Hot Ptah

With the added element of "We better make this show as great as possible or millions of people will not shell out hundreds of dollars to see us on our world your." Or perhaps the added element is "We better make this show just a bit better than awful, with a few moments where it is pretty good, so that millions of suckers will think that a tipping point of sorts has been met, and will shell out hundreds of dollars to see us on our world tour."

I saw The Who with Keith Moon live in the spring of 1976, after I had started getting into jazz. I was most impressed with Moon's drumming. He looked tired and a bit overweight, too worn out to rage out of control--but he was a really good drummer. I kept thinking that he had absorbed some jazz into his playing, to my surprise. He held the music together with a much more varied drumming style than I had heard on the records.

I think that Turrentine at his best was a good, solid player, often quite enjoyable, who contributed to some fine recordings. He deserves, in my opinion only, a series of posts with moderate praise. The effusive adulation on this thread just strikes me as excessive. To carry the baseball metaphor further, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were great players and deserve high praise. Gus Bell was a good player, but not one of the all time greats. If a baseball thread was started in which member after member called Gus Bell one of the all time great outfielders, it would strike me as odd.

You know how there are some artists you just don't get all the praise they receive? for me Turrentine is one of those. I must have pig-iron ears because I've never liked his tone, his approach, or his timing. Yes, I know, a lot of what we hear is personal to ourselves, but for me, Turrentine is not even third tier. People here really like his tone? I always considered it weak, and I found a lot of his solos uninteresting. This really is a case where YMMV. I tend to agree with you. I never found his solos to be that interesting. To me, he is an O.K. tenor player. I agree with you--I never found his approach to music to be all that compelling.

Why stop there? First, you ductape a gerbil........gerducpormutteef! On that cable show where the guy eats unusual foods from around the world, he visited Ecuador, where the delicacy for centuries has been guinea pig cooked over an open fire. He said that it tasted much like a good pork loin, and was delicious.

I saw it prepared and eaten on the cable show on which the guy eats unusual foods from around the world--he had it at a small Southern restaurant which specializes in it. He said that it was delicious, the way that they prepared it. I have read that turducken has a truly incredible amount of fat and other unhealthy aspects to it, at levels which would ordinarily be difficult to attain in a full day of eating.

What strikes me about my memories of the Earle is that the groups, while a few feet away from the audience, would flat out wail, just play their hearts out at peak intensity and wildness. The McCoyTyner group included Joe Ford, George Adams, Charles Fambrough and Wilby Fletcher, and they put out incredible waves of sound. I remember George Adams blowing the roof off of the place during his solo on "Fly With The Wind", just blasting off into the stratosphere--it was the most intense playing I ever witnessed by George Adams. Elvin Jones, too--I had seen several other great drummers that year, but I was struck by how Elvin, with a seemingly effortless flick of his wrist, created great masses of complex sound that basically wiped out any competition around at that time. To see it and hear it from a few feet away was amazing. Betty Carter's group was John Hicks, Cameron Brown and Kenny Washington, and this was no polite piano trio. They wailed at peak intensity, and then Betty worked her magic on top. I just saw Kenny Washington last weekend in a piano trio where he was constrained to tap the drums lightly with brushes for most of the evening, and I think back to the whirlwinds of sound that Hicks/Brown/Washington laid down at the Earle. There were some magic performances in that small room. And then there was Larry Coryell. He has spoken of this drunken period in his life. He appeared in a duet with Chris Brubeck, who played bass and trombone. For most of the evening Coryell played the riff from Miles Davis' "It's About That Time" (Side 2 of "In a Silent Way")---Doo, Doo Doo, Doo Doo Doo Doo DOO Doo, over and over and over again on distorted electic guitar. After each playing of this short riff, he would shout out one line from an old rock and roll song while struggling to remain seated on his stool. Riff--Peggy Sue Peggy Sue Pretty Pretty Pretty Little PeggySue--Riff--You ain't nothin' but a hound dog--Riff--Come on baby whole lotta shakin' goin' on--Riff etc. etc. for what seemed like an endless time. I remember thinking--this is one of the great jazz guitarists? Again, from ten feet away it was a striking experience to witness.

