Johnny E

How is this different than "Please keep religion (and politics for that matter) off of jazz bulletin boards. It's the only place left where people of all faiths, political persuasions, or sexual orientations can come together and just enjoy jazz talk." There is a way to set the board up so you don't even know the politics section exists. Besides, a politics section was part of the Bluenote Board of which many of the original Organissimo members migrated.

Any questions?

Is it Christian bashing to want freedom from religion? Listen, I have no problem with people worshiping anyway they choose. As long as it is on their dime and in their space. In Seattle the people voted down the stadium twice, only to have the city council override them and it was built (with tax payer money) anyway. I'm a baseball fan and I wanted the stadium so you didn't see me out in the street protesting about it, but for a multi-billion dollar industry to bilk billions from the tax payers, then turn the stadiums into quasi-mega-churches is just plain wrong. You think if a team was signing only Jewish players and having siddur guided prayer services in the outfield after games the same "Christians" would be defending this? Of course they wouldn't. It's a bully tactic because Christians make up the majority in this country. Then they want to turn around and play victim. Gimme a break! Please keep religion (and politics for that matter) out of baseball. It's the only place left where people of all faiths, political persuasions, or sexual orientations can come together and just be Americans. We're losing all the things that used to unite us in this country and it's because of the pigheaded bully tactics taken on by the dominant white Anglo-Saxon Christians who run everything and the mendacious politicians who exploit people's ignorance for political gain. That said, it's gonna take a lot more than a few prayer meetings in the Braves outfield or a few Rocky Mountain dumb shits for me to boycott baseball. I'd go coo-coo bananas without it. Go M's!!!!

Reptet: Movin' Ahead in the Tradition BY PETER MONAGHAN Reptet is a traditional jazz band.Not so much because you hear, coursing through their forward-reaching music, the strains of Dixieland and many other later developments from it.The trad, swing, and bop elements are there, but Reptet is traditional in a simpler sense.When the sextet's four horns and solid rhythm section hoot and blast, weaving and walloping like a sideshow pugilist, they convey a sense that Reptet has engaged both the history of jazz styles and the art form's constant quest for innovation. The vitality of the present and the promise of the future pervade their work as essentially as does a reverence for the past.And the results are impressive. At times, in their live performances, they appear a juggernaut jazz band, arresting, compelling, and just plain cranked-up. And they show, on their just-released album, Do This!(Monktail Records) that they have many musical ideas at their command. It's an assured, dynamic effort that, like Reptet's live shows, relies on originals penned by four of the sextet's members. Do This! is one of the most convincing albums of the last several years from Seattle jazz players. It manages to capture the thrill of the band's live performances, even as it operates within the very different dimensions of the studio. Their audience-friendly live shows are at times ragged affairs that, at their finest moments, sharpen from an unruly onrush to a concerted campaign, firing on several fronts, with the soloists in sympathy and the rhythm section as taut as rebar. Their recording displays similar spirit, but appeals less to the rawness and power of clubgoing than the pleasures of careful listening. The cuts range. There's Tobi Stone's jauntily good-humored 'Bad Reed Blues' complete with squawks from said reed. There is Samantha Boshnack's set of hommages to the brothers Marx, of which 'Harpo', introduced with guest Bronn Journey's harp, salutes the most tenderly odd of the mob. And there's the soulful sorrow of Izaak Mills's 'H.R.' Stone and Mills play a range of saxes, bass clarinets, flutes, and assorted other instruments. (In live shows Mills also wears odd hats, jumps about quite a bit, and ensures that getting out of the house is fun.) Boshnack plays trumpets - slided and slideless. Ben O'Shea is a captivating trombonist. Holding it all together (with the aid of the horn players' evident practiced cohesion and attention to each other), are versatile drummer John Ewing and commanding, thrumming bassist Benjamin Verdier. For its individual contributions and group cohesion, Reptet is a band that deserves attention. It also appears ready for the encouragement, and provocation, of billing alongside much better-known, "national" acts. The members of Reptet are all associated with the Monktail Creative Music Concern, a loose aggregation of jazz players who have a toe or two inside the mainstream and the rest of their selves in the many meandering tributaries of progressive jazz. The consortium's members have formed mix-and-match lineups for their various purposes, most of which relate to that curious impulse of jazz to move the tradition ahead because, after all, doing so is the tradition. The Reptet lineup of today results from a process of pruning and figgering that goes back several years to woodshedding that John Ewing organized in the late 90s. Members came and went, and in some cases, such as bassist Ben Verdier's, returned. One alumnus is trumpeter Chris Littlefield, now with Carl Denson's Tiny Universe. A crucial turn, for Reptet, was the moment when its members decided to replace a departing pianist with a trombonist, with the result that Reptet ventured on with no chordal instrument. At first, says Samantha Boshnack, one of the band's four composers, "I was a bit nervous about composing for that lineup, but the instrumentation has opened up a lot of new ways of writing." Three trombonists later, Ben O'Shea became a fixture of Reptet - a particularly sinuous and searching one. At last year's Earshot Jazz Festival, the band performed with great spirit, and then another crucial lineup change took place: Saxophonist Tobi Stone, who had been playing with the Tiptons all-women saxophone combo, as she still is, returned. That provided Reptet with real clout up front, and enough skilled horns that none predominates, and a sense of a shared undertaking emerges. "More than anything, with the passage of time and the introduction of new players, it went from a group that was seeking an identity to something that had some kind of identity," says Ewing. Now, with the lineup set and the players settled and in synch, the group's composers have a distinctive lineup around which to frame their work. Adopting an all-originals format has long been a way to raise the eyebrows of jazz's more hidebound listeners, but it has also been the natural way to go for players who - not to harp on the point - wish to show that tradition is a progressive, not static or reified process. For Mills, playing originals has a simple rationale: "Standards are music by people I don't know." And: "As a player it's just not as rewarding to play old music that other people played better." The opportunity to play originals is "probably why I stick around," he says. Ewing agrees: "When you play music by people you don't know, it's more an interpretation, versus a collaboration. When you can get it straight from the person who wrote it, it's happening at the moment." In its ethos, Boshnack suggests, "Reptet is like a rock band. Everybody brings in stuff and then we work things out as a group. I never come in with what I want - I have an idea and everybody molds it." The molding has been going on for some time, and it shows to great effect both in concerts and on disc. Part of the approach is to embrace some of the spirit of free jazz, but to retain charts. Says Mills: "Pre-planned, organized music is fun, but in a jazz context you too often end up with people who are reluctant to play organized things because they're too cool for school." In fact, he says, sticking with written charts that nonetheless provide room for improvisation and interplay provides a solid basis for other kinds of innovation. For example, the band can then toy with the sonic opportunities that new technologies increasingly permit on stage and on disc. He says: "We're open to other recording capabilities, besides just playing in a room with two mics - overdubbing, different recording sounds, electronic sounds..." "Another strength of the group, I think," chimes in Ben Verdier, "is that we play some things that are very accessible, and some that push the boundary more. It's a great thing to bring people along who might not listen to the more out sorts of things." Interestingly, the group's writing sustains the feel of accessible "tunes" even as it often is intricate and conveys a fascinating sense of jazz history. A comparison, in that sense, might be the sinewy, braided, old-and-new sounds that Henry Threadgill conjures from his distinctive bands. Reptet's version of this - Mills's funny hats, etc. - is in similar spirit to Threadgill's summoning of the circus, the sideshow, and the barroom. "We're definitely not a sad group," says Ewing. "And we're not a sip-your-martini and pontificate-about-whatever type of group." Says Verdier: "We do well in situations where we can feel the focus of the audience on us. I enjoy getting to play jazz without what Izaak likes to call "jazz pressure." There's more expectation of formality that comes with saying your group plays jazz."

