Jump to content

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 104
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I've found it to be very provocative over the years.

Wilson Pickett & Solomon Burke:

5460369879_b01fe29e05_z.jpg

Bill Haley:

default_rock_dreams_exc_04_0706291116_id_61405.jpg

Text:

People ask me, Bill, how can you do this? You a musician, a grown man and a pro, how can you play this trash? This jungle music? Listen, I tell them, don’t knock it. I mean, I’m thirty years old, and I have a wife and five children to support, and I scuffled ten years for a break, and now I finally got it, and I’m not about to let it go, not for anyone, no matter what. So I grin, and I keep on grinning, and I don’t stop grinning until they turn the lights out. Listen, I say, it’s a living.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Back to the original article, which I downloaded onto my Kindle on just read on the plane a couple of days ago: I thought that Shaw had a point, but it's a very obvious one - and I think that just about everyone who would read the article would already be aware of the problem.

And he kind off pissed me off by dismissing Bunk Johnson in a single sentence: "...pulled from obscurity, fitted with new dentures and resuscitated to produce some pretty forgettable music in the forties...." If that's not actually "Bixing," it's at least an extremely oversimplified view of Johnson's output, which ranges from, yes, forgettable at times to pretty wonderful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Back to the original article, which I downloaded onto my Kindle on just read on the plane a couple of days ago: I thought that Shaw had a point, but it's a very obvious one - and I think that just about everyone who would read the article would already be aware of the problem.

And he kind off pissed me off by dismissing Bunk Johnson in a single sentence: "...pulled from obscurity, fitted with new dentures and resuscitated to produce some pretty forgettable music in the forties...." If that's not actually "Bixing," it's at least an extremely oversimplified view of Johnson's output, which ranges from, yes, forgettable at times to pretty wonderful.

Agree about those wrong-headed remarks about Bunk Johnson, but they probably are pure "Bixing" because they're almost certainly borrowed from another person's semi-ancient formulation -- can't recall whose it is, but it's not Shaw's; fifty years ago I read something dismissive about Johnson that was very close to those phrases. Hey, it could even have been Leonard Feather.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember reading that "pulled from obscurity, dentures, trumpet, forgettable music" thing in more than one source too and not doubt this had been recopied somewhere, but isn't there another aspect to this, in particular?

Isn't it so that the origins of the discussion of Bunk Johnson and his peers fell right into the post-WWII "Moldy Fig" feuds and isn't it true that there also were those in the "traditional" (including British Trad) camp who took to ANYTHING produced by those resuscitated old heros (initially Bunk Johnson, in particular) as if it were the cream of the crop in every respect and a role model and musical yardstick for anybody wanting to capture the spirit and essence of the true origins and originators of jazz? Thereby forgetting that they wre dealing with elderly persons physically past their prime and musically rusted up who did produce more than a bit of fluffs and by the late 40s were not necessarily playing the way they did in the early days anymore anyway?

Isn't it "Bixing" too if you blissfully ignore all that?

So maybe that statement quoted above was a sort of counterreaction to all that hullabaloo about the "oldtimers", acounterreaction that essentially served the purpose to alert the listeners to the "Emperors Clothes" aspect that no doubt was there too?

And the truth indeed lies somewhere in between?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sometimes I'm sure it's simply a matter of good manners, and the people who were around, say, Son House, who were not criticizing pointlessly his deteriorated playing or rambling monologues, perhaps were partly just employing common sense and showing respect**. On the recordings, if the applause and respectful laughter sometimes sounds a little patronising today, it’s easy to understand in view of the conditions these people were often ‘discovered’ in. Then getting to the actual truth involves more than leaping in the other direction, as happened with (for obvious example) the Steve Calt books where everyone involved is thrown in the mud. With Bunk Johnson, long before hearing him I’d read that he wasn’t really worth hearing - similarly with later Billie Holiday, the people who liked her deteriorated voice were ‘ghoulish’ and an appreciation of any ‘accidental’ qualities were pandering to a myth of the tortured artist or something

**this sounds like I'm saying his rediscovery stuff is poor - but I didn't intend it, I like it :eye:

Edited by cih
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

given that I once heard Barry Harris describe Jimmy Rainey as being in the same musical league as Bird, I'm a bit surprised he would claim Green as the greatest.

What exactly did Barry say about Grant? And BTW I know Barry respects Jimmy highly, and we've spoke about him many times. I've heard his public comments too. He was saying Jimmy sounds like he hung out with Bird and learned something. He said that many times, not that Jimmy was in the same league as Bird. Barry has a thing about musicians that hung out or played with Bird, how enlarging an experience it was. He says he always can hear it, like with Chet baker.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

given that I once heard Barry Harris describe Jimmy Rainey as being in the same musical league as Bird, I'm a bit surprised he would claim Green as the greatest.

