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j lee

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Posts posted by j lee

  1. Yeah, about the blog — I don't know the author nor his playing, but IMHO it's a little confused.

    It's a good manifesto, and the author can shuck words as good as anybody, but I do agree that the term//concept is pretty loose.

    Like, "Parisian Thoroughfare" — sure, just Rhythm in F with a weird bridge.  A few Bud tunes did the same thing on Rhythm, but I'm not remembering.  Or "Eternal Triangle," a little more straightforward, but same idea.

    I have no problem with the word "contrafact" (even if I can never remember how to spell it), but I agree with the above that it's just a "thing."  It doesn't really need a name, but since one is handy, might as well use it.

    As an aside, I find it amusing that while everybody knows "Donna Lee" and "Perdido," it seems that it's really the organ players who go back to the originals, "Indiana" and "Candy," respectively.

    Don't know why that is, but just tradition, I guess.

    ETA and yeah, I don't see the difference between calling it "scrapple" or "gumbo" or whatever — I just don't like adding more technical terms for something everybody already knows.  I'll stick with the "dry, academic" term, mostly because it's already there and everybody knows it.

  2. 3 hours ago, Shrdlu said:

     

    The Jazz Discography Project website gives the order in which a session was recorded, so we can arrange "Gooden's Corner" in the order in which it was played. It comes out well that way.

    Like you, I got the U.S. 2CD set of Grant with Sonny. The music got kinda buried there (for me) and I got the separate Japanese CDs of it recently. Musical treasure!

    I love "Count Every Star", and let's not forget "Hey There", from another Grant-Sonny session - it was added to the CD of "The Latin Bit".

    Thanks for the tip. 

    If I have a few idle moments that could be a nice little way of organizing the music if I were to rip the CDs to mp3.

  3. 1 hour ago, Dan Gould said:

    A blanket statement that begs to be expanded upon.

    Well, I can't speak for the above-referred poster, but I think it's clear his raw technique (well, at least in terms of speed) was up to anybody's.  Certainly he could play fast bebop lines (see the whole Sonny Clark sides for quite a few examples), but it seems he just didn't want to a lot of the time.

    Yeah, I do have to agree that when it comes to creating a concise, memorable solo, a good many of Wes's classic solos probably stand out, for me, more (or equal) to anybody else.

    For me, the surprise of "rediscovering" Grant Green is just how much he was able to create with a pretty simplified toolbox. 

    No, he's not doing things like Jim Hall on *Intermodulation*, or Wes on a number of records, but he really did make a lot from some pretty simple ideas. 

  4. On 12/27/2018 at 9:50 PM, danasgoodstuff said:

    I agree that GG seems to have been pretty much all there from the start of his recording career.  Do you agree that in the later Funk stuff it;s still the same guy, just in a different setting?  Oh, and there is a lot to be learned from just leaving something in the changer and letting it come up whenever.

    I do agree.  It really shocked me that so early (well, maybe "late" compared to some prodigies like Ray Charles or somebody), GG just really had it all together.  No, I don't find much difference at all in his lines and his tone, as his years went on. 

    But, then again, I'm not really a scholar of GG's music, and I also don't know too much about guitar gear except what I hear and friend/past-bandmates-type thing have passed down by ear. 

    On 12/28/2018 at 10:51 AM, Shrdlu said:

    Grant always sounded great. He is easily the equal of Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell (whom I also like).

    My favorite is the "Gooden's Corner" session, which I play in the order of recording. It opens with a very soulful "Moon River". Grant is ruthless on the title track and the modal "Two For One".

    Yeah, I did the same thing when working through the US-release of the Sonny Clark collaborations — broke it down into the albums as they were originally programmed.

    I'll have to listen to "Moon River" again; the one I spent most time transcribing was "The Things I (We?) Did Last Summer."  The only other person I know who did that tune was Groove Holmes, but it's such an unusual tune.


    ETA actually, that could be a fun idea, to sort a bunch of these sides by performance date.  I don't think all the information is there about what exact time everything was recorded on a day, but for a budding young computer programmer, that could be a fun project for doing basic data structures. 

