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johnblitweiler
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Posts posted by johnblitweiler
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My favorite Connie Crothers show was the evening she played the Hungry Brain in Chicago. Some members of the Tristano family were there and Connie played a whole evening of Tristano songs, solo. So melodic. She usually sounded good at Vision Festival events, too, though these were in the company of others. She seemed to inspire Henry Grimes one night a few years ago. After her long time of obscurity she apparently was active on the NY scene in the 21st century, and that was a good thing.
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On 8/1/2016 at 2:45 PM, clifford_thornton said:
I tend to think of "private press" implying a small number of copies of a given release but maybe that's not accurate. Those E. Parker McDougal records on Grits are an example of some very fine Chicago jazz released on the artist's own imprint -- not rare (surely at least 1,000 of each title) but well worth seeking out. The bands are great, bluesy post-bop and include such Chicago luminaries as George Freeman, Wilbur Campbell, Willie Pickens, Steve McCall, Dan Shapera, and Robert Shy.
Yes, indeed, very true. McDougal was a beautifully melodic tenor saxophonist.
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I can't get nostalgic about all the interference from other nighttime stations when I (northern Indiana) tried to listen to Randy's (Nashville) at night ca. 1955-58. Even though WLAC was 50,000 watts.
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Mama Too Tight
Too Tight Jim
Loose Goosey
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Ivan the Terrible
The Dunwich Horror
Satan
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My one and only love
Dearest Darling
Heartbreaker
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6 hours ago, joshuakennedy said:
I've never understood this kind of thinking. Who decides what's "great" and what's not? If it's one of your favorites, why can you not consider it great? Music is very subjective and I don't think anyone can definitively say anything is "great" or "not great."
To oversimplify:
As an old ancient Greek philosopher (forget his name) said, each mode (and by extension, melodies, harmonies, rhythms) creates specific effects in listeners. Textbooks show composers which combinations of sounds / rhythms / dynamics make listeners sad, happy, nasty, loving, etc. etc. For example, some emotions like sentimentality in music are relatively easy to invent. More active feelings, not so easy. If you're like Socrates, you think only music that inspires men to go to war should be allowed. A lot of listening and remembering and being aware of what's valuable in life goes into choosing which music is inherently good and which music you listen to merely to make you feel better.
As for me, I wanta boogie tonight.
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On 7/16/2016 at 2:20 AM, kinuta said:
Jean Pierre Melville double bill.
Army Of Shadows (1969)
I saw Army Of Shadows again this summer in a Melville double feature and realized that morally it was another Melville gangster movie, one of his weaker films at that, but perhaps ennobled ennoble by his subject matter.
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Damon Short's bands all reward serious listening. He's a very fine, subtle composer-arranger-drummer. This goodie is from the 1980s.
Stan Tracey may have come closest of any pianist to the essence of Monk's piano art. Especially Monk's terrific swing. On a good night both of them could blow ou and me away.
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now THAT'S mythology
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Lots of my favorites are far from great.
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6 hours ago, Larry Kart said:
Revealing and unforgivable because it was not so much, if at all, an expression of taste on John's part (lots of reasonable people of various ages don't like post-"Chasin' the Trane" Coltrane) but a solemn insistence that there could be NO rational reason to like late Trane and that those who said they did were either lying or that their belief that they did find value in this music was a sign of mental illness. If you don't see how morally ugly that is...
"Morally ugly" or even immoral - I've been seeing this forever from 2nd-rate pundits, usually political, who claim if you disagree with them, you are either ignorant or else have your secret sinister agenda.
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1 hour ago, JSngry said:
I don't think McDonough's a goof because he thinks that people who like late Trane are mentally ill, hell, I'm not a doctor, I'm sure he is, so I'll defer to him on that one. I think he's a goof because he claimed that "The Queen's Suite" sounded like Henry Mancini....
