Hot Ptah

From my experiences at these outdoor festivals, if someone was preaching the gospel of Jesus to some kids, they would likely be too impaired by some controlled substance or another to remember anything that was said. Or else they would be monumentally unimpressed by the conversion talk. Absent some type of advanced brainwashing techniques involving physical pain, I doubt that any message of any type would get through to most people at these outdoor festivals.

How many of those committed fans are there in the states? Maybe a few hundred thousand? And then getting the word out to those hundred thousand? Good luck. Insofar as Grant goes, they'd be better off putting out a top notch, actually taken seriously funk collection and aiming it squarely at the jam band crowd. But what do I know? Do you really think that there are a few hundred thousand committed fans in the U.S.? I would think it was less than 10,000, easily. Probably less than 5,000.

Beatles 1 was released within the past 10 years, had only the most famous songs already in every Beatles fan's collection, and it sold like hotcakes.

Does it differ in some sinister way from all of the other large outdoor music festivals? Seriously, I am curious. Your post seems to me to insinuate that there is something evil going on there. What is it?

John McLaughlin's "Inner Worlds" is another contender. It also brought this immortal question to the forefront of human consciousness: "Are you ready to be a planetary citizen?" This was sung by bassist Ralphe Armstrong on "Inner Worlds". About two years later, I saw Leon Thomas in a small club and Armstrong was his bassist. A member of the audience kept yelling to Armstrong to "sing 'Planetary Citizen'!" Armstrong kept shaking his head hard, looking distressed.

I think that they contain genuine playing and some attempt at artistic merit. For example, Miles' solo on "Code MD" on "Decoy" is a decent jazz solo. The long blues near the end of "Decoy" is not a commercialized cut. "You're Under Arrest" is a mess, in my opinion, but one can discern some artistic vision behind the efforts, as muddled as the results of the vision turned out. An album like Freddie Hubbard's "Splash" is far worse than these Miles efforts. "Splash" is pure schlock--disco lite, annoying even as elevator music or dental office music, with no redeeming value. If there is an album where Miles veered into over-commercialization, I would cite "Amandla", which to me has an almost easy listening sound to it.

I think that this statement is way too broad. Columbia put out a series of very good Dexter Gordon albums during this period, and Arthur Blythe's "Lenox Avenue Breakdown", "In the Tradition" and "Blythe Spirit", all of which were excellent. Woody Shaw put out a series of excellent acoustic small group albums on Columbia at the same time. Those are just a few I can think of without looking at my collection, off the top of my head. McCoy's album with Santana and Phyllis Hyman was not very good, but it was also not particularly commercialized--the different elements just didn't jell, but it was not a disco/smooth type of production. There were hundreds of superb jazz albums in the late 1970s and early 1980s on smaller labels such as Muse, Milestone, Steeplechase, Inner City, Horo, Watt, BeeHive, India Navigation, IAI, Tomato, and even ECM--the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sam Rivers, and Jack DeJohnette were recording great things on ECM at the time, not in the stereotyped ECM dreamy sound. There were other smaller labels, too, putting out great stuff at the time. That has been the subject of longer threads.

Freddie Hubbard's "Splash" album.

This one may come with an asterisk as it did not happen in a music store, but instead took place in an art museum gift shop (the Kemper Museum in Kansas City). A couple in their seventies or eighties, who looked like two of the old people on the Andy Griffith show, perhaps Clara (Aunt Bee's friend), and one of the many elderly men on that show, were standing there with their super clean-cut, all American girl daughter, probably in her early fifties. The daughter had a bubble hairdo, ugly glasses and Wal Mart clothing. I say all of that not to insult them, but only to set the mood for what they said. The daughter said, "Well, now that I have heard your albums by Larry Coryell and the Eleventh House, I wonder if I would like any traditional jazz. I have never really heard any."

And to continue my losing streak of predictions, here's how I think it happens. Everyone in Tony's Mob family of any consequence gets killed or defects over to Phil. Carmella, Meadow and A.J. all get killed somehow. The Feds take Tony into the witness protection program for helping them with the terrorists, and he is sent to a far off state to hide out in the guise of the salesman depicted in the dream he had after being shot by Junior.

I took no offense.

Thanks for pointing that out.