What exactly did Barry say about Grant? And BTW I know Barry respects Jimmy highly, and we've spoke about him many times. I've heard his public comments too. He was saying Jimmy sounds like he hung out with Bird and learned something. He said that many times, not that Jimmy was in the same league as Bird. Barry has a thing about musicians that hung out or played with Bird, how enlarging an experience it was. He says he always can hear it, like with Chet baker.

It's from the book that dare not speak it's name :g

Page 93. Barry Harris talks about Grant's melodicism, compares him stylistically to Blue Mitchell, then says "Grant was a good guitarist, one of the best, one of the greatest - if not the greatest. And I have played with Kenny and I played and recorded with Wes".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Barry said, in my hearing, something to the effect that Rainey was one of the few musicians he ever heard who could come up with ideas that were in the same league as Bird's; I was asking him about it, as he is quoted in the liner notes to a Xanadu/Rainey LP as saying something very similar.

Edited by AllenLowe
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Barry said, in my hearing, something to the effect that Raney was one of the few musicians he ever heard who could come up with ideas that were in the same league as Bird's; I was asking him about it, as he is quoted in the liner notes to a Xanadu/Raney LP as saying something very similar.

I've got this.'Live In Tokyo'. Just checked. It's Don Schlitten (he wrote the liner notes) who says "the man I personally consider to be the world's greatest Jazz Guitarist". And later in the liner notes Bob Rusch (Cadence) is quoted as saying "listening to Raney is much like going back and listening to Bird; one is struck by the freshness and the lack of embroidered bullshit".

Although you could be remembering a direct quote from a different Raney/Xanadu perhaps.

Edited by freelancer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, Barry-God love him-is full of opinions. I'm surprised he was that high on Grant, b/c he hates laziness and musicians that don't progress, and Grant was pretty lazy-and to me anyway stayed pretty much in the same place musically, just didn't seem curious enough. But very talented. He did have a good melodic sense, also a great sound, and could swing you into bad health. His hero on guitar, BTW? Jimmy Raney! (whose view of Grant was not as high as Barry's).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, Barry-God love him-is full of opinions. I'm surprised he was that high on Grant, b/c he hates laziness and musicians that don't progress, and Grant was pretty lazy-and to me anyway stayed pretty much in the same place musically, just didn't seem curious enough. But very talented. He did have a good melodic sense, also a great sound, and could swing you into bad health. His hero on guitar, BTW? Jimmy Raney! (whose view of Grant was not as high as Barry's).

A direct quote from your first post in the Fred Hersh thread: "Fred is quite the little bitch with his snotty remarks about great players, frankly far greater than he."

Fasstrack will never read this since he blocked me some time ago. <_<

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, Barry-God love him-is full of opinions. I'm surprised he was that high on Grant, b/c he hates laziness and musicians that don't progress, and Grant was pretty lazy-and to me anyway stayed pretty much in the same place musically, just didn't seem curious enough. But very talented. He did have a good melodic sense, also a great sound, and could swing you into bad health. His hero on guitar, BTW? Jimmy Raney! (whose view of Grant was not as high as Barry's).

Fasstrack, I clearly remember you saying something like this in another thread, suffice to say I disagreed with it (at least from the angle you were coming from), and gave you a response arguing why I thought you were a bit myopic in the larger scheme of things. Your following posts gave me the impression you either didn't take any time to consider what l was suggesting (as a riposte), or your own self expression was the real motivator for what you were saying. It was a bit disappointing actually, because I know I made some good points worthy of your consideration. I wont bother rehashing what I said there, because I believe I said it well enough, whether you disagree with it or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I AM myopic. And opinionated. But also willhng to listen and admit I'm wrong. Rehash if you have the energy, or add the link. I think part of this is a sort of defense of the underdog. Eddie Diehl is a friend for years. I played with him a lot (never met Grant Green) and just found him way more interesting an improvisor-he reacts to what you play and jumps into pretty deep water himself-and just as swinging. He ran with the same crowd but didn't get the record dates, etc. Part of it was a difficult personality. It's not a matter of who's better-they're both good. I went through a phase listening to Grant. I dug him so much I told Raney he was one of my favorites after he slammed him (Clarence Darrow in action again (; ). I still like hearing him, just think it was kind of a waste he didn't go further with his thing-exploring the instrument chordally, for example. It would've went great w/his sound, and given another dimension to offset the single-string stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...