johnagrandy

I was going to ask - is that Michael Brecker, or Michael Corleone on tenor? Why does Randy keep on trying to sing? I don't get it. Even on "34th & Lex" (which overall is a fantastic set of music, great for the car) Randy sneaks in some background rap-alongs I don't know what to call them. I forget which tunes (the ones I never listen to). You'd figure after people freaked-out meeting "Randroid" in "Hangin' In The City" he'd call it quits. Meanwhile he plays horn better and better. Almost 60 now isn't he ?

I really don't see this as any different than the "Blue Note Composer" series, or the "For Lovers" series. It's just another way to generate revenue from thier back catalog. I wouldn't mind hearing how the material is treated. Time marches on and the music changes. Nothing really "to get" here. Sampling, cross fertilization, fusion, whatever you want to call it has been going on for hundreds of years. The Blue Note catalog is not immune, and really why would you want it to be? You misunderstand me. I totally dig that "Red Clay" is the 2nd most sampled song ever. But doesn't sound like that's what's going on here. Tell me if I'm wrong, but when you sample something like "Red Clay" ... you take the bass, piano, drums tracks as your rhythm line ... then you mix in other tracks, maybe other samples, maybe original stuff, either played or computer-generated ... maybe you substitute some synth drumming for Lenny White 'cause you want a more prominent beat ... maybe you have someone rap on top of it ... whatever ... "Red Clay" is almost tailor-made for this kind of reusability. But "opening up the BN vaults" ... grabbing pieces here and there ? Too much dilution.

Is this worth adding to a nearly complete BB collection? Does Randy sing ?

Greg Tardy evokes the ghost of Dolphy on those trax.

Not sure what category to post this in ... I was nosing around the ropeadope.com site and found this ( ! ) http://store.ropeadope.com/dframesetmain.j...n=1&category=15 This is a little hard to believe ... Blue Note allowing remixing and other monkeying-around with classic jazz trax by cats like Medina and Madlib. Both of these "alchemists" are very talented (I think I saw Medina live at some ropeadope event) ...... but they're really on the hip hop side of of town. I believe they work mainly in the lab/studio: production, mix, remix, sampling, dubbing. I don't know too much about either of them. I found the following here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madlib "The second, released in 2003, was a remix of Blue Note Records. This album features original Blue Note recordings, some remixed and resampled, and some replayed by Madlib, as well as rapping by M.E.D. aka Medaphoar." I don't even know what "resampling" is ... was Donald Byrd doing sampling ? "... some replayed by Madlib ..." : now I'm floating around in outer space. Sorry. I guess I'm a hip hop moron. I don't get it. Does this strike anyone else as a little ... off ? Anyone know who at BN authorized this ? More coming ? What's the point ? Anyone heard this stuff ?

Lloyd should hang with David Blaine. They could tune their levitation distances to adjust for any differences in their body heights, thus improving communication.

This is really stupid. The most popular thread on a jazz forum is about a band , albeit led by a brilliant improviser , which amassed a massive fan base primarily consisting of folk looking for escapes from reality. Jazz is all about courageous response to the cold harsh nature of reality for most on this earth -- not an escape. How many deadheads do I know from my past who destroyed their lives with that "lifestyle" ... ... ok, all my right-[hand fingers all up and now I'm counting on my left.

Stag-o-lee Crouch? Skagly Grouch !

The Grouch attitude was discussed in this previous thread. Wow. I actually read that entire thread. Even the literary stuff I have little to no clue about (I have read all of Graham Greene however - who perhaps was too coldly realistic and self-experiential a writer to find his work involved in those sorts of debates). Here is what makes no sense: Wynton leads the vanguard of jazz as Black American Classical Music communicated by serious, sober, clearly visibly intelligent (even intellectual) educated gentlemen who communicate emotion and experience in a proper, even in a somewhat narrowly conformist , but definitely civilized manner, modeling on the long tradition of many other American art forms with less "checkered" pasts ... ... not by eccentric junk geniuses. "Get the junkies out of jazz." : wasn't that really what was going on at Columbia in the early 80s ? So why would Marsalis wish to continue to exert his considerable influence (cultural and financial) to assist Grouch ... a man clearly incapable of living the life of an intellectual ?

Can anyone explain this guy ? Especially if you've had personal dealings with the man. I hear nothing but bad ... and check this out (!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Crouch

Fascinating stuff. Anyone seek the flick "Electric Miles: A Different Kind of Blue" ? Worth watching ?

Man, these Mosaic BN Morgan CD box sets are going $250+ on eBay. And a Vee-Jay Morgan/Shorter box went $355.

No, I've got two CDs on RTE & a 3rd on Trema. Never heard of the Lighthouse label. Do you mean Laserlight? Also, I thnk that maybe Malaco has a release of them. Not sure about that. However you can find them, get them! It's confusing ... really confusing. Were multiple Olympia concerts in '61 made into albums ? Was Thelonious on the session ? Here's an RTE issue with Hardman Griffin Monk DeBrest Blakey : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000006LY...v=glance&n=5174 There's lots more I've dug up, but I won't write it ... process of elimination seems faster.

I am in complete disbelief that not a single soul on these boards owns Robert Walter "Super Heavy Organ". Hey Robert are you here somewhere ? You probably own it right ?