    As an aside, I'm impressed by how well, after, say, twenty years, my old redbook CDs have held up:  how many disk drives have I gone through since then?  A lot, that's how many!  These old discs still play.  Vinyl too, but I'm more impressed because of the plastic, digital nature of the CD.

  5. Yeah. 

    I'm not a master musician like Jim, but I think most people are like me and have a whole book of contrafacts (sp?) they just made up to have something to play. 

    I think if you look at most classic jazz musicians, you're going to find that most of their original tunes are in some way based on some other well-known pattern everybody knows.

    I guess you could call something like "Countdown" a contrafact, but that's the extreme.

    Even just any given eight-bar blues is sort of a copy of another one.  Trouble in Mind?  Sure, sort of like Key to the Highway.  Same thing, really. 

    IMHO.

  6. Yeah, like everybody, I've heard all his albums a million times.

    But I'm still keeping in the CD-changer in the car "Feelin The Spirit" and "Grant's First Stand."

    It's hard to imagine that in the latter album, with Baby Face Willette using that vibrato choice, at the age of...I guess thirty or so, Grant Green was already about fully formed.

    I'm still trying to get my head around just how many melodies he came up with that seems to me off the regular diminished scale (W-H, you know).  I've done my time transcribing his and Sonny Clark's lines from their albums together, but it just took a few years and a new environment of hearing a couple of albums on repeat while commuting for some new aspects of GG's melodies to sink in.

    I couldn't say for sure what the theory is, much less anything about his tone, just a nice refresher to me of how to make a good line, and follow it up with one as good or better.  In a mellow way, of course.

  7. Oh, it's a mix of learning and memorizing.

    I'm really into the A maj and A min English Suites of Bach, but the préludes to both (especially the A minor) are just very, very long.  I'll be happy if I can just keep the Bourées from A major in memory with a nice brisk tempo.

    András Schiff is the only person I listen to for Bach, nowadays, but then again I don't like to just sit and listen to the music when I can stumble through it myself.

    Still trying to commit to memory Beethoven's Op. 26 (especially the Rondo) and Op. 27 no. 1 (whole sonata).

    Beyond that, I just chip away at Debussy (I like Angela Hewitt for guidance or ideas, but again, I don't really sit around and listen to records that much, except to steal some ideas).

  8. Tried in vain to find on Youtube the scene about the mix tape from Death Proof.

    What kind of equipment is people using now? Like Nakamichi and fancy stuff or just regular?

    But enough about my idiocy -- speaking of improvised music I think Mary Elizabeth Winstead was in an incredibly moving movie called Make it Happen and also the prequel/whatever The Thing and also the Scott Pilgrim thing. Seem to beon a one-track mind.

  9. I do miss mix tapes.You're bringing me back, man.

    I think the only thing I have that still "works: (without me cleaning heads and sh**) I have is an old Dictaphone unit.

    Some reason, I guess, I been keeping some of those "old" tapes. And I'm only 35 37. Fucking A, that was the currency and even then it was getting old.

  10. Can't answer your questions, but can post my favorite performances of the 7th:

    Alexey Sultanov: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENKrPRKCOAg

    Maurizio Pollini (can't find a good-sounding full version, here is Precipitato only): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rfle8wSwJM

    Thanks, homes. I think the Pollini is familiar -- if that isn't brisk and effusive, I don't know what is ;)

    Sultanov is a new one for me -- I'd have gone with a different haircut, myself, but that's certainly that fiery emotive style of playing it's hard to argue with. Authoritative. What's his deal, anyway? The name sounds vaguely familiar, but first time hearing him.

    I always thought it was Rachmaninov who had the famously huge fingers, but getting into the more densely-textured parts, it seems Prokofiev must have had some Fats Waller in his genes as well. That's quite a stretch in RH for some of that: you expect it in LH in (to stick with the Russians/Soviets) Scriabin and everybody, but it's always kind of weird to splay too much in RH. Even when you can just let the thumb cover a few notes.

