm recording!!

David Stone Martin's cover for Verve's "Charlie Parker Volume 2" LP. The saxophone is a Bird!! And that looks like a hummingbird sucking nectar out of Diz's trumpet bell!

Metronome was a monthly but Down Beat was a weekly, same as Billboard and Variety were the weeklies for the pop and commercial music crowd. I'd see new releases I wanted to hear so if I liked what I heard I'd have the lady at my hometown record store special order them for me. So I'd write Doc Martin and Wes Bowen and even Daddy-O and request they play cuts from these albums. I never got a reply from Daddy-O, though I do remember for sure I wrote him several times asking that he play something for me.

Through the radio and later on many a late night I'd listen to the remote broadcasts from New York City, Chicago, and the West Coast--like Symphony Sid's and Bob Garrity's live remotes from Birdland in New York City in the very early 50s--one of those in 1951 on which I first heard Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and their All Stars--that first time hearing Bird and Diz turning me instantly into a Bopper, a Be-Bopper, a beret-wearing, bop-beard sporting, pipe-smoking Bopster. A Hep Cat. Then a Hip Cat. Then a Hipster. Which led to Hippy. Which led to Yippie. Just a few notes out of the bells of Diz's and Bird's horns and my life was changed from then on.

But in reality, all Jazz music had me hooked--then later over the big clear-channel radio stations in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Nashville, Tennessee, I heard the White DJs peddling record-shop blues packages--and through shows like "Stan's Record Review" from Shreveport and "Randy's Record Review" from Nashville, I came face-to-face with the Blues--with country blues, with urban blues, with acoustic blues, with electric blues. And the Blues became the measurement I used to judge my Jazz--the Blues in those days being the fountainhead from which came the highest forms of Jazz, this just prior to Whites bringing European music forms into Jazz--starting back in the early days of Bop with White pianist Lennie Tristano--who blended the Blues into a European mix of fuguing and rondoing and "taking five" to come up with, to a White boy, very complicated improvising though at times shallow in terms of swing and drive and improvisational extension--the White influences into Jazz being variations on Black themes that emerged from the improvisational solos of the great Black masters and mentors--by improvising modally on these Black themes, White jazz musicians brought in another measurement device, the argumentative ear, and soon there developed in jazz contests to see if jazz musicians could identify other jazz musicians. Every week Down Beat, for instance, ran Leonard Feather's "Blind-fold Test" where Jazz stars listened to records Leonard played and then not only did these stars try to identify the musicians on those records but also at the end rated them by giving them stars--five stars--same as good cognac--being the highest rating a record could get. As a result of these contests, I developed a great argumentative ear and became fairly proficient at distinguishing individual sounds of individual jazz musicians. The big stars were easy, but I also had a knack of being able to identify players who weren't that well-known in even the hippest of jazz circles--like hearing a record and saying, "That's Bill Triglia on piano...." or "That's Frog Walton on trombone...I met him when I lived in New Orleans...and coincidentally met a niece of his one night at Sweet Basil's in New York City while digging Lou Donaldson."

And then in 1964, my Jazz world was violently intruded upon by 4 little cereal-bowl hair-cutted White boys from Liverpool, England. Not into Jazz at all (though I know they heard American Jazz on Brit radio; later they put the Modern Jazz Quartet and a lot of Jazz on their Apple label), but they were infected mostly by U.S.A. Blues, especially the Blues of our heavy original rockers like Paul Williams (the man who took Parker's "Now's the Time" and turned it into "The Huckle-Buck" and whose "Slow Down" the Beatles copycatted Whitely on their first album), or Chuck Berry or Ike Turner, Chuck and Ike to me the true originators of what we now call "Rock" but then was called "Rock 'n Roll" or really "Rhythm & Blues." As Muddy Waters sang, "The Blues had a baby/And they named it 'Rock 'n Roll'"--but the Beatles through their Brit music background, grounded in a church mode, turned our swinging side-to-side rhythmic rock 'n roll into a pogo-stick-beat that caught on with the White kids who had extra money enough to buy records and soon we American Jazz Music lovers, who'd snootily played down Rock 'n Roll, were left out in the cold of obsolescence and were overwhelmed and put gradually out of business by what's now known in American Music History as "the British Invasion."

Jazz Music Before the Beatles is really the Jazz era I'm still hung up in. Is it obsolete anyway now? Yes, it is in terms of it's being listened to by a public or being played the way it was then played in the so many places to play. And record stores had Jazz sections...and music was still being recorded on LPs--and Jazz players could play for 20 minutes on one tune (like John Handy's truly magnificently wonderful performances at the 1964 Monterrey Jazz Festival).

michael greene
(local blues legend)
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Mister Greene's Top Ten Jazz Albums
These albums had a profound effect on me and the direction I was taking my ear and my own playing back when I was living and listening among the roots of the beginnings of blues, jazz, r&b, rock 'n roll, and American classical music. By the time I entered college I was a fairly proficient jazz pianist. The music on these albums all boiled together to give me a style and a new direction in Jazz and life--a life of true improvising--of working off a riff.

