AllenLowe

Personally I can never get enough of "Feelings..."

well done - that's what we used to call a shi*-filled twinkie - very friendly-looking on the outside but filled with something we would rather avoid injesting -

actually, Phil doesn't like anyone else making up stuff when he has plenty of new things to tell us -

sorry, Jim, I'm going to have to do some thinking - can't remember right now - and I like Joe Manieri - look, Steve, periodically people complain here about lack of civility - I simply expressed my opinion and you got a bit nasty, let's face it; Jim and I disagree all the time, and he, at least, has perfected a civilized manner of telling me he thinks I'm full of shi* - your tone was really unnecessary, and I say this as one chastened from my own recent excesses - so go stick it -

it's also a little bit like hearing Bush give a human rights speech - good speech, but I just can't forget all those dead Iraqui civilians - or, with Hemingway, that severely wounded song form -

it's a little like admiring Jackson Pollack but remembering when you used to be in his art class and he couldn't draw a human figure (and here's where Steve jumps up and says, HA! got you, Allen, because Pollack COULD draw representationally! and then, here's where I say, no, smart one, I got YOU - because Pollack COULD draw representationally) -

and yes, guys, this is my problem, not yours, so feel free to listen to as much Hemingway as you like - just don't hire him to play your kid's bar mitzvah (the guests will lynch him - ever try to dance to havah nagila while the drumme'rs playing in 3/4 and than 5/4?)

hey Steve, if you want to keep behaving like an asshole, that's fine, but I will continue to discuss this with others on this forum - and I did not dismiss Hemingway out of hand - just said it was troubling, and it is troubling, schmuck (there, we have finished exchanging insults) - there's a difference here - Julius knew what he could do and what he could not do and worked with his strengths - Hemingway, Jim, wasn't missing the form, but could not keep the straight 4, kept turning it around - and worse, unlike Hemphill, he had NO IDEA he was goofing or struggling - I don't care how great he sounds, on other things - this is basic jazz ed. 101- and somewhat pathetic for an established player, especially since he was so clueless - his playing is fine (if a bit dead-sounding to my ears) - he's entitled to his style and preferences - but there's lot of drummers who are more musical and play, to my ears, much more interestingly - and who can hear the difference between 2 and 3-

than thanthanthanthenethenethentehhenr - take your pick -

I think it's a matter of many things, including conditioning - put an old bebopper in an open situation and you might see them become musically paralyzed (as I have also seen with some great musicians) -

thanks - I never could get that right - and I've written 4 books -

well, than, let's not forget : Strangers in the Fuckin' Night (in 5/4) -

I was only pointing out a problem I had with Hemingway - maybe the problem is, if you can't perform well in a certain style, you should not do it - but a gig is a gig and sometimes musicians will do it for the money - though I'm willing to bet, put Hemingway behind Lovano playing Body and Soul and he'll be lost before the bridge. Now, I don't complain that, say, Monk couldn't play like Glen Gould - but if he tried to play those Goldberg Variations, he would have done it right or not at all. Free playing can mask a lot of problems particular players have (I say this from personal experience and won't name any names beside my own), but I have played with some well-known people whose difficulties with certain aspects of the music might really surprise (and dismay) you - look, ok, I'll fess up briefly - Julius Hemphill was the most amazing musician I ever met, but, on a session, I learned that you don't give him a set of standard changes to play over and than expect him to do what he does best - I was surprised to discover I did it better than he did - but than, as a composer and "open" player, I am not in his league. So calm down Steve, I got in a lot less trouble on this forum for being more polite to fellow Organissimmo members than you were in that rather nasty post -

if we talk about standards in the old sense than we have to think of the form - sometimes AABA, sometimes not - and the styles of triadic harmonies, the typical ideas of chord movment, and and see if musicians really have the feeling for that anymore. Few do, for better or worse - those standards, and the older jazz players who wrote their own, arose at a time when the pop music of the day was relatively harmonically complex - you just don't hear new pop tunes like All the Things You Are or You Go To My Head, or Like Someone in Love or Darn That Dream or Now That You're Gone on the radio anymore. Perspective changes; with all music you've really got to hear it all the time in your head it before you can play or write it with conviction, it's got to be part of your life, socially and psychologically, most likely, before you can do it well - it's the same reason that so much contemporary bebop falls flat - it lacks that initial sense of freshness and discovery, the sense of musicians who were truly JUST THAN discovering and mastering the form.

I spent one very odd day with Tristano in the middle 1970s trying to interview him - and I must say he was the most controlling person I've ever encountered. He had an odd aura about him, of the kind you read about that cult leaders (eg Jim Jones) had - he told you to do something and you felt like if you didn't do it he would emit some kind of spell or curse. I think ultimately it is this kind of control that has made someone like Lee Konitz so bitter in his recollections - Tristano was a scary guy yet seemed weirdly protective, and you felt like you had to obey him for your own well-being - a classic cult-leader profile -

Russell claims it is a bio of Charlie Parker - allegedly non-fiction -

I took a long drive with Curley Russell, must have been around 1978, and the subject of this book came up - Curley was much amused by the book, had been there for much of the beginnings of bebop, and regarded it as complete fiction - AL Haig felt exactly the same way -

reading my post above, it sounds unnecessarily hostile - I just meant to reiterate that I knew a fair amount of musicians who participated in events supposedly described by Russell, and they, to a man, told me many things he described simply did not occur -

now, one could - and I would probably agree - make the argument that all this standards and straight-ahead stuff is irrelevant - but the point is, if you can't do it, stay away from it.

I don't really think so - they were playing a straight ahead gig and he could not keep the time - referring, as before, to people who have heard him play straight four - yes, but it's much different playing straight 4 with song form - in the big picture I would agree that if the music sounds good it is good, so this does not technically effect the other work he's done - it's just that, honestly, watching him on the stand at that time, completely clueless as to the mistakes he was making, was quite disconcerting, and makes it much more difficult for me to listen to him in other contexts -

yeah, but he should buy his own -

just found this - the Russell is crap - events are simply MADE UP - I have this from: Howard McGhee, AL Haig, Tommy Potter, Curley Russell, Dan Morgenstern (they were either there or knew the participants) - is that good enough?

not that early - the true indicatior is that he had no idea he was doing it - this is something I could tell when I was 12 - I'm willing to bet, put him in a straight-ahead group configuration and he'll do the same thing again - Nate, not too long ago, had a post about some free playing that was quite sloppy - free is no excuse - as Ornette said, he knew he was on to something when he realized he could make a mistake - some of these guys have no idea -

it was a bebop gig back in New Haven some years ago - they were playing standards - Hemingway was completely unaware, it was obvious - and you may have heard him play straight 4, but I'll bet it was not in standard form - if he is playing straight four over free improvising, you are much less likely to notice beat turnarounds, as there is no song form to return to -

this is one of my pet complaints, but the problem, too, is that everybody is a composer now, something that happened as soon as musicians realized that the money was in publishing - hence thousands of 70 minute jazz CDs with, maybe, 5 minutes of good composition - I once wrote a review (for Cadence) about some bad CDs made by very good players, titled: "Why Does Bad Music Happen to Good Musicians?"