Michael Fitzgerald

Discussion on this was continued here: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...6420&hl=metheny Mike

They did THEIR part - but maybe YOU didn't live up to your assigned role of dummy. Guess you got to keep on practicing..... Mike

At least the other kind of ass kicking didn't cost two-fifty......... Mike

I don't care one whit whether it's a staple of high school marching bands. So's that godawful "Y'all ready for this" piece of crap. That "all the cool kids are doing it" doesn't make it right, and this trend ought to be changed. This is a school, an educational institution. The English classes should be reading great literature and the musical groups should be playing great repertoire. You really don't want to get me started on the subject of marching band. Mike

As a music educator, I have serious issues with any school music program that can't get their act together to give a single performance - why are they trying to learn the songs from last year? Are the goddamn three notes of Louie, Louie really all that difficult? I mean, if they couldn't afford any printed music and learned of the performance that morning, it would take 10 minutes to come up with a head arrangement of Louie, Louie that would suffice. Now, there is pretty much no merit in any school music program including Louie, Louie in the first place. It isn't aesthetically appropriate for the ensemble; it is basically devoid of musical value; and when one considers all the other possibilities, that's one lame decision on somebody's part. So I guess what I'm saying is I agree with the school board's decision, but not with their reasoning. They should have just said it was on the basis of the music, not the lyrics. Mike

My favorite exchange on the subject: Q: "I'd like to direct this question to messrs. Lennon and McCartney. In a recent article, 'Time' magazine put down Pop music. And they referred to 'Day Tripper' as being about a prostitute..." PAUL: (nodding jokingly) "Oh yeah." Q: "...and 'Norwegian Wood' as being about a lesbian." PAUL: (nodding) "Oh yeah." Q: "I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the 'Time' magazine criticism of the music that is being written today." PAUL: "We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all." Mike

And he took Hubbard out on the road with him for several months in 1959. While in Chicago, Freddie had his ass kicked by Ira Sullivan. Here's some of the trumpeters who worked with Rollins over the course of the 1950s and 1960s: Sonny also used Byrd on live gigs in 1957. Thad Jones was involved in a couple of recording sessions in 1964, some issued, some not. The mysterious Reshid Kmal Ali made the Japanese tour in 1963. Charles Tolliver played with SR at the Vanguard in early 1966. There are more. But none seemed to really fit, I guess. Mike

Not necessarily - there are many instances where personnel listed elsewhere (on the album itself, for example) that were omitted by Ruppli. Lord obviously borrowed from Ruppli in this case. Mike

I approach attending weekly engagements with the assumption that the music on an *evening* will not change much from day to day. However, I do expect that if I stay for two sets, I will hear different tunes in each. Generally this works. So, when I go to hear a big band like Maria Schneider's, I know that if I stay for both sets, I'll hear pretty much all the repertoire the band is planning to share with the audience over the course of the week. And if I came back the next night, I'd hear the exact same tunes, maybe in the same sequence, maybe not. A group structured like that, promoting a new album needs that kind of reliability. When I heard a straight week (something like fifteen sets) of Tony Scott & Buddy DeFranco, there were a number of givens, but there were also some wild cards, plus there were different guests each night. Another variable is whether it's a longstanding working band. That kind of group can have more flexibility. I do think the new piano player would be a factor. I have seen Lou Donaldson several times with different groups (sometimes with Herman Foster, sometimes with Lonnie Smith) and haven't noticed the rerun syndrome. But I think those were all concert- or festival-type presentations, not club gigs with multiple shows. Mike

It's a small step from that to genital. And from there to con-genital. Mike

An important difference between soprano and bass clarinet is that the bass clarinet has keys (like a saxophone) that cover the holes. On the soprano clarinet, there are no keys for the primary fingers and the fingers themselves have to cover the holes. I agree with Allen about the air requirements. Mike

