Rooster_Ties

Saturday and Sunday:

If the liners were expanded and reasonably good (and better than what came with the Blue Note, with 2-3 essays by some varied voices), I could be tempted to get the new CD issue of BOC. I'll be curious to get feedback on the liners, after this new edition hits the streets.

Really good (and recent) article on the history of this thing... https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/02/germany-public-transit-schwebebahn-wuppertal-trains/581815/

A few MUCH longer videos...

Damn, that's nice!! The only Lloyd McNeill I have is Washington Suite (on CD), but I suppose I really ought to consider getting some more then.

Most of the time I just take Green/Yellow from Columbia Heights down to Gallery Place, and walk over. But when I ride back home with my wife (she works over by Union Station), a lot of the time we go up to Fort Totten, and then back down to CH again from there. Can you imagine having a regular commute on en elevated monorail, over a river? This seems like a quintessential "retro-futuristic" sort of design, and I'm sure was very forward-thinking in it's time. Hell, I think it's forward-thinking even now! Some more historic footage...

https://ggwash.org/view/35907/this-german-citys-monorail-redefines-river-transportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Suspension_Railway And it's still running today!! (Nice little 10-minute mini-doc below)

Quoting my own first post in this topic, does anyone else hear some parallels in Sessions, Blacher, or Krenek?? -- to I guess one would call 'more traditional' modern counterpoint (i.e. Hindemith (generally, or at least often), and Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues). I realize those three are a good bit more "modern" (Sessions later symphonies, especially). But to my ears, at least part of their sound-world seems at least related to counterpoint (as my understanding of it goes). OR, perhaps as usual(?), are my ears on backwards again?

Impossible to bring up this topic without mentioning Paul Hindemith, who does modern counterpoint about as well as anyone. His chamber music, in particular, is just loaded with it -- including the nearly 3 dozen(!) sonatas he wrote for various solo instruments + piano. I have to confess that there really aren't too many individual pieces by Hindemith that really stand out to me the most (as favorites), because all of it is all so engaging. Like everything is a super-solid 7 or 8 (on a 10 scale), but I've never become so fond of any one piece that I might 'up it' to a 9 or 10. I think I have about 25-30 hours of Hindemith on CD, and especially love Ludus Tonalis (1942) -- his 25-movement, hour-long solo piano study in counterpoint. Stravinsky's Symphony in C (1938-40) is another particular favorite of mine, and definitely is loaded with tons of modern neo-classical counterpoint. I've wanted to hear Symphony in C performed live for 15-20 years, I think I'm FINALLY going to get my chance next year, when the Jacksonville (FL) symphony is performing it here in DC at the Kennedy Center in March (2020). I've been looking for it on symphony programs since the turn of the century, and I've never once seen it programmed (alas) -- until now, finally! And of course, Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues (1950-51) for solo piano is another modern favorite in fugal writing (2+ hrs worth!). That's probably enough to get the ball rolling. But I might also mention that while usually not considered neo-classical (or maybe only their early output), and often more thoroughly modern (even 12-tone in the case of Sessions), some other composers that I think employ a LOT of really great contrapuntal writing, include... Roger Sessions (1896-1985) -- especially his later symphonies #6 thru #9 (though they're more serial too). Boris Blacher (1903-75) -- his symphony (1938), and piano concertos #1 (1947) and #2 (1952) come to mind. Ernst Krenek (1900-91) -- I know his symphonies best, but he wrote a veritable mountain of music (almost 250 works with opus numbers).

In the 90's, I vaguely remember seeing a bunch of euroboots of various obscure pre-1957 Miles things, and after a while, I have to confess they all started to look alike to me -- so I never bothered to really dig in try and figure out what's what. It's possible those live BOC tracks might have been something I saw, but never even recognized for what it was.

Interesting. I would have figured that live material would have come out (legit) before 2001! -- well before 2001, actually. I guess that explains why I'd never heard, nor even seen any of it before then (though even back then, I just figured I'd overlooked some euroboots of that stuff, which I suppose perhaps I had).

