JSngry

From fall of 1970 to spring of 1974, ages 14-18...man, talk about an explosion in the mind...I could easily add another 50+ albums to that "early grabbers" list, because it seemed that everything was new and major. Some of it was just part of the overall music scene of the time, shit was WIDE open on ALL fronts, some of it was a function of records being damn near everywhere, seriously, everywhere. New records, old records, none of them excessively expensive either. I mean, you read about Thelonious Monk and a week or two later find this in the cutout bin, and, you know, those type of albums were goldmines for new listeners, because look at everybody who is on there, you have names to go by and sounds to associate with the names, you can't help but feel the good, live-giving warmth of the sunshine as all those doors and windows keep opening and opening and opening...

Bill Walton Sam Seder Joe Moad

I am not worthy, but I do thank you for that.

Please, because I really, really am getting anxiety-ish now that my work from home has been revoked and I have to go into the office every day now. Six years of working from home, combined with now being almost 61, I'm basically rurnt for that now. But I have no immediately viable options. So if Bob wants to help a solid B-Level fan out, hey, much appreciated, more than literature can say.

After letting Friday night's overall neutral enthusiasms sink in, the one really "up" note that lingers is the playing of the DSO trumpet section, Ryan Anthony, Principal. Mr. Anthony seems to be they type of player whose work consistently gets me hot, or whatever it is that you're supposed to say about that type of thing. My intuitive reaction is a simple "that cat can PLAY!". I guess if you're well-versed in such things, this is a Captain Obvious DUH! kind of thing, but I am not, so...forgive me, those who are. But anyway yeah: http://www.ryananthony.com/home.htm and holy shit, scanning the DSO musician bios page, I just now came across this, which really, really sucks... https://www.mydso.com/about-the-dso/people-and-places/musician-bios The Fall of 2012 brought a change to Mr. Anthony’s life and career with a diagnosis of an incurable cancer. After a stem cell transplant for Multiple Myeloma (cancer of the bone marrow and blood) he started The Ryan Anthony Foundation 501(c)(3) non-profit organization using music to promote cancer research. The concerts called “Cancer Blows” have taken off as an important vehicle for musicians and audiences to unite in finding a cure. whoa...

Can I have it if he doesn't? That would really help me transition to retirement.

Thanks! It's literature, you know. Lin Biviano in happier days: I swear to god, I think I was present at the Buddy gig where Lin Biviano got fired. It was at Louisiana Tech, in Ruston, LA, iirc, and Buddy kept vibing one guy in the trumpet section who was kind of vibing him back. It was Lin Bivano, I'm sure, because he got his feature and his introduction. If it wasn't that night it had to have been not too long after, there was an....edge there that was not sustainable, if you know what I mean. But that was one hella good Buddy Rich Band band.

I'd bet Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize that it is Hawk.

Y'all work that out between yourselves.

There are dividing lines to the business of art, best believe their are. And prizes such as this are never awarded in a business-of-art vacuum. All I really want to know is if the Noble committee will be honoring future songwriters with the Literature prize, and if so, will they do us all a favor and call it what it is when they do? That would be fine with me, really. Or is this just a one-off, and if so, why? Because Prize motivation: "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition" opens up a whole ginormous field of potential future awardees, and, of course, missed past ones. The key word there for me are "poetic" and "within". Not doing any new poetry in the tradition of poetry/literature, but being "poetic" within the song tradition. So, are they really opening this up, or are they gonna let this be a one-time affair? Is this gonna get complicated for the Nobel Future? Dylan has never been all that complicated, imo,. It's other people who complicate him for themselves. I don't see this as being an exception. Quo vadis, Nobel? Que pasa? Also...if songwriting=literature, let's say I'm a kid of a literate bent who is all about my songwriting. I want to go to college and submit my songs to a university scholarship selection committee. Do I submit them to the English department or to the Music department? Or the lyrics to the English Department and the melodies to the Music Department and hope to hit a double jackpot? The correct answer, of course, is fuck all that, get a business degree with a minor in pre-law and peddle your songs as you see fit. Bit apart from that...

This one? That's definitely not Hawk after Ella. Not the same tone as Hawk's, not the same internal rhythm as Hawk. If he was there, that's Flip Phillips.

Point is just that writing song lyrics and writing poetry are separate disciplines/crafts/arts that of course overlap, but only partially. One is not the other. Conflating them, imo, does a disservice to both of them.

