danasgoodstuff

Saw Lil Rounds last night and maybe it was just the dress she ws wearing but that's got to be the most ironic name ever...haven't watched this year since the initial auditions and just was the recap last night, I too get tired of the judges...

I have this out from Mult Co Library (we're #1!) and have mixed feelings at best. It's obviously a labour of love, and it's worth documenting Funk as a ground up populist phenomena...BUT I feel like I'm listening to the same poor excuse for a song over and over, and this from someone who loves early Stax where the songwriting wasn't exactly stellar either. Something about Funk as a genre (as opposed to a quality all music should have) seems reified in a particularly bad way to me, although I feel pretty much the same and more about Metal and many other genres qua genres... Bottom line is I think I'd rather have just Rhino's History of Funk Vol 1/2 (one half), the Roots of Funk, and call it good.

Re Lefty I could go on & on 'bout what a great singer he was, even more so as time went on, 'bout how everything was right on the early records made in Dalla, 'bout gems like "no One to Talk to But the Blues" that even fans seem to overlook, BUT Lefty said it all in "That's the Way Love Goes"...

Gary Peacock & Elvis Costello?

I think there's also collaborative genius where the individuals on their own are merely alright but together (and only together) the're exploring/mapping the future, or whatever you want to call it. Examples? Tristano/Konitz/Marsh? Bill Monroe & Earl Scruggs? the 2nd Quintet? Maaybe I've just painted myself into a(n interesting) cornewr...?

having worked in two of the world's great record stores, the Electric Fetus in Mpls & music Millennium in Ptld, I will certainly miss them if they really all go away. And if they do, it will be because of rents as much as anything. I met many wonderful people, including my current wife, there...

I thought we were all geniuses in jazz, that's why I came here.

Mine: Art Ensemble - Nice Guys ("Drea MING of the MAS ters" is certainly singable...) Dave Holland - Conference of the Birds (not sure 'bout singable, but this is what he shoulda won all those awards for) neither is particularly typical ECM, Bright Size Life or DeJ Live with Lester B & John A would be closer that chimera

"I had to look up", think about it...

Fair 'nuf, the clips are lovely, nhot sure 'bout innocence - I mostly agree, but only mostly but don't have time to elucidate now. Marsh repeats the 'good/bad, but not evil' line often enough in his 1001 Singles book to be annoying, but he loves girls groups (and doo-sop, harmony of all sorts apparently). I did think the NPR interview with the Shangrilas' lead singer recently was slightly odd...

"Hmm...he's good-bad, but he's not evil" I'll assume that you meant to eccho the much maligned (here at Organissimo) Dave Marsh. One of the many ways he differs from standard 'classic rockism' is his ;huge appreciation for 'girl group' records... I've been meaning to post about why peopple hate Marsh so much, but that's another thread...

I just noticed that it's just U & I on the board at the moment, so how 'bout some dialog 'bout your namesake, or is that some sort of ab stract analogy that I'm not getting? For starters, do you think that Bix's partner in crime Trambauer was as good/significant/whatever - the general consesus seems to be no, but I think Pres would beg to differ...and yes, one of the reasons I dig Tram is 'cause I play C-melody too. Lokking forward to your response, Dana

Blue Chopsticks is, no doubt, wonderful - BUT, damn, that's one awful cover!

But I don't wanna go to the center of Ted's mind...

I'll take the Freddie Roach, will PM when I remember how...

He and Idris had a thang goin' on, so all of those, whether studio or live, are fine, as is Live at the Lighthouse as well. After BN you can safely skip. Also his sideman work with Rueben Wilson on BN and Houston Person, Charles Kynard, etc. is worthwhile. If you want a nice transitional album, the one with Don Patterson and Sonny Stitt is poised about halfway across the great divide, IMHO. For me '65 is not the cutoff, '66 is still 'early' as is Iron city, regardless of when it was actually recorded or who really plays on it - I mean they all really play, but who is it?