    Since this a jazz forum, I was checking out the "official" transcription of Booker's "Put Out the Light" sometime a few weeks ago. Not sure the transcription is exactly for sure what JB played, but that was a neat surprise to see the stuff all spelled out in ways I wouldn't have automatically gone with. Nice tune, though -- as I get older, I kind of admire some of the simpler, matter-of-fact things a bit more.

  11. Scoobs! Great stuff. I've been slacking on transcribing and stuff for a few years. Good stuff, man. Thanks.

    I see you got a little tip of the hat to Jimmy McGriff in *DB Blues* -- couldn't resist making the comparison to one of the classics in Hammondville, you know. :w

  12. I went over to the local university a month ago or so to grab the score of the Precipitato (it's fast, angry, and in 7/8) after hearing somebody perform it in a documentary (it was either Gould or Argerich, one of the two).

    Here's Gould on youtube -- really clean, not a lot of mud with the pedal and the rhythm is kind of outrageously metronomic.

    And here's somebody who did the whole bouncing-ball follow the score thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0RwrxCwREI

    As the summer is coming to an end (yeah, it's time to flip the book of lead sheets into the "autumn" section because you can never be cheesy enough!) I figure I should try to get inside this piece a little bit.

    So, my question for classical music fans is: do you people ever try to break some of the rhythms of any given piece down into LH/RH, sort of like beating time like people do when digging a jazz performance? Cause this one breaks down in kind of an alarmingly regular way, almost like an exercise a drummer might do.

    Anybody know anything about Prokofiev or this piece in particular? It's pretty neat, in kind of a Joplin "Magnetic Rag" metal kind of way, but I have a hard time saying why it's so mesmerizing.

    Cheers!

  13. A copy of Booglaoo To Beck is on its way to me ...

    I don't think that one gets enough credit either -- I listened to pretty much nothing else on headphones for a few weeks once I got into the album. (Not familiar with most of the Beck tunes, but it didn't matter to me at all). Very precise solos like on the "Preacher"-style tune ("He's a Mighty Good Leader") and that funk/swing two chord tune ("Jack Ass" I think). Great bass on the opening cut.

    I'd probably start people off unfamiliar with LS or jazz beyond the few albums most "eclectic" people have in their little collections with this one.

  14. Not to be a nudge, but I'm curious how you have your expression pedal dialed in.

    Could I get a copy, yo?

    Thanks a lot!

    jacklee.lee69@gmail.com

    PS

    I pulled out "Jimmy Smith Goes to Washington" at a small club show a few weeks ago and gave you the props -- I don't think anyone was listening, but it was still fun.

  15. The Turbanator, Peter Bernstein, and Billy Drummond - can't be bad.

    It's a terrific album -- Lonnie's solo on "Too Damn Hot" is really wild, more like at a live show than the careful, architectural, precise later recorded version. Not putting down the latter -- I actually learned it off the record I liked it so much -- but the earlier album is as a whole like that.

    "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise" has a crazy solo on it also by Lonnie Smith, as does "Night Song."

    Raw and expansive -- sounds like the way he plays live. Pick it up for sure, especially if you have all his later albums.

  16. You know, I know Ray Ricker from his teaching at Eastman, and am not aware of any recordings like Headhunters.

    Could it be this one?

    Ramon Ricker Double Play Open Loop OL-002

    Could well be -- I don't have any of his records (although I did enjoy his book at a certain point in my life). I just heard somebody somewhere mention that his recordings could be a good source for somebody trying to...ah, damn, I got nothing. I think I must have misinterpreted what I originally *thought* I heard about some of his records from the mid-1970s.

    I didn't originally see the recommendation for the Mike Clark/Paul Jackson record -- I'm going to be picking that one up *soon*!

    Kenny Barron, "Peruvian Blue" (Muse) is a nice one, with great Rhodes playing, but I don't know that I'd call it Headhunters-ish so much.

