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I wasn't really proposing that we "need" to "like" one over the other...I love them both, really for different reasons and at different times. The initial purpose of the discussion was to examine their similarities as well as their differences, mostly because I find it interesting that when you talk about "alto players who didn't play like Bird", people of my time/place will generally cite either Desmond or Konitz, seldom both, and over the years it seems that in my "ground level" experiences, the people who like the one will tend to not so much at all care for the other. It's almost like they have a self-imposed quota for non-Bird alto-ing, so it HAS to be either/or. People are cool with Konitz becuase he's "probing" and not like Desmond because he's "soft", or they'll like Paul because he's "pretty" and dis Lee because he's "too dry", always that either/or. I got it then, but today, I find that type of thinking very much of its time, and wholly inadequate for objective receiving of their musics today. Konitz' evolution has been a true delight to follow, and all the more so because it's the exception to the typical route of any musician, especially a "jazz" one. And Desmond's core work (which to me will always be the Fantasy things with and without Brubeck) and the very first 2-3 Brubeck Columbia albums (and people who haven't gone back that far with Desmond, I would urge you to do so, what you get from,say, 1957 onward is quite a different matter than what you get after...again, a generalization, but a generally sound one, imo) has a lot of things going on, layers upon layers of things that are as real as they are "disguised". The "issue" of "jazz" today (of life, really, but we ain't got time for all that right now), is individualism. How do you deal with ALL that stuff behind you, around you, how do you get yourself to see forward through all of that and step out of it instead of simply riding along with it? Konitz & Desmond both figured that out, and if their end results diverged as widely as they did, the time when their worlds seemed to float around in a loosely common orbit is a, for me, interesting way to examine how commonalities can intersect, temporarily merge, even, yet still continue on as individual evolution. The music(s) may be of another time(s), but the stories are at least as relevant today as ever, maybe even more so. Maybe creating a space that is entirely your own is going to be discarded as a desirable evolutionary trait as we move towards greater and greater always on connectivity. But if not, then this, among others. Two voices who made it a point to be unique, Konitz doing so very publicly, Desmond appearing (perhaps/probably deceptively) to just aw, shucks be born with it, but both of them pretty blatantly defending themselves against becoming somebody else, whatever that meant, wherever that went. Desmond on CTI works (when and to what degree it does work) because it's Desmond, not because it's CTI. Paul Desmond would go a lot of "unsavory" jazz places, but he always brought Paul Desmond, he made shit work with him, not the other way around. And Konitz, hell, Konitz has tried everything with damn near everybody at some point, and whatever the results, it's because he kept true to Lee Konitz. You put him on a Bird tribute, he'll bring Lee Konitz. You put him in a free improv setting, he'll bring Lee Konitz. You put him anywhere, he'll bring Lee Konitz, and at times pointedly so. If a quality of a great artist is being able to ultimately have their way with the results of their craft, these two are greater than many, and fundamentally greater than most. Not that that's all there is, but, for now anyway, there still is that.

Cuter than her name (I always confused her with Lillie Munster) and exponentially so. RIP.

The Rangers will not win the West. The Rangers will not get a wildcard spot. The Rangers might make it interesting for the next couple of weeks, but that's as far as I'm setting my Happy-ometer. Bats too inconsistent, bullpen still Mystery Soup, is that a potato or a fish head, no way to tell until it's outta the bowl and in your mouth, and by then, too late, what's done is done. The talent is there, America's got talent alright, but that ain't enough. Quite apart from all that, though, Adrian Beltre continues to be A Superior Baseball Human Being.

Ocean being over consumed by population, no big deal, just farm the fish. Yeah, nothing wrong with that picture, nature was just put there as a temporary solution at worst, a creative suggestion at best. and Jared. Jared can share a cell with Bill Cosby. And they can both spend 16 hour days in a rehab group led by Rosie O'Donnell. Works for me.

