John L

Strange, but Judgement has never really clicked with me. I like it, just don't love it. Black Fire, Smokestack, Compulsion (and, of course, Point of Departure) are probably my favorites. I have been really enjoying Blue Black lately. I had never heard it before until last month.

Not a recording, but there exists that great photo of Monk and Mingus playing with Roy Haynes behind Bird. Those were the days.

[ I would say that Sonny Criss pretty much gets that message across on this album!

Cassandra and Mondavi Cabernet? Sign me up, please.

Andrew Hill and Joe Henderson had a rare musical communication, as evidenced by the extraordinary music that they made together at Blue Note. In the liner notes to Black Fire, Hill emphasizes the degree to which he and Joe Henderson understand each other musically and like playing together. Given this fact, I am a bit puzzled as to why they never recorded together after 1970, particularly as they both moved to Nothern California around the same time. Is there any story here? Did they have some sort of fall out?

This got strange distribution in the US. I was waiting for it to appear in the stores, and then just gave up and ordered it. It turned out to be a painless process.

I have this on a 1989 CD released by the French Jazz Anthology label. Good music!

David: That sounds like it might have been an enjoyable concert.

Before you run out and by the Five Spot disks, STOP! Buy the complete Eric Dolphy on Prestige instead. This box has all the Five Spot recordings and much, much more truly exceptional music at a budget price, in fact only roughly twice what you would pay to get the Five Spot music on three single 30-minute disks. It is one of the best boxes of music in existence. But don't take my word for it. Just listen to all of my witnesses who will post below.

Yes, Earl King was a real voice in the blues, R&B, and the New Orleans sound. We won't be able to replace him anytime soon. RIP

Both of the Sonny Simmons disks on ESP are excellent. The Lowell Davidson disk is a unique sort of cult classic.

David: I am sure that you and I crossed pathes in the 70s. I would never miss Dex at the Keystone. I always got there nice and early to get the table right in front. John

To think that Ben could still theoretically be with us...

Be advised that the puppy is not even holding a complete set of "Jazz in Paris." They released some new series after the pup was already born.

I just heard Alegria for the first time yesterday. This is a big winner for me, easily my favorite Shorter album in a long time. What a delight to hear such fresh-sounding compositions and playing coming from an elder statesman who is smack in the tradition! Those very first howls on the soprano let you know right away that something really NEW is coming. Beautiful music all the way around. Wayne Shorter is now more than just a living legend. He is a living legend alive! Jazz has been around so long that it needs to get shorter!

Jim: I know what you mean. I love the blues so much that I am often torn between wanting younger musicians to immerse themselves more in the blues and the nagging thought that their most successful path for artistic development probably lies elsewhere. Alexander: I find your statement a bit too strong. I don't agree that hip hop has only a superficial connection to the blues. In some hip hop, you hear quite a strong connection, in fact. "Arrested Development" is one example. Even some of Dr. Dre's mixes, like "No Diggity, No Doubt" for Blackstreet, have quite a strong blues feeling But I agree with the qualitative point that R&B appears to be in the process of dropping the "B." The connection between popular African American music and the blues is weakening progressively. It is interesting that this phenomenon has also opened up the first really strong generation gap in African American popular music. In general, middle-aged African Americans still have a much stronger attachment to blues-based music.

Jim: I hear where you are coming from. But the way that I think of the blues is a bit different. Certainly, it goes far beyond style. I nevertheless consider the blues to be a specific language, a medium, a way of communication, that is of time and place. You speak the language or you don't. Even if you do speak the language, there is often a noticable difference between a native speaker and a Johnny-come-lately. Beethoven expressed through music plenty of the deeply human and spiritual qualities that you associate with the blues in your posts. But Beethoven was not the blues, at least not in the way that I define "blues." He didn't speak that language. As Bev is pointing out, it is not necessary to speak "blues" in order to create deep music. That is the sense in which I interpret Harris. The language is changing, and it is evolving farther from what is commonly associated with the "blues." Here, ironically, I think that Harris actually echoes your concerns. For him, going back and playing in the style of old blues would be superficial. As you say, it would be a "style" and nothing more. He needs to make statements in *his* language. BTW: I have always heard a lot of blues in Braxton. Growing up in Chicago when he did, it would be hard to get rid of them.

