Wednesday, February 10, 2010

It’s Valentine’s Day this weekend and I’ve got a $10 coupon for 1-800-Flowers, I believe, compliments of a class action lawsuit.  Believe me readers, I’d send flowers to each and everyone of you if I weren’t so selfish and broke.

In other news: Austin music.

I guess Mark David Ashworth doesn’t exactly qualify as "Austin Music" anymore, but one of my favorite local labels, Autobus (the home of Brazos, Sunset, and a good portion of good music in Austin), is putting out his new album, text later this month.  Ashworth moved out to California some time ago, but the new album, much as the last one, is more than worth taking time out of our busy Austin schedule for a mention.

Recorded in Ashworth’s home and in the middle-school orchestra classroom of where collaborator Tristan Arnold teaches (and sleeps, if he’s anything like my middle school band teachers), the album takes on both an intimate and a grandiose tone, with the ability to shift between the two with beautiful ease.  Clean Slate, which you can sample below, is a perfect example of Ashworth’s best qualities.  Sounding at times like a large church ensemble freed of the constraints of the hymnals, and at times like a private concert with Ashworth (the timbre of whose voice I believe was Stradivari’s original inspiration), Clean Slate is altogether sublime.  I feel like every word I write relegates it to some lesser status, so just have a listen for yourself, and be sure to check out the album when it comes out on February 23rd.  If you like Clean Slate, you’ll like most of what Ashworth does.  Okay, here:

:Mark David Ashworth - Clean Slate:

As for the jazz I’ve been into lately, in heavy rotation is an album that I’ve had for quite some time: Basie Live At the Sands, a performance by Basie’s group before they played backing for Frank Sinatra.  The sands (and Basie) have since hit the grave, so this one definitely has some history in it.  But what’s really drawn me to the album lately is trombonist Al Grey.  I couldn’t pick just one track, so I picked two. Enjoy.

The first features the glorious Al Grey makin’ some serious whoopee on trombone.  Al Grey may be my favorite trombone soloist, and he rarely works the plunger better than in the solos in this song.  Never are his yearning melodies more pronounced than in Making Whoopee!.  Add in the hard-swing chorus and you’ve easily got one of my favorite Basie recordings (arr. Thad Jones).  Wait for the buildup around halfway through in the 2nd minute.

:Count Basie - Makin Whoopee!:

With Basie’s orchestra, Grey’s solos took on their characteristic simplicity, more so than his days with Dizzy’s band.  Of course, the syncopated growls were never too far behind.  Though Basie solos for a while on the piano in the first half of I Needs to Bee’d With (arr. Quincy Jones), let it coast into the 1:45 mark to hear another divine intervention on the trombone.   Syncopated as hell and in a time signature nearly of its own by the end, this solo gets me every time.

:Count Basie - I Needs To Bee'd With:

(PS these are great tracks for wooing that Valentine of yours into whatever state of jazz-love delirium best suits your purposes.  And don’t forget Basie’s rendition of I Can’t Stop Loving You, also on this album. Ray Charles may have been blind, but that didn’t stop-- well, you get the idea.)
 

- John Michael Cassetta -



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