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Ken Nordine


JSngry

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Love the voice, love the perspective. The Word Jazz stuff gets a little cutesy at times, but when it's good, it's great. And the post-WJ stuff is REALLY interesting, especially COLORS. "Middlebrow" all the way, but I'm cool with that. Ken Nordine is all right with me.

How are things in your town?

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By the way, who was his band back then?

Various West Coast cats, including Paul Horn & John Pisano, a.o. The later stuff gets into some "free" type music w/Robert Campbell (?), and the most recent thing I've heard by him (released on some kind of Grateful Dead-related label) is kinda "trance-y/electronica". These days, he's no longer "fun" as much as he is "whimsical/mystical", and he does it quite nicely, I think.

And then there's the Levi's and Taster's Choice commercials!

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Played golf with Nordine once, about 10 years ago. (We both showed up at a local public course as singles at the same time and teed off together.) He was pleased to be recognized -- you couldn't mistake that voice -- but was grumpy about the state of his game, the kind of golfer who can't believe that his lost shot went awry when in fact it would have been miraculous if he ever hit one that didn't. (I'm no good either but not indignant/surprised about it.)

Speaking of "Colors," Dutch jazz pianist/composer Michiel Braam had made an album of that title (with bassist Wilbert De Joode and drummer Michael Vatcher) that's based on Nordine's poems. Heard the group live in Chicago about a month ago and was impressed. Braam, like a lot of post-M. Mengelberg Dutch modernists is a witty eccentric with a personal twist -- he loves to play with rhythmic wrong-footedness and has his own way brittle of doing it, has formidable chops, and reads Monk back towards Waller, as seen through a broken kaleidoscope. For further info go to www.michielbraam.com

He's written about in Kevin Whitehead's book "New Dutch Swing."

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