Hot Ptah

There was definitely an attraction to Ralph Towner then, among listeners coming over from rock. Certain ECM artists seemed to be appealing for rockers coming over to jazz, and he was one of them. The Genesis idea is very interesting. It is interesting why younger people who were listening to Led Zeppelin in 1972 found themselves liking the ECM recordings of Ralph Tower, Keith Jarrett and Gary Burton in 1976, to name a few. Many other jazz artists did not benefit from this migration.

I wonder what age kids need to get to, before they like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. At age 12 they all seem to think that all music before 2007 is "weird" and "annoying", or "really weird" and "really, really annoying."

Creative, but you couldn't hold off until the 1st could you... I was inspired by 1970s bathroom graffiti at the University of Wisconsin, in one of the main building's most used bathrooms (I know because it was often commented on by many students): OREGON: A REAL KICKASS COUNTRY ROCK BAND!

I am surprised that no one has mentioned Ralph Towner's electric albums. Some of my favorites include: 1. "Scorched": This early ECM classic is best known for his 17 1/2 minute duet with Sonny Sharrock on "Bend Me Shape Me (Any Way You Want Me)". I agree that their interplay reaches heights of sheer sonic fury unmatched in other recorded sound. But for me, I prefer Ralph's power trio recording on this album with Jack Bruce and Buddy Miles. I share most listener's aversion to Buddy's "vocal" on this song--have stranger throat noises ever been put to record? But still, if you can screen out Buddy, what remains is fine indeed, and Ralph's wah wah guitar solo gives new meaning to the term "debilitating rash". This is also the first ECM album without a pastoral cover or just the names of the musicians on it. 2. "Melt": This side project on Polydor suffers from some heavy handed overdubbing of anonymous female screaming and blasts of feedback noise, which were apparently the producer's idea of creating a suitably "edgy" background for Ralph's amazing torrents of pure electric energy. In addition to Ralph's consistently varied use of distortion, this album marks his debut recording with co-lead guitarist Ted Nugent. As strange as that matchup now seems in retrospect, one can't help but admit that it led to the creation of some amazingly compelling, and ear wrenching, albums. Also, catch the small photo of an infant Wynton Marsalis on the cover, right under the photo collage of industrial plastic factory disaster scenes. How did they know? Wow! 3. "Serrated Edge": This is perhaps the best of the Towner projects for big band and electric guitar. It helps that Pete Cosey wrote all of the charts and contributes some of his usual guitar work. As subtle and muted as Cosey seems next to Ralph's more forceful and distorted efforts, the Cosey-Towner passages work surprisingly well. A very young David Murray makes his recorded debut with a shaky, but penetrating, ocarina solo on the Towner classic composition, "Excruciating Pain." The less said about the tasteless cover art for this album, the better. 4. "Uff Da!!!": This frenetic collaboration between Towner and the cream of the Norwegian noise rockers is uneven, but in the end, functions as a 42 minute long grunt in the face of the piffle which passed for electric guitar music at that time. An underrated gem, which deserves renewed critical scrutiny. 5. "Oh Lordy Lordy": This foray into the realm of ecstatic religious devotional electronic fury music may have been misguided as a concept, but who can forget the towering climax when Ralph slams his fists into the fretboard at the end of the title cut, creating the much-imitated "fist of doom" sound. We have all heard this cut so often that it is easy to forget the impact it had in its day on a generation of electric guitarists and bassists, who picked up on the idea of simply hitting their instruments with their fists and ran with it. 6. "Live At The Beaumont Club": Ralph's first live recording with Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen showed that he was quite capable of tasty, appropriate and still ear-curdling electric wallops of sound, within a faux Western swing/country/boogie woogie morass. This one really opened many people's minds to the versatility of Towner's electric playing, especially after they heard his spewing onslaught on the umpteenth Cody recorded version of "Seeds and Stems Again Blues." Towner's ability to make that song sound fresh should earn him a place in the electric pantheon, if nothing else does. Those are just a few of my favorites in Ralph Towner's electric career.

Bev, I agree that the sixth graders I know do have a common popular culture of their own, acquired by who knows what method exactly, and that some of it involves musical figures like Miley Cyrus. By some consensus, a singer like Miley Cyrus is cool to all of them at once. She has a TV show, I suppose. But how do the other pop singers who are the one and only "in thing" this year become known to the entire group of kids? I really don't know, but some of them do. In my youth, it would have been because we all heard them on the Top 40 radio many times a week, or when we were slightly older, on the FM "progressive rock" station, or because we read about them in Rolling Stone, when that magazine was seen as slightly edgy and a source of otherwise hard to find information. But today, I am not sure how they arrive at that consensus. Whatever method it is, jazz has not made any inroads into it!

