John L

So who is the Fred Jackson who plays on Chuck Willis' "Blow, Freddy Jackson." Not our man?

Yea, Tribes does make you wonder why he couldn't have done thatmore often on record. He seemed to be so hung up for so long on always emphasizing the "difficult and complex" that he got sidetracked from just making good music, plain and simple.

Now that I've listened, I completely agree. But I have to believe that there are better examples of Wynton solos that his detractors would have a harder time ripping, so while the idea behind the thread was a good one, I don't think this was the best example for it. I agree with that very much. Given the right context, Wynton came come through with some beautiful music, as Live at the House of Tribes clearly demonstrates (IMO).

I think that Jeter was certainly the most influential falsetto in the 50s and 60s and, indirectly though soul singers, into the 70s and 80s. Of course, there was also Clyde McPhatter, who had a very different appoach. Don't forget that R.H. Harris (who also left us not long ago) had a beautiful falsetto as well, and already committed it to record in 1939 on Walk Around. In general, falsetto singing has strong roots in Africa, and can also be heard on old country blues records from people like King Solomon Hill.

He was born in 1914. So I guess that he must have been 94.

I just heard the news that the founder and lead singer of the Swan Silvertones, Reverend Claude Jeter, passed away on January 5th. In my estimation, Mr. Jeter was one of the greatest and most influential of all American singers. RIP Reverend Jeter

I love Sonny Criss' version on "Up, Up, and Away," and also the version that Gene Ammons plays on "Nice N' Cool."

I think that Amazon may be the reason for this. As you say, they now have an MP3 catalog comparable to iTunes, charge roughly the same prices, have no DRM and a higher bitrate. How can iTunes compete without adjusting?

Thanks for the heads up. I only have a handfull of these tracks, and will be picking this up for sure.

Indeed it is. I have this box set. It is nice to have the Brunswick and Decca recordings in one package. But the sound quality is really not up to other releases of this material (as is often the case with Affinity). So I wouldn't real recommend it unless the price is really right.

Certainly, downloading offers new and exciting possibilities. The big problem is a commercial one. How can artists continue to make good money on sales of their music, when it can be effortlessly and costlessly transferred from person to person? We may be moving back to the age when the primary function of record sales was to promote live performances. The problem is that technological advances have also increased the value of home relative to live entertainment.

I liked them quite a bit back in the day. The rhythm was simple, but it felt good for dancing relative to most other rock. Say what you will about Fogerty, but he has a certain genuine soulfulness in him that can charge the music. I don't listen to Credence much any more, but I perform regularly a bluesed-up version of Lodi with a local band that I moonlight in.

The fundamental unit in my database is track rather than album, although I often browse by album. In that case, If I obtain a box set that contains albums, I delete the individual album references in the database, and move all the information about the albums and digital artwork to the box set entry. (If I don 't do that, I will end up with double track entries). That is not a perfect solution. If I look up an album entry and it is contained in a box set, I will turn up nothing. I have to remember that it is on a box set. In case I don't, I can always browse by artist until I find the music that I am looking for.

Someone who attended that session told a story that Freddie indulged heavily in both weed and alcohol at the studio, then asked to hear the tape, and blew that solo perfectly on a first try.

It is not really worth paying that price for the box when almost everything can be had now on individual discs, particularly as you have already purchased the Basin Street and Brown and Roach Incorporated discs.

Good news. There are some real gems tucked away in Ray's later output.

McClennan

Count me in as a fan of Gigi Gryce. I find his sound on the alto to be quite distinctive. He was a genuine voice in the music. Those quintet albums on Prestige always sound great to my ears. Richard Williams really shines on some of them too. The albums with Art Farmer as also favorites of mine.

On the subject of end game brilliance, this one made me cry

Toward the end of this long but IMO very interesting 2005 interview with Marty Khan: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=16904 there is much chapter and verse info on "the Lincoln Center establishment depriving other jazz artists of gigs due to their draining of non-profit or foundation budgets" and a number of related topics. P.S. Even if you find Khan hard to take, mosey on down to toward the end of the interview to the parts I mentioned above. Thanks, Larry. That was an interesting read.

...and I would attribute that not to the absence of a Wynton-type figure, but to the remaining presence of a huge number of inspired jazz artists who came up in the environment of 40s, 50s and early 60s. And then what happened? All of those people died all at once? Not at once, thank God.

...and I would attribute that not to the absence of a Wynton-type figure, but to the remaining presence of a huge number of inspired jazz artists who came up in the environment of 40s, 50s and early 60s.

The difference now is that the "traditionalist movements" aren't just part of the stream now, they are pretty much the entire river. And the public is ok with that, since there's other things going on in other musics and other lives that cover those bases for those who want them, and that those who both produce and consume the music of the "traditionalist movements" don't have any real need for. When the public wants adventure, or exploration, or counter-mainstream, or even just to dance all night long, they've got other places to go for that. When they want to celebrate The Grand Tradition, they've got the niche market of jazz. And truthfully, that suits most everybody, including a lot of musicians who don't really have either an interest in or a clue about reaching out to an audience, especially a changing one, just fine. All you gotta do is look at today's marketplace. Look at all the independent releases that fall outside the formula. A handfull of people buy them, a handful of articles get written, and a handful of gigs get booked and played. The cycle repeats itself every so often, enough that alternative circuits exixts. But there's no chance in 98.7% of hell that this will ever be anything other than what it is, because of the lack of a holistic scene where these musics and those musics can be viewed as part of the same family instead of Real Thing vs Some Other Thing. Times have changed one way, the music in another, other musics in other ways, and the marketplace in yet another. There's not a helluva lot going on in jazz that's in sync with that. Jim, I agree. The point that I was trying to make in my post is that the jazz river had already broken apart into numerous streams well before Wynton came along. The Wynton-led movement was largely about consciously recreating the river. I agree with most others on this thread that the artistic results of this endeavor ended up being rather disappointing. What I don't think is fair, however, is to postulate that there was big beautiful and healthy jazz river until Wynton et al came along and took a big shit in it. The issue brought up of the Lincoln Center establishment depriving other jazz artists of gigs due to their draining of non-profit or foundation budgets is an interesting one. I am rather skeptical, however. If we hypothetically imagine an evolution of jazz to the present without Wynton or the Lincoln Center, the more likely outcome, in my opinion, is that most organizations subsidizing American music would have forgotten about jazz completely.

Same here. I was scared that something had happened to Jim. The clip is very nice.

I don't know, Jim. I find it very hard to accept the idea that Marsalis, Crouch, and Murray somehow killed jazz. Throughout the history of jazz, there have always been strong traditionalist movements intent on preserving the purity of existing structures, and those movements often obtained positions of strong influence in the jazz establishment. But that did not prevent a critical mass of talented and ambitious musicians from pulling together and moving ahead. So what is the difference now? The important economic problems that you identify that have increasingly discouraged the best and brightest from becoming or remaining jazz musicians hit the music hard already in the 60s and 70s. Arguably, Wynton et al created more opportunities from the 80s on by bringing increased attention to jazz, and that increased attention was not just limited to Wynton-type music. The reaction of Wynton also set the stage for a counter-reaction. If that counter-reaction has been insufficient in some respects, I think that we need to look elsewhere for explanations.