Hot Ptah

Today I went to my Barnes and Noble store in Kansas City to buy a book and decided to go to the music section to see if there was a promotional push behind Kamasi Washington's "The Epic." There were no copies in the jazz section. i asked the staffer if they had it on display elsewhere in the store. He had never heard of "The Epic" or Kamasi Washington. He looked on the computer and said that no Barnes and Noble store in Kansas City has a copy. Then he said, "this is odd. We can't order it. It is in a special category, considered so unsellable by Corporate that we are not allowed to get it shipped to our store. Very few CDs or DVDs get that designation. Usually we can order in just about anything." Barnes and Noble is the only brick and mortar store that I know of which is still open in Kansas City and routinely carries a reasonably complete selection of current music releases. So Allen Lowe, you may be relieved that there does not seem to be any promotional campaign going on for Kamasi Washington or "The Epic." If there is, it is not effective on a national level.

Thom if this method is what you want to use, it seems to work for us, except on certain software which some people must have on their computer.

I tend to agree that the Search function should be completely disabled, and when anyone tries to use it, they should receive a message directing them on how to use Google for searches instead. As far as I can tell, the Search function is so badly broken that it is unlikely that it can be corrected.

For whatever it is worth, here is the discussion about this album on another music board: SONG OF THE STARGAZERS (Saturn, 1980) 1. The Others in Their World 2. Somewhere Out 3. Distant Stars 4. Duo 5. Seven Points 6. Cosmo Dance 7. Galactic Synthesis Another one unowned by me. Actually, it's pretty much unowned by almost all Ra enthusiasts; apparently very few copies exist. From Campbell: Ra-p, keyb; Michael Ray-tp; poss. Craig Harris-tb; Marshall Allen-as, fl, ob, picc; John Gilmore-ts; Eloe Omoe-bcl; Danny Ray Thompson-bs; unknown-eg; unknown-b; poss. Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner)-d; unknown-cga; unknown-perc. Live recording, unknown location. The non-gonzo guitarist suggests 1978 or later. Seven Points seems akin as a title to Five Points (on Omniverse). Sound is awful -- keyboard is often off mike. Julian Vein says that the LP may have been recorded on only one stereo channel; Geerken concurs that both of his copies sound defective. Vocalists are so hard to hear that I can't tell whether June Tyson is there or not, or whether they ever got to sing Song of the Stargazers. Distant Stars is an abstract piano rumination. Seven Points is an exciting and rather humorous percussion piece. Cosmo Dance is a sinuosity for oboe and bass clarinet (maybe it backed the dancers with the giant Thai hats). Hartmut Geerken confirms that it was released, as he and two other European collectors own copies. "Maybe Saturn produced it in a very limited edition and they sold it while touring through Europe." Geerken says that the LP has a Chicago Saturn label (perhaps it is the last Chicago Saturn?). Stahl's discography listed it as a 1961 release, from the Sun Arts Club in Chicago (a place I am convinced is imaginary). I do wonder, though, about Edward Skinner (listed by Stahl on drums) because he was later known as Luqman Ali! Did Stahl take Skinner's name as evidence of a 1961 recording date? In any case, one listen will convince you this session was not made in 1961. Thanks to Mark Webber for sending me a tape. [rlc] ceddy10165Well-Known Member Location: Avon, CT Remastered copies of Song Of the Stargazers (sourced from a cassette of the original LP) circulate among collectors. It is a strong LP, consistent with other Ra releases of the period. 1974-1978 seems to be the time period that the tracks were recorded.

The tracks played instantly for me with this new system.

Wow, that is very easy to use. I like this a lot. Yes, Thom is providing a great service for us!

Thanks Jim. That puts it into perspective. I have just used the Google idea for several searches and that seems to work well.

I wanted to find where a particular favorite track was located in an old Blindfold Test, so I searched for it, and the Search feature came up with no results. I then typed in several very famous, often mentioned jazz musicians' names into the Search function, asking it to search in the Blindfold Test forum, and there were no results for any of them. I remember that we have had several songs by each artist in past Blindfold Tests. Next I typed the same famous jazz musicians' names into the overall Search for the entire site, and only came up with three to five "hits" for each, going back to 2003. That is impossible. Each has been mentioned hundreds of times on this board. I just read an old thread on problems with the Search feature, and there was a suggestion to type into Google, site:organissimo.org (and then your search terms). Doing that with one of the names brought up hundreds of "hits", while the Search feature here had produced three "hits" since 2003. Is there anything that can be done?

Thom, I am sending you a Private Message about this.

That is really interesting that Track 7 is "Jumpin' Punkins" by Buell N. When I first got into jazz in the 1970s, and had less than 50 jazz albums and played each one repeatedly, some of my first listening was to Duke Ellington's early 1940s recordings. So I found the composition to be very familiar. In the mid-1970s, not much earlier jazz had been released on vinyl. I heard the Duke Ellington early 1940s recordings on a local public radio program. I wrote to the host asking him how I could obtain those recordings. He wrote back with a nice letter and a list of import LPs that would include them. I then began a search and found some of them quickly.