This is a very interesting discussion. Myself, I am extremely attached to the blues. (I don't want to say that the blues have attached themselves to me. At least I hope that it is the other way around!) My primary attachment to jazz is also through the blues. With the younger generation, it sounds like in some discussions that they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they reject the deep bluesy stuff as something not of their time and place, the music will be hollow, as blues is at the essence of most great jazz. If they try to play the deep bluesy stuff, they will be playing music not of their time and place, and therefore it will be hollow. Despite my personal love of the blues, I actually find myself largely in agreement with Stefon and Bev. The younger musicians have to take only that part of the blues tradition that they can feel as "theirs" and move on. The 20th century was the blue century. It is already clear that the 21st century will be something else. What? That has yet to be decided.

Hank Jones is class personified! This thread is a nice complement to the Lucky Thompson thread. Thompson and Jones always sounded fantastic together on those Prestige recordings. Another nice recent one (there are so many) is the early-90s trio date on Storyville with Mads Vinding and Al Foster. I often play Hank Jones trio dates when guests are over. They have such a warm and inviting feeling about them. I avoid this Storyville date, however, because I always end up so wrapped up in the music that I risk offending the guests.

A beautiful song. Percy Mayfield's original is pretty hard to top. Lockjaw and Shirely Scott do a good job with it. So does Hank Crawford.

I thought that it was more complicated in that the body needs various types of complex proteins, all of which are in meat and dairy. A certain type of bean with rice might give you one of them, but then you would need to make sure and mix it up with some different kinds of beans or peas or whatever to get the other complex proteins on different days. Then there is the one vitamin (Is it B12?) that you can't get outside of meat and dairy, and therefore need to swallow as a pill or inject with a needle... Maybe this is all an exaggeration. I tried to read up on this shit once and got scared. The book was written to convince you to become one of them. It had the opposite effect on me. I'll stick to my baby backs, even if it means an earlier grave.

I've been on the fence over this one. It *is* expensive. If I didn't already have all of the Pres, Bird, and many other of the best individual concerts, I would take the plunge right away. Maybe it will show up somewhere used and cheap one of these days.

Interesting. One of the reasons why I never tried that route (other than the fact that I love the taste of lightly-cooked and seasoned fresh animals) is that, once you give up meat and dairy, you have to pay a lot of attention to what you eat in order to ensure consumption of the proper complex proteins. Too much trouble. Yes, most fast food tastes like junk. But I hear that down there in Texas you can even breathe the smoke from those slow-cooking baby back ribs. Mmmmmmmmm

Alexander: So maybe there is hope for me yet? I have never really been able to "get" Chet Baker. It is not that I hate him. I can more or less enjoy listening to him, especially with Russ Freeman, who I do like quite a bit. But I don't hear the magic. Maybe it is just not my cup of tea.

Yes. I think that a lot of the "impostor" sentiment among established jazz artists had more to do with technique than substance. After all, they had paid their dues, spending years woodshedding to master the difficult language of Bird and Diz. Now these "new thing" people think that they can just pick up an instrument and get up on the same stage. The reaction was natural, and in some cases it was undoubtedly justified. But it could also be argued that, by the late 1950s, too much emphasis was being placed on mastery of accumulated jazz technique relative to substance. Somebody who isn't a virtuoso may still be able to pick up an instrument and express some interesting musical ideas. Conversely, a virtuoso who plays Bird solos note-for-note may have a lot of entertainment value, but is making a questionable contribution as an artist. If we go by the opinions of established musicians of the time, everyone from Ornette Coleman to Albert Ayler to Cecil Taylor to Sun Ra was repeatedly called a "Charlatan." But that label has little to do with the value of their art. Speaking of Sun Ra, by all reports, he ran an extremely interesting ship. On the one hand, he placed a lot of emphasis on hard work and discipline, continual rehearsals, little life outside of the band. On the other hand, he could pick up somebody off the street who is not yet a musican and feature him in the band in a few days. A lack of virtuosity was not the overriding concern.