John L

Where are these concerts located? I do not see them when I go into the online discography.

That rules out quite a lot. When is McLean not sharp? That is his approach.

Happy birthday, Chris!

I actually like the Coltrane-influenced Art Pepper better than the earlier one. I only saw Sonny Stitt once. It was only a few months before his death. He was chain smoking while playing and going through the speedy bop motions more or less on auto pilot. It was still a bit thrilling to see him. Sort of. I had mixed feelings about it at the time, and still do.

I seem to recall that Danny likes Stitt.

And how many saxophone players have been in absolute awe of Sonny Stitt and what he could do on his horn? Earl Hooker was truly great, but the larger part of his greatness was his technique (IMO). He could do what every other guitar player did, and more. He would cut everybody at Chicago blues jams. He had extraordinary articulation on the instrument. It is in that sense that he may have been the greatest. Although he based his slide guitar style almost entirely on Robert Nighthawk, he could do much more than Nighthawk every could in Nighthawk's own style. Still, I would say that Nighthawk was much more original than Hooker was in that regard.

I think that there are some similarities between Sonny Stitt and Earl Hooker. Both had monster technical abilities that allowed them to compensate for a certain lack of original ideas by sheer brute force. Both can be very enjoyable if you take them for what they are, which is quite a lot, and not what they are not.

Maybe Illinois Jacquet?

How essential is the extra non-Savoy Pershing material? Does it have any guitar solos? Losin's description of it suggests that it's the heads and Bird's solos only. It is only heads and Bird solos (the earlier sets). But Bird is in great form. I enjoy it quite a bit.

I don't see any reference to an album of that title in the Mosaic Box. The albums listed are: Johnny Hodges and His Little Band Ellingtonia '56 Duke's in Bed The Big Sound Side by Side Not So Dukish Blues-A-Plenty The Smooth One (A 2fer LP of previously unreleased material)

The Bird-Fats date would appear to be the first disc and tracks 1-4 on the second. Judging from the set list, most of the rest comes from an earlier Feburary 14 date at Birdland. Unless they tracked down a new tape (very doubtful), that part is just Bird solos and heads in pretty bad sound. But Bird still sounds very inspired on the February tape.

Yes! I was just listening to some of the live recordings of that band recently. It is interesting that Miles made some disparaging comments in his autobiography about Ndugu Leon Chandler to the effect that "it didn't work out" and he was trying to get Dejohnette back after the tour. To my ears, however, the simple funky grooves that Chandler laid down with Michael Henderson were a great backdrop for Miles, Bartz, and Jarrett. Dejohnette is a great great drummer, but it was almost a relief to hear a less busy rhythm section laying down the funky grooves on-the-one that Miles was gravitating to in any case. Some of those concerts really grab me - Vienna, for example.

It may have already be mentioned on this thread, but the Paris concert includes two tracks that were not on the JMY No Blues release: Agitation and Footprints. The whole of disc 2, which contains these two tracks and the Copenhagen concert, is new to me.

Didn't Bob Brookmeyer cut an album with Ornette Coleman called "Tune Up! Damn It!"

Very interesting dicussion and information! Of course, if there was some direct influence between Whitby and Pres, it is still not clear what direction that influcene was going. By 1936, Pres had already reached his mature style, as witnessed by his first recordings that year.

All I have to say is BE CAREFUL. Somebody opened an account last year using my social security number (probably the person just made up a number and it turned out to be mine. My name or address were not used). Suddenly, Bank of America froze my bank accout. They wouldn't let me access my own money. The whole thing qualified as a case of identity theft. I spent months of huge effort and hassle straightening it all out. Even after I cleared my name and Bank of America finally released my money, they requested that I never bank with them again. Not that I had planned to...

That is interesting, Allen. I had always assumed that call and response came directly from West African music. It is certainly prominent in traditional West African musics.

Some interesting thoughts there, Jim. It is true that Clapton doesn't play much like Albert King any more, although he used to sometimes. His "celebrated" solo on Strange Brew is at least 90% Albert. I side with Hot Ptah on Son Seals. Yea, what he did was limited, but it was distinctive, original, and had deep roots. He was limited in the same sense that Muddy Waters was. The fact that 1000s of guitar virtuosi can play rings around them takes nothing away from what they did. Son Seals was a voice. SRV came out of Albert King, for sure, as did most post-Albert blues guitar players, but he still built something profound and original on it (IMO).

