Harold_Z

SAY IT AIN'T SO JOE !!

You might want to check Jazzology's catalogue for the Ma Rainey. http://www.jazzology.com/index.php

All the Bechet/Mezzrow King Jazz sides are available in great sound on Jazzology.

MAN! CAN THESE GUYS TURN A PHRASE OR WHAT ?!!

Wilton Felder sounds great on it too.

WHERE'S SARGENT GARCIA ? I WAN'T TO CARVE MY INITIAL ON HIS STOMACH!

I CAN'T READ... BUT I HAVE BAD EAR.

OK ... It's a toss up ...YES...if the drummer has absolute concentration and can keep things straight through a barrage of wrong notes and bad time he can dominate the situation, but so can a good bassist with equal concentration overcome the drummer (if he can muster the necesary volume and energy to cut through the muck)....and then FOR HOW LONG? All night? I know after awhile I'm scratching my balls and thinking about the next taste, and eyeing the chick on the 3rd barstool. Awhile back in life I noticed whenever I went to see guys play, if there was a terrible player, he had all my attention. "What the hell is this guy doin?" "A little late that time BOZO" "Why doesn't somebody SHOOT this MF?" In short..I came to believe a band sounded as good as it's weakest player.

Nice post Jim.You nailed the JB/Sly dichotomy plus all the other things you referenced are right on the mark too... Sly hit big with DANCE TO THE MUSIC and I DO remember being in my car and hearing this and digging the hell out of it. WHOA ...who's this? It was original but also included elements of the past ...JB (with changes)...a show band vibe that was around at the time and THAT HORN LICK from "Harlem Shuffle". I loved it. floored. Anybody remember seeing a Mike Douglas show where Sly and Mohammed Ali were both guests? Back in the days when TV talk/variety shows were truly unscripted. I caught a rerun on late night TV not too long ago, but I DID remember seeing it the first time around. The show did little credit to Ali. He was pretty hostile..he criticized Mike Douglas basically for being white and having a tv show. Mike was insulted and showed it and Sly stepped in and said what I thought were appropriate things - the voice of reason in this circumstance. Ali then attacked Sly for daring to disagree with him publicly. Sly came back at ALi but maintained his cool. Ali did not (and did not come off well). Mike Douglas was pissed but cool and the segment ended. Revealing TV - something we've lost. But my point with all of this is that AT THAT TIME (when was it? I can only estimate around 1970) Sly was basically a positive cat. Look at the lyrics and titles...Stand, You Can Make It If You Try, Life, Fun, Everybody Is A Star.... Then came RIOT and SLY is delivering what to me sounds like a smack version of THANK YOU FALLETTIN ME... (...and smack version or not...it's good) . Anyway...this thread got me going a little. Last night I burned my RIOT lp to cdr and have listened to it 3x since. I was in CD World today and saw "FRESH" for $6.99 and scored. I dug up all my SLY lps... I dug up all my GRAHAM CENTRAL STATION lps.( Jim S - have you heard Patrice Banks singing "I Can't Stop The Rain"?) My intent is to eventually burn them to cdr.

I did a jazz gig years ago with a VERY strong Newark Tenor player. The leader on the gig was the drummer - and he was weak. The pianist ...well...relatively "OK" changes but bad time. The Tenor player and I locked during his solos and we kept the time happening. At one time the Tenor player walked over to me during a tune and said in my ear "I hear you MF. KEEP that shit happenin' ". (He was a cat that when he spoke you heard a lot of MFs and SHITs.) This drummer didn't have a bad concept - just didn't have the chops to play what he heard and the time was erratic. Not to long ago I did a gig with a drummer that played so badly I broke a rule I had set for myself. The rule was not be a prick to a bad player. My reasoning was that bad vibes would only make a bad situation worse. Well..this guy played so badly that my theory went totally out the window. I was a seething volcano of bad vibes. I couldn't speak to the guy...I couldn't even look at him. I wanted to really verbally MAUL him..AND I'm not really that kind of guy. Each break I headed for the far end of the bar. I said not one word to this guy all night. I went to the band leader (lame ass) and said "Pay the guy and send him home. We can do this a lot better with NO drums." No dice. He's worried that the club owner will complain about being short a piece. NOTHING -NO AMOUNT OF STRONG PLAYING- NOTHING could save this situation because this drummer couldn't even listen. I mean if you have NO chops at all and just play the minimum in time...OK...we can get through the gig...but if there is not even the slightest concept of time WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING BEHIND A DRUM SET!!! AHHHH...I feel so much better....

