Hot Ptah

I went to a Chick Corea/Gary Burton duet concert in Ann Arbor in 1979. After several excellent songs, Gayle Moran came out as a special guest artist and "sang" with them. Having suffered through that, I laughed out loud at your post.

At a Sam Rivers club date at Milwaukee's Jazz Gallery around 1980, a group of us, who were excited to be able to see Sam to begin with, consumed some number of beers before the gig started (a standard number of beers for Wisconsin, which would be at the high end anywhere else). We then reacted to Sam's solos with loud whoops of delight. Literally, four or five of us screamed out, in high pitched voices, "WHOOOOH! WHOOOOOOOH!" The club was quite small and we were no more than 20 feet away from the stage. Sam let us know that this was not cool by whooping back, with excellent mimicry of what we were doing. So we stopped. I saw the Ellington Orchestra, directed by Mercer Ellington, in the late 1970s at the Oscar Meyer Theater in the Civic Center complex in Madison, Wisconsin. We expected a solid, mildly enjoyable show. It was a ghost band, after all. But then Mercer said, "and now, we have the pleasure of presenting to you a true jazz Hall of Famer. Ladies and gentlemen, Cootie Williams!" This was very unexpected. I must admit that I yelled out "COOTIE! COOTIE!" in a voice that could accurately be described as thunderous.

I started buying jazz albums in great quantity in 1976. I loved most of the Muse albums, by the way. I was exploring and learning about everything at once, so there were not a lot of artists I deliberately avoided. I have mentioned Bob James and Earl Klugh. I did avoid the commercialized soft fusion for the most part, people like Ronnie Laws, Lee Ritenour, Spyro Gyra. But it was so exciting to buy records then. There was ECM putting out great stuff all the time. Also, Pablo had a bunch of great new releases all the time. There were new things to explore on A&M Horizon, Arista, Muse, Inner City, Horo, India Navigation, Milestone, so many other great labels. The majors like Columbia were releasing Dexter Gordon, Woody Shaw and other artists in new recordings. Duke Ellington had died a few years earlier and his unreleased archives were opening up, with some wonderful albums coming out. Verve and Prestige had two LP reissue programs for some older albums. I don't recall thinking, oh man, I am just never going to buy a Chick Corea album, or anything like that. There was an exploratory feeling in the air, and you really did not know if the next album by an artist would be a unique departure for them. There was a feeling that exciting new directions in jazz might still be possible and that the next album by any artist could be it. The fusion era had been creative and exciting until sometime in the mid-1970s, so there was still a feeling that it might be that way again. So I don't recall as many discussions about What Is Jazz and What Should A True Jazz Lover Avoid. Of course, there was no internet then.

I avoided Bob James and Earl Klugh.

He played the IRS agent in the Lionel Barrymore version of "You Can't Take It With You", and he only just died now!

In my apartment living years, I put on the Art Ensemble of Chicago's "Full Force" when a group of us returned to my apartment after seeing a concert. It was a national holiday the next day. I may have played it just a wee bit loudly, although no windows were literally broken by the volume. At 5:30 a.m., the guy downstairs played a Journey album, loudly. He told me later that day that he was trying to teach me a lesson so he played his favorite album too.

From what I can tell, no one in a two block area plays any music at all.

I watched the first Dick Cavett show often. I do not remember jazz greats performing. I do remember Frank Zappa as a guest one night, with the Flo and Eddie band. They sang a song in German (which I now know was "Sofa #2") and then in a second performance, Frank played a wild extended electric guitar solo, definitely one of the more unusual things I had ever seen on TV. Cavett's interview with Frank centered around the release of his new film, "200 Motels". I remember an excerpt from the film being played, in which Ringo Starr was carrying a smoking briefcase. I recall Cavett treating Zappa with respect. At one point Zappa commented that Cavett was the only TV host with the "guts" to have him on as a guest. I confirmed these memories by buying a cassette of the audio of this show from an ebay seller around 2000.

PM sent on both Eddie Jeffersons.

