JSngry

First time I heard him, I thought it was the most insane thing I'd ever heard, in a good way, like Airto only "freer". That was mostly a reaction based on a small sample size, but as time went on, the fondness only grew. RIP, much love, and can people stop dying for a little while so we can catch our breath?

Well, it does say this: As a professional songwriter, you may already be aware that anyone who wants to record a version of your song needs a mechanical license from the copyright owner, usually you or your publisher. Similarly, if you chose to record your own version of someone else's previously recorded and distributed music, you would need to secure a mechanical license. A mechanical license is actually a "compulsory" license granted to users under U.S. copyright law. Usually, music users obtain these licenses through a music publisher or agent (such as Limelight). There are several entities that can assist in clearing mechanical licenses and ensuring songwriters get paid. Limelight is a simple, a one-stop shop to clear any cover song in order to distribute by means of digital downloads, physical albums, interactive streaming, and ringtones. Customers create an account and finalize their mechanical licensing and royalty accounting needs within minutes via a simple three-step process for a service fee of $15 per license (or less based on number of licenses) plus required statutory publishing royalties as set by law. Artists, bands and other musical groups can clear any song and ensure 100% of royalties are paid to the appropriate publishers and songwriters. So it's not free, although it does seem to be a one-size-fits-all formality. And if you release a song without first paying the fees to obtain the licenses, you've done it wrong. And I don't know of any license-clearing operation that is completely free, although there may be some. As for the song, here it is: Sloppy as hell, as were all of those sessions, but John's really into directing the ebb and flow, and it works, at least for me. That and "Don't Let Me Down" are special favorites from this rather sad period of Beatles history. Harry Fox charges more than $15, it looks like: https://secure.harryfox.com/songfile/faq.jsp and http://www.songfile.com/ In addition to royalty fees, there is a per-song processing fee of $16 for up to five songs. If you license 6 or more songs at one time, the processing fee is reduced to $14 per song. Not necessarily a big expense, but it ain't free! But I don't know, Ive never recorded cover songs on my own dime, if ever, except on demo sessions...

The song was on Let It Be, one of John's. As for rights, see heree: http://www.ascap.com/playback/2011/01/features/limelight.aspx My question was regarding if the process for getting a license to a Beatles song was more complicated than it would be for, say, A Tommy Gereric song. Probably not, but just wondering.

FTD Florist Allyson's Flowers FTC Commissioner Maureen K. Ohlhausen FCD Coach Oscar Pareja http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/30/oscar-pareja-fc-dallas-colombia-pablo-escobar

Dude, check out how Shirley Horn accompanies herself...of course, that only works if you have a Shirley Horn type singer, but still...check out how she fills the spaces vs what she plays while she sings, and listen to how she leads one into the other...no matter how you do it, I'd think that what would be what you want to do, to get that sense of "wholeness", of arrangement. Just don't try something like this, this slow of a tempo...almost certainly fatal for all but The Select Few...but talk about letting things be still, this is one of the ultimate examples of that...and again, listen to the spaces. And especially on that ballad, listen to the consonants, vowels, ending of words, all that, that's what a good singer does with their voice and the words, each syllable is a sound, sometimes more than one sound, that's what makes a good singer such a groove, they do so much more with the sounds of music than do horn players just running changes. A truly great singer is about the greatest thing there is, truthfully, the original instrument executed to the fullest extent, sheeeeeet, that's music!

The scarves are gone, awwwww... But seriously - how did it work getting rights for these tunes. Hoops? Expensive? Or just basic request/form/fee/onward? And again, you guys are into a pocket of your own, as befits an ongoing relationship of all these years. Such a pleasure!

My first - and still favorite Zappa is the original Mothers, so if I was looking to give an example of Zappa to somebody who didn't get it, I'd be very tempted to use this, and then if they still didn't get it, hey, move on.

