Hot Ptah

clementine, I can assure you that any ideas I may have about Ella, or any other artist, are my own, and not merely some received conventional wisdom. I have attended a very detailed lecture by Richard Davis on the musical merits of Ella, in which he played examples of her work and explained exactly what she was doing musically and why it was so superior. He did this in the context of telling us that he had played in Sarah Vaughan's trio for several years in the mid to late 1950s, and had been telling the other New York musicians at that time that Sarah was far better than Ella. He said that the other New York jazz giants told him in rough terms to go back and listen to Ella again because he was missing something if he could not hear Ella's musical greatness. They expressed it to him in much more colorful language. I do not base my opinions about Ella on that lecture either, although it was an interesting lecture. I have listened to many female jazz vocalists and have some strong opinions about them, pro and con, which may very well depart from the conventional wisdom as commonly written in the jazz literature. I find that Organissimo.org develops its own conventional wisdom about artists from time to time, in which the frequent posters all pile on some well known artist and declare that he or she is without much merit. Then other posters chime in with words of encouragement to the nay sayers. A few brave souls beg to differ and are swatted down by some of the frequent posters. To be fair, other frequent posters typically chime in at that point with a reasoned response, and the discussion becomes more of an in-depth examination, which I like. It is good to challenge the conventional wisdom of jazz writing over the years. I don't find it to be very helpful though to post something like "John Coltrane was a hack" and then have several people agree, and then that's the discussion. What is the value in that, if John Coltrane's supporters can't express their views too?

If you had recently moved into the house, you must have had homeowner's insurance in place, or the bank or mortgage company would not have closed on the sale. Did you notify your homeowner's insurance company at the time of the flood, about the flood and any damaged items? If so, they should pay for a new album collection for you. Usually with insurance claims involving loss of album collections, the problem is that the albums are destroyed in the loss event, and the owner has no list of what they were. Here, you do not have that problem. The albums are right there, for the insurance adjuster to make a list from. If you did not notify your homeowner's insurance company of the flood at the time, I would do so now. They may say that you waited too long to notify them, but maybe they won't say that. It is definitely worth a try. The homeowner's insurance carriers have companies which they hire regularly to repair and restore items damaged by water or fire. These companies have a lot of experience in evaluating whether something can be saved, and if so, how to do it. I would not start cleaning up your albums until you find out if your insurance company will provide coverage for the loss and will replace or repair your albums. The insurance company would want its own people to see the damaged albums and to do the repairs. The insurance company might say that you had given up your rights once you started working on the albums.

John Gilmore's solo on "A Train" is quite enjoyable. I also like the energetic version of "El Is A Sound of Joy" on this album, although this version is missing part of the original head (which was restored on the later album "Mayan Temples"). Otherwise-- I agree, it consists of a lot of loud avant garde music which will appeal to some, and not to others. I recall a down beat Blindfold Test with Louis Bellson, shortly after this album came out. One of the avant garde cuts from the album was played for him. His comment was along the lines of "this is the kind of music that will drive kids away from jazz." There is more varied, and more melodic, Sun Ra out there.

Lots of discerning jazz lovers would disagree with you. To each their own.

I am skeptical of these Starbucks products, but to dismiss Ella's entire career....she doesn't need me to defend her.

Maybe Murray was staring at that girl across the way.

Does anyone remember seeing the Bill Evans Trio performing on the Grammy Awards show in the early 1970s? This would have been 1971, 1972, 1973 or 1974. I remember that as I had not yet fully immersed myself into jazz, I found the performance difficult to follow. I remember that they played very fast and that there was no melody which was easy to determine. The next day in school band class, some of my classmates asked each other "what in the world was that?" and other questions of that sort, regarding Evans' performance. With what I know now about Bill Evans' recorded output, this all seems unlikely and odd to me. Perhaps he was playing something which would be routine listening to a jazz lover.

This brings back memories of driving years ago from Madison, Wisconsin to Kansas City with everything in a fully packed large U-Haul, with another U-Haul trailer hitched behind it (we had too much stuff)! After about 150 miles, the driver's side window fell into the door, and it could not be budged out of there. That was O.K. until it started raining, and it became even less O.K. when the rain turned into a downpour. As the temperature was over 100 degrees, it was akin to an involuntary steam bath.

What I am struck by is the sheer number of votes in this poll--close to 4,000. I think that the down beat Readers Polls in recent years have received only a few hundred ballots.

How about Don Cherry's contributions to Side 5 of Escalator Over The Hill? I have always enjoyed what he plays at the beginning and end of the side.

clementine, I get a lot of enjoyment out of your posts, but I must confess that I find it difficult to tell when you are "just goofin'".

