Jim R

Well, I'm getting closer to being ready to mail out some discs, so I'd like to start receiving names and addresses. Following Dan Gould's system, I'll be sending out 25 discs. For any demand beyond 25 (in the U.S.*), I'd like to hear from anyone who can volunteer to burn and send discs to the 26th and beyond. Brad and I helped with Dan's test, and I know Jim Dye has already volunteered as well. *Note: To our friends across the Atlantic: Member Tom Storer (in Paris) has volunteered to be the point man over there. A big THANK YOU to Tom! He will be organizing all distribution on that side of the pond, so contact Tom if you're on that side of the Atlantic. I'll be sending a burn to Tom, and he will be burning a few discs himself to distribute. No doubt Tom will need some help over there, so please let him know if you're capable of burning CD's. My preference for communication is e-mail, rather than PM's. If anybody would rather not use e-mail, that's okay- you can PM me, but I'd rather not be deluged with PM's (very slow and tedious to use them on my system). That's all I can think of right now. Hopefully I can pull this off as well as Tony and Dan did! B)

Happy birthday to one of the coolest guys on the board.

One type of error that is very unfortunate is when tracks are programmed (or listed) out of order. One example of this is the OJC CD version of Art Farmer's EARLY ART. They really messed it up. I notified Fantasy about the problem years ago, and they told me it would be corrected, but I don't think it ever was. Fantasy also screwed up big time on the first CD release of The Montgomery Brothers' twofer CD, GROOVE BROTHERS. They used the wrong master tape for one of the albums the CD was supposed to contain (half of the CD had the wrong music)! I bought it the day it was released, and alerted them to the problem immediately (along with a bunch of other people, evidently). To their credit, they had a new version of the CD out soon thereafter. I still can't believe the error CD made it all the way into production, though!

Here's one shot showing the headstock and another shot

I had wondered the same thing, Lon. I didn't tape the film, so I can't go back and analyze it, but the soundholes reminded me of a Gretsch Synchromatic. The headstock shape was what threw me, though. I wonder if it was a European instrument. Very cool, at any rate!

Okay, I'll admit (as I did in the Burns discussions) that it's the filmmaker's right to do as they please. So no, not inappropriate. Just lousy in spots. B) I really dug the Los Lobos performance, BTW. I'm sorry if some think I'm being too negative here. Maybe it's a side-effect of not letting off any steam in the political threads. So... hasn't anybody seen the documentary I mentioned above, "Blues Story"?

Alexander, it was me saying that I don't think Beck has an ounce of talent- at least for performing a blues piece (I didn't see any talent at all demonstrated, in fact. I could go over to the local middle school, pull a kid out of class, show him a couple of chords, and the results would quite likely be as good or better). Another thing- don't put words in people's mouths. I did NOT say that modern musicians (in general) should not be playing these old tunes. Not sure where you got that from. I guess you were referring to B3-er's comments regarding the racial factor, but you misfired there too. "General negativity"... hmm... I think some of us just feel that we're free to make criticisms of what we see in these films. Not sure why so many folks object to this.

Nope. Maybe it's because we are living through the dumbing-down era. I guess part of my response to these threads is that there seems to be a certain amount of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Some people object to certain aspects of the film and they make it seem like the whole thing is a waste of time or a disaster. There seems to be a bitterness and relentless negativity to some of these posts and when a compliment is made--like the Lenoir footage--it seems grudging. Well, you're entitled to your perceptions, but my compliments (speaking for myself) were not grudging, and I'm not condemning the entire film.

Randy (and to all concerned), I don't have a very specific time frame in mind as of yet. I've been working on getting my music choices together, and I sort of envisioned keeping fairly close to the timetable set by Tony and Dan, which would mean getting things started sometime in the first half of October. That's about at precisely as I've thought about it thus far. I'm open to any and all suggestions, especially from Dan, who has demonstrated that he is WAY more organized than I am. B) Oh, and I might as well announce that Tom Storer has offered to be the point man in Europe (thanks again, Tom ). I will send a copy of the disc to Tom, and he will be burning some discs for some of our European members (and hopefully coordinating the rest of the European distribution). BTW Tom, I replied to your PM several days ago, but haven't received an e-mail back from you yet. I hope you received the PM...

