king ubu

As someone that was a *wee little bit* (striving for "understatement of the month", I guess...) involved, I cannot but fully agree with couw. That is, on the wounds that cannot be healed by time (check Chris.Marker's "Sans soleil" for a bit more on that topic) and on all the other points he made (freedom of speach, new rules etc). I never really straightened things out with him. Here's the story: he dropped a PM, I dropped one back, making my points again, he replied telling me he was too tired and will he deal with it the next day. I gave a lot of thoughts on how to answer without having to lie, and without apology (there was no reason for that, in my book - I merely stated my anger about his anti-semitic crap, and kept maintaining I was no bully, which was his attack against me). However, once I saw his usual rubbish-posts the next day (his authistic "Thank you for your post. I enjoyed reading it"-routine, as if the board was just there to make him enjoy himself or what), I decided I had no reason to get back at him, but rather took a step back from the whole affair (and that meant all the board, except for - bad, very bad, timing - my BFT-thread, which he almost spoilt, too, but I tried to be there, regularly, at least). I haven't really felt like stepping into full action since. There has just been too much b-s going on. I do thank everybody who sent me supportive and kind PMs, though. I really appreciated that. However, a couple of things have just gone wrong in my book in a way that was far over the top, and it will take time to accept that, and I guess - that's the deal with time not healing those wounds - it will never be fully forgotten. Now call me a crybaby again, if you will .

Happy birthday!

Use: I'm glad to see your apology here! Really! Bugged me a bit that you deleted those harmless posts. Also I'm glad how the che-issue ended. And note that I never requested him being banned, but that I found the Atzmon thread very appalling and actually - even if you are all for free speech - offensive, in that it was anti-semitic and racist. I'm not sure where to draw the line, myself, but I still would be glad to see that thread disappear from the board. ubu

same here (though I like the Bethlehem and Candid's a lot, too).

Oh sure, it's 1 a.m. here and I just opened all the windows to let the cool fresh air of a spring night flow through the appartment!

Bully.

Thanks brownie! Good to know I'm not alone liking "Blood Count"! And didn't I tell you #12 was going to be a surprise?

Rooster: PM sent!

Previous threads: here and here. But both didn't go very far... ubu

The point is that a few regulars have been offended on the board, a couple of weeks back, and the large part of the crowd reacted by stating that the ones that have taken insult should "chill out" and ignore the turds being thrown at them. This has been taken - again by some, I'm not stressing my own case here - as a sign that the atmosphere has been getting rougher (at least for those who did notice) and that obviously some problems are not being dealt with here. And that again has made this place a lot less comfortable, again for some. And one more point I want to stress is that those of us who have been offended or taken offense have often contributed a lot to the positive vibes of this board.

Sounds good! I love MaliCOOL! Please keep us updated if something will be released!

Maybe you can apply some twitching to those pics? And Jim: book me on the first international shuttle, please!

Look tony, at least I saved on by quoting it, and now as I quote it again, you have it available twice! I suppose you should rather have posted then "Thank you for your post, I enjoyed reading it. Tony"-messages, instead of those evil things, you know?

I'm taking the liberty to post another thread on my BFT. I do realize that none of the music I included is available commercially, unless someone wants to spend big $$ and buy the "Jazz in Switzerland" 4CD set. So the idea of this thread is to offer a few pointers to CDs that have or have not been mentioned in my answers thread. I'm afraid I can't give opinions on all the discs I'll mention here, simply as I don't have them all, but I want to give you some pointers as to what to look for if you enjoyed something in particular. (Again: sorry, no more Hawk, no more Merrill w/Gruntz, no more accordion...) So here, for starters, are two fine discs (I have both of them) coming from the fine Swiss label, Altrisuoni (catalogue, home): Kaspar Ewalds Exorbitantes Kabinett: Räuber This is the studio release of the crazy big band that reminded some of you of Don Ellis. Here's the info-page on the Altrisuoni website. Only looking at it I saw that there is a Don Ellis reference there, too! Then, here's a second good Altrisuoni release: Claudio Pontiggia: Espoir sorry, couldn't find larger image This disc features Pontiggia on french horn and Andy Scherrer (the "Blood Count" tenorist) on tenor and soprano, as well as a few other interesting European musicians, Frank Tortiller (vib), Marcel Papaux (d), Jean-Christophe Cholet (p), and Paolino dalla Porta (b). Here's the page on the Altrisuoni site. Pontiggia has two more discs out on Altrisuoni with "Il trio", featuring himself, Cholet (p), and Heiri Känzig (b - the guy on the piano trio track on CD1). I have the first of those, Aspetti (AS 036) but it has been some time since I listened to it. These two for starters. It's way past bedtime, I'll try and come back with a few more. ubu

Glad you enjoyed it, Rodney!

