Rooster_Ties

From http://www.villagevoice.com by Gary Giddins The Academy's Pulitzer Why Jazz and Pop Don't Make the Cut April 30 - May 6, 2003 John Adams takes a stand. (photo: Hiroyuki Ito) On April 9, the Times ran a surprising story by Anne Midgette, "Dissonant Thoughts on the Music Pulitzers," in which John Adams, who had received the award for On the Transmigration of Souls, expressed astonishment at winning, and ambivalence bordering on contempt. The prize, he said, has "lost much of the prestige it still carries in other fields," because "most of the country's greatest musical minds" are ignored, "often in favor of academy composers." He singled out the Pulitzer's neglect of mavericks, composer-performers, and "especially" the "great jazz composers." His point was not surprising; that a recipient made it was. He had said aloud what countless American composers grumble privately every year, most of them shy of going public and courting accusations of sour grapes. In 1967, when Edward Albee won a makeup Pulitzer for A Delicate Balance, he said that friends urged him to refuse it; in 1963, the drama jury had chosen to present no award rather than acknowledge Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. In effect, Albee argued that his dissent would have more meaning as a winner. As he went on to win more Pulitzers, if he contested them at all, he kept it quiet. Adams took a nervy stand, opening himself to allegations of biting the hand that massaged him. Not many winners have publicly questioned the process since Sinclair Lewis spurned the prize in 1926 (as well he should, Arrowsmith having beaten The Great Gatsby, though that wasn't his reason). And Adams loosened other lips. John Corigliano, the 2001 winner, told Midgette, "The Pulitzer was originally intended to be for a work that is going to last, to mean something to the world. It changed into another kind of award completely: by composers for composers"—mired, he added, in a pool of rotating jurors. The Pulitzer Prizes, launched with a fourth of Joseph Pulitzer's $2 million bequest to create the Columbia University School of Journalism, began presenting laurels in journalism and literature in 1917. The music prize was instituted in 1943, the year of Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige; the prize, however, went to William Schuman's A Free Song, a respectable choice by an important composer who was already a magnet for prizes. In the jazz world, the Pulitzer is shrugged off as just another establishment club (from the Grammys to the Kennedy Center Honors) that routinely ignores composers working in the idiom that most consistently and articulately proclaims "America" to the rest of the world. Yet many civilians are amazed to learn that in its 60 years, the Pulitzer has never acknowledged a single figure in popular music and only once gave the nod to a jazz work—Wynton Marsalis's Blood on the Fields, in 1997. Gunther Schuller and Mel Powell have also won, but for pieces entirely unconnected to their jazz work. The most celebrated pas de deux between the Pulitzers and jazz occurred in 1965, when the jury unanimously voted to override the standard rule of honoring a single work premiered the previous year, in order to hail Duke Ellington for his lifetime achievement. The jury, to its dismay, was overruled by the advisory board, which chose to present no award that year. A Pulitzer spokesman later argued that the single-work rule could not be broken; but if they had wanted to make things right at the time, they could have given it to Ellington the next year for the premiere of his masterpiece, Far East Suite—or for several subsequent suites debuted before his death in 1974. Yet had the advisory board acknowledged any of those works, it would have done little more than apply a Band-Aid to a triple bypass. The real problem went to the heart of Pulitzer politics: It was the rule itself. The jury that desired to honor Ellington understood something about indigenous American music—it is different; it plays a different game. The board would look foolish giving it to one new song by Bob Dylan or one typical concert by Sonny Rollins. The congregate achievement is almost always what counts. Lester Young was a great composer not because of his riff tunes, but because he created a new and inspired canvas in American music; as instantly recognizable as an Aaron Copland ballet, Young's canvas was as amorphous as Leaves of Grass, his every improvisation another leaf, some greener than others, all part of one visionary achievement. It is easy to retrospectively find jazz compositions that ought to have been recognized within the constraints of the Pulitzer rulebook, but to say that A Love Supreme is eligible, and not the composer's lifework, is to force jazz