MomsMobley

With respect to the original poster... YAWN. But let me, respectfully, explain-- It's barely worthwhile to compare two jillion early '60s versions of "My Favorite Things" by Coltrane. It is NOT, ever, worth comparing Monk or Charlie Rouse solos on "Well You Needn't" et al. To pretend, in a wide world of music past, contemporary and future that Hendrix did a whole lot of extraordinary things lives is as ludicrous now as it was when I was supposed to jizz myself over "Monterey" or the dogshit "BBC Sessions" back in day. While a great musician, decent songwriter and ** SOMETIMES ** excellent bandleader (when he didn't let second-rate black guys in the band), the limits of his creativity/career are what the are. No amount of scrutiny is gonna change that, nor has anything, no matter how "de-luxe" its presentation, changed that reality since, I dunno... "War Heroes"? 25 years of "Dark Star" >>>>>> what? Three fucking years of... "Foxy Lady"? As for "Machine Gun," Hendrix ain't the Coltrane of rock any more than Buddy Guy was of blues. Let it rest.

Interesting, even if '89 is pretty well represented on official releases. re: '89 into '90 generally, Brent's songs are awful but at least you can skip his songs; compared to fucking caterwauling of Donna Godchaux he's a regular Pha Terrell. and oh, Bobby mostly sucks at slide guitar but sometimes he mangles it SO well it ends up being interesting noise. finally, GD Without A Net (composite '89-'90 material) is the ** ONLY ** record ever with otherwise-worthless Branford Marsalis I wouldn't beat-- or shotgun-- like a rabid dog chomping on my sweet baby's arms. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSjoAtPgUc4&feature=channel

respectfully, CJ, "very good" isn't close to good enough. Let me guess, however: most Mulgrew Miller fans really like, say, Joe Lovano too? The rest of us ask A LOT more of music, and happily, music does have much more to offer, for example-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MExljPsMEbA If I was hosting a high-class cocktail party and the ghost of Oscar Peterson was still too bulky-- or I was afraid he'd eat all the hot dogs-- I might call Mulgrew Miller. And yet! >>>>> Oscar and Mulgrew's careers COMBINED-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoP2PJFi2iY Your welcome, Moms

is that how you talk to your "Moms"? in any case, right, right-- & maybe by the time Miller is seventy he'll have improved enough to make a record even marginally more ambitious than technically "competent" dead horse reinvention for fatso jazz hat nostalgics. greater in all ways than all Mulgrew Miller solos and ensembles combined, ever ---> Mayagora ---> Gottschalk furthermore ---> John Davis ---> Blind Tom i'll son you about Oscar Dennard next time tho' if you really know your pre-Nixon Hamp that won't be necessary... just like Mulgrew Miller.

Good piece, Mark, on an artistic non-entity, tho' yeah, it's nice to have respectable journeymen etc and he's hardly as offensive as, say, Marcus Roberts (if not ever as interesting as, say, Harold Mabern). Still hard to imagine anyone taking an active interest Miller unless you need to impress a Japanese tourist in hope of unusual sex afterwards.

How much are Dave Tough or Big Sid Catlett or ______'s "estate" gonna ask, and get, I wonder? I assume this will be worked out but still, other than publishing, it's an asinine consideration, which could be asinine to the power of z if ** ALL ** the "estates" of musicians on any given gig start piping up for their "share." Harlem hasn't been the largest African-Am. neighborhood in New York City since the late 1940s; not sure the sop was necessaary but if you go John L. do let us know; I would be moderately heartened to learn it's semi-worthwhile.

The estates, in sum, deserve NOTHING from these recordings-- as if there's some great goddamn bounty to be had in the first place. I'm somewhat puzzled why an orphan institution like this got the archive but perhaps this is what will make it legitimate? The idea of a jazz museum in 21st century HARLEM-- which has had even less the mean interest in jazz for nearly 50 years, at least-- is pretty laughable but some people will do anything to hold on to nostalgia, like ooooh... HARLEM. Also, FUD LIVINGSTON >>>>>>>>> (Rabbi) Herschel Evans tho' i usually (but not always) prefer the latter's pre-1940 bands.

ah, but listen closely in other ways and he's pretty damn good at mixing up tones, rhythm, compositional nous etc. there are very few jazz dudes who had all that going for (regardless of instrument) and even less in rock-- someone might say Fripp comes closest but i've never cared enough to figure it out. and yes, Frank definitely "needed" rock n roll if only functionally, i.e. to work and make a band but almost everything else could be taken straight from blues, r&b, pre-"rock" rock & roll-- save the cover of "We're Only In It For The Money" of course. Ever hear this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7sRApEhJDE And for "Zoot Allures" non-fans-- My link i'll defend/explain Thing-Fish later too.

