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Joe Wilder “Wilder 'n Wilder” Savoy 20 bit lp facsimile cd     With that outstanding trio: Hank Jones, Wendell Marshall, Kenny Clarke.

Sorry to hear this. I love his voice. Wasn't he the longest-serving Zappa sideman?    

Arguably Frank’s best lead-singer (at least in my estimation) — with a nimble and rich baritone. Super nice guy too — I met him just once, fronting Project/Object (a damn good Zappa tribute band) in the late, late 90’s. Caught him well before the show in a small club after a very informal soundcheck, and he just hung out at the bar for a good hour before the show started. He was cordial, unassuming, and totally down to earth. Didn’t talk his ear off (nor he mine) — but he didn’t mind conversation at all — I think we chatted a good 10-15 minutes. I asked him what he’d been studying at Wash U (in St. Louis) when he met Frank — and I think he said political science, iirc. Never got to hear him with Frank (nor Frank) — I didn’t really discover Zappa until I was in college in the late 80’s (at least beyond the like 5 songs I’d heard on the decent AOR classic rock station in St. Louis in high school in the mid-80’s). One of the most interesting voices (timbres) in all of rock music.  Expressive, full-bodied, and genuinely unique too (not ‘weird’ but definitely different). RIP Ike. ♥️ PS:  Ike kinda reminded me a little of (jazz vocalist) Kevin Mahogany too, come to think of it (I knew Kevin a tiny bit when I was back in KC, and sat with him and his wife a few times at other people’s gigs — talked with him more at one club I used to frequent, than I ever actually got to hear Kevin sing). ANYWAY, Ike and Kevin had a somewhat similar presence (in conversation), if I’m remembering. At least their rich speaking voices (and Billy Harper’s too).

+1    Broadly speaking ... But of course tastes do differ, and I realize there are those who feel they have exhausted the kicks they got out of the styles of jazz Peter Friedman named. But from a certain point beyond that (beyond the "canon" of Free Jazz of the 60s, that is) you are bound to get into the realm of "if they don't know how to call that music they'll call it jazz. But is it still jazz and why call it jazz in the first place if those who insist on calling it jazz despise so vehemently what came before it in jazz, stylistically speaking? A case of usurpation, maybe?"  But this is getting us far away from the music of Charlie Parker, isn't it? Yet isn'it it amazing that while Bebop definitely upset the world of jazz (making it seem like jazz had burst apart and never was going to be put together again) some 80 years ago, Bebop has become part of the evolutionary continuum of jazz many, many decades ago, whereas what happened and continued with Free Jazz and the avantgarde AFTER, say, the 60s, is still a subject of never-ending controversy even today, some 50 years later? Could it be that there IS a limit to what you can squeeze into even a BROAD stylistic category?  (Sorry for this O.T. remark ... )