Kari S

He released an album called "The New Standard" in 1995 that was chock full of other people's pop compositions. I don't know if he was being lazy at the time or not, but I enjoy this album for the most part. It's not groundbreaking, but a pleasant enough listen. And he's gone through pop phases - like his current "Possibilities" and 1983's "Future Shock", which came out just after the one you mentioned. Yeah, but "New Standard" is a kind of a different thing. I think before the 80's "dark period" (), he almost always wrote the material on his LPs. Of course there are a few exceptions, like a Ron Carter or a Buster Williams tune here and there, and who's to say if the 70's Headhunters stuff were written as a group (I think they're all credited solely to Hancock). But as far as this LP is concerned musically - the word "weak" just isn't enough to describe it.

Yeah, well even for him the "success" has come only during more recent times (like, let's say a decade or so). Now he's touring all over the world and probably making a good buck along the way. But things haven't always been so.

SOME THOUGHTS 1. SHE TAKE MY MONEY, WHEN I'M IN NEED! Anyone else feel that the Foxx 'Ray' skit is going a bit over already? Also, Kanye should be hanged for sampling both "Diamonds Are Forever" and Curtis' "Move On Up". Talk about a safe choice! The same goes for Madonna and her Abba. 2. John Legend is da sh*t, say what you say. 3. Chris Martin sang so badly this time it made my ears bleed. 4. Why is Mary J. Blige STILL doing music and getting paid millions to be in the music biz?? What the hell was that?? 5. Christina Aquarama and Herbie. No, no, no. That b*tch wouldn't sing a SINGLE clear note without all that weird yodeling. Talk about butchering a song. 6. Linkin Park's awful version of Paul's "Yesterday" would've been a disaster anyway, but then Paul himself had to be dragged down there to do some karaoke. Oh why... 7. The Sly thing we've already covered... I'm surprised to say this, but Mariah Carey's performance and the last New Orleans thing were probably the best of the bunch, and that's saying a lot. Oh yeah, and Paul's "Helter Skelter" was pretty cool too.

All I can say is: wow. Sad and mind-boggling at the same time. His hunched appearance reminded me a bit of John Paul II in his last days. Well, without the mohawk of course. You thought it was hard to hear him? His mic wasn't probably even on, I know his keyboard surely wasn't. And when Steven Tyler (??) and half a dozen of others are singing at the same time, well... His website, Phattadatta.com also offers an explanation: "Sly made his impromptu exit from the Grammies tonight because: he's played the old stuff already, and now, it's time for the new stuff, stay tuned to PhattaDatta, friends".

Have : Family Guy, Seasons 1-3 Seinfeld, Seasons 1 & 2 Little Britain, Seasons 1 & 2 In Living Colour Chappelle's Show 1 & 2 The Office (original UK), Complete Series + Christmas Special Have To Get : Ren & Stimpy some Fat Albert ()

Check out this hilarious ad from 1978... A gem! Columbia's marketing dept. sure knew what they were doing. (click for larger)

I actually really did think that he's dead.

Or "Dolphin Dance", or "One Finger Snap", or... I agree. It's just that on the weakest LPs (like Liquid Love) the source material doesn't allow him to stretch to his usual standards.

On a related note, I saw a print ad of Wynton as Movado Watches' posterboy.

- Wayne Shorter - Woody Shaw - McCoy Tyner - Joe Zawinul - Chick Corea.

I have to agree what David Weiss and others said - all the dates indeed have at leats some merit to them, and I've heard all except Skagly and Gleam. In my opinion, High Energy from '74 is the best all-around date. Great grooves, no cheese, and nice versions of Stevie Wonder's "Black Maybe" and "Too High". I never quite dug Super Blue, though. Well, besides "Take It To The O-Zone", which is incredible. Then I quite like the latin title track on The Love Connection, but the rest of that LP is a pure snoozefest. The same thing with Windjammer from '76 - the title track a great tight little funk piece, but the rest is pretty lame with singers and strings and disco etc. It would be nice to hear Gleam, since it gets such a high score on allmusic.com. Soul Brother Records in the UK released a 2CD anthology of Freddie, called "66-82 The Soul Jazz Years" or something like that. It had material from late 60's (like Backlash, Soul Experiment, Black Angel) reaching to the 80's albums with Billy Childs.

A bunch of vinyl reissues and a few cds. 1. Kuumba Tootie Heath - Kawaida 2. O'Donel Levy - Simba (ok, not as good as I expected) 3. Harold Vick - Watch What Happens (bought it because of Herbie, but the mix is terrible; not that good really) 4. Nathan Davis - If (a couple of nice grooves, but mostly just some really tired sh*t, and Davis sucks) 5. Harold Alexander - Sunshine Man (ok, some righteous grooves, and everything with Pretty Purdie is always worthwhile...) 6. Richard Groove Holmes - Night Glider 7. Richard Groove Holmes - Six Million Dollar Man 8. Reuben Wilson - Sweet Life 9. Larry Willis - Inner Crisis 10. Larry Willis - New Kind Of Soul

Yeah, I hate it... He does it on videos I've seen, on bootlegs I've heard and on "Flood". Maybe even he thought his solo on the original take was an untouchable masterpiece ... well maybe not. But it's why I never listen to Chameleon on "Flood", I just skip it. akanalog and Guy - did you download that 3CD live with 'Firewater' from Emule/similar Bittorrent? That's one of my favorite tunes, so it would definitely be cool to hear it played live. Has anyone managed to find any live stuff from the band before Mwandishi? I think it was a sextet with some of the same guys as on "Prisoner" and "Fat Albert Rotunda". They were apparently playing stuff from those albums, in addition to earlier Herbie classics such as Maiden Voyage.

