JSngry

So...anybody else possibly interested in this? I myself have very mixed feelings, but, like the new Herman set, there's meat and filler in an almost indistinguishable mix. Plenty of Jaws, though, right? Also, if you really want to stretch, all those Post-Verve labels, up to and including Dot. That's where shit can really get weird. Anyway, just the Verve stuff, eh? Would you be interested in the for-real Swing Machine?

hmmm...I think he sounds like a lot of the better local players back in that time. The whole "splash" thing he does sounds like it would have worked on organ way better than it does on Rhodes. I love Rhodes, but heard so many players not getting that it wasn't a piano, nor was it an organ, it was a RHODES goddami! that...brrrrrr.... I really like that medley, though, especially once they kick into the O'Jays tune. THERE'S the pocket!

Yeah, I just see so much begging going on in jazz these days... not hustling, just outright begging. After begging becomes institutionalized, the only remaining options are either death or submission. Inevitably it's going to end up depending on a level of sponsorship/patronage that is the opposite of "self-reliance music". When that happens (hell, really, it's already happened for the most part), that's what you get, coercion to conform lest you don't get that money. I think this is especially true with legacy musics once they become actual properties totally detached from their organic origins. Ownership cracks the whip, creates a narrative, and there you go - history as badge/product, reality dumbed down to cachet. As they say, it is what it is. But let's call it what it is.

How many pinks were there? I was under the impression it was just BN 1, but no?

Ah, yeah. That does sound right to me.

Listening to Slick this morning. I can't really say three's much going on that we didn't have in South Dallas clubs up until the latest 1970s, except that longass medley...and Grant Green. Canadian audiences seem less, uh...demonstrative than South Dallas audiences did, but that's ok. It's club music. Nothing really wild happens, but it hits that mellow groove that feels just right when you're out of the house for a taste or two of a thing or two. I mean, a 25+ minute version of "How Insensitive" is either going to be totally mellow, totally intense, or total bullshit. This one is totally mellow. Not really an "essential Grant Green side, but a pretty cool document of a part of the jazz life that used to be a given.

I know Joe Benjamin better than Walter Benjamin, but thanks!

All Fox Trots All The Time! uh oh, somebody missed a deadline...

Fascinating indeed!

If I was going to do a linear historical presentation about Wayne's development as composer, I would start with the Miles versions of the tunes from Water Babies, then the same tunes as played by Wayne on Super Nova, then the first Weather Report things that are essentially group improvisations on themes tht were only maybe fixed or written down in full, some sound like general outlines/ideas or kernels or maybe just a mood with or without a few general touch points along the way, and then watch the move back to more concrete allocation of parts. I'd also call /out the evolution from floating long-tone melodies (and maybe pull in Odyssey Of Iska as an example of how that was already going on with Wayne) to more rhythmically tight grooves and melodies. I'd also note that "improvisation" becomes very much "interpretation", not so much always creating new melodies as interpreting specific, composed ones. Except when otherwise! There's a journey in this music. Knowing what was going on in Wayne's life offstage is useful when looking at the career choices he made (including letting Zawinul become the main composer and "face" of Weather Report). But that's all the more reason, I think, to look at Wayne's work on it's own. "Weather Report" is one lens, "Wayne Shorter" quite another.

Man....I saw one of those in a Half-Price somewhere in the 80s(?) and thought about picking it up, but passed because, uh....I had my head up my ass?

I doubt that they care what I think. They shouldn't. But they should get their shit together and come correct going forth!

Tip of the iceberg... and don't think you don't hear some little bit of Joe's roots in there, Joe knew. and this solo...you don't need this whole record, but this solo....jeeeeeeeezuz....