I remember that Rolling Stones' 1978 performance. Mayor Ed Koch was the host. I remember Mick Jagger flicking out his tongue and licking Ronnie Wood's face as he finished singing "Shattered". I didn't like that.

Yeah, I remember that one too. That was another memorable one, as Costello was in full early-anger form and freaked everybody out by changing songs midstream, starting "Less than Zero" getting a few bars into it, stopping abruptly, and then kicking hard in "Radio Radio". No idea if it was planned or not, the given explanation post-show being that Costello thought that the originally planned song was too British-specific so he called an audible, an yeah, ok, but planned or spontaneous it made for a riveting TV moment, and if you're old enough to remember that little window where all things "punk" (and how ironic in hindsight now to think of Costello as such) carried with them a genuine anarchy, hey, it was a moment. As I heard it, Costello was told NOT to play "Radio, Radio" because NBC had a lot of radio holdings, and felt that the song conflicted with those interests. Costello was banned from the show until 1989, when he performed "Veronica." Costello was inspired by Jimi Hendrix stopping in the middle of "Hey Joe" on the "Lulu" show and tearing into another song. Yeah, I heard that too. At the time they gave him a pile of shit for doing that, of the "You'll never work in this town again" variety. Also, weren't the early Talking Heads on SNL, circa '77 or '78? They were. The early B-52s were, too. I recall that the Talking Heads performance was not like the "Stop Making Sense" film at all. It was much more sparse and tense. The B-52s, on the other hand, were wild.

I agree with you, Rosco. I used to have a fantasy of how to reach more people with jazz, to have a radio show called "Fun Jazz". The slogan of the program would be "Every song guaranteed to be fun to listen to." I thought that this idea would be so crazy to most people that they might tune in just to hear what this impossible show was like. Then you would have to play one rousing, compelling, accessible song after another, never letting up. But that couldn't possibly work now (if it ever could) because there is no mass audience for radio. As Rosco points out, most people are in their own little world of downloads, file sharing, YouTube, MySpace, chat rooms--there is no mass experience to be shared by many people at once. This is especially true for young people. I think that the only way that young people would like jazz in significant numbers would be for a great jazz musician to emerge who was 15-20 years old, dressed and looked and talked like kids 9-18 years old, played great jazz mixed with the pop music which they love in an uncompromising blend, and was engaging, warm, humorous and was obviously "cool" to the kids. So let's all wait for the messiah. It could be a longer wait than the wait of God's chosen people.

I remember the Ornette Coleman performance. It was at the very end of the show, and the comedy in that show was almost uniformly terrible, so it seemed like a very long wait. Then Ornette came out with his electric Prime Time band and played for what seemed like quite a long time, in an energetic, uncompromising performance. It was one of the wildest jazz performances I have ever seen on TV. On the other hand, the Grateful Dead's performance, from the time when "Go To Heaven" was just released, seemed dull to me. I remember thinking, there's one old band that won't last much longer--little did I know. The Ray Charles perfomance was great. Ray really tore it up on "What I Say", after a parody sequence in which the cast played a 1950's white group trying to sing it in the most cheery, souless manner imaginable. I also liked the part where Ray's 1950s horn section was reunited, and they all played brief solos after being introduced. At the end, someone was wailing on alto sax, and then the camera turned and Ray himself was sitting there at the piano, playing the alto. It was a pleasant surprise, one of those "wow" moments.

I think that many young people are being exposed to jazz, but they just don't like it. Compared to when I was growing up, in the 1960s and early 1970s (my high school graduation year was 1974), there is much more jazz played everywhere now. You can't eat in a restaurant, go to a Starbucks or shop at a Barnes and Noble or Borders without hearing a lot of jazz. There are Miles Davis compilation CDs at the cash register at Starbucks and Wild Oats. My 12 year old daughter has had acoustic jazz quartets play at assemblies at her elementary school, and has seen jazz combos in outdoor shopping areas often. When I was young, there was zero jazz played in public as background music, and no mass market shopping venue played or carried jazz. Except for a small percentage of young people at any age level, the youth in the U.S. do not like jazz when they hear it. But then again, that is true for adults, too. From my experience with my 12 year old daughter and her classmates at her public elementary school, virtually all of the kids like the same pop music. Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, and others I don't remember the names of, are the common social denominator. This music binds them together as a community. It would be inconceivable for any of these kids to burst out with, "hey, turn off that Miley Cyrus and let's listen to the new John Scofield CD!" It would be like one of them saying, "I don't want to talk about sports or cosmetics now--let's all talk about Baroque architecture instead!" It was the same when I was young, but we had our Allman Brothers and Frank Zappa and Jethro Tull as our secret language against the old folks' world. The nature of that music made it much easier for some of us to get into jazz, or more adventurous music of any type, compared to Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers today. I agree with Larry Kart's point, very much. I am not sure that I will be true to his idea here, but my point is that there used to be many more famous or semi-famous jazz musicians who were well known to a lot of young and old people, and who made accessible and excellent music. As late as the 1970s and 1980s, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz, and others, were known to most people, and when they came to an outdoor festival in your town, a lot of people who otherwise did not listen to jazz would come to see them. Also, when John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett were younger, they had a huge following of college age students. I am thinking about the mid 1970s to early 1980s. But now, there are virtually no jazz musicians like that, no famous household words who also play excellent music. There is no well known jazz musican for a young person to "try out" because it is cool to do so, within their peer group. It was "cool" in 1972 in high school to own Mahavishnu Orchestra or electric Miles Davis albums--and some of those who owned those albums went on to listen to the jazz pantheon. In 1972-74, I played trumpet in the jazz "stage band" at my high school. We played mostly Hefti arrangements for Basie. I could not hear the music at all, and did not like it. By the spring of 1976 I was buying as many acoustic jazz classics as I could possibly afford. I had my jazz awakening in between. It hit me like a thunderbolt, as I made the transition from Weather Report to McCoy Tyner, who was my bridge. I can't be too hard on the young people, when I found it so difficult myself to "get" jazz at first. The situation should not be minimized by those of us in this little world of jazz devotees. Virtually no high school students, and not that many college students, will listen to jazz willingly these days, in my experience.