Bixie: As much as I have found many of your previous posts on politics and other subjects obnoxious and wrong-headed, I must say that I found your explanation above re Pops smiling persona to be fundamentally right-on and quite wonderful, Thank You. I loook forward to your thoughts on your namesake, and if we continue to disagree on other subjects that's life... Thanks again, Dana

Everyone knows Aretha grew up in church, and while it's certainly relevent to who she is as a singer and a person, thinking that's the whole story is exactly the kind of 'reductionism' I now reject. For me, the relative uncertainty of her singing when dealing with the big, bad world outside of church is exactly what makes her secular work more powerful to me than her straight gospel work, lovely as that is and no doubt part but only part of where she's coming from. It's also relevent here that I am most definately not a church person and often feel like a tourist listening to Aretha or anyone else sing straight gospel...

I agree, the Parkway Baby Face, Muddy, Little Walter trio version of R 'n T is it/really the blues/raw funk on a plate/whatever. The guys in Cream obviously thought so too since their version mimmicks the drums/harp/guitar/vocals (no bass) lineup...

I used to think that Aretha on Atlantic (especially the first 3-4 Atlantic LPs) was who she really was/what she was all about/whatever reductionist formulation you like. Now I'm not so sure. It's not so simple in theory (any actual living being is more complex than that) and Aretha especially is not that simple in practise. If those first few Atlantics are REALLY anyone, the're Jerry Wexler and Roger Hawkins and Spooner Oldham and Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman - their vision of what Aretha should've been doing. Aretha herself was in there, but I've come to the conclusion that her vision was less focussed on funk. She was and is a deeply soulful singer but I think she also wanted to be, and sing, pretty. so for me, at this point, if any single album could be said to represent the rel aretha, or as much as possible, it would be the extravagently expansive Young gifted & Black (and singles from those sessions). I have one collection of the Columbias, Aretha Sings the Blues, which I like, especially "Drinking Again" & "Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning". she certainly shares dinah Washington's I-can-sing-anything (and mae it mine) audacity, but I their emotional stance is different in wasys I feel inadaquat to describe.

Hey! I love Sidney Bechet, MLL, et al...and also think that post-revitalization BN is more than OK for what and when it was - a corporate stepchild in a bad time for jazz, realistically it's been better than I woulda guessed 25 years ago when they recessitated the corpse. Maybe I should start a new thread on BNs of the last 25, or did we do that already? I hope Ashley Khan's book on BN is better than the one On Impulse!

strippers...here in Ptld the're roughly 50 'dancer' bars, highest per capita in the world reputably.

Copied from the one track thread: Just a Little Loving by Shelby Lynne, the whole damn album! In an age when everyone feels compelled to oversing everything, a little subtlety goes along way and this is over/under the top with nuance and all good stuff like that. "Inspired by Dusty" - sound like someone singing along softly to themselves and bringing out evrything it meens to them. This is my new litmus test, if you don't get it don't even bother saying what you do like... I would only add that the accompianment (session guys I assume) is suitably spare and the whole (non)production strikes me as incredibly brave in an age of excess, best vocal album of the new century, IMHO!

...would that be "crappy" for electric piano, or "crappy" because it's an electric piano? If the former, I just don't hear it, if the latter it's your lose if you let the instrumentation get in the way of hearing music this wonderful. It's not like there's a rule saying you can't dig this and the records with Kenny Barron too. The instrumentation is part of the concept but irrelevent on a different level too (so I contrtadict myself, or at least seem to, I contain multitudes, so dfoes this music, so could you). Among the many wonderful things about it, it is, perhaps ironically, one of the last times you get to hear the early/old/young Tony Williams, even tough it's chronilogically after Lifetime it's stylistically before...

i forget to add my fav business theory - all businesses fail, it's just a question of when... and it really is possible ti see the whole world thru the prism (prison?) of your own particular brand of underwater basketweaving....