The true "Fifth Beatle", imo. Hardly ever an impetus, but one hell of a facilitator, the kind that frees the imaginations of the creators. With Lennon/McCartney at that time, that was a lot of freeing up of a lot of imagination. RIP, and thanks.

ok, 3X thru today, I think that'll do it. Still very enthusiastic, but a little tempered by a few things, mostly Not fully transcending the influences/sources. Just enough times being able to play connect-the-dots without rebuttal, just a few, but enough. The dots are not unpleasant ones, though. Aforementioned limited palate of vocal shadings. Not really a "problem",especially on an isolated track or two, but over the course of an entire album... All spaces filled up, not a lot of breath here, everything is (seemingly) constantly full. Again, exciting on individual cuts, less so over the course of an entire album. Nevertheless, these are minor quibbles in the face of a massive undertaking that is far more success than qualm. And it's so damn nerdy, jesus, it sounds like (almost) all my 70s pop/fusion listening all rolled into one, like, thanks for saving me the trouble of having to go back to all of that stuff, just get it in here all at once, and this time with vocals! But that's not snark, that's Nerdism Avenged! Seriously, this is a most impressive release, imo. The lines between "concept album", "musical", and "opera" get blurry up until the point(s) they don't, but Spalding sounds as if she's looking to go into the blur headfirst, and god bless her for both her nerve and her skill. I still don't like eyewear as affectation, but that's just me. That's how they do things these days, so onward anyway.

Nothing there, my bad.

Simple Simon Harold Pyman Liz Phair

I think some of them might have cuts up on YouTube?

Yeah, it's good stuff. As is, in a different zone, the two records he made with the Corea/Holland/Dejohnette trio. Reach maybe exceeded grasp, but it's not like that's always a bad thing, right? And the moments when he really "breaks through" are palpably real in a way that "better players" on a different plane don't get to as often as they did on their way up. Somebody here recently referenced Essence, a slightly later Muse thing with Hannibal & Mickey Tucker, that one burns. Listening to Eric Kloss records can take you to some interesting places sometimes.

Flat Foot Sam changed my life. Let him into your heart and he will do the same for you.

I've bought and/or unethically downloaded 2 of the 3, but have not listened to them yet. Building a stockpile, waiting for what, that's the question. No good answer yet. But I did so with high expectations (of Davis, not of myself).

Listening to this for the first time right now, and liking it. Not loving it, but love should not always be easy. She does seem to be a vocalist in need of further shadings, but geez, the shit she writes for herself to sing, that might not be possible. What she does sing, she nails it. Musically, yeah, this is some good creative music. I laugh at the notion that stuff like this is ever gonna find a true "mass audience", but, you know, keep hope alive. In some regards it's so freakin' nerdy, but you know, aggressively nerdy, confidently nerdy. As somebody who loves it when people make choices that don't result in obvious outcomes...that happens here. A lot. Also a lot of references that feed into new ideas and then back again, and which is it, reference or new idea? Both? Nice to have that choice. I would go see this live if I could be guaranteed a volume level that would not require hearing protection. But I kinda think that that's not gonna be anybody's concern but mine, and that's how it should be. But playing-wise, this shit is tight and right. People have resources and ain't afraid to use them. Definitely some of the more interesting chronologically-new music I've heard lately, and the progress from Radio Music Society is real. How high her ceiling is going to be remains to be seen, this kind of extroverted introspection, could go either way as far as continued inspiration vs loud narcissism, but don't you love it when that happens, to have something to wonder about what might happen in the future?

One of the first jazz musicians I ever heard, thanks to the BG Moscow record. God moves in mysterious ways, small town music stores even more so.. I've read both his books and found the jazz one of considerably more interest than the later one. I don't wnat to simplify it as "more interesting people generate more interesting stories", but that's not totally wrong either. A fine player indeed, but I would count on him to "get" Tony Scott, then or now, like I counted on Phil Woods to "get" Anthony Braxton, which is to say, ok, that's your opinion, thanks for sharing, what else have you got to say about anything else? Ultimately, what I dig about Tony Scott is that he lived in his own world and nobody talked him out of it. I'm sure that many tried.

Regarding "The Way You Look Tonight" at a slower tempo, Ella's reading is so straight, but so good, and Nelson's chart, like so many of his, is a perfect example of support with substance (that chord in bar 9 of the A-section is WHOA!!! and the transition to the bridge, which is the defining moment of that tune, imo, deft as hell, bringing in the strings like that, damn!). All Ella has to do is sing the song (and yes, that's ironic, "just singing the song is one of the hardest things there is to do!). Ballads are tough, nobody needs to be in a rush (and in this song at that tempo, there's a noticeable gap where the singer should just be quiet), but it seems like somebody always is afraid to let things settle in and be still in a good way. Maybe that's why old people do them better?

