.:.impossible

Hello KC folks! I posted something a few weeks back on another thread regarding my trip out here to KC. I got into town tonight and I'll be here til next week. I don't know exactly what my schedule is going to be like just yet, but I should have an idea tomorrow evening. I'm pretty sure I've got the weekend to myself. I'm hoping some of y'all out here can find some time to show an east coaster around a little bit. Spoontaneous mentioned possibly getting together. PM if you guys have some time in the next two weeks. Looking forward to it! Cary

Sorry to get in so late... I've had these written down for a while, but never transcribed them! 01 I don't get it. This certainly isn't like any Cannonball band I've ever heard. Just may be that I have a lot to hear! The horn really doesn't bring C'ball to mind though. Great percussion and vocals though! The saxophone just sounds a little too out of control for Cannonball. Maybe it is him. Whatever. I like it. Whoa! Come on back! ...alright... enough already. Would have been fun to have been there I bet. 02 Whoa. Is that that recent David S. Ware strings album? That is a lot of colliding motion to absorb. I'm guessing the second horn is an overdub. The strings are just so intense! Imagine sitting down to compose this! 03 Sap, but with some really interesting textures. The harp is nice. Helps the strings bring the flute in. Strong lead voice. I don't know exactly where to place this. Easy listening? Music to lay hip babies to bed? Music to roll credits to? 04 Nice piano solo, if a little deviant. I dig the interplay between singer and saxophone. 05 Blasting trumpet killing that solo, then sort of running out of ideas. Hubbard? The tenor player really goes for it, then gets his tongue all twisted up! I don't know about this one. That is one crazy damn left hand at the piano. 06 Sounds like a practice exercise turned into a vamp, or a Phish jam. Seriously! If you told me this was Page McConnell and Trey Anastasio, I would not be surprised. I keep thinking "Meet George Jetson!" 07 Baritone! Soprano! What a great junxtaposition. The soprano really soars over that arrangement. Nice and short. 08 Uh oh. Steel pans? and congas? An upright bass would make this heavenly. No that isn't my imagination. There is one! OK, how about a shaker or two. This is really nice. Who? What? Nice. Seemless transition to kit, then trombone? Pans player also trombonist? ...

Thanks for the discs Marty! I've had a chance to listen to disc one twice. I wrote down some thoughts this afternoon (in the car! yikes!) 01 The vibrato on those opening chords is heavenly. I think it is a trombone. There is no separation between the sounds of the horns. Organ sounds are designed after stuff like this. Great music. Great soloing. I really like the ensemble playing though. I need more music like this... 02 I've heard this. Or maybe it just seems familiar. Whoa, heavy tenor sounds great with the baritone. I'd love to hear the bari take a turn. Beautiful tones, the trumpet seems to be sliding through those notes without much attack. May be Dorham, but I'm not confident with that guess, just that I've heard him play this way. I don't want to say that there is a lack of chops, but it isn't traditionally brilliant trumpet chops. There's the bari! This is some of that good "world influenced" hard bop. I wouldn't be surprised if the title had some sort of middle eastern reference. Bass and drums are just chugging along. Nice. 03 Initially, I'm not digging the pianists rhythm, but I'm into some of the clusters he's playing. It is his right hand-the stiff and pointed attack on the keys. So staccato. Chick Corea? The melody seems so squared off because of it. The use of those big block chords reminds me of Tyner though, but his lines flow more than this. 04 Now that sounds like a well-constructed electric guitar. I love that sound. Barney Kessel or Tal come to mind, but I would rule out Tal. More Django-styled. I'm guessing Kessel because of his affinity of pitch-bending. Much different tone though. I don't know! 05 Another baritone! Nice hi-hat. Nice drumming all around. Now this pianist is in there with some great playing behind the bari solo. Man, the tenor player took some great unexpected turns in there, to me anyway. 06 Oooooh. No idea, but I like it! The detail in the arranging! Amazing piano playing, so chromatic and it just sounds right. 07 I know this. Beautiful. I'm not so sure I know this. I like the sparse snare work. Damn. 08 Damn! 09 Walt Dickerson no doubt about it. That big ringing tone, the quick hands, his phrasing, the sound of the mallets, the big sound of the low bars on that Deagan, the waivering vibrato. The pianist seems to be having some tempo trouble with his left hand during his solo. I think this is from one of his first two for Prestige. I love how Cyrille makes the 3/4 sound off balance, like he backed into a waltz before realizing it was a waltz he was playing. 10 Great stuff! I'm loving this disc Marty! 11 They almost get going like a Mingus band! I love this feel. 12 At first this reminded me of Revolt of the Negro Lawn Jockeys. I was thinking Moondock on alto, then I remembered there weren't two altos on that recording, and a couple of things the vibist did reminded me of Hutcherson's four mallet playing. I have to pull this disc back out! Depending on who I'm listening to it with, this disc can sound pretty far out at times. A good compromise between the sounds of Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. 13 I'm thinking Ellington, then I'm thinking Basie. I am at a disadvantage here due to my age. The sound of these guy's orchestra's has not yet entirely sunk in. 14 I recognize this as a Monk tune, but I'm stuck after that. The sound of the band isn't all that appealing to me for some reason. 15 16 17 18 Nice! I've got this. An early favorite, bought just after hearing Four For Trane.

