Kalo

Bummed I missed the sales. (Where was I?) Glad Mosaic is still around. I guess it evens out.

It's funny, Those brawling, licks-based guys occasionally add up to something. Go figure.

A guy I worked with introduced me to his mother, a nurse, who told me that she had almost MARRIED Pepper Adams. She ended up marrying another guy. The guy I worked with was adopted. (Not sure if this adds up to anything...)

Does anyone remember Paul's attempt, not long ago, to re-attribute many of the Beatles songs to "McCartney/Lennon," rather than the traditional "Lennon/McCartney"? Of course, he was trying to assert his actual authorship of these tunes, but STILL... Anyone who really CARES which Beatle wrote which song would already be aware of Paul's claim to "Yesterday," etc... (As an aside: didn't Sinatra attribute Harrison's "Something" to L and M?) My stepfather thought that the Kink's "Lola" was a Beatles song until I disabused him of that notion. And let me tell you: in general, he's a VERY canny and erudite guy.

You're a man after my own heart. I always figure, if it's only a buck or two I've made my money back if I dig two or three of the tunes (not to mention the priceless historical context of finds like this).

Well, you know what they say: "Two Neds don't make a... I admit it: you've stumped me. THREE LPs? Awaiting further information. Another example of Paul's will to power? (Though, I have to admit it, the older I get, the MORE I appreciate McCartney.)

B-)

... (cool, it just tipped over to five pages...)

...plus, I just like the idea of prolonging this FRANCIS DAVIS APPRECIATION THREAD. Because, LORD KNOWS, I do appreciate Davis...

...and don't NOBODY accuse me of padding my post-count...

...so I'm just trying to even up the score...

...into AT LEAST three posts, if not more...

...most of y'all would have split my long post above...

Oops! I just realised that...

You put your finger right on it, Dr. Rat. (And, yeah, I remember that cocktail music craze: a bunch of smug, would-be hipsters condescending to like the mediocre music that their boomer parents hated when their parents played it. How "cool" is that? But don't get me started... I have to admit that I have a hard time actually listening to the Gleason discs, despite Hackett's excellent contributions. Perhaps Mosaic could Bennidetticize them?) I'll always be grateful to Giddins because he turned me on to so much great stuff, from Bobby Hackett to Cecil Taylor, Roy Eldridge to The World Saxophone Quartet. I definitely admire his non-doctrinaire appreciation of the entire scope of jazz history, even if he inherited it from Martin Williams (who has also gotten some guff on this board). Interesting point, Allen. I've been a long-time admirer of Balliet, and find that he's an excellent writer, sentence-to-sentence (I can never forget his description of Pee Wee Russell's posture when playing as being "stooped like a parenthesis"). But I find that my response is the reverse of yours. The profiles, and I agree that they are often priceless, sometimes bog down in the long, long quotations from his subjects. On the other hand, his descriptions (a la the "parenthesis" of Russell's posture) I find to be excellent. I recently acquired his big doorstop Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz 1954-200. As I was perusing my collection of single volumes to see if the new doorstop superceded them, I noticed that the new volume edits out some of the more caustic remarks he makes in his first book The Sound of Surprise. So, of course, I had to keep that one. (As far as I know, Balliet's the guy who coined that much referenced description of jazz as "the sound of surprise." Not bad for a dentist.) Thanks, JT. That's the way I've always assumed it was pronounced, thus that's how I employed it in my silly rhyming post above. But after I posted, I wondered, how does HE pronounce it. After all, it IS a French name. And BruceH, I'm sure you're right: it most likely IS a little of both (that Giddins has lost steam AND that I've become more opinionated).

Do falsetto harmony groups like the Chi-Lites, the Stylistics, the Delfonics, or Blue Magic count? I guess not. I pretty much agree with the following: For me, '80s music was what drove me into the arms of jazz forever. (though there were and are a few bands from that era that I respect, I hate the way most of that era's music was recorded. Ultra-loud, gated drum samples, along with super-cheesy synths, GET MY GOAT!

My dad's Playboy and Penthouse collection. Oh, you mean guilty pleasures now? I don't know... Elton John?

I had a much better time in college than in high school, too. But the cool thing about my high school reunions is that the people there had been in my same class in the same town from the 4th to the 12th grades. So even if I had barely talked to a kid for all of high school, I might have hung out with them for a summer, or from 4th through 6th grade, or whatever. And after all these years, and all the water under the various bridges, it was interesting to catch up with them. On the other hand, most, if not all, of my closest friends in college were from classes below or above me, thus they wouldn't be at my reunion. Though this was also true to a lesser extent of high school, the high school reunion encompassed nine years of my life and associations, rather than the four years of college. I agree with everything Kevin says. Especially his last sentence. At my 20th there was a little shrine in one corner, candles burning, with photos of dead classmates. Sobering, to say the least. Several women there had already been widowed, as well. One classmate pointed out that the number of people from our class who had died was statistically exactly what you would expect. I'm not sure how comforting that is.

