Larry Kart

It was 1969. Things were edgy. Stanley Crouch?

I'm far from a Jones/Baraka scholar, but my memory is that the best of what he said 50 years ago -- his poetry of that vintage, his fiction, his frequently excellent record reviews and other essays for Kulchur magazine and the Jazz Review, etc. (I'll never forget, for one, his insightful praise of Ellington's "All American" album) -- made a lot more sense than just about anything he's written since. P.S. If I were a Jones/Baraka scholar, I might have had to kill myself ... or at least conceal my plot to engineer 9/11.

That wasn't the only reason.

The refusal of the university press he had a contract with to accept those coinages was among the chief reasons he left them and decided to publish to book himself. Pullman would say (indeed, IIRC, has said) that his desire to change common usage (or at least make it clear where he himself stands politically on this topic) was essential to the whole project. He does, after all, again IIRC, see prevailing racial assumptions-attitudes, etc. impinging directly and perniciously on Powell's life throughout, and no doubt feels that it would be morally wrong for him to step back from the present-day consequences-implications of that view, as though that socio-political "story" effectively ended with Powell's death. Rather, he wants to make those connections to the present unavoidable.

Relieved to know it's not George Lewis.

Yeah, I don't blame you for leaving. He sounds moronic. See, I would have just asked him what he meant by that, that I didn't understand what he meant, please elaborate because I want to understand. Either he was gamin', in which case you've called him on it, or else he really did have an angle that he could elaborate on, in which case you do gain insight. The angle might still be bullshit, but we all got bullshit, ya' know? Either way, I just don't leave it hanging like that. I don't like leaving stuff like that alone, not unless I'm running late for something else, or something like that, or if it's my wife looking to set a trap. FWIW, I could see "irony" as being one manifestation of "tricksterism" You could go there. Or you could just be looking to psyche a mf out. But you never know for sure until you push it. He probably would have replied -- a la Louis Armstrong (or was it Fats Waller?) -- "If you have to ask, you'll never know."

I recall being in NYC in the early '60s and visiting a large class at (probably) the New School that a friend of mine was attending. Jones was the teacher-lecturer, the ostensible subject was the New American Poetry, but Jones that day (and no doubt many others) was into his White Americans are the root of all evil thesis, focusing this time on the rape of the American Indians by Anglo colonists, frontiersman, settlers, etc. Just because his bulldozing smugness kind of bugged me, I raised my hand and, when called on, rather snottily said something like, "Maybe the Indians were bad people, too." Jones' double take was something to see.

"It's a trombone thing!" Most definitely. In that bag these days, I'm fond of Luis Bonilla of the Vanguard Orchestra, who has made several very good recordings as a leader. About who originated that sound, I don't know, but that recent thread about Kai Winding (or a link off of it) claimed that he originated the Kenton trombone sound, with further refinements (if "refinements" is the word) by Bob Fitzpatrick and a few others. Who knows, maybe they've played trombones blatantly in Sweden for centuries? A la Alp Horns? Of Bonilla's three albums, I prefer "I Talking Now!" and "Terminal Clarity." The most recent, "Twilight," struck me as a little bland.

Herwig at his best is quite something, a virtuoso with virtuoso ideas, though for my taste he has taste issues at times, can be blatant (almost) a la Milt Bernhart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yJq4311qIU Eddie plays the shit of A-flat rhythm changes here on clarinet in the midst of one of Thad's greatest charts. It's just a single chorus but he says a ton in a short space. Really tells a story. Actually, everyone sounds FANTASTIC here right down the line. Jesus Christ -- to have heard this band live in its heyday ... wow. Agreed, Mark, but that was then. Encounters with recent Daniels CDs on clarinet almost rotted my teeth.

Good Bucky Pizzarelli quote: "The next Eddie Daniels." Too bad John Pizzarelli isn't the next Bucky.

This thread makes my head hurt. Being there at the time is a crime we'll one day be forced to pay for ... if we haven't already.