1. Dizzy Gillespie "The Champ" on Savoy.
2. Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie (with Monk, Curly Russell, and Buddy Rich) "Bird & Diz" on Mercury (under Norman Granz).
3. The Thelonious Monk Quintet, (with Sam Jones, Thad Jones (Thad is unbelievable on this album), Art Taylor, Charlie Rouse) "5 x Monk x 5" on Riverside, 1959 (awesome "Jacky-ing").
4. The Jimmy Giuffre Four (Jimmy Giuffre tenor, clarinet; Jack Sheldon, trumpet; Ralph Pena, bass; and Artie Anton, drums), "Tangents in Jazz," on Capitol.
5. Les McCann & Eddie Harris, "Swiss Movement," on Atlantic.
6. Charlie Christian, "The Charlie Christian Story" on Columbia; Charlie Christian & Lester Young, "Together" (the first LP featuring Charlie with the Benny Goodman Ork and Quintets and Quartets; the second being a Benny Goodman session featuring Prez playing with Christian in a BG small group first discovered in the 80s and issued on an off-brand label.
7. Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue," on Columbia. The first stereo jazz album. And oh what an impact this album had on all of jazz--Miles bringing his Cool forward into its hottest form--a form that would lead Coltrane on forward into a transcendent jazz--a form that led Herbie and Wayne and Ron and Anthony into what became fusion--and causing Wynton Marsalis to eventually try and return us to the days of Louis Armstrong and his New Orleans kind of jazz improvising--more of a marching band improvising (listen to Art Blakey's "Blues March," on his "Moanin'" album on Blue Note, with Lee Morgan stepping off on the trumpet).
8. Jaki Byard's extraordinarily unique recordings "Live From Lennie's on the Turnpike"--volumes 1 & 2--with Joe Farrell, Allan Dawson (Tony Williams's drum teacher), George Tucker (great bass player whose head exploded (brain aneurysm, I think) at a young age), and Jaki wailing away with his special brand of piano, an all-encompassing piano, as Jaki taught [and in the future, The Daddy O'Daily will feature an interview with a jazz pianist who actually studied with Jaki Byard in his home in New York City's Lower East Side--the same apartment the great Jaki Byard was found dead in bed with a bullet in his head one morning by his daughter. Who shot this dear man was never determined--assuming it could have been simply a stray bullet fired at random down on the street or from a roof across from Jaki's bedroom window--bad loss to jazz)]. Groundbreaking album for me; Jaki with the freedom he needed to show his stuff, though there's a video of Jaki in Norway with Mingus, Danny Richman, Eric Dolphy, Clifford Jordon, and one of my favorite trumpet players, Little Johnny Coles, where Jaki steals the show with his out-of-the-common-ordinary-world's solos).
9. Bud Powell on the ESP label, "Earl Bud Powell" recorded in Paris in 1961 live at the Blue Note Cafe in Paris, with Pierre Micholet on bass and Kenny Clarke (Klook) on drums--with an especially brilliant respectful version of Bud's "Thelonious" and his "Dance of the Infidels" called "Shaw 'Nuff" on this album. Yes, Bud was sick and in bad mental shape during this time, but he was working every night in Paris, at the Blue Note, and all over northern Europe, with different pick-up rhythm sections--and ESP (the old Esperanto label) recorded a whole series of Bud Powell Lps, some of them never issued. This album was original called "Three Bosses" but was released by ESP in the 70s as a memorial to Bud who died in 1966. I went through a divorce in '74 and was caught in a pit of blues and heavy depression and I left my apartment very sad and down and walked over to a big Sam Goody Record Store up the block from my apartment and searched through the jazz albums and couldn't find anything I wanted until I came across this album stashed in the very back of the jazz bin. When I got it home, I almost wore it out the first day--and I played it over and over and it was Bud erratic, yes, but having moments of such great swinging involvement in his recreations of these tunes that had been embedded in his head since he was a baby--especially this version of "Dance of the Infidels" ("Shaw 'Nuff"), which along with "Thelonius" has always intrigue me to my jazz bone.
10. Charles Mingus, "Tijuana Moods," Mingus venture with the RCA-Victor label. It was originally recorded in 1957 but wasn't released until 1962. I mean this album caught me, hugged me, and enfolded me into its fold. I had just had one of my plays published in a San Francisco-based literary magazine that also contained a play by the Black playwright Lonnie Elder. How surprised was I to find Lonnie Elder credited on this Mingus tour de force as doing the voices; Mingus letting his Mexican heritage come out of him after he and Danny Richmond had visited Tijuana from L.A. a time of bacchanalian visions and bloodlust remembrances and letting it all come out in this extraordinary listening adventure. Of course I've been into Mingus since I first heard Pithacantropus Erectus in mono back in college, but not like I got into him after I got hooked on this album.

