John L

I just like the pretty colors. ← Yea, that's what I meant. The colors. Yea...

But I wouldn't try it am home with one of them.

I think that the tendency toward overintellectualization in jazz derives in essence from the fascination with the tangential underworld, the "Parkerisms" and their offshoots, so to speak, that have so haunted the naive realism paradigm that had become all but second nature to the true forefathers of the music.

I just stumbled on this thread. Hell yea! The sound quality on the 1991 Elmo Hope release left something to be desired. I don't usually update for better sound. But given the outstanding quality of this music, I will certainly make an exception here. As for the rest of the batch

Interesting responses. I too have never understood what the fuss is about Shemekia. But she wins all the polls and blues awards, including those granted by people whose opinions I respect very much. I just can't get with her.

Yeah, but the Punks were mostly white. That means that their angst was valid. ← One thing it does mean is that these folks had a lot more to lose, and that the angst was just a show for the most part and by 1989 they were mostly trying to figure out how to get gigs at the Mercantile Exhange. --eric ← I am currently living most of the time in Russia. Now Russian Punks are scary. They are the real deal that the upper middle class kids were pretending to be in England and the US. They have nothing to lose, and are completely ready to do anything, including die, at any time.

That is an interesting point. It is also interesting that Hip Hop is the first African Amercian popular music that has opened up a serious generation gap in the African American community itself. In general, past generations of African Americans listened and partied to the same basic music. Sure, there were some nuances. Older generations from the South may have still preferred the more low down bluesy stuff at a time when their children were more interested in uptown soul. But there was no huge generation gap. Older generations generally embraced soul and funk as well. But Hip Hop is a youth music in the sense that Rock and Roll used to be. As far as basic messages in the (commercial) music, the contrast with past African American music is also very strong. That may be related to the greater distance from church music that you describe. 60s Soul music was spiritually uplifting. It was all about love, devotion, respect, moving on up, we're gonna make it, celebration, etc. The lyrical content was adult. The messages of hopelessness and adolescent content in a lot of gangsta Hip Hop bear more of a resemblence to late 70s Punk Rock.

I don't listen to that much Hip Hop myself, although I like a lot of it as dance music. My son is a big Hip Hop fan, and he keeps me hearing the new sounds (most of which don't get to radio or MTV). I would just like to make the following observations: a) Concerning the question of what elements to focus on when judging Hip Hop, I would say that much of (although not all) Hip Hop is concerned primarily with rhythm and (often) street poetry. The innovations in Hip Hop usually concern rhythm, and I disagree that innovation ended with Grandmaster Flash et al. People like Dr. Dre made huge strides in rhythmic development in the mid-1990s. I am a bit less sure of the most important innovations of the last 10 years. But Hip Hop does sound very different now to me than it did before, more so than other genres of American music. Hip Hop is uncrecognizable today relative to what it was 20 years ago. What other type of American music can we say that about? b) There seems to be an inverse relationship between how much Hip Hop people listen to and how much people write about Hip Hop. Judging Hip Hop by what is played on pop (teenage) radio would be no different than judging Rock Music in the same way, or maybe jazz by what is being played on the Smooth station.

Are you guys thinking of Billie's trumpet player, Buck Berry?

Which doesn't mean that it's impossible for black music to be vulgar or violent or condemnable. Rap and Hip Hop should be able top stand on their merits, without claiming the rejection of the white establishment as justification in itself. The culture of hip-hop seems to be quite a bit different than the culture of jazz. For intsance, the overwhelming predominance of material success as a core value. Making historical parallels is interesting and can give you some new ways of looking at things, but it is no replacement for having a hard look at the particularity of historical phenomena, which almost always leads to an appreciation of the fact that history doesn't repeat itself. If it did we wouldn't have to keep studying it. --eric ← Eric: Point well taken. Yet we should also keep in mind that the Hip Hop/Rap scene is much broader than the most of the gansta commercial trash that makes it to MTV.

The problem with those three (musically magnificent, of course) compilations of Billie and Lester is that they are in INCOMPARABLY worse sound quality than the newer Columbia discs. I would also recommend avoiding the "Quintessential" series on Columbia, which was released before the superior, I would even say astounding, remastering job for the 10-disc set. I am not an audiophile by any means. But the difference in sound quality here is just HUGE. I would therefore highly recommend going for the discs suggested by Rosco or Jazzbo first. If you want more, get the whole Columbia set. There does not exist a better collection of music, period.

Interesting. I live most of the time away from my CD collection. Therefore iTunes is extremely important to me. I have been avoiding the purchase of music directly through iTunes because I like having the CDs and full wave files. But this could change my mind. Hell if I am going to buy any of this crap.

Now matter what one feels about the parallel, the message of the article is a very good one. For more than a century, the white American establishment has consistently condemned current trends in African American music as vulgar, violent, etc, while at the same time celebrating earlier African American music.

Lon: I started buying into the BB King series, but then got too confused to continue. I have a number of the Crown LPs and about 5 of the new CDs. Now, when I see all the covers of the new CDs in the stores, my head spins around. Do I already have it on CD, or maybe on LP, or maybe it is just that the cover is very familiar from seeing it for so many years? I've never had that problem before and I don't like carrying around "want lists" or "already have lists" with me in record stores. If it gets to that point, I figure that it is just not worth continuing to buy.

Good news! This is an incredible and unique archive for anyone interested in the history of jazz, blues, or New Orleans music. There is nothing else quite like it. Kudos to Rounder for finally taking the plunge to release all of it!

Congratulations, people! This thread is no less challenging to understand than a genuine post by the man himself!

Woodyard, HELLYEAH! What a great drummer! ← Wasn´t this thread about "least favorite drummers"? ← Mine was intented as a very unsubtle way of making a joke. ← I guess that your unsubtle joke turned out to be too subtle for me.

I file it under C too, even though it is one of my least favorite Ornette albums and one of my favorite Metheny albums.

I guess after those four days with Miles, you must have spent Sunday in the Confessional.

That was intended as a very subtle way of suggesting that Sonny Greer is not my favorite drummer.

Personally, I thought that Sam Woodyard was a big improvement over Sonny Greer (or Louis Belson) in Duke's orchestra.

I am also a big fan of the 1961 Paris concerts.

It gets more and more painful to lose blues giants like Little Milton. We only have a few left, and they will not be replaced. Little Milton was a fantastic artist. I never missed his concerts when he came to town, and was never once disappointed. RIP

So how high will I now have to raise my voice to let you know that I am waiting in line for the exercise machine?????

Got to bid for that Tom Jones photo!!!!