The Soundies #14

This is an Eliington tune, “Don't Get Around Much Any More,” but done in a pop music style by Lina Romay (1919-2010) , a Mexican-American singer and actress who performed with Xavier Cugat's Orchestra.

Does the name Lina Romay ring a bell? It was the stage name chosen by Spanish actress Rosa Maria Amerill Martinez (1954-2012), presumably because of her admiration for the first Lina Romay. The second Lina Romay was the longtime companion of Jesus Franco, the prolific horror and soft core sex film director. She starred in dozens of his films.

The Soundies #13

Here are Louis Jordan and his Tympany five doing “Caldonia,” which was #1 on the race music charts for seven weeks in 1945. I'm not able to identify the other group members. The video was made after the recording, and there were several personnel changes around this time. You'll notice that the objectification of women was a soundies tradition long before the rise of music videos in the '80s.

Different Strokes

The 34^th Annual Blues Music Awards was held by the Blues Foundation on May 9 in Memphis. Here are the winners. A complete list of the nominees in each category can be found here.

Performances

Album of the Year: Michael Burks—Show of Strength

Acoustic Blues Album: Ann Rabson/Bob Margolin—Not Alone

Contemporary Blues Album: Michael Burks—Show of Strength

Rock Blues Album: The Tedeschi-Trucks Band—Everybody's Talkin'

Soul Blues Album: Curtis Salgado—Soul Shot

Traditional Blues Album: The Mannish Boys—Double Dynamite

Best New Artist Debut: Big Llou Johnson—They Call Me Big Llou

Historical Album: Various Artists—Plug It In! Turn It Up!: Electric Blues, 1939-2005 (Bear Family Records)

DVD of the Year: Muddy Waters and the Rolling Stones—Live at Checkerboard Lounge (Eagle Rock Entertainment)

Song of the Year: Janiva Magness and Dave Darling—“I Won't Cry” from Janiva Magness—Stronger For It

Performers

Entertainer of the Year: Curtis Salgado

Acoustic Artist: Eric Bibb

Contemporary Blues Female Artist: Janiva Magness

Contemporary Blues Male Artist: Tab Benoit

Soul Blues Female Artist: Irma Thomas

Soul Blues Male Artist: Curtis Salgado

Traditional Blues Female Artist: Ruthie Foster

Traditional Blues Male Artist: Magic Slim

Band: The Tedeschi-Trucks Band

Bass: Bob Stroger

Drums: Cedric Burnside

Guitar: Derek Trucks

Harmonica: Rick Estrin

Horn: Eddie Shaw

Piano: Victor Wainright

A few observations:

• To vote, you must be one of the 4500 members of the Foundation. This makes it more like a popularity contest than most other awards. For example, it's unlikely that many voters have heard all the nominated albums, so familiar artists have a big advantage.
• There are so many categories that it lessens the value of each award.
• The award winners seem to get paler with each year that passes. Of course, so does the audience.
• I hate to be a cynic, but you'll notice it anyway. If you want to win, it helps to die within the past year (Michael Burks, Magic Slim, Ann Rabson).

You may also be interested in reading:

Best Blues CD of 2012

Stroking Time

The Soundies #12

This is a movie scene from the soundie era.  A couple of years ago, I was a captive audience for the film Hellzapoppin' (1941).  Ole Olson and Chic Johnson are not funny at all, and I wasn't expecting this pleasant surprise.  The scene starts with Slim and Slam—Slim Gaillard on piano and Slam Stewart on bass—who had a hit with "Flat Foot Floogie" in 1938.  They are joined by Rex Stewart, trumpet; Jap Jones, trombone; Elmer Fane, clarinet; and C. P. Jonstone (or Johnson), drums.  The dancers are the Harlem Congeroos.  One of the songs listed on the soundtrack is called "Congeroo," so this is probably it.

