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Stop following an artist: how/why/when?


xybert

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Yeah, it's a bit of a case by case thing. I consider Braxton to be someone that i follow, however i'm still cherry picking through the massive discography and i don't feel obligated to pick up his many new releases in order to feel like i'm a true fan or whatever. I'm the same with Lee Konitz and John Zorn and many others. I also think there are prolific artists like Mary Halvorson that have their major releases which i consider to be the must buys and quite happily stick to those and still feel like i'm 'following'. There's also that thing where if i look at my Braxton collection there are many 3-4 year gaps spread out across his career where i don't have anything he's released so buying a new release by him every few years is consistent with my collection. By comparison, with Metheny and other artists like Threadgill or a relative newbie like Steve Lehman I either have or have heard most of their output and so it's really down to the new releases as they come along, hence it feels like more of a 'big deal' to skip something.

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The digital age gives artists complete control over what they put out. But sometimes it's good to have an Alfred Lion nearby who can say, "Nice try, but not one of your best efforts. Let's hold it." Or, "Good stuff, but there is too much out there at the moment." Not every note made needs to be "documented," especially at $15.95.

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The digital age gives artists complete control over what they put out. But sometimes it's good to have an Alfred Lion nearby who can say, "Nice try, but not one of your best efforts. Let's hold it." Or, "Good stuff, but there is too much out there at the moment." Not every note made needs to be "documented," especially at $15.95.

I wish there was a "like" button available on this board (I like this comment). I'd love to have an Anthony Braxton's output subject to an Alfred Lion's oversight. His deluge of recordings might be reduced to a trickle, but the ones that would make it to release would probably be superior.

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I find that when I stop following an artist, it's because I've changed, or their music has changed, or a combination of both.

I stopped following Sonny Rollins about thirty years ago. I still love his earlier music and I'm sure I've missed some worthwhile recorded performances since then, but I felt at a certain time that the returns were diminishing to a point where I just gave up purchasing the records.

Jane Ira Bloom - I liked her early recordings - listened to her second recently and it still engaged me - but, as time passed, I found she was recording music that just didn't grab me.

Art Pepper - The music he made after his 1970's comeback didn't have the spark for me that his earlier recordings did.

Carla Bley - I enjoyed her records on a pop-jazz level up until the early 1980's. At that point, I felt that she had said all she had to say to me.

Jim Hall - I dug many of the recordings he did with other people earlier in his career but, as time went on and he became a leader, I felt that he had less and less to say to me.

As I said before - no knock on the musicians. We just ended up in different places over time.

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Braxton...I just couldn't keep up with him, plus I'm still studying all those Braxton discs I've bought over the years!

Braxton is a special problem for me, because I love his music so much. I manage it by subscribing to his monthly downloads and I've stopped buying any more of his back catalog. But he still releases plenty of stuff!

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I stopped following Sonny Rollins about thirty years ago. I still love his earlier music and I'm sure I've missed some worthwhile recorded performances since then, but I felt at a certain time that the returns were diminishing to a point where I just gave up purchasing the records.

Me, too -- and I once felt that Rollins probably was the most important living artist in any field.

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I stopped following Sonny Rollins about thirty years ago. I still love his earlier music and I'm sure I've missed some worthwhile recorded performances since then, but I felt at a certain time that the returns were diminishing to a point where I just gave up purchasing the records.

Me, too -- and I once felt that Rollins probably was the most important living artist in any field.

I stopped following him around the same time. Then, at some point, I came back. I'm not enamored of everything he's done since the 1970s (and I haven't heard everything), but some of it is stunning - and some of the rest is pretty good. I'm glad I came back. But I understand - kind of.

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Some artists can be almost endlessly inventive, soulful and exciting over a long career, but not many. McCoy, Scofileld and Lovano have all had major label contracts, so it's not that they record unless sessions because they can. By the way, it still costs good money to record in a studio so it's not that it's so cheap that there are a lot of releases.

