HutchFan

This new-to-me LP just arrived in the mail: Hooray for Pee Wee!!! Bud & Braff sound pretty darn good too. Very enjoyable music. OTOH, that cover... Eeeeewww.

Sublime.

Mads Vinding Trio - The Kingdom (Where Nobody Dies) (Stunt, 1997)

You're speculation makes sense. It's plausible. But, like you said, at the end of the day... Who knows? Grossman may not have even fully understood his own motivations. Every one of us has done stuff in our own lives without fully understanding why. We just do it. ... A lot of life is like that.

Now spinning: Steve Turre - S/T (Verve, 1997)

Just stumbled across this interview with Liebman (on Lieb's website) that focuses on Steve Grossman. It reiterates much of what we were saying. One particularly interesting passage: JB: I was wondering if there is anything specific you can say about perhaps what Grossman could have done to enhance his reputation? I mean, he obviously kind of went over the edge with self-indulgent behavior. DL: Well, that’s it! That is what happened. I don’t know musically if he made a conscious decision to go back into the bebop thing, particularly Sonny Rollins’ playing of the ‘50s or if it just happened. Questions of lifestyle and living in Europe for decades factor in also. It’s complicated so it seems. You’d have to ask him. He definitely had a way of playing that was unique. He was the best of all of us. We, the tenor players of that time from our generation all acknowledged that. Those of us still alive from then would still say that Steve was the one that had the most going on. It’s like if you came up in the ‘90s you had Chris Potter to contend with, super whiz kid stuff. Steve was the most innovative at the time and the most accomplished. How it ended up, or how it is now what he’s been playing the last decades has baffled almost everybody who would be part of my observation. Why and how, and what happened we don’t know. There was a feeling he went backward or stopped. On the other hand, he’s such a great player that it doesn’t matter what he plays. I mean he could play a nail and it would be great. What a guy chooses to play is his decision and it’s his prerogative to do what he wants. It’s not a judgment call to me, it’s just mystifying and baffling that he did not go further on. I don’t know what direction that could’ve been but some kind of more individual direction than what it appears he ended up playing like. I can’t tell you how he’s playing today, so who knows. Again I’m not judging him, it’s just that he was the one we were looking at and then he kind of, well not dropped the ball, but just went in what seems to have been a radical direction.

I haven't. When were those recordings made?

Two different John Abercrombie quartets from the 1980s. Earlier: Now:

In his autobiography, Dave Liebman talks about how surprised he was when he heard Steve Grossman in the 1980s after not having seen him for a long time. Lieb was totally surprised by Grossman's sound, how Rollins-esque it was. ... Of course, it was very different than the sound Grossman had when he and Liebman were in Elvin's band. So it was a shock. I didn't sense that Lieb was judging Grossman exactly. But it threw him for a loop.

Andrew Cyrille - Special People (Soul Note, 1980) Great set!

Congrats Allen !!!

Now: John Lewis - Kansas City Breaks (Red Baron/Finesse, rec. 1982) with Frank Wess (fl); Joe Kennedy (vn); Howard Collins (g); Marc Johnson (b); Shelly Manne (d)

John Lewis - The Garden of Delight: Delaunay's Dilemma (EmArcy, 1988)

Fire away. I think you'll dig it!

NP: @felser - Thanks for this "Fathead" recommendation.

My entry point into Jaki Byard's work as a leader. OH YEAH!

Excellent ballad interpretations, for sure. Rollins' one original on the album, "Times Slimes," is also very good.

I like it very much. Helluva record. I like how Allen integrates synthesizers with her piano on some of the cuts. Distracting, out-of-place synths on jazz records in the 80's is almost a cliche. But not Allen's. The way that she deploys them is very creative and interesting.

bresna, apologies for the error re: the author -- but the analogy remains. ... Of course, you have the freedom to decide to not buy any more George R.R. Martin books. But Martin has the freedom to decide what he's doing next, even if it means failing to measure up to your (or others') expectations. Likewise Sonny Rollins. I think the KingGaiman story is just another way of saying what Thelonious said: "The most successful artist is the person who is most fully himself." ... I know that I'm not in any position to tell Sonny Rollins -- or any artist -- what they should do or be. Because an artist's job is unlike almost any other occupation. I can measure a heart surgeon's success by their patient's outcomes. I can measure a sanitation worker's success by how reliably they pick up the garbage. I can measure a lawyer's success by their rate of positive verdicts. I can measure a basketball player's success by their points, assists, and rebounds. But how do we meaure an artist's success? The relatively simple standards that we can apply to those other occupations can't even BEGIN to measure what constitutes artistic success -- because there's no universal agreement about what constitutes art itself! There are traditions, and there are conventions. And these are very important. But there is no "playbook." There is no step-by-step recipe. And that's precisely what makes art so exciting and wonderful and difficult. ... That's how I think about it, at least.

Next up: Geri Allen - Twylight (Minor Music/Verve, 1989) with Jaribu Shahid, Tani Tabbal, a.o.

Giving this LP a spin after mentioning it earlier today on a thread dedicated to Lew Tabackin: Shelly Manne - Essence (Galaxy, 1977) with Lew Tabackin, Mike Wofford, and Chuck Domanico Good stuff.

I just read this thread. Fascinating discussion from 7 years ago. It reminded me of a story that I heard. I don't recall all the details, but here's the gist of it. The author Stephen King was interacting with some fans, discussing his books and books that he's enjoyed by other authors. One of the fans asked King about George R.R. Martin, the author of the Game of Thrones series. King talked about how much he enjoyed Martin's books. But then the fans began to complain because it was taking Martin so long to complete the cycle. The fans felt like they were "owed" the final few chapters. But Stephen King wasn't having any of that and pushed back strongly. King said, "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch." Likewise, the ONLY person who can decide what's right for Sonny Rollins is Sonny Rollins. He is not our bitch.