The Green Monkey 2023 assault of the senses continues to glut the marketplace of musical sensibilities with another three releases: Mystery School – Dreams of the Earth (plus another Strongbow book), Grady Eden’s Buck and the Ramrods group and the third on our OlyJazz series, Red Kelly’s Tumwater Conservatory Group. Plus info about an all-new Jeff Kelly digital album available from St. Brigid!
Let’s start with Red Kelly’s Tumwater Conservatory Group. When I researched “Jazz In Olympia” for Olympia: A True Story, I came to consider Red one of the cornerstones of the Oly jazz scene which happened while I was living elsewhere. You can read a great article about Red Kelly (written by our pal Dennis White) right here: https://jivetimerecords.com/northwest/red-kelly/
This is our second OlyJazz release that is being released to the public for the first time ever! Debuted! This album was recorded by then teenaged and current True Olympian drummer, Jeff Parkhurst (who is currently working on his debut GMR release) when he was a teenager. Jeff couldn’t get in the bar and got a friend’s mom to take his mono Sony cassette deck and mic into the club and set it up by the sound board. Thirty-seven years later, we have the result. Jeff assures me that none of these great musicians survive and they have no known heirs, so we are releasing this with no permissions whatsoever, as a public service. Any dough that we take in for this will be donated to Oly Jazz Central. Any heirs coming forward and making a claim will be honored appropriately – anywhere from giving them any proceeds to simply taking it down. Our intent was to have this unique histporical artifact unearthed. It is so cool.
Red Kelly’s Tumwater Conservatory Group (featuring Chuck & Jan Stentz) – Live In ‘76
Musicians: Red Kelly – Bass; Jack Perciful – Piano; Don Ober – Guitar; Don Manning – Drums; Jan Stentz – Vocals; Chuck Stentz – Tenor Sax and Flute; Bill Ramsay – Tenor Sax; Don Smith – Trumpet and Flugelhorn; Dave McCrary – Trumpet and Flugelhorn; Davey Tuttle – Trombone
Au Privave No. 1 (Charlie Parker)
Our Delight (Tadd Dameron)
Just in Time (Jule Styne, Lyrics – Betty Comden and Adolph Green)
I’ve Got A Crush On You (George Gershwin, Lyrics – Ira Gershwin)
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore (Duke Ellington)
Tenderly (Walter Gross, Lyrics – Jack Lawrence )
Satin Doll (Duke Ellington / Billy Strayhorn, Lyrics – Johnny Mercer)
Prelude To A Kiss (Duke Ellington, Lyrics – Irving Gordon and Irving Mills)
The Preacher (Horace Silver)
Recorded Live at Red Kelly’s Conservatory of Music Restaurant Club 8/29/1976
Produced by: Jeff Parkhurst, Recorded by: Barb Olendorf on Sony TC-110A Cassette-Corder tape deck with Memorex 90 MRX2 Oxide cassette tape @ 1 7/8 i.p.s. Mastered by Tom Dyer May 2023
Dreams Of The Earth is our latest Mystery School release, as usual, this is the first time it has ever been available on the internet. Previously it could be bought from Jon at the Pike Place Public Market and nowhere else. I am listening to it for the first time as I write this today and I must say it is very fine indeed. Beautiful and definitely worth your attention.
Here’s what Jon wrote about it at JonStrongbow.com:
The fourth Mystery School album came out in 1999 and is called “DREAMS OF THE EARTH.” It is available on CD, with cover art by Milo Duke, and interior art by Jon Strongbow, from the Secret City Suite. The theme of this album is “The earth is dreaming and we are her dreams.” It features the same line-up as before, but also features Jarred Kaplan of Hanuman on percussion, Willow has a few delicious vocals; Christine Gunn plays gorgeous cello and Carolyn Crusoe astonishes us all with flute and hammered dulcimer.
Bassit Marty Sutlovich adds:
The first Mystery School CD project was Dreams of the Earth after we had previously released three cassette albums. We were a working band at that time playing frequently in Pioneer Square at clubs like Dutch Ned’s and on Capitol Hill at Squid Row, the Hop Vine, the Eastlake Cafe’ and the Mars Bar.
We entered World Rhythms studios with our new engineer/producer MEHRDAD AZADI. Jon had long said that we needed to work with someone who was familiar with world music and Middle Eastern music styles. And Mehrdad became our guy. He was an Iranian musician who wrote music for his own orchestra that played around the Northwest at festivals such as the Folklife Festival and Bumbershoot.
While setting up our gear in his basement studio, one of the first things I noticed in a corner of the room was a large plastic man-hole cover. I asked what it was and Mehrdad said it was a fresh water well from the time before there were water pipes in his neighborhood north of Seattle. He said not to open it as you could not see to the bottom and a person could easily fall through it.
We booked the entire weekend there with Friday being our set up day and to get proper levels and then spent all day Saturday and Sunday recording tracks. We were a tight band and typically would record 17 – 18 songs per day in a 12 hour session.
The songs were recorded completely live with only keyboard overdubs and extraneous percussion added later which we all had a hand in using shakers chimes gongs bongos and doumbek. It was a thrilling experience putting our music into shape in a really good studio with an engineer who understood perfectly what we were trying to accomplish!
Our Strongbow book for ye this month is A WALKABOUT SEATTLE — a revised, expanded second edition first available January, 2014. 96 pages of surrealistic wonderment; rewritten with more than 30 pages of new material.
JON: This was originally published in the year 2000. There were only 1,700 copies of the first edition. It was 64 pages, but also had a 82 page woodcut novel: The Book of Orpheus by Mio Duke, that was printed upside down as a giveaway, bringing the interior page count to 96 pages. The Pike Place Market banned this book claiming I was selling work that I did not create. So for this second edition I have removed Milo’s mini-masterpiece & expanded the story from its original 64 pages to 96 pages, featuring a plethora of all new art & ideas. $12.00.
Our latest smasharoo from Grady and Nick of Von Cube fame is Buck and The Ramrods – Funnel Cloud. Unlike their previous EP/single releases, this is a full album and according to Grady, it is his tribute to every great musical guitar style he listened to when he was growing up. Recorded about 15 years ago by Bruce Whitcomb at Arcade Digital Recording Studios right here in Olympia, it features Rick Smith on bass and Scotty Peoples on drums on several of the tracks. As always it is the rocking instrumental tour de force that you expect from the Von Cube lads!
I mentioned our beloved Jeff Kelly has a new album Blue Is The Color Of My Heart, out on St. Brigid plus an outtakes EP thingy. (download only) Go buy them both right now – I did!
Here’s what Jeff says!
Hi everyone! Just wanted to say I have a new album out today via Bandcamp. ‘Blue Is The Color Of My Heart’ is a digital only release with 10 new songs over 40 minutes. A new 4 song EP, ‘More Blue Hearts,’ is available as well with two alternate versions of songs from the album and a couple of outtakes. I hope you enjoy it and thanks very much for the support!
And finally:
Green Monkey Records Two-Day-Summer-Outside-ROCK-O-RAMA
Adults Only – No Damn Kids Allowed – Adult Beverages Will be Served!
Slim’s Last Chance
Chili Shack & Watering Hole
5606 1st Ave S. Seattle WA 98108
Advance tix should be available shortly at: https://www.slimslastchance.com/
THE LINE UP!
Friday
7:30 Band of Certainty
8:30 Swedish Finnish
9:30 The Fuzz
10:30 Shaken Growlers
Saturday
6:30 Mark Brunke
7:30 Tom Dyer & The True Olympians
8:30 The OF
9:30 AAIIEE
10:30 The Queen Annes
that’s all!
td