Records

Not long ago, Shorty Rogers brought us to the brink of interplanetary warfare (without consulting Dulles) by composing and playing a ditty called Martians Go Home — this only a few months before that planet's closest approach to Terra in 30-odd years. Wadda risk! Quelle brink! Anyway, the Martians got mad and Shorty knew it was up to him to backbrink, so now he comes up (in the nick of the space-time continuum) with Martians Come Back (Atlantic 1232), as pretty an astral LP as has penetrated our space helmet in a month of moondays. In this one. Shorty plays eight new tunes with various combinations of other cats from outer space, including his original Giants. It's all truly gone goods, yet tuneful and with the Basie metabolism ticking away like a time bomb. These boys are up in cloudland, but they have their feet on the ground (of Mars).

Sexy, sultry Julie Wilson sings all about Love (Dolphin 270), and produces a provocative bit of listening. The background is good, too, with batoneer Phil Moore using such top-drawer tooters as Urbie Green and Don Elliott to cool off some of the Wilson-generated heat. Standouts include Sugar, Don't Ever Leave Me and a special ditty, Pagliacci Has Nothing on Me, with which, when thinking of Julie, we can only agree.

In Concert by the Sea (Columbia CL 883), that great musician who's an old master at the age of 33, none other than Erroll Garner, turns in a superior performance even for him. It was waxed at a concert at Carmel, California, recently, and Garner was apparently so responsive to the audience's enthusiasm that he really gave them the works. By us, it's a privilege to be able to attend vicariously via this disc. Here is the original, inventive, tuneful Garner being modern without being gadgety.

We're suckers for hummable little symphonic melodies, and especially a pan full of Russian corn fritters on a superfi platter (Vanguard VRS-484): Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien and 1812 Overture backed by Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol and Easter Overture. The 1812 is, of course, a real stunner, in the composer's own words "a very showy and noisy" piece that emulates everything from booming church bells to blasting cannon. The Italien, one of the most popular ditties in the modern orchestral repertoire, is cut from the same sweeping, lyrical mold: jolting, exotic, then reedy and rolling. The credit? Well, even the composer admitted that "it will be effective because of the wonderful melodies I happened to pick up, partly from collections and partly out of the streets with my own ears." (The opening fanfare was heisted from the bugler of a cavalry unit billeted next to Tchaikovsky's hotel.) Korsakov, who takes a back seat to no melody master, turns the peasant dancers loose on a mountainside in the lovely Espagnol as well as the wild Easter Overture, full of pagan merry-making, trumpet shrieks and gong-banging. In all, an exciting and thoroughly enjoyable LP, with nothing more forbidding than a seventh chord to irk the ears of the musically naïve. Mario Rossi and the Vienna State Opera bunch kick up their heels just fine.

It's our guess that the name of Phineas Newborn Jr. — isn't that a pip of a monicker? — is going to take its place if not with, at least near, the names of Garner, Tatum and Peterson. Certainly, in Here is Phineas (Atlantic 1235), the 23-year-old pianist from Memphis, Tennessee, demonstrates amazing technical virtuosity, combined with a truly original talent. Phineas is still young, and is sometimes restricted in tempo and feeling, but he is not only a man to watch, he's also one you can get a lot of pleasure from hearing right here and now. Oscar Pettiford on bass and Kenny Clark on drums, plus Phineas' own brother Calvin on guitar, back him up plenty and solid.

"People who do not like the blues," says Whitney Balliett, a member of the nominating board in the Playboy Jazz Poll and Saturday Review record critic, "are, like Cassius, lean dogs." No lean dogs we, here's a whoop and a holler for The Boss of the Blues (Atlantic 1234) — big Joe Turner out of Kansas City wailing the miseries at you 'round the clock. "Now you can take me, pretty mama," cries Joe on Cherry Red, "jump me in your Hollywood bed — eagle-rock me, baby, till my face turns cherry red." On tap too, are such classic woe tunes as Roll 'Em Pete, Wee Baby Blues, How Long Blues and Piney Brown Blues, with Turner shouting to high heaven and guys like Joe Newman (trumpet), Pete Johnson (piano) and Lawrence Brown (trombone) adding to the general state of unruffled agony.

"Everybody likes Hampton Hawes" it says here on the liner, and Volume Three, The Trio (Contemporary 3523) makes a yesman out of us. We like him fine; we like him superfine here where he works with Red Mitchell on bass and Chuck Thompson on drums. Mostly, they play familiar standards, which give us the opportunity to pay close attention to what they do with them, and the closer you attend the happier you feel. Coolin' the Blues and The Sermon are our favorites among the less-well-known numbers; both are Hawes originals.

Sports car zealots who weren't able to get down to the last Grand Prix race at Sebring, Florida, should get a mighty wallop out of Sounds of Sebring (Riverside 5001), one of those tape-recorded-on-the-spot affairs in which you hear everything from a 3-1/2 litre Ferrari goosing its engine to the high-pitched voice of top banana driver Juan Fangio just before he copped the Prix. In between, you hear several of the other speed merchants (including Porfirio Rubirosa, sounding desperately hung-over) gassing about other drivers, other cars, other courses. Finally, there's a chilling verbal blast at the only Yank entry (Corvette) to challenge the flashy Jags, Aston Martins, Porsche Spyders, etc., plus the hourly reports on the 12-hour grind and whose car is busting a cam on what hairpin curve. In all, it's pretty damned hair-raising and quite a bit different than listening to a ball game or tennis match.