Cool Struttin': (Yes) Songs For My Father

NYC Winter Jazzfest, Spotify Shenanigans, New Liner Notes, and New Gear!

Hello 2025, Farewell 2024.

I hope the holiday season was kind to you all, and I wish everyone the best heading into 2025. This Substack is just over a year old, and the Jazz and Coffee Instagram celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. There are many crossovers, so I say this in both places: Thank you. Thank you all very, very much.

I appreciate every like, comment, share, and restack. I hope to earn even more in the coming year(s)—I did a lot of writing over the holidays. But before I publish those, I’m looking forward to Jazz Congress / NYC Winter Jazzfest beginning this week. Interesting panel discussions from many smart people are a great start to a week of stellar jazz gigs! Topping my list is the Strata-East Rising event for the exceptional opportunity to see the legendary Charles Tolliver with a mind-blowing lineup of musicians playing tribute to the legendary Strata-East label:

Notes About Notes

2024 was a big year for me in terms of liner notes. It was an honor to do my first two projects for Blue Note Records, authoring sleeve notes for Wayne Shorter's Odyssey of Iska and Donald Byrd's Kofi. I was privileged to write liner notes for Yes's Fragile and Relayer for Rhino/Warner Music. It was a double dose of Bill Evans pride, writing liner notes for the Craft Recordings reissue of Explorations a few months after

Marcus J. Moore

asked me to contribute a piece about Scott LaFaro for his New York Times “Five Minutes” jazz series. I'm pleased to tease that I've already written liner notes for several jazz and rock releases scheduled for 2025, with even more on the way! Kicking things off is the Jazz Crusaders Freedom Sound, the first Blue Note Tone Poet of 2025. The (Jazz) Crusaders’ late 70s crossover hit "Street Life” tends to overshadow the ~20 they made for Pacific Jazz, and I had a blast discussing their early days in the liner notes. Stay tuned—more announcements to follow!

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Gear Shift: Turning the Tables

We have a new addition at Jazz and Coffee HQ:

Technics SL-1210GR2 w/Dynavector 20x2H Moving Coil Cartridge

The Rega P3—an excellent deck—heads to the office. The main room is now:

• Technics SL-1210GR2 w/Dynavector 20x2H Moving Coil Cartridge

• Furutech Alpha Design Labs GT40 phono stage

• Piega 501 Gen 1 wireless speakers (Roon Ready)

• Roon Nucleus Titan with 2X8TB Samsung EVO SSD drives

Look for a forthcoming post on why I’ve made this change and details on my listening setup soon.

Today, I Love the Internet Because:

Upper Level: The Steves of Apple: Wozniak (L) and Jobs (R) Lower Level: Still Life With Sunglasses and Steely Dan: Walter Becker (L) and Donald Fagen (R)

Today, I Hate the Internet Because:

If you missed this great read from

Ted Gioia

about Spotify’s latest shenanigans, you’ll want to set aside a few minutes to catch up. Then you’ll want to read Liz Pelly’s piece “Ghosts in the Machine” at Harper’s. It’s an excerpt from her new book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, which one reviewer called:

A provocative, insightful, disturbing, and well-researched indictment of Spotify, the music industry, and streaming platforms, which daily mine billions of data bits from listeners/viewers to maximize profits and churn out musical formulas.

I haven’t read Mood Machine yet (starting soon), but I’ve never been a big Spotify user. I’ve maintained a subscription for professional reasons, though I’m about to discontinue it. I’m not canceling Spotify due to moral outrage about the narrative that Gioia and Pelly (among others) present or the ongoing financial shell games Spotify plays at the expense of artists. These issues deeply trouble me, as they should for any music enthusiast. The two things that bother me the most are:

1. Spotify sounds terrible. Full stop without much additional explanation needed. Anyone without damaged hearing would agree. Please play any decently recorded song on Spotify and compare/contrast it with Apple, Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer, or any other streaming platform. Spotify will lose. Badly. Which is pitiful given how hard artists work to make their music sound a particular way.