The Earle was across the street from either Del Rio or Mr. Floods in downtown Ann Arbor--I forget which but it was on that side of the street. It was a basement music club in 1978-79, which also served food. At the Earle I saw Dexter Gordon, Betty Carter (with John Hicks), McCoy Tyner (with George Adams), Larry Coryell, Sonny Stitt, Elvin Jones, Leon Thomas and others. The Earle also presented blues and other music. I remember seeing Magic Slim and the Teardrops there. I was unable to make it on evenings when they presented Woody Shaw's quintet, and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band. It was a small club. You sat very close to the bandstand, which was at the level of the tables. The Dexter Gordon, McCoy Tyner, Betty Carter and Elvin Jones performances were very notable. It was so small that the performers would sit next to, or with, the audience members between sets.

The several Residents albums I have heard have all been exercises in endurance. I just don't find them very interesting. The concept of the group is far more interesting than the actual recordings. I have a long and proud history of listening to recorded music that drives virtually everyone else out of the room, but I have been unable to understand the appeal of the Residents' recordings. Now, I have certainly not heard all of their many recordings, so if someone has heard some compelling Residents albums, I will find that very interesting to learn about.

I have fond memories of several memorable jazz concerts at the Earle in Ann Arbor. Does anyone else remember this club?

Let me add a dissenting voice here. Not only did Turrentine record a good deal of boring stuff, he sometimes did not play that well live. I saw him several times in the 1977--83 period. Sometimes he was O.K., not a world beater but enjoyable enough. Sometimes he was barely mailing it in, visibly going through the motions onstage. I agree that many of his recordings before and through the CTI "Sugar" album were quite good. I just think that the unanimous, effusive praise for Turrentine on this thread makes me think that I am reading a thread about Lester Young or someone of that level, and it wasn't exactly like that.

From what I have read only, the Corea pieces refer to specific stories published within Scientology, about aliens coming to earth long ago and interacting with humans. My knowledge of Scientology is limited to what I have read in articles written by others.

Chick Corea's electric Return to Forever has several such titles, on the Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy and No Mystery albums in particular.

The Way We Bore

I will watch for the scene in which a musician places his instrument near a source of electric power, and Bolden blasts him with a negative, judgmental, personally insulting lecture about the horrors of electricity combining with music.

The Monet exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995 was very enjoyable.

I generally like Kevin Harlan's work.

Herman Franks Walter Alston Bobby Bragan

Must be (although the 'Big Fun' 2CD did also sound pretty good). Incidentally, it's also interesting just how much of the material on 'Unknown Sessions' CDs 1 to 3 from the 72-75 period didn't make it onto this set. What are the Unknown Sessions CDs 1 to 3 from the 72-75 period?

Doug Rader Don Wilson Larry Dierker

The On the Corner stuff is great. It includes the segment used by Bill Laswell for “What If” on Panthalassa. “Chieftain,” as I mentioned before, is the same tune that opens In Concert at Philharmonic Hall. The “Turnaround” tracks are the same tune from the second part of “Prelude” on Agharta. Some of this music was used on Panthalassa. “The Hen,” “Big Fun-Hollwuud,” and “Peace” are kind of dull along the “Billy Preston” lines and lack the edge the band had in its live shows. “Mr. Foster,” recorded the day after “Calypso Frelimo” in 1973, is a good one. It sounds like “For Dave,” which closes Agharta and Pangaea and is on the latter part of Side 2 of Dark Magus. Confusingly, the more mainstream “Minnie” from 1975 is also known as “Mr. Foster.” “Hip Skip” and “What They Do” are from 1974 and include Dominique Gaumont on guitar. The former song features Pete Cosey on drums and was performed on a few live bootlegs from this period; the latter is a great stop-start guitar-fueled rave-up not unlike the “Turnaroundphrase” finale on Dark Magus. Thanks for those descriptions. I hadn't planned to get this box, but now I will.

Pyeng Threadgill, daughter of Henry Threadgill

Pirates are THE hot thing this year. Go to a drug store and buy a plastic sword and other cheapo pirate stuff--it's everywhere. A bandana over your head, your 59 cent eyepatch, $1.99 plastic sword, and you are set to go. Taping a toy stuffed parrot to one shoulder would be the deluxe version of the costume.

I once spent $80 for a copy of Jimi Hendrix's jam session with Johnny Hodges.

Let's start a new thread--"Duke Ellington Wasn't Really All That Good." We could really have fun with that one.