Ok, here they all are. As the Vee-Jays are a necessary scholarly prelude for the Blue Notes (if you wanna do that type of thing), so are Super Nova & Moto Grosso Feio for the early Weather Report pieces (group, really). The line between composition/improvisation/explicit/implied are very blurred. That evolves. The thing is, is always sounds like Wayne, the compositions do, it's still the same language and vocabulary, just evolving like hell. This guy did not stop being Wayne Shorter, nor did what that meant recede in its uniqueness. Weather Report Milky Way (Shorter/Zawinul) Umbrellas (Vitous/Shorter/Zawinul) Tears Eurydice I Sing the Body Electric The Moors Surucucu (also heard on Live In Tokyo) Live In Tokyo Surucucu/Lost Eurydice/The Moors Tears/Umbrellas Sweetnighter Manolete Non-Stop Home Mysterious Traveler Mysterious Traveler (skeptics can imagine THIS on a Blakey record, it'll work) Blackthorn Rose Scarlet Woman (Johnson/Shorter/Zawinul) Tale Spinnin' Lusitanos Freezing Fire Black Market Elegant People (seriously, this should be a standard by now, but not song-form-y enough. I guess. Too bad. But AH! COMPOSITION!) Three Clowns (gorgeous) Heavy Weather Harlequin Palladium (another one that could be simplified/retrofitted to a Blakey groove, but...why? This sounds like the title, perfect fit) Mr. Gone The Elders (I love this one, so much...Wayne, all parts equal, composition/orchestration, not a "jam tune" in the least)) Pinocchio (stunt jazz!) 8:30 Brown Street (Zawinul/Shorter) Sightseeing (deal with this, fake book!) Night Passage Port Of Entry Weather Report When It Was Now (couldn't be anybody but Wayne, and nobody's going to cover stuff like this because it's not something to cover, it's a statement of itself by itself and it stands on its own as what it is, which is...enough) Dara Factor Two (credited to the entire group) Procession Plaza Real The Well (Shorter/Zawinul) Domino Theory Predator (those harmonies! until not!) Swamp Cabbage Sportin' Life Pearl On The Half-Shell Face On the Barroom Floor (sweeeeet) This Is This 0 compositions! Some better than others, of course, but there's some real meat there. Just don't go looking for fake book type jam tunes, because that is so not what is being done here. This is, mostly, Wayne Shorter, composer broadening his palate. And after this, it continued to broaden, and as I'm hoping to hear on Emanon (if it ever comes out?!?!?!) coninues to broaden.

Finished Disc 2, found it very much to my liking. At times, Parker called to mind Sam Rivers, not in any real, literal way, just sometimes with his linear burstiness. It's a side of him I'm less familiar with (relatively), and I do like it. Between him and Taborn, I can hear how for Holland this traces back to both Circle & his work with the Rivers trio. It's not "like" those musics, but it makes sense that he seems to be hearing the echoes and responding accordingly. I'm glad that he is, because for a long time now, I've respected the hell out of him, but from just a bit of distance. Here, it comes straight-on. Yeah, great record and I will be recommending it to the few friends I have.

I'm old enough and oriented enough that time has yet to pass the first time for me! But seriously - Wayne Shorter was a serious cat before Weather Report, he was a serious guy after Weather Report, and quiet as it was sometimes kept (by design or otherwise), he was a serious guy with Weather Report. There really is a body of compositional work there to be examined. Just sayin'...

I really didn't mean anything specific, don't know enough. But your explanation helped, thanks!

I just went through the records and pulled the tunes where Wayne was listed as composer, any and all of them. Probably on some cassettes in some shoebox now. What was really striking was how "un-fusion-y" many of them are. Something like "The Elders"...when hear in the context of Mr. Gone, eh, I suppose one can be excused for not really zeroing in on the piece itself. But pulled away from that, it becomes something else altogether, at least it did for me. The biggest thing I noticed though, was that Shorter composed in a much more specific manner than did Zawinul. Joe would bring in all these jams that he had turned into band vehicles, wayne was like....very specific, not just in terms of melodic lines, but of textures also. This carried over to his post-WR records, but god, that awful early digital sound...find some live shows on youTube or someplace, that was very interesting music, really. Some might not like the electric/electronic angle(s), but that's orchestration if you ask me, and orchestration is a whole other aspect of composition, something that not all that many "jazz composers" have explored past the realm of immediate performance demands.

Is the cost differential due to shipping, duties, or a combination?

I would like to see somebody do a thoughtful survey of Wayne's compositions within Weather Report. I did a homemade mix of them all a few years ago, and it made for a really provocative extended listen. If you want to hear Wayne develop as a pure composer, that's a good place to go. Is it still unhip to like Weather Report or has enough time passed?

I do hope they print enough to last a year or two.

It's been my experience that "love" and "unwinding" only sometimes have room for each other.

YO!

going back around on Disc 1. Really enjoying it, it's got both motion and movement!

Cecil Taylor was once asked how he felt about 3/4 of his audience leaving before the first set was over. His answer was along the lines of "screw 'em, I play for the 25% that stay." That's the whole thing in a nutshell, really. You don't worry about the people that aren't there, you serve the ones that are. And so be it. I keep hearing people talking about Braxton's Ghost Trance music being really alienating or something like that. I don't get that at all. Maybe I'm just the type of audience he was looking for with that.