Oh, yeah, that's true ! I used to have all those LPs. Wynton did his best work with Art , in my opinion. There's this one ballad he does : "Bitter Dose" (I forget which session) on which he plays with real maturity.

Now if you want to hear a really "loose" Blakey, check out "Nihon Bashi" on Kyoto. WHOA! And hey, no discussion of great Blakey performances, trumpet-centric or not, is complete w/o a serious consideration of the 5/13/61 Olympia gig released on RTE/Trema/etc. That's "HOLY SHIT!" material if ever there was any. Do you know how good is the soundwork on the 2CD set of the 61 Olympia concert on the Lighthouse label?

Well that of course goes without saying. Not very far into this, but interesting nobody has mentioned any of the later brassmen: Wynton Marsalis, Valerie Ponomarev, Terence Blanchard ... I forget the rest. One thing I've noticed about Bill Hardman: he sure gets a lot of respect from his peers on the horn.

When I first bought it I didn't read the liner notes or anything and I thought it was live because someone (Bu?) was yellin' stuff at the soloists ! But which Moanin', the final take or the alternate take they included in the RVG remaster (recorded a few weeks earlier I think) ? (And as good as that Lee solo is, it can't touch The Gigolo. That's a fucking masterpiece.)

So what's your choice? It's the toughest question. Imagine if I asked the same question for sax. 100% identical responses. Which do you like more? Hub's improv on "Free For All" or on "The Core" ? "Free For All" IS Freddie ... but I think it's a better construction on "The Core" ... well, that one is his tune. How could Hub be 25 at the time ... mind-boggling.

I would beg to diiffer. The tempos might not be as bright, but the energy is at least as high, if not higher. Well, who knows, for me they're two totally different albums. I find Freddie a viscerally more exciting player than Lee but that might be because I saw him live so many times ... but I've never seen jazz reviews on Amazon like the ones for Free For All ... ... words and phrases like "blazing" "volcanic" "fury" "tears it up" "fire" "melted down" "shreds" "bursting at the seam" "melting" "thunderous" "H bombs" "meltdown" "intense" "Jesus F*****g Christ" ... You don't see that much emotion in most Amazon jazz reviews.

What makes it so tough to decide is you hear something like Indestructible , which isn't a high-energy album like Free For All or A Night In Tunisia, but has a bit of an unusual theme through most of the numbers: call it exotic, foreign, mysterious, restlessness finding restfulness or sometimes just gotta keep travellin' on into the unknown ... I don't know exactly how to put it -- but there's a definite common theme to many of the pieces (just like "Free For All" has this high-powered message of strength in the unity of pursuit of freedom that can not be ignored) .... ... and on most of the numbers, Lee's consistently doing this very interesting thing: these innovative lines with all the trademark motifs, plus the general Morgan pattern: the understated overstatements back and forth and forth and back on each other, the trick half-valves and bends and slurs and all the funky stuff that gave him such a rhythmic groove (well, at least some of that stuff) ... but at the same time he's always stayin' within the theme, within what the band's doing as a synergistic unit, within the center of the musical message -- which is what Blakey's music was all about. Of course, later, under his own leadership, and jazz in general, Lee would go much further in this modal (if you want to use a musical rather than a thematic term) direction [e.g. The Gigolo , Search For A New Land , etc.] -- but we're talkin' Blakey in '64 here). Lee doesn't find the realm of the sublime here, like he would later, but we see him lay down those tracks to be followed.

Might turn into a rather interesting (and contentious) topic ... What is your pick for the single Blakey Messengers album (not single composition) that contains the greatest overall trumpet work ? I don't mean the best overall Messengers album that contains amazing trumpet ... ... but the single Messengers album that contains the greatest overall trumpet work. Extremely tough question (in my opinion) because: 1. so many possible recordings ... how many have even listened to them all ? 2. almost every latter-half 20th century great on the horn was a Messenger 3. the best Messenger on trumpet overall might not be the one with the best single recording (as defined above) 4. the high-energy, showmanship, and flamboyence of many of the young greats when they joined Art can possibly trick the mind ... (or maybe not) 5. could be one of the lesser-known players ... it's possible ! I tend to write a lot of words ... so (for now) I'll just give my #1: Freddie Hubbard on Free For All But it was really really close and really really tough to choose Freddie over my main man Lee. And despite listening to Blakey all day, I still don't feel all that confident about my pick.

I agreed at first ... but Ray was a rich cat so it's not really like they took his money ... anyway, blame Ron Goldstein if he got a Lotus out of it. That Sco tribute CD and tour has been a phenomenal success in the States and especially in Europe (and continues to be to this day). And it gave a chance to a lot of bigtime wellknown talent to pay tribute to Ray the way they wanted to. Apparently it was an amazing session, all done in NYC the week before Christmas -- I think even including Christmas day. So now I say: Give the people what they want ! And I even gotta admit I kinda like John Mayer ....

He sounded better when he wasn't dead ?

Now you got me thinkin' I was on the pipe those nights at Yoshis. No ... it was a quartet. Holland was definitely there. Nah, you can't miss a fearsome bearded dude playin' a big acoustic bass so intensely it's gonna snap. Anybody remember those shows? Sco was on fire so bad extinguishers were in hand ...