Simon Weil

OK, this is a photograph that I own. It's by the British photographer Fay Godwin and it's of The Royal Military Canal in Kent (UK). That is the little strip of water in front of the sheep. It was built, supposedly, to stop Napoleon if he should ever have dared invade. If anyone's interested in the less serious bits of history... Simon Weil

Not much. It's an enormous place, the British museum, with almost unending wonderful things. I don't think I've ever sought out the Rosetta stone or the Elgin marbles when I've gone there (I live in London). But the other point you make is on the ball. I mean, so much of the stuff there (and elsewehere) is nicked, basically, that once you start re-patriating one object, much of the collection would be vulnerable. And once that sets in, probably, attendances would drop. Simon Weil

AFAIK there were no problems when my parents had to research their "arian" ancestry before they married in June, 1939, just three months before the war started in September. You had to trace it back three generations, and I remember my mother once told me they couldn't trace it any further back, anyway. I believe my mothers side may have some hugenotte traces from south-west Germany, but my father's branch stems from that small village not too far away from the town where Elvis Presley did his service in the 1950's. I never took the time to deeply investigate my family name's etymology, I'll do some search on the web ... On your mother's relations in South West Germany, it's kind of irrelevant, but I think there must be a fair number of Jewish Weils who come from Alsace - A Jewish aquaintance immediately jumped to the conclusion that my family must have come from there (actually Stuttgart and surrounding areas). There are some Jewish Weil things on the internet, notably this which has Rabbi Weils going back to the 14 th C. And those Weils seem to derive their name from Weil-der-Stadt. But I don't think I'm related to them. As far as I can make out we can trace Weils back to the turn of the mid-late 18th Century. But it's not clear if they were called Weils then. If I remember right there are some records (written in hebrew in family religious books) going back to the 17th Century - but those guys don't end up being called Weil. I had a great-aunt who was kind of obsessed with family history and she went into it quite well. One of her obsessive ideas was that we must be related to Einstein because there are Einsteins in our family - and also people who lived in the village that the famous Einstein ?came from (or maybe it was his family). But those people weren't called Einstein... Simon Weil

Does it include a cover of Monty Python's all-time rocking classic "Spam"? Simon Weil

You guys are late. We in the UK have the legendary David Coleman, the former BBC sports commentator, originator of the numerous "Colemanballs" (named after him and now applied across the board). http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colemanballs Colemanballs (football) Colemanballs (football 2) 4000 Colemanballs on google "He opened his legs and showed his class" Coleman on Olympic champion Alberto Juantorena See, no-one can butcher the English language like the English. Simon Weil

Discovered this thread only now while searching something entirely different, and only 'cause the search function didn't work! My family's name is WEIL, like Simon's, and for reason's unknown to me there is no Jewish ancestry in out family, but my father's side came from a region in Germany where there are a LOT of streams and villages called WEIL or Weilbach or Weilburg or you name it ... There is an old German word "weiler" meaning a very small village, maybe it comes from that. Mike is the American short form of my first name, Michael, that's it. I'm not that fond of using fantasy names to diguise one's identity on the web. Great to read all those stories, I hope you don't think it's odd I revive this thread. Ahhh...that's interesting. I had always kind of assumed that Weil was a Jewish name. Mostly because all the people I knew of called Weil were Jewish. 'Cos there are names like that.... Did your dad have any problems with it in the Nazi era? Definitely blows a hole in my origin myth as being true for all (and perhaps any)Weils. Looked up Weiler in my dictionary and it says "hamlet"( which is a small village). Oh well time to rethink. Simon Weil

I don't know how much this matters for Chicago, but I thought I'd throw it in anyway. Albert Ayler (who did influence Roscoe et al) was specifically making music for a changed world - his conception of getting beyond the notes to Sound was meant to fit in with that. So that the changed world would have this changed music to go with it. But also, there's the thing about how the world did change for Blacks in this period. They made it change. Simon Weil

It has probably begun to sink that, in terms of cultural/Jazz history, our Stanley is going to be seen as "minor". If he's very lucky. Simon Weil

Isn't George Lewis supposed to be doing a book about this? That's the first thought. The next one is that the Art Ensemble couldn't make a living in Chicago at the end of the 60s, so they had to move to Paris where they became the Art Ensemble of Chicago and, presumably, got ripped off by Byg etc. Just another example of what sets Chuck apart from the rest. Roscoe Mitchell said it all came together for him when he heard Albert Ayler when he was in Germany. Which is kind of interesting because the Art Ensemble were like the next development in Jazz after Ayler. I mean, in a way, they are at the root of a lot of what Jazz became after the 60s. I always like that quote where Roscoe says that, whatever, he was determined that the music would have form. Anyway, someone should write a book about this lot. Simon Weil