to conform to the very 19th-century Eurocentric model it supplanted. Similarly, Irving Berlin or Woody Guthrie's songbooks are not only more popular than Pulitzer compositions, they also come far closer to answering Corigliano's call for "work that is going to last, to mean something to the world." The Pulitzer is not averse to Band-Aids. It has a separate category called Special Awards and Citations, which has, in 73 years of occasional prize-giving, acknowledged three pop or jazz figures: Scott Joplin in 1976 (59 years after his death), George Gershwin in 1998 (61 years after his death), and Duke Ellington in 1999 (25 years after his death). The Ellington presentation was made "in recognition of his musical genius, which evoked aesthetically the principles of democracy through the medium of jazz and thus made an indelible contribution to art and culture." In short, it was a lifetime achievement award. And that's the right idea. The trick is to present the award while the recipient is breathing, and in the Music category proper, not in a remedial "duh" division. Ironically, on the one occasion when the board approved a jazz award, the jury played a shell game with its chief edict, recognizing a 1997 "premiere" at Yale University, although the work had been recorded in 1995. Adams, in listing a few non-winners for the Times, mentioned John Cage, Morton Feldman, Harry Partch, Conlon Nancarrow, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Meredith Monk, Thelonious Monk, and Laurie Anderson, as well as the general category of "great jazz composers." He would like to impose a more radical sensibility on a historically conservative institution. (Consider fiction: Laughing Boy beat The Sound and the Fury and A Farewell to Arms; Years of Grace beat As I Lay Dying, The Maltese Falcon, and Flowering Judas; Now in November beat Tender Is the Night and Appointment in Samarra; and the board could find no worthy fiction at all in the years For Whom the Bell Tolls, Native Son, The Hamlet, The Adventures of Augie March, V, Idiots First, Losing Battles, and Gravity's Rainbow were eligible.) But the issue as it regards jazz is no longer about radical or conservative views of culture; the influence, constancy, and genius of American music is denied nowhere—and none of it is represented in the Pulitzer rolls. Does it matter? Of course it does. Owing to its long history and the press's psychic investment in the journalistic (and primary) wing of its prize-giving, the Pulitzer has a visibility and cachet beyond other cultural awards. The Times doesn't phone recipients of National Book Awards or American Music Center Letters of Distinction for human-interest reports on how they felt when they heard their names called. The Pulitzer, like it or not, is America's big award, a kind of sanctioning. Only rank stubbornness can rationalize prolonging a slight that should have been rectified decades ago. A couple of weeks after the Pulitzers were handed out, the AMC awarded its Letters of Distinction to George Crumb, the Voice's Kyle Gann (a distinguished composer as well as a critic), Steve Reich, Wayne Shorter, and the late music publisher Ronald Freed. Shorter is the ringer in this group, but not among previous AMC recipients, who include—in addition to most of Adams's mavericks and many who've won Pulitzers—Randy Weston, Max Roach, Modern Jazz Quartet, Dizzy Gillespie (posthumously), Muhal Richard Abrams, Cecil Taylor, and Ornette Coleman. All but Gillespie and most of the MJQ are living, and it's hard to imagine anyone questioning the appropriateness of awarding any of them Pulitzers. There are others deserving of consideration, including Rollins, Dylan, Benny Carter, George Russell, B.B. King, Lee Konitz, Henry Threadgill, Abbey Lincoln, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Andrew Hill, Jim Hall, Chuck Berry, Roy Haynes, Pete Seeger, James Brown, and David Murray. Should the Pulitzer board decide to rejigger its rule book or expand its grasp, it would have to overcome the embarrassment of an awfully interesting mea culpa, something on the order of "The Pulitzer Prize in Music has decided to accept the reality of American music and will no longer dismiss out of hand all composers who swing or sanction improvisation." But the real difficulty would be administrative. The divides among jazz and pop and the academy remain so vast that in selecting its jurors in any given year, the committee will have virtually decided which area to favor; word would have to be leaked that the barriers have come down, because few non-academics submit nominations. Put a couple of jazz people on the jury and the dice are loaded for jazz. Still, better to switch loaded dice from one year to the next than to use—as is now the case—the same pair every year.