Read here: http://users.bestweb.net/~msnyder/clarinet/clar1945.htm Mike

The Hungarian stuff I know involves classical composers (not anonymous - Kodaly, Bartok, for example) borrowing from anonymous folk music. Just because Vaughan Williams used English folk songs as source material doesn't make his English Folk Song Suite something other than classical music. Popularity has absolutely nothing to do with popular music. Just because only one person bought the last album by some garage band doesn't mean the music is all of sudden folk music or classical music. It's popular music that doesn't have popularity. Just because Andreas Bocelli made the top ten in England doesn't make it popular music. But I really don't want to get into this. I've discussed it extensively elsewhere. As for "because it grooved like a mother, had compositions like no other, and because (and pardon the beggin' o' the question) he is one bad-ass brother" - all those things are fine and dandy. But they don't define genius. Because you say he's a genius doesn't make it so. So all those folks are mislabeled? Stevie Wonder is the ONLY genius out there? Mike

So are the authors and/or publishers going to offer a stipend for doing their research, fact-checking, editing, and proofreading for them? Mike

Kind of scary to know that there are folks reading this thread who are expert in hacking the photos on every website associated with Crouch...... http://patriot.net/~crouch/stanley.html Mike

The River still has some worthwhile stuff - I could probably pull a single album of that. But there's nothing on the level of Born To Run and Wild & Innocent. And the single album I make wouldn't be very well programmed. Too much of this stuff doesn't flow together. First album is somewhat half-baked, hit or miss but still one of the top three. The second album is ambitious, but misses the mark a few times. But the looseness of the stuff is beautiful. David Sancious is extremely important to the sound. Drummer Vini Lopez had a great feel. From what I can tell, Boom Carter was a good one too. Weinberg was no problem in the early days. The live performances of early 1975 are fantastic, particularly because of the presence of Suki Lahav in the band. The way Springsteen used dynamics and dramatic storytelling within the context of a super tight, hard-rocking band is one of his greatest achievements. There are some pieces that weren't on the records that are further evidence of this period - live tunes never done in the studio, and the tune Fever, which I think ended up on that recent boxed set. Born To Run is the masterpiece. Production, songwriting, orchestration, performance, the programming of the tracks, all fully realized. If only there were more like it. Or if someone would build on what this album showed was possible. Darkness On The Edge of Town is where things started to decline - listen to the drums. The snare drum backbeat has become overexaggerated and the music isn't subtle. I guess it's great for stadiums. (There are no redeeming qualities to Born In The USA, the epitome of mind-numbing repetitive boredom. Boom THWACK Boom THWACK!) The live shows of 1978 are still worth hearing - just for the incredible energy those guys could put out over the course of three hours. Mike

Maybe various things that John Abercrombie has done? (with Jan Hammer at first and most often Dan Wall) Mike

Well, I've never been a blind man and never hope to be one, but once you've played an instrument for any length of time, there's nothing to look at. The most difficult, I think, is vibes, and I've even watched Gary Burton stare down flash photographers while playing a burning solo and not miss a note. Didn't we just have the eyes open/closed thread? Just negotiating getting around outside of the studio is a whole nother story. I wouldn't want to trivialize what blind people have to deal with. Mike And shoot, if you want remarkable, try checking out Evelyn Glennie.

Some more clarification would help (what does "out there" mean?), but perhaps Tony Williams Lifetime with Larry Young would fit the bill. Mike

Wasn't Todd Rundgren doing one-man-band stuff at the same time as Wonder? Of the hundred folks I know, none have Wonder's compositional skill - and I still think it's a matter of personal temperament. A lot of people enjoy playing music *with* other people (and can't afford the studio time to overdub all the stuff). I certainly agree that Wonder was an important pioneer in synthesizers. He and Townshend, Emerson, Sun Ra, and others. But I don't know that his contribution is any greater than what W. Carlos and Tomita were doing - their stuff was far more complex and the timbres used were much more sophisticated and involved. Wonder seems to have used three or four tracks, mostly melodies with pretty basic patches. It works very well for what he was doing. And let's please not even get the idea that I'm not a fan of Stevie Wonder's stuff of this period. As suggested, I just listened to Superwoman/Where Were You When I Needed You - wonderful stuff, and definitely something I'd present as an example of how good pop music can be. Mike