Out of curiousity, why are you looking for an alternative to ipod? ipod and itunes really are a nice combo. they make portable music so easy. i've had an ipod for a couple of years now and it has been through the ringer... snow in new hampshire numerous lift tickets, snow in colorado, fishing (salt water mind you), and now here at the beach. no problems. worth every penny and then some i think. i can't imagine having a different player. i've messed around with a couple of them at other people's houses, but they all seem less convenient. they are less popular for a reason. again, just curious. nothing against other brands, and i'm not trying to sell you an ipod, but i do think apple nailed it with this device.

Denison is the way to go. They provide a kit that connects into your factory stereo. You are able to use the stereo controls to control the ipod. Charges the ipod too! Denison IceLink

Downtown Newport? Definitely. It actually seems low!

Are you staying in Newport? From the airport, you are going to take 95S to Rt 4S. Take the exit for 138E. This takes you across Narragansett Bay. Two bridges and the second one will cost you $2. This takes you into Newport. Let me know where you are staying in Newport and I'll do my best to remember. I learned the roads pretty well, thanks to dave9199's beautiful gift - an atlas. I had no idea how much that thing would come in handy. Once I know where you are staying, it will be easy to give you directions to the park (venue) as well. You have to stop into the Cooke House for a Dark and Stormy while in Newport, that much is a given.

Very cool. I just changed my desktop background! The coloring actually makes Bird look even more like a man possessed! I always thought this was an intense photo.