2. For every interaction with a listener on Spotify, Spotify learns much more than the artist, label, manager, or other intellectual property owner does. Spotify sucks at sharing data, and the power dynamic doesn’t favor the artist. Big artists can pressure their label to acquire that data, which might help them land that big sync deal or sponsorship, but they do not need it most. It’s the independent artist who gets truly screwed here because I don’t believe for a moment that Spotify is looking closely at the individual data patterns around

   Damon Krukowski
   or
   ETHAN IVERSON
   for strategic insights. Just look at the sample size: Ethan has ~14K monthly listeners, Damon has ~185K, and Beyonce has 57 million. My experience operating in the major label system was that getting actionable data from Spotify was like extracting an impacted molar with a plastic spork. Even if Spotify got better about sharing the data, much of that data is limited without the resources to turn it into usable information. Again, prominent artists supported by institutional bankrolls (like a record label) can pay data scientists to tell them what it means. An independent artist rarely has access to the same resources. Though Spotify is not exactly doing nothing in terms of providing analytics, they are at best offering the bare minimum considering what is feasible at scale.

Anti-Spotify doesn’t mean anti-streaming—I use Apple Music and enjoy the Atmos experience through AirPod Max headphones, which sound GREAT. Qobuz is the best option for high-resolution stereo listening. They have a great selection and the best sound. They seem to be the only ones who care about editorial and storytelling/context around music. As that’s my wheelhouse, I’m admittedly biased. However, the other upside is how well Qobuz plays with Roon. Between my local library and Qobuz, I’ve access to an incredible array of music. More importantly, I can organize it in cool ways, and the Qobuz/Roon connection presents some playlists, collabs, and suggestions I might not have thought of myself. After writing my 2024 year-end wrap-up (which included Joni Mitchell) and my annual post about Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil, which involved fun listening marathons, Roon created and suggested a playlist of Joni Mitchell/Wayne Shorter collaborations. I’ve had a lot of fun playing and shuffling it, and while this is an experience I could do myself on vinyl, it wouldn’t be as seamless, efficient, or easy to do while entertaining guests:

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Happy Anniversary, Cool Struttin’. Happy Birthday, Dad.

I love so much about this record. It’s a superb recording of four fantastic performances by an ace band housed within one of the greatest album covers ever. It’s one of the first albums I recommend to those asking where to begin their jazz library, as it’s accessible enough for anyone to enjoy but deep enough for jazz veterans to spin without fellow jazzerati accusing them of being “basic.” However, Sonny Clark's Cool Struttin' holds a deep personal significance for me. This album was recorded on January 5, 1958. My father’s birthday was January 5th, so this record was recorded while he was just a teenager. He would have been 84 this year, and I will celebrate and honor his memory with a story about music and parenting.

As a kid, the trek southward to West Palm Beach during our school winter vacation to visit my grandparents was a fun annual tradition. Until I hit adolescence. Florida Schlep: An Adolescent Odyssey was a little like having my recurring character played by someone different. Like when they swapped actors for Darren on Bewitched or Daario Naharis on Game of Thrones—definitely not the person you remembered from last season. Gone was the grandson who happily chased lizards and toads through the well-manicured retirement community shrubbery and cheerily chatted with every friend and neighbor of my grandparents. Replacement Grandson 1.21a (occasionally unstable and patched with lectures to upgrade his operating system) was fond of being alone, out walking around with headphones, or finding an excuse to peel off from a family shopping excursion and pray for a record store.

There wasn’t much privacy in my grandparents’ apartment, and the thought of serial dinners out at 4:30 PM with questions about college and my future (remember, I’m FIFTEEN) made me consider acquiring tonsillitis. My father wasn’t given to dramatics, and I doubt he experienced it quite that way. Still, it was his vacation too, and he worked hard. He was a gentleman and respectful enough NOT to compete with or challenge my grandfather (which must have been difficult). Especially because my father probably thought some of the grandparental house rules were as ridiculous as I did. In other words, while I loved my grandparents, this annual rite of passage felt heavy with obligation.

Call it Century Village, The Fountains, Golden Lakes—they're all Del Boca Vista

Florida was BOOMING in those days and ahead of our home base in suburban Connecticut in several ways, such as the video rentals and the nascent sell-through video business. We didn’t have a VHS machine back home. We had a Betamax machine. That’s like rocking a Microsoft Zune when the iPod was most popular. Or like being on MySpace now. In other words, locating any Betamax material, such as a movie, series, or even blank tape, was challenging in our northern region. However, Palm Beach County appeared to offer a myriad of options.

When we arrived at a shopping center half an hour early for our 5 PM (!!) dinner reservation, my father was all too happy to run off with me and browse in the video store we spotted across the street. The video store was abundantly stocked with Betamax tapes, to the extent that I contemplated making an impossible request.