No, it's just that some artists just run out of inspiration, some way earlier than others. Some don't really warrant those nice "major" label deals, but are very good at playing the whole glad handing, slap on the back game to keep themselves valuable to those media types and producers who hang on coattails for a living.

McCoy hasn't made a great recording in decades. Scofield and Lovano sounded great when they were much younger booth as players and composers, but now ( really for a looong time) they bore the shit out of me.

I don't mean to particularly single out those three, there are many more in this thread ( I totally agree about Osby and Murray). Some cats just don't justify a long haul. After a few releases, you just give up on them.

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I stopped following Sonny Rollins about thirty years ago. I still love his earlier music and I'm sure I've missed some worthwhile recorded performances since then, but I felt at a certain time that the returns were diminishing to a point where I just gave up purchasing the records.

Me, too -- and I once felt that Rollins probably was the most important living artist in any field.

I stopped following him around the same time. Then, at some point, I came back. I'm not enamored of everything he's done since the 1970s (and I haven't heard everything), but some of it is stunning - and some of the rest is pretty good. I'm glad I came back. But I understand - kind of.

I have also ignored Sonny's post-60s output, but I once listened to an interview with Marty Ehrlich where he made a convincing case for at least listening to what Sonny Rollins has to say no matter what. Since then I've made an effort to give some of the more recent discs a listen. It's not Newk's Time but that's not the point. I don't think this reasoning holds water in most other cases, and I don't know that Marty was arguing that it did, but for whatever reason when it comes to Rollins, I'm inclined to agree.

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I stopped following Sonny Rollins about thirty years ago. I still love his earlier music and I'm sure I've missed some worthwhile recorded performances since then, but I felt at a certain time that the returns were diminishing to a point where I just gave up purchasing the records.

Me, too -- and I once felt that Rollins probably was the most important living artist in any field.

I stopped following him around the same time. Then, at some point, I came back. I'm not enamored of everything he's done since the 1970s (and I haven't heard everything), but some of it is stunning - and some of the rest is pretty good. I'm glad I came back. But I understand - kind of.

We're about the same age, I think, and therefore had the advantage/curse/whatever of not even knowing who Sonny Rollins was until the 70s. Same thing with Wayne Shorter. In six month's time I had discovered Wayne Shorter through Blakey, Miles, and Weather Report. At the time, it all sounded like the same guy, just in different places. I've never been able to "unlearn" that, even though now I can llsten with a broader chronology reference in place and see, oh yeah. But still...

Same thing with Sonny, I think I heard Next Album and What's New and the Period album and the Prestige side w/Max & Clifford all in the space of about a year. Again, it sounded like the same guy just in a lot of different places. Moreso than Wayne, but I was just a kid, so grown ups changing as they got older seemed normal, and was something I envied about grown-ups, the freedom they had to be grown-ups and change along the way, to just do whatever they wanted to do. Kids, we had to "rebel". Them grown-ups, they could just change.

It seemed so simple then! :g

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Van Morrison - thought it would never happen, but I just got bored 5-6 years ago.

Think there are lots of pop/rock folks where I just get to the stage where either I think that they've said all they are going to say to me or like Van, they've maybe said all they are going to say. Lots of bands/artists REM, U2 have gone this way for me.

Some though, and I'm thinking Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Sonny Rollins in this group, are folks who are still out there putting out music and playing live, all of which I'm grateful for. I don't love everything they put out and the gigs might not be all that on occasion. I also get frustrated when the critics tell you that each new thing is the best since their career high in 1974 (it seldom is). But I'm glad there's still new music and sometimes you get a gem. So what if its not Blood on the Tracks, After the Goldrush or the Bridge...

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We measure things on this board in terms of recorded output and product purchase. That makes us a tiny minority. Streaming and/or internet-is-your-friending mean you just don't have to go about home-listening in the same way. How many recordings do you love so much you keep coming back to them? not many, and for that reason you certainly don't need to 'own' them. And I don't know about anyone else but for me to hear someone in concert can last me ten years or a lifetime - I had the experience, that's what I want.

