sgcim

I dunno, but Shelly's Afro-Cuban beat on the "2-3-4 " album is so solid, it inspired me to write a chart on it. What a drummer!

Aaron Sachs was on that album, so I asked him about it. He said he was sitting there practicing Bach on the flute, and everyone else was getting high or something on the break. Then John Lewis asked him what he was doing, and he told him. John Lewis thought about it for a second and said, "Yeah, maybe I should try that some time!", as if it never occurred to him before...

I'm preparing a Tik-Tok meme around Schoenberg. If they can bring back 'jazz', they can bring back 12-tone.

To the vapid idjut that did that video, anything without a drum machine is jazz. He thinks that people need to feel connected to the artist so badly, that they don't care what the music sounds like. The first rehearsal for my Laufey Tribute starts tonight at noon. Be there or be squared. I just finished a book "From ICELAND TO New Orleans: The story of Laufey.... She had a past life.

We can only pray. I'm already forming a Laufey Tribute Band as we speak. I'm gonna call it "The Music Laufey Invented".

Best series ever made, period.

She uses all maj7, maj9. min7th and min9 chords and sus chords, she has an actual musical melody going on, something very rare these days. The music business in the US only cares about the kids. and the kids will say "OLD SCHOOL" and turn it off after five seconds. She does put the guy down. so maybe the Swiftian element will appeal to that crowd. Maybe Iceland's different. The music in their movies is listenable. It's Tik-Tok!

I'm reading "Yellow Dog" by Martin Amis. I'm finding myself to be devolving like Xan Meo. Since I started the book, I find myself appreciating rap music more and more, and throwing away my jazz and classical collection. When will this stop?

Here's one on CRI from Billy Jim Layton, the head of the music dept. at the uni I went to. It has some jazz elements to it (the cello playing a walking bass line, the long Dolphy-liike violin lines. He liked to use jazz elements in his pieces, but a friend of mine who was a child prodigy on piano, was 'arrested' by the music dept. police, and brought before 'judge 'Billy Jim' for the offense of playing jazz piano in the practice rooms. He was ordered to stop playing 'popular music', and concentrate on 'serious music'. My friend responded by transferring to The New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Jaki Byard. The second movement is a snooze fest, so I didn't include it, but it's available on the queue. I don't know if it ever made it to digital, but it sounds great on vinyl.

Yeah, he was one of the few bass players who could actually exert the strongest influence in a band like that! I saw them live, and he really stood out on everything.

That was the first ERM. the great Gordon Beck replaced the great George Gruntz. PW used the best.

He laid out Ornette twice in one night, when he saw him live for the first time.

DH seems to be on every one of my fave albums from France. This is the only video I've ever seen of him. The guy's a force of nature.

Sad news. He was a great person, too. If you read "Notes and Tones", he's the only one in the book that doesn't have a bad thing to say about anyone. How many jazz musicians can say that they performed under Stravinsky, and was singled out by Igor for his great virtuosity during the curtain calls! RIP.

I heard an interesting story about Benson that confirmed something I read in DB a long time ago. This guy was studying with Attila Zoller at the time that Wes died. and Creed Taylor was looking for a new 'cash cow' to carry on the great Pop Sellout that Creed initiated with Wes. Attila was pretty hot at that time, getting a lot of airplay, so Creed approached him and asked him if he wanted to take Wes' place, and play some mellow pop tunes' melodies in octaves. Attila was disgusted at the crassness of the offer, and the notion that Wes could be replaced by a guy simply playing Pop music in octaves, and he turned Creed down. Creed went to every prominent jazz guitar player in NY, and gave them the same 'Faustian' offer. Every single one of them was repulsed by the idea, and turned him down. He was about to give up the idea, until he found the only guitarist who was overjoyed at the offer: George Benson! Benson took singing lessons with Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway, and the rest is history.

Sounds good, but he's already dead. Does it kill any other jazz drummers?

Yeah, either that or the same old Thad Jones, Maynard, Basie, Woody Herman, Bob Mintzer, etc... that is fine music, but when you play two straight hours of it , like we did the other night, you wanna cut your throat!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's just the same progressions, the same licks, the same tempos, the same everything over and over. Even when they try and play funk, it sounds like college, white funk that uses the same cliches over and over. Rhythm changes and blues, over and over. They just don't want to play any good songs. Duke Ellington at least could write good songs, and more interesting music.Same thing with Gil Evans, and Gary McFarland

Nilsson's GAS album was not like the Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Carly Simon, etc... atrocities, which were by artists whose original material was not selling like they used to, so they figured they might as well try a different genre and see how it sells. Nilsson had practically blown his voice out on a session with John Lennon, and he realized he had to make the album of his dreams before he completely lost his voice. He was a serious singer/songwriter that had his mind blown by The Beatles, but he loved the GAS, and showed his seriousness about that album by hiring Gordon Jenkins to conduct and arrange. Commercially, it flopped, but he didn't care. I was a huge fan of his early stuff, which featured great arrangements by George Tipton, but it didn't appeal to a larger audience, so he fired Tipton,(by telegram!), a man that spent his life savings on HN's demo tape, and started doing crap that appealed to a larger audience.

Thanks, guys! It sounds like a cash grab CD that was reissued called "The Best of Dennis Budimir", which was in actuality the Worst of DB!

Is it worth getting for DB's blowing, or does he just play the melodies and rock out?

It had mostly rock tunes on it- "Like a Rolling Stone, Eve of Destruction etc... Must be a pisser!

He was probably a sideman on it. Sounds familiar. I see it on Wiki from 1965. Maybe it was a re-issue of a Revelation session?

I think you're thinking of Jay Berliner's "Bananas Are Not Created Equal". JB was like the DB of the East Coast.

Jimmy?

No, I copied and pasted from Wiki.