If we're playing the First Things That Really Gripped You In A Lasting Jazz Way game, then here's what I got, not in any order, but all within the first six months of my trug jazzzbug bitten-ness, late 1970-early 1971 Coltrane - Transition Blakey - Indestructable Benny Goodman - In Moscow Glenn Miller Story OST (Parent's record) - Particularly the Louis Armstrong cuts at the end of each side Some Dave Brubeck Crown LP, the side that had the long ass version of "At A Perfume Counter). A set of Atlantic Jazz 45s by Mingus, Ornette, MJG, Slide Hampton, & Herbie Mann that I got in a way that is of no concern other than arcane family history That's six, sorry, so if you must, I guess, drop the 45s. Or the Miller OST, since I had pretty much heard that my entire life, just not with jazz ears. But what they all have in common what that they held sustained interest over either a side, or as an entire album, just like the Hendrix/Zappa albums that I had been into before did, but almost strictly though storytelling by instrumental music. all these instruments, I heard them in terms of sounds, of voices, a muted trumpet section sounded like a different group of people than did a full shouting brass section. Coltrane hitting those high notes with the growly mutiphoncs underneath, that sounded like a voice to me, same thing with Wayne SCREAMING that repeated phrase on "The Egyptian". and Louis, my god, what WAS that? And the Goodman/Moscow thing, four LP sides (a 1-4, 2-3 setup), it took time to get through that from beginning to end, and the pacing/programming, by the time it was over, you went to a LOT of different places. It wasn't four sides of the same thing, no, nothing like that. And the Ornette 45, I had started reading old magazine & book pieces, and Ornette was supposed to be this wildly futuristic outcat, and "Una ?Muy Bonita", on a 45, parts 1 & 2, hell, that sounded like something that had been there forever without me noticing it. NOT weird or strange at all! Mingus, otoh, was supposed to be this tightly strung angry genius virtuoso, and "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" did not disappoint, it stoked the fires for r more, which ended up being Let My Children Hear Music, and/or then the Everest LP of the Period sides, so...pretty broad picture pretty quickly formed. Honorable Mentions for Pre-JazzEars childhood Impact would be Benny Goodman's' Texaco record & The Glenn Miller AAF box set on RCA Victor. those got played a lot in the house all during childhood, and both still hold some interest, and for a few things therein, more now than ever. And of course, the Smithsonian Collection Of Classic Jazz, first edition, which sent me of to college (and properly stocked record stores) with actual shopping lists instead of randomly wandering into any place that had records just to see what was there. Of course, that behavior hasn't stopped to this day, but it was nice to have some focus for a change! Still, it was a day when record stores and pretty much any other store, would carry new releases, recent jazz hit LPs, and cutout items with some really choice items in amongst some really bizarre wtf/ items. I bought the Brubeck album at a Firestone store in Gladewater, that's how easy it was to go anywhere and find something, somewhere. Hell, without knowing it, I had been hearing Bud Freeman years before I first heard Sonny Rollins! These cats they WENT THERE!!!!! So, yeah, Jazz, thanks for stopping by, please c'mon in, if you ever leave, it'll not be because I ask you to, friends for life here.

Does this in any way sound like a "Popular Song"? Do these words and this music seem to organically spring out of each other? Or does it sound like a clever grafting of things that really have nothing to do with each other? Would Ben Webster learn these words before he played this song?

Words! Music! At the same time! But no song! No songwriting! Probably not great poetry/literature, but at least it is that. Ain't no songs there. Let a songwriter write a song, that's work enough for anybody.

I disagree, but, ok.

What the hell was the Columbia MasterLength Party Series?

Read the article linked to, then watch the videos! I saw Lin Biviano with both Maynard & Buddy in the early 70s. To see him pop up here is truly surrealistic.