Daniel and the Sacred Harp Dorothy Ashby Harold Ashby

sounds vaguely familiar (fiction writing aside), i think until last year i simply got continuously better/smarter by getting older but this year (25 to 26) it seems that process has stopped... i had already suspected that - bitter as it is - this is how things are (especially as i am pretty certain that these months here - first year of working towards my phd - would be only half as depressing if i were only, say, 20 percent smarter ) trying to get used to the thought that high school teacher is a great job but it doesn't really work yet - but maybe that step - which feels ridiculously drastic at the moment - won't be necessary (to add the finest periods were the first half of 2006 when i was working very productively, was living temporarily in a nice city where nobody knew me and where i rediscovered jazz (and there was that great ojc sale at 2001 so that i could afford one or two new cds every lunch break) the other really fine period, was my civilian service in 2000/2001 at a place for old people where i did a useful job at which i was really good (mainly as it was not too demanding) (organizing a choir and bingo, reading from the newspaper and talking to people) and played a lot of music; the rest was somewhere in between, my mother said already in kindergarden i was not worse at singing and painting than the other kids i was just somewhat indifferent when the others were excited; after all i think i can consider my life a very happy one (given that things will get better soon ) Hmmm, what I noticed when I hit 25 and 26 (which was many years ago) was that I could not drink and party the same way and still get up and work the next day. My iron stamina for overcoming hangovers was gone. I had not noticed any increase in intelligence up to that point, so I saw no plateau or decline at 26.

It was very interesting on AAJ when several Org regulars posted there for a few days. The combined groups produced some good discussions, I thought.

Amazing - I never picked up on that from your posts the first couple of years here... Wellsir, I really didn't see the need to "project" it, since I really am an optimistic spirit overall. The darkness was mostly self-created and self-directed, and like I said, was pretty much the result of disappointment in everything & everybody, especially fincluding myself. But I was only disappointed becasue I believed that a higher potential was there to be had. Thus the outward good cheer. And frankly, I didn't realize how dark I had become until I stopped being that way. Basically what it all came down to was that I fell into the trap that a lot of "artists" fall into, and that's getting so preoccupied with being "serious" that the simple happiness seemed somehow cheap. It wasn't enough to be happy, there had to be work behind getting to it in order for it to mean something. Years of justified suspicion about conditioned behavior masquearding as true feeling is not at all a bad thing, except when it turns into another conditioned behavior its ownself.... That and not copping to the fact that being a husband, a man, is even more serious an undertaking than being an "artist". I've been faithful the entire time, and have never been abusive, but I'd be lying if I said that there were more than a few times when my insistence on not getting too "corrupted" by the "straight world" in terms of providing income put a pressure on Brenda that was not only unnecessary, but also unfair and unhealthy. She very rarely even mentioned it , and never to the degree that I felt it was bothering her (And when she did, I gave her the inexcusable, "well, this is who I am, this is what I do" line and stood pat, something for which I will feel regret and shame until my dying day), so I just chalked it all up to the "hardness of the artist's life", and she went along, mostly stoically. I would tell her how much I loved her for doing it, but ya' know, that's kinda like watching somebody kill themself when they don't have to and you just sit there and tell them how much you love them for doing it. That's some fucked up shit right there, and I did it for too damn long. Idealism is great, but unhindered love beats the living hell out of it any damn day... So yeah, the joy's always been there, and it's always been real. It's just a lot more unimpeded now, and hey - I'll take it. Your wife would appear to qualify for sainthood.

I saw Cedar Walton live a few years ago in a group of other hard bop vets. He played tasty solos throughout. When it was time for his solo piano feature, he blew me away. It was magical. It was far more than just a nice rendition of a song--he took the music to a higher plane. It was truly beautiful and profound. He is an artist deserving of great respect.

I enjoy the live album with Burton a lot. I have always thought that Burton was good for Corea. "Crystal Silence" is still my favorite of their collaborations, but all of them are quite good. I am not particularly fond of "Trio Music". It received a very enthusiastic review from Terry Teachout when it was first released, which motivated me to go buy it at that time. I have always found it a little bit cold, a little unswinging. I can appreciate it more than I enjoy it. But that's just me--if you love it, I can see why. It is without a doubt a quality work.

I like to hear "Handle With Care" about once a year. I find the rest of both albums to be quite boring. To me, this is one of those projects where the idea of it is so much better than the results.

He was the greatest musician on the planet, and led a worldwide upsurge in jazz interest and popularity.

The moment of my birth. Since then, my body's days have been numbered, as it has been deteriorating toward its inevitable death.

His "Live at the Floating Jazz Festival" album, released in the late 1990s, should not be missed. It is one of the better jazz violin albums I have heard, by anyone.

Mississippi John Hurt Mississippi Fred McDowell Sudden Sam McDowell

You are fortunate. For years I listened to it and didn't "get it".

