Vinyl Cave: Dollar bin diving with George Russell, Pete Candoli, Brothers Four, Marty Marsala Band, Random, Top-Notchmen

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An appointment on a recent Friday left me on the south side around 10 a.m. Which is when Madison’s professional pickers have a daily appointment with the St. Vincent de Paul Dig & Save, a thrift store where many items are sold by the pound. There will reliably be a line outside to get in if one arrives before opening, and woe be unto to the neophyte who gets in the way of the cart driven by one of the pros in a race to the electronics area after the door opens.

One thing not sold by the pound is records. They are still 50 cents across the board, no matter the format. There is also a dedicated group of regulars who watch the record bins avidly and can be recognized by carts stacked high with LPs. The trick to finding much of interest at Dig & Save is being there right after the records go out. A few hours later you will still have a shot at finding some interesting records. A day later? You’d be lucky to find a clean Herb Alpert.

Long story short: My timing on a recent Friday was on. Here’s a few from that dig, as well as a couple interesting items from other bargain bins around town.

Pete Candoli, Blues, when your lover has gone

Usually I don’t mess around too much with anything on Somerset (aka Stereo-Fidelity, aka Alshire, home of 101 Strings), but this one’s cover caught my eye. Pete Candoli was a trumpet player who transitioned from the Big Band era into lots of work in Hollywood, both movie work and as a studio player. In classic Somerset silliness, his name is misspelled “Condoli” on the cover. His band is listed on the back, including bassist Red Mitchell, whose presence is usually an auto buy for me. It’s a small combo that also includes Jimmie Rowles, Milt Bernhardt, Al Hendrickson and Ted Nash (oddly, a drummer is not listed). This is indeed a nice, laid-back jazz session by a bunch of pros. It appears to be an actual album commissioned by the label, rather than one of their many low-rent licensing deals. It is also actually mastered well (Bell Sound) and on good wax. I guess I need to be paying more attention to what Somerset was up to. (Somerset P-17200, 1961)

George Russell, Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature

Well … this is something else. I’ll let Russell explain himself, since it’s succinctly described in the notes: “Its socio/musical objective was to create a pan-stylistic electronic tape: a tape composed of fragments of many different styles of music, avant-garde jazz, ragas, blues, rock, serial music etc., treated electronically.” Russell’s conception was recorded at an arts center in Norway in 1969, and the result emerged on this LP a couple years later from the adventurous Flying Dutchman label. The international ensemble is led by Norwegians Terje Rypdal (guitar), Jan Garbarek (sax) and Jon Christensen (drums), with German trumpeter Manfred Schoof, Russell himself on piano — and my old friend Red Mitchell on bass! Turns out he had moved to Stockholm in the late ‘60s, according to Wikipedia. I suspect fans of free jazz are already well aware of this piece of music, but if not they should be. Unfortunately, this copy is pressed by the dreaded Philips/Mercury plant in Richmond, Indiana, so side two is a nonfill-laden disaster area. (Flying Dutchman FD 10124, 1971)

Random, Nothin’ Tricky

This is some more extra-crazy stuff. A private press originating from a group from Urbana, Illinois, it’s pretty much all tricky-sounding to me. Trying to put a genre label on their music would be silly; it mixes up chamber music, rock, jazz, musique concrete, disco beats and about anything else you can think of by the time the album is done. It’s truly a unique piece of work … and, you can actually hear it online. Guitarist Jerry Fiddler offers a free download on his website, and a bit of info about the recording. This was apparently recorded live, which is pretty darn amazing. (Hell Yes Productions, RA 1001, 1977)

Burt Bales with Marty Marsala’s Band, Jazz from the San Francisco Waterfront

This is essentially a straight Dixieland jam, six tracks of extended workouts by the group recorded live at an auditorium in Carmel, California, in 1957. Music journalist Ralph Gleason wrote the copious notes on the back and is credited with supervision of the album, so I’m assuming he either recorded it or arranged for it to be taped. It swings. (ABC-Paramount 181, 1958)

The Top-Notchmen, Top-Notch Country

A somewhat mysterious Wisconsin private press LP, the band name actually is only in the liner notes on back. It looked intriguing enough to pick up since one of the members, Dave Melgard, has a number of original songs on the album. It’s the expected mix of country and polkas, but oddly also features a sort of Mellotron-esque analog synth sound underlying some of the songs. It appears a form of this group still is active playing dances in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, as a Top Notchmen with David Melgaard can be easily found via a web search. (SNP 1973-33)

The Brothers Four, Let’s Get Together

Former University of Washington fraternity brothers, The Brothers Four are one of the longest-lived of the groups who came to prominence during folk music’s commercial heyday of the late ‘50s/early ‘60s. Founder Bob Flick has kept the group active right up to the present day, and they’ll be on tour again in 2018. Their smash 1960 single “Greenfields” is still one of my favorite songs of the era, and remains effective because they kept it simple: their distinctive harmonies, a stark guitar and bass. They were still out there swinging in the record bins on a regular basis for the entire decade, but the unadorned folk of their debut album was long gone by the time of this 1969 effort, a sort of EZ-listening approach to a lineup of songs pulled from recent chart hits. Most are pleasant but won’t make you forget the originals, save perhaps for a novel but mostly spectacularly ill-advised take on one of The Beatles’ hardest-edged numbers. (Columbia CS 9818, 1969)