AllenLowe

there may definitely be a disconnect with Bruce's influence just because so many years have passed, but without him comedy would be a much different thing today - and we can also say the same thing about Steve Allen, whose persona and sense of irony really were the forerunners of what is probably the most dominant contemporary approach (through Letterman, et al) -

yes and no, per the ODJB, which is a much maligned but excellent group - there are 1921 recordings by Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds (with Johnny Dunn) which might qualify post-ODJB as the first black band, and there are early recordings by James Reese Eureope (1913 and 1919) and Wilbur Sweatman that we might argue about (ca. 1917+)-

I agree -

it shoulda been: "Blakey wipes away the paychecks of his sidemen" -

Budd Johnson was amazing - great player, great arranger - there's a Classics French CD that has him with Dizzy's modern band in 1944, with George Wallington, in which he plays great - when I lived around NYC in the middle 1970s and was trying to meet musicians of the 1930s and 1940s I approached Johnson to do an interview one night in a club - he turned me down, politely, saying he was tired of doing them, and I always regret not being more persistent, as he's a guy it would have been quite interesting to get to know (he did turn to the guy next to him and say to me "I'd like you to meet my friend Al Sears"; in those days there were a lot of old jazz vets walking around. It's kind of amazing to think of it now) -

I think Archaeophone has it out now - check their web site -

that's why it was so great - it was naked, sloppy, rushed TV - but NEVER before or since has TV seen such an odd assortment of musical acts - Eastern European rock and roll avant gardists (and good ones!), Bulgarian wedding bands, I think even the World Saxophone quartet might have been on, Sonny was on - I loved it -

what does he play? Kazoo?

we should add here that Night Music was the Greatest music show ever to appear on TV - I do not exaggerate - filled with avant garders and other non-conventional players; had Sonny Rollins and Ivo Papasov and many many others, and was really too good to last - for that alone I can forgive Sanborn his musical transgressions -

"so,,,,,,,,,,how have your pretensions paid off?" ...not sure how to take this but, to answer your question, I'm still broke -

the Cousins and Demoss is the most interesting and significant of these, as it contains two African American singers accompanying themselves on banjo; Poor Mourner (which was located by the great musicologist Dick Spottswood some years ago) is of a significant, if largley misunderstood category of song; as Spottswood lables it, it is Gospel song written for the Minstrel stage, and a great performance. Tim Brooks is extremely knowlegeable and a good guy; his book has been out a while now. One thing that has hindered it, unfortunately, is that it is WAY too long and almost un-edited, difficult to read and gramatically/stylistically a bit of a mess (as an example, the OPENING sentence of the book contains a gramatical gaffe); read it, but prepare to skim.

well, sometimes it's "what the hell is the next chord" or "what key are we in," but if it's going well I see shapes in my head more than chords - and I don't mean the kind of shapes in that Sophia Loren picture, but the shapes of scales and intervals. On the guitar it's very easy to fall into certain patterns - one way to get out of that is to think in odd groupings - play phrases of 4 notes, 5 notes, two notes, triplet phrases - think melodically, unconventionally melodic if possible. In the middle of a chord, substitute something far away from that chord, and leave yourself the challenge of getting back to it. And if you get really stuck listen to the great improvisors, not necesarily to get specific ideas, but to shake yourself of the tried and true - I put on Bud Powell, or Julius Hemphill, Eric Dolphy, Bird, Django - anybody who is bursting with unconventional ideas-

or we could make doilies -

well, I figured you can tell me about your conversion from card-carrying Republican to left-limousine-liberal-commie-red-pink-progressive-social-democrat-anti-states rights man-of-the-people -populist-allpowertothepeopleoffthepigs radical - on the other hand, we could just look at your collection of Jospeh McCarthy memorabilia- whatever makes you happy -

sorry Jim -

actually Tiny Grimes was a fine jazz guitarist, witness his recordings with Charlie Parker AND Art Tatum (the famous trio) - I heard him in NYC in the late 1970s and he was great - in a Charlie-Christian inspired style - even than -

it's flu season - buy that dishwasher and use it, as this will greatly DECREASE your chances of getting sick - and the last thing we want is an Organissimmo epidemic - (yes, Weizen I want even YOU to remain healthy - just shows what a generous and Nobel-prize winning. saintly, Mother Theresa, Virgin Mary, Shelly Manne-type of guy I am) -

"SO, if I can personally get 30 people to go hear a whole two hours of Charles Ives(!!!) -- then the Chicago folks on this board damn well better be able to get 50 people in the house for a band like Organissimo." wait - does this mean this is going to be an evening of dissonant music written by an insurance salesman...? ...well, in that case, it sounds just weird enough to be my kinda music -

sorry if I'm coming across as overly negative, though that was my original reaction - thanks for mentioning my book, which was an attempt to deal with the problem of trying to compartmentalize jazz history so strictly - I did take an approach which I think deals with the difficulty of summarizing so much so quickly (and once again, I apologize, as I cannot read the text that comes with your list) - I do have a set of 36 CDs which is coming out this December, and which deals with much of the material in my book - I actually think an anthology is a better way to deal with historical progression, especially an anthology that zigs and zags in the same way music does, stylistically speaking. And, of course, the big problem is post-1960 and especially post-1980, as the definition of jazz broadens in such a manner as to make easy summary nearly hopeless (one reason it is doubtful I will ever attempt writing a history of that period). But most importantly, the fatal flaw of your list is that you are using ALBUMS to sum up historical periods during which the album concept did not exist - so to compare, say, the Hot 5 to Kind of Blue in such a way is historically disingenuous. Better, as I said, to annotate individual performances (aanother advantage is that by doing this you spare people having to sit through Herbie Hancock's era of bad jazz/funk) -

well, Bill Shakespeare had his pretensions, and he's a little out of date - but he's made a fortune on the movie rights-

don't forget Symphony in Black -

glad to hear that - I mean I don't like sex perverts and murderers, but if they voted against Bush, well, who am I to judge them?

actually, it was Louise Bogan - that's what made it such an incredible discovery - I mean, who would have suspected?

I'm partial to the Monk solo /Columbia; in addition to the great music, it has terrific notes by Dick Katz. The most fascinating thing to me, on that solo record, is that Monk, on Dinah, plays essentially the sheet music changes, instead of adding more typical jazz substiute changes, espeically in the a-section - and what he does, by talking this conservative approach, is to convert the song into almost a Monk composition, in what amounts to a radical transformation of the material. That is Monk in a nutshell - a kind of conservative radicalism. And that's not the only time I've heard him use more old-fashioned, sheet-music changes (he does same on More than You Know, with Sonny Rollins, 1954, I think) -

I should add a quite fantastic discovery I made myself, though it has been kept something of a secret, for reasons I cannot go into - years ago the blues singer Louise Bogan cut a record of Shave It Dry; there was an EXTREMELY obscene version that for years only existed as a very beat up copy, reissued on Sony and by Stash, but almost impossible to understand - so imagine my surprise when, about 5 years ago, I was going through some 78s I had been given and one turns out to be a one-off type recording of the original, non-censored Shave it Dry! Very clear, easy to understand the words - this is the version that Sony Legacy put out after I restored it and sent it to them - there was also another dirty record by Bogan in the same batch, of a different song, called Till the Cows Come Home, which Legacy also put out. And, in the same box - never issued, but very precious to me - was a Gene Autry, one-off, obscene version of Blackbird (a reall hoot; he sings: I put my hand beneath your dress/ there I found a blackbird's nest/bye bye Cherry/I may not have a lot/but what I got will tickle your twat/Bye Bye cherry)