Moms, do you like 'em young? Is that what you mean by early music?

With Rudy Ray Moore?!?!?! https://twitter.com/recordcrack/status/630057940674699265 Check it out (Wikipedia).. Beaver Cleaver, indeed...

Kay Lenz as Breezy Carol Kaye as James Jamerson (still not fully believing that one, myself, too freakin' weird) Bernard Purdie as Ringo Starr (ditto, but as Pete Best, sure, totally logical)

Crazy world. Have you heard that we're facing a fish shortage? But don't sweat it, it's a BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-08-18/the-world-is-eating-more-fish-shortage-looms Sorry ocean, you're FIRED. We thank you for your service and wish you well as you pursue new opportunities going forth. World gone ALL the way wrong.

Right now, the Blake is the only real "need" for me, and then to fill in more gaps than exist duplications, although, maybe, the Wheeler, should the compass ever begin really pointing that way. You never know. Life is short, but long until it's not. Short Life of Barbara Monk, though, really, really fine music.

I want to see the whole thing. Seriously. Where is it? On a related note, why does it take me seven+ years to find this on YouTube? Maybe the best latter-day Byas I've heard? Hello, my name is Don Byas, and, oh, you don't know the name? Well, fuck you. It's like that.

Ok, two tenor solos here, on of which is Ray Turner, the other Al Young. Can't say that either one sounds untouched by Bird, although not bluntly so. The second guy (Turner?) is significantly less so, but even then...it's there. The eighth notes are a little more Bird than Pres, no matter what else is going on. All those guys had that mix to one degree or another, Bird/Pres. How could you not? Why would you not? Sure, Desmond too was touched by Bird (again, how could/why would you not be? ). But it wasn't fundamental to his flow...and that's what I'm coming to appreciate, he had his own flow, and it was uniquely his, and what I find interesting is that he could pretty much do whatever he wanted. Not to say that there aren't moments of hesitation or little flubs along the way, there are, but the vision was all encompassing. I've heard him just drop some of the most off the wall shit in there and keep on moving like nothing happened - and then bring it back again, re-contextualized. And he was really improvising, these were not set solos, nor did they follow a basic set outline. I count at least three "legit" versions of "Stardust" before 1954, and the only thing you can really plot is that it's Paul Desmond playing like Paul Desmond. Actually, I mentioned Hawk earlier, but really, sometimes it gets Don Byas-y only through a totally different lens. The thought of Don Byas and Paul Desmond occupying the same space is a weird one, I imagine some weird phantom space where nobody acknowledges but all the better lest it come to an end in a world that was not ready for it to even think about ending, for sure, but...we have seen the imagined borders and no longer do they serve us as they now need to. But if you know the Byas 1941, "Stardust" solo on the Everest Charlie Christian album, it's like that, flawless architecture I mean, really, that's one of the great jazz solos, ever, imo), and if Byas' got to be more of a set piece than Desmond's, well, fuck it, he's Don Byas, he could do whatever he wanted, and did. Point being is that the indications are that so could Paul Desmond.

Is this the same guy? http://www.amazon.com/Baja-By-Chance-With-Saxophone-ebook/dp/B00TGXRD3E Probably not?

Why does NFL have "Hot Stove" League anyway? Shouldn't they have Air-Conditioned Beach House League? Last time I looked, it was hot all over!

Hm, hadn't have any time to check, but the Roach one DID appear to be small ... how many albums are missing? Enough to grant a second set? (more than four or vie, or else it's probably not going to happen as they've done boxes up to 9 or 10 discs - the Gaslini even was 11 and still not complete, not even for Dischi della quercia, but I'm not complaining too loudly as this was my first chance to grab this music). It's got Lee Konitz!

Personally, have never really felt him too much, but objectively, yes, definitely. And definitely in terms of enabling writers. Guess you could say John LaPorta too, but at some point, history sorts it all out...