http://www.welkshow.com/castle.html

Earl Bostic could play. No matter how "simple" the "what" of how he plays, the "how" of how he always plays it is very high-level. I actually have a lot of like for James Carter, because his reverse-engineering is done on a tenor-centric model, not a TraneMath one. That takes a lot of guts these days, actually. I mean the guy actually figured out Lockjaw's mechanics, that shit has mystified many for decades. This guy, I don't know how he did it, but he did it. So, you know, serious props for that. Props and love too, because, you know, it takes love to get through that kind of thing and come out on the other side with a successful result. Now, having said that...reverse-engineering is still reverse-engineering, and unlike his models, a little of James Carter tends to go a long way for me. But I can listen to both Out Of Nowhere & Live At Baker's Keyboard Lounge often enough and not have it hurt. In fact, I laugh along because...I get it, I guess. And on the latter, you get Larry Smith's beautiful rendition of "Sack Full Of Dreams" (second only to Jug's imo), and a Gerald Gibbs organ/synth/whatever the hell it is, that morphs from Jimmy Smith to Joe Zawinul to Oscar Peterson to Manahattan Transfer to god knows where else, it's one of the greatest examples of Unfiltered Exhibitionist Black Music Audacious Genius, I've heard in a loooong time, this motherfucker ain't letting nothing get in the way, no matter what it is, and, you know, if you can go all the way there with that, hell yeah, go there with it. He can, and he does.It's fieakin' Rahasaan-esque. This guy, Gerald Gibbs...this is not the same solo in every way (I searched in vain for anything from the Baker's side), but dig how the visual is so in sync with the playing, Earl Grant Plays Soul Jazz Organ For A Post-Jo Ann Castle World, hey, you do not get that every where, especially not in these days. As for Carter's choreography, hey - Black Marching Bands, baby. It's real, it IS a thing. If this is the worst music made on the planet on any given day, music has not had a particularly bad day. Part 2, and yes, there is a "vaudeville" element to all of this, but hell, so be it. There's also also as much serious virtuosity. and never a loss of...fun. I get it. It's the kind of thing I could listen to for a good while at night in a club, and maybe for 10 minutes on a record by myself at home. Maybe some real "have to be there" shit.

Comparing this performance to another one from 1949 JATP, the routine seems about the same, the only difference being the one additional chorus before the...whatever that thing is, that set melody before the riffy "shout chorus" that is not present on this YT. , Both sound like Hawk at all times. What strikes me here is Hank Jones...pretty aggressive comping, feeding Hawk moving changes that are on the surface at odds with his definitely more "direct" lines. But Hawk in 1949 was beginning to be a changed man as far as "blues" went, already feeling the sting of perceived "old-fashionedness" that would only grow as time passed. Don Byas moved to Europe behind that shit. Hawk stayed here and let it play out, defiant to the very end. There's one R&B type record that Hawk played on around this time, don't remember what it is, our O-Buddy Shawn hipped me to it a while back, and Hawk does this thing on a low B (or Bb) one of the very bottomest notes on the horn, one that most guys would just blow out for the honk effect. Hawk hits the note perfectly, full tone, full vibrato, loud as hell but not distorted - and that's the only note he plays for, like, most of the entire chorus. It's eerie as hell, I tell you. Coleman Hawkins from just a few years ago would not be caught dead making that kind of a record, never mind playing that kind of a solo. But there he was, and there he did it. It's on one of the Chornological Classics discs, iirc. Yeah, that's Hawk. There are certain things in a real voice, tonal things, cadences between syllables/notes, certain "tells" that you can all but the very best imitators cannot get to, and even they can only confuse you, they can't fool you with any guarantee of certainty.

"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". So...there should be a Noble Prize for songwriting? Or composition? Or anything musical? Or Dylan is some kind of literary philanthropic who has gifted songwriting with his literary genius (in which case, where's the body of non-musical literary genius that stands apart from that which is gifted to songwriting?)? Or Dylan is some kind of literary stalker/predator who just put his literary seed into songwriting willy-nilly and now is being glorified as This Year's Top-Shelf Baby Daddy? There is not a Nobel Prize for music, of any kind. Why is that? In science they have three separate prizes - Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine. They have one for Economic Sciences and another for Literature. And none - none - for music, classical, popular, folk, real, imagined, or any other type of music. No prize. Would they give James Watson the same prize they gave Niels Bohr? Don't be silly. But they will give Bob Dylan the same prize they give William Golding. Go figure that. Bob Dylan doesn't need, nor particularly "deserve", a Noble Prize for his "literature", let's not be any more silly than we already are. Wherever you are on the scale of Dylan Fandom (and overall, I'm at a sold B, the best is dabombariffic for me, and the other stuff, I don't care, just don't care), if you feel that a Nobel Prize in Literature is in any way "deserved" or "justified" or any other word that translates to "hey, it's about time "We" got some Official Love", then that strikes me as kinda....let's just say that he who looks outside themselves for justification of self will never know the peace of actually having it. Bob Dylan has created his own justification. Bob Dylan is his own prize. Dig - Henry Threadgill got a Pulitzer this year - for real, actual, goddamn MUSIC. Pulitzer fucked Ellington while he was alive, but at least they fucked him in an appropriate arena. Steve Coleman should get a Noble for Physics, if that's where it's at. Warne Marsh. Lester Young. Hell, Louis Armstrong, fuck it - the whole continent of Africa, hell yeah, the 2016 Nobel Prize for Physics goes to motherfucking AFRICA for demonstrating the real-life application of pretty much every goddam Quantum theory imaginable through their collective musics. The principle is sound and they need the money. Make Reality Great Again!