John L

Hmmm. I wish that AMG would exploit another way to make money. Sell the database to us for private use! It would be a dream come true to download the AMG database in a manner that allows us to edit and add what we want, and then create a subdatabase for our own collections. We could then pay for monthly updates.

As far as I know, the Coltrane performance of "One Down, One Up" from the March 28, 1965 Village Gate concert remains unissued. I wonder why?

I never understood where the old man got that one from. He himself was half Irish and half a variety of German called "Pennsylvania Dutch", and since I STILL don't know what the hell "Pennsylvania Dutch" are, I canonly conclude that he was proving his point by demonstrating it. "Pennsylvania Dutch" is really "Pennsylvania Deutsch," or families of German immigants who came to Pennsylvania. The "Deutsch" became "Dutch" after the outbreak of World War II.

Pres was, is, and will always be the man.

Given that all of this material is in the public domain in Europe, why doesn't some company do the jazz world a favor and make a single disk with all of Freddie Webster's recorded solos? That would be an extremely interesting and enlightening collection.

As the 20th century has shown us, the blues offers endless possibilities for interpretation and creativity. For the future, I understand the burden of the above question to be WHO is going to do it? It is hard to create anything of lasting value while using something other than one's own native language.

Milt Jackson's "Plenty, Plenty Soul" is also one to have. "Here Comes Louis Smith" is still another fine recording with Cannonball.

I think what Chuck meant is that is is depressing to think that someone would wait for years to hear this music in anticipation of a sonic upgrade. There will always be sonic upgrades. Life is short. Ornette is now!

James Clay more than lives up to legend on this one.

Interesting!

Funny. I was just listening to "New York R&B" yesterday. Anyone who doubts Cecil's feel for the blues should listen again to "O.P."

Actually, Freddie Webster is on quite a lot of recordings. But he hardly ever solos! I enjoy the session with Bud Powell.

If pressed to choose one, I might actually pick Thelonious Monk. Does Jimmy Yancey count as a jazz pianist? Johnny Jones is another favorite outside of jazz proper who could REALLY make it blue. Jay McShann and Bobby Timmons also deserve consideration. I agree with the above citations of Gene Harris, Junior Mance, Ray Bryant, and Red Garland. Jack McDuff also played piano every now and again.

...well, I was getting ready to write that I agree with you 100%. But then it dawned on me that that would be calling you an asshole, a jerk, a fat fuck, and an Internet whore. So I guess that I will just keep quiet.

Jim S: I agree with you. In fact, I often think that jazz is currently in a transition period for exactly this reason. In my opinion, the blues language is what gave jazz most of its power, beauty, and logic of development in the 20th century. (Some here might disagree, but that is my opinion.) But the blues core has been weakening since the 1970s. Furthermore, the efforts of Marsalis and others to bring it back illustrate (IMO) the inherent difficulties of such an endeavor. It is doubtful that today's young musicians are going to feel and identify with the blues in the way that young musicians did in 1950. Therefore, as much as I am personally attached to the blues, I think that it is understandable that artists today should be looking toward other languages, maybe related to the blues but still fundamentally different in some way. I agree with you that other powerful languages also exist that can be fused with jazz. As jazz has become an international music, we may actually be at the dawn of another golden age for jazz. The possibilities are endless. As for me and the rest of my time here, my heart and soul are gonna stay with my good ole blues.

I just recalled that there is an excellent date with Groove Holmes: "Soul Mist" Harold Vick is also on tenor.

Don't forget Junior Cook's "Junior's Cookin' " Blue is all over that one. I am assuming that you already have all of Blue's Riverside albums as a leader. Great stuff!

I don't know about all of this. I also think of the blues in a general and mystical sense, but maybe not nearly as general as Jim S. I think of the blues as a very specific language of musical communication. It is a very deep language, a language capable of supporting a dialogue from deep within the human soul. This dialogue can bring to the surface the fundamentals common to the universal human experience that Jim S describes in his posts. Nevertheless, I think of the blues as one specific language (or a family thereof) that was created by African Americans in the last two centuries. There are many other languages and mediums in music and art as well, even in jazz. Maybe it is just a semantic question. We need a word to describe the specific language in question. If not "blues," then what?

It's all a bit confusing. At the very least, I would say that the balance of evidence suggests that the word "jazz" for music did not enter the American vocabulary first in New Orleans. They were still calling jazz "ragtime" in New Orleans into the 1930s. Therefore, I have serious doubts about the jasmine perfume story. Eubie Blake also said that "jazz" had a definite meaning in street lingo around the turn of the century, and that was copulation, as in "to jazz somebody." For that reason, I don't find the discorvery of the 1912 newspaper article to be a really big deal, except to indicate that, by 1912, it would seem that the word "jazz" was already being used in different ways as well.

My primary love in music (and art) is blues music in the general sense, including blues-rooted jazz, blues "proper," gospel, and R&B. I understand that as a musical continuum that evolved together, i.e. not as separate entities, but as an organic whole. Sure, there exists jazz with at best weak ties to blues music, especially since the 1970s. I like some of that music too. But the blues-based stuff will also have the top spot in my heart and soul. That is part of my life's breath.

A young Cootie Williams?

No, I didn't know that. An interesting piece of trivia, indeed.

Cecil Taylor, Jimmy Lyons, Sunny Murray

I like all of Pharoah Sanders albums on Impulse! My favorites are probably Karma, Tauhid, and Summun Bukmun Umyum. Black Unity is also quite good.

I have virtually no backlog, but I have another problem that might even be worse. As soon as a pick up a disk, I listen to it. But I have way too many disks that I only listened to once after purchase. Browsing through my collection, I continually stumble on CDs that I hardly even remember, that I haven't played in 5-10 years. If I knew that I didn't like them, I would sell them. But I have no idea.