The "he plays everything" line doesn't hold any weight with me. I know hundreds of people who can do this. Also, it's his choice to do this on his records. Others (even those who CAN play everything, like say, Pete Townshend) choose to have the interaction of several musicians. What I would say really sets Stevie Wonder apart are his compositions and arrangements. Mike

Roker was born in 1932. He definitely was playing with Gigi Gryce in late 1959. Discographies list him as playing drums on a Paul Williams record date in 1954. That is an isolated session - nothing else until 1960. I haven't tried to confirm the date of the Williams session or Roker's presence on the date. Mike

My definition of popular music places it in a category that is not classical music (music composed in a strict tradition) and not folk music (anonymous music of the people). Jazz is a difficult proposition since it originated as folk music and has now become something between classical music and popular music. Anyway, what I keep trying to get at is that musical genius is a rare thing. If it isn't, then the term has been devalued. Just thinking of the 1970s and who was still around then: OK, so Stevie Wonder is a genius. Charles Mingus is a genius. Bob Dylan is a genius. Igor Stravinsky is a genius. Paul Bley is a genius. Stephen Sondheim is a genius. Joni Mitchell is a genius. Bob Marley is a genius. Paul Simon is a genius. Johnny Cash is a genius. Elton John is a genius. Elvis Presley is a genius. Elvis Costello is a genius. Bruce Springsteen is a genius. Jimmy Page is a genius. Marvin Gaye is a genius. James Taylor is a genius. David Bowie is a genius. Tom Jobim is a genius. Miles Davis is a genius. Sun Ra is a genius. Elliott Carter is a genius. Ray Charles is a genius. Milton Babbitt is a genius. Leonard Bernstein is a genius. Duke Ellington is a genius. Yehudi Menuhin is a genius. Ravi Shankar is a genius. Ned Rorem is a genius. Paul McCartney is a genius. Charles Wuorinen is a genius. Muddy Waters is a genius. BB King is a genius. Pete Townshend is a genius. Ornette Coleman is a genius. Brian Wilson is a genius. Louis Armstrong is a genius. Frank Zappa is a genius. John Lennon is a genius. Aretha Franklin is a genius. Gil Evans is a genius. Andres Segovia is a genius. Wayne Shorter is a genius. Glenn Gould is a genius. Keith Jarrett is a genius. Joaquin Rodrigo is a genius. Benjamin Britten is a genius. Burt Bacharach is a genius. Your five personal choices for genius intentionally omitted. What was in the water that created such an incredible concentration of GENIUS!!! at one particular time in a very limited area (because this almost entirely omits Africa, Asia, huge portions of Europe, South America)???? Why is it that soooooo many geniuses are around in this small period/area and the rest of history is comparatively devoid of them? Or were the contributions of those older geniuses forgotten - and if they have now been forgotten, were they really geniuses??? Mike

Well, that could well be true, but I don't think it's as simple as that. However, I suspect that if someone thinks the audio clips are OK, then the full album probably won't be any big disappointment. In the end, what I was trying to point out was that because of a fairly wide disparity between various periods of Springsteen's career, it isn't all that easy to say whether or not you a Springsteen fan. It's like whether or not you are a Miles Davis fan - well, maybe not that extreme. Mike

I don't think it's as easy as whether one likes Springsteen or not. I would be more specific. It depends on *what* one likes about Springsteen. I haven't had any use for him for about 25 years, but I do *very much* like quite a bit of what he was doing before that - which is completely absent from his post-1970s work. I have heard the new record in bits here and there on radio and TV and it hasn't changed my opinion of his recent (which is no longer recent) efforts. Mike