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Top 10 Jazz Albums: Andrew White

3/31/2016

1 Comment

 
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On the scene for over five decades, multi-instrumentalist Andrew White (saxophone, oboe, guitar) is a composer, arranger, bandleader, transcriber, educator, and noted John Coltrane scholar. He is the publisher of his own music and texts, all of which can be purchased from Andrew White/Andrew’s Music, 4830 S. Dakota Ave. NE, Washington, DC 20017, 202-526-3666.

Here are Andrew’s favorites among the recordings he has produced over the years:

1. 7 New York Bootlegs
​

I’m from Washington, DC. But since 1961, I’ve been going up to the Apple on several occasions and working with my New York bands. Here are two sets from 1983 and 1988 with two of my New York bands on one CD (AMCD-58). Released in September 2015, these seven gems give a testament to my New York antics. If you missed them, you got to hear ’em now. Check it out!

2. Fat Backin’ : Vols. 1–8

Released 2016. This is my demonstration anthology of over 150 of my compositions representing myself as a composer and publisher. These eight CDs cover my compositional prowess from 1961 up until the present day. Programmed highly eclectically, these various selections also function as great background music and as music. Listen, learn, and enjoy.

3. Gigtime 2000: Music Before Its Time: Vols. 1–4

Recorded October 3, 1998. Released May 7, 1999. Vol. 1 (AMCD45): Nouveau Fonk. Vol. 2 (AMCD46): Andrew’s Theme. Vol. 3 (AMCD47): Everybody Loves the Sugar. Vol. 4 (AMCD48): Keep on Dancin,’ Baby.

​These are my first “commercial” CDs on my own Andrew’s Music Record label. All four are hot and long-winded. They include French chansons, classical pieces, sing-a-long fonk, soft shoe, and Coltrane romps. I close out Vol. 4 with my all-time favorite blues anthem: “Red Top,” a full night’s work with the Andrew White Quartet.

4. Weekend at the One Step: Vols. 1–43

Recorded October 12-14, 1979. Released April 15, 1981. Vol. 1 (AMCD-37): Fonk Update. Vol. 2 (AMCD-38): I Love Japan. Vol. 3 (AMCD-39): Have Band Will Travel. Recorded at the One Step Down Jazz Club in Washington, DC. All three records feature the same musicians: Kevin Toney, piano; Steve Novosel, bass; and Keith Kilgo, drums. Gittem!

5. Loft Jazz Series: Vols. 1 & 2, 3, 4 

Vols. 1 & 2: Live in New York at the Ladies’ Fort

Vol. 1 (AM-31) is available in cassette only at this time. Vol. 2 (AM-32) is in LP and cassette. Recorded June 24–25, 1977. From the famous “Loft War” of summer 1977 between Sam Rivers and Rashid Ali’s and Joe Lee Wilson’s Ladies’ Fort Lofts, these two LPs are the only remaining recorded testaments of the “lines of fire on the frontal borders” of Andrew White’s fiery “hottest sax.” Released in February 1978, these two LPs were easily paid for by the mailing-list patrons of the two fiery nights of June 24–25, 1977. Hot stuff, baby! Gittem!

Vol. 3 Bionic Saxophone (AM-33)
Available in cassette only at this time. Recorded on March 10–11, 1978. 
DC Space of Washington, DC, fame and fortune became famous as a loft by many New York avant-garde players who would come to DC and work there. I was the first if not the only artist to record at DC Space. Great live loft music. Check it out!

Vol. 4 Saxophonitis (AM-36)
Available 
in cassette only at this time. Recorded on January 12–13, 1979. Harold’s Rogue and Jar, also of Washington, DC, fame, was a cross between a jazz club and a loft. The way I played (as I still do ) and the way I ran my loft music business made me a New York loft player in DC. And helped round out the multi-year career and sojourn of the Rogue and Jar, which closed its doors shortly after this recording was made. Vibrant, white hot, typical Andrew White post bebop, heavy-hitting jazz standards: “All the Things You Is,” “Autumn Leaf I and II,” “B Flat Blues, my “B Flat Rhythm,” and my “Theme” all go to acknowledge a brief period on the about ten-year history of loft jazz in New York and Washington DC. Hot! ​Gittem!

6. De Here We Is Again! Series: Vols. 1–7 

LPs and/or cassettes. Released over five years, these seven recordings were recorded live between 1974 and 1976. A collection and display of various Andrew White stylistic virtues from gut bucket-funky to extremely, idiosyncratic genius, these seven discs thoroughly demonstrate the Andrew White candor, humor, and creative ingenuity. The seven titles are Spotts, Maxine and Brown (AM-24), Countdown (AM-25), Red Top (AM-26), Trinkle, Tinkle (AM-27), Ebony Glaze (AM-28), Miss Ann (AM-29), and Seven Giant Steps for Coltrane (AM-30). Frankly and outrageously brilliant music.

