Don Stiernberg's Rosetta

[Larry S Sherman]

Hi,

I have all of Don's commercially available CDs (awesome stuff), but for some reason I really enjoy going back to this old Flying High release:



I've done a lot of searching but can't find a re-release or comercially available version to buy.

Mine is a digital copy of my friend's old LP. It's really great, but I don't have a track list. Can anyone tell me what the tracks are?

Larry

[Don Stiernberg]

I can tell you. That vinyl LP was actually on Flying High Records, a label operated by Slim Richey, who also had Ridge Runner Records and put out "Jazzgrass" and Sam and Alan "Together Again for the First Time", among others...The record has been unavailable for a long time. I'd hate to think what you might have to pay to get one on e-bay or from another re-seller....maybe fifty cents?You're probably best off with the digitized copy you have. I'm glad you enjoy it. There's a Gibson A-5 Florentine and a Roberts Tiny Moore model, a borrowed '20's Gibson mandocello and a Martin tenor guitar on there. Also a bunch of wrong notes, but give me a break--I was 20 years old...

Anyway, the tracks:

China Boy
I Do it for Your Love(Paul Simon)
Billie's Bounce(Charlie Parker)
Marie(Randy Newman)
Jitterbug Waltz(Fats Waller)
Star-Crossed Lovers(Duke Ellington)

Side Two (HA!)

This Can't Be Love (Rodgers and Hart)
Lover Man(Davis, Sherman, Ramirez)
Rosetta (Earl Hines)
On Green Dolphin Street(Kaper and Washington)
Scrapple From the Apple(Charlie Parker)

[Larry S Sherman]

Wow...thanks and great info Don. I'm a big fan.

I also loved watching Mando Magnificat online. Any chance you might play in New England sometime soon?

Larry

[Don Stiernberg]

Thank you Larry..

I'll be teaching and playing at the Cape Cod Mandolin Camp on the weekend of October 2. Very excited about that.

Also I get to New Jersey a couple times a year to play gigs with John Carlini. We just did that a couple weeks ago.

The myspace page or my site will usually have details. I hope I can come to New England more often!

[SternART]

Donnie!!!!

[Larry S Sherman]

Great, thanks Don! Maybe I'll find my way to the Cape in October.

This message board is the center of the universe, methinks.

Larry

[AlanN]

While the talk is on Don's older recordings, try to find his Mandolin Restaurant, released in 1989. The Legendary One is on 2 cuts.

[Bruce Clausen]

I just checked out your calendar, Don. Wow, you do get around! I'm looking forward to your workshop at Brian Oberlin's mando weekend in June. All the best till then.

Bruce

[gonzograss]

Hello Don,
Can't wait to meet you at Kamp (my first). Have been a huge fan for many years. Finally retired and can make it to events like Kamp, Augusta, Galax, etc.
Your approach to the music is so tasteful. Hope I can steal away a few licks.
Regards,
Joe Hannabach

[mandolirius]

[QUOTE=Don Stiernberg;665457]I can tell you. That vinyl LP was actually on Flying High Records, a label operated by Slim Richey, who also had Ridge Runner Records and put out "Jazzgrass" and Sam and Alan "Together Again for the First Time", among others...The record has been unavailable for a long time. I'd hate to think what you might have to pay to get one on e-bay or from another re-seller....maybe fifty cents?You're probably best off with the digitized copy you have. I'm glad you enjoy it. There's a Gibson A-5 Florentine and a Roberts Tiny Moore model, a borrowed '20's Gibson mandocello and a Martin tenor guitar on there. Also a bunch of wrong notes, but give me a break--I was 20 years old...QUOTE]

C'mon Don, you know there are no wrong notes

Seriously, I've always loved that record. It inspired me mightily. Have you ever thought about re-releasing it. It would be fun to do a remix on it, too.

[Mike Bromley]

Don, I'm gathering that the "Rosetta" reference is a metaphor for Rosetta, Egypt, the home of the Rosetta Stone? Not having heard the record (as opposed to 'CD'), I can neither excuse nor encourage your post-adolescent enthusiasm....


....er, is that a lounging Kangaroo Rat (an ubiquitous denizen of North Africa) on the cover?

[AlanN]

Don picks the title track, from the pen of the great Earl 'Fatha' Hines. The tune features a lovely elec. guitar solo.

[David Horovitz]

I've never heard this recording. A re-issue or re-interpretation on CD would be a fantastic idea!

[AlanN]

Hope Il Maestro doesn't mind...

[Amy Burcham]

I just grabbed a Rosetta LP - yes, from eBay - and no, I ain't telling how much it was, but it was MORE than 50 cents. What a great track lineup, I can't wait.

Can't find Mandolin Restaurant anywhere though...maybe I need to look a half a mile from the railroad track...but if anyone knows a source...!

[Al Bergstein]

Rosetta floats around jams here in the Northwest, partly due to it's love by Dave Llewellin, master guitarmaker out of Port Townsend. (he just finished an outstanding Koa guitar if any of you are interested). Dave plays it on the mandolin usually. It is in the Blue Fake Book. available underground in the Pacific NW, and probably elsewhere, on Page 407. Don, did you record it in F as it has the original supposedly in?

