Simon Weil

I always thought there was something hollow about Murray's relentlessness. ? Julius Hemphill or Roscoe Mitchell for examples of the post-68 avant-garde. Simon Weil

I just want to say that Chuck has the quality of ear that he can hold artists to a higher standard. That's not elitism, that's just reality. The whole thing about elitism is that people pretend to some level of something that they don't have. I know this is presumptious. Simon Weil

I can't believe they pay him to come up with that crap. Did you see the last one, where he goes off on Dave Douglas? He goes on and on, and I can't figure out why Crouch dislikes him. Apparently they don't pay him any longer. Simon Weil

Blade Runner ET Round Midnight Southern Comfort Running on Empty Terminator Accidental Tourist Starman I think Dirty Harry was 70s but prescient of the 80s. Simon Weil

I mean Ayler never was popular - and then you got guys like Murray, Gioia and Piazza suggesting that if you were white and liked this sort of music, you wanted blacks to be noble savages. Which is kind of below the belt. Not exactly helpful. I think the music is a mixture of melancholy and joy. Simon Weil

I guess I felt it was over-reverential, Joe.....And I do believe that stuff. Simon Weil

There's one track where Pat has a solo which builds and builds (I think it was mentioned above) and then disappears into (the sound-effect of) a clap of thunder. Kind of like a slight of hand. That for me is symbolic of the record - it has lots of nice tunes etc, and it leads nowhere (aka is hollow). I just don't like it, I'm afraid. Simon Weil

Well, I'm going to get myself in trouble now... I don't really like Metheny post "Zero Tolerance" - that's his "noise" record. Honestly, I defy anyone listening to that record (which I don't think is so bad in itself) to say that it's Metheny playing. After that he did "We Live Here" which I think is dreadful - hollow - as if moving from so far out that he disappeared to so far in that he also disappeared. I thought the quartet record was sour and after that I sort of gradually lost interest. The only record I much like after that is "Missouri Sky" which was Haden's idea and some of his sideman stuff (e.g "Pursuance"). I thought "Imaginary Day" was overblown and pretentious and the recent trio sides just seem strangely anonymous. So I've given up. This is despite loving "Secret Story" and "Travels" and various of his other records. I just think he changed in the 90s - sometimes he seems to me like a Metheny imitator - like he's got all the old licks and turns of phrase but somehow something is gone. "Offramp" was one of the records on my way into Jazz. Simon Weil

Yeah, I'd say so. I know had lots of bits and pieces of 40s Dizzy before I bought this box, but the box gives me all I want. I actually think it's a pretty exhilirating collection. In general the proper boxes are very good - I don't think I've been disappointed yet. I think the Lester Young won the Jazz Journal record of the year a few years back. I wonder if they're too good to be true, but that's about it. Simon Weil

An awful lot of stuff here from the 1950s and 60s and not a whole lot from before 1305....Errr, Weil, that's because Jazz didn't exist then.... Well, OK, what about Jazz from the 1920s? Say Louis Armstrong's Hot 5s and Hot 7s (JSP or whatever edition)... Or from the 30s, The Spirituals to Swing concert Simon Weil

He used to post a fair amount on usenet, so if you want to read some of that:GoogleUsenet Search Or just a straight Google search He seemed to have stuff to say, posting-wise. Simon Weil

Sounds intriguing, Green Dolphin. I've been a big fan of Pat Metheny's "Secret Story" even with the synthetic strings (You get used to them), so maybe I ought to give this a try. I don't know anything about Mendoza, though... I'm not the biggest Brecker fan either. Simon Weil

I agree that "Timeless" is fine, but can I just put in a word for "Electricity" by by Bob Brookmeyer? This is a kind of orchestral fusion record (sounds unpromising...) with Abercrombie as main soloist and the WDR Big Band doing the ensembles. I find this a totally inspiring record and play it often. Abercrombie is scorching, perfect for the setting - for me a very "up" record. Simon Weil

Did a google search and this came up: http://www.ink19.com/issues/august2002/scr...eMikesSick.html Simon Weil

I never really liked Jewel Boxes. You really have to be careful with them all the time. With Digipacks, you can be a little loose and not suffer breakage. I've ordered the Ayler (hasn't come yet)...Actually there seems to have been quite a lot of Ayler stuff come on the market lately. Maybe a rekindling of interest? (wishful thinking?) Simon Weil

...And I thought it was Fats and.... "just to be sure".... did that thing with the properties button...diz.jpg. Shoulda believed my instincts. Simon Weil

I loved the intensity of the Dizzy one...Also it works against his public image. Simon Weil

Just to be clear, I didn't really like what Harris said - It sounded to me like clever self-justification. But, then, on the other hand, I also hear the dead hand of Wynton and his mates percolating through, albeit unknowingly, in the "if it doesn't have blues in it, it can't be Jazz". Basically, what I was doing was reactive. Simon Weil