Mule, honestly, between your reactions to some of the posters here and some of the posters on the old Burns threads, I doubt that you'll EVER be happy with these discussion threads. But seriously, I'm not sure who you're directing your comments at. Me? B3-er? Lon, for criticizing Bonnie Raitt? B) Come on, can't we be just a little bit negative, a little bit opinionated about specific portions of these films, without being called on it? I mean, I pointed out some positives, fer cryin' out loud. I agree that it's worth watching for the Lenoir film alone, but it really bothers me to see people with no business playing this particular music (let alone getting national exposure) being shown in alternating clips with real artists. It's laughable. B3-er said it very well, I thought. Maybe they should have let some of the clueless (to the blues) artists just play their OWN music, and say it was inspired by the blues. That would have been more sensible (but probably just as painful).

I watched the wim Wenders film tonight, and although I found portions of it interesting, overall I'd give it a definite thumbs down. I'm with B3-er almost 100% on his comments concerning the extremely poor choices for modern-day interpretations of the music. Nick Cave's group and that guy "Beck" nearly caused me to turn it off immediately. What a complete joke. I don't quite "get" the choice of Lou Reed either, although he wasn't quite as bad as some of the others. It's fortunate that they chose a few performers with some clue (Bonnie Raitt, and also I thought Los Lobos were very good- no surprise there for me). I found the re-enactments of Johnson and James to be interesting, if not terribly entertaining. The J.B. Lenoir footage was really (by far) the best reason to watch this film, IMO. Following that film, KQED aired a documentary called BLUES STORY, which must have been filmed about 5 (?) years ago or so. I had never seen it before, and I'm glad I stayed up to watch it. It was only an hour long, and didn't include as much music as I would have preferred, but the scope of artists that were interviewed was fantastic (B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, Hubert Sumlin, Robert Lockwood, Pinetop Perkins, Lowell Fulson, Ruth Brown, Koko Taylor, R. L. Burnside, Buddy Guy, and many many more). 100% authentic, no bullshit documentary. I wish it had been 7 hours long instead of 1. Anybody else ever seen this?

Thanks Dan, and Couw, for the info. Regarding the Coleman / Alexander thing, I've heard quite a bit by both (and own some), but I never made the connection regarding their sound. I probably don't think about that sort of thing as much as others (although since I'm a guitarist and guitar enthusiast, it has come into play quite a bit in terms of comparing guitarists and thinking about the jazz guitar "family tree"). Also, I don't read jazz magazines (never have, actually) and these days I don't even read liner notes very frequently (part apathy, part aging eyes, part shrinking print ), so I don't get stimulated to think about these things as much as others probably do.

Dan, what else is on that Ike Isaacs album?

There's one other cover which I have in a book, but can't locate an image on the web. Artie Shaw - BOTH FEET IN THE GROOVE (RCA LPM-1201), from 1956...

This one isn't coming up for me. Here's the source: Warhol page

Jesus... I walk away from the computer for a few hours (to work on my @#$%^&**&^%$#@! Blindfold test #3 line-up, of course ), and the inmates take ov... um, no, I won't go there. In fact, I like this turn of events. And if Jim ain't up for the HIGHfalutin'est office in the land, maybe he would consider running for Guv of Cali!

Jim and Bev, Let me see... how can I put this... do you both have to be so fucking eloquent? I'm trying to remember what I want to say AND construct correct sentences over here! Mark, I once posted a large amount of discographical data here (from a Mosaic set or something), and then noticed that I had created about 50 of the B) smilies. Every time there was a "B" (for "bass") in parentheses, I created our good friend Mr. B) Oh well, he IS one of my favorite smilies. B)

Bev, I agree with you 100%. This subject had been on my mind lately, after reading that Art Pepper thread that's currently on the board. I didn't have the energy to respond to that thread when I read it, and I didn't want to crash the party, but... with all due respect to Art Pepper (who I do enjoy, but isn't high on my personal list of favorites) and the person who started that thread, I think a more broad-minded view of "emotion" in jazz is called for. I think it's more logical, and dare I say, more mature (the idea that there have only been a handful of artists in jazz history to have communicated with emotion, and the notion that there is a "best" player, etc, just makes me chuckle).