Wait for my next BFT for some encounter of the third (man)kind...

To me, Indian music is much more complicated. They're playing semi-tones; IMO there's a ton of nuance in their music. I think they're rhythms are very difficult to follow. I purchased some tabla drums years ago and haven't got anywhere with them. I think you're right on the money there, AB! I got some tablas, too, and tried to learn some of those easier rhythms (Teental, for instance), but HELL! Indian classical music might *sound* simple and trance-like, but it is definitely NOT! There's a whole other musical world and tradition there, which has very little in common with Western music (jazz, at least in part, is Western music, too). A few thoughts: Indian classical music is not written. You cannot learn it by studying printed editions of anything, you cannot look at it, all you can is listen. The great master musicians have their pupils, they grow up in their masters homes, they don't just go there for lessons once in a week, they deeply absorb the music. Knowledge is passed by playing and living, not by what we understand as teaching. On the complexity: as has been noted, Indian classical music (I assume everybody is talking of North Indian music here, because South Indian is a whole other thing again, that I know near to nothing of)... got lost, sorry. As has been noted, Indian classical music uses micro-tones. Also, Indian classical music has far more different scales than we well-tempered (musically, that is) Westerners could imagine (all those diminished and augmented scales included). As far as I understand, there are a few basic things to Indian classical music: 1) There is a rhythmic "frame" to each tune/performance. That frame can vary greatly - there are the easy ones (Teental, which has 4 times 8 or 4 times 16 beats) and there are the highly complex ones (that's where Don Ellis came from, doing that crazy tune that opens his great Monterey Pacific Jazz album). An Indian musician always knows *exactly* where in that rhythmic frame he is, while playing - there is no easy-going trance thing there. 2) On top of the rhythmic "frame" (don't ask me if connected with it or not, and if, in what way, but I guess it's all much more complex than how I put it here), on top of that rhytmic "frame", thus, there is a melodic (NOT harmonic - Indian music does not know any harmony in our Western sence) frame (a scale). The scales used may differ quite some from what we call a scale, although we have that one minor scale that is played differently when played up from when played down - that kind of thing happens in Indian scales, too - you are (not) allowed to play particular steps of the scale if you have (or have not) played certain other steps just before it. 3) Indian classical music is performance-music (what music isnt't... whom do I tell, but...): each performance is organized in itself. If, for instance, you have a sitar player, backed by tabla (and tamboura, as always), he starts solo, sets the "mood". That part (I don't know how it's called, actually) may take as long as an hour (if they play Indian-style, aka real, not a short concert done for Westerners, their concerts go on forever, not just two hours or so). I have no closer idea about how such performances are actually organized, but organized they are. They follow a mood ("raga", I think, means just that) - so, for instance, you don't play a morning "mood" when the concert takes place in the night, or a winter "mood" when it's summer outside, whatever... Hope these mumblings make any sense - I'm no scholar, I merely scratched the surface, but I love the music (have seen Remember Shakti last year, have seen Zakir H. several times, as well as Hariprasad Chaurasia and some others, too). And if you want to know my opinion: the Handy/Akbar Khan somehow is nice, the Harriott/Mayer is wierd, and both don't really work (yet I will keep them both and enjoy them, now and then...) ubu

That's a beautiful one, Alan! Thanks!

Again apologies, Marucs! That shouldn't have happened in the first place!

Enjoy, Lon! While I was absolutely stunned by "In the Mood for Love" and - even more so in comparison - less impressed by "2046", I still think it's a beautiful film and a very special one!

Actually there hardly is jazz on the radio stations around here, but most of the good stations have at least one weekly show where live recordings are broadcast, and that's the cool part. The good thing about Switzerland is that it's so small... we can get Austrian, French, and German radio stations in, in addition to our own (of course no private stations that are worth bothering with...). I started popping in a tape every Friday night six or seven years ago, to catch the live stuff on Swiss radio, but since I have had cable radio (a year now), I've been able to enjoy more music coming from the national French and Austrian, as well as three German stations. However, tehre is not one station around that you could just listen to in the background (but that I would not do, anyway). There is a swiss "Culture and Jazz" station, but that's a drag. No tune longer than 4 or 5 minutes (otherwise it could bore some listener), no bass solos (could bore some...), no drum solos (could be too loud and aggressive for some), no free-ish stuff (no need to explain on this point, is there? Ffree jazz does not exist, anyway, I guess they'd take 1964 Blakey as free jazz)... you get the idea, I assume.

That's a live recording. Oh, and you believe them? Fake applause is my guess... I told you I don't know it, didn't I?

glad you enjoyed it, Ray!