And let's not forget the great BERT WILSON in Olympia Washington.

Of course.

"Reptet has engaged both the history of jazz styles and the art form's constant quest for innovation. Do This! is one of the most convincing albums of the last several years from Seattle jazz players." ~Earshot Jazz~ On sale now: reptet.com (all $ goes to us) CDBaby (middlemen involved) Amazon (bigger middlemen involved)

I don't blame ya' We're sending out promo copies tomorrow morning. I'm eager to see how people respond to it. It is very different than our first release. Not just because Tobi and I are the only original members left, but because the instrumentation has changed so much. We are no longer a piano/sax quartet. We now are a four horn/bass/drums sextet...alto, tenor & bari saxes, Bb clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, alto flute, trombone, trumpet, slide trumpet, flugelhorn (and that's just the horns), we also have a shit load of percussion, a harpist (special guest), acoustic and electric bass, electronics, and vocals. I'm more proud of this recording than anything I've ever done. I'm hoping the Flora cover will help to enthuse writers and DJ's to give it a chance, because I feel fairly confident once people hear it they'll like it. We'll see.

Buy it for the cover, cherish it for the music.

It's shameless work...but somebody's got to do it.

Announcing the release of Reptet’s new CD entitled Do This! REPTET - Do Thsi! Street date: May 30th, 2006 Catalog #: MCMC4 Here’s The Deal: Do This! is the fourth release by the Monktail Records label and features the Reptet sextet, a genre bending collection of Seattle’s most irrepressible jazz rebels. Recorded by Scott Colburn at Gravelvoice Studios (Death Cab for Cutie, Degenerate Art Ensemble, Mudhoney), Do This! is a bold and groundbreaking statement of acute originality that simultaneously propels the listener into realms of manic joy and subtle rumination. Produced by Reptet and featuring the posthumous cover art of legendary jazz illustrator Jim Flora – the first in over 45 years! "A hot progressive combo of Seattle's best young players... Their music is intense, taut, and fresh, as their growing fan base will attest." ~Earshot Jazz~ Here’s The Band: Samantha Boshnack – trumpet, slide trumpet, flugelhorn· Ben O’Shea - trombone· Tobi Stone – baritone, tenor and alto sax, clarinet· Izaak Mills – alto and tenor sax, bass clarinet, flute· Ben Verdier - bass· John Ewing – drums and percussion Here’s The Music: 1. Zeppo (6:55) 2. Bad Reed Blues (5:35) 3. Ro (5:36) 4. Harpo (9:18) 5. Chico (9:38) 6. Groucho (6:06) 7. Mumia’s Lament (3:52) 8. Little Caesar (6:55) 9. H.R. (7:06) 10. Do This! (7:09) Total time: 68:10

Available May, 30th

Not so fast Mr. K!

