CJ Shearn

This whole Monk, mental illness discussion is interesting. I had heard somewhere (can't remember the source) that Monk may have had tourette's syndrome. I never noticed anything with him in the Straight, No Chaser footage that had anything like a facial tick or involuntary awearing, noises, etc (I knew someone with tourettes who had facial ticks) Could maybe having tourettes possibly explain his weird behavior of spinning around? Tony, your points about hearing marks of mental illness in Monk's playing are interesting as well, I don't really think of a musicians' music in those terms, but in the case of Jaco Pastorius, I hear less invention and more relying on licks in his bass passing, post his manic depression diagnosis, but his arrangements and writing still very creative.

I think Tony certainly got louder, and heavier, and his cymbals got brighter and splashier from the 70's on for sure. I was listening to a few tunes off of Herbie's "Quartet" last night, and one thing Tony definitely does often on that, perhaps maybe too overdone by that time, was the high hat on every beat, maybe the way the high hat was mic'ed but real pronounced on everything from that era on, I've heard.

I have the French reissue of this, but will get the new reissue for the extra tracks. (although I feel Tempest in the Colosseum is a much stronger album compared to this) According to Jazzmatazz there are a total of 10 new tracks. Will half of these be the "Five Stars" studio album? Thanks

thanks Jim, that makes sense.

since John Litweiler joined the board maybe he could answer this, or anyone else is welcome to take a shot. In Hank's '73 DB interview, he mentions how on the date that became Johnny Griffin's "A Blowin Session", he was uncomfortable with the up tune ("The Way You Look Tonight") but for the other tunes on the session he was able to put on his "heavy form" and pretty much do what he wanted there. Does anyone have an idea of what he meant by "heavy form"? Thanks.

I picked up "Enroute" at Walmart of all places (what a find!) for $11.88. I'm not a huge Sco fan, only other album I have is "I Can See Your House From Here" but "Enroute" is nice. I especially like Sco on "Wee" and "Hammock Soliloquy" and definitely Sco and Bill make for a great hook up, much smoother than Bill in Pat Metheny's trio, tho he smoked there too.

Underground Agent, I agree with you that CTI with Freddie and Stanley released some great stuff with their small group recordings, also Johnny Hammond's "Breakout" is a good one too, ditto Hubert Laws' "Afro Classic". I also have Benson's "Beyond the Blue Horizon" out from the library, always intended to buy a copy, but it was right there in the library so I checked it out immediately. However some of CTI's larger projects, I think of ones I'm familiar with, like "Sky Dive", "Morningstar", "Sunflower", and "First Light" (not the tune, but album) sag under the weight of the orchestrations. I think we should remember too that CTI was a label built of its time where audiences were being turned on to jazz, and compared to today and the smooth jazz "product" that gets funneled to a large audience, CTI was a class act by comparison. Also CTI was a label I grew up on addition to Blue Note, so some albums, like "CTI Summer Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl" have a relevance to me.

I enjoy both albums. "Black Comedy" on "Sky" is an absolute amazing showcase for Tony's shifting meters, and there are the beginnings to my ear, of the heavy bashing style that would be his calling. I haven't listened to either in a long time, but "Filles" doesn't get as much play, no particular reason, just doesn't. Again, on that one, Tony reaches an incredible level of power on that album, I remember reading that is one of Wallace Roney's favorites citing Miles didn't enter territory quite like on that record again.

I haven't heard a lot of Harrell, what I have heard, I remember him having a huge warm tone, kind of like Freddie Hubbard, and that he has a lot available on OJC.

would the next step to be to get "Black Codes" and "Live at Blues Alley"? I used to have BC on vinyl a long time ago

haha. Well, if it was something like "Big Train" oh yeah, it'd be a coaster . To be fair, even though Wynton in his arranging, especially for the reeds, shows a lot of Ellington, he is a good writer. Tunes like "Uptown Ruler" and "Black Codes" are good examples. I do hope he can put out something better than "The Magic Hour", which I heard on the Blue Note site when they had some cuts up, and also on the radio, the stuff there sounded quite stiff. I do think on the Vanguard stuff his blowing is a bit looser, what did get me to buy it was his blowing on Jeff Watts' "The Impaler", that was a great solo, Branford too, going as out as possible afterwards was fun.

The two "extended" works, "Citi Movement" doesn't work as well as "In the Sweet Embrace of Life", which I prefer because of the blowing room. Great value for the money, though.

Well, alright, it's not really a sin, but Wynton is coming here in August, and I thought I'd buy the Village Vanguard box, to drop some of my (unfair) biases against his playing, theres a lot of good stuff on the set, especially "Black Codes", "Knozz moe King" and "Harriet Tubman". Anyway, I'll probably get "Black Codes" and "Live at Blues Alley". Aside from Crouch's horrible liners in the Vanguard package, the set was surprisingly good I think.

serious jazz listener since I was a baby. no lie. will be 23 in a few weeks, so it'll be over 20 years soon.

no prob Mike

Mike, that's interesting you mention Herbie's responsiveness to rhythm. I agree that he really likes to engage drummers, Tony for one and then now with Terri Lyne Carrington and Brian Blade on "Directions". I have a boot of a "Directions" tour from 9/20/01 where on some tunes Herbie just ignites a fire by just hammering certain licks over and over, Blade responds quite nicely. Ditto with DJ Disk on "This is DJ Disk" on the Future2Future Live DVD. I personally think a lot of the Japanese released VSOP, and acoustic stuff I've heard from Herbie is fantastic.

