Hot Ptah

As the Jazz Corner thread has continued, someone there placed a link to this Organissimo discussion. Walto, one of my favorite people at JC, has submitted a thoughtful response to Lois.

After Crouch's last public lecture in Kansas City, I can imagine that. Somehow I missed a Kansas City appearance by Crouch. When and where was it? What did he say?

"Thinking" before sending may be the missing piece to this puzzle.

If only....posting on this site was an economically viable business! It would be a lot more fun than other businesses. Nessa Records is one of the all time great labels, with many treasures among its releases. I thought so when I was buying the vinyl in the 1970s and later.

I can see why Chris would not want to post there. How much utterly unwarranted punishment should a person invite into their life? I hesitate to post there for that reason. Even my innocuous posts on non-musical topics are usually greeted with hostility. I truly do not understand that site.

This is actually typical of the discussions on Jazz Corner Speakeasy, from what I can tell, except that Mr. Crouch has chosen to add his two cents in this thread. For a fascinating, and funny, look into the Jazz Corner Speakeasy community, I suggest http://www.jazzcornertalk.com/speakeasy/sh...ead.php?t=16142 In this thread, the Jazz Corner Speakeasy regulars begin by ridiculing me for mentioning that Jazz Corner Speakeasy is unfriendly--before the thread develops into an out of control flame fest, with personal insults and attacks flying all over the place. Christiern, did you find the recent post by Scott Dolan on Jazz Corner Speakeasy, in which he states that the value of the other post by Stanley Crouch is that it got rid of you for good? I had to just shake my head at that one.

Louis Hayes' "Variety is the Spice of Life" is an excellent album, very enjoyable and appealing. I have not heard the others.

Dave Brubeck may sound "heavy handed" on some of his vintage recordings. However, I have attended three of his concerts in the past five years, including one in May of this year. Each time he was never heavy handed. I heard only nimble, light, swinging improvisations, without the pounding block chords of the past recordings. I thought that he was playing better than on his famous albums of the past.

A chorus by the reeds from Benny Goodman's recording of "Down South Camp Meeting."

They did that when I saw Rainbow with Richie Blackmore in the early '80s. Musically, the show was closer to Richie Blackmore and Rainbow than it was to Bobby Watson.

The primitive light effects I noticed during Bobby Watson were these rotating colored lights on the stage, which were spun around. For the Superstars of Jazz Fusion, that was only one of the primitive lighting effects used. For the Superstars, there was a large image projected above the stage, as if on an old time overhead projector. On this large projected image, a very rudimentary light show was presented. If you have seen documentaries of the San Francisco rock music scene around 1967, with the light shows at the Fillmore West, that is what this was like, only it was terrible. This Superstars light show consisted of an off white background against which many black and gray ovals, like the outline of oval shaped pills, were shown. It was very boring. I kept thinking--this is like something that a child would have done in the early 1970s. With all of the graphics readily available on personal computers today, it is amazing that this was the best they could do. Even more annoying--quite often during the Superstars show, many truly blinding spotlights were shone directly into the audience. It made the seating area as bright as daytime. I could not look into the spotlights--they were painfully bright--so I had to cup my hands over my eyes or look downward for a significant part of the show. At first these spotlights were used when a performer had shouted out to the audience to join in with singing or shouting or dancing, as if the lights were there to let everyone see how much the audience was complying with the performer's demands. After a while, they were just turned on often, for long periods of time. The sound was better than for Bobby Watson. I agree that it was terrible for Bobby. The sound was louder for the Superstars. The rhythm section was in a late 1970s rock/funk mode, so it had to be loud for the drummer with the huge kit, the repetitive electric bassist, and the synthesizer player (who was the only one of the three who was ever introduced, even though the drummer played an extended solo).

I ordered the two Basie Roulette sets (live and studio) and the T Bone Walker set, in one order, with the permission of my wife.