  17. Run, don't walk, and pick up Patrice Rushen's "Prelusion." I think it's a two-fer with "After the Dawn" on the current CD reissue. Amazing Rhodes player, very much in the spirit of keyboard-driven funk. I think the album is from 1975 or thereabouts. She got into the sex-symbol, smooth R&B thing later in her career, but if you catch the right albums, she's a very tough funk player.

    Apparently Ramon Ricker (maybe he's best known for a short book on pentatonic scales) has some classic records from that era, but I haven't hunted them out yet. George Duke. Richard Tee. But I can't think of anyone aside from Rushen who really explored that same area of the groove as Herbie. Plenty of Hammond players, of course, macerated the funk up, but I'm assuming you want more piano-centric sounds for the moment.

  18. Played both these over the past couple of day, and, IMHO, Intermodulation doesn't come close to Undercurrent. It's very professional music, played very well, but doesn't have the spark that Undercurrent maintains throughout the session.

    I'll strike out in disagreement on this one -- as great as "Undercurrent" is, I still keep coming back to "Intermodulation" again and again. Those octaves on the Samba just kill me -- it's definitely up there among my favorite handful of Bill albums of all time.

  19. If anybody could point me to the albums he recorded backing up Jimmy Witherspoon (on acoustic piano), that'd be cool. I haven't found the information to be that readily available (there's a ref in one of his infamous newsletters, but I can't seem to find it again).

    I'm sorry I missed a chance to see his acoustic piano work in DC not long ago -- picking up some of his piano-sideman work will have to do (no disrespect to his Hammond work! "Dark Secrets" is still on the top of my shelf).

    Edited to add: I saw the piano references earlier -- that's amazing info. It's like the final frontier for me in terms of Bill Heid record-sleuthing -- there must be something interesting going on in his blues piano work, given his high musicianship in general.

  20. j lee, good to see you here again! I was wondering if you were still around. Man, not to get totally OT, but I checked out the alt.music.hammond-organ newsgroup the other day for some info on the XK-3. Has that place become a three-man pissing contest or what? Nice waste of the internet.

    Anyway, I did paint the Wurli myself. Use Krylon Fusion spray paint. It's specially formulated to bond with plastic. It looks like the plastic has always been that color afterwards. Very cool stuff. A buddy of mine turned me onto it. He painted his Wurli bright yellow (don't know about that, but it does look like it has always been that color!) I like the red. If they made a nasty sea-green or olive-green, I might've tried that.

    From what I've read, tuning a Wurli is a major pain in the behind. I've got one broken reed on mine that I need to replace, but the tuning is pretty damn good. Mine is also a student model without tremelo, so I need to add that. Still trying to find some schematics for my particular model. I ordered some off ebay, but mine is the 206A and this was for everything BUT that model.

    It's good to see your forum up and looking good, especially WRT to the new Hammond Zone. Haven't been around much on account of some travelling and the fact that my chops (and motivation to add some new tricks to the bag!) seem to take a dive when online *too* much.

    I'll check out the Krylon Fusion paint -- lots of ways to go for colors, definitely. Did you check out the Yahoo Wurlitzer group for retrofitting a tremolo kit to your piano? I could have sworn there was a bunch of discussion on the 206 series, but that could have been from a long time ago, or I could be totally wrong. I do know somebody sells a little tremolo kit via mail older that you solder right in which includes some schematics, but it might not be for your exact model. You probably already tried that route, but just in case you haven't, there it is.

    I might be able to give you a reed or two when I pick up a freebie 720 in about a month -- it's supposed to be compatible with the 200 and 206 models, but who knows? I'll let you know if I get it, but be forewarned I need to cannabilize about three reeds myself, so we may be after the same one(s). There's supposedly some little tricks about using spacers to get the reeds just right in the center of that little metal groove when screwing back in the reeds, but it's so finicky trying to get it right, I'd rather just let someone else deal with the thing. It's pretty frustrating, because the sound is just right for a lot of things, and I enjoy that light action -- nice change from the Rhodes, you know?

    Didn't even know you were into electric pianos, Jim -- this should be the new de facto site for discussion, given that there's not much that's super active elsewhere online, except maybe the Yahoo groups, but those are pretty hard to search for the way back stuff.

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