Just for tonight I think I'll Rouch on Crollins. Tomorrow, maybe, I'll Couch on Rrollins. Sorry, but I just have this obsession with names that contain verbs and sound like commands. Stanley, crouch! Wade bog(g)s! And my favorite... Wait for it.... Dick hymen!

Looks like this is turning into a "what album got you into jazz" thread, instead of "what album tipped you over on a particular artist," which is what I intended. Not that there's anything wrong with that! As for the last two posts. It's interesting to me how many guys (and gals?) who come from a "rock" background (which is probably most of us under the age of 55), got into jazz initially through some pretty "avant" music (I'm assuming GregK is referring to early electric Miles). Among my first 20 or so jazz LPs, when I was making my transition, were Coltrane's Ascension, The Art Ensemble's Nice Guys, and James "Blood" Ulmer's Are You Glad to Be in America? It seems that a lot of young kids today are also entering the jazz realm through the likes of Vandermark, Shipp, or even Ayler. (Is this Thurston Moore's influence?) I guess that certain types of young folks really dig it when an artist gets all galvanic on their asses.

Like I said above, there's a very strong argument that he invented cool. Certainly, as an instrumentalist, he pioneered what became the key "cool jazz" tenor style. And his contributions to hipster lingo were innumerable. So, yeah, he'd have to be right up there for me. Though there seems to be little agreement on this thread as to what "cool" is. (The Fonz? I'm still scratching my head on that one. He's about as close as a human can come to being a Muppet. Not cool in my book.)

For some reason, I just can't get enough of Berger. I've read most of his books several times. Something about his deeply ironic, seemingly cynical but actually quite principled world-view just speaks to me. He's also an amazing prose stylist, as well as deeply funny. He specializes in what I might call "serious parody," for lack of a better term. Villanova is great fun, sort of a screwball hardboiled novel. And he goes all-out with the language on this one. For the uninitiated, Little Big Man is the place to start. Funny, because, if anything, Lew Archer, especially in the novels of the 60s and 70s, has been criticized as being too sensitive and not tough enough, sort of the lefty-liberal's hardboiled dick, as compared to Mike Hammer and such. Actually, what I find most interesting about Archer is that, though you do learn stray facts about him throughout the series, for the most part he functions as almost a window for the reader, a consciousness through which you perceive the other characters in the story with clarity, while he remains mostly a blank. It's an interesting effect, quite unlike most detective fiction, where the detective's relationships, tastes, and the trappings of his or her life often takes center stage.

I always liked him, especially in that Riddler suit. His Kirk Douglas was even better than Kirk's. He was on an episode of the original Star Trek, too, as well as on Sullivan the night of the Beatles debut.

Last year, Classmates.com drummed up a 25th reunion of my high school class. Early in the year I started getting these very generic postcards that said "You're due for a reunion." It was clear that they were not from anyone in my class. In fact they bore no names at all. As the months passed, the notices became a bit more personal, as Classmates had gotten the usual-suspect, class-officer-types to sign on. Still, it seemed weird that we needed middle-men to get the thing off the ground, when we'd had a very successful 20th reunion on the class's own steam. By the time the reunion date was set, on a date in October rather than our accustomed Thanksgiving weekend, I began to get calls and e-mails from the friends I am still in touch with. We all agreed that it seemed cheesy to have this outside organization run the reunion, no doubt for a hefty portion of the proceeds. Several of them were upset that they couldn't make it, either because they were travelling a long distance for Thanksgiving and couldn't afford or justify two trips in such close succession, or because they were already booked for that apparently randomly-chosen October weekend. Long story short: The turnout was less than half that of the 20th, and neither I nor any of my friends went. Since then we've all received a questionairre from our class officers asking what they can do to make the reunion attendance better for the next time around. to Classmates.com

Twisted Village is, indeed, a great place for all your avant-music needs. Once, a few years back, I walked in there to casually peruse their used bins, hoping to find one or two interesting things. Lo and behold, there, all at once, was every Ornette record I didn't have but wanted, along with numerous other amazing free jazz things, all for less than a ten spot each. Whenever I see a trove like this I assume that someone died. I asked the owner if that was the case. "No," he said, "but he did move to Africa." I spent about $300 there that week.