Track 7 is Mercer Ellington's composition "Jumpin' Punkins" which was recorded by Duke Ellington and his orchestra in 1941. Duke's recording appears on the "Blanton/Webster" three CD set. However, I have not been able to figure out who is playing the song here on Track 7.

I know what Track 4 is. It is "AM Rag", by Dave Burrell, from his 1979 solo piano album on hat ART, "Windward Passages". I have always liked this album a great deal. In 1980, I was visiting a friend who grew up in Washington, D.C. We saw a corner record store and went in. My friend has recently reminded me that it was Record and Tape Ltd. In this shop was a large piece of cardboard, propped up near the cash register, with handwritten recommendations. I remember that the author really liked "Windward Passages", and wrote that "It is like Keith Jarrett solo piano, only better." . The rest of the cardboard piece was covered with unusually worded recommendations for other jazz albums. They were obviously written by someone very well informed. Cut out photos of Harley Davidson motorcycles were glued to this piece of cardboard too, at irregular places in and next to the recommendations. My friend pointed out the author to me, a young man named Kristoff (the spelling could be off). My friend said that Kristoff "had a following", of jazz lovers who came in to read his ever-changing cardboard recommendations and to buy what he recommended. My friend mentioned that Kristoff was well-known by the city's jazz lovers for his love of his Harley Davidson motorcycle. So that was my introduction to "Windward Passages." On first listen to this BFT, it strikes me that Track 6 may contain the piano stylings of Paul Bley.

This is very sad.

I have over 20 of her albums and listen to them often for pleasure. I do not understand what other people think is missing in them. I find nothing missing, and find her music thoroughly satisfying. Different strokes.

It is a very interesting book. The prior edition which I own has very different cover art, and no fatal introduction by Dave Marsh. In this book, Nina is very candid about her disappointments and pain, and the choices she made. It is a quick read, and quite entertaining. One thing that comes through very clearly in the book. Nina fully expected to be a professional classical pianist. She says that she was not allowed to do that, despite sufficient training and talent, because of her race. She turned to performing other styles of music only after her greatest dream was crushed. That pain seems to have had a huge influence on her entire life, according to her book.

My sentiments exactly, that this BFT is quite an education, and one of the more amazing BFT's I've participated in.

This looks fascinating. Is this included in the recent 3 CD set for which you asked for advance funding, or is it yet another release from the Lowe universe? Oh, I went back and looked at the prior thread. It is not included in the recent 3 CD set. Will this ever come out on CD? I have a friend who is a Julius Hemphill fanatic and would love to present a CD of this to him as a gift.

Nina Simone's autobiography, "I Put a Spell on You", touches on many of the issues discussed in this thread.

I have always enjoyed Nina Simone's music and connected with it. I like to listen to it, period. Just wanted to say that not everyone found the idea of her music better than her music.

I meant the indie rock fans. What I meant is that no fans of any music know anything about jazz now. So, why is this thread singling out the young, indie rock fans who have become Kamasi Washington fans recently?

I have often thought that Bark would have been a good album if they had taken off "Thunk" and "Never Argue With a German When You're Tired", and substituted the two songs from the non-hit single, "Have You Seen the Saucers" and "Mexico". I listened to "Long John Silver" last fall. It struck me that many groups end with a whimper, a low energy album where you can feel the air leaving the balloon. In contrast, "Long John Silver" seems to be the product of angry energy to me. It may be their hardest rocking album overall. The songs are not as distinctive as on prior albums, however.

I saw him live in 1976 and he was as good a guitar player and singer as many of the rock stars of that time. He was primarily a songwriter, and wrote distinctive songs.

On the other hand, hardly anyone into any genre has the slightest idea what jazz even is. Why pick on the Pitchfork crowd? I think that I need to stop reading this "Jazz in Print" section of the board. It seems to irritate me. The Steve Hoffman Forum is famous for some of its members lashing out negatively at any new music release and attacking any younger musician, and then other members comment on how the first members are too negative about new music, and then the first members say "well new music and musicians are not as good as the older ones" and then the second group of members says "don't be so close minded all the time", and then the discussion goes on and on, back and forth. . I had not really encountered any hint of that on Organissimo, until I started reading "Jazz in Print". I need to not read "Jazz in Print."

Well, this is very anecdotal information, based on a sample size of one. I have an old grade school friend, who lives far away from me. We often discuss music in emails. In his late 50s he has become a devotee of new, alternative rock, and the new electronic pop music. He keeps up on all of the new releases. He is an avid reader of Pitchfork and other contemporary pop music publications. He is a huge fan of Flying Lotus and the other Pitchfork favorites. (By the way, he has burned CD-Rs for me of Flying Lotus. I would not go out of my way to seek out this music, but I am surprised by the imagination and density of ideas in these albums). My friend knows about jazz, and owns probably 1,000 jazz albums. Mingus and Monk are his all time favorites. He regularly forwards jazz articles in Pitchfork to me. So I have always thought that some of the alternative rock fans/electronic music fans may know something about jazz. It can be misleading to lump an entire group of people together under a stereotype.