I used to hate "Java", when it was a hit. Seemed corny as hell to me. But the only context I had was my Top 40 input at the time, which, as was the nature of the beat, relatively broad but in no ways deep. And 1964, right into the storm of Beatlemania...so not wanting to hear that, ya' know? However, years later, I was on a gig with a bunch of people who had no idea who Alan Toussaint was, and I mentioned "Java", and the trumpet player was all, oh god, that garbage, and, you know red flag to a bull, I just reflexively started rebutting, and it came to me that that's one of those songs that you really can reduce to a drum solo, just play the tune on just a snare drum if you had to, really, and it works. A good drummer could play that and you'd have a better than even chance of recognizing it as "Java". So...extrapolate that out to all the records Toussaint made later on with The Meters and Zig, and it all falls into place, how his music gets constructed, so much of it comes down to drums, either literally or extrapolated (if you want to go to the Summusic Soundcloud and check out our Down Went The Canary song, that's an improv very specifically based on/extrapolated from "Working In A Coal Mine", meant as a tribute to Toussaint shorty after he passed. Didn't want to pimp it as such becuase I hate that kind of explicit Tribute Coat-Tailing, but enough time has passed, so as long as the subject is Toussaint, hey) . Just to say, building music around drums and/or drum patterns is central to so much of the music we love or otherwise engage with.

Good to know about that, thanks.

It's an album that I love more for the playing than for the tunes. The tunes could be stronger. But as far as the individual playing, hey, that's all good with me. Keeping that in mind, it doesn't really sound like the album "belongs" to anybody, not even Grant. You never had that to worry about with either Yusef of McDuff, they always framed their stuff brightly, shiningly, and distinctively. But this is not a Yusef Lateef record or a Jack McDuff record, it's a Grant Green record. Maybe Duke Pearson's (increased?) involvement would have shored that up, but what, you gonna have Duke Pearson arrange an album with Jack McDuff and Yusef Lateef on board? So the flaws I find are in that regard, there's really nothing there to present it as a "Grant Green Record" except for the labeling. But good god, Yusef on "Blues For Maude's Flat", that's the solo that really grabbed me onto Yusef, the total control of the sound of the tenor, deep, deep stuff. But every body plays well, and that's a real one-off combination, so there's plenty of fun to be had from that by itself.

And Bill Crow?

I'm a horn player, not a pianist, but in my experience with singers, the object is to support more than just "accompany". That means special attention to voice leadings (and voicings), set up a harmonic flow that guides the melody, and with voicings that give body to the singer's voice instead of doubling/covering it. Same thing with rhythm, support, don't clutter. A good singer will leave spaces in their delivery, and you can use those to propel the piece along, and then do it differently while they sing, A bad singer won't do these things, but oh well about that, life is hard sometimes. You may be thinking, "well, this will be easy, this is how I play with horn players". Well, not no fast, singers deliver the melody, sure, but in so doing they also have to deal with lyrics too, and that's a whole 'nother ball of wax. Lyric constructions CAN be abstracted/extrapolated as fully by a singer as they can by an instrumentalist, but unless you're dealing with Betty Carter or Jeanne Lee, that's really not gonna come readily. Most of them will be highly focused on the lyric, and besides the rhythmic imperative to get that flow right, there's also the science of vowels and consonants, and how a singer plays with those in terms of color, accent, and timing. That's with a good singer. With a good singer, a pianist can/should really think in terms of arrangement and all that comes with it. With a bad singer, hey, fuck it. Crank it out and get the check. But the one thing that is constant between singers and instrumentalists is this - until you play with a good rhytm section, you won't know for sure how much of has been you, and how much of it has been them. So don't give a singer who's teetering either way the excuse of not being able to bring it because the rhythm section wasn't. Remove all doubt!

There is a context in which neon is quite beautiful and communal. Enough with the artsy comparisons. I like where Scott ended up, it took a while, but he got there. Whatever he is or isn't, he is fully himself within himself, and whatever Bill Crow thought about him, he could take to the pit every night and tell it to the people there. On an unrelated note, is Tony Scott still alive?

Apples and pineapples.