Sunday, April 7, 2019

Sunday Music Muse Day - John Stowell - Michael Zilber, Duke Ellington revisited.

This Sunday Music Muse Day actually finds it feeling like Spring.  I got to go shopping with just a light sweatshirt on. At Bop Shop Records, I picked up John Stowell / Michael Zilber Quartet Basement Blues. It's a tasty and energetic outing with Stowell on guitar and Zilber on saxophones and piano.  This 2016 session is their third recording together.  Eight out of the ten tunes are originals  by members of the band, with a tune by Bill Evens (Very Early) and Jerome Kern ( Nobody Else But Me).  It a nice way to greet the Spring.


By second second selection has me revisiting some Duke Ellington selections, the result of a minor discovery.  I had, what thought was, an album cover of the Duke Ellington Piano in the Foreground mounted in a simple glass frame.  The cover features Sam Woodyard, my father, on the cover. This was given to me in Paris by a friend of Sam's.  I wanted to reframe this, but I discovered  it a was a color xerox of the cover, and I would have damaged it if I removed it from the backing.  But, I wanted to have a framed version of the cover to mount on the wall.  So, I looked for a copy at Bop Shop Records.  Owner Tom Kohn and the staff were very helpful, even letting me search their basement stash of Ellington stock. after not finding the Piano in the Foreground album in main floor stacks.  I did found a copy, and picked up another Storyville Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, with Johnny Hodges and his Orchestra, because it had a band photo with Sam in it.  Now I have to find good spot to mount both covers. 

Seems like Spring finally here to stay. Try to enjoy it to the fullest.  Good tunes always helps.


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