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Interesting discussion here - yea, I would also say that pitch and nuance are a good part of what makes Gene Ammons playing so moving and distinctive.  So I guess if his pitch and nuance doesn't do it for you, you are not going to like him much.   

As far as "repeating the same thing," that may refer in part to his very relaxed approach - it often feels as if Ammons is not deliberately try to make new things happen as opposed to creating a good context where they might naturally emerge.   I actually find that refreshing.   And Jug can get away with it since he is one of those people who sound so damn good even playing just a set melody.  

  

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Another notion that I find interesting is that of "loud colors", like in clothes or paint shades, not just bright, but LOUD, like, turn down that damn orange, will you, I can't hear myself watch.

I used to think that all that upset was just stupid prejudicial narrowness, and still do think that that is usually in the mix somewhere.

But consider also that both color and sound are literally vibrations, and that all of our beings function as a process of all sorts of vibrations. What if the Ellington sax section's pitch or Gene Ammons' tone are so impulsively repulsive to some people simply because their organisms are not able to accommodate those, literal, vibrations, that they shake them in ways they do not understand, and therefore feel threatened by??

I mean, I still don't trust people like that, because I don't have nearly enough time to figure all that shit out. But I do figure that the surest way to get trapped by your enemy is to fear them more than you understand them 

 

 

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11 hours ago, JSngry said:

Regarding pitch, the end of "My Way" would be a prime example. Some of those notes are very "out of tune", VERY.

But only in one system, and only to a certain set of ears, 

But, you know, when you hang out with different peoples, really hang out informally, socially, non-prentational, you hear different nuances of speech, iflections, rhythm, accentuations, and, yes, pitch.

So, if people who talk like Gene Ammons 0lays are not something you commonly hear, then, yes, the whole thing mind sound like some lesser refined jivetalk not particularly relevant to one's lifestyle except, you know we all have a black friend or two that we save our cooltalk for.

And ok, there are people like that. But there are also people not like that.

 

 

Right, thanks Jim.

MG

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Clifford Jordan from the liner notes of The mellow Side of Clifford Jordan (Mapleshade), a compilation which includes a track where  he plays with an organ trio:

"When I was coming up in Chicago, all us young, hip players thought Gene Ammons' stuff was real square and simple-minded.  But the older I got, the more I realized that shit was hard to play." 

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2 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Gene Ammons certainly had a distinctive voice, but moreso than Clifford Jordan, Illinois Jacquet, Willis Jackson, Lockjaw Davis, Ben Webster, Ike Quebec, or any number of other players?  Not so sure...

?  Did someone make that claim here?  (that's a sincere question, I'm not trying to jump on you)  If so, I'm not finding that post.  If not, I'm not quite sure what point you're making.

At any rate, I would say that the notion of "a distinctive voice" is a subjective matter.  Your list is subjective, which I think is an interesting thing. If it hasn't already been done, a whole topic could be devoted to which players on a given instrument are most widely identifiable. It's interesting to see which players are most frequently recognized on blindfold tests, for example, and from where I'm sitting there are always surprises in that regard.  From your list, I would probably have to omit Jacquet and Jackson as easily identifiable to me, and I might have included Dexter or Coltrane or Johnny Griffin or Turrentine, or... etc (i.e., personally selected others from your appropriately chosen phrase "any number of other players").

Edited to add that I forgot to point out that I couldn't honestly include Ammons on my own list of players that I can easily identify.  I dig him, he's just never had that quality for me.

Edited by Jim R
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I think it does depend on who you listen to most. I can usually, if not invariably, identify by sound Willis Jackson, Jug, Jaws, Houston Person, Stan Turrentine, Ben Webster, Illinois, Don Wilkerson, David Newman, Arnett Cobb, Booker Ervin, Clifford Scott, Eddie Chamblee, Harold Vick, Sonny Stitt (though by his flow, not his sound, I think), Ike Quebec, King Curtis, Pharoah Sanders, Plas Johnson and Teddy Edwards. Other well known people less often, though sometimes or even often I can get lucky with Coleperson Hawkins, Buddy Tate and a few others.

But those are mostly people I listen to a hell of a lot more than the GREAT tenor players (except Booker Ervin, who possibly has THE most distinctive sound and whom I listen to a bit).

MG

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Regarding what Clifford Jordan said...yeah. That shit is hard. Not so much for the fingers as for the head and the heart, giving voice to all those phrases JUST right, time, place, accent, inflection. Knowing what to play and then knowing how to play it so there's no misunderstanding or dropped connection.

Maybe on "blowing session" dates he would sometimes eventually become redundant, but oh well about that, life is not just a blowing session. Talk about trap music...

The guy really was one of the great balladeers of all time. 

Soopy, show me that overlap between Esther Phillips fans and Gene Ammons fans. Just a thought.

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6 hours ago, Jim R said:

?  Did someone make that claim here?  (that's a sincere question, I'm not trying to jump on you)  If so, I'm not finding that post.  If not, I'm not quite sure what point you're making.