He seems to be the ultimate guru when it comes to creating sounds on the B3. Certainly a complete master of the craft! I find it easy to believe what Jim said about his live performances vs his albums. In my opinion the best Lonnie cd by far is "The Doctor Is In" with Crash, and that is a live recording. "Club Mozambique" comes as a close second. I have some of his more straight-ahead jazzfunk records from the 70's (with more electric keyboards), as well as the earlier BN stuff, and the Benson records. I recently listened to "Too Damn Hot" - and while there were some great grooves, and featured one of my fav drummers Greg Hutchinson, I felt it was just only 'ok'. His solos also seemed too short and non-consistant... Sadly I've never seen him perform live (shame on me!), but but what I've heard about him doing mock snake-charming moves during his solos and other tricks like that, sounds like a blast. Plus, you gotta loove his singing! -->quite a funny pic with Lonnie, DeFran and Monaco (and Lonnie's Jaguar??)

I just recently just "found" this label (Black Jazz, that is) at a record fair, one seller had Calvin Keys' "Proceed With Caution" for sale. The cover (a mean looking brotha in a dashiki with his guitar...) immediately caught my attention and got me interested. Anyone care to recommend that one or any others? I'm gonna get at least Doug Carn's "Adam's Apple" besides that. Soul Jazz Records in the UK (via Universal Sound) has reissued some stuff from the label also, but I think there were some copyright/licensing issues.

I've got an original vinyl copy of the first one ("Fuel"), but find it almost unlistenable. For hip hop guys it supposedly is/was great stuff for breaks and sample hunting. But even I - and I'm a 70's rare groove / jazzfunk aficionado supreme - find it, well...lame. To each his own...

For a moment there, I thought someone had finally reissued G.Duke's 'Faces...' and 'Feel', but then realized it was just a "wanted list"... Hey what are those Galper and the Horacee Arnold (with Hammer) like? Answer to Stefan, as far as 'Love, Love' is concerned, I believe it is reissued by ECM, and is easily available from Amazon for example. BTW, someone criticized the release policy on a few obscure Hancock albums. I personally (and totally unbiased...check my avatar) think that both 'Dedication' and 'Solo Piano' are important releases in the Hancock canon. Even though Solo Piano isn't really that special - it's probably my least favorite HH release - it's still something he hasn't done that much. The same goes for Dedication, which is valuable as a document of an interesting experiment. Plus there's some killer Rhodes solos in there... 'Direct Step' is just fun! The 15+ min version of the loveboat-ish disco vocoder tune "I Thought It Was You" is just so cool!

Here's Herbie with his Ferrari 360 Spider, probably in front of his LA house, and a Korg Oasys... Check out that smile! (from Korg's website, click for larger)

Has anyone heard Randy's debut lp, "Score", from 1969? What do you think?

My favorites: - Pharoah Sanders - Sonship Theus (even though his real name was Woody, I think) - Jumma Santos (not really jazz though) - Billy Bang - Azar Lawrence - Alphonse Mouzon - Cecil McBee I definitely second: - Thelonius Sphere M. (well obviously) - Grachan Moncur III - Cyrus Chestnut

Did anyone catch Herbie's and Aguilera's performance on Leno? I did and needless to say, I was squirming in my seat. Herbie started the song in free tempo, and the drummer messed up his entrance and was desperately trying to find the beat. Chrissy's vocal acrobatics were more than excruciating, they were all over the place and basically destroyed the song. I also noticed that Hancock has started to "sing" along to his playing, Jarrett-style. This is also audible on the Starbucks cd.

Rosco, I'm with you regarding "The Collateral". Who cares if only jazz buffs (or if even them) noticed it - to me it was just plain silly. Another similar thing is in the Tom Hanks movie "Terminal". The movie's climax is supposed to be Hanks' meeting with Benny Golson (playing a gig), but the music has been added in post production. Now, I'm not sure (don't remember) but the tune might've something easily recognisable. On screen, however, it looked as if Benny & Co were jamming with a DAT recorder. And as far as "Mo' Better Blues" is concerned... Well, the less said the better. One of Lee's worst movies imo. There's also an anticlimax, when Denzel's group is supposed to be playing this great concert, and the tune is this terrible smooth jazz. I guess Blanchard is to be blamed for that. And Wesley Snipes as a jazz musician is just plain wrong. All the time I was anticipating him to start punching and shooting people.

Has he really? Not to this extent imo. Okay, 'Watermelon Man', 'Chameleon' and 'Rockit' were "hits" of sorts, and he did the (sometimes silly) vocoder disco stuff in the late 70's, but still I'd say this type of album is a first for him. I just saw the "South Bank Show" featuring HH, and it had some (great quality) footage of his quartet from a few years back featuring Gary Thomas, Scott Colley and Carrington. Needless to say, they were killin'. Now why Hancock doesn't record an all acoustic jazz album with this band or with Hutcherson, is beyond me. Some recent cameo appearances on records (like the Terence Blanchard) and obviously concerts have proved that he still has a lot to give. Maybe he himself doesn't feel that way?

I'll probably give this a spin just out of curiosity, since it's Herbie, but I can't say I'm really looking forward to this. JSngry's comparison/reference to Quincy Jones is an interesting angle. I was also thinking Santana's "Supernatural" from 1999 (the concept? feature a hot pop star on each track) in terms of a "comeback" - remember that Hancock did have some pop chart success in the 80's with Rockit...

Wow, tough words my friend... Like do you know Jack personally to be able to say that? And as far as the solo concerts are concerned, I agree there are sometimes some uninspired moments (I don't really care for the the "pop'ish" three chord country stuff or the basic blues stuff he sometimes puts in there), but more often than not, there's some truly exhilarating and exceptional playing going on. But to each his own, I guess. To me, even some of his solo piano intros on the trio albums are pure gold, like My Funny Valentine on "Still Live".