Hot Ptah

How about a Mosaic Select, with Super Nova, Odyssey and MGF?

No, two copies of ten different discs.

I caught up on my alphabetical filing of CDs this summer, and discovered that I had duplicate copies of a jazz CD---ten times. I had no idea. It can happen when your collection grows to a certain level.

I also saw McCoy's trio recently. McCoy is playing "hotter" than he has in years. It was an amazing concert.

Hah! No.

I can truthfully say the same thing. But the solo I'm thinking of wasn't at the 18th and Vine Festival in '95 or '96 (yes, I was there). It was about 1990 at the Grand Emporium, of all places. It was a Murray quartet with John Hicks and Fred Hopkins. They closed with "Mr. P.C." Cyrille played one chorus on every part of the drumset. One exclusively on the snare's head, one exclusively on the snare's rim, one exclusively on the side of the snare, one exclusively on the snare's stand, etc. -- all the way around the set. Each cymbal was soloed on for one chorus with sticks -- then he grabbed each cymbal and bent it rhythmically for a chorus. When he'd run out of drumset pieces, he beat out one chorus each on his chest, his arms, his hands, his legs. This display went on for 10-15 minutes. The 12-bar chorus pattern remained clear throughout. The tempo was way up, and he bent it only a little. Besides being a great drum solo, it felt like a great blues performance too. I was there and I remember that performance. It was truly great.

Another late 1960s Ellington which is really worth getting is "Second Sacred Concert". There are some beautiful songs, including "Heaven" (later covered wonderfully by James Newton). There is some stuff on the album that I consider filler, and it would probably rank after some of the others mentioned on this thread, but it is definitely something to seek out at some point.

Why would he want to? I can take a dressing down from my boss at work, but it isn't something I go out of my way to get in my leisure hours.

Do tell. You've piqued my interest. "Yale Concert" has some interesting compositions that appear nowhere else, to my knowledge, and some performances where the soloists and the band were really "on", playing with inspiration, not just coasting through the old songs as on some live albums. To me, "70th Birthday Concert" is a colossal masterpiece, one of the greatest jazz albums of all time by anyone. It is up there with something like "Mingus Ah Um" in terms of being a great recorded statement. Run, don't walk. I think that the 1964--70 period is one of Ellington's finest in terms of recordings. Not in terms of new compositions compared to the 1920s through late 1940s , but he recorded some seriously wonderful stuff in the 1964--70 time. Also, you do have "The Ellington Suites", I hope? That was released in the mid-1970s to the public. One side, "The Queen's Suite", was recorded around 1960 but never released. The other two suites were recorded much later. Another essential recording.

Why are you guys so harsh? In my humble opinion, it's uncalled for. Someone has a question, why not answer it without making fun of them? Listener fatigue was discussed on the avant garde thread recently. I wonder if there is such a thing as posting fatigue.

"New Orleans Suite", "And His Mother Called Him Bill", "Far East Suite"--all essential, simply must haves. "70th Birthday Concert" and "Yale Concert" are also essential in my opinion. I know that you said that you were not as interested in live material. However, "70th Birthday Concert" and "Yale Concert" offer some very interesting, even unique contributions to the Ellington recorded history--they are not routine live sets by any means. Plus, they are a lot of fun to listen to.

Do you have the Bethlehem and Savoy studio recordings from the 1950s? Those are very worthwhile.

That is very interesting, and thought provoking. Is the current situation different in a significant sense from 1930s Kansas City, which brought forth Charlie Parker? Is there any reason why one or many original geniuses of the avant garde could not burst forth today? (A different question is, have they done so and we don't agree on who they are, or don't know of them). Is it a lack of "something" in all of those playing avant garde jazz right now, or would a budding Charlie Parker be unable to emerge today because of something in today's world, in the external environment, or in the jazz community, or lack of it. Does it really just get down to the scarcity of individual genius in any art form, over any period of time, and did jazz have a "lucky streak" where several individual geniuses emerged in a 50 year time span? Could another cluster of them emerge in a few years, or in 25 years, or in 150 years? (Or will it be like certain organized religion, where the wait is over 2000 years and counting?)

Are you saying that they are not discussed as "Great Men" because the "Great Man Theory of History" was being used, but because they were in fact "great" musicians and would have been stressed even if a very egalitarian system of reporting was being used?

