sgcim

Great show! They played "Step Lightly" by Blue Mitchell, which Leonard Lopate uses as the theme for his daily radio show on WNYC. I've been wondering what tune that was for a long time. I was in a used record store recently, and they played a Herbie Nichols tune that LL also uses as break music on the show. I didn't know that one, and had to ask the record store guy who it was.

I just read the Oscar Peterson article, and you obviously understand OP's playing, so I take back what I said concerning your stance on OP. I recently read "Miles on Miles", and if one were to confront him on everything he said in his interviews, it would take years. Miles liked to put people on. When my personal deity, Bill Evans, was asked to join the MD group, Miles told him he would have to give a blow job to everyone in the band, if he wanted the gig. Bill thought for a minute, and said, "I'm sorry Miles, I don't think I can do that." Miles broke out laughing, and told BE he was just kidding.

I only heard that one tune "Charade". It sounded like Tootie used a high school student on that cut. Maybe the rest of it is good, but EI sounded like a triad playing rocker on it.

???? OP = Oscar Peterson EI = Ethan Iverson Cranshaw is a big fan of the former; Iverson I assume is not. Yeah, I'm going back to EI's interview with Fred Hersch, where they both dismissed OP as not even worthy of comment in their odd,little version of the history of jazz piano. I guess I can understand that after hearing EI's pitiful attempt at playing Mancini's "Charade" on Albert Heath's latest album...

Great interview, I'm glad he shoved OP down EI's throat.

Some primo Hank Jones on that. KCR played it a few times on their tribute.

As a kid, I went to the "Guitar Album" concert at Town Hall in NYC. http://www.amazon.com/The-Guitar-Album-featuring-Guitarists/dp/B0013ZH1WQ It was a pretty eclectic concert with people like Tiny Grimes, Chuck Wayne (he had an electric bass player, and I didn't know what they were doing), John McLaughlin (with his wife playing autoharp; they were both dressed in white robes), Joe Beck, George Barnes and Bucky Pizzarelli, and Charlie Byrd.

Ricky Lawson... Corrected, thanks!

Try to find the video they made of the "Two Against Nature, Live, plush Jazz-Rock Party. IMHO, it's the best video of a live show I've ever seen. They play some of their old tunes, and some of the new material from Two Against Nature. They open as powerfully as humanly possible with a horn soli from "Green Earings". The Highlights: Rhythm section of Tom Varney on bass, and the late Ricky Lawson on drums(!). Some dynamite tenor solos by Cornelius Bumpus Classic backup vocalist choreography by the black chick backup vocalist. Only Downside: Too much Walter Becker noodling on that POS Sadowski.

And yet, Neil Peart, Mickey Hart, Bill Ward, Lars Ullrich, Stewart Copeland and Nick Mason all took part in the documentary, and acknowledge GB as both the founding father of rock drumming, and their main inspiration for playing the drums. There are some reasons for his seemingly insane attitude: 1) He's got a serious case of degenerative osteo-arthritis, and is playing in intense pain whenever he picks up the drumsticks, and can't practice anymore. 2) He's got COPD, and has to use an oxygen mask. 3) He made and lost literally fortunes by: a) Taking the money he made from Cream and Blind Faith, and paying the salaries of the 12 member GB Air Force, without taking a cent for himself b) Using the rest of that money to build the first recording studio in Africa (which took three years), and then got it taken away from him by the Nigerian police, as they shot at him speeding away in his range rover. c) Building and funding a Veterinary Clinic He's extremely bitter about Jack Bruce and Pete Brown getting all the residuals from Cream when he was responsible for the 5/4 bolero in "White Room", and changing the tempo from JB's original fast, to a much hipper sounding medium tempo in "Sunshine of Your Love". He had to work as a firefighter in Colorado, and an olive farmer in Italy for many years. He's totally broke now. While I'm not saying that any of this justifies his ranting and raving, it does put his life in perspective...

I don't think ANYBODY would give you an argument on him being a POS as a person (especially his family- he told his first wife. "If you think you come before my drums, you can just walk out of this house right now", or his son the drummer, who he abandoned, telling him, "You can't swing to save your life- just give it up"), but as far as music is concerned, he is generally recognized by most rock drummers as the very archetype of rock drumming itself. His six years in Africa studying African drumming and playing in Fela Kuti's band were groundbreaking. As far as jazz went, drummers like Phil Seamen, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Mel Lewis and Art Blakey highly respected him. Check out the groove he laid down with Charlie Haden here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEpMLiqzZd8 With a more mainstream soloist, this could've been some concert...

