Multiplication Rock

MULTIPLICATION ROCK- CAPITOL 1973

BOB DOROUGH,GRADY TATE &BLOSSOM DEARIE

In honor of our 3rd post i’m dropping this lil’ gem , featuring the  song “3 is the magic number” by Bob Dorough…which was quite famously sampled by De La Soul on their track of the same name on the album “3 Feet High And Rising”. Let me just begin by saying, I LOVE THIS RECORD!!!   I spent the better part of a decade looking for this record after hearing that De La song. (mostly due to my aversion to paying eBay prices for records.)  Lo and behold one grey and rainy Sunday afternoon at the flea market on Terminal Ave. in Vancouver, British Columbia. Circa the mid 90’s…I see the top inch of this sought after little nugget of sampling bliss sticking out of a milkcrate of $1 kids records…hiding my glee, I quickly grab 4 other records from the same crate (as if to disguise my find?) and walk calmly to the cash pay the man 5 whole dollars and quietly turned towards the door making my exit…i swung the doors open to reveal the shining sun and birds chirping, holding the records skyward i let out i triumphant “FUCK YEAH!!!!!!” . It was as tho the whole world had flipped on it’s axis and things were looking up for me, a sweet find, the sun had come back out and all was well. Looking around, I quickly realized that everyone within 50 feet was staring at me like a sideshow freak….and i couldn’t have cared less.

Multiplication Rock is one part of a 6 part series of animated musical educational short films that aired during the Saturday morning children’s programming on the U.S. television network ABC. The topics covered included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics. The series produced original episodes between 1973 and 1986 (with 37 episodes created between 1973 and 1980, and four created as the “Computer Rock” segment between 1983 and 1984), with a return in 1993 and new episodes airing at least once a year between then and 1996, when production of the series for ABC was halted. Episodes continued to air for an additional five years after that, finally coming to an end after a 26-year run cancellation in 1999 by ABC.

Schoolhouse Rock! began as a commercial advertising venture by David McCall. The idea came to McCall when he noticed one of his sons, who was having trouble in school remembering the multiplication tables, knew the lyrics to many current rock songs. The first song recorded was “Three Is a Magic Number,” written by Bob Dorough. It tested well, so a children’s record was compiled and released. Tom Yohe listened to the first song, and began to doodle pictures to go with the lyrics. He told McCall that the songs would make good animation.

When a print workbook version fell through, McCall’s company decided to produce their own animated versions of the songs, which they then sold to ABC (which already was McCall’s company’s biggest advertising account) based on a demo animation of the original “Three Is A Magic Number” for its Saturday morning lineup. They pitched their idea to Michael Eisner, then vice-president of ABC’s children’s programming division. Eisner brought longtime Warner Bros. cartoonist/director Chuck Jones to the meeting to also listen to the presentation.

The network’s children’s programming division had producers of its regular 30- and 60-minute programs cut three minutes out of each of their shows, and sold General Foods on the idea of sponsoring the segments. The series stayed on the air for 12 years. Later sponsors of the Schoolhouse Rock! segments included Nabisco, General Foods, Kenner Toys, Kellogg’s, and McDonald’s.

The last of the original series were four segments about the then-novel personal computer technology. The shorts featured two characters by the name of Scooter Computer and Mister Chips, and so these were the only episodes in the series to feature any recurring characters.

Bob Dorough was born in arkansas in 1923, and grew up in Texas. He played in an Army band during World War II, then went to North Texas State University, where he majored in composition and minored in piano. He moved to New York City around 1950 and was playing piano in a Times Square tap dance studio when he was introduced to the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, who had temporarily left boxing and was putting together a song and dance revue. Dorough was hired and later became the show’s music director; the revue traveled to various U.S. cities and then to Europe.

Dorough left Robinson in Paris and lived there from 1954 to 1955, recording with singer Blossom Dearie during that time. He returned to the United States and moved to Los Angeles, where he played various gigs, including a job between sets by comedian Lenny Bruce. Dorough released his first album, Devil May Care, in 1956. It contained a version of “Yardbird Suite” with lyrics by Dorough over the famous Charlie Parker song.