I think so. If you came of age between 1967-76, and were an intelligent youngster who cared about music, you probably listened to the more challenging rock groups of the day, including those with some improvisation, extended instrumental passages and non-routine song structures--all of which could be a bridge to jazz. It would have been unusual for a high school or college student in those years to listen only to jazz and not the rock music of the day. It would have made you a real eccentric in America, and it would not have been easy to find the jazz records or any jazz broadcasts or magazines, in many American cities. There were kids in my high school class who mentioned Chick Corea, Miles Davis, Don Ellis--but they were also listening to the Allman Brothers and other rock groups. Just look at all of the threads here at Organissimo about the late 1960s/early 1970s rock musicians.

My Denon CD player worked well for 18 years before it abruptly stopped working.

I was a big fan of the rock music of the late 1960s and early 1970s. I also had some blues albums and had a few jazz albums, which a musician/guest sold to me at the Howard Johnson's I was working at, in a minimum wage job while going to high school. That purchase included a scratchy copy of "Kind of Blue", which did little for me. It was O.K., but did not floor me or anything. I saw the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Miles Davis on ABC's "In Concert" TV show. The Mahavishnu program made me go buy "The Inner Mounting Flame" and "Birds of Fire", which I liked. I also bought some Weather Report albums, and saw Return to Forever in concert. I was listening to Zappa's "Grand Wazoo" and "Waka Jawaka", and had an urge to get into jazz, but did not know what to get or how to start. I heard McCoy Tyner's "Trident" album when it first came out and it hit me. The doors flew open in my mind and I could hear and understand jazz. So I took a lot of rock albums to a used record store in Madison, Wisconsin where I was living and got a bunch of cash. I took the cash to Discount Records on State Street in Madison, and a sympathetic clerk (wish I knew his name) picked out the following for me. (I have since learned that Chuck Nessa had managed that store for several years, a few years before this fateful day, and that the guy who waited on me was most likely trained by Chuck). The clerk picked out: The Genius of Louis Armstrong, Vol. 1 (2 LP set) This Is Duke Ellington (2 LP set, RCA, an early greatest hits set) Billie Holiday-God Bless The Child (2 LP set, Columbia) The Best of Count Basie (Deccas) Herbie Hancock--Maiden Voyage Art Blakey--Free For All John Coltrane--The Art of (2 LP set of Atlantic recordings) John Coltrane--2 LP set on Impulse, his "greatest hits" for that label, with a white bird on the cover Charles Mingus--Better Get It In Your Soul (2 LP reissue of "Ah Um" and "Dynasty") Charles Mingus--Tijuana Moods Thelonious Monk--Brilliance (Prestige 2 LP reissue of "Brilliant Corners" and "4 x Monk x 5") Oliver Nelson--The Blues and the Abstract Truth Sonny Rollins--Saxophone Colossus and More (a Prestige 2 LP reissue) Wes Montgomery--Beginnings (Blue Note 2 lp set) Cannonball Adderley--Somethin' Else (the clerk said it had the best Miles Davis playing of any record in the store) There were other LPs too, I just can't remember which ones were picked out on that day and which ones I bought a short time later. I am sure of the ones listed above. I also remember that the clerk told me that virtually anything on Blue Note or Impulse was good. That got me off to the races. I never looked back. I was hooked. I took a jazz history class with Richard Davis within a few years after that. I was a jazz fanatic by then, but that really helped to intensify my interest. In that period I saw some live shows in Madison and also at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, a possible drive from Madison in one night and back (especially when you are young). I saw Gary Burton, Pat Martino, Modern Jazz Quartet, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band, Dizzy Gillespie, a trio of Randy Weston/Richard Davis/Don Moye. I moved to Ann Arbor right after the class with Richard Davis, and there was a great deal of live jazz presented by the Eclipse student organization and by a small club, the Earle. Within my first six months in Ann Arbor I saw live concerts by Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Betty Carter, Cecil Taylor Unit, Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, George Lewis, Dave Holland, James Newton/Anthony Davis, Roscoe Mitchell, Count Basie with Joe Williams, Leon Thomas, Larry Coryell, Mary Lou Williams, Stan Getz, Max Roach, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Kenny Burrell, Stanley Turrentine, Freddie Hubbard, Johnny Griffin, Chico Freeman, Hubert Laws, Mose Allison, Art Blakey, Marcus Belgrave and the Ellington Orchestra. There were also truly great jazz shows on the student radio station, with a lot of avant garde played. After that, it was a foregone conclusion that it was going to be a lifelong obsession.

A similar thing happened to me, until the CD player just stopped working suddenly in the middle of a CD. I took it to a repair shop and was told that it could not be repaired. I learned that CD players do give out sometimes.