Of course this list is my personal list. I'm sure some of you jazz experts have a totally different list--like where's my John Coltrane listing? Coltrane didn't have the effect on me he had on the younger jazz guys, though I certainly listened to everything he did and did find--like WOW--"Alabama" or "A Love Supreme"--absolutely other-world but still jazz and hard-swinging jazz, too--Elvin Jones! I mean, come on--and Jimmy Garrison--McCoy Tynner--and what a piano master McCoy became out of working with Coltrane. And Remember Leon Thomas? Another unique voice that slipped into jazz big time and now is far out in the jazz pastures--way out there with Eddie Jefferson, King Pleasure, Babs Gonzales, Jackie Paris. And I loved Coltrane's album he did that Alice Coltrane put out after his death. And where's my Duke Ellington LP? And one Ellington LP would be his film music, "Anatomy of a Murder"--the filmscore to Otto Preminger's truly 50's masterpiece with Jimmy Stewart, the slippery beautiful and enticing Lee Remick, and the very evil Ben Gazzara. What a movie and Duke plays Pie-Eye in it and a little out-of-the-Duke band combo is playing with Pie-Eye in the window of a roadhouse bar and grill up in Upper Michigan, Iron City, to be exact. I know Duke played Fargo, North Dakota, one year, but I rather doubt if he ever played Iron City, Michigan, though oh how wrong I may be since the Duke Ellington Band could have worked every city and town in every state in the Union that band worked so hard and long so many years. And there are so many albums I left out--so many Oscar Peterson albums; Clifford Brown-Max Roach albums on Emarcy; Gerry Mulligan Quartet albums with Chet Baker on Pacific Jazz; Eric Dolphy albums, too, especially those with Mingus, but also one with Chico Hamilton recorded out in LA of Duke Ellington tunes. And Monk's Blue Note and Riverside albums--those "Live at the Five Spot" albums with Coltrane and then Little Johnny Griffin--"Misterioso"--"In Walked Bud," with the amazing Abdul Malik on bass. Or Eddie Costa--I could have listed an Eddie Costa LP--the genius of Eddie Costa at the piano or on the vibes. I could go on listing albums that influenced me until I was way over 100, but the above 10 represent those that when I think back to when I was "learning" jazz by listening to every LP that came out as fast as they came out they sparkle free of the mine like the biggest diamonds I mined from those, all, greatest albums ever recorded.
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The Music of Charles Ives
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Playing a Church Standard on a Church Pipe Organ in an Ivesian Style
From New York City jazz pianist and working musician and church music director, Douglas Jordon, an example of how he took a standard church hymn, "Where He Leads Me," and jived it up using his knowledge of Ivesian improvisation. Here's how he did it:

"I picked an old chestnut, so old they're sick of it: Where He Leads Me. I give it the Ives treatment, beginning with some florid figuration based on the mi-re-fa-mi, on F, from the melody which gradually gets more dissonant until I end up on Eb where I play the melody rhythm on a dissonant Eb chord with clusters, sounds kinda Rite of Springish, but I'm really just playing the rhythm from the melody. Then it abruptly ends, leaving one Eb, and the pedals start in 3/4 so-do-so-so and I play the melody in parody, all wrong notes, but it's recognizable. When I get to 'I can hear my Savior calling' I stop on the IV, big chord, holding with moving notes in the middle, very impressive texture on a pipe organ. Then back to F with another rhythm this time on "Follow", make a vamp out of that, then go into a New Orleans 4. The musicians enter, we play it down once and end it. Big success.

Thanks Mr Ives."

From an email, Douglas Jordon, Sunday, September 5th, New York City. Douglas Jordon is represented at his improvisational best on his CD "Live to Tell" with his trio Dreamchanges: Douglas Jordon, piano; George Farmer, bass (Art's boy--remember Addison Farmer?); and Ahmed Kharem on drums. Recorded in 2000 and issued on his private label. Doug is a brilliant jazz stylist. He studied with Jaki Byard and Jaki taught him to respect all styles of jazz piano and try and learn them--and Doug was a good student--and this album shows his appreciation of Bill Evans and modal jazz--and Doug picks old Bill's bones clean--and I'm quite sure, Bill, if he's still keeping tabs on jazz, totally approves of Doug's consistent smooth and cool brilliance on this CD.
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This is our introductory issue (post). We will try to keep this blog as "active" as we have time. Coming soon (we hope) are a listing of rare Charles Ives sheet musics and LPs in our running Ives collection of LPs and sheet music--which one day, in the far future, will be found on sale as a collection. We also, like we said, will have first an interview with a musician who studied with Jaki Byard and hopefully other interviews with other musicians (jazz, blues, rock, r&b, hip-hop, whatever) of our acquaintance, and double-hopefully current reviews of current jazz and American classical happenings, CDs, concerts, etc.

Please feel free to Comment--no matter how perhaps anti-Daddy O'Daily they are--we welcome harsh as well as respectful COMMENTS.
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michael greene
"the man in current charge"
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Remembering Herman Leonard, Jazz Photographer, Who Left Us This Year