We bought a new home computer which came loaded with Vista. After a few stumbling transition moments at first, caused by our being prisoners of old routines, we neither like nor dislike Vista. It's just not that big a deal. It isn't wonderful, and it doesn't cause any major problems. We are limited in what we know how to do on the computer. It could be that we are so dumb that we don't know how to find the problems with Vista. For the limited scope of what we do, it is fine.

This is an excellent list!

What was the nature of the nightmare?

Happy Birthday, Noj! For your birthday, I happened to see this in the Kansas City Star and thought you might find it interesting: Single woman, blonde, seeks man for no-strings attached physical intimacy. I have been told that I am very beautiful. Must not be intimidated by large chest. I like only artists. Detailed knowledge of all aspects of jazz a must. I will travel to wherever you are. Noj, if that interests you, let me know and I will send you the link.

As for the first, I missed seeing Woody Shaw because I confidently strode to the front door of the club on the night after he played there. I was shocked. I simply had the date wrong. I missed Charles Mingus twice because I was dumb and still into the pop music of the time, and had not had my conversion experience into jazz. Can't think of any for the second category. I never got THAT impaired when I was young.

I was fortunate enough to see Claude Williams many times live in Kansas City. His performances were always special. I recall a concert in a theater in 1998, led by Jay McShann. Jay had Harry "Sweets" Edison, Harold Ashby, and Claude in the front line. Sweets and Ashby soloed well on the first song, then Claude took his turn and the crowd literally went wild, with a scream of delight. His solo was on another level of intensity. He overshadowed everyone else on the stage.

Without the direct experience you have, HP, that's how it's always seemed to me from over here. Would you care to speculate whether a Chris Botti gig there would have had the same sort of turnout? MG The Gem Theater holds 500 people. Chris Botti has performed to sold out crowds of 1500 in Kansas City in the past two years, outside the African American neighborhood--at a casino, and at a country western club in the heart of the drinking/entertainment district. I suspect that if Chris Botti played at the Gem, that there would be many more white people in the audience, than for Najee.

You might like Henry Thomas, Tommy Johnson, Barbecue Bob, Bo Carter, Blind Blake, Tampa Red. I strongly suggest that you visit the Blindman's Blues Forum blues discussion board. They have a whole category on their board devoted to pre-1945 acoustic blues. There is a wealth of information there about specific albums.

At the time I had pretty well switched to the new fangled CDs so didn't see the point - I was hoping they did CDs. What a moron ! One of my friends who has worked at music stores in Kansas City for decades tells an even more unfortunate story. Whenever the Arkestra came to Kansas City to play in the 1970s and early 1980s, they would crash in the house of someone who worked at his music store. At night the Arkestra members would sit around in the living room of the store employee and add rudimentary labels and artwork (usually swirls of magic marker art) to large stacks of white label jackets for their albums. There were a great many albums of this sort stacked around the living room. The employees of the record store could have received a complete set of the Saturn label records in exchange for putting the Arkestra up for the night, but they never took any. Who knew?

It was at the O'Keefe Centre - quite a big venue. As part of the Toronto Jazz Festival. John Gilmore and June Tyson were still in the band (Gilmore looked a bit winded at times) but Sun Ra looked (and played) pretty good. Sticking mainly to piano. The Horseshoe Tavern was not in existence I think during my time in that city - I recall that the 'Top O' The Senator' and 'Bermuda Onion' were the main clubs (both now long gone) and the 'Cafe des Copains' did excellent shows mainly with solo piano/duo acts. The Senator and Bemuda Onion got some really great US groups in - often their first destination after NYC as part of American tours. Lee Konitz, Phil Woods, Joe Henderson, Red Rodney, Louis Hayes (with Charles Tolliver), Pharoah Sanders and Elvin Jones come to mind (caught all of these ). Still kicking myself all those years later for not buying a box full of LPs at that Ra gig. I saw Sun Ra several times in the 1970s and 1980s and rarely bought any of the LPs which they were selling from the stage. Now they go for a lot on ebay.