Braxton and Brotzmann keep coming up. I have most certainly stopped buying Braxton records. Not only have I got too many, but I also notice that stores which stock jazz/improv seriously stock very few Braxton titles, which makes me think that the Braxton micro-market has folded - could be wrong. To say nothing of the fact that his best release ever is still OOP! The Brotzmann's I pick up if I feel like it, not because I expect anything new but just like packs of chewing-gum - just a little re-assurance in a changing world.

So for me while I did learn about music by following the model now is strictly dipping and dabbling. It is hard to dissociate the topic here, about following an artist, from questions of changing economies and technologies of consumption. All stuff I've said before, I know :blush:

Edited by David Ayers
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I stopped following Sonny Rollins about thirty years ago. I still love his earlier music and I'm sure I've missed some worthwhile recorded performances since then, but I felt at a certain time that the returns were diminishing to a point where I just gave up purchasing the records.

Me, too -- and I once felt that Rollins probably was the most important living artist in any field.

Same here and there are many more.

Edited by J.A.W.
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It seemed so simple then! :g

Krazy-Kat1.jpg

Actually, you sir, and several others on this board played a major role in me stopping to hold opinions like "I need none of Rollins' records from after the Impulse ones" or "Blue Mitchell after the period covered in the Mosaic is crap."

Early on, I was focussing on Blue Note, OJCCDs (I didn't even know the difference between Prestige and Riverside back then, don't blame me, I was a kid and there was no internet just yet to find out ...), Impulse, some Atlantic ... with Coltrane, I stopped at "A Love Supreme" for quite some time, but rectified that eventually (I need all there is!), with Mingus I was looking a looooong time for "Mingus at Monterey" and "UCLA" (found vinyl of the former, the later I only got when Sue did that 2CD reissue) and thought I'd not need his later stuff. Frankly I'm still not holding the later stuff in as high esteem (I wasn't around when "Changes" came out and as a late-comer, they just don't do as much for me as the early stuff does), but I would not want to part with it all.

But there are still artists where I have some kind of cut-off date. Jimmy Smith for one ... I have virtually all of his Blue Notes and many Verves, but from later on, it's just this and that, stuff that's been around and stuff that I really felt I needed. Chet Baker is a similar case ... most everything from the fifties I have, after that it gets scattered. Mulligan similar (though going into the sixties).

But in many cases, it's more out of necessity that I don't have more stuff from (roughly) the seventies (might go back into the late sixties and on into the eighties). Take Xanadu ... that label looks great to me, but I have virtually nothing, since there's just not been anything around I could have bought.

And frankly, there ware very few I really "follow" in the sense that I will get any new release right after it's out. Threadgill, maybe (though I really caught up with him only in the past few years). And a few younger ones like Colin Vallon, Elina Duni ... but with others I really love live (Malcolm Braff for instance), I've not heard a single disc doing them justice or catching the exitement of the live concert, so I don't really look for their stuff even though I consider myself a fan (that's some silly notion). I also do try to keep up with Stephan Oliva (thanks, brownie!), which isn't too easy.

Labelwise, Mosaic really is the only one I watch with any regularity. There's just too much to follow all there is and it's often too annoying to get hold of stuff via various online outlets etc., so I just give up or get stuff occasionally, lumping some things together. For instance, I've been meaning to check out some new and recent stuff in pi for a year or so ... I might eventually order three or four, no matter if they're new or have been out for two or three years.

I do still follow Bob Dylan though ... but again, if a year passes between a release and me buying it, that's not an uncommon thing to happen.

And I do usually try and get an earful if Ry Cooder has something new around.

Also I do follow our dear host, Jim Alfredson, usually even pre-ordering in this case :) (which I rarely ever do at all)

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Doesn't eveyone have a cut-off date for Horace Silver's recordings?