Be very careful if you decide to speak to him. One wrong word, and he'll set on you like a leopard on a zebra! He broke the director's nose with his cane when he told Baker he was going to talk to all the people in his past. When the director asked him if he played with Mick Jagger, he mimmicked the director saying: "Ooh, did you play with Mick Jagger?" He then described the experience thusly: "This little effeminate-looking kid came up, and tried to sing one number. I said to Jack (Bruce), who is this stupid looking little c-nt? What's he doing here? Jack and I threw some jazz things in there- completely threw him off! He was terrified of me!" (chuckles). He said the reason why he named his band Ginger Baker's Air Force is that that was the nickname for the junkie section of Duke Ellington's Orchestra.

Kind of ironic that he's playing at Yoshi's; in the doc. he couldn't get a gig in LA when he lived there after coming back from Africa. The West Coast musicians were scared to death of him. He even placed an ad in some music magazine, begging for work. Under 'Previous Experience' it read: "Drummer for Graham Bond Organization, Cream, Blind Faith etc.." They wouldn't even let him join any Polo Clubs in the entire state, so he took off for Colorado, where he started his own Polo Club/ Jazz Night with Ron Miles' jazz group. He's got severe degenerative osteo-arthritis and COPD, so don't expect miracles...

I did a few shows with him back in the 90s. Seemed like a nice guy. RIP, Jerry.

He was great in "Let's Get Lost". RIP, Mr. Strazzeri

Baker seemed to have adopted four jazz drummers, Max Roach, Elvin, Art Blakey and Phil Seamen as his father figures. His father died in WW II when GB was about five. I've watched the part that deals with Baker playing in the Graham Bond Organization, Cream and Blind Faith, four times, and I still can't stop laughing. Baker apparently hated Jack Bruce after he switched from upright to electric bass, and the present day interviews with Baker and Bruce have to be seen to be believed. Commenting on them would be ruining all the fun- see this doc!

It's streaming on Netflix, now! Worth watching just to hear him put down rock drummers like John Bonham and Keith Moon, and then break into tears when he declares that the thing he was most proud of was the fact that he was close friends with, and respected by Art Blakey, Elvin Jones and Phil Seamen

While I agree with you, it's not impossible to sue someone over the instrumental intro to a song. Keith Jarrett sued Donald Fagen and Walter Becker over the intro to their tune "Gaucho", and won. If you look at the credits to that song on any recording done after the case, Jarrett's name is on there, along with Becker and Fagen. That's the best they could hope for- partial credit. As far as getting full credit, LZ would have had tohave used eight or more melody notes from Taurus for them to get da whole pie.

Although the toilet is a good place for reading Crotch, excessive toilet reading can lead to a serious case of hemmies.

According to Clark Terry on his Bad Little Big Band LP, a capella means, 'without any clothes on."

The piece he wrote for solo harp in Eye of the Devil was the same melody that he used in one of the pieces of "The October Suite". I just read an interview with Jack Reilly in his book "The Harmony of Bill Evans, Vol. 2", where he laced into TOS, and other thirdstream compositions (especially Gunther Schuller's work) for either not being classically well constructed enough, or not being real jazz vehicles. He concluded that only his own compositions successfully welded the two idioms together in the correct fashion.

KCR played his entire output as a leader yesterday, which was unusual in the respect that there were a few LPs recorded in the late 50s, and then nothing until 1992. As usual, all his recordings featured his beautiful sound, flawless technique and imaginative, melodic ideas. The 50s recordings featured some stunning work by the always great Hank Jones, and a rare jazz appearance by the guitarist Al Casamente.

Ja ja, das Kai. Dat da way all self-destructive jazz musicians go, dey let da racists beat up dere white protege, den dey drink demselves to death!

I've seen it probably ten times, and I enjoy it each time I see it. The cinematography is very good- stark back and white- the writing and acting are very good, and it has Nat Adderly doing all the excellent trumpet solos. That's Frank Sinatra Jr. as the white boy tryin' to get soul. Mel Torme has a cool bit at the party scene, singing Benny Carter's "All That Jazz". Sammy Davis Jr. was great as the self-destructive lead, mimes playing the trumpet very well, and sings a few tunes nicely. It definitely doesn't skate over the civil rights struggle going on back then... Here da rest of da dope: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.jots.200017488/default.html Edit