I should have said Tom Waits "Swordfishtrombones," of course, as TW's first mature Cali modernist weirdo move. People beef at Zappa's 'crudeness' of satire etc later and maybe it is or maybe they don't get it BUT... At the same time VERY few of his self-styled critics recognize or comment on FZ's consistent recognition of both high and erstwhile "low" cultures, and tho' he could be bitchy towards "rock"-- with good reason, of course-- you don't befriend and extol Johnny "Guitar" Watson if you're just concerned with appealing to teenager stoners etc. Nor, earlier, enlist Don "Sugarcane" Harris, or keep those doo-wop, R&B harmonies as part of your compositional palette l-o-n-g (in pop terms) after they were gauche. THEN-- to have it together enough to eviscerate the Reagan-era, fucking Gore-approved PMRC idiocy AND still put on great live shows ('88 band, as noted above; some of the later studio work lacks the usual focus), compositions (the later synclavier work on "Civilization Phase III" is AMAZING). It might be useful for jazz people to think of Zappa as something like a Mingus figure, tho' one with a lot more discipline and fewer (understandable) race burdens than later Chas. revealed. AND FUNKIER THAN MILES TOO-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoJLMUBSMkc note Jim Gordon on drums too, before the voices got too loud.

Don on FZ & Partch-- http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/cook.htm also Art Tripp = ED MARIMBA = total Harry Partch homage what's wild is here's HP in San Diego '68-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOHBqFevy0k Then a bit less than 20 years later, SD-native-- and former FZ tour-mate-- Tom Waits makes HIS Harry/Beefheart move with "Rain Dogs." re: Frank's weirdness, the thing to remember is it ** was ** mediated by his extensive self-education-- Think of sitting down with those Walter Piston books, Nicholas Slominsky etc And his engineering, and his band-leading, etc. FZ ** had to be ** somewhat more grounded, and mostly for the good-- which is why we have "Trout Mask Replica" and don't-- alas-- have the real "Bat Chain Puller." Why the FZ Trust sits on this, still, is one of the abiding mysteries (of many when it comes to Gail.) I gotta say, contrary to my expectations, the Zappa Plays Zappa band is pretty great-- highly recommended for those so inclined.

not saying you're in this category but there's a school of Beefheart fans that proffer that theory-- Don was the 'natural' weirdo genius, while Frank, while he tried... Nothing could be further from the truth: they are both VERY weird dudes-- yet there are interviews where Don mentions Harry Partch (key influence on both, of course), so it's not like Beefheart was really some "pure" naif visionary. check out the "Freak Out" list for one broad view of where Zappa was coming from and why-- OF COURSE-- because he was extremely focused, driven artist that would FRAGMENT into his pursuit of x # styles, sometimes discretely, usually collaged. Same dude (+ manager Herb Cohen) is putting out Lord Buckley AND Tim Buckley's best albums + for all his rigid discipline, Zappa also loved improvisatory, audience participation comedy... Sometimes it works, sometimes it's tedious and, oh yeah, Zappa also put out those Lenny Bruce albums that are often the same way. I'll defend Flo & Eddie period too as expressionist extension of FZ liking to combine doo-wop & other group harmony with x # of other styles. I forget what the best version of "Billy The Mountain" is but... there is one. Also, for ultra-sick heavy blues psyche jamming, listen to "Orange County Lumber Truck" from the "Ahead Of Their Time"-- I'm naming only official albums-- and note that East Texas native and all around art/music/lit dude who knows, Gary Panter, did THREE album covers for Zappa, and has noted how extremely mind-blowing "Uncle Meat" was for him because, disparate as it is, it is also the world. Finally, for now, "Joe's Garage" is almost FZ's "Smile," except he didn't go (love to say) doo-doo in the sandbox and he FINISHED it; lyrics ain't quite the level of Van Dyke Parks but few things are. Finally, Part II: "200 Motels" is the best, or second best, rock movie after, depending on if you put Raymond Pettibon "Sir Drone" at #1 or not.