Not the same date for everone, mind you -- but I think his output is a little like Jimmy Smith's -- after some point, it's all been said.

As long as there aren't vocals, I've enjoyed just about every Silver album I've heard, including several of the late ones.

Per what Jim said in post #40, Hearing Rollins' evolution in tandem (or so I felt) with the course of my own youngish life and would-be understanding of what the world at large was like was crucial. The impact of "Worktime" in real time! This after Sonny's "woodshed" period in Chicago, which we'd heard a bit about (and of course we knew a good deal of his pre-woodshed work). But this! I and my friends spontaneously felt awestruck and enlightened. It was the advent of a new way of knowing and being. And it continued that way for a good stretch of time.

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Sonny is a mess - when I used to go to hear him in person I would filter out the rest of the band - finally, this got to be too much work. One night in Binghamtom he did play Strode Rode like the end of the world, but that was it. Need to listen to a lot of the RCAs; he has moments back then where it's not only rhythm nirvana but harmonic complexity of the most amazing and deepest kind. It's a pity, in a way, that he became so popular; I'm glad he made the cash but he also decided he was going to move to some imagined middle ground. And the sound of it is sometimes just horrible, I am very sad to say,

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Doesn't eveyone have a cut-off date for Horace Silver's recordings?

Not the same date for everone, mind you -- but I think his output is a little like Jimmy Smith's -- after some point, it's all been said.

Not sure I flat out agree .... I did get the Conn 2CD set (gave it a mere one or two spins so far though) ... but there's some live material from the late sixties that shows his band still hat it going. But then those were the days when not even Cannonball could record with just his working band on a regular basis any longer ... so those Silver bands with Bennie Maupin from 1968/69 or the Breckers from 1973 or Tom Harrell (with Bob Berg 1976, with Larry Schneider the year after) remained undocumented on record mostly (or completely, I don't really know for sure).

Fifteen, probably even ten years ago I'd have agreed though and would have said: no need for any Silver post "Cape-Verdean Blues" and "The Jody Grind". Today, I want to hear more and try and trace the ways the music of Silver and others took, after the enshrined period (roughly mid 50s to mid 60s) passed.

How about Art Blakey though? There, I confess, I begin to lose interest gradually during the Limelight years ... the album with Gilmore is a promise not kept, though "Soul Finger" and "Buttercorn Lady" are pretty darn good ... and then there's that 1968 sextet with Billy Harper, Julian Priester and Bill Hardman ... tail end stuff, before Blakey started dabbling with electric pianos and stuff, too ... later on, I only have the odd album here and there and never really felt like changing that situtation so far (though I would have run to see him live if I had a chance, even at the stage where I felt like, "I don't need nothing post 'Free for All'" ... catching these guys live is something I always try and do when I can).

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I LOVED The Jazz Crusaders and their subsequently renamed The Crusaders. Their Jazz Crusaders recordings were hard to come by on CD so I jumped on their Pacific Jazz Mosaic box set when it came out. It's the first Mosaic I bought new rather than used on the secondary market. My interest begin to wane as they moved into the middle 70's but I continued to buy each album as it came out. I drew the line and quit following them at Free As The Wind . Wayne Henderson, one of the founding members of the group, had left and their sound had changed into a slicker, over-produced pop-fusion thing that I didn't enjoy. Even though I stuck with them as my interest was waning in their sound in '74-'75, I find that the later recordings get played a lot less than the earlier recordings.


Doesn't eveyone have a cut-off date for Horace Silver's recordings?

Not the same date for everone, mind you -- but I think his output is a little like Jimmy Smith's -- after some point, it's all been said.

Just judging by what's in my collection, my range for him is from '54 - '69.

There's guys like Bill Evans, Art Pepper, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, etc. where I have so much of them, it's pretty much redundant to get any more as opposed to a conscious decision to stop following them.

Edited by mikelz777
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