...If "the blues" are ceasing to have relevancy as a STYLE to many people, that's one thing. The reason so much of what passes for "blues" these days sounds outright STUPID is because its NOT about the meaning anymore, it's about the style above all else. ....But style so very often has nothing to do with substance, and that's where proclaiming the lack of relevancy of the blues starts down a slippery slope. Seriously. Ellington figured that one out, didn't he? The Blues ain't nothin' but the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. ...The blues - not the temporal style, but the eternally relevant fundamental dynamics that create them - will die only when humanity does. I just hope that that death is by natural causes, not the mass suicide of a Faustian bargain with a self-congratulatory delusion. But, the blues being what they are, it probably will be. Well, how about a test for playing the blues - that even when you're not trying to do it, it comes out. I mean the blues mean a lot to me, and in some respect feel like home. So, like sooner or later, everyone comes home... Isn't that stuff about illusion the new reality? Like white is the new black. I woke up this morning and I was in the Matrix.... Simon Weil

Right, I mean the first European Jazz musician of real stature, Django Reinhardt, doesn't really strike me as a blues player. I mean he was, I guess, coming out of the tradition of gypsy improvising. And then there's guys like James P. Johnson - also not really a blues player, although he does play some blues tunes his sensibility seems somewhat different. I mean once can maintain that blues and swing are central to the Jazz tradition, but before that tradition was really formed, you got James P. (as a non-blues guy) and (say) early Ellington (as something that doesn't swing, not really). I confess that tieing things down too specifically worries me. Simon Weil

I really respond to the "vibe" of the blues, but I think something has happened in black American society (basically I think the blues is a black innovation which affects other people) which has disconnected a lot of people from it. I don't think there's anything you can do about that, I think it's just happened. I actually find a lot of "blues playing" now also rather disconnected and lacking in honesty - more like a technical exercise in "playing the blues" rather than about expressing emotion. I think "the Blues" isn't *really* necessary to create Jazz or Jazz-related music. The Euro-free players don't really have much blues in their pallette and yet do produce vital and original music - and there's a big crossover between them and the American free players who often do have substantial blues feel (say in Chicago etc) - showing a deep level affinity. The main thing for me is the vitality and honesty of the improvised music - which I think is necessarily rooted in the musical (and other) culture from which the musican comes. I do worry that Americans don't seem to respond to blues though... Simon Weil

Just to make slight justification of the Art Ensemble Box (The guy who produced a set says don't buy it, but I disagree...aaargh). It's kind of an instinctive thing. In a way, I think the too-muchness of the set is a good thing. It's like it gives you all this stuff to work with, work through, so that it becomes a kind of testing ground for acclimatization. All this assumes that Mark is going to like the Art Ensemble, and that's really the weakness of my position. Somehow I have the idea he will. Anyway... Simon Weil

Well, I can go "oh dear" again...I actually didn't know (or hadn't looked..or something) about the EMI disk. But it has "People in Sorrow" on it, which would have been top of my list to recommend if I'd known it was out. So, yeah, what Chuck says is right. Simon Weil

It seems odd that Dolphy should have been tagged a charlatan. The man had a very identifiable style with his trademark intervallic leaps. Even on the surface, there’s a distinct method at work. There's an interview on the Dolphy video (?Last Date - very nice) where an older European musician recalls thinking along those lines until he actually got to sit down in front of Dolphy and he see what he could do. Then he was totally blown away (I think this was a rehearsal for something). My view is that if something is unfamiliar and people don't get it, they can easily fall into thinking "well, there's nothing in it" - and thence to thinking the whole thing is a con. That's especially so in the fraught musico-cultural scene that surrounded the appearance of "Free" etc. I mean there was long discussion about whether, specifically, Coltrane and Dolphy *circa 1961* was "anti-Jazz". I mean Coltrane circa 1961 - who can believe that? Yet it was done. I guess some of that, kind of musical paranoia, fed into Dolphy having to prove himself. That 1961 Village Vanguard Coltrane box with Dolphy etc is really fine... Simon Weil

Oh dear, having said Da Moose can get Free via Dolphy, I'm a bit stuck now that I find he already likes him. My first thought was "Free Jazz" itself (the Ornette album)...My instincts, however, say: 1) Gunther Schuller/Abstraction - This is a kind of atonal third-stream record with solos from Dolphy, Ornette et al. Pretty accessible to my ears. 2) Conference of the Birds/Dave Holland - tunes plus Anthony Braxton, Sam Rivers etc. I think maybe you want to go at this thing sideways. Use avant-garde "bridge" recordings (and players, like Dolphy) to "acclimatize" yourself to a "freer" ethic - and then work your way in. In that context some of the early Art Ensemble recordings (e.g. Roscoe Mitchell's "Sound" or Chuck's Art Ensemble box) might be the deal. Also I second John Litweiler's "The Freedom Principle" as a useful way into this music - if you respond to books. Incidentally, Dolphy was one of the guys who got the charlatan thing... Simon Weil