Thanks for the tip Bill, I was thinking of looking at the Aug 17th of "The Piano", but I may hold. I love Herbie's playing, on both acoustic and electric keys, but in general solo piano isn't a big turn on for me.

RT, I was listening to Trio '81 earlier today actually. It's a date that I enjoy quite a bit, just hearing Herbie in a trio is a treat. I enjoy the long take of Dolphin Dance, Tony just sets up a mid tempo groove that Herbie gets off on quite nicely, plenty of heated playing. I prefer it to "Quartet" w/ WM, recorded the next day, though that one is pretty good too. Is the Trio '77 album being reissued? I read a post on Herbie's message board once where titles such as "Flood" (great one, got a CDR, gotta replace it with a real copy one of these days) were to be reissued this year.. As for the VSOP stuff, too bad they aren't reissuing "Tempest in the Colosseum" over "Live Under The Sky". I have the French imports of both and I prefer "Tempest". The playing is hotter, and Freddie, Herbie and Tony are especially on IMO. There's a spirited "Eighty One", with a funk beat for the head and a nice mid tempo swing/double time for the solos, and a nice "Red Clay" as a set ender. "Live Under the Sky" has fine playing, but there was a rain storm happening during the show that affected the instruments, Wayne's soprano is affected the worst, but compared to "Tempest" or even "The Quintet" albums, "Live Under the Sky" is the weakest. The playing is not bad by any means, it just doesn't rise to as exciting heights.

RIP Elvin. His influence is so great on a lot of drummers, even listening to guys like Erskine and DeJohnette recently, his presence is felt definitely. I watched a webcast 5-6 years ago of the Jazz Machine at the Blue Note w/ Michael Brecker guesting, and on one tune Elvin took an incredible 15 minute solo with mallets. This past semester got a suitemate of mine turned on to Elvin after showing him his influence in John Bonham.

anyone know if the new Miles '63-64 set will be in this "long box" packaging? I have the single CD's of the Miles/Trane and 2nd Quintet stuff and feel no need to get the boxes myself.

a few OMG moments for me: Bob Berg on "Pools" from "Steps Ahead: Holding Together" Michael Brecker "Sara's Touch" from "Steps: Smokin in the Pit" Jack DeJohnette: "Two Folks Songs" from "80/81"-Pat Metheny Pat Martino: "All Blues"- from "Live At Yoshi's" Branford Marsalis: "The Dark Keys" from "The Dark Keys" Pat Metheny: "Question and Answer", "Soul Cowboy", "Faith Healer"- from "Trio Live", "Are You Going With Me?"- from "More Travels" (video) "Syzygy" (from "Michael Brecker) Keith Jarrett: "Autumn Leaves" from "Up For It", "Riot" from "Inside Out" Russell Ferrante and Bob Mintzer: "The Tortoise and the Hare" from "Mint Jam"-The Yellowjackets Miles: "Agitation" (second set version, 12/23) from the Plugged Nickel Wayne Shorter: "Free For All", "The Egyptian" (from Indestructable) "So What" (Plugged Nickel) Herbie Hancock: "Chameleon", "Actual Proof" (both Thrust and Flood versions), "Dolphin Dance" (Herbie Hancock Trio '81) Eliane Elias "The Time is Now" from "Steps Ahead: Holding Together" Grover Washington, Jr "Rocksteady" from CTI Summer Jazz At the Hollywood Bowl

I saw Houston a month ago at Binghamton University, played with the Harpur Jazz Ensemble, and with the faculty at mid-day. It was a good show, met him after the mid day gig, he autographed a Joey D. CD, and he also gave me one of his organ dates recorded for Savant. Expect to hear a lot of standards, with improvisations always with the melody at the center.

this news is very sad. In the jazz class I TA, we showed a Coltrane documentary DVD (I'm not sure what one it was) we some of the classic Coltrane footage, and I sort of was watching Elvin on screen with almost a deep pain that he might be gone soon.... He's played his heart out (no pun intended) all these years in the most amazing, powerful, sensitive ways. Reading the description in Applebaum's article of Keiko hugging Elvin during "Dear Lord" almost brought tears to my eyes. Earlier I was listening to him on "Unity" and "Speak No Evil", and the live "A Love Supreme" in his honor.

yep Joe, you definitely are a fine player, and of course you already know what I think of the two compositions on the record Kurt is an interesting player, I've been meaning to check out Heartcore for a while, last month when I was at the Virgin Mega on Union Square in NY visiting a few friends on a campus bus trip, my friend Daniel and I were browsing the jazz section and heard part of the record, there was some pretty wild free blowing on tenor on one cut, and Kurt's phrasing was interesting, and since Daniel is also a fellow Metheny nut, he noted "he sounds like Pat", which I would agree with to the extent that he has that linear/angular sort of thing, and plays sort of like a sax, but Kurt from what I heard, is a unique writer.

probably more than 10 times a day, just guessing. Whenever I procrasatinate homework I read posts, or if I'm just sitting around. plus, I always remain logged on.