Objectively, no, he's not an idiot. But I can't take anything he writes seriously. Well, ok, not too seriously. Because that Ellington/Mancini thing...again, I'm not a doctor, but maybe that's a sign of a mental illness?
We all write regrettable things now and then. The trick is in acquiring the sensitivity / education / experience to appropriately regret. McDonough is interesting to read and sometimes - his Pres research is a great example - he really gets it right.
John, sometime in the 1980s, did a sensitive (that word again) and thoughtful interview with a very elderly Natty Dominique. It's in the Jazz Institute of Chicago Archives. So whether or not he thinks pre-swing jazz is merely a precursor, he's shown sympathy.
The attitude that early jazz - New Orleans, 1920s black Chicago, territory bands - is of lesser value, primitive, has less integrity, is an attitude that I don't appreciate. It's why I was disappointed in Ted Gioia's history. Nowadays among an awful lot of jazz lovers my age and younger, they're not even interested in any jazz before the LP era unless it's Charlie Parker.
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The Watts Towers are just a short block from Charles Mingus's LA home, where they now have Mingus youth programs, mostly non-musical IIRC.
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I'd listened especially to the Basie / Young / Evans pieces in the Savory collection, in 2011 and 2015, and wondered if the Harlem Jazz Museum added and subtracted some selections that were on the computer during the intervening years. There's a bit of duplication of music that was on bootleg LPs and CDs. Anyway, that collection includes some of the greatest jazz music ever.
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On 6/23/2016 at 5:40 AM, paul secor said:
Too many. I guess I thought they would live forever.
Me too. Most of all I'm sorry I heard the Ellington band only once, though I did get to hear Ellington's "My People" the season it debuted - I believe some Ellington alumnae were on that band.
Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase has been absolutely a blessing here in Chicago. Joe brought in an incredible number of old and young musicians to Chicago - even Cecil Taylor at least 3 times, and he never enjoyed Cecil's music.
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On 6/23/2016 at 9:01 AM, medjuck said:
No idea. I'd never heard of him at the time and don 't know what he was doing there. IIRC John Gilmore was with him.
Must have been the winter the Arkestra was hung up around the McGill University area. John Szwed's book would have details.
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It grows steadily more perverse with every scene. Just like the novel. A good one for perverts like me.
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You have some endearing philanthropists up there in Detroit. First that gigantic gift to the Detroit Jazz Festival and now this.
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An 18-year-old youth went to the Village Vanguard every night in about 1967 or so when the quintet with Hancock and Williams was still together. After a few night Miles noticed how intently the young man was listening .and said to him, "Do you play the trumpet?" "Yes." "Come to my house tomorrow, I'll give you a lesson." So every day for the rest of Miles's month-long engagement the young trumpeter went to Miles's house, Miles sat him down at the piano, and taught him harmony. That formerly young man is now a newspaper editor who sits in now and then on Sundays with Curtis Black's quartet in Chicago. He said Don Cheadle captured Miles Davis perfectly, including small nuances and details. He liked the movie.
The movie bugged me. But I was told that Howard Reich, in print, shared my objections. So I must have been wrong.
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"Emerald Hills" (Rogue Art) and "Artifacts" (482 Music). "Artifacts: is by Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, and Mike Reed.
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Cubs, at their current rate, expect to win 116 games this season. Can it be 1906 all over again?
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He was a good man and definitely a colorful trumpet player. He sounds great on his CDs with Damon Short and as a member of Damon's band.
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who else of his generation had hit records of so many good songs? (and anyone who sings Shel Silverstein songs is ok with me)
Out of character recordings.
in Artists
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Bud Freeman played clarinet with something of a Pee Wee Russell sound on Bud's 1935 sextet session. Sounds very good, too, with Bunny Berigan, trumpet, and Bud also on tenor.
Jerry Garcia on Ornette's last Columbia is not especially odd considering the spacey guitar solos on some Dead recordings. Also, there are allegedly recordings of times when Ornette sat in with the Dead.