When I was in 7th grade, I saw a strange instrument on my brother’s desk. It was a harmonica. I asked him to play it for me, which he did. Then he gave it to me. That was the start of my musical career.
I remember being able to play the harp almost from the start. I could just play it. I could find and bend the right notes and play along with the John Mayall records my brother had, if the songs were in the right key. I used to go into the garage at night and play because the acoustics in there were nice. So I guess my late mom, god rest her soul, heard me and one day brought home from Kmart two blues album that she had found in the bargain records bin: Big Walter Horton on Alligator; and B. B. King on some strange label like maybe Crown. They probably cost two for a dollar. Besides a James Bond LP my friend up the street got me for my birthday, these were the first LPs I ever owned.
The following Christmas, I remember asking for some Flamenco music. It seems odd to me now, but I’m sure I must have heard it in a movie and liked it. Anyway, here’s the album she found, probably with the help of my sister Juli, who was pretty deft in music matters:
I remember liking Leyenda:
Throughout high school, I listened to this album a million times. Then in 1981, while in college in New York, I heard an amazing song on the radio: Fantasia Suite from the Al Di Meola / John McLaughlin / Paco de Lucia – Friday Night In San Francisco album. It reminded me of Christopher Parkening. Perhaps more importantly, it brought me to John McLaughlin’s My Goals Beyond, which was actually recorded in June 1971 on the Douglas label, but Elektra/Musician re-released it in 1983. I bought this album after attending the guitar trio’s 1983 Passion, Grace and Fire concert in New York City. I remember Steve Morse was the opening act, which was pretty cool.
In 1982, the Elektra/Musician label was founded as a subsidiary of Elektra Records, the behemoth label founded by Jac Holzman in 1950. Along with Paul Rickolt, Holzman started Elektra in his St. John’s College dorm room. They both invested $300 dollars and the rest is history. The name Elektra is based on the mythical Electra, daughter of Greek King Agamemnon. In the book Follow The Music: The Life and High Times of Elektra Records in the Great Years of American Pop Culture, Holzman explains, “I gave her the ‘K’ that I lacked.” He thought the ‘C’ in her name was “too soft”, but liked the “solid bite” of the letter ‘K’. Elektra would go on to release blockbuster records by The Doors, Love, The Stooges, MC5, and Joni Mitchell, to name just a few.
As a side note, I want to pay homage to my Minnesota roots. Jac Holzman also bankrolled the Elektra Record’s Paxton Lodge recordings.
Here’s an interesting take on the Paxton Lodge experiment from American Pastimes on Chico California’s KZFR radio:
When Dylan's "Basement Tapes" and the Band's “Music from Big Pink” were first heard everyone in the music industry took notice. Both had been recorded in a house in the country. The agrarian collective ideal lived on, and on both sides of the Atlantic bands talked their record companies into renting large country estates or ranches in order to provide creative environments for making music. At the close of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, Elektra Records producer Barry Friedman (aka Frazier Mohawk - his name change was not inspired by any Native American connections or spirituality - he was hiding from the IRS) talked label owner Jac Holtzman into financing such a venture. Holzman later blamed the heady success of the festival (which featured Hendrix, the Who, Joplin, etc.) for affecting his judgment. After failing to locate an available property in southern California, Friedman placed an ad in the L.A. Examiner and the owner of the Paxton Lodge responded. The lodge was located along the Feather River in northern California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, west of Quincy, near the small community of Keddie. Elektra took out a six month lease with an option for an additional six months. The record company would underwrite the entire venture; renovation, salaries, fuel, food, cooks and housekeeping, etc.
Friedman selected a few promising young musicians, Jackson Browne among them, in an attempt to create a productive musical community. Unfortunately, non-musical shenanigans kept them from producing anything worthwhile. However, two records did actually come out of the Paxton endeavor: Bamboo by Dave “Snaker” Ray and Will Donicht; and Running, Jumping, Standing Still by “Spider” John Koerner and Willie Murphy. Koerner and Ray, along with harp player Tony “Little Sun” Glover, were from Minnesota and made up the famed Koerner, Ray & Glover band. Here’s their star on the wall at Minneapolis’ First Avenue - right in the middle to the left of Conrad:
The Elektra/Musician label released many top-notch new and re-issue recordings from 1982 until 1984, before it folded for the first time. It re-established in 1987, but only released five more recordings before shutting down for good in 1989. For such a short duration, the label released many fine albums, featuring excellent musicians from Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Rouse, Bill Evans, and Dexter Gordon to Chaka Khan and Bobby McFerrin.
Elektra/Musician definitely came out of the box swinging. If not the first, one of their earliest releases was Charlie Parker’s One Night in Washington, a previously unreleased recording of a brilliant February 22nd, 1953 live Parker performance with excellent sound quality from the private collection of Bill Potts. Released in 1982, this music was recorded at Club Kavakos, in Washington D.C.
While My Goals Beyond was the first Elektra/Musician album I purchased, the second was Lennie Tristano - New York Improvisations, released in 1983.
This is an interesting album in that it is live recordings from 1955 and 1956, at the same time and using the same trio that recorded Tristano’s famed Atlantic studio album Lennie Tristano.
Here is My Melancholy Baby for the live New York Improvisations:
As you may recall from last week, I first heard about Tristano in Graham Lock’s book Forces In Motion, where I learned that Tristano was an early influence on Anthony Braxton.
Another important musician that Elektra/Musician released was pianist Bill Evans. In his later years, I find some of Bill Evans’ playing a bit rushed and perhaps methodical. Nonetheless, the first three songs from The Paris Concert: Edition 2 are absolute treasures: Re: Person I Knew; Gary’s Theme; and Letter to Evan. The last one reminds me of an artistic rendering of a song I love, These Foolish Things by Mabel Mercer and Bobby Short at their second Town Hall concert:
That is wonderful. And here is Bill Evans’ Letter to Evan from The Paris Concert, recorded in 1979 and released in 1983:
This is one of his best solo performances, in my opinion. Unfortunately, eleven months after the The Paris Concert recording, Bill Evans passed away. But his wonderful music will remain with us forever.
Sphere, a tour de force quartet, recorded their first album for Elektra/Musician on the day that Thelonious Sphere Monk died, February 17, 1982 - hence the band’s name - Sphere. The quartet is made up of two of Monk’s bandmates, saxophonist Charlie Rouse and drummer Ben Riley, along with pianist Kenny Barron, and bassist Buster Williams. Here’s one of my favorite Sphere tunes, If I Should Lose You, from Flight Path recorded at Van Gelder Studio in 1983.
Here’s one more for the road. A couple months before the formation of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, John McLaughlin recorded My Goals Beyond. The first side of that album includes Peace 1 and Peace 2, which presage the sounds that would flourish in the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s first album, The Inner Mounting Flame. Here is Peace 1, with Charlie Haden on bass :
Next week, On that Big River called Jazz, we’ll step back in time to ride with the Benny Goodman Sextet, when Charlie Christian was moving swing toward bop.
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Also, find my playlist on Spotify: From Fred Astaire to Sun Ra.
Feel free to contact me at any time to talk shop. I welcome and encourage that.
Until then, keep on walking….