[johnparrott]

I'm puzzled. Sheet music of "Rosetta" I've seen shows Henri Woode as the composer and Earl Hines as the lyricist. I thought it might have been a typo, but Dan Morgenstern, in his liner notes to the Fats Waller anthology "If You Got to Ask, You Ain't Got It" says that Woode wrote it.

Anyone know the story?

[johnparrott]

Sorry for the "thread hijack" above about the composer of "Rosetta".

I also wanted to hijack it further and say that Tom Theabo, who played the guitar solo on that tune, can still be heard around Wisconsin. He's part of Janet Planet's band, and he's got a lot of other projects cooking as well. Seek him out, if you can.He's a world-class player, and we're lucky to have him around.

Back to the album under discussion...I think Don recorded "Rosetta" in G.

[Don Stiernberg]

Thank you all for your interest and kind words. Young mandolinists beware! If you make an "album", it just may hang around and turn up in cutout bins and on e-bay, a living document of your work-in-progress, replete with odd cover art and questionable changes....

Let's see. I'm not set up to play vinyl anymore, but I recall doing Rosetta in G. Here in Chicago all the trad jazz guys do it in F, that probably is the standard key. The "lovely guitar solo" on there was by a guitar hero of ours from Wisconsin, Tom Theabo. He inspired me to do the tune in the first place by leading me to the music of Joe Pass. Joe recorded it on his "For Django" CD which I consider to be one of the greatest albums in jazz history. I actually got to meet Joe years ago and I brought him the Rosetta LP, but that's another story...

The original cover art is by a renowned painter and friend of the family Thom Kapheim. I had a cat in my life at that time(named Rose) so I think that's how the creature on the cover appeared along with the mandolin, etc..

I don't think a re-mix will happen as I don't even know where the master tapes are and the technology that was used in the recording is obsolete.

A re-release of Mandolin Restaurant is already in process.

Rosetta, I think, served as the harmonic basis of Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite".There's also a Bob Wills vocal version. Those are the kind of tunes I still really like--the ones taken up by players of all stripes, from Joe Pass to Bob Wills. Other tunes like that include "Old Fashioned Love"(James P. Johnson, Sidney Bechet,Merle Haggard), "When You and I were Young, Maggie"(Sidney Bechet, Mac Wiseman, Bluegrass Patriots), "Farewell Blues"(Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Red Nichols, Earl Scruggs, Tony Rice)and "Bugle Call Rag"(Fletcher Henderson, Buddy Rich, Earl Scruggs, J.D. Crowe)....

John, I had never heard that about a"co-composer" on Rosetta. What comes to mind here is the awful possibility of unethical royalty seizing as occurred with Jelly Roll Morton and the Melrose company, Duke Ellington and Mr. Mills---perhaps someone attached their name to Earl Hines' tune to get a check. I'll ask Jim Cox, who actually played on tour with Earl Hines.

And John, didn't you play on the LP being discussed here? Yes, you did!And the engineer was our old buddy Justin Niebank, Grammy-winning engineer/producer. Jethro might say.."He owns half of Nashville...and he's workin' on the other half.."

Joe, looking forward to meeting you at Kamp, and Bruce, I look forward to batting some tunes about in Oregon soon.

Thank you all again. I promise to make a new recording someday. I've heard you can use computers for that now...how will the vinyl manufacturers stay in business? What will I do with all this reel-to-reel tape??

[Mike Bromley]

Joe, looking forward to meeting you at Kamp, and Bruce, I look forward to batting some tunes about in Oregon soon.

So...it was a cat!

Also, see you in Corbett at Mandoberlin in a few weeks.

[Amy Burcham]

I just ordered "For Django." Thank you Donnie! In this cruel world where we can't just up and buy the entire catalog of every artist we love, it's remarks like that that guide us. I'm a big Joe Pass fan and just watched the 2001 documentary "The Genius of Joe Pass" the other day (great and available on Netflix).

Looking forward to re-Restaurant.

[mandolirius]

<Thank you all for your interest and kind words. Young mandolinists beware! If you make an "album", it just may hang around and turn up in cutout bins and on e-bay, a living document of your work-in-progress, replete with odd cover art and questionable changes....>

I just want to go "on record" as saying I think that album captured you at a certain point in development at a point that was well worth capturing. There's parts of that record that have outrageous energy. It's a fave.

[Amy Burcham]

It's a treasure and delight. Thank you, 20-year-old Don Stiernberg - you just kept getting classier with the passing years, but you left us a fabulous gift here. And thanks to all the great players who participated...from a 50+ year old thirty years later via a medium you would not have believed would exist!

[mandopops]

I still have my LP of Donny's 'Rosetta' & I still listen to vinyl.(Altho I have dubbed it to disc to listen to it in the car).
It was a great record then & a great record now. Good mix of tunes from old chestnuts like "China Boy" to 'Bird' classics like "Billie's Bounce' & "Scrapple from the Apple". It features both 8 & 5 string mandolins. I still love it as one of my favorite straight ahead Mandolin Jazz recordings. Not bad for a youngster with a full head of hair. I might consider trading it to the first person to come & clean out my garage. (New thread idea: post a picture of your garage.)