Sharing the Cost of Production

Artist Share is a crowdfunding platform that produces jazz CDs by soliciting contributions ranging from $12.95 (the cost of a download) to $10,000 in advance from fans of the artist in question. In exchange, contributors receive the CD when it is released (a physical copy costs $19.95), and depending on the amount contributed, perks such as regular email and video updates from the artist (“exclusive access to the artist's creative process”) and co-producer credits in the liner notes. So far, they have released some excellent CDs, such as Maria Schneider's Sky Blue and Ryan Truesdell's Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans. Artist Share has announced that they have formed a partnership with Blue Note Records, one of jazz's oldest and most popular labels, to use the Artist Share model “to help nurture and promote up-and-coming young jazz artists.”

At one level, this is good news. Who can be opposed to helping talented young musicians get a chance to record?

On the other hand, Artist Share contributors pay a lot more on average for their new CDs than other consumers. Those contributions cushion Artist Share against losses, or in the case of commercially successful CDs, increase their profits. When people receive appeals from Artist Share, they are told, in effect, that the CD they are supporting would not exist without their contributions. Clearly, some large donors have a personal relationship with the artist, but the majority are folks who are willing to pay more because they trust that message.

I have no access to Blue Note's balance sheets, but for a jazz label, they seem to be doing pretty well right now. They are home to successful artists like Joe Lovano, Wayne Shorter, Jason Moran and Norah Jones. And even if jazz doesn't make much money these days, they are “part of the Capitol Music Group, a subsidiary of the Universal Music Group”—hardly the struggling independent label they once were. One of the things record companies do is invest in the promotion of new artists. It is in their self-interest, as well as the interest of jazz musicians and fans. In fact, their press release boasts of the fact that they have recently jump-started the careers of Robert Glasper, Lionel Loueke and Ambrose Akinmusire.

Of course, recording unknown artists is financially risky. Are we to expect that Blue Note/Artist Share will increase the number of new jazz artists they record, or is this merely about cost-shifting in order to increase profits? If other jazz labels follow suit, might this turn out to be a de facto increase in the price of jazz records?

I've contributed to Artist Share because I believe the claim that their CDs could not be produced without fan contributions. I'm not sure I want to make a similar contribution to the bottom line of a financially successful media conglomerate just to get them to do something they ought to be doing anyway.

In other Artist Share news:

• Ryan Truesdell's Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans has been selected by the Jazz Journalists' Association as their 2012 Record of the Year.
  
  
• Maria Schneider and Dawn Upshaw's Winter Morning Walks/Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories has been iTunes' #1 classical music album for several weeks.

You may also be interested in reading:

Best Jazz CD of 2012:  Centennial by Ryan Truesdell and the Gil Evans Project

CD Review:  Maria Schneider/Dawn Upshaw, Winter Morning Walks/Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories

CD Review:  Various Artists, Newport Jazz Gala

Heroes of the Blues

In the '80s, underground cartoonist Robert Crumb published his Heroes of the Blues, Early Jazz Greats and Pioneers of Country Music trading card sets, featuring his highly stylized drawing of the artists on the front and biographical and discographical information on the back. In 2006, they were collected in book form, along with a 21-track CD compiled by Crumb.

Muddy Waters

On Monday, cartoonist William Stout released a new book, Legends of the Blues, which includes 100 additional portraits of blues artists done in the Crumb style, along with a CD of his own. He does not repeat any of the 36 blues people in Crumb's original set. I haven't seen the Stout book yet, but if you go to this article on the Mother Jones website, you can sample Robert Johnson, Huddie Ledbetter, Muddy Waters, and ten other Stout portraits.

I'm sure blues fans will enjoy them.

You may also be interested in reading:

Jerry Strikes Again

The Soundies #11

From 1941, Count Basie and his Orchestra doing "Air Mail Special."  The person who posted it has identified the soloists.  The winner of the dance contest, Jimmy Rushing, was Basie's primary vocalist at the time.