Well, I don't really know much about Marxism..but... My view is that Marxism is a political religion. So you can compare it to the church and Christianity. You have the ideal (Christ) - and then you have the reality, the Pope, Religious Wars, witch-burning, the Crusades... So, then, Stalin might be compared to one of the less wonderful figures in Christianity. I don't know, maybe the Borgias (don't know much about them except they've got a terrible rep) or The Inquisition. In the US at least, Democracy takes on some of the qualities of a religion too - coming out of the "City on the Hill" conception it looks like a kind securalised Christianity. It's at the core of American identity. This might be why Americans distrust Marxism so much. It's kind of a competing religion to theirs. I.E Another version of religious wars. Also I never believed in economics as the defining element in society. Simon Weil

Anorak has a connotation of jacket worn by males who don't care much about style and are a bit obsessive, or by extension people who wear such a garment - e.g. trainspotters - so men who are unhipply obsessive. Boring comes into it. It's "hipper-than-thou" on the journo's part. Simon Weil

I'm a kind of "on and off" fan of Zorn. But if you're really interested, there's a Zorn list website with access to past logs as well as the possibilty of signing up. I know at least one guy who used to swear by it (i.e. said it was very good). Simon Weil

I had a problem earlier today - having to try more than once to get a page to come up - but it's gone now. So I'd say at least something has cleared up. Simon Weil

Tom Piazza, the conservative Jazz writer, has this on his website: For those looking for comparisons to the Burns series, Piazza is something of a Wynton loyalist, with views on Jazz parallel to those of Murray, Crouch et al - Burns' series was of course throughly steeped in these views. I don't suppose the series is going to be telling us that that the Blues can save America - as Burns apparently believed about Jazz. But that booklet should make "interesting" reading. Simon Weil

Yeah, Happy Birthday Bud. "It Could Happen To You" (alt take) I love. Simon Weil

I bought it years and years ago and could never get through it. This was before I knew who Albert Murray was. I tend to feel Murray and his acolytes "disappear the pain".... There isn't enough pain in the book (even implied). IMHO. Simon Weil

I don't think there's anything wrong with being a collector - if that's what you are and enjoy it, why not? The trouble is I'm not really a collector or a music fan either. I just find that the music has to speak to me in some new way for me if I want to buy it. And I've had periods in which that just stopped happening. It's happened with Jazz a couple of times - at the end of the 70s up to the mid 80s, and then for about 5 years around the beginning of the 90s. Now I'm finding that while I'm still listening, the spark has gone as far as the new stuff is concerned. And, in fact, I started with rock in the late 60s - and more or less gave up on it with the advent of punk (Weil's credibility evaporates here). Lile I say, I don't really see myself either as a collector or as a fan. I do want quite a deep engagement with the music, if I can get it. I mean, I like the whole "as serious as your life" vibe. I mean, fan doesn't seem to cover it... Mr Deadly Serious, Simon Weil

Thanks for posting this. It's great the guy's still going. One minor point: Altschul is of course a drummer. Also... I did see this group, at London's Roundhouse. They played two halves. The first did seem truly free - and that was very good. The second half they got into a rhythmic groove, and though that was enjoybale for a while, after a bit I got bored. It did seem to me that they did make a decison about the two halves, so I'm not sure I'm buying the suggestion that they just went on stage and just interacted. It might have been totally unplanned, that second half - But I didn't think so. Simon Weil

"All Night Long" and "All Day Long" came out on an LP twofer which I got a million years ago. The marvellous guitar riff on "All Day Long" gets me every time. Simon Weil

10-15 times wouldn't have been out of the ordinary for me without Securinfos. Simon Weil

I don't have a firewall on this computer, so I can't tell if I'm being attacked right now (or over the last two days). But on another computer I've used, with the Norton firewall, you get a little flashing thing at the bottom of the screen (on the firewall icon, I think) which tells you someone's trying to break in. That happens a lot. Generally the attacks don't go on and on. Just once, I had some guy trying to break in endlessly. None of this had anything to do with Securinfos, so the firewall thing may be a coincidence. We'd need some other reports on that. Simon Weil

Yeah, it seemed odd to me that the day allaboutjazz came back up, organissimo was brought down. And, apparently the result of hacking. But coincidences do happen. Anyway... It's good to have the site back. Simon Weil Edit: A google search brings up all sorts of sites that Securinfos has attacked with more or less the same message. There's also one, in German, where the site thanks Securinfos for helping deal with the attack on it. There was a golf site etc... 2nd Edit: This is the first page of a site that lists 750 attacks by Securinfos. They appear to have started on 26th May (see last page.)

Just wanted to see what happens ... Simon Weil So, did you pop out on the other side, or were you reduced to neutrinos? In theory, I was supposed to be falling down into this black hole, only to bounce (boing) at the final moment. Or I could be typing this from across the galaxy. Will the Sunday papers come? I wonder what the news for neutrinos is like. Simon Weil

Just wanted to see what happens ... Simon Weil