felser

"I Just Wasn't Made For These Times"/"Pet Sounds"/"Caroline, No", the final three songs on the Beach Boys 'Pet Sounds', have been running through my head off and on for weeks. Steve Miller's "Fly Like An Eagle" has had frequent spells in my head over the years.

Chewycosis. Actually, he's a good guy and I enjoy his posts. And I like that Philip Bailey album quite a bit. "Easy Lover" video is a classic.

Agreed - The version of the wonderful "Capra Black" on Last Session is incredible, much stronger than even the title track version on Harper's first album. I have great respect for Scott Yanow's AMG reviews in general, but he really misses the boat on this album somehow.

Do the right thing. But decide what that is first. Proper is doing absolutely nothing that the laws of their country prohibit. We've been through this so many times in so many threads lately. The box is an excellent value, but I find the later Atlantic recordings more to my liking.

Black Fire and Judgement would be the next ones in my book.

Another thing it does is give a medium to contrast differences of expression. Here's what I mean. Many painters will paint a still life (pieces of fruit laying around a compote on a white cloth, or whatever). In a sense, they're all doing the same thing subject-wise. But the still life paintings come out very different from each other. Even in a class of students all painting the same still life arrangement, not only are the styles different, but so are the angles and the cropping as well as the use the use of shadows and light and colors, etc. With the Jazz Messengers, you have hard bop with Blakey rimshots from 1954-1991, same subject across the years and bands. But, just to take trumpet players off the top of my head, you listen to Clifford Brown, Kenny Dorham, Donald Byrd, Bill Hardman, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Chuck Mangione, Woody Shaw, Valery Pomenerev, Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Wallace Roney, Philip Harper, Brian Lynch, and whoever I've missed/forgotten, and how they, quite differently from one another, musically paint their corner of the Jazz Messengers canvas, what each of them brought to the experience, what each of them took away from the experience. If Blakey had bounced from style to style, those comparisons would be obscured, and we wouldn't understand those musicians as well. Another example. A great way to understand what Coltrane took from Coleman Hawkins and what he advanced and made his own, is to listen to each of their versions of "Body and Soul".

Chuck, you have your stuff you get way too serious about, too! The name change thing is a fascinating story for anyone that doesn't know it. Silly edit. Yes, the uninformed are always fascinated. You still haven't forgiven me for John Handy - Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival meaning more to me than Albert Ayler, so you're following me around from thread to thread to torture me! I can tell my grandkids that I was harrassed by a legendary jazz producer! I didn't even remember that was you. Do you think you are being stalked. If so, call for help. I was responding to the words, not the writer. Now you're the one who's way too serious about this stuff! I'm starting a separate 'Chuck and Felser fuss at each other' thread so that we can return this thread to the discussion fo the new John Mellencamp album!

Chuck, you have your stuff you get way too serious about, too! The name change thing is a fascinating story for anyone that doesn't know it. Silly edit. Yes, the uninformed are always fascinated. You still haven't forgiven me for John Handy - Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival meaning more to me than Albert Ayler, so you're following me around from thread to thread to torture me! I can tell my grandkids that I was harrassed by a legendary jazz producer! I didn't even remember that was you. Do you think you are being stalked. If so, call for help. I was responding to the words, not the writer. Now you're the one who's way too serious about this stuff!

Chuck, you have your stuff you get way too serious about, too! The name change thing is a fascinating story for anyone that doesn't know it. Silly edit. Yes, the uninformed are always fascinated. You still haven't forgiven me for John Handy - Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival meaning more to me than Albert Ayler, so you're following me around from thread to thread to torture me! I can tell my grandkids that I was harrassed by a legendary jazz producer!

Shawn, the commercial takes the song out of context. Remember that GM and Reagan wanted to co-op "Born in the USA" as flag-waver song, and it's anything but. Listen to the whole song.

Chuck, you have your stuff you get way too serious about, too! The name change thing is a fascinating story for anyone that doesn't know it.

Somewhat, but not overt. It's a cry for human decency and the spirit of what this country can be at it's best, like 'Scarecrow' was. I'm a registered republican (who has big problems with both parties), and was not turned off at all lyrically (in fact I found them powerful and thrilling), and I can't imagine that a registered democrat would be turned off either. The album needs to be heard by anybody who's an American. Some of the U.S.-bashing corner of the European crowd won't like the lyrics, but this album isn't for them anyways.

