Jump to content

six string

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,394

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Donations

    0.00 USD 

 Content Type 

Posts posted by six string

  2. Jessica Williams, R.I.P.

    in Artists

    Posted

    On 3/17/2022 at 11:01 AM, funkytonk said:

    Sad news. I just played one of her records about a week ago and was wondering how she was doing. I knew she was in poor health. I went to look at her website but it had been taken offline. I heard about her passing via this tribute by Ted Gioia.

    https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/remembering-jazz-pianist-jessica?s=r

    Thanks for the link.  Really well done and gets to what made her playing so special.  I’ve seen her more than any other musician and own more albums by her than anyone.  Every performance was special.  I’ve been listening to her Jazz Focus cds lately instead of her “newer” stuff and it’s brought back wonderful memories.  

  3. Jessica Williams, R.I.P.

    in Artists

    Posted

    This is hitting me hard as I knew it would.  I met Jessica in the late 80s after she moved from San Francisco.  She played every Wednesday night at the On Broadway for years and I was there most of those nights.  She used to put on house concerts in her home for a $5 donation and everyone brought food and beverages for a potluck.  It was a good environment to hear her and I met many people including some I am still good friends with.  She moved quite a bit over the years but we always kept in touch.  She was a deep thinker.  We had many a long phone conversation over the years. She could really talk when she got on a roll!  
    I loved the way she deconstructed standards and few people could play Monk as well as her imo.  Blazing fast when she wanted to be, she slowed her technique down in her later years which I applauded as she didn’t have anything to prove anymore.  I have all but a few of her cds, over thirty cassettes and her early lps so you can say I’m a bit of a fan.  
    Currently listening to Inventions on Jazz Focus from 1995 which is one of many, many fine albums she made over her lifetime.  I could go on but trying to avoid tl/dr.  RIP Jessica.  I love you and you’ll always be in my heart. 

  5. Hasaan Ibn Ali – Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album

    in New Releases

    Posted

    While I do find the sound a little murky it is primarily the issue of cymbals being almost totally absent.  I assume it is due to the shaved off high frequencies from the acetate.  What’s interesting is that there are times when the piano sounds fine in the upper register.  The density of the music is not helped by the less than stellar mix.  I’ve only played it four times so far so I don’t know the music that well yet.  I am glad I went with my gut and bought the cd instead of the more expensive vinyl.  I didn’t have high hopes for this to be a great sounding recording and unfortunately I was right.

  6. Board Member's Apartment Burns

    in Miscellaneous - Non-Political

    Posted · Edited by six string

    Thanks for letting us know you are doing well.  It looks like your replacement wheelchair is working out.  Must be very comforting to be using the same model so you don’t have to deal with the burden of learning new machines on top of everything else.  Best wishes for more success in getting back  to your life.

  7. Covid vaccination: poll

    in Miscellaneous - Non-Political

    Posted

    I am eligible due to age so whenever it is offered to me I will get it.  Since it won’t change my lifestyle anytime soon I am not in a big hurry to get it though I have no qualms about the vaccine.  We’ll still be wearing masks and keeping distance from others for possibly most if not all of 2021 so whether I get the vaccine this month or June it will be the same for me.  I’ll have to see some major drops in positive testing and hospitalizations before I feel like I can return to some version of normal.

  11. Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder

    in Re-issues

    Posted

    I lived without SW for decades because it was so common.  You heard the title track everywhere it seemed or friends had the album and played it when you came over.  In the 90s BN reissued it on vinyl so decided to grab it just to have it in the collection.  I discovered I really liked side two a lot.  I rarely played side one.  Music Matters reissued it and on the strength of side two I picked it up and sold off the other copy.  Funny, I don’t play it all that often these days but when I do it is usually side two and then I put it away again.

  15. Gary Peacock R.I.P.

    in Artists

    Posted

    RIP, what a crazy situation.  I can understand the family not taking the time to make an announcement immediately but it did seem take longer than normal to get,out.  I still haven’t seen an obit. in the NYT or WAPO.  

     

    I got to see him a few times with Jarrett and DeJohnette but my favorite performance was when he came out to the SF Jazz Festival to sub for an ailing Charlie Haden to play a duo set with Yusef Latif.  