CT-- I'm surprised! For 'rock,' find a copy of the posthumous "Imaginary Diseases"; if you ever liked anything about "blues," "rock" and "loud guitar"... it's THERE. But I am also convinced Zappa is ** always ** best considered a composer, which, to me, most of the "free" blowhards should not be, or if they are, it's like fuck... Alan Silva, for example, is a shitty composer. Also, Blow Me Gladys Hampton Also, read Nicholas Slonimsky's accounts of FZ in both the "Baker's Dictionary of Musicians" and NS's autobiography, "Perfect Pitch." I used to get off the bus when George Duke did but, unless you can't get more complex than the Ramones or Motorhead in 1977... this is pretty great-- and ridiculous-- but still great-- My link We can discuss the non-rock composition another time. Also, CHEWY, I have "Freak Out" and "Absolutely Free" in MONO.

I know some works by most of those, with special interest in the Hummel sonatas, Boccherini quintets, Spohr, Vanhal and Vorisek symphonies. BIS had one (or two?) discs of Cherubini 4-tets I've been tempted by but haven't heard-- my interest in Cherubini has waned, I suppose, although my interest in Gluck only increases with familiarity. Hot tip on CONTEMPORARY string quartets, period: George Walker, now available for sampling on Naxos-- My link video of GW's viola sonata-- My link

mmmmm... some stuff you want, some you can live without. On EMI, I saw go for the Gary Bertini integrale instead, supplement that with whatever you want more of-- http://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphonies-1-10-Lied-Erde/dp/B000BQ7BX2 I can't justify the cost at this point but if you have the dough or underground know how, the original Michael Geilen series (with various 20th c. couplings) is another 'sleeper' cycle. For mainstream boxes-- all with caveats-- I rank them 1) Chailly 2) Bernstein (Sony) 3) Sinopoli Complement with some Walter, Klemperer, Horenstein, Kubelik (Audite label live is almost always better than DG), Benjamin Zander; depending on how well you know the music already, the last can be interesting because of the free lecture discs included. I've not head enough of the Tilson Thomas series to say whether it's worth the bones; Boulez, Solti, Tennstedt, Bernstein (DG) and Rattle are not. Hope this helps, Mom

Back to Revenant... I bought the set when first issued and missed the news about the Ayler estate imbroglio... UN-EFFIN'-BELIEVABLE!!! I'd love to hear more about this just to get blood boiling without any other stimulants. Yeah, hang on those "rights" Ayler family-- 1000% of nothing will make everyone wealthy. If there is some active Ayler Estate, you think they would have realized the "Holy Ghost" box made it ** more ** valuable, if they needed or wanted to make some bones selling t-shirts, tote bags, bumper stickers, keychains, skateboards, coozies, GOLF CLUB COVERS and things of that nature... which I'd have no issue with. I totally understand how Dean Blackwood can feel totally burned but it makes no sense it had to be that way (except that people are fucking crazy).

Oh! Thanks for the thoughts, Kenny. And like Harold, I'd probably make a cd-r excluding the interviews, which seem like they'd have been better placed as an appendix at the end of the disc. Maybe I'll hold off on this and get the Archeophone Sophie Tucker set instead.

Although it's not yet re-re-re-re-re-re-re-released on XRCD or as 12" 45 RPM, and while it's unlikely to make your "interconnects" harder, thicker, longer or-- and this is key-- more "transparent," I'm sure there are Organauts who are interested in this set from the Off The Record wing of Archeophone, whom we know and love for their King Oliver set a few years back-- Cabaret Echoes Most of us will have some or even most of these cuts in other forms but not all, I doubt. Seems a very worthy purchase but I'm curious what other think. I don't have this in hand myself yet so can't comment. I can say that EVERYONE reading this should listen to William Albright performing Scott Joplin as often as possible. Thank you. Moms

Anyone peep this yet? I fast-read it in the library before and after my prostate massage last week and... well, if I had a hammer and hundred bucks, I'd pay Larry Kart to review it but maybe he's got a library nearby also? (U of Chicago Press SHOULD have asked LK to blurb, though perhaps they did and he-- and others-- demured?) Regardless, I think, briefly, Cohen knows the Duke archive much better than he does American cultural history so there are some weirdly skewed and screwy summaries; there is, however, also more careful consideration of Duke's post World War II career than I recall seeing elsewhere so... it's worth a peek at least and it's definitely better-- if less slick-- than Terry Teachout's underwhelming Louis Armstrong bio. The great Duke biography does not exist but other than Mark Tucker's "Early Ellington," this is probably the second best, flaws and all. (It's definitely better than the fraudulent "Music Is My Mistress.") Harvey Cohen's Duke Ellington bio

Rufus Harley >>>>> Joe Harley And while this is a briefly interesting question, re: why the fuh nobody copied the first press vinyl before... Paul and others are 1000% correct, the endless conspicuous consumer nonsense over remastering is the death of the culture; forget the article, perhaps, and just call it the death of culture. This doesn't mean we should not recognize, and celebrate, first class engineering and transfers (viva Roy DuNann, John R.T. Davies) but this a lot more people should call bullshit on these re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-issues than than they do. On the other hand, as soon as Max Roach "It's Time" comes out as a ** 78 RPM ** folio reissue, I'll be the first in. Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson FTW!