Trumpeter Miles Davis liked the album, so when Columbia asked Davis to record a Christmas song in 1962, Davis turned to Dorough for lyrics and singing duties. The result was a downbeat tune called “Blue Xmas,” released on Columbia’s Jingle Bell Jazz compilation. During that session Dorough recorded another song for Davis, “Nothing Like You,” which appeared a few years later at the end of the Sorcerer album, making Dorough one of the few musicians with a vocal performance on a Miles Davis record.

“Comin’ Home Baby”, written by Dorough and bassist friend Ben Tucker, was a Top 40 hit for Mel Tormé in 1962, and earned Tormé two Grammy nominations.

Dorough had a producing partnership for many years with Stu Scharf, and were best known for producing two albums for the folk/jug band Spanky and Our Gang, adding jazz-influenced arrangements to their sound. Through Tucker, Dorough was approached in the early 1970s by advertiser David McCall and asked to put multiplication tables to music. The result was “Three Is a Magic Number”, the first song for what would become Schoolhouse Rock!. Dorough remained with the show from 1973-1985.

Although he worked with Miles Davis and Allen Ginsberg, and his adventurous style was an influence on Mose Allison, among other singers. He is perhaps best known as a voice and primary composer of many of the songs used in Schoolhouse Rock!,  Dorough composed, conducted and played much of the “Schoolhouse Rock!” music.

Dorough has released vocal jazz albums periodically over the last 50 years; his latest, Small Day Tomorrow, came out in 2006. He worked with Nellie McKay on her 2007 album, Obligatory Villagers as well as her 2009 release, Normal as Blueberry Pie – A Tribute to Doris Day. Bob Dorough was honored by East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania in December 2007 with the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts. In 2005 and 2008, Circumstantial Productions published two editions of the book, BLUE XMAS, the story of Dorough’s song.

http://www.mediafire.com/?mzytmm4mnn3

Get yourself a nice original copy of Multiplication Rock here or a reissue here…

OR…

ripped from vinyl @320 or better.Always.

Here

enjoy.

Willie Dynamite

Willie Dynamite Original Soundtrack-MCA Records 1974

J.J. Johnson

Willie Dynamite (Roscoe Orman AKA Gordon from televisions’  Sesame Street!!! say whut?) is a Manhattan pimp whose life and career are documented in this blaxploitation flick. Willie makes it to the top of his precarious profession, only to hit rock bottom again in record time. In her last movie role, Diana Sands plays an ex-hooker who becomes a social worker. She tries to get Willie to clean up his act before it’s too late.

Despite its focus on the title character, Willie Dynamite is not the kind of gangsta-glorifying blaxploitation opus one might expect. In fact, it’s a surprisingly serious drama that downplays  comic-book violence to focus on the moral implications of ghetto crime and prostitution. However, Willie Dynamite never quite manages to live up to the power of its convictions due to an unfortunate tendency toward melodrama. Diana Sands delivers the finest performance as Cora the social worker, managing to bring a genuine earnestness and flawed humanity to a character that could have been another bland do-gooder in a cast full of them.

The soundtrack however is on fire. And by “fire”  i mean  J.J. Johnson, knee deep and thigh high in the funk…

Johnson, born in 1924 in Indianapolis , began  studying the piano beginning at age 9, Johnson decided to play trombone at the age of 14. In 1941, he started his professional career with Clarence Love, and then played with Snookum Russell in 1942. In Russell’s band he met the trumpeter Fats Navarro, who influenced him to play in the style of the tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Johnson played in Benny Carter’s orchestra between 1942 and 1945, and made his first recordings in 1942 under Carter’s leadership, recording his first solo (on Love for Sale) in October, 1943. In 1944, he took part in the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concert, presented in Los Angeles and organized by Norman Granz. In 1945 he joined the big band of Count Basie, touring and recording with him until 1946.