Reptet CD Release with Amy Denio Friday, June 16th 2006 Consolidated Works 500 Boren Ave N., Seattle $8 / All Ages Information: www.reptet.com Monktail Records and Reptet are pleased to announce the release of Reptet’s newest full-length CD, entitled Do This!,available May 30th. Reptet will be performing original music from the CD and other new compositions at their release party being held at Consolidated Works, June 16 at 8pm. The evening will also feature the multi-talented composer and performer, Amy Denio. Reptet is a sextet consisting of six multi-instrumentalists: Samantha Boshnack (trumpet), Ben O’Shea (trombone), Izaak Mills (tenor sax, alto sax, bass clarinet, flute), Tobi Stone (baritone sax, tenor sax, alto sax, clarinet), Ben Verdier (bass), John Ewing (drums); all of whom are members of the internationally acclaimed Monktail Creative Music Concern based out of Seattle. They have established themselves as a group of considerable excitement, flair and vision while simultaneously debunking preconceived notions of what a jazz group ought to be. Their music has been aired on radio stations across the United States and Europe, and their members have toured internationally. Earshot Jazz has described them as, “A hot progressive combo of Seattle's best young players. Their music is intense, taut, and fresh.” With the release of Do This!, Reptet has established itself as an irrepressible force in modern jazz with its own brand of creative music. Amy Denio is a composer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist (voice, accordion, saxophone, clarinet, bass, guitar) and veteran home taper based in Seattle, WA. She started her label Spoot Music in 1986, with the release of her first cassette release, No Bones. Since then, she's recorded & released several solo and collaborative albums with an array of international musicians. She has performed her music at festivals throughout the world, touring solo and with various groups and musicians such as Francisco Lopez, Danny Barnes, Tone Dogs, Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet, Pale Nudes, Danubians, Chris Cutler, Guy Klucevsek, Pauline Oliveros, Relache Ensemble, Curlew, Matt Cameron, Hoppy Kamiyama, and others. This event is open to all ages (alcohol available with ID), and the cover charge is $8.00. Doors open at 7pm, show starts at 8pm.

New Reptet Release Features the Posthumous Work of Legendary Jazz Illustrator Posted 2006-05-04 SEATTLE - On May 30th, Seattle-based Monktail Records will be releasing the second full length CD by the reptilian jazz sextet Reptet. The CD, entitled Do This! features the first jazz album cover by the late illustrator Jim Flora in over 45 years. Crafted on old style letterpress, the total package is a stunning amalgam of traditional and progressive jazz--both sight and sound. James (Jim) Flora fashioned dozens of diabolic and hallucinatory album cover illustrations, many for Columbia and RCA Victor jazz artists, in the 1940s and '50s. Along with David Stone Martin, Flora (1914-1998) is now considered to be the artist that best captured the pulse of the classic jazz era. His album covers are now collector's items that regularly fetch hundreds of dollars on eBay, and his stylistic imprint has influenced an entire generation of illustrators. Reptet is a sextet consisting of six multi-instrumentalists all of whom are members of the internationally acclaimed Monktail Creative Music Concern based out of Seattle, WA. They have established themselves as a group of considerable excitement, flair and vision while simultaneously debunking preconceived notions of what a jazz group ought to be. Their music has been aired on radio stations across the United States and Europe, and their members have toured internationally. The arts organization Earshot Jazz has described them as, “A hot progressive combo of Seattle's best young players. Their music is intense, taut, and fresh.” With the release of Do This!, Reptet has established themselves as an irrepressible force in modern jazz. Do This! features the first “new” Flora image to grace an album cover since 1961. Two independent CD releases in the past five years have adapted old Flora LP cover designs, but the Reptet CD is the first to use something by Flora never before seen. Irwin Chusid, author of The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora (published by Fantagraphics), believes the cover image (which he affectionately named “Flora Triclops”) dates from 1952, but he can't confirm an exact year. It appeared on a postcard Flora had printed to solicit illustration assignments. The image will first see official book publication in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora slated for publication by Fantagraphics in February 2007. Visit website Source

Need an opening act?

Yeah, when are they going to do more with Paulie Walnuts?

And how does the cat stuck behind the wall tie into all this?

Wow, I guess I'm just a little dense then.

I guess I'll take that week of silence as a "I don't know".

Congrats guys!

It was a great series doncha think? All the games were close. If we could of pulled this one out today I would have said it was a success. I can except losing to Schilling and Beckett in Fenway - but today...that hurts. I think the mariners ain't so bad this year though. They got some decent pitching and our line-up is solid. Plus we're one of the youngest teams in the league. The future looks bright. But that one two in Schilling and Beckett your boys got is awesome!

The woman must be a saint.

The are a good team....TO POOP ON! Loretta