1) Allen Lowe is mostly correct* 2) John L is correct 3) Greil Marcus is an intellectual fraud, a musicological nothing 4) Robert Johnson was a brilliant ** MUSICIAN ** 5) Robert Johnson's LYRICS were bullshit, or folk, or train schedules, or menus, bills of lading, Vicksburg brothel price lists. 6) So let me get this straight, Robert Johnson records, almost uniquely among records of the era which are known, are thee ONLY ones regularly speeded up 20%? 7) Get the fuck out of here! 8) Anyone who ever learned to play fingerstyle guitar in the middle era between just records and mostly digital jerked around w/a variable speed tape recorder-- helps you learn Blind Blake better, sure, but SLOW Blind Blake is like slow Bird-- an interesting physical exercise, perhaps, but self-nullifying. If you (we) can't keep up, eventually, QUIT. 9) Fuck Clapton, all of him, including all guest appearances, including Sandi Shaw's juices on John Mayall's beard, including dead Duane's overdubs, including Bonnie Delaney crotch shots-- all of it! * Bach far far far far far far surpasses Robert Johnson as a musician, while acknowledging he had longer life and greater context to do so. Cut Robert Johnson from history and really, we lose little. Please see Bach's entry Nicolas Slonimsky "Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians" for the immensity, both as summation and visionary challenge, of J.S. Bach's achievement.

Please excuse my math, though I won't make up a chart asking for absolution. So it was Basie ** 1962 **!! And who besides the good Count-- whom I adore, and I'm wearing one of his Captain's hats even now to prove it-- and his "estate" is supposed to get profit participation in this thing? What were the contracts of the band members like on that tour? Hey, I'll donate $5 to the 'Basie Estate' if they'll just go away and stop wasting everyone's time-- or put out their own dvd, with proper payment to, I dunno, the Thad Jones Estate? Or Frank Foster?

And 'Basie's Estate' has precisely what 'rights' to do with this? Should Eddie Durham's estate get a cut too if any of his arrangements were still in the book? Who the hell knows what the original film rights to this thing was? (Ain't broadcast pubic domain in Euro? Perhaps not.) And while I have no truck with the dvd co it's silly to get all upset. What was the 'Basie Estate' doing with this for the last, uh... 26 years? Or Basie before he croaked? JJZ is a joke, give your $$$ to any random homeless person and it'll have greater positive effect. (early Sam Phillips) Sun >>>> Moon (of Memphis) = Moon (of Sonny in Denmark) >>>>> Telarc Jazz, Marsalis Music (sic), Okka etc combined. early Fresh Sound was hot too! Smokin' Bird, Bud, Guiffre 3... Al Haig?

Mr. Majestic: how do you know about Lincoln Mayorga? Not that you shouldn't but he's a great talent who sort of falls between the usual orthodoxies; as you well might yourself, of course. Allen: yes, Grofe is wonderful, I'm stunned by the level of execution and, to use a five letter word, "swing" on both these discs. Sort of the symphonic jazz equivalent of the best Randy Sandke or Vince Giordano performances? I thought you might know of Gallodoro, a certain type of legend-- My link

Among the Top 10 jazz bands of their era-- MILTON BROWN AND HIS BROWNIES Fiddlers included-- Cecil Brower goddamn! Hentoff is really old now, and means well, I suppose, but he needs to step aside or have someone remind him of the verities. Lenny Bruce knew better, and probably still does.

This could go classical I reckon but since it was jazzmen playing it at first... A hod carrier I know was playing this all day at a small archeology site I visited in south central Pennsylvania a few weeks ago and I just got around to listening to the copy she gave me listening more closely. This kind of thing has-- and always had-- perilous crossover potential, I know, but in a world that still not only tolerates, but celebrates, offal like Ella Fitzgerald pipsqueaking Gershwin (which no, ain't worth it for Nelson Riddle cruise control either), I'll take it-- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0031B7EOU A previous Harmonie Ensemble album on the Bridge label of Gershin/Grofe is wild too-- My link One wonders, and hod carriers too, what Allen Lowe would think of Al Gallodoro's alto playing?