I drive a 1992 Honda Accord wagon, and love it!! Wish they hadn't discontinued the the wagon here in the U.S. - although perhaps this might mean that they would bring it back in a couple years??? I think wagons sell better in Europe than in the U.S., where those damn SUV's are all the rage. Here's a pic of the new Accord wagon (only in Europe)

Same here rooster. My wife and I saw him play during his Midnight Vultures tour. Phenomenal. The showmanship, the music, electric and acoustic was great! We had so much fun. The show ended with an encore followed by about ten minutes of noise, robots bending each other over, bandmembers destroying the set, comedic chaos. We loved it! If anyone buys this Lonnie Smith, please post a review. I'm curious! Yup, it was the same tour we saw, the Midnight Vultures tour. Your description matches our experience. Most fun I've ever had at a rock concert, and the band was incredible.

I went to a Beck show a couple years ago, on a whim. I knew what I knew of his music from the radio and MTV/VH1, but didn't own any of his albums. To this day, that concert was one of the best rock concerts I've ever been to in my whole life. More fun than I could possibly describe. I didn't know but a half-a-dozen of his tunes, but really had a great time, and the band was tight, tight, tight!!!! Beck's the real deal, from what I can tell.

You gotta see this.... http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html

OK, I'm finally posting my thoughts about this topic... And, strangely enough - I just realized that most of the choices in my "top-16" list are dates that were unreleased for many years, until they finally came out in the 70's, 90's, or even later. The only ones that were released near the time when they were recorded were: the first half of "Lift Every Voice", "Complete Communion", "Judgement", "Basra", and "Fuschia Swing Song" - and (depending on how you look at it), "The Complete 'IS' Sessions" (which were released in an incredibly slipshod way over the years). What does that say about my tastes???? (...that nearly 2/3rds of these titles sat in the vaults for 10-35 years???) "Top 16 Conns" 1. Wayne Shorter - Etcetera 2. Hank Mobley - Third Season 3. Andrew Hill - Lift Every Voice 4. Chick Corea – The Complete 'IS' Sessions 5. Don Cherry – Complete Communion 6. Lee Morgan – The Procrastinator 7. Andrew Hill - Judgement 8. Jackie McLean – Jacknife 9. Bobby Hutcherson - Medina/Spiral 10. Grant Green - Solid 11. Lee Morgan - Infinity 12. Pete La Roca - Basra 13. Dizzy Reece – Comin’ On 14. Larry Young - Mother Ship 15. Andrew Hill - Tomorrow is Now!! 16. Sam Rivers - Fuschia Swing Song "Honorable Mention" Andrew Hill - Grass Roots Wayne Shorter – The All-Seeing Eye / Schizophrenia Jackie McLean – Destination Out! / ‘Bout Soul / Vertigo Bobby Hutcherson - Patterns / Stick-up! Grachan Moncur III – Some Other Stuff Larry Young – Into Somethin’ Hank Mobley - A Slice of the Top Tina Brooks – Minor Move / Back to the Tracks / The Waiting Game Grant Geen – Green Street / Sunday Mornin’ Booker Ervin – Structurally Sound / The In-between Donald Byrd – Byrd in Flight Johnny Coles – Little Johnny C Dizzy Reece – Blues in Trinity Horace Parlan – On the Spur of the Moment / Us Three PS: My favorite "Rare Groove" CD's are also previously unreleased sessions, that didn't ever come out until the 90's... John Patton - Boogaloo Donald Byrd - Donald-Kofi Also, the only Conn I have that I don't really care for all that much, is.... Don Wilkerson – The Complete Blue Note Sessions FYI, if I'm remembering what I've got right, then I've got 66/99 of the Conns (in some form or another, TOCJ, Mosiac, etc...)

Check out the sound samples from this guy's albums (his name is Michael Rabinowitz, see links down below for sound samples, AMG entry, and AMG reviews), and, both his albums have John Hicks!! Sounds pretty interesting to me - both on paper, as well as the sound samples. Anybody have either of his albums?? Thanks!!! -- Rooster T. ===== Source: www.ejazznews.com: Improvising Bassoon <-- LINK Improvising Bassoon Posted on: May 05, 2003 - 08:54 AM by editor Dear Friends: Recently, I taped my next one-hour show for the "Jazz From the Archives" series. Presented by the Institute of Jazz Studies, the series runs every Sunday on WBGO-FM (88.3). The bassoon is a fiendishly difficult woodwind instrument, and one could probably count the number of improvising bassoon players in jazz history, beginning with Garvin Bushell and Frank Trumbauer in the 1920s, on little more than the fingers of both hands. More often than not, these players have been saxophonists who "double" on the instrument. What sets Michael Rabinowitz (b. 1955) apart from the majority of jazz bassoonists is that he counts the bassoon as his primary instrument. Rabinowitz has been on the New York City jazz scene for more than twenty years, and he now has an international reputation as a unique, first-rate improviser. We'll sample from his recordings with the Charles Mingus Orchestra, the Bill Kirchner Nonet, and his own groups. The show will air this Sunday, May 11, from 11 p.m. to midnight, Eastern Daylight Time. NOTE: If you live outside the New York City metropolitan area, WBGO also broadcasts on the Internet at www.wbgo.org. Best, Bill Kirchner www.jazzsuite.com ===== and Main AMG bio of Michael Rabinowitz here: LINK AMG review of his first album (from 1995, with John Hicks), called: "Gabrielle's Balloon" <-- LINK Sound samples at bn.com: LINK AMG entry (no review) of his second album (from 1996, also with John Hicks), called: "Bassoon on Fire" <-- LINK Sound samples at bn.com: LINK ===== Any other jazz bassoonists I should know about??? The only one's I can think of are sax guys in Sun Ra's band, who doubled on bassoon. Too lazy to try and find their names right now, but I know I've got more than a couple Sun Ra albums/CD's that have bassoon, not just as a background instrument, but full-blown bassoon solos. Any more jazz bassoon soloists I should know about?? - especially any guys who recorded after 1950, or after 1960???