7. Marathon ’75 Series: Vols. 1–9 

LPs and/or cassettes, AM-15 through 23. These nine discs are taken from a twelve-hour marathon concert I played and recorded from 6 p.m. on November 16, 1975, until 6 a.m. November 17, 1975. Working with two bands and for various sized audiences from full to half empty over a dozen hours, these nine records display the full spectrum of the Andrew White stamina, stigmata, creativity, and genius. We are celebrating their 41st anniversary year. Gittem! And diggem!

8. Live at the Foolery: Vols. 1–6

LPs and/or cassettes, 
AM-8 through 13. Recorded on October 13 and 27, 1974, with two bands, this is the first installment of the Andrew White “Jazz in Series” listings of multi-disc sets. This is the set of discs that kicked off the Andrew White/Andrew’s Music Thing, so to speak, in terms of “what he gonna do next?” Gittem! And hearem!

9. Live at the New Thing: Double-Album Set

LPs and/or cassettes, AM-2 and/or AMC-2. Recorded June 2, 1969, in Washington, DC, at Saint Margaret’s Episcopal Church. This is the second recording made on the Andrew’s Music Record label, one of my most famous live recordings. Feel free to write me for a copy of Bob Rusch’s famous review of this recording (1973). The New Thing also includes one extended cut from the New Jazz Trio in 1965 from Buffalo, New York: “Woodyn’t You” with me on alto saxophone, Buell Neidlinger on bass and the late John Bergamo on drums. John Bergamo passed in 2013.

10. The Coltrane Interviews: Vols. 1 & 2

LPs and/or cassettes, AM-34 and 36. This is a collection of Andrew White radio interviews dating from 1975 to 1978. Andrew talking about John Coltrane and his music. Very interesting. Listen!
1 Comment

Ellington on His White House Tribute

3/11/2016

2 Comments

 
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Four months after President Nixon presided over his 70th birthday bash at the White House, Duke taped a radio interview, excerpted below from Ken Vail’s Duke’s Diary, Part 2: The Life of Duke Ellington, 1950–1974 (Lanham, Maryland: ScareCrow Press, 2002), 361-62.


WEDNESDAY 27 AUGUST 1969
Duke Ellington tapes a radio interview with Gary Moore for New York, New York:
 
Moore: President Nixon, sure. He swings doesn’t he?

Duke: Yes, his pulse and my pulse were together that night.

Moore: Oh, that must have been the most marvelous night. You’ve won so many honors. But that must have been the night, the night that Duke Ellington was honored at the White House by the President of the United States.

Duke: They had a lot of fun down there, I know that. Well, it was the most extraordinary night because a lot of people who worked there for years, 20 or 30 years, who I’ve known, you know. I worked there about 8 times when President Johnson was president, and I know all the guys pretty well, so they said that nothing has ever happened in the White House like this, you know.

Moore: It was a real break-up night, wasn’t it?

Duke: No, it started out with the White House normalcy. The President and Mrs. Nixon took my sister and I and Mrs. Agnew and Mr. Agnew up to their living quarters, and we chatted around very informally and at the Inaugural Ball at Smithsonian Institute the president’s opening statement was, “As Duke Ellington said it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” And I jumped six feet and I said where’d he get that? And I said what’s he know about me, you know, and when I finally got close to him, I said, “Mr. President, we used to play down in your neighborhood in Orange County and Balboa Beach, and all that, you know, in the early 40s, and I said could it be that you used to be one of those good dancers down there in the ball room?” He said, “Oh no, he was never a dancer, he was a watcher,” you know, and I never found out how he got that other name. And then he went on to show me how good his hi-fi set was, you know, and all his records and . . . I don’t know what kind of a hi-fi set he thought I thought the President of the United States was going to have, but he was bragging about how good the speakers were, and showed me how high it went up and how low, and then we went down and had dinner and the concert with all those great musicians, you know, Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Billy Taylor, Hinton . . . who else? I can’t think of them all, they’re just loaded.

Moore: I know protocol says things like that usually knock off about midnight, but this thing caught fire and kept going until about what time?

Duke: Yeah, it was about two o’clock when we came out of there.

Moore: I think with the impetus . . .


Duke: And I left people there.

Moore: Oh, yes, about 4 o’clock in the morning.

Duke: If you can imagine a moment when Lou Rawls and Billy Eckstine and Joe Williams, all three at the microphone, singing the other one’s blues . . . not singing their own blues . . . taking turns. 

Permission for the above courtesy of Rowman & Littlefield, 4501 Forbes Blvd, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706.

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