Another thing about Desmond that is perhaps reflective of his classical training - he plays outright Hawk-ish way more often than a "general impression" might suggest, the sequences, the arpeggiations, the connecting tones, the starting a phrase right on the beat and charging right through it, these are all characteristic Hawkins traits that Desmond would routinely use in the earlier recordings. And yet we tend to think in terms of things like "cool", "languid" "lyrical", etc., all of which are there, but not ALL that is there. Trying to think of where I've heard Ray Turner (or if I have?), but those other players, not exactly undeservedly "obscure" in the grand scheme of things, although Dick Hafer, I will always have time for some Dick Hafer, grand scheme or not. But Dave Pell? really? Limits of relevancy being pushed, perhaps?

When he's really playing, it's more than just "charming", I think, the line goes on and on with a logic that threatens to be broken at any second but never is. Exactly. But OTOH that logical continuity IMO seldom if ever builds to peaks or reaches down to depths -- a la, say, Pepper on "Besame Mucho" or "I Surrender Dear." That might be seen as floating in the perpetual eternity...or something equal in meaning but phrased with a whole lot less bullshit. I'd Bizarro World compare it to Sonny on the On Impulse version of Green Dolphin Street - everywhere all the time all at once, just that Sonny is not really revealing the details as much as he is creating/inhabiting the shadows that exist everywhere, where there is light, there is shadow, or else what is light?, whereas Desmond is spilling the full beans out in the fullest light of day, and yet with full objectivity, and how do you do that, exactly? Light, but no discernible heat, excuse me, is that even of this world, how does that work? That i do not know. I don't really have much of a problem with Brubeck's music for what it is, as long as I don't expect it to be anything more. It swings in an off-kilter way, and is interesting and inventive. But it lacks the multiple levels of engagement that, for me, sustain interest and encourage further invention. I'm pretty much with you all the way on Brubeck per se...interesting, original, and quirky. But it is what it is, and that's pretty much ALL that it is. Which I've come to appreciate as being no small feat itself, really. But yeah, self-contained world, really, Desmond, though, he brought something extra, he had another set of gears. Gears which not unlike his hair (and unlike Brubeck's hair) got more and more implied as the years went on. And a gear to which he did not seem to put in motion at all times, for whatever reason, but which was always in reserve. some guys are like that, you always sense that they got something extra, don't fuck with them like they don't. I also wonder if the changes in Brubeck's music brought about by the addition of Joe Morello and the whole Time Out thing that saw a permanent shift in the Brubeck group dynamic brought out that middle-class thing in him, a passivity to not fuck with something that's working. I say that, because comparing his playing with Joe Dodge in the quartet when they're just blowing on standards (with or without those cleverass harmonized heads) is not the same as his playing with Morello behind him. Might be a coincidence, might just be that he got comfortable with the indulgences that his success afforded him, but either way, there is a difference. And the material contained in the Desmond/Hall Mosaic is...harder than it look, if you know what I mean. Jim Hall did not make cheap music, and what he does with Desmond really sorta blows Desmond's cover as being an "easy" player. OOPS! Point just being that "Brubeck" and "Desmond" might be synonymous, definitely are sympathetic but they are not really equal. Brubeck was good, clean, hard work, he'd make his intentions known honorably. Desmond was getting the angle in and then having all the fun he wanted to have. One, the devoted family man, the other the renowned drinker, womanizer, just all-around SCOUNDREL! And here's some waaay late props to Joe Dodge, him being the Brubeckian World Jo Jones to Joe Morello's Sonny Payne, and yes, love it, all of it, variety is the ultimate trip as well as the ultimate test. The above looks like you wanted to return a one-liner to my snorty post ... so come and let me have it! Anyway, thanks for your insight here and in other recent Desmond/Brubeck threads. Not sure I agree in every detail (for one, I probably am more positive towards Brubeck), but it's surely interesting to follow your line of thought! This new software saves your posts even if you have to reboot your computer...which I di. So I went to respond and the old post-to-be was still there, I did not see the newer quote, oh well, live and learn! But yes, one liner planned, namely "You're thinking of Bob Crosby, maybe?" but it looks like that moment has passed.