I voted for #5 too. You know, I've found over the years that many musicians are less steeped in the music than many fans. They're often too busy making music, to be as obsessive about listening.

Yeah, I hate the packaging format of the Herbie and Dexter sets too. I've never owned the Dexter set, but the Herbie set is a royal pain in the ass. Same thing with the Bob Marley and Police box sets too. Hopefully all of Herbie's output will be RVG-ed (with all the bonus tracks included), which would eliminate the need for the box set. And about the booklet - my Herbie box booklet was torn when I first got it, right out of the shrinkwrap. Piss-poor design, if you ask me. The "complete Miles Davis" boxes on Columbia are far better, although some of what's in 'em is impossible to read, cuz the type is either too small, or (even worse!!) they print yellow text on top of a yellow background. (In the "IASW" box). Who the fuck's idea what that!!!

OK, I own hardly any Coltrane on CD (nor on LP or that matter), but if I was thinking about take the plunge and getting this box set of his entire Atlantic output, is there a downside to getting this particular set?? I seem to remember reading that additional alternate takes are being released on the subsequent (and more recent) CD issues of these individual albums?? (Are there many alternate takes on the individual CD's that aren't on this box set??) Or, is this more of a problem with the "The Classic Quartet: Complete Impulse! Studio Recordings" vs. the newest individual CD's of Trane's 'Impulse!' material?? ( I'm pretty sure I'm more interested in his Atlantic output (to start with), rather than the Implulse! material. ) Am I better off getting the 'Atlantic Years' Coltrane box, or the individual CD's??? ( FYI, SACD is of no concern to me, nor DVD-A - or whatever those new-fangled formats are. Well mastered/re-mastered standard CD's are good enough for me - though I do realize (and agree) that plenty of late 80's and even early 90's CD's are not nearly as good as some more recent 'standard CD' issues of the same material. ) ===== Also, while I'm at it, what's the "most decent" price I could expect to pay for a good 'used' copy of the Complete Trane Atlantic Years set on CD??? Anybody got one (or an extra one) that they're lookin' to get rid of??? (Or know where I can find a good one cheap??) $$$ is really tight for me now, but I think I just might be interested in diving into some serious Trane for the first time in my life. Thanks!!!

What else by Roach fit's the pre-"STRATA-EAST" mold?? I only have "Members Don't Get..." Whattami missing???

How much better is this: than this: ????? Looks like the track listing is identical, so there are no bonus tracks on the newest one?? So, then, is the sound quality light years better?? I can get a used one of the old CD issue (which appears to date from 1992), for only $9 (including shipping). Or, I can probably pay $15-$16 for the newest issue. What's the best way to go??

Idle Moments is really good, probably a close 2nd for me. But I had to go with "Solid", which is such an incredible date, with an incredible line-up. Love the combination of Joe Henderson and James Spaulding. Now, if I were only thinking about Green's playing, and not also the context - that would be a more difficult question. While I do really love Grant Green's playing, I come to most of his CD's a little late in the game. I have plenty of Green's CD's now, but as recently as 2-3 years ago, I didn't have all that many. Silly me - I wasn't all that interested in jazz guitar (in general), and I didn't focus much on Green, untill I realized all the incredible sidemen who were on all his albums. Then, I quickly came to realize what a great player Green was, reguardless of who he was playing with. Anyway, "Solid" is probably the one Grant Green disc I think of first and most of all, when it comes to Green.

My GOD, you damned FREAK!!! Don't ever post here again!!!!

Now I expect you to create at least two new polls every week. Go forth, and pollster!!! ( )

I'll second that!! (And no, I'm not a drummer by nature, but for this album - I would definitely feel the urge to make some noise along with it!!!)

You must have only entered one item in the "Poll Choices" area... Poll Question: What's your favorite color??? Poll Choices: Red<cr> Blue<cr> Green<cr> Black<cr> White<cr> My guess is that you only had one thing (one "choice") in your poll, hence the error you got. Try again!!!