At any rate, I would say that the notion of "a distinctive voice" is a subjective matter.  Your list is subjective, which I think is an interesting thing. If it hasn't already been done, a whole topic could be devoted to which players on a given instrument are most widely identifiable. It's interesting to see which players are most frequently recognized on blindfold tests, for example, and from where I'm sitting there are always surprises in that regard.  From your list, I would probably have to omit Jacquet and Jackson as easily identifiable to me, and I might have included Dexter or Coltrane or Johnny Griffin or Turrentine, or... etc (i.e., personally selected others from your appropriately chosen phrase "any number of other players").

Edited to add that I forgot to point out that I couldn't honestly include Ammons on my own list of players that I can easily identify.  I dig him, he's just never had that quality for me.

He didn't say so in so many words, but I took Jim to be saying that Ammons had something more in play than just a distinctive voice...my apologies if he didn't mean that.

 

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18 hours ago, JSngry said:

What else more did you think I was saying he had in play?  Just curious. There are a lot of distinctive voices from a lot of different places.

I wasn't sure if you making a distinction in degree - he was simply more distinctive than most, a more readily identifiable sound, or a distinction in kind - that he had something more than just a distinctive voice, that his particular use of pitch alteration and other devices to put his own stink on the notes (to paraphrase Ray Charles) was indicative of some deeper difference in what he was doing.

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Not really a "deeper" difference...perhaps a more intensely demographically-specific difference in origin and expression, although obviously not in receivability, as is evidenced by all the love and appreciation here.

But even that is relevant to the times/places. I do think, though, that if you want to find an Anglo-American equivalent in organity to this type of straight-line "accent", for this era, you have to go to the country/"hillbilly" folks, and THAT vibrational system turns a lot of people off as much as Jug's does...maybe even some of the same people get bugged by both, I don't know.

Now, let's see the Venn diagrams showing the Hank Williams/Gene Ammons audiences, then and today. My hunch is that the less "foreign" both become, the bigger the overlap will be, although there will always be one, some things are deep enough to get under anything.

 

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20 hours ago, JSngry said:

Now, let's see the Venn diagrams showing the Hank Williams/Gene Ammons audiences, then and today. My hunch is that the less "foreign" both become, the bigger the overlap will be, although there will always be one, some things are deep enough to get under anything.

 

Now am I "un-foreign" or just an outcast if I admit that I have records both by Jug and by Hank (Williams, not the Mobe, though him too - a bit ...)? :) Though I do listen more to Jug than to Hank himself (but a bit more to other country music from Hank's golden days).

I don't quite see what this "not getting Jug" is out to prove anyway, and shomehow I have a feeling it is more the "high-brow, high art jazz" listeners (from that era and later) who might turn their backs on Jug, whereas more R&B-open-minded jazz fans will embrace him much more openly. So there IS an audience inside jazz ... (but of course then those high-brow, high-art jazz listeners might want to stop sniffing at those who enjoy jazz for more down-to-earth enjoyment ... ;))

 

 

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2 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Now am I "un-foreign" or just an outcast if I admit that I have records both by Jug and by Hank (Williams, not the Mobe, though him too - a bit ...)? :) Though I do listen more to Jug than to Hank himself (but a bit more to other country music from Hank's golden days).

You are inside the overlapping of the Venn diagram. Please do not panic. Meals will be available shorty at a nominal cost to you or your designated surrogate. As always, snacks are provided at no charge.

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19 hours ago, JSngry said:

Is there at least one song that both Gene Ammons & Hank Williams covered? I'd like to hear a mashup...

Interesting question.  I can't think of one.   Precious Lord came to my mind. Hank Williams did it, but the Jug version I was think of is Precious Memories.   

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20 hours ago, JSngry said:

Is there at least one song that both Gene Ammons & Hank Williams covered? I'd like to hear a mashup...

 

1 hour ago, John L said:

Interesting question.  I can't think of one.   Precious Lord came to my mind. Hank Williams did it, but the Jug version I was think of is Precious Memories.   

I don't know about Hank and Jug, but this sort of thing happens occasionally. I've posted this before, but there's a song that Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, and Doug Sahm all recorded.

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  • 9 months later...

Hi All,

I need assistance identifying 2 tracks from a live Gene Jug Ammons master recording in the George Semper Music Archives. Even though I have reel notes, I can't find one of the releases anywhere! Unfortunately I have to do another round of reel baking and attempt to get the rest of the material off the reel. So far I've gotten 2 of the four songs off.

These are not the highest fidelity recordings BUT once again are the masters so I will treat them as such. Here is the LINK to the collection.

ENJOY! And thanks in advance for your expertise.

℗George-Semper-~Gene-Jug-Ammons-Reel-1-~BoothAnd-Club-SF-1970-LIVE-Audience-Recording-~CW-Exactly-Like-You-My-Romance-My-Funny-Valentines-~Mater-Reels-com.jpg

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