RainyDay

Yep. Had Jack Johnson screaming loud yesterday afternoon for at least two CD repeats. Followed it up with a splash of Bitches Brew. Another one is Freddie Hubbard's First Light, the title track. My favorite song to start the day.

Oh, man, this is a funny thread. Had to wipe my eyes. I saw his picture in the paper the other morning while rushing through the headlines and didn't have time to make a mental note beyond "Whaaaaa?" This thread completes my thought.

Mike, with all due respect, doens't the fact that Wonder couldn't SEE what he was doing/playing make it that much more significant in terms of what Wonder accomplished? Uh, uh. He knows hundreds of blind and deaf quads who can do the same thing.

You really need to learn to read. It's not that hard-- just take the letters one by one-- they make words and sentences. This thread has evolved into a discussion of genius and the difference between recognizing genius and differentiating between that and one's own emotional affections for a musician. And it includes pop music. Notice that I didn't mention Stevie Wonder? You would have had you been reading. I don't know his music well enough over a broad range of time to say where I'd put him. It has nothing to do with my post, which is about bigger ideas and responding to some other items in this thread (try reading those too). It becomes a numbers game-- if my definition doesn't include as many folks as yours in the "genius" category, then someone has to get left out. If I go with a multiplicity of geniuses, some for every genre and field, perhaps Steely Dan, to use a recent example, would fit in. As it is, I just know I love their music and I'm not likely to put them in the same group as Armstrong, Parker, and Coltrane in my mind. And more to the point, even if someone disagrees with my labels, it DOESN'T offend me-- and it shouldn't offend you either. It's a personal trip. That's why I like the advice to just think "hey, I'm lucky that Chuck or Chris or whoever doesn't get it and I do." Guess you are the only one who can read then because it seems people are still talking about Stevie. I understand that you don't know Stevie's music but you still needed to have an opinion--about something.

Nobody was talking about those guys. Nobody said Counting Crows were a bunch of geniuses. We were talking about this blind guy who plays several different instruments, who writes and produces music for himself and others, who has, on some of his records, played all the instruments, and who had an enormous impact on music during the 1970s. It offends some of you that the producer of popular music would be labeled a genius. Oh, well.

No. It was the lack of guitar solos. :rsmile: Oh, well, then. B-)

Oh well, shit! If the Stones couldn't keep up with Stevie, he couldn't be a genius. Jezusss! Where's the smiley for "how full of crap is that comment?" And what does being Italian have to do with anything? Step, back, Jack and get a reality check. The world of genius is not set by Italian culture. Stevie made it hard for the Stones to keep up? Boo, hoo. This is just a guess but I bet the Stones couldn't keep up with the James Brown band either. I guess that makes JB a pretender, also. I like the Stones, by the way, they just aren't the measuring stick I would use to evaluate someone else's "genius." This is directed at Nessa and others with similar opinions: If you don't like popular music in the first place, and there seems to be a particular animus on this board toward R&B, how about just staying out of this? Again, I invoke the disco analogy. People who trashed disco couldn't dance.

Not too big of a double standard here, is there? Alicia is a pimped out ho? What the hell is that? Have you seen any of the videos by so-called rappers, speaking of pimps, and hos? What an insult to a woman who has been studying music since she was a small child. And some street thug who can make, what Keith Richards calls third grade rhymes, is considered a major, profound talent? Get out of here. I think her song writing is just fine. I don't know where this Alicia Keys doesn't sing with soul nonsense comes from. No, she doesn't shake her ass at the camera and wear close to nothing on her videos, but is still a ho? It is 1,000 times harder for women to be successful in the entertainment industry than men and reading some of the bullshit I've read here is evidence of that. Here's a woman who writes, sings, has class (maybe that is what really bothers you?) and she is a ho? Man am I sick of the way women get degraded whether they carry themselves with dignity or not. You guys all drool over some crotch grabbing, violence embracing, forty ounce drinking, foul mouthed thug, but Alicia Keys is a ho. I guess if she was hanging off of Fitty Cent she'd have better street cred. Fuck that two times.

All y'all defenders of rap music.