I don't think that avoiding Bird was much of an issue for Perkins, who was drenched in Pres -- not much if any room or need for Bird in the vintage Perkins universe, and of course he was far from the only Pres-drenched tenorman of that time of whom this could be said. Then, of course -- which may from your point of view contradict this -- Perkins began to try to work chunks of Rollins, Coltrane, and (unless I'm mistaken) Shorter into his playing, often with IMO awkward results. In particular, my sense was that Perk was trying transform semi-"out" harmonic moves into meaningful rhythmic angularities that he couldn't otherwise get his head and fingers around. Sometimes it kind of worked; there was a lot of sincere human struggle at work in this. I love the story about Perkins being on the Kenton band and riding on the bus with an orange(?) raincoat pulled all up over his head and never talking to anybody. That's sincere human struggle, especially if it's true. But tell me, who else was as untouched by Bird as Bill Perkins? Brew Moore? Not really...unaffected but not untouched, if that makes any sense? Steve White? Well, ok, but that guy was just nuts. All those "West Coast" guys, they kinda sound like they just went with the tide on that one. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But Desmond, I hear a lot of classical training, classical saxophone training, in his whole thing, articulation, tone, pitch, everything. It's there when he gets "jazzy", and it's there when he gets foo-foo-ey "classical". He doesn't try to hide it, either, nor to signify it, which is what I find rare about him, he really seems to be wholly who he is, and yeah, that's pretty rare, if at times disarming and/or challenging to prevailing orthodoxies past present and future.

I don't really have much of a problem with Brubeck's music for what it is, as long as I don't expect it to be anything more. It swings in an off-kilter way, and is interesting and inventive. But it lacks the multiple levels of engagement that, for me, sustain interest and encourage further invention. I'm pretty much with you all the way on Brubeck per se...interesting, original, and quirky. But it is what it is, and that's pretty much ALL that it is. Which I've come to appreciate as being no small feat itself, really. But yeah, self-contained world, really, Desmond, though, he brought something extra, he had another set of gears. Gears which not unlike his hair (and unlike Brubeck's hair) got more and more implied as the years went on. And a gear to which he did not seem to put in motion at all times, for whatever reason, but which was always in reserve. some guys are like that, you always sense that they got something extra, don't fuck with them like they don't. I also wonder if the changes in Brubeck's music brought about by the addition of Joe Morello and the whole Time Out thing that saw a permanent shift in the Brubeck group dynamic brought out that middle-class thing in him, a passivity to not fuck with something that's working. I say that, because comparing his playing with Joe Dodge in the quartet when they're just blowing on standards (with or without those cleverass harmonized heads) is not the same as his playing with Morello behind him. Might be a coincidence, might just be that he got comfortable with the indulgences that his success afforded him, but either way, there is a difference. And the material contained in the Desmond/Hall Mosaic is...harder than it look, if you know what I mean. Jim Hall did not make cheap music, and what he does with Desmond really sorta blows Desmond's cover as being an "easy" player. OOPS! Point just being that "Brubeck" and "Desmond" might be synonymous, definitely are sympathetic but they are not really equal. Brubeck was good, clean, hard work, he'd make his intentions known honorably. Desmond was getting the angle in and then having all the fun he wanted to have. One, the devoted family man, the other the renowned drinker, womanizer, just all-around SCOUNDREL! And here's some waaay late props to Joe Dodge, him being the Brubeckian World Jo Jones to Joe Morello's Sonny Payne, and yes, love it, all of it, variety is the ultimate trip as well as the ultimate test.

Oh, Bill Perkins, that's one guy who seems to have "avoided" Bird in a way that was both organic and informed. But that didn't last. People talk about Art Pepper as not having any Bird in him, and that's just fetishist bullshit. There was more to him than just Bird, but Bird was in there, for sure.

and that's what sort of intrigues me about Desmond. He knew bop, there's one solo of his where he quotes "In the Land Of Oo-BLa-Dee", and when he wants to, he can throw a Bird lick in there, and of course there's the "famous" radio interview he did with Bird, so...he knew. But he didn't go there. Why? Part of me thinks it was a stubborn Independence, part of me thinks it was that "middlebrow" laziness, not wanting to work like that when this comes easier and as effectively (ah, but how easy did it really come...the guy had chops in reserve, and when he pulled them out, they were there, full-on). and most intriguingly, what if it was both? What if he was stubborn, proud, independent, gifted, hard working, and "middlebrow"? What if he heard Bird, GOT Bird, and just decided, well, I can never be that, but I can be pretty damn good this, in fact, i can be a pretty damn good and unique this. You think of all the players, white and otherwise, who heard both Bird & Pres during that general time, who decided where to go and how, and how many really ended up avoiding Bird in a way that sounded both organic and informed? As you say, Tristano went another way, but, still, bebop was there, implicitly, if only in its refusal to bend to it. Desmond's just like, oh, hi there, Bop, lookin' good! How's things? and then on about his business, happy about bop, happy about Desmond, no need for worlds to collide, peaceful coexistence for all. Really gotta wonder about the role geography played in all that, too. northern California/Bay Area...not sure what the imperative to conform to the general "modern" orthodoxy was there and then, and then, once out in the bigger jazzworld pressure to conform not particularly overwhelming knowing what was already forming inside. Position of brow aside, there's some interesting decisions at play with Paul Desmond. And I dig how he looked like he did, played the way he did, and lived like he did, talk about a stealth motherfucker in ALL kinds of ways!

Intellectual as a "thing" instead of a way of being is the ultimate middlebrow mindset. Being true to your brow, no matter where it is, that's where the art is. Where the Art is, I really don't care.

When he's really playing, it's more than just "charming", I think, the line goes on and on with a logic that threatens to be broken at any second but never is. Most "jazz" improvisation is not focused on being that "patient" when it comes to developing a cell that "singularly", not really interested in working a motif that long that explicitly, not variating it but expanding it while keeping it intact, most "jazz" improvisation is concerned with getting it out NOW, and that's a real thing not to be approached lightly, with a discipline all its own (ideally...). Sometimes he gets lazy with it, especially later on, but jesus, there are times when it's breathtaking, it's like blowing up a balloon or a bubble gum bubble so big that you know it has to explode but it never does. Macro logic. And then there's the foo-foo deedle-deedle, which seems to have been the default mode for the DBQ's improvised counterpoint, that shit makes me wanna puke, almost always, and when Desmond solos in much that same mode, all the more so. That shit is just...surrender to the dark forces of life, so shiny, so bright, but oh, so dark, like, would you drink florescent water? Or pastel water? Hell no, that's a WARNING SIGN, dig? But then there's not that, and that's where it gets interesting. Not for the tools, not for the process, but for the final architecture itself. I think there's a freedom in that, just as there is a freedom in Lee's imperative of spontaneity. Perhaps freedom is one of those things that you notice most when it's not there, like you only notice that you're tall when you're predominated by shortness, and vice-versa. You wouldn't drink that weirdness water, oh hell no, but would you marvel in a stream that flows effortlessly and endlessly, wouldn't you wonder where that came from and where it goes to, maybe it doesn't come from anywhere and/or maybe it doesn't go anywhere, maybe its just eternal water, it definitely is that as observed in real time and nobody's gotten it to end yet, so would you drink THAT? I think I would, thank you, because that's freedom water, and that water you drink first, figure out later, if you ever have to, although by then it's probably too late, something's gone wrong, oops,. But unless/until then...

Joe "Fingers" Carr Ian Carr Sonny Rollins