danasgoodstuff

Hot Dog may or may not really be the shit, but comparing it to 'real olde' blues and hillbilly just muddys the waters...the only relevant standard of authenticity is whether Lou is being true to himself and that's not necessarily black and white. And even then that doesn't tell you whether Hot Dog is a particularly good example of this sorta thing in general or relative to Lou's other albums in that groove. Say It Loud was a great step forward for black people in America and good for the nation as a whole but I silll find much of the music made in it's wake kinda sophmorically selfconscious and prefer much of the music made earlier in the decade that wasn't constricted by what anyone thought it meant to be black and proud. Yes I know that's presumptuous and potentially offensive, but I have examined the evidence and thought about it as best I can for four decdes now... I'm just now relistening to the title cut from Hot Dog and "Grits & Gravy" from the Cordon Blue compilation (songs about food, soul & otherwise) and it's pretty clear to me which is more authentic and better music in just about every way except, maybe, dance-abilty. Please forgive any tone of annoyance in this, it's mostly selfdirected for not being able to express myself any better...

I think Pepper's best music was post-Village Vanguard after he'd worked through the 'Trane thing and was able to use it and everything from before...and it's not like he played clean and pure like Lee Konitz before his Iron City sabatical, he was always a very intense player and there's lots to dig from all periods.

ummm, I'm tempted to say something snarkey like 'nice that you loved it, too bad you didn't get it' but that's not v. nice or even quite accurate - I don't think we're exactly agreeing or totally disageeing here. So I'll try to clarify. Unless you're a singular genius on the level of Monk it's hard to just go your own sweet way and many of the attempts to stay 'with it' were at least interesting, sometimes better than that. Their success largely depended on how much they had in common with the new thing to start with - Grant Green was always a groove oriented player so it was no stretch to focus on that. Someone who IMHO sounded like a fish out of water and played perfunktory groove music as a result was Sonny Stitt, YMMV. Still better to try and fail than not try at all. I find most Prestige dates of this era/groove more forced than BN's, with the exception of Houston Person who was and is a natural soul. Maybe it comes down to whether you prefer things that epitomize a genre or things that transcend and/or confound it. In this, as in all things, I remain steadfastly non-Platonic.

My love for Bix and Tram are part of the reason I play C-melody, that and pure perverseness. Bix is deservedly the legend, not just because he died young (but what a loss he and Eddie Lang were, think of he and Armstrong doing gigs together post-WWII), but Tram could play some too - good enuff for Lester, good enuff for me.

Part of Peppers experience was having younger black guys in prison tell him he wasn't hip any more and that Coltrane was what was hip now - his reaction to that (both positive and negative) came out his horn...

I really feel in the minority here re Hot Dog 'cause I neither love it nor hate it. I love Soul Jazz, in both the broadest possible sense and the narrower rare groove era sense discussed here. I love Lou too, although there is a point to Allen's comment re "slumming"... gotta think he'd rather play bebop or standards, his protestations that nothing changed in his playing in this period are a little hard to take at face value - sure it's all part of a social music continuim, but this point on it is still different than that. And I feel that this era in soul jazz '67-72, while groovingly functional, suffers from the absurdity of aging artists who were already v. funky in their own ways trying a little too hard to be FUNKY in the then new post-JB sorta way. That said some of my fav's from the period: Lou D: Alligator B., Say It Loud [love that it has JB and Gershwin and Ellington] Grant Green: all of 'em up thru Visions, but esp'ly the Live ones, despite Claude Bartee Reuben W: Love Bug, On Broadway Stanley T: Common Touch Jack McD: Down Home Style John Patton: That Certain Feeling, Understanding, Boogaloo, the session with Geo. Coleman that was split as bonus tracks. But I don't know if I like any of 'em as much as I like early '60s stuff by Fred Jackson, Don Wilkerson, John Patton (Blue John), Lou D, Stanley T(jubilee Shout!), or all that son of Sidewinder stuff. My taste in R&B/Soul runs the same way, much as I know that what the JBs did was historically important, I actually like the more old fashioned groove of the MGs better. And of course, general stylistic preferences can always be trumped by a great song or just a particularly inspired day in the studio... Groove on, Dana

I love Ben Webster's version (NOT 'cover'!); maybe they should just ban vocal renditions, but I do like Jackie Wilson's...