No, I'm pretty square. Keep it that way... WORD

Does this have anything to do with those MATRIX MOVIES ?

So let me get this straight...... I'm getting the picture now. I post on this board - thinking I'm posting in this community of jazz people. Then I come to find out that it's really ME and maybe ONE OTHER PERSON ???

No apology necessary Jim. I knew what you meant and I know you are not infected with the socialy pathological disease of BASSISM.

Good bass playing is a concept - whether it's upright or electric.. Unfortunately it's an easy ax for someone with no concept to "get by" on and these are the guys that play as you describe.

This thread had my interest from the first post in the sense that I wanted to revisit the record before I did anything. I didn't post and I didn't read the thread beyond the first post. Tonight I burned my lp onto cdr and gave it a good listen. The burn is on as I write this. OK. It's everything Jim says it is re: Miles etc. Actually re 70s funk. Very influential and very focused in Sly's own head. Can you really write about this record without referencing drugs? I can't. So , thru a drug haze, Sly is focused enough to turn out this gem. HOW? He focused. He had his eye on the spot - or his EAR is on the spot. And yeah...it's a coke haze but I think it's it's a scag haze too. Dope fiends. Everything and anything and deal with it. That's how I see and hear it And I LOVE IT. Who's playing on this? The LP doesn't really say - just some pictures on the inside of the gatefold, (You all remember gatefold lps? Very useful for cleaning certain vegetation). I vaguely remember reading or hearing that much of it was Sly overdubbed. Specifically the bass was Sly. Let me elucidate a moment about the bass on this LP. For a pro bassist operating often in bands playing this type of music it was KEY. Here's the deal - The bass on the record sounds like a Fender (Jazz or Precision) with flatwound strings and the action set very low (lower than any bassist would use AT THAT TIME) and played with for the most part with a pick (funk bassists rearely used a pick) and no mute. It all works and sounds great. It's funk bass played with a set up NO recording funk bassist is using at the time. He's not really a bassist - so he uses an easy to play set up and because he is so focused and because he knows exactly what he wants and because he's in the studio and is running the show and can get the sound he wants it all comes out great. I say that as praise - not as a put down. Larry Graham filtered through Sly. (another discussion I'd like to have. Early Graham Central Station). OK - I'm still listening and I'd like some reaction to what I've said - agree or disagree. I'm a strange case- I was weined on early jazz and on FUNK. I played with Funk bands all througth the 60s and 70s and I'm glad this thread came up. I want to talk about THIS music too. One more point - this is considered POP MUSIC...but to me the attitude of this music is SO related to jazz as to really be the same thing in my heart of hearts. It's improvistiory and grooves.

The use of "WORD" predates Arsenio, the Wayans, or any celebrity. Really it's a kind of reference to the Bible in the sense that the Bible is THE WORD. Hence saying Word after somebody else's statement is like saying the statement refered to is as accurate as the Bible. It's the word of God. Really. No shit. That's what it means.

"Da Bomb" is definitely more authentic spelling. I just couldn't get myself to write it. I'm too edjumacated.

Word is like saying YES ! or RIGHT ON. One might say (after an earlier post praising the thread): " WORD ! This thread is THE BOMB!"

Nothing has bothered me on the ones I've bought. I'm not an audio fanatic but I do have likes and dislikes in the matter and these are fine for me.

Yeah...slow for a couple of days now.

I'm definitely in favor of this idea. Good music is good music and it should be called attention to.

Benny More was outstanding. STRONG pipes ! I was looking back on some of the things I have on cd and vinyl and the notes are pretty uninformative. I was under the impression that Benny and Perez Prado recorded together frequently during the period that they were both with RCA, although I couldn't find anything in what I have to substantiate this. I've had my eye on that 4 cd set for a while.

Enjoyable disc Couw..another one that I'll be revisisting often. I've put off posting here in hopes that I'd come up with some better ids on stuff - but I haven't. I have to confess that there's a lot here that I'm unfamiliar with, but I found all of it enjoyable. These BF tests are definitely pointing me to new listening, things I've missed, etc...and that's a good thing. I like the no chordal instrument slant and there's a wide stylistic range of players here, so we see how differing approaches work with this. Nice sub theme. The tracks I know are tracks 3, 10, and 14. My suspicions on the other tracks are too unfocused to venture a good guess. I think a lot of these guys are European (just a guess) and they sound great AND familiar AND worthy of further listening, but I don't really know who they are yet. Is track one a movie thing?

Johnny Mercer's singing always seems very hip. He's from that era where Jazz and Pop interelated. His lyrics were humorous and clever and the catalogue of songs he wrote speaks for itself.