Is it gay porn or something? I did not click.

Larry Kart, So that I can understand the distinctions you are making, would Don Byron's "Bug Music" album qualify as revivalist as you are using the term?

Picking up on The Magnificent Goldberg's idea about music and the community, has anyone read about the popularity of smooth jazz in the African American community? I believe that it is very popular among African Americans, based on what I have read (which may not be everything on the subject). Based solely on anecdotal information (which I used to malign when Ronald Reagan used it), I would go so far as to say that for a large percentage of the African American community in the U.S., smooth jazz is what they think of when they hear the word jazz. One direct anecdotal example, I bought a series ticket to the jazz concerts at the Gem Theater at 18th and Vine, which is a nearly 100% African American section of Kansas City. I did not want to go to the Najee concert, so I stood in front of the theater before the show and tried to sell my ticket (no takers.) Other than my seat, the show was sold out, and over 95 per cent of the people who passed by me to go into the theater were African American. This is a far greater percentage of African Americans than the audience for the mainstream jazz shows at the Gem. I would estimate that less than 25 per cent of the audience was African American for McCoy Tyner, Ahmad Jamal, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and other concerts presented at the Gem, even though the theater is right in the middle of tha African American community. The African Americans who attended the Najee concert were better dressed than the typical Gem Theater jazz audience, by many degrees of magnitude. A large percentage of the Najee audience seemed to be over 40 years old. The Najee concert was the first jazz concert at the Gem Theater which seemed to strongly appeal to the community which lives around the theater, in the ten years in which I have been attending the Gem Theater concerts (starting in the first year they were ever presented).

That's Willie Pickens on piano and Richard Davis on bass with Archie Shepp. I don't recognize the drummer.

James Newton and Anthony Davis live in duet performance, Ann Arbor, winter of 1979. It was truly beautiful. A member of the audience said as he left after the first set that the music was so gorgeous that it hurt. I knew what he meant. Dee Dee Bridgewater and her ensemble of Mali musicians, Gem Theater, Kansas City, October, 2007. Consistently surprising and amazing music. Claude "Fiddler" Williams in a small tent at the Kansas City Blues and Jazz Festival, 1999. Every solo was a gem. McCoy Tyner, The Earle, Ann Arbor, December, 1978. An intense, high energy trip. George Adams blew the roof off of the club in his solo on "Fly With The Wind." Betty Carter, Jazz Showcase, Chicago, 4th of July weekend, 1980. She sang with an intensity and emotion that I have never heard anyone match. Sun Ra and Arkestra, Ann Arbor Jazz Festival, September, 1978. From Sun Ra's spectacular entrance through a trap door while strumming on a large metal sculpture, through bluesy stride piano solos, tight swing era big band ensemble work, and generous dollops of indescribable weirdness, this was a Ra concert to remember. Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin together, Ann Arbor Jazz Festival, September, 1978. Backed by Dexter's trio (George Cables, Rufus Reid, Eddie Gladden), they tore it up on two extended songs. Very exciting. Pandemonium resulted. The crowd of 2000 screamed, roared, stomped and whooped for several minutes afterwards. Dexter finally came out and over the deafening din, slowly intoned, "thanks..............thanks....LOADS, folks." Richard Davis at Union South, Madison, Wisconsin, fall of 1981. This was a small on-campus performance, in a student union theater. Richard played with passion, intensity, chops, digging deep and going several levels beyond a good performance--it was astonishing, and easily the best bass playing I have ever heard live. James Carter, the Drum Room, Kansas City, April, 1996. Carter was absolutely on fire this evening. He dedicated his performance to Claude "Fiddler" Williams, who was sitting in the front row. He unleashed an endless torrent of brilliant tenor sax soloing. His talent seemed to know no bounds. What happened--this promise was not fulfilled. Old and New Dreams, Ann Arbor, winter of 1979. To see this group in a small room was amazing. Don Cherry was at his most lyrical, and Ed Blackwell played drums in a most unique way, which I will never forget. Also: Great performances by Air, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Jaki Byard (solo piano), Cecil Taylor Unit (with Jimmy Lyons), Jay McShann, Sonny Rollins, Elvin Jones, Randy Weston/Richard Davis/Don Moye, David Murray with Andrew Cyrille, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Count Basie with Joe Williams in 1978, and some more I will remember in a few minutes.