An extremely minor and far less insightful sidenote here regarding Alexander (and for me it applies to many other artists as well). I'm not always in search of "great" players, great voices, boundary stretchers or ground breakers. Some contemporary players (Alexander being one of them) actually reached me first via their choice of material. I know I'm a little different than a lot of jazz fans in terms of my tastes and reasons for choosing who and what to listen to, and part of that is my love of melody. It's somewhat anti-jazz in nature, at times, but I can't apologize to the jazz community for that. It's simply a part of who I am, and part of the enjoyment I get from listening to the music as a whole. So, I can be attracted to a player and often moved to purchasing one of their recordings simply by hearing them play a head- especially if it's a tune that I really dig which hasn't been recorded much (if at all) by others. In Eric's case, it was his version of "Night Song", which I heard on the radio one day (thank you, KCSM). His solo on that was also attractive to my ears (if not demonstrating anything spine-tingling or new, in terms of style or voice), and I thought- here's a player who I'd like to get to know a little better. If someone's sound and style doesn't strike me as unique right off the bat, I'm usually inclined to think that it's me that needs to listen more closely, as opposed to thinking that the artist has nothing new to say. At any rate, I like his sound and enjoy his style on a very casual level, without analyzing what his shortcomings may be in terms of his place in jazz history (and if that sounds like a snide remark directed at Jim, it's not- I understand and basically agree with and accept what Jim said). Whether or not Alexander ever develops a voice that I can recognize instantly, I think I'll always be open to checking him out- especially if he picks some good tunes.

Hmm, I don't recall how many people here had negative things to say about Eric Alexander. Doesn't really matter I suppose, because everybody has (and is entitled to) their opinions, but we should of course decide for ourselves. I'm going to go the positive route. As I said, I didn't care at all for track 13, but I do enjoy and respect Alexander. I have a few of his CD's as a leader, and a few of his sideman appearances, and he has always impressed me. I think perhaps too many people try to compare him to some of the greats of the past, since his style comes so strongly out of that. The point is, I don't think you should use this one track as anywhere near a general representation of his playing. You may end up going along with those who don't care for him, but I would check him out.

Yeah Dmitry, that's the one (or shall I say "two"). Now we're even in the nitpicking department. I think that one's a gem. There's also a CD on the Capri label called "Live at Salishan" from about 12 years later (1992).

CHEERIOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reid Miles cover for Preparation H: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm simultaneously proud and humbled. I didn't "nail" too many artists, but my instincts were correct on Wess (and the Savoy sound on #5), Heath, and Person. I only knew about half the tunes on the first listen (2, 3*, 4, 7, 8, and 11), but frankly some of those others were a little dubious (i.e. 3, 12, 13) in terms of taking some serious liberties with the actual melodies. (* Dan, all I can say on 3 is that if you saw Lou's line written out and compared it to the "real" Stand By Me, I think you'd see why some of us reacted the way we did). Tony, the Houston Person thing with Grant was (to me) not necessarily Grant having a "bad day", but an example of how much his style and sound had changed between his BN golden age (especially that 1961 era) and the time of this recording. As I said on the other thread, I discounted the possibility that it was Grant mainly because I haven't paid much attention to his later, funkier work. 5, 6, and 9 still stand out as my faves from this test... 5: I thought that Ernie Wilkins session had been out on CD in Japan, but I could be wrong. BTW, there seems to be some significant ambiguity as to whether the session was led by Wilkins or Wess (AMG lists it twice- once for each artist as leader, one web discography I saw lists it as Wilkins', and my Goldmine guide lists it under Wess). 6: Without any doubt, I am light on Slide Hampton recordings. That damn Palo Alto label was right here under my nose, and I snoozed on this Continuum disc! I've heard some Hampton recs that didn't do a whole lot for me, but I still need to explore further. Jimmy Heath I have done a little better with. 9: Glad I have that Teddy Edwards DVD. I still say this tune should have been covered by some folks! Well Dan, you put together a doozy. Really well thought out. I've been thinking about what I'm going to burn for about a week, and if I was using a pencil and paper I'd have a HUGE pile of wadded up paper by my desk. Tony and Dan both made this look simple, but it AIN'T simple. Hell, I've pretty much given up trying to do any kind of theme already (too confining for me, I think). I also think that my taste (which is slightly to the right of center) may be a disappointment to some. Don't worry- I'm NOT going to include any Andy Williams. Oh well, at least we'll be able to say there's a contrast between my test and Dan's...