I stayed for it. To give it a charitable account: each artist was featured on 2 songs. Lonnie Liston Smith performed two credible electric keyboard solos. He was improvising in a tasteful manner. While it was not earthshaking, it was great compared to what followed. Bobbi Humphrey came out and mostly sang and danced to funk, and shouted to the audience to party and get funky. She played some flute solos which were out of tune and with very notably poor intonation. This may have been the most unprofessional playing I have ever heard live outside of an elementary school concert. She is not a professional instrumentalist. Jon Lucien was in good voice and was quite enjoyable. His version of Jobim's "Dinji" was quite good. That was a good musical segment, the last of the evening. Jean Carn and Wayne Henderson were embarassing in their segments. They yelled out stuff to the audience about partying and getting funky and dancing. The musical component was virtually nil. Ronnie Laws is just not that good or interesting a saxophonist. By today's standards he does not cut it. He did two of his old songs, and they were lightweight. Roy Ayers played almost no vibes, and sang one song. The show was accompanied by smoke effects, a primitive light show projected above the stage, twirling lights, and blinding spotlights being directed at the audience often. These special effects were silly and strictly amateur hour. So I am quite glad to have heard Jon Lucien, and Lonnie Liston Smith was O.K. The rest was a mess, more of a third rate funk show than anything else. The jazz content was about nil, except for Lucien and Smith.

That's the one I wrote all over. For example, under Ken McMullen I wrote Washington Senators, which covered about 1/4 of the card's surface. Under Al Weis I wrote New York Mets. Under Pete Rose I crossed out 2B and wrote Outfield. I can't remember what I wrote under Pedro Gonzalez.

What else did they play? For example, did they play Sun Ra's better known compositions? any Disney songs? any Fletcher Henderson or other swing era charts?

There is a blues/jazz festival in Kansas City next weekend, featuring the Superstars of Jazz Fusion, which is supposed to include Ronnie Laws, Lonnie Liston Smith, Roy Ayers, Jon Lucien, Bobbi Humphrey, Wayne Henderson and others. Has anyone seen this group live? None of the musicians are particular favorites of mine, and I am wondering if it is even worth going to. On the other hand, it may be enjoyable on some level. Maybe the musicians jell together and become greater than the sum of their parts. Anyone have any first hand experience seeing this group?

I collected cards in the mid-1960s and industriously wrote on every card when a player was traded or released or retired. I would write in the name of his new team, or the word "Released" or "Retired". So almost all of my cards were considerably lowered in value. I had a Pete Rose rookie card, where Pete's face is one of four player's faces on the card, and I wrote something under all four of them--the card was almost covered with my writing. A card shop owner bought it and put it on the wall with a little sign which read "I was angry one day and look what I did."

Has anyone heard this one, and if so, what are your thoughts on it? I apologize if it has been discussed before in this thread:

To quote another poster, "who are you dating?" Any woman I ever played Sketches of Spain for, always said something along the lines of "when are you going to take this weird stuff off already?"

It is now in a display case in the American Jazz Museum at 18th and Vine, in Kansas City.

Just to clarify--the show does little for me either. It is an odd quirk that one of the finalists sang an American popular songbook standard in a reasonably competent fashion. In fact, I am now sure that I am old, because the loud, flashy, overhyped presentation of the show was a big turnoff for me, and I suspect that it is appealing to the core American Idol audience.

Somehow I doubt that she would care much about what we write.

I watched American Idol this month. because my 10 year old daughter had to watch it or be an outcast at school. It is the main topic of conversation among school kids. Katharine McPhee finished second. Her specialty is singing slow, lovely versions of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". She lost to Taylor Hicks, the gray haired guy in the photos on this thread. He's a white boy blues/soul singer, who plays harmonica with a blues band when he is not busy becoming the most famous man in the world. American Idol attracted Stevie Wonder, Prince and other established artists this year, and the song selection and performances have become more varied and of higher quality, from what I can gather.

I wonder if there is any real difference between them musically, but McPhee will make millions being packaged as a pop princess. Somehow Monheit has gained a name as a jazz vocalist--why does she want to be one, when she could also be packaged as a pretty pop princess, and would probably be more comfortable musically singing light pop music.

I have enjoyed Stanley Dance's books on Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Earl Hines very much. I remember Stanley Dance's reviews at Jazz Times. I remember that in a concert review of Carla Bley, he wrote that she was having fun on stage, "as a good girl should" or something to that effect. I could not tell if he was saying things like that tongue in cheek, or if they reflected a cultural orientation toward a much earlier day, as well as a musical one.