A day at the seaside

It was hot x 3 and not an ideal day for trawling the charity shops of Whitley Bay in search of that elusive first edition or the rare album Jim Dale Plays Thelonious Monk on the Joker label.

All to no avail plus I was hungry.

I noticed there was an American style diner on the main street so, I thought, "in for a dime in for a dollar."

Inside it was a bit like McDonalds only not as posh. I was the only customer which should have told me something. Still I couldn't complain about the quantity, the burger bun was big, the burger itself even bigger and full of gherkins and firkins of pickles and unidentifiable objects which my mouth and plywood fork couldn't cope with. Plus the fries, I think, had been around the block a few times.

I only managed to make it halfway before I threw in the hypothetical serviette and headed for North Shields and the bus home.

However, I'd missed the North Shields/Jarrow connection and had thirty minutes to fill in and what better way to do it than to browse the albums in the nearby British Heart Foundation shop.

Bingo(ish)! André Previn & J.J. Johnson Play Kurt Weill. Previn (piano); J.J. (trombone); Red Mitchell (bass); Frank Capp (drums). I paid the £1 then, aboard the bus, urged the driver not to spare the horses. That's actually a lie because there were no horses - but if there had been...

Now I love Previn and J,J,  but I didn't think they worked consistently well together on this album, or maybe it's the material. Mack the Knife works because they must have played it in many different settings.This time they play it bitonal which is different. If I hadn't been told it was bitonal I'd have thought they were playing out of tune.

An interesting day. Lance