That would be the one. His name has been changed several times throughout his career. IIRC, it started out as John Cougar, then progressed to John Cougar Mellencamp, and now it's just John Mellencamp. Kinda bizarre, but I've always dug the cat. Maybe the next incarnation of his name will be a hip modern version: JMell Actually not bizarre at all. His real name is Mellencamp, he had the showname Johnny Cougar, and as his music became more real, he also took back his real name (after a fight with the record company, who was appalled at the idea. The John Cougar Mellencamp phase was a transitional compromise so that he would still be recognizable on the shelves back when there were shelves of records in real brick and mortar stores).

How widespread is World Cafe? As it originates out of WXPN, the station from my alma mater here in Philly (where Michael Cuscuna got his start, by the way), I have trouble thinking of it as anything other than our own really cool local college station show, but it obviously reaches much farther than that.

It is a return to Scarecrow territory especially (doesn't have the acoustic roots textures of Lonesome Jubilee with the accordian and fiddle, etc.), incredibly heartfelt and urgent, as both Scarecrow and Lonesome Jubilee were. I agree those were his peak (Uh-Huh was still a little snotty and a little filler-heavy for me to call it primo). I like what he did after Scarecrow and Lonesome Jubilee, but not like I like those two, and not like I like this new one.

Multiple choice: Who, Charles Tolliver? Yuck. You ever tried getting corpse vomit out of carpet? You must not remember the 70s... All of the above. C. And it started before the 70's, thanks to Liberty (remember 'Collision in Black' and those gross Stanley Turrentine albums?), but UA made it much worse. But I believe the Norah Jones windfall funded some reissues and new projects we never would have seen otherwise (Lou Blackburn and Charles Tolliver, anyone?),and if this does the same, OK by me. Nothing says we have to buy it, and no one is a Blue Note completist anymore.

I just got done listening to John Mellencamp's new album, Freedom's Road, and I'm blown away by it. The only other album he's ever done which compares to it is 'Scarecrow', and to be honest, this feels like an even better, even more important album. The truck commercial song ('Our Country') sounds great and has a lot to say, and that is true of every song on this album, I don't think there's a single throwaway here, which is the difference between this and 'Scarecrow', which had a couple. Surely will be the album of the year, and "Someday" surely will be the song of the year. If anyone comes along and beats either of them (and I can't think of anyone out there right now who's even capable of something in this league, except maybe Beth Orton, who isn't due for an album this year), this will be the greatest rock album year in decades. Let me know your thoughts, but only if you've actually listened to the album!

Chicken Shack was recorded 4/25/60, a little after Hayes went off with Cannonball and Roy Brooks replaced Hayes with Silver.

Ah yes! And Gene Russell's 2 LPs for Black Jazz. I picked those up, knowing nothing about him. And later found he owned the label! MG I'll add the Doug and Jean Carn albums on Black Jazz. They were $.99 cutouts which blew my mind!

Great point on Hayes. Lex Humphries reminds me of some of this style too.

Gotta disagree with you on that. Haynes w/Trane, although definitely not Trane With Elvin, was a still good thing in my book, and that's one of best of it. Interesting to hear your take on that. I'll have to go back and give it a fresh listen. Amazing Trane solo on that, sounds like a soprano/tenor duet at times from the overblowing. I don't play, so don't know technically what's going on there, but it SOUNDS incredible, and incredibly difficult.

I am knocked out by Roach's drumming on the first side of 'Members. Don't Get Weary', especially on "Effi", and that doesn't sound anything like his 40's/50's playing. When I have someone who wants to learn about jazz, I play them that version of "Effi" and tell them to concentrate on the drums and listen to how everything else plays off if them. As for Williams, I hear different things in him than from any previous drummers, in how he uses the cymbals so much in establishing the rhythm. And to me, that is quite the opposite of Roy "Snap, Crackle" Haynes. And boy, was Haynes the wrong drummer for Trane's '63 Newport "My Favorite Things", which could have been THE Coltrane Quartet recording if Elvin had been together an on the gig.

I know there's an option on the board to edit out someone's postings altogether. I wouldn't want to do that with Clem, as he makes some fascinating points, but I sure wish there was an option to edit out his ever more frequent gratuitous crudeness.

Adam, I agree on the rhythm section on that second BYG Moncur - I never heard of them either, yet their underpinning makes it a lovely session, the only BYG I would use that description for.

Eric, you're absolutely right about those, and I can tell you what the secret to the success of many of those sessions was - writing and arranging by Teddy Charles and/or Mal Waldron, who were very skilled at organizing a session as well as gifted players.