Serious question: what was the first legit (legal) issue of the *live* Birth of the Cool material? And were there any other notable issues of said live BOC tracks, Before the well-know CD issue of the 2001 RVG? Any LP issues (pre-CD era) - ?

WHICH, I might add, makes them half-worth their weight in gold -- and is half the reason I think I own every single Cookers release on CD. Billy's playing is still as good as ever, and I'd argue he's probably the best working tenor-player alive today (by my estimation). Yeah, there's Wayne -- but Billy's a lot more active -- and Wayne hasn't played enough tenor most years to really quite go head-to-head against Billy (in my mind, at least).

Interesting. I know in my case, this could result in a few physical-media sales for them too -- as there are around 5-10 of their releases that I'm more than a little curious about -- not enough to have pulled the trigger on any of them yet. But if I could spend a little time with them, and really listen to the whole release (or at least half of it, but full-length tracks), I could easily be swayed into picking up a few titles. For instance, there's a live Freddie Hubbard date they have, with Phil Ranelin on Trombone -- that I've been more than a little curious about. But without really being able to hear how much solo-time Ranelin gets, I hadn't yet taken the plunge.

Don't know much at all, but just found the opening track "Dragon Dance" on YouTube...

Somewhere, I have just one individual Charles Ives stamp from this set, which I always intended to get a (tiny) simple frame for. Not sure where it got to -- I'm sure I bought it 10-15 years ago for about $4, when I stumbled across it in some collectibles shop of some sort.

I have an LP of Double Exposure, which is a relatively recent repressing that I got from Dusty Groove about 5-6 years ago. I seem to vaguely remember having some doubts about the repressing being legit (or not), but regardless -- it sounds good on my admittedly low-tech turntable and amp. I rarely buy much vinyl, but occasionally I'll have a moment of weakness, and get something on vinyl -- even though I have a strong preference for CD's.

Which is a shame, because it's a lovely and unique album. I'd pay $20 for a CD of Double Exposure, pretty gladly. Maybe $25?

Foster is listed as playing "Alto Clarinet" on the bonus session on the US CD reissue of "Manhattan Fever" -- and I think he only solos on it on just one track (the very last track, iirc). And I think(?) it really is a true Eb Alto Clarinet (between a Standard and Bass Clarinet). Here's the last track on the disc, and although the solo that starts a little after the 2:00 minute mark sounds a little high (almost like a Standard clarinet), I think in the ensemble parts it sounds more like an Alto to me (and certainly not a contra-alto). My memory of the session is that the only prominent "clarinet" (of any sort) on the entire CD is just this one track (last track on the CD, from the bonus session).

Honestly, I find this a little hard to believe. I think I've heard stories about the first incident (which I'm not sure I ever believed, which I realize doesn't mean it wasn't true). But then Max went and beat him up again back at his hotel? That sounds like pure apocryphal nonsense. I realize there isn't going to be "documentation" in the classic sense, but is there any truth to any of this with Max and Ornette?

He certainly plays, but he's always somewhat down in the mix, and less at the forefront of things (like Miles and Wayne are), and usually mixed in a way that's more about texture and/or a collective-improv kind of vibe. (Admittedly, I haven't spun Bitches Brew in a good year, so I'm going by memory.)

I played clarinet (badly) in my last 3-4 years before high-school. But one example of how bad I was, is that I never really learned how to "tongue" to start/stop the flow of air. I really just used my gums more. Like I had my bottom-lip up over my lower teeth, and then I clamped down with my jaw to stop the airflow. I never for the life of me could do it right with my tongue, so I was a lost cause from the git-go. I also played bass-clarinet for one of those years, and I tried to play oboe for 3-4 months, but I was even worse at that (Embouchure-wise) than clarinet, if that was even possible. And yeah, that register key not being a true octave key was a real bitch. I never tried saxophone. PS: I really loved playing bass clarinet, btw. The parts were more straight-forward, and more often about color (iirc), and a lot less playing above the break. I would have been content to have played bass clarinet a lot more exclusively (granted, I was maybe 11 or 12 years old at the time).