I'm not so sure that the rhythm section was a quick pick up. I saw Murray live about the same time at the Tuba Club in Kansas City, and the same piano trio from Wyoming was his backup. They actually played pretty well together, I thought. It was not as inspiring a backup as when I saw Murray with John Hicks and Andrew Cyrille, but it was O.K. Mostly the Wyoming guys provided a solid base for Murray to blow over, which he did with intensity and a decent flow of ideas. Murray was not upset by the Wyoming piano trio backup. He sat on the bar stool right next to me between sets, drinking and talking pleasantly to people who came up. That same Wyoming piano trio came to Kansas City several times that year, to provide backing for Bobby Hutcherson, Ray Anderson and other national artists, at the City Light Jazz Club. I always wondered why. They were certainly capable, but not more distinctive than Kansas City rhythm sections--if the national artist was not going to bring a backup band, why fly people in from Wyoming?

The question keeping America on the edge of its collective seats remains-- What is Tommy Thompson's favorite music? Until we know that, how can we rest easily?

What did he say? I don't remember. However, that would have been one hell of an interesting combo. Even more interesting would have been a trio w/Randy, Thelonious and Elvin. Chuck producing the record, of course. Guy I did see a trio live, at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, of Randy Weston, Richard Davis and Don Moye. This was in May, 1978. Don Moye has never played so intensely, in my experience.

Those cowards! No one would admit to their love of the Die Like a Dog Quartet!

I don't know, but as I remember it, one of the percussionists was standing and pounding on something. Whether it was with mallets or his hands, I can't remember. I assume that he was Mtume, based on what I now know about the band.

Actually, the Emerson Lake and Palmer show was noteworthy in that as Keith Emerson played his keyboard, the instrument was lifted into the air and spun him head over heels in the air, over and over again, as he continued playing. True story--one of the guys in the room with us at the time had passed out from drinking too much beer. He awoke, bleary eyed and half out of it, and saw Emerson spinning around in the air, playing keyboards. He let out a yell and said something about being even drunker than he thought he was.

Joshua plays great, in my opinion, on the SF Jazz Collective's "Live 2006" album. It's a limited edition album available cheapest from the SF Jazz Collective website, where I ordered it.

Thanks! So it's on Dark Magus. I will have to play that tonight. The link contains the information that the performance was taped for Midnight Special, but I do not think so. I distinctly recall it being on In Concert, which was a much better show as I remember it.

Do you really remember it that well? That's amazing. Does it appear on any Miles album? I would love to dig out my collection and find it.

The Mahavishnu Orchestra's performance on In Concert now, that was something else. I had never heard of them before. I remember McLaughlin's short hair was a visual shock, as virtually every white rock musician had unruly shoulder length hair then. He had a double neck electric guitar, which I had never seen before. They played at breakneck speed, intense, wild. A rock and roller could follow it--to me it was faster than anything played by the rock guitar gods of the time, and weirder and more dissonant. However, it was close enough to something like a rollicking Allman Brothers instrumental jam that I could follow it. I could tell that they were all really good. Billy Cobham's drumming seemed incredible. The sheer intensity and speed of their playing created a big positive impact on me. I got Inner Mounting Flame and Birds of Fire as soon after that as I could. I think that Birds of Fire had not been out for very long at the time.

That's really good to hear.

As I remember the performance, the opening and closing statement of the song consisted of Miles playing a few short, stabbing notes in a rather simple scale, synchopated and not especially melodic, as the band played something funky behind him. That really addled my rock and roll brain. "This is a.....SONG? Huh?" I kept thinking. "It seems too....SIMPLE to be a song." I would probably recognize it now by title. My friend in the high school jazz stage band, who sat next to me in the trumpet section and was a Doc Severinsen fanatic, said the next day, "what the heck was that Miles Davis stuff on TV? It was awful! What was he doing?" But I had an idea that there was more to it than that, and that there was merit to it, although I couldn't quite take it all in.

Do you remember the percussion duet that went on for a fairly long time during the Miles song? I have since read that it was Mtume and Badal Roy. I seem to recall that one of the percussionists was not wearing a shirt. I don't know why I remember that. The Miles performance was on the show right before the floodgates opened in my mind to let jazz in, and I was fairly befuddled by the performance. I remember thinking that David Liebman's solo was at least something I could latch onto, although it seemed quite frenzied to me, and was played on an instrument I was not aware of (it was a soprano saxophone).

You're getting characters confused. The guy that was cooperating was Ray Curto, he died last season of a heart attack or stroke while speaking to an agent. Patsy Parisi also wears glasses but was never exposed or portrayed as a rat. Thanks, I was wondering about it.