AllenLowe

yes, Eskin did the Lamb CD. And if Montgomery and Tichenor did the rolls, that's good. Another thing to beware of are some old piano rolls supposedly made by Joplin himself, but which were not.

you and me both; one of the things that distinguishes those '60s ESPs is exactly that, blood and guts. I don't hear it much these days, but then I am far from the epicenter. Actually thinking of trying to do a session to re-capture that feeling (have JD Allen ready to do it), though I just did one with Darius Jones and James Brandon Lewis that comes close. And what did Peter Handke call it? "A moment of true feeling."

I never take offense at anything you say; I'm just glad you say what you say (these days I'm feeling a little critically tongue-tied) - the thing is that McCraven himself seems to buy into the "I must save jazz from itself" hype, as does Glasper. Those videos on his site about the music and about the band are full of socio-babble, I guess I would call it, and it is socio-babble that is not really borne out by the music. But I will check out the Chicago side, as I am interested - and I note, btw, that McCraven is clearly a superb drummer, it's just that the music in the clip I posted tends to be warmed-over ________(I will let someone else fill in the blank). And let me add that I never let myself get distracted by "save the jazz" movements, which are silly and pointless and usually speak, ironically or not, to the lack of historic consciousness of whomever is leading them. There are many questions to be asked about why we do what we do, but very few people (other than yourself) seem to be asking them. (and I will add that in terms of jazz being an "embodied system of rules and hierarchies" I also find it interesting and somewhat ironic that much of the current gathering of free players has started to turn themselves into something of a cult in which they have replaced, to my mind and ears, one system of rules and hierarchies with another)

well, as I've said, I heard those '70s bands a lot - I was friends with Neloms and followed him around - and, I heard the Dannie Richmond band a lot, which Neloms was still playing with after Mingus died, and which was really the same band sans Mingus. I haven't listened to Changes in a long time, will have to revisit. There is just something about those '50s and '60s units that has spoiled me, where it sounds like, on every tune, everything is on the line. Mingus even had Bluiett for a while, and though he tries to play chord changes, it ends up as just doing his thing over and over.

so, it seems Mingus agreed with me, according to a post elsewhere on this site from someone who witnessed this group around this time: "I do remember that Mingus was increasingly unhappy with his side men through the evening, including Roy Brooks (who was the only one of them I thought I remembered, so thank you for confirming). To the point where he scowled at them and told them all to lay out while he played a very extended bass solo."

on the other hand there are musical moments on this; just nothing unusual, but competent (smooth jazz by any other name):

yes, but who does Number 2 Work For? actually, I thought at first you were saying that he's an employee of yours. but the problem is - just another guy who talks a good game, but whose music just ain't happening. It's classic - all the videos on his site are full of talk. They are afraid to let the music stand on its own.

done

I have not been able to contact Chris recently - not responding to my emails. I will try to call him.

ok - I can find just about anything; partly because I have an unusually good memory, so I am lucky. Artist CDs are by genre and then in alphabetical order. "Various" cds are more problematic, but I have the blues/country/jazz separated by category. LPs are not in much order of anything, but I don't have that many left. It's a challenge sometimes, but I have already done 3 major projects with this collection,

I send you into the stacks with a compass, 4 condoms, and three days worth of provisions.

Biograph is generally one of the few reliable companies when it comes to reproducing rolls. Does it say who did the setup? Used to be an incredible guy named Mike Montgomery but he's been dead a few years. And btw, if you are looking for non-Joplin Ragtime, you might also look out for Joseph Lamb; a white student of Joplin, he recorded for Folkways (or one of those labels) in the late 1950s when Sam Charters found him living in Queens - and, weirdest of all, his daughter Pat, in her 90s, lives only a few miles from where I do.

