Back at it with Charles Earland

It's hard to believe that it's been almost a month since my last post. It's been a busy, but very good month. I spent a couple of weeks of it on tour with Melvin Sparks, doing a residence at the fabulous Half Note Jazz Club in Athens, Greece (and I've posted this stunning pic of us at the Parthenon to prove it!). Man, what a trip. What I learned: Acid Jazz is way more popular in Europe, and because of that so is Melvin. The place was packed every night with people who listened, danced, had fun and were excited about the whole thing, and that's a lot more than I can say about the average American venue. I sure hope many more Euro trips are coming (Melvin is on tour there right now with Dr. Lonnie Smith, sans me, btw). I recorded every night of our trip so when I can go through the stuff I hope I'll have some to post here at some point.

So, back to the main point of this blog which is other peoples' music. Here's a rip of Charles Earland's rather large group recording from 1972 Live at the Lighthouse, which features Elmer Coles (tp), Clifford Adams (tb), Jimmy Vass (sop,as), Charles Earland (org), Maynard Parker (g), Darryl Washington (d), Kenneth Nash (cga). Like many Earland recordings it has ups and downs (none very low though), but overall it's a solid outing. (As an aside, having now seen John Cusack in the horror film 1408 the song "We've Only Just Begun" has an ominous side I could never have imagined).

In other news: My new turntable and conversion set up has arrived, expect a quality upgrade soon.

Link is in comments