I'm not sure if they are binaural or just have two settings - directional and surround. But the "noisy environment" setting works really well most of the time. If I understand correctly what my hearing aids do, each one has a differently programmed mini-computer in it (differently programmed to compensate for that ear's pattern of hearing loss -- in my case the patterns of loss were quite different), and then that information is blended by them into one coherent, seemingly natural sonic "image." Thus, if you put only one aid in, or the battery in one aid fails, you get nothing -- they work in tandem or not at all.

Dan -- I think we have the same or similar hearing aids with the same three settings. The "noisy places" setting helps with that problem by, as you say, narrowing the cone of sonic information to the front, but if there's a good deal of foreground vs. background information within that narrower cone (which is often the case in a restaurant or bar), it can't do anything about that. If I'm talking to someone in such places, I often have to ask them to repeat things while I lean forward. BTW, pricey as those hearing aids are, if you're in a position tax-wise to itemized medical deductions, you can deduct the cost. Also, I always use the "music" setting when listening to music. My sense is that it pretty much fits the way I used to hear things when I was younger. But then even I would think that a good many patterns of hearing loss are individual. Fascinating part of it is that when you have high frequency loss, the part of the brain that processes this information tries to compensate for what it's not getting by boosting lower frequencies, which makes things much worse. Then, once you get good hearing aids, that part of the brain reprograms itself over time to accept the more accurate information and stop boosting the lower frequencies, as it had been doing. Who knew that one's brain was an independent contractor? Finally, my hearing loss was not because of any event or pattern of sonic abuse but simply the result of aging.

Couple of years ago I discovered that I had a significant hearing problem -- loss of high frequencies to the point where I wondered whether I'd be able to enjoy listening to music down the road -- and got two Siemens hearing aids through the Northwestern University Audiology Clinic after several hours of elaborate tests (there's a mini-computer in each hearing aid because the hearing loss was different in each ear, and the hearing aids are programmed to work together). The hearing aids were pricey, but the benefits were spectacular. And they're almost invisible. I probably hear better now than I did for some years before I got the hearing aids because I'm sure the problem crept up on me before it got so bad that I finally noticed it. Loss of high frequencies is a problem that good hearing aids can correct. Other problems -- e.g. difficulty in sorting out foreground from background sounds -- are I believe much more difficult for hearing aids to correct.

Who is "he" in your first sentence? If it's Ben, I think you're mistaken. His response to the Forbes piece carefully points out its errors in fact and logic. I don't think he has any animus against Forbes per se; rather, he suggested that one of Forbes' agendas when it comes to the business world led them to distort Lin's story in an attempt to fit that agenda.

What Ben said.

Coleman Hawkins' "Picasso":

Nice record; I bought it at the time but sadly don't have it any more. IIRC, Nat Pierce's chart (I think it's his) on "Opus De Funk" is quite nice -- wholly in the spirit of the original, which is not that common when hard bop small-group pieces are adapted for big bands like Herman's. For instance, I recall that in the '60s Herd "Sister Sadie" became a semi-frantic flagwaver, which arguably was fun but not the point that Horace had in mind IMO.

Fabulous Gillespie on three tracks (Groovin' High, Round Midnight, Shaw Nuff) on this: http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-At-Philharmonic-Seattle-1956/dp/B005EN4JKK/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_3

Jim -- If you can't detect a certain disingenuousness in Q's remarks on Houston's passing, I've got a bridge you might want to purchase.

An ex-post facto foot in the door in the life of Houston, though he didn't have one otherwise, except that he admired her work?

Kinda foot in the door, or so it struck me.

Did we take note of his comment on W. Houston's death?: "Legendary music producer Quincy Jones said in a written statement: 'I am absolutely heartbroken at the news of Whitney's passing. I always regretted not having had the opportunity to work with her. She was a true original and a talent beyond compare. I will miss her terribly.'" (My emphasis)

Eat your heart out, Whitney: