Rooster_Ties

Not a digression at all! — that’s a whole reason I started this thread — to try and identify other players who are stylistically similar (regardless of ethnicity).

Ok, definitely not Black (he’s Norwegian)… And listening again now, I’m reminded this actually pushes a lot of my Ornette buttons (compositionally) — so maybe this doesn’t really hit the same realm. But for the longest time I loosely categorized this as “somewhat Andrew Hill”-esque… Håvard Wiik Trio - “Ball, Play” (opening track from “Postures” - Jazzland, 2003) Here’s his Wikipedia entry… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5vard_Wiik I have one other trio album of his… https://www.discogs.com/master/1563075-H%C3%A5vard-Wiik-Trio-This-Is-Not-A-Waltz Both albums are uniformly excellent.

Half figured you had, but wasn’t sure — and I quoted it since I was betting not everyone else had read the article. BTW, I have at least two other (more modern) names to add to the list — but they’re really obscure, and I never can remember their names (and I’m at work, away from all my CD’s). Unfortunately about 15-20% of my collection is all people so obscure, that I usually only remember them by what the album cover looks like.

I mostly agree about Hope, or he’s darn, darn close. I only bought my first (ever!) Hope leader-dates just this year — and I’m slowly finding him to definitely be half a revelation. You may have seen this, but Shipp mentions Hope in the article thusly… > I have wrestled with whether Elmo Hope belongs in the group. I am not sure. I go back and forth for different reasons. If he is, a lot of it would be because of his influence on Hasaan Ibn Ali, who is another extreme of an ultimate example of this.

Is it bad that I've got half a mind to try and get any or all of the first three of these done as custom-jobs on t-shirts... (source) PS: OK, probably not (who’m I kidding!!) — although that Wayne Shorter one is really the best design of the three. Shame the Tyrone one isn’t better, or I might be tempted!! Also, definitely not this next one, but I'll include it here for 'completeness' sake...

I feel like Herbie Hancock has gotten into this specific territory about (and maybe only?) these three times that I can think of — specifically on… The All Seeing Eye (Shorter) Some Other Stuff (Moncur) The Trainwreck (Tyrone Washington) Am I missing anything else? BTW, I don’t think anything he did with Miles would count — although maybe(?) some of the Plugged Nickel stuff? Still, I’m inclined to say ‘no’ to even that, even as free or free-leaning as it is — since it isn’t anywhere near ‘off kilter’ enough rhythmically to qualify (if my use of that term makes any sense.)

I can’t fathom any of this stuff is licensed, but supposedly they’ve been in business online for 20 years (according to the ‘about’ page on their website). I’m skeptical about sending them $100 (cuz I’d get 4 shirts to get free shipping) — but DAMN if it isn’t really, really f’ing tempting. I’m gonna start a topic on the Steve Hoffman Forums, and see if anyone has ever bought anything from them before (and what their quality was like). Googling them, it appears they used to have an eBay storefront — but they don’t seem to any more. Maybe they got shut down there for selling unlicensed product. They also seem to have some artists conspicuously absent from at least their t-shirt offerings — Pink Floyd, for one — so I suspect they’ve gotten some cease and desist letters (and threats) before too. Still, it’s so damn tempting to get some of these!!!

I’d argue strongly for Valdo Williams!

Interesting “food for thought” article by Matthew Shipp, which begs the question… WHO ELSE?? — perhaps not as well-known? — or not just from the 50’s and 60’s (and not just “Black”) — would YOU classify as being somewhat closely STYLISTICALLY-related to the core group he identifies in the article?? Article has a good discussion — and makes good arguments — for who the author thinks ‘qualifies’ and who doesn’t qualify (and the rationale for each). BLACK MYSTERY SCHOOL PIANISTS https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/black-mystery-school-pianists/ Read the article — but to spoil it, here’s the list… So who is in the Black Mystery School of Piano? Monk Herbie Nichols Mal Waldron / Randy Weston / Cecil Taylor / Andrew Hill The legendary Hasaan Ibn Ali Sun Ra / Horace Tapscott

