sgcim

RMJ is a busy boy. He just came out with a recent book on Nick Drake that I've got to read.

I've been listening to Todd Rundgren with The Metropole Orchestra, an hour and a half concert, and was very impressed with him and the great arrangements the orchestra performed. I think I might include something from him in my my big band rock project, since it's an orchestra not a big band. "Hello, It's Me" has the most jazz content, so I can most easily steal- I mean incorporate, some of that arrangement for BB. His voice is not the same as it was of course, and its ponderousness can get unpleasant often, except on a masterpiece like "Mammon" where it fits perfectly in a frightening, powerful performance. A lot of his music ventures into musical theater, and having just completed a two week gig playing "Footloose", I could do without that, but his music is on a higher level than that. Like Scott Walker, he does a fantastic job of singing with just the strings, and showed what a great musician he is by being perfect in pitch and time. He knew the charts backward and forward, and even performed Onomatopoeia twice in a row, because he felt the first time wasn't fast enough!

The thing was, he was no Wes. His rhythmic approach has always been on the funk,soul, Blues, Country, and R&B side of things, while Wes was all about swinging. GB's fave guitarist was Hank Garland, while Wes came out of Charlie Christian. There's nothing sordid or insidious about it- as you said, everyone got what they wanted.

Yeah, Doug was homeless for a while.

Doug was a great jazz guitarist like his father, but he was a long time junkie. That's why he looked like Chet.

I guess that confirms the Creed Taylor story.

He was the greatest 'gateway drug' for rock guitarists getting into jazz. A lot of them never moved on, but there's no problem with that. People like what they like. I'm at peace with that. Listen to hip-hop/rap 24/7. No problem with that.

The story I heard from one of Attila Zoller's students was that at the time of Wes Montgomery's death, Creed Taylor was desperate to find another jazz guitarist to replace Wes on CTI, so he went to Attila, and every other jazz guitarist in NYC, and every one of them turned it down out of respect for Wes. The only one who agreed to do it was GB.

Nice Carpenters bossa nova.

After playing "The Greatest Love" hundreds of times on gigs, I decided to take out Benson's version from the library. I couldn't believe how corny and saccharine it was. If it wasn't a library record, I would've smashed it into pieces. Then I played "Masquerade" with the blues drummer/vocalist Charles 'Honeyboy' Otis, and it was literally a religious experience. So I checked GB's version out again at the library with the same result. I bought GB's albums "Giblet Gravy, and it sounded like a mediocre R&B album, and the one he did with Joe Farrell, and it sounded like a bad New Age album. His earlier stuff was much better, but I read his autobiography, and it ends with him talking with a fan of his talking about how Charlie Parker killed jazz by alienating people with its complexity. He then reassures the reader that HIS music has taken the harmony of Bird and made it palatable to a larger audience with whatever the heck he's doing, and that the future of jazz is safe in his hands....or something to that effect.

He also had a severe problem with alcohol. I was working with the Austrian vibes player Vera Auer-Bouchet at a club once, and on the breaks she'd tell me how he was "climbing the walls" trying to go cold turkey from alcohol. She was amazed that even though he was so out of it, he sounded as great as he always did. I've still yet to hear a better guitarist play live.

Alright, Richard Cook gets an F, and you get an A+!

Ron's classical training was a big part of why he got called for so many great dates. He plays in tune on an instrument that Gunther Schuller said was impossible to play in tune on; especially on the low F. And then he always plays the right notes in his bass lines; even if it's just a root and 5th thing; it's the appropriate thing to do in that situation. Bass genius.

The kid was born in 1944. In a later interview in the 90's he describes himself as the poster child for Ritalin. Agreed.

Jorma Kaukonen said in an interview that he used to see KB doing somersaults in the 60s in clubs when he was soloing when rock started getting big. Of course that was nothing compared to my new idol, Larry Collins. I now base my entire performing routine on this young master of the instrument:

Yeah, beautiful arr. by Gil with those french horns. M&S never sounded as good as it did on that album. I don't know about the thesis of that article, Burrell is as well-known a guitarist by anyone into the music. Even rockers love "Midnight Blue".

Probably not. He's into Kerouak. Neo-Beats are known for poor investment choices...

There's no money in the record business anymore. That's why he's still touring at his age.

Fagen used to love listening to Les baxter scores. There's a funny story in the book where Mike McDonald was doing some weed late at night, and the SCTV skit came on with Rick Moranis playing MM running back and forth from record date to record date to add background vocals to Chrisopher Cross, Steely Dan etc...songs, and he thought he was having a psychotic breakdown watching himself on TV! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JLbhEUE_5U

Hey Felser, thanks to your posting of the Nazz playing "Hello, It's Me", I decided to check out Todd Rundgren's "The Individualist". I'm only halfway through it, but it's a fascinating look at the 60s and 70s scene through TR's eyes and ears. I never knew he was such an accomplished producer. Thanks! Sure, Fagen ripped off the intro and feel of Jarrett's tune, but listen to the great song he composed on top of it. It was stupid on his part to not give KJ credit. He paid for it. KJ is now listed as co-composer on the record. When Keith complained about it at first, DF used to post "your check's in the mail!"

Yes, the author goes into that. Horace just enjoyed that he was remembered by a rock band, but as you said, Keith was the Karma. However, SD is the most sampled white rock band in the history of music, and they quote Fagen saying, "Oh, we've got thousands of lawyers working on that stuff right now". BTW, this is written in conjunction with an artist, who draws pictures of every character in Fagen's 'stories' contained in their songs, as well as drawings of many musicians, producers, managers, and anyone else involved with the fascinating story of SD. The author dedicates the book to WB, whom the author apparently had a very strong connection to, and was literally destroyed by WB's death. Fagen answered the question that everyone always wondered about concerning what role WB actually had in the actual writing of the songs. Donald would write the songs completely by himself. When he was done, he'd send it to Becker, and Becker would make one little change in some aspect of the song; maybe the lyrics, maybe a chord change, maybe a melody note, and then DF would consider the song finished. That's coming back to haunt him now, because Becker's estate is suing him for whatever they can get.

Winnipeg 30.

They wrote the intro. Sample was playing what they wanted him to play. He had NO compositional input. This was one of the first cases that required that rappers have to legally clear their 'samples' with the people that actually composed the music. It was T&G's decision to sign the agreement. The joke was on SD, because T&G found out that Sean Combs was going to include that 'sample' in one of his songs. SD could have made millions of dollars off of it, but didn't. T&G got a million bucks for clearing their 'sample' of the work of another artist. The fact that they couldn't sell anything after that is not SD's fault. Before cases like this, it was like the Wild West in rap music; they could steal/sample anything they wanted to, and not pay a cent for doing it.

All I've read are Eminent Hipsters by Fagen (which I recommend) and the one by Brian Sweet (which I don't). This one is good, but the others might be better. I buy very few books. I got this one from Columbia University's library The only new book I bought was Phil Woods' autobiography. Everything else I've either bought used from library book sales, or gotten from the NY public library system or Columbia's library.

Fagen rapping "Uptown Baby, Uptown Baby at 1:03 into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKq61QkulZo&list=PLOWxWZ_V0ieRNPrkkWByUU0p1NNhYFn_K&index=4