I understand the appeal of storage/streaming. And my CD collection is too large, unwieldy, and something difficult to manage. But eventually those hard drives have to hit the landfill, do they not?

didn't know we were still discussing this but I continue to buy CDs as not only the bargain they are (prices of used are going down down down) but as someone convinced that the future of the music is inseparable from the preservation of hard copy. The storage of digital everything, in the next 10-20 years, is going to get so absurd and cumbersome that anyone who wants to know whatever happened in 20th century music will be required to seek out physical media. Data bases and data sheets will become like maps of your anus - physically strange, un-navigatable, and incomprehensible for anyone without advanced and undesirable knowledge. For those uninterested in the 20th, music will become one of tiny-tinny-speakered forests of hard-drive files with tiny name extensions. Those with physical copies will be able to not only see better what they own, but will find it easier to manage because of the very limits imposed by the physical/material world. By 2100 the landfills will be so clogged with dead hard drives that people will see this (our current) age as being like the age of indiscriminate fracking, a desperate last gasp of capitalist expansion and contraction, all done in the interest of quantity rather than quality, and ending on a literal scrap-heap of history. Remember, you heard it here.

well, real isn't always what it's cracked up to be. And Sam Phillips' sense of Elvis is illuminating, especially in terms of his ambivalence about race and musical miscegnation down there. Though I know this is something we will NEVER agree on, nearly every great artist that I have known or known of was a mix of gut-reality and detached socio-fantasy. can't go wrong with this:

I won't restart the Elvis thing, but suffice to say they had a nice pocket, it just went toward Hillbilly Way. Nothing fake about that band, they had it together from the first broadcasts on the Louisiana Hayride to the Vegas stuff when Elvis wasn't too stoned. But I am partial to the Sun recordings and those mid-'50s broadcasts. That shit swings; check out Blue Moon of Kentucky. And Blue Moon (based on the Rodgers/Hart) is a work of genius. But to understand Elvis you gotta hear Harmonica Frank, who I consider one of the major figures of 20th century American music. Really. and btw, reading that NY'er review, McCartney in the notes is completely lying about the Beatles' state of minds as being only mildly troubled at the time - the band was coming apart for financial reasons, compounded by extreme personal conflicts, getting ready for battles and lawsuits. Doesn't matter in terms of the album, which is brilliant, but it is likely not unrelated to the aggressive musicality of the White Album.

first time I ever noticed that he has a Von Freeman-ish intonation.

I am listening to the cut of Pithacanthropus Erectus on Jazz Wax, and I gotta say that there is something about the Mingus band of this recording and this era that just doesn't appeal to me. Aside from the tenor solo on this, which is weak and repetitious, it just seems to me that Mingus has run out of Steam at this point, and really afterwards, in his career. I heard various permutations of the Mingus group a bunch of times in the 5 year period from maybe '73-78, and it never got to me except at certain moments. Other than Pullen and later Bob Neloms, few if any of the soloists pulled me in like the earlier band had. And even Mingus' writing seemed at times to be parodying himself. I don't know. I hope I change my mind some day, but I just never want to listen through. Mingus seems to be repeating himself, with a lesser band. Maybe it's the problem of the changes was jazz going through, but it doesn't seem on the cutting edge any more - and maybe it doesn't have to be. But the compositional work/performance dynamic seems neither "contemporary" nor revisionist/retro; I find it all very unsatisfying,

glorious sound. Analog, live, in the same room. No processing. Love it.

Yes, love this CD.

this is getting weird Larry; I bought that CD one week ago.

yeah I had an experience like Larry's; first of all, I love Eager's 40s playing, used to have dreams of finding him; at one point I went through a bunch of Eagers in the NYC phone book, nothing. Davey Schildkraut told me Eager's parents owned a resort in the Catskills called Eager's Garden, but that went nowhere. So finally, he was in NYC to play at Newport Jazz; I called him at his hotel, he was just awful, nasty about everything. I went to see him play with Cohn and he had nothing left, just nothing. And that was that (be careful what you wish for....) -

will be interesting to see how this works out in court. If his postings are accurate, I think he has a case. The other thing that it is interesting (for no reason related to the case) is that she basically plays like Steve Coleman on the tenor. She sounds like a clone.

the worst thing about this is how many years some of these guys got away with this stuff, all while other people knew what was going on; I know people who were employed by the Met who said for years the organizational rule was to never let the conductor alone in a room with young children.

he's also at Dizzy's in a few weeks; always been great, but seems to have reached a new peak.