There is much food for thought in this thread, and it will take a while to digest all of it. I see a shift in thinking about the avant garde over the years. I believe that at least up through the mid-1960s, if not later, much jazz writing was in the style of the Great Man Theory of History, popularized by Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century, in which historians focus on a few key individuals in writing the entire history of an era. Thus the entire history of World War II would be reduced to a retelling of the thoughts and actions of Hitler, Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill and a very few other individuals. This approach to writing history has come under fire and is not generally used much today, from what I have read and heard from my professors in college. It has been criticized for overemphasizing the importance of a few people and minimizing the larger societal trends and contributions of large numbers of people. In jazz it seems to me that the avant garde was often written about in that way--there was a consistent focus on the towering figures like Ornette, Cecil and late Coltrane--hence the many laments about no new giant after Coltrane. Many of the posters on this thread have gone beyond this way of thinking, and are genuinely interested in where is the avant garde today, wherever it may be, and whether or not it is tied to a few "Great Men". It strikes me that if we do not focus on the Great Men, there is a certain lack of ability to report on, and find out about, all of the important avant garde musicians of today---or else there is less consensus about who are the musicians making significant contributions. In some sense the internet has created a mind numbing surplus of information--there are so many CDs written about, so much music to hear and catch up on. Is it that the many avant garde jazz musicians who come at us in waves today are less compelling than the Ornettes on Atlantic and Blue Note, or Roscoe Mitchell's "Sound"--or are there just so many of them that no one has time to take one album and listen, relisten, let the work sink in, discuss and talk about it at length? If there were just a few avant garde works released each year and that process took place with them, would they be considered as "great" as Coltrane's "Meditations"? Or is music just not as good these days?

Was that here in KC, circa 1995 or '96?? (At one of the old 18th & Vine festivals, back when they were outside - before the museum and redevelopment.) I also saw that gig (if we're thinking of the same one), and Cyrille was pretty damn amazing as I recall. Joe, you were there too, right?? Yes, that was the gig! Who was on bass--I remember it was a trio but can't remember the bass player.

Michael, I have been thinking about how you will spend a day in Kansas City after you eat barbecue. It is a good place to live but there are not that many tourist attractions or even interesting places to hang out. Many people walk around on the Plaza, a high end outdoor shopping/dining area with faux-Spanish architecture, built in the 1920s. Near the Plaza, if you like this sort of thing, the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art are within easy walking distance of each other and are really good art museums. The Nelson Atkins has a great place to "chill out", as the youngsters say these days, Rozelle Court, a remarkable room and great place to have a beverage (alcoholic or not) and food, or to just relax. It is a multistory room with skylights, a fountain in the middle, and very old stone walls. Anyway, some might scoff at my attempt to add some "high culture", but the art museums are as pleasant and interesting a set of places as you would find in one day here.

Oklahoma Joe's is also notable for sharing its space with the interior of a gas station. It is across the street from the fabled location of Capers Corners, which had been one of the greatest record stores in the world, owned and run by Ed Asner's brother. He closed it and passed away soon after. It was a serious bummer when Capers Corners closed.

One of my favorite moments at Bryants. You wait in line at a counter to order your food, which is then prepared in front of you and the plate is handed to you through a window. One time there was a New Agey-looking woman in line in front of me, staring at the huge man slapping down fistfuls of fries around the sandwiches on the orders in front of us. When her turn came, she asked him, "do you use polyunsaturated or saturated fat for those fries?" He stared at her in disbelief, waited a few seconds and then bellowed, "we use LARD, ma'am!" Another favorite moment--back when the Royals were good, we used to go to Opening Day as a given, and always stopped at Bryant's on the way for a ritual meal. As we sat and ate, we noticed a white haired man in a three piece suit standing in line with the hundreds of others, waiting to get to the window. We realized that it was Henry Bloch, founder and CEO of H&R Block.

Actually Madison, Wisconsin is quite the beehive of avant garde jazz activity. Last I had heard, they had at least one venue that quite often had acts come there to play. In fact, many acts were playing there, but not coming to Minneapolis/St. Paul. Do the avant garde jazz concerts draw very well in Madison? Historically the jazz audience there has been rather limited. If they are drawing well, that's great.

Cyrille played the single greatest drum solo I have ever heard live, on a gig with David Murray. He deserves much wider acclaim.

It is probably not going too far out onto a limb to say that the jazz avant garde scene in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois outside of Chicago, and Western Michigan, is not a beehive of activity.

MG, Look less than an inch above Chicago on your map, to a state line for Wisconsin--Illinois. That line defines two different civilizations, which don't like each other at all. Distances can be deceiving in the U.S. (and probably everywhere else too!)

In Lawrence, Kansas, it's Love Garden for record shopping and what else?

Bryant's is not strictly for the tourists. It can be inconsistent, but I agree that it is an experience not to be missed. When I first moved to Kansas City, I ate a huge meal at Bryant's, eating too much, and on the way home, made my first stop at the Music Exchange (sadly no longer available for Michael's perusal) and bought a Wes Montgomery album. I can't listen to Wes even today without feeling a powerful, but strangely pleasant, ache in my gut.