It’s SUPER random what they seem to have, which says to me that they are serious about taking suggestions — and then adding those to their offerings. For instance, Johnny Dyani’s Song for Biko… https://albumcoverstickers.com/johnny-dyani-song-for-biko-album-cover-t-shirt-black-/ TONS of Tomasz Stanko shirts too.. https://albumcoverstickers.com/tomasz-stanko/ https://albumcoverstickers.com/tomasz-stanko-quintet/ And here’s an MPS album that’s not super well-known by Michael Naura: https://albumcoverstickers.com/michael-naura-quartet-call-album-cover-t-shirt-black-/

This Monk 10" looks pretty badass on a black shirt, I must say. (And I have to confess, I don't think I'd ever seen this cover before -- maybe never! -- before I saw it on this shirt.) I'm NOT even the biggest Monk fan ever -- but this design looks killer on black. Thelonious Monk Genius Of Modern Music Volume 1 Album Cover T-Shirt Black (albumcoverstickers.com)

OK, seemingly the only way to make the search engine on albumcoverstickers.com work properly, is to manually change the search results sort order from the default of "best selling" to instead say "relevance" (the last option at the bottom of the dropdown menu) -- and you have to manually make that change after each and every search. Doesn't inspire confidence in their operation, but I am finding loads and loads of great covers that can apparently be gotten on shirts (including a good handful of obscure BN covers).

Amen to that.

So who wants to be the next Guinea pig?? — and order something from these fine(?) folks in Australia(!) — with seemingly 275,000+ different album covers you can get put on t-shirts. TONS of Blue Note stuff, and other labels too — but their search engine is total shit (at least on mobile). Couple I’m thinking about… https://albumcoverstickers.com/andrew-hill-passing-ships-album-cover-t-shirt-black-/ https://albumcoverstickers.com/grachan-moncur-iii-some-other-stuff-album-cover-t-shirt-black-/ Hey Jim!! Here’s your original LT cover for Etcetera — on “bleach-bright white” — if you can believe it! https://albumcoverstickers.com/wayne-shorter-etcetera-album-cover-t-shirt-white-/ Dan, maybe you should go first… https://albumcoverstickers.com/the-three-sounds/ https://albumcoverstickers.com/the-three-sounds/?sort=featured&page=2 https://albumcoverstickers.com/gene-harris-and-the-three-sounds/ NOTE: I mean it, their search engine is really, really shit (at least on mobile). There’s a TON of Blue Note stuff on there, but you can’t find half of it without searching 3 different ways (and even then, it still half doesn’t work). Again, I’m only trying on mobile — so maybe it’s better with a real browser. But they do seem to take custom orders (or readily encourage suggestions) — so maybe if I do take the plunge, I’ll try and get a Natural Essence shirt done up for me. That, plus Passing Ships and Evolution — plus god knows what else I can find — may be too tempting to say no to. $25 a pop, but free shipping (to the US) if you get four (4) shirts. (I am finding plenty of albums I absolutely adore, but I’m realizing many of them just aren’t eye-catching enough to get on a shirt.) QUESTION: Is Passing Ships better on a black shirt (up above), or on white? https://albumcoverstickers.com/andrew-hill-passing-ships-album-cover-t-shirt-white-/

Got these three shirts yesterday, and they all turned out to be anywhere from “pretty good” to “pretty darn good” — definitely worth the $59.54 total I paid for them (incl. shipping, from the UK no less, with that coupon code) — so $19.85 each. The Grant Green was the best, very nearly as good as the earlier “Big Fun” shirt I got off eBay (and both of those were just as good as the Uniqlo shirts). The other two were good too, it’s just that the Donald Byrd and “Birth of the Cool” designs had some slight (inherent) contrast issues (very, very slight — and I’m probably being overly critical in even mentioning them). The transfers were all excellent, and seem perfectly centered. T-shirt quality itself was great — all the same Gildan brand t-shirt as the “Big Fun” one — and the sizes all ran true. Perhaps just slightly more snug than some other XL shirts I’ve owned — but not as snug/small as the Uniqlo shirts run. For that price, I’m quite happy with all of them, and would buy three more shirts in the future from them (long as I had a similar coupon, which was seemed to be only good on 3 shirts) — assuming the right sorta new designs ever came up. We’ll see if they last 10 years. Gonna only ever wash them in protective mesh bags (for ‘delicates’), only dry them on super-low for 20 minutes, then air dry them on drying racks (which we do with jeans anyway, and the tons of sweaters my wife wears). My wife has a lot of KU Jayhawk basketball t-shirts too (every time they make it to the final four), and those get the extra careful treatment too (I’ve done all the laundry for 20+ years, always have).