Allen, Thanx muchly for the interesting excerpt, which I might paraphrase as 'if you're going to be unpleasant you'd better be brilliant, and he was (both).' But, before it goes to print please correct the v. distracting misuse of "than" for "then", it's a small thing but a pet peeve of mine... Looking forward to it, Dana

Allow me to take the other side, at least up to a point. I've owned this twice and gotten rid of it twice. I also have or have had Alligator, Midnight, Say it Loud, and compilations with tracks from most of the rest of Lou's output during this 'acid jazz' period (hate the term and it's an anachronism). To me this is the album were it starts to get too formulatic for me; it's not terrible but it's just just not nearly as good as the four before it or the best of what Egregious was doing with Grant at this time (compare their versions of "It's Your Thing"), much less what Grant and Lou had done together on Natural Soul, etc. It's a crying shame Lou and Grant didn't record together during this period, or better yet Lou, Grant and Stan. Does anyone know why Patton and Idris/Leo never recorded together? That's another what if I can't help thinking of. Melvin is good, but not as good as Green or Ponder for my money. and the cover is just, well, cheap is the polite way to put it... On the other hand when one of the cuts comes up on a compilation or other context that allows me to listen in a less contenplative/comparative way, I generally enjoy the heck out of it!

i really like it, not as much as some of the issued at the time AH or Passing Ships, the fact that I paid $2.25 for it helps...

Ted, I'm in Portland, OR but I am willing to go to the internets (obviously)... I picked up the K-7 lingo on a trip to France.

No, but they should - it's allways good to take people from the States out of their provincialism....

I kinda like the Desmond/S&G too, cheese wiz tho' it is....a nice $2 album.

"I won't dance, you can't make me..."

never thought Buckley was all that bright, or Mailer or Vidal. And they were all insufferably full of them selves, if those are/were our 'public intellectuals' then no thanks... Buckley was so far right he once said he would've opposed the American Revolution, which makes him more selfaware and honest than some, but still... Oh, and perfect for the diefenbaker cabinet in 1958.

As long as you're in South Bend, might as well go to the studebaker museum... Did you know Jr. walker was from Souht Bend? Moved to Buffalo, hence "Twist Lackawana". Hope your gig goes well, sorry bought the thread drift...

How about the one about the big bad record companys conspiring to keep real jazz from being the music of choice of a happy & properous nation at peace? Or the one about pointed headed intellectuals conspiring to made happy white youth worship ole, sad blue music?

Love Have a Little Faith and most of those others mentioned above and Further East... But I've heard live gigs better than any official release, especially one with just Joey Baron.

yes, you should've gone, Ornette was as lyrical as i've ever heard him. Who knew that what that band needed was yet another bass player... Any thoughts from those who have seen Orenette recently?

I don't think there is any/much hostility to knowledge as such here or in the UK, but there is an ingrained tradition of anger at being told (or thinking that you're being told) that knowledge, or anything else, is good AND YOU CAN'T GET IT. That would make anyone hostile. And being told what's wrong with you, you're so hostile, while denying the reality of the AND YOU CAN'T GET IT, doubly so. Even if you personally don't mean the AND YOU CAN'T GET IT, it has to be dealt with before any progress can be made on this point...

At some point the defence attorney's got to ask himself, is this what I went to law school for? And I don't think "animal" necessarily implies "live", it could just as well mean not plant or mineral or human...

they play anything by my buddies in Smegma?

anyone know a good source for blank 100 & 110 min cassettes? getting hard to find round here...

Just make 'em all downloadable at $1/tune and let the people decide what's good.

Seems like the writer of the above referenced article has done their homework which is certainly a good thing...but it also makes sense to me that the bigger impact on today's probs would be the failures and abuses of post-slavery policy here and there. Of course, those failures may just be a measure of how hard it is to undo the effects of a pernicious evil like slavery. Also the abstract quoted above seems to assume that the formation of the nation-state is a good thing/the only way forward/whatever, not sure I'd take that as a given... not that I know jack about this subject really, but it's interesting - history does affect now in so many ways but there are so many ways to read its 'lessons' since there are no do overs to test them against.