Nobody here's gonna believe this, but I have only like half-a-dozen Coltrane albums, at most. I think I've only got... Blue Train (in the 'original' 1987 CD release) Giant Steps (which I only picked up within the last 6 or 8 months) Coltrane Plays the Blues (which I got 10-12 years ago, back in college) A John Coltrane Retrospective - The Impulse Years (3CD compilation, which I got 7 or 8 years ago) plus a couple bootlegs from 1962, on Magnetic That's it. That's all the Coltrane I own, with him as the leader. By way of comparison, I've got over 90% of all the albums/CD's that Joe Henderson is the leader on (and probably 75% of all his sideman work too), and 90% of all of Ornette's output, but barely 5% of Coltrane's output. I can't possibly justify this, but I guess I can try to explain it... Much as I respect Trane (which is a ton!), and appreciate his output, and totally recognise how important he is...... .....for whatever reason, I've just never connected very deeply with Trane's music. It's not at all that I think he's not as good as Joe, or Wayne, or a dozen other tenor players I have more recordings by, than I do Trane. It's just something about Trane's intensity, which is so draining to me. Many, many years ago, when I had only 200 or 300 CD's, I had a few Coltrane CD's - but I found I rarely listened to them all that much. They just took too much out of me. And so, over the years, I just never got any more. Slowly, and I mean very slowly, I feel like I'm starting to get the urge to get some more Coltrane. That's why I finally broke down and got "Giant Steps" last year (and I got the newest one, with all the bonus tracks). Now here's a really whack idea for you: I think that listening to all the Charles Tolliver I've been getting into for the past couple years, maybe has opened my ears up a bit to Coltrane's music. (I've heard others describe Tolliver as being the Coltrane of jazz trumpet, which I do think there is a grain of truth to.) I'll probably never be a big fan of Trane's later years, but I do think I might now like to explore some of his work around 1960, up through and as late as maybe 1964. Anything after '64, and I'm just overwhelmed by his sheets-of-sound. They're just too, too much for me. And yeah, this is coming from the same guy who has 50+ Sun Ra albums. I know, I know, I know - it doesn't add up!!! Anyway, I mentioned all this to say that I think I'll go buy Olé this week, and see what happens.

There's nothing to adding polls, they're just as easy as adding new threads, almost. Just look for the "NEW POLL" button, right next to the "NEW TOPIC" button, after you get into a particular forum area (like "Artists", or "Audio Talk"). Then, when you hit the "NEW POLL" button, there will be two extra fields you normally don't see when you add just a new topic. They are: "Poll Question" and "Poll Choices". (Plus the usual "Topic Title", "Topic Description", and the area for the first post content.) The "Poll Question" can be pretty long, it seems. Not sure how long, but longer than the main topic title and subtitle. Then the "Poll Choices" works just like the screen instructions say... Poll Choices Please put one answer per line. [ Maximum 10 answers ] So you just type each poll response into the window, separating each poll choice item with a carriage return. MAKE SURE YOU GET THE POLL QUESTION AND POLL CHOICES RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, since there is no way to go back and edit them after you create the poll. Also, you CAN have pretty long poll choices, meaning they can run on and on across multiple lines - as long as you don't type a carriage return anywhere inside a line. And, warning, you CANNOT have any of the bold, itallic, underline, font, size, or color changes within the poll choices. Raw text only. Conn500 - just head over to the "Organissimo - Forum Discussion" forum right now, and create some bogus poll ("What's your favorite color??"), just to test it out.

I'll let you all in on a little secret. Every time you edit a post, and hit the submit button to make a change - the "total posts" counter gets bumped up. I'm a compulsive editor, so although I have 500+ posts credited to me in the official totals, I probably only have 200 actual posts, maybe 300 tops. But yeah, I do really like this place. All the stuff I like, and minimal BS, so the signal-to-noise-ratio is very good. PS: And some of my big posts I'll edit 5 or 10 times - like the ones I usually do to start new threads, or polls (my favorite!!).

You can do it, Pee Wee, you can do it!!!

Keep it. I didn't care for it at first either, but it grew on me over the years. And actually, I think now I like "On The Corner" better than parts of a some other of Miles' studio efforts in the 70's (no, not "Jack Johnson", which I love , but parts of some of the others (studio efforts) - which all blur together for me a bit). If it's any help, I never cared for "Bitches Brew" all that much at first, nor did I take to "On The Corner" at first either. I love 'em both now, but FYI, I connected with "On The Corner" first, before "Bitches Brew". Try listening to it in the car on a long trip, or at least when you're on the highway.

Sun Song (Ra's first full length LP if I'm not mistaken - from 1956) is really a stunner, now that I think of it.