I disagree. I think Clapton has his own guitar sound and style. I can identify it after a few notes. I think that many people find Clapton's voice very appealing, and to be a solo artist with longevity in the pop field, it seems to help if you sing too. There are not many instrumentalists in rock who did not sing, who had a long career. He is far from the worst rock singer. I have read that he was a reluctant vocalist when he started out. I agree that many blues/rock vocalists are not that good. I always think, where are all the good vocalists in the world--they couldn't find one? Every high school has some really good singers--what happens to all of them? None of them go into music professionally? What has happened in the blues in the last 20 years especially is that a large number of the blues originators, or those who played with the blues originators, have passed away. Compared to who you could see live in 1990, the real blues artists are almost all gone. So the blues club performances and blues music label albums, are now dominated by a lot of music that would not have been considered blues twenty years ago. It seems like anything vaguely "rootsy" gets a gig in the long time blues clubs. Aging white hippie rock bands, which would have been called rock in 1978, are now part of the blues circuit, presented as blues. There are discussions at Blindman Blues Forum about this. In that context, as unfortunate as it is, Clapton is not one of the prime offenders as a white guy currently presenting blues, without total authenticity. You can always identify Clapton after a few notes? I sure can't. Of course, maybe that is because I don't listen to him very often. But I don't even really know what to associate with Clapton. Does he have his own trademark licks? What are they? His is very good at faithfully replicating Freddie King and Albert King licks. You call Clapton "far from the worst rock singer." I can agree with that. I do not like his blues vocals, however, and do not consider him to be a good blues singer at all. I don't have any problem with Clapton's "authenticity" or the fact that he is white. I just don't think that he is that good, especially in the blues. Stevie Ray Vaughan is white and came after Clapton, but achieved a strong and distinct voice in the blues. If Clapton did that, I sure don't hear it.

Clapton can certainly play good guitar. The primary factor that keeps him out of the pantheon of true blues guitar greats in my book is that he never really developed his own style, his own sound. When you hear a few notes or phrases from the likes of BB, Albert King, Albert Collins, T-Bone Walker, Otis Rush etc., you know right away whose voice it is. When somebody plays like BB, the Alberts, T-Bone, or Otis, you know right away whose voice they are imitating. When you hear something of high virtuosity without real distinction, moving from BB phrases to Albert phrases, to Freddie phrases, you think, "this could be Clapton." I also think that the Clapton legacy in the blues could have been greater if he would have worked for a number of years as the lead guitarist for a great blues vocalist, as opposed to filling his own blues songs and recordings up with his own third rate blues vocals. It amazes me in general how, in the blues today, nobody will dare play guitar with the big boys if he or she does not know their shit, but it is as if ANYBODY can sing the blues. As long as you play good guitar, then that somehow buys you the right to sing. You can even record a record where you supply the vocals and convince people to swallow them with some tricky guitar licks.

I would try deleting everything in the itunes library (but when it asks you, "do you want to keep the music files or send them to the recycle bin, choose the former, of course). Then choose "add to itunes library" and select all of your music folders in the itunes music folder (which is where you put them on your new computer, I assume). That should generate a new itunes library like the old one, but where all of the music is "new."

Did you also move your itunes library files? Alternatively, you could create new ones by reloading all of your music files into itunes. Another possibility is that somehow all of your music became "unchecked" after the transfer. Tracks that are not checked (with the check mark in front of them) will not transfer to the ipod during a sync. Do little black dots with exlamation points appear in front of the old tracks when you try to synch. That means that, for some reason, itunes is not "finding" the old music folders and linking them to the library file. I experience that every now and again for some files, and don't really understand the reason. I solve the problem by reloading the given music files into itunes, making them no longer "old files."

This is actually pretty funny - Wynton and Clapton playing New Orleans jazz. Listen to how Wynton tries to play around with rhythm at the beginning of his solo around the 2 minute point, and then ends up losing the swing completely. As for what Clapton plays...no comment. Ice Cream

A very interesting and unorthodox choice! That music IS good.