Did they half-ass it in 1999 somehow? Or maybe it’s necessary to take away Wynton’s to truly correct the wrong.

Give it time.

Goodness, Allen, my heart goes out to you — and I wish you all the strength in the world. As to your point about free improv, I get what you’re saying — but as just a listener myself, I’ve found that it’s still relatively rare to find jazz and new-music musicians who can improvise freely in a collective context… who can effectively (both) generate a stream of imaginative ideas AND effectively listen and react to what their fellow musicians are doing as they attempt to do the same. Maybe half(?) of brilliant playing is deep listening (in the moment) by the player — and responding to what is heard. That’s not only true in free-contexts, but really all of jazz — but (I’d argue) doubly true in free contexts. I’m reminded of a Wallace Roney gig I went to in Kansas City ~15 years ago — that was filled with spirited playing by most everyone on the bandstand (and I can’t remember who most of the players were)… but it was clear to me that as effortlessly(?) as the ideas flowed from everyone on that stage, really only ONE musician up there was actually listening to what everyone else was doing, and trying to respond to what he was hearing — and have what he heard inform everything he played (probably mostly rhythmically, as much as anything)… …and that was the piano-player (who might have been doubling on Rhodes) — Gary Versace — who I later found only on the break between a couple of their sets, was a ‘sub’ in Roney’s band for that gig. So, naturally, he was listening like crazy just to keep his head above water. I complimented his playing, and told him how much I really appreciated how much he was listening, and I tried to diplomatically say how (clearly) that was elevating his playing that night, in a way that I wasn’t hearing from anyone else on that stage. Roney and most of the others were ripping off lines like crazy, but it just didn’t seem like they were working as a ‘group’ — except for Gary. Gary thanked me, and that’s when he revealed he was a sub. And I told him, again, how wonderfully his playing was specifically being more integrated into the rest of the context (to the extent he could, at least). Allen, don’t sell yourself short because playing free comes easily to you. You’re probably employing skills you’re not as conscious of — along with similar skills (listening, and responding) by your co-conspirators on stage. It’s not just what you play, but when and how you play it, and what you DON’T play that matters (and I’m not just talking about leaving space). Anyway, I’m not sure my observations here are perfectly relevant to your original post, but I hope they mean something, and are at least somewhat related. And, as always, hang in there Allen.

Long ago, we decided cats were our limit.

My wife and I have always said we would love to be grandparents someday. It’s just that intermediate step (us having kids) that always scared the bajeezus out of us!! ()

Still says I have to log in. Maybe I need to be on my laptop or something… …cuz I can’t seem to get anywhere with this on my iPhone (11).

Ok, can do that ok — but how does that get me to the Facebook article?

Not trying to be obtuse or anything, I swear!! But when I click on that, and tried to scroll down even slightly (more than a page’s worth on my phone), I suddenly got a blank page that said this… See more Tweets from Blue Note Records When you log in you’ll be able to see every Tweet from Blue Note Records.

A couple months ago, I heard told of a biography of Andrew Hill that’s in the works. Perhaps something will emerge from that. Maybe I shouldn’t say too much (I barely know anything myself).

Didn’t work for me at all, on mobile at least. I tried every button on the entire page, and every one is a hard-stop of some sort, and the story never appears. Log-in button gets me “The email or phone number you’ve entered doesn’t match any account. Sign up for an account. and the “create an account” and “forgot password” buttons are no better. Not seeing anything at all about Twitter (on that page, or any of the subsequent ones).