The thing that really frosts me about your comment is that rap music gets a pass on all these things. No live musicians, just repititve electronic sound. And yet the masses are drooling all over the stuff. When elements of hip hop get incorporated into R&B or, heaven forbid jazz, then it becomes a bad thing. Y'all want to have it both ways.

When I am listening to a vocalist, I 'm listening to the voice, the story they tell, and how well they tell it. You didn't like Jill Scott because of the drum machine. That is so weak. So much for your "enlightened" hefty, black singer argument.

Joss Stone is marginally better than Al Jolson. She sounds like a pretender and she makes me cringe. I watched her sing several songs the other night and marvelled at how truly awful she is. Her tortured, marble-mouthed, pronunciations are painful to listen to. If she's had any training, she's thrown it all out the window to sound like someone who is doing a really bad imitation of a soul singer. The comment about her getting over if she was black and heavier is an unbelievably ignorant, ignorant comment on so many levels. If she was black and heavier, she'd be getting no attention at all since no one is interested in a chubby, black, marginally talented singer. Jill Scott is chubby with loads of talent and is light years from becoming a household name. Alicia Keys is a good songwriter and a good singer. What melismas? What songs are you referring to? I don't hear much of that in her music although melismas in R&B are part of the package. I don't understand this comment. Isn't this the gospel influence in R&B? Isn't this what distinguishes this music from, say, Vicky Carr? Whatever. I've avoided this thread because I'm not sure how to discuss R&B with people who think Joss Stone is a terrific R&B artist and Alicia Keys is a no talent pop singer. That is just weird. Very weird. I've been listening to R&B as long as I've listened to jazz, better than 50 years, and the discussion here is just weird as hell. I guess soon you all will be telling us that Patty Paige invented R&B. My goodness, I feel like I've stepped through the looking glass.

As someone who has done years of neighborhood organizing around crime and blight issues, I could slap people who are victims of crimes and don't report it. You gotta love the guy who didn't report the assault then says, gee, next time they could really hurt someone. Maybe it was advance karma. Knowing he wouldn't report a crime, he was the victim of one.

The reason no one knows what "gaslight" means in this context is because it doesn't have anything to do with getting ripped off by your credit card company. They're not trying to drive you slowly insane, just steal from you. That's not "gaslight," that's American capitalism.

Amoeba and Rasputin's in Berkeley on Telegraph, about a block apart, just south of campus a few blocks. Rasputin's on Powell and Eddy in SF. Amoeba on Haight in SF. Yoshi's Jazz House in Oakland is a must. Best jazz club anywhere (anywhere I've been anyway) and great Japanese food too. Wonderful staff. Virgin Megastore in SF at Stockton and Market is worth going in just to check it out, it's huge. You might find some deals and the jazz selection is respectable. Don't know a thing about jazz in LA. If I go anywhere, it's to the Comedy Store. But the Jazz Bakery is supposed to get some good talent but no one I want to see is ever there when I visit. Not related to jazz, but you must go to Venice and walk from one end of the boardwalk to the other. It's both strange and amusing. Sort of like Berkeley but in a Hollywood way. Nate and Al's deli in Beverly Hills. Great food, good for people watching. If you are going to drive through the state, don't miss the Monterey Peninsula and Carmel in particular. On San Carlos and 6th is a little shop, the The Jazz and Blues Company, that has a nice little jazz CD selection. And they have a venue over at the Crossroads at Rio Road and Highway 1 where they bring in quality talent for weekend shows. Monterey has jazz around town at night. There are jazz festivals in the spring and summer all over the Bay Area, Russian River, Healdsburg, San Jose (free! multiple stages!), North Beach in SF, Fillmore Jazz and Art in SF, etc. Some of the wineries (Paul Masson in Napa, and Wente Brothers in Livermore) have jazz festivals, although the music tends to be more smooth. Have fun.

VH1 is having some whoop de do about Save The Music and it airs tomorrow night at 9 PM. John Legend, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Donna Summer, Joss Stone, and a couple other folks. I was awakened at 5 AM by neighbors and clicked on the TV in time to see a series of videos of Stone's, most I'd seen, and I still don't quite get her. One song she does is not bad, where the singing feels more natural and not an affectation. Can't remember the title.