  21. Lee Morgan: The Last Session

    in Recommendations

    Posted

    3 hours ago, JSngry said:

    Jazz & People's Movement notwithstanding? Have you ever read the last interview he gave, published posthumously in Down Beat? He was very much into the artist-controlled thing.

    As far as Strata-East being "musician owned and run", the interpretation of what that really meant kinda evolved over time. I can definitely see it not working out, but I can also easily see it happening - or trying to happen - before it didn't.

    Here's the DB interview. This guy sounds like he's just rarin' to go into "The New Land"..anybody of his stature who spoke like this in 1972 was not looking to make a move to a major label....where it all would have ended up is or course a moot point. But this is where he was at the time.

    http://theguardianlifemagazine.blogspot.com/2010/02/trumpeter-lee-morgans-last-word.html

    Interviewing Lee Morgan proved easy —not simply because he was loquacious, but because he knew his mind so well he would speak it without any hesitation, and do so with great insight and passion. He spoke of many aspects of music, but always in relation to one essential subject: the dilemma of jazz in America.


    To Morgan, this dilemma was two-fold, or rather two-faced: lack of respect, and a lack of proportion between black American art and the general American culture.
    Regarding the first lack, Morgan condemned indifference toward the music, reinforced by media tokenism, specifically the over-exploitation of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong as representative jazz personalities. “Duke Ellington on the Today Show with the Today house band — that is not Duke Ellington; to have Duke Ellington without Cat Anderson, Harry Carney, all the people’ you associate with Duke, his band — that is Duke Ellington. And the same thing applies to Louis, Louis is gone now, and I think one of the main reasons why Louis died, I saw him on his last engagement in New York, and he had to lay down between shows. The man had just had a heart attack; he shouldn’t have been playing.


    “This is the tragedy of the black artist: just to live halfway comfortably he must keep on working! That’s not to say they don’t have any money -- I’m talking about in perspective to their talent. These people should have shrines dedicated to them, just like they have shrines in Europe to Beethoven and Bach: Louis Armstrong especially ;and Duke Ellington as well.”


    About the second lack, Morgan noted the irony that jazz is revered internationally, and in fact is broadcast everywhere by the U .S. Information Agency, but is dismissed at home. “It’s black creative music, but something that’s not only black — it’s American black! That’s very important. I was reading about B.B. King. I think last year was the first time a black college ever invited him— because he played blues and blues was like the music of the devil! And over in Europe, you hear blues all day long – it’s a high art form!”


    With better recognition, Morgan believed black artists might hope for a better economic perspective. In sports, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays each earned $125,000, because they were the best regardless of black or white, But in music, such racial equality does not seem evident: Herb Alpert became a multi-millionaire in a short time with “a nice little pop group”, while great black genius has been comparatively unrewarded, even after decades of creating.


    “I’m not trying to damn Herb Alpert, because it’s beautiful. I’d just like to see an equal proportion... I don’t resent nobody for what they get, as far as they are equal. Frank Sinatra is worth millions; Frank Sinatra is a hell of a singer, that I won’t deny. But at the same time, Betty Carter is starving to death -- here’s someone who’s been on the scene since the late 1940s -- because she refused to compromise, because she always wanted to sing jazz. Look at Billie Holiday and Judy Garland: they both had the same hang-ups, but one of them was singing Over The Rainbow and the other was singing Strange Fruit.


    In another view of this lack of recognition, Morgan equates jazz with symphonic music in America, both in respect and in finance, “Leonard Bernstein plays an elite music; everybody doesn’t have the temperament or the ear or the talent for listening to symphonic music or opera. And I would like to feel this way, I’ve never been drug about jazz not being heard all day long banging in your ears like you hear pop music, I would like to feel that jazz is an elite music! Most people who like jazz are the intellectual type people in college, because it’s a very sophisticated music. So if you’re doing something that only appeals to a minority, then the lovers of this music have to support it.


    “The symphonic orchestras have sponsors, people who give them endowments, and I think it should be the same way with jazz — because this is a national treasure! This is the only national art form that’s here, and they do everything they can to dismiss it and put it aside. It’s really a shame the way our country treats its artists. I’ve had people ask me: ‘If you feel that way, why don’t you go to Europe’ And I always tell them, ‘first of all, I like Europe, like to see it as a visitor —but this is my home! This is my culture!”