Regular Jazz and Coffee readers already know that by age 15, I was a hardcore Yes fan. Though I was largely alone in my fandom for classic Yes. The band was roaring back with “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” but I thought that was weaksauce compared to the majesty, intensity, and grandeur of tracks like “Close to the Edge.” My research uncovered the existence of a film called Yessongs, recorded on the Close to the Edge tour, released in 1975, and quickly relegated to midnight theaters and the “Where are they now?” file. The film never ran on late-night television, and my only hope of ever seeing it was to find this obscure film. For sale. On Betamax. I’d stopped asking at other stores after tiring of seeing the staff collapse in the throes of hysterical laughter. I had lost hope, but…

Yessongs was my first Yes album. My bedroom was next to my parent’s bedroom. Therefore, they know this record REALLY well.

The guy behind the counter looked like Central Casting had offered a special on third-rate extras from Pawn Stars. He had glared at us since we walked in, presumably because we were dressed like northerners, but my Yes fandom overcame all attempts to intimidate. So I went to the counter and asked the guy if he had a copy of Yessongs on Beta. I expected guffaws, chortles, or maybe an eye-roll if he was willing to move that many muscles. I was wrong.

"You know..." he said, "I think we just might. Gimme a minute."

The distorted sound of Kajagoogoo’s “Too Shy” blaring from the Zenith radio behind the counter was deafening. My father was looking at his watch. I was preparing for disappointment. Moments later, he waddled from the back room. And in his hands was a copy of Yessongs. On Beta. Which he slid unceremoniously across the counter to me.

Experienced record collectors understand the sensation of discovering a long-desired album in the bin. Time stands still. First, everything tightens. Then releases. Then, you clutch your object of desire as if everyone else in the vicinity is about to wrench it from your grasp. After all this time, it’s within reach. Almost. I held it in my hand for what seemed like an eternity. I studied the credits. Saw what songs were played. And in a hushed whisper, I asked (in my best attempt to be casual)

"So... is this for sale or only for rental?"

He paused for a moment before answering.

"Well, it’s supposed to be a rental only, but it's been sittin' here forever, so I suppose I'd consider sellin’ it."

"How much?" I asked. I dreaded this moment because I could sense where things were headed.

His eyes narrowed a bit as he smiled. This was not the face of a man who wanted to make anyone happy.

“Eighty bucks," he said.

My heart sank deep into the floor. That was an OUTRAGEOUS demand (nearly $250 in 2025 dollars for those doing the math). It was a king's ransom to me—easily six weeks of yard work at home during the season, and February WAS NOT the season. Moreover, my "obsession" with music was a growing source of friction within the family, so the idea of asking my father for a loan was unlikely to be well-received. Besides, if my father had lent me the money, the grilling/explaining tapdance he’d have to do with my grandfather wouldn’t have been a picnic AT ALL.

But before I could fully process these thoughts, my father's arm shot over my shoulder toward the man behind the counter. In his hand were four crisp twenty-dollar bills. He didn’t say a word. Just nodded at me, told the guy to ring it up, and suggested we stash the Beta in the car—no need to draw family attention until AFTER dinner. I would have cried if I hadn’t been so shocked—we’d already had a few arguments about my “priorities” regarding music and schoolwork, so I was taken aback by what had just transpired. It wasn't the last time Dad had stepped in to support my Yes fandom. Hell, I had tickets to see them on that 90125 tour, and when my ride bagged out at the 11th hour, once again, it was Dad to the rescue. He drove us to Hartford, where we had a fun dinner. He treated me to t-shirts, a poster, and a tour program. He endured the entire show, which is saying something—Dad was more of a Kingston Trio/Limelighters/Clancy Brothers kind of guy. And he did it all with a smile. My father never liked Yes or understood why they had such a huge impact on my life. But it was important to him that Yes was important to me. This was a lesson in fatherhood well taught. And hopefully well-learned.

Miss you, Dad, every day. Happy birthday.

Behold..Excalibur! Our Betamax machine may be long gone, but I’ll keep this Betamax edition of Yessongs forever.

Ironically and tragically, the automobile accident that took my father’s life occurred as I was traveling with friends en route to a Yes concert. That night, in the pre-cell phone, pre-Uber, pre-Internet era, as I struggled to find my way back from Boston to southern Connecticut, the encouragement of an unlikely superstar kept me together. I will never forget the act of kindness that actor and rapper Will Smith committed, and I have used it as a benchmark for every musician and celebrity I've worked with since.

That is a story for another day…