Calling Alicia pop makes me wonder how much of her stuff you've actually heard. I don't care for her more hip hop stuff but her R&B is very old school, which is why she is so popular with old timers like me. Joss Stone is just okay and it doesn't have anything to do with her race. She's just okay. As the evidence on this thread would indicate, she's a very pretty girl, which will carry her far. I suspect that Scott's and Arie's appearance might have something to do with the fact that people aren't falling all over themselves for them even though their singing ability is far superior to Ms. Stone's. When I hear Stone sing, I hear someone trying to be something they are not. There are and have been white folks who can sing soul, she isn't one of them, IMO. Teena Marie is white, and the woman can sing. I would also add Lauren Hill to my list.

Okay. Joss Stone is the real deal and Alicia, Jill, Beyonce, India, are all pop. My guess is that you haven't heard much of any of them. Alicia is nothing but R&B and hip hop. She does old school R&B very well. Jill Scott is pop? Wow, to say that really suggests you don't anything about R&B at all. But Joss is the real deal. Oh, my.

Alicia Keys Jill Scott India Arie (maybe under 30) Beyonce Knowles Christina Aguilera (and when she was under 30) Mariah Carey ...can all sing circles around Joss Stone.

I guess I am a Metallica fan even though I came to this band late. When they recorded with the SF sympthony (sp--Jesusss I can't spell anymore) a few years ago, I went back to take a better look because metal never did it for me. I watched the commericial free version of the doc on VH1 last night and fell asleep on the last 30 minutes, darn. It was a great warts and all documentary and an interesting look inside a phenom. The one thing that no one ever talked about was how much money was at stake if Hetfield didn't come back to the band. I hope to catch a rerun and see the last half hour. I thought it was terrific. These guys are local so a lot of their drama was reeled out on the local news. Even though none of it was "new," it was still pretty interesting. These guys seem to be the real deal. They let their fans tape their concerts. They did a free concert in the Coliseum parking lot when the Raiders were in the playoffs because they are big Raiders fans. They announced the concert like five minutes before to avoid a riot. Very cool. What IS Newsted doing now?

Only 927,000 people live in Montana? I think that many people live on my block. I might be willing to brave drunk drivers to live somewhere I'm not tripping over a thousand people every where I go. That sounds like heaven.

If I were Che, I would be proud of the fact that I left such a lasting impression on O since it looks like this thread is likely to go on for a while.

Oh, I don't know. This is like people who hated disco because they couldn't dance. Look, I understand that some folks didn't like Simply Said or Happy People. My only beef is with calling it something that it isn't instead of calling it jazz that some people don't like. A smooth record doesn't have somone playing even a little bit out on it, let alone anything that could be called straightahead. Garrett plays around with different styles and has said his musical influences include R&B and hip hop. I think it is a good thing when musicians stretch and try different things. It's why I loved Miles. That and that he didn't care what people thought about his music. Happy People certainly isn't my favorite CD by Garrett but I will keep it because I really love the last track. B-)

Kenny Garrett doesn't play smooth. I respect that you don't like the R&B influences in his music but that doesn't make it smooth. Smooth stations do not play his music because it isn't smooth. This is like Wynton saying that Miles' Jack Johnson is rock and roll because he didn't like it. Were you referring to the Asian trilogy of songs he plays? Those aren't smooth at all, they are traditional folk songs. I like that Garrett has a range of style. That he goes from r&b/funk to playing out. It makes him interesting, particularly in live performance. I saw him twice last week at Yoshi's and there is nothing smooth about his music. Calling Kenny Garrett's music smooth is an insult to an exceptionally talented artist. Grover Washington played smooth. Kenny G used to play smooth. Their musical styles are light years away from Kenny Garrett plays.

Awful, yes, but they also had a "jazz thing" (DEEP by experience, Aric by intuition) that was undeniable. And on a primarily jazz board, that's gotta count for something. Their bad qualities went on one side of the scale, the good on the other, and determining the relative balance was then up to individual. Or, as it turned out, the moderators. No real tears here about the decisions. I will never understand the defense of DEEP. It wasn't only that he gay baited or whatever but he went after people in a really hateful way and he did it on just about every jazz board. It's more than a little disturbing that anyone would find this entertaining. The fact that he was walking jazz encyclopedia meant nothing to me. Nothing.