    Morgan was committed to several means of awakening recognition toward jazz: as a member of a group of musicians negotiating to buy the Lighthouse Club in California, and as a member of the short-lived Jazz & People’s Movement protesting media ignorance and indifference to jazz artists — Morgan was among the first to interrupt the taping of the talk shows in 1970-71.


    “Morgan was amazed by many responses to the JPM protest: that the networks considered a few black musicians in the studio bands sufficient recognition; that talk show hosts didn’t know even established artists like the MJQ or Thelonious Monk; that the programmers tried any and all ploys to avoid commitment; and most shocking of all, that so many considered the JPM actions as only a personal hype,


    “We’re saying that if each show (Carson, Griffin, Cavett, Frost) committed itself to use two artists a month’, that would he eight different artists each month. And we’re not talking about Thelonious Monk sitting down at the piano with Doc Severinsen’s bass player- if you have Thelonious Monk, have Theionious Monk’s band! And then after he plays, sit down and talk to him!…


    “We tried to arrange conferences; none of them would talk to us. So we went in and took over the (Griffin) show. The next day they had the chairman of the board down there to see us! But it’s unfortunate: as soon as you stop, if you don’t do it again, they go right back... The only reason Griffin came out to, see us was because we kept on blowing whistles, Rahsaan and myself. He immediately tried to divide and conquer — he offered of have our two groups on!


    “I told him I couldn’t care less if he ever had me on in fact, I would insist on not going on, at least not first, because right away, people have gotten so pessimistic that not only the public, but musicians as well thought we were just out there thinking about ourselves, I don’t care if you never show me! Put Dizzy on, Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, Blue Mitchell, Herbie Hancock-put somebody on!


    “And right away he came up with that regular thing: Louis Armstrong and Duke El1ington, And then he told me about James Brown, and right away we told him, ‘look, we’re talking about jazz!’ They insult the public, some of the stuff they put on. They spoon feed the public bullshit, and they’ve given them so much I’ve found myself humming tunes that I hate?

    Whether the efforts of Morgan and others, will ever succeed, whether the music will be finally respected and granted proper due within American culture, is certainly still a question unanswered. But at least, Lee Morgan knew the power of the music, even if unrecognised — and in that knowledge was a strength.


    “If it wasn’t for music, this country would have blown up a long time ago; in fact, the whole world. Music is the only thing that spans across all ethnic groups and all languages. Music is the only thing that awakens the dead’ man and charms the savage beast. Without, it this would be a hell of a world!”

     

    Thanks for posting.  Not only a great interview and a sad reminder that some things never chamge but I am enjoying other articles posted on the site (jazz and more).

  22. Virus shortages and your impressions.

    in Miscellaneous - Non-Political

    Posted

    This is the beginning of garlic harvest season, at least for California so it's not unusual to see shortages of last year's crop at this time.  What is typically more common is green garlic, i.e. young garlic before the bulbs begin forming.  It could very well end up being absent from markets as farm workers are not plentiful at ths time and farmer's markets will be difficult with the physical distancing if not unlawful.  I'm down to a couple of cloves.

  24. What rock music are you listening to? Non-Jazz, Non-Classical.

    in Miscellaneous Music

    Posted

    On 8/14/2019 at 10:48 AM, felser said:

    Remember that she was a 22-year old unknown asked to perform in front of 400,000 people with no advance notice.  The vibrato has always been hard to take, and I have always found "Brand New Key" mega-annoying, but she has actually written some excellent songs, and "Lay Down" is still a moving memoir of her Woodstock impressions.  I'm off work Thurs-Fri, but plan to listen to the 10-CD set next Mon-Wed.

     

    I didn't care for Brand New Key back in the day but......a few weeks ago at an acoustic jam session a young woman sang it and I caught myself digging her version.  She looked to be barely voting age and she had that little girl voice that fit the song perfectly.  It was the first time I had ever played the song but I admit it was kind of fun.

    On 8/8/2019 at 10:23 PM, BFrank said:

    71OO6F43xRL._SL1200_.jpg

    I've been playing the hell out of this one since it came out.  My favorite new release this year so far.

×
×
  • Create New...