After leaving Count Basie in 1946 to play in small bebop bands in New York clubs, Johnson toured in 1947 with Illinois Jacquet. During this period he also began recording as a leader of small groups featuring Max Roach, Sonny Stitt and Bud Powell. He performed with Charlie Parker at the 17 December 1945 Dial Records session following Parker’s release from Camarillo State Mental Hospital.

In 1951, with bassist Oscar Pettiford and trumpeter Howard McGhee, he toured the military camps of Japan and Korea before returning to the United States and taking a day job as a blueprint inspector. Johnson admitted later he was still thinking of nothing but music during that time, and indeed, his classic Blue Note recordings as both a leader and with Miles Davis date from this period. Johnson’s compositions Enigma and Kelo were recorded by Davis for Blue Note and J. J. was part of the Davis studio session band that recorded the jazz classic Walkin’ (1954).

Following the mid-1950s , J. J. Johnson began leading his own touring small groups for about 3 years, covering the United States, United Kingdom and Scandinavia. These groups (ranging from quartets to sextets) included tenor saxophonists Bobby Jaspar and Clifford Jordan, cornetist Nat Adderley, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, pianists Tommy Flanagan and Cedar Walton, and drummers Elvin Jones, Albert “Tootie” Heath, and Max Roach. His album Blue Trombone was recorded at this time. He also toured with the Jazz at the Philharmonic show in 1957 and 1960, the first tour yielding a memorable live album featuring Johnson and tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. In 1958-59 Johnson was one of three plaintiffs in a court case which hastened the abolition of the cabaret card system.

This period overlaps a bit with the beginnings of Johnson’s serious forays into Third Stream music . Periods of concentrating on writing and recording his music would alternate with tours demanding attention to his playing.

Following the six months he spent writing his album Perceptions , late 1961 found J. J. in the studio for a date which at first might have seemed an odd pairing on paper. Andre Previn’s trio (adding Johnson as the only horn) recorded an entire album of the music of Kurt Weill. The inventive arrangements and inspired playing of both stars bore out the producer’s foresight, yet this is one of few J. J. Johnson albums which remains unreleased on CD. In 1962 J. J. toured for a number of months with Miles Davis’ sextet of that year, which went unrecorded.

Johnson’s 1963 solo album J. J.’s Broadway is an excellent example of both his mature trombone style and sound, and his arranging abilities. 1964 saw the recording of his last working band for a period of over 20 years- Proof Positive. Beginning in 1965 Johnson recorded a number of large group studio albums under his name, featuring many of his own compositions and arrangements. The late 1960s saw a radical downturn in the fortunes of many jazz musicians and Johnson was consequently heard almost exclusively on big band-style studio records, usually backing a single soloist. For the rest of the 1960’s johnson focused mostly on composing and wrote a number of large-scale works which incorporated elements of both classical and jazz music.

In 1970, Quincy Jones convinced Johnson to move from New York to California to compose for cinema and television, where he eventually scored movies such as Across 110th Street, Cleopatra Jones, Top of the Heap and Willie Dynamite.

I have many albums by J.J., spanning his entire career…and i truly feel that this was his greatest period…both for commercial success and the music he created.  Johnson’s last feature soundtrack, 1974’s “Willie Dynamite”, is also his most cohesive and tight. He’s working with a stripped-back ensemble, with a soul-jazz band punctuated by the usual great brass arrangements, upfront percussion  and some great rhodes and hammond work. It’s carefully arranged, yet still has the sound of a live band.
“Willie Dynamite” was Johnson’s last major film scoring job, though he continued to work in television until the end of the decade. He was never the main composer on any of the TV shows, instead becoming more of an incidental music “episode composer” in various science fiction and police shows, while others like Oliver Nelson usually had the main show credits.

After a break in producing albums following the death of his wife Johnson had a return to music with Verve records releasing 5 albums in the 90’s.