I wrote this in response to a question elsewhere, and thought I'd post it since I never start topics and really need to start pulling my weight around here before I get let go. Four recordings that (truly) changed my life. As far as how I actually listen to the world, that is. These are the four most influential recordings in my life thus far. Technically, I guess I should include ‘Please Don’t You Cry Now Beautiful Edith’, but I have somehow limited my self to four. The first recording that really knocked me somewhere off to the side was ‘Out To Lunch!’ under Dolphy’s name. This was the first time I actually took notice of the vibraphone. And it took some time. Possibly eight months or so before it actually hit me. This music was so strange and so languid and incredibly inventive at any given moment and what made it different, what suddenly hit me as I realized that this recording was forever going to be with me, was the vibraphone. Bobby Hutcherson’s wide-open four mallet vibraphone playing. His hesitance, his curiousity, his daring eagerness to push Eric Dolphy ever so gently toward the perimeter of his self-challenging mind created more space for the role of the bassist and the drummer, in this case two highly elastic senses of time, both almost equally as interested in stretching time as they are interested in the sound of sound itself. And Eric Dolphy himself. The motion that he was able to create while playing with these musicians on that day made me want to find out more and more about the man, vibraphone present or not. The next recording that knocked me back out past my last knock was a recording by solo percussionist Milford Graves. ‘Grand Unification.' Now by this time I hadn’t yet heard many solo drum recordings, though I had heard a few collaborations and/or dates led by percussionists, many of whom would be considered masters. Jazz drumming masters, or world masters whatever the case may be, it wasn’t until I heard ‘Grand Unification’ that I realized just how complex a simple rhythm can be, rather how simple a complex rhythm can be. And just how fluid time actually was. At this point in my life, I began to realize just how inconsequential and arbitrary the secondhand of a timepiece actually was. Believe it or not, the first time I began to consider challenging the notion of standard time was after a conversation with my mom. I was listening to ‘Dead Set’ and brought my boom box to her, impressing upon her the idea that she had to hear these drums. She told me they sounded like a “washer/dryer” and that made a lasting impression on me. Milford Graves turned rhythm into something that is constantly happening. Something that just happens, like the patterns and random designs in nature, rhythm is happening. He is somehow able to channel such a vast amount of diverse energy through his four limbs, sometimes using his forehead, to decode the emotions that he draws upon. It changed the way I listen to drummers. It changed my idea of drumming entirely. Believe it or not, it actually made me appreciate pop drumming, and drum machines, but people like Sunny Murray and an immensely renewed appreciation for Elvin Jones, and later (for me) Max Roach got so much deeper to me. Then I sat in the room while Alvin Fielder played drums. And so on. The tradition runs deep, and it also runs wide. And I heard Divine Gemini, a duet between vibist Walt Dickerson and bassist Richard Davis, who was also present on both ‘Please Don’t You Cry Now Beautiful Edith’ and ‘Out To Lunch!.' After a significant period of time outside of public recording, Walt Dickerson re-entered the archived sound world, recording a pair of duets with bassist Richard Davis. Of course I knew none of this at the time I heard ‘Divine Gemini’, one of the sessions documenting the relationship. Again, the feeling of standard time being an arbitrary element and sound and the act of listening taking precedence over all other consideration. The playing is absolutely beautiful and difficult and, more often than not an actual solid manifest of living, breathing souls, what great collaborative music can become. It is very difficult to figure out how to convey this. The most relaxing music I own, and I’ll leave it at that. ‘To My Son,’ another recording by Walt Dickerson was the next, and so far, the last to really knock me out, to really change the way I think. This trio recording was done not two years after the duets with Richard Davis. Walt Dickerson had found a bassist and drummer, who I don’t know anything about other than the recordings with Walt Dickerson, who propelled his way of playing into something that I had only imagined hearing on a vibraphone. Divine Gemini is so close to bliss for me, and this recording arrived at my door to bring me back into reality: it was all bliss. It all made perfect sense, and it all fell over the concept of music, and yet it seemed so different after these albums for me. Things that normal people don’t find enjoyment in, I stand and listen, and find beauty and anger, and the emotions that I don’t have words for. And it is albums like these that changed the way I listen. Now.

Nice. I will let you know what my schedule looks like. I have a feeling most of the weeknights will be reserved for company functions (yippee), but I don't know for sure.

Recieved! Thanks Martin. I'm looking forward to these. Still have to finish Sangrey's!

No shit. That is something else. That was one belt buckle, but damn. Roy Eldridge? Make it out to KC. You've got stories I need to hear. Who's in?

Some people wear their hearts on their sleeve. Others keep them up their sleeve. I suppose we all should have guessed... Chuck wears his heart on his pelvis.

PS That is one hell of a belt buckle.

Hey KC folk! I will be out in Kansas City, MO for two weeks beginning August 22. My employer is headquartered in KC. The main objective of my trip will be technical training (Adobe) and I was hoping some of you would have some time during that two week period to show an East Coaster what the Midwest is all about! I'd love to meet all of you. Nessa, you up for another trip?

So is that portrait of you above Satch's fireplace! Awesome.

I'd recommend it based on your interest Nate. It is called CHANCE MEETING. I first heard this years ago in college on a video. I think it was just called "Tal Farlow" though I really can't remember. I remember thinking these guys were out of this world. At the time, I hadn't heard anyone play guitar with that kind of fluidity and there they were, two grown men smiling and having a great time doing something I didn't know was possible. I'm pretty sure it was recorded in a local bar near Tal's home.

That's what my post referred to. I thought that was hilarious.

Alright! Happy Birthday my man! BIG FIVE OH! Enjoy the day!

BELLS: Thanks Mike!

I have a duo recording of Breau with Tal Farlow that sits well within the descriptions above. It feels like you are a fly on the wall listening to these two push each other!

BACK OFF before someone goes 'poultry' on you!

Thanks. I'll have to look out for that one too then.

Is Conic Sections also recorded in that fashion? That church sounds incredible. The way he uses it to create so much sound and so many lines is amazing to me.

Definitely! Pronounced "gwey" or "gwuy" and translates roughly to "cool" or "hip" or whatever, from what I was told. Have a great time Brandon. Spain is a beautiful country.