I found it strange. When Phil said that they should hit the top three guys, one of his associates mentioned Paulie and Phil said no, it's Bobby instead. Then the associate commented that Bobby was Junior Soprano's driver not long ago, but Phil insisted. Paulie had to know that Tony was mulling over whether to kill him on the boat ride a few episodes ago. Paulie was willing to go over to the Brooklyn family when Carmine was still alive. At the end of the episode, Tony invites Paulie to leave the hideout, but Paulie insists on staying. I think that you are on to something here. But then why wouldn't Paulie leave? If he was working with Phil, once he knew the local of the hideout you would think he would leave...unless Paulie is to be Tony's assasin?!?!? The way that Tony was holding the weapon on the bed at the end, staring at the closed bedroom door, it looked to me like he expected that the assassin could come in at any moment.

I found it strange. When Phil said that they should hit the top three guys, one of his associates mentioned Paulie and Phil said no, it's Bobby instead. Then the associate commented that Bobby was Junior Soprano's driver not long ago, but Phil insisted. Paulie had to know that Tony was mulling over whether to kill him on the boat ride a few episodes ago. Paulie was willing to go over to the Brooklyn family when Carmine was still alive. At the end of the episode, Tony invites Paulie to leave the hideout, but Paulie insists on staying. I think that you are on to something here.

Also, Blindman's Blues Forum has a long, detailed discussion about the white v. black musician issue in a thread called "Blues Foundation Slammed." The thread began with an African American blues society leader complaining that the national Blues Foundation helps to perpetuate the situation in which nearly all blues musicians with gigs today are white.

Coming late to this thread, and with the caveat that I have not read the entire thread yet, I would only comment that I have often viewed national jazz concerts in a section at the Gem Theater at 18th and Vine in Kansas City in which almost all of the people around me are African Americans, aged 40 and up. They show no signs whatever of distinguishing between the race of the players on stage. Some of the most approving comments from this section have been for Renee Rosnes' playing on a blues, when she was in James Moody's group. I have heard the people around me literally screaming out approval for a white bass player's solo. I see no difference at all in the way that this all black audience reacts to white musicians at concerts, compared to a white audience. The only difference is that the African Americans tend to dress a great deal better when they go to a concert, compared to a white audience. I feel that pointing to this one anecdote may be appropriate, in that I think that there are unfortunately not all that many examples any more of an all black audience for jazz in any location.

Or a third alternative, it's an addiction.

I recently alphabetized the jazz CDs I have purchased and not listened to yet, as they were getting out of hand in a disorganized pile, and they fill 14 plastic containers which each hold 74 CDs. Each of these CDs was purchased out of fear that the album in question would go out of print soon. My wife suggests that I put a lot of my CDs on my new Ipod and get an attachment to play the Ipod in the car. I think that she may be on to something.

To say that Led Zeppelin ripped off these artists is right. I don't remember many songwriting credits given to the original songwriters on their albums. Clapton seems to have always tried to give original credit when he covered older blues material, but not Led Zeppelin. Oddly, I have read that Robert Plant has spent more time in the past fifteen years than any other single person, in the leading blues museum and library in Mississippi, doing research on decades old blues artists and recordings.

Clete Boyer actually became a better hitter, with some power, after he was traded to the Atlanta Braves.

I have owned "Jewel in the Lotus" on CD for at least a few years now and it sounds fine. I can't remember where I bought it. I will have to look at my copy now to see if it is an import, etc.

One of my favorite overheard comments in a music store was in the basement of Streetside Records in Kansas City about five years ago. A teenage girl asked her mother about Wynton Marsalis and Branford Marsalis. She said, "their albums sound like Lee Morgan albums, only not as good."

Mack Jones Frank Thomas Lee Maye

Had the same feeling, but then I thought no. Not sure if they meant to suggest it, or it was just an accident. For instance, I had a feeling, based on the way at one point they shot the entrance to the restaurant where Carmella and Tony were dining, that would-be killers were going to burst in, but either that was an accident (these people aren't every-shot-counts cinematic geniuses, a la Hitchcock) or it was just me. In any case, I don't think it's in Tony's nature to off himself -- unless he were overcome by visions of Nancy Marchand. If Sil went down shooting, so will Tony. On the other hand, his being dumped by Dr. Melfi (a nicely written and performed scene, for the most part) was quite a land mine and might reverberate. I also expected that Carmella and Tony would be met by assassins in the restaurant. But no, they were instead assaulted by the terminally socially inept Arnie and his wife and their interminable, thoughtless remarks.

I noted that A.J. was not in Janice's house at the end with his mother and sister. I wonder if that was meant to convey that he did not leave the family house with them, or whether they all moved into another house and then two of them decided to pay a visit, all off-camera.