Johnson was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the year 2000 and committed suicide by shooting himself the year after.

A true musical legend, his work lives on, this record has been heavily sampled by artists ranging from Massive Attack to Kool Keith to the Wu Tang Clan, exposing his work to another generation.

this isn’t something you will see at your local record shop, so….get yourself a Japanese copy here or the reissue here for a lot less money (if you aren’t as die hard as me.)

http://www.mediafire.com/?zmjnmcflgzt

or….

ripped from vinyl @320 or better.Always.

here

enjoy.

The Sheffield Drum Record

THE SHEFFIELD DRUM RECORD-SHEFFIELD LAB 1981

JIM KELTNER-RON TUTT

Starting things off with a real winner for anyone who is interested in jazz, drums, drumming, direct to disc recording, stereo’s, or my personal favorite….sampling.

This album, although originally intended for the purpose of home stereo calibration and evaluation, is a samplers dream… perfectly recorded open drum hits,breaks and grooves.  Clocking in at approx. 7 mins per side there is a wealth of drumming to enjoy, with Jim Keltner on side A and Ron Tutt on the B side…

Jim Keltner , born in 1942, in Tulsa, Oklahoma,is best known for his session work on solo recordings by three of The Beatles, working often with George Harrison, John Lennon (including Lennon solo albums, as well as albums released both by the Plastic Ono Band and Yoko Ono), and Ringo Starr.

As a percussionist, Keltner started out in jazz, although his first session was recording “She’s Just My Style” for the pop group Gary Lewis and the Playboys. In addition to his work with three of the Beatles, Keltner, as a free-lance drummer, has also worked with Gabor Szabo, Roy Orbison, Jerry Garcia, Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, Joe Cocker, the Rolling Stones, Ronnie Wood, Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Brian Wilson, Seals and Crofts, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Crowded House, Fiona Apple, Elvis Costello, The Bee Gees, Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder, Sam Phillips, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Rufus Wainwright, Tom Petty, Bill Wyman, the Steve Miller Band and Alice Cooper among many others.

Born in 1938 in Dallas, Texas, Ron Tutt began playing music at the age of  8. he didn’t however, start playing the drums till high school. he played the trumpet,playing in the school orchestra. After studying music at the University of North Texas he spent 10 years playing for Elvis Presley and has been Neil Diamond’s drummer since 1981. He performed and/or recorded with Glen Campbell, Johnny Cash, Kenny Rogers, Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, Jerry Garcia, Billy Joel, Stevie Nicks and Michael McDonald, among many others.

On working with such legendary singers, Mr. Tutt commented, “If I had to narrow it down, the two greatest music influences on my life would be Elvis Presley and Neil Diamond. Elvis for the flashy, explosive, slightly out of control, style of playing that he brought out in me that mirrored his performance and personality. Neil has influenced me to be a disciplined team player. He leaves little to chance. He makes sure we are all well-rehearsed and fundamentally prepared. We know we are going to win every time we go on stage – just like a great sports team, and that’s a great feeling!”

The Sheffield Drum Record was recorded at Sheffield Lab studios in Culver city, California in December of 1980 by Doug Sax, Bill Schnee and Steve Haselton and Executive Produced by Lincoln Mayorga.

The album was recorded using direct to disc mastering…removing the need for master tapes. A direct disc recording is a truly live performance, sent directly to a cutting lathe, whereby an entire side is recorded at one time. (any mistakes, and the entire disc had to be discarded). There is no overdubbing, no edits and no punched-in phrases.  The Sheffield Labs LP’s are regarded by many as the best quality vinyl recordings ever produced.

This album is rare as hell, as there only so many copies you can produce using this method and is prized by collectors the world over. If you find one whilst digging in the dollar bin, (…we did!!!) snap that up fast.  Or if you feel lazy you can always check the going price here or grab one here…but it won’t be cheap.

…but if i were reading this, i’d just  grab it right here…

SIDE A

SIDE B

Ripped from vinyl @ 320 or better. Always.

Enjoy.