Purdie — like other session pros such as Benny Benjamin, Jim Keltner, or Russ Kunkel, just to pick 3 at random — is one of those guys everyone has heard but most have never heard of. Library cataloging doesn’t do justice to this type of musician. A search of MIDCAT reveals that the Music Library has 7 CDs with Purdie, ranging from discs by the Fugs (!) to discs by Branford Marsalis, Larry Coryell, and Miles Davis. But I’d venture to guess we have at least a two dozen more with Purdie. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the way these things are described and cataloged, these will never show up in a search for Purdie because his name is not recorded in the catalog records. Such is the life of the session musician.

For example, Purdie plays on Aretha Franklin’s Young, Gifted And Black and Steely Dan’s Aja but you wouldn’t know it from the catalog records. To figure it out, you’d have to go to an online discography such as Allmusic.com or a print discography such as The Great Rock Discography. So, what began as a simple homage to 2 great drummers winds up as a little lesson in searching for information in the music library!

One such recent tidbit on the Music Library Association list had to do with this offering from Microsoft’s research division: Microsoft Songsmith. It’s an app that let’s you sing into your computer, twiddle a few preferences (“lively!” “salsa!”), and — presto! — instant song. The song itself sounds like some mutant offspring from the mating of a circus carousel with a Casio, as you can see from this unbelievable video demonstration.

Of course, human beings are relentlessly inventive creatures, and the best use of MS Songsmith I’ve seen is this “musical mash-up” using David Lee Roth’s vocal from “Runnin’ with the Devil.” (And, speaking of mash-ups, take a look at the computer being used in the Microsoft demo link in the paragraph above: isn’t that a… MacBook?! Ouch.)

Truly, we are living in the end times.

The December issue includes the usual assortment of funky Christmas tunes (although, to be honest, I can’t for the life of me figure out how Bela Fleck and Spyro Gyra made the list). At any rate, Black Grooves covers good music and usually includes some in-depth commentary on the important historical releases of the month.

I am a big fan of blues, electric blues in particular.  And the greatest of all electric blues record labels has got to be, no, not Alligator, but Chess.  As it turns out, there is a new movie, Cadillac Blues, based on the history of Chess and some of it’s most famous artists — Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Etta James, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, and so on.  I can’t wait to see it, actually (the NY Times praised Beyoncé’s performance as Etta James very highly), but until then I’ll probably get reacquainted with some of this incredible music.  You might want to, too….

Click here for a sampling of Chess CDs in the Music Library

Here is the obituary from the New York Times and here links to recordings in our collection and in NExpress.

Please let us know what you think!