sgcim

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

He was on so many records, it would be impossible to not listen to him. He was even on a Steely Dan LP! RIP

GM always did interesting things in the many idioms he wrote and played in- jazz quintet, tasteful pop, big band arr., movie scores, experimental pieces for strings, woodwind quintet and piano (Steve Kuhn, Bill Evans) and even folk-rock. I can't wait for the doc, but word is, it's not as probing as it could have been.

Well, I was happy because I had heard the trio sides before at my bi-polar ex-chick's house, where her bi-polar dad had scratched the shit out of the 78 (along with Bird stuff on Dial), and there was some great Howard Roberts on it, with much improved sound. Speaking of Buddy Collette, I also picked up "Man of Many Parts" on Contemporary, which featured some great playing by this very under-rated sax/flute/clarinet player. His quartet with Gerry Wiggins was a gas, and the quintet with Barney Kessell was also wonderful. The octet with Gerald Wilson on trumpet (now I know why he became an arr./bandleader) was pretty disappointing. All were recorded in 1956. I saw Buddy on the 30 minute TV show from CA, "Club Date", and he was just perfection on all three instruments.

Gene Puerling, the greatest harmonic genius that ever lived- live! Thanks!

I found this weird re-issue at a library I frequent, and I don't know why they bothered to mention Horn's name on it-he doesn't do any blowing on it! He is featured on clarinet (if that is him) on a neo-Baroque piece by Fred Katz, but there's no improvisation in it. There are eight cuts on the CD, and he only plays the heads and ensembles on #5-8! This is supposedly from the sleazy Crown Records label, but most of it must have come from World Pacific, as a thread here stated. I picked it up, because I distinctly remember seeing the first three cuts on a Chico Hamilton Trio 78 that an ex-girlfriend's father had in his collection. I tried to tape it back then, but it was in such lousy shape that it really wasn't worth it. The sound on this re-issue is clear, but the arco cello is way too loud, and I found myself laughing my head off at how loud Chico's tom-toms were on one tune. It sounded like CH was in my living room, and the other guys were in another room. The liner notes in the CD booklet do not give the personnel for any of the tunes, and for the trio tunes they say that it is "most likely Geo. Duvivier on bass and either Howard Roberts or Jim Hall on guitar(!). It's nice that they bothered to fully research their 're-issue'. For the quintet tunes, they don't bother to mention who plays bass and guitar on them...

I just finished this book, and PL is "not going to go quietly". He is one of the few world class jazz musicians to lay down the truth, as he sees it. The book doesn't get really interesting until PL comes over to the US; then PL unloads some of the more controversial shit. He talks about the race issue in jazz in NYC, and said that when he first came to NYC, most of the white jazz cats would "look right through him", because he didn't have the "music school, old boy network behind him." When he worked, toured and recorded with the great black quartet he had of John Hicks, Ray Drummond and Marvin "Smitty" Smith, white musicians said to him, "Why are you working with those black guys? They're not gonna hire you." PL answered them, "Well, you're not hiring me! Goddamn!" He then laced into the clueless jazz critics and journalists with a suggestion that musicians should have polls on them, the way they have polls on us. The categories he makes up are so hilarious, it's worth buying the book just for that. I won't spoil it. He talks about being named the music director of the "Guitars Play Mingus Group" by Mingus' widow, and then finding out that the one guitarist who wasn't a good fit for the group, Larry Coryell (who couldn't read the parts, and was playing way too loud), was being paid more than everyone else. PL complained to Sue Mingus, and she replied, "Well, he made a record with Charles." PL replied, "Yeah, and it was the worst record Charles ever made!" She thought for a minute, and replied, "That's what Charles said." He then took on the whole the early 90s, Wynton Marsalis "Young,Gifted and Black syndrome", talking about how the corporate record label support went to black musicians under the age of 25, who "were still in the early or transitional stages of their development, and were about as ready to make a major label record as (he) was ready to fly to Mars. Maybe not as ready!" He later talked about being hired in 2005 by Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola at JALC, and said the gig paid so little that he couldn't hire a respectable trio, and played the gig with just a bass player for a week. He later mentioned how he doesn't use electronic effects, because of their tendency to take away one's individual voice and personality. He said listening to Pat Metheny and Mike Stern, he thought, "If you're going to use that much digital reverb or delay, you might just as well have a lobotomy! The digital effects, especially the delay, seemed to obscure the attack of the note, which somehow impeded the forward motion of the music." He did say that he had no problem with it on non-jazz music. Finally, he talks about how he teaches students the things that jazz academia doesn't teach- jazz esthetics (sic?). There's obviously a lot more covered in the book, but I'd thought I'd just cover some of the more controversial aspects.

Oh God, SS is turning over in his grave!

I was just listening to the 1962 "Sahib Shihab and the DRJG" album I recently acquired, and was surprised by the quality of his orignal tunes and arrangements, not to mention his playing. I did a search here, and found he had no page. Surely, this must be an oversight...

I used the terms 'placid' and 'raw' in the sense of Hall adding pedals (electronic f/x) to his sound, like Frisell and Metheny in his later playing. I happen to prefer his work with Giuffre, Rollins, and Evans more than his later stuff. YMMV.