JSngry

Taking about the whole Evans thing today at a rehearsal, and it was mentioned that what made his so appealing in the earlier days was the tension of holding things in for whatever reason, really making that tautness WORK, and how at some point (somewhere around Peacock/ Isreals definitely by the time of Gomez), it was like all that tension finally exploded his head and what was freed up wasn't some really freaky fascinationbeast like happened with Art Pepper, but just some piano player with a stabby/skittish left hand, a skipperydippery right hand, time that rushed, and songs in sweaters who wanted to host cookouts on the weeknights, you know the ones where the whole family comes and it's over by 10 (11 for you east Coasters) because, you know, work, kids/school, all that, and you go because both your house and your rig are both just a few doors down, and you can be home before the jones gets too strong.

Minefields, legs blown off, going nowhere, all of a piece.

Well sure, NOW it makes sense.

Finally getting to see this, and...uncomfortable in waaaay too many spots. Not just "messy" uncomfortable, but, you know..."dude, you should not have done this" uncomfortable. But Benny Carter's little phone conversation is priceless - "and again I say to you, good luck". And Jeri Gray's hustle is a delight (and her reminiscence of Wardell's comparison of Art Blakey & Max Roach as dancer's drummers had my jaw dropping), and Dorothy Gray's in-progress heartwarming as the feelings come back is moving. Some more good things, moments. But the way the film keeps running out on Teddy Edwards...really? Overall, uncomfortable.

This is an interesting collection, actually,

Tom Joyner, The Fly Jock Rosie Perez, A Fly Girl Jeff Goldblum, The Fly

There are no third-rate lesbian films. Just sayin'. (jk, that Joe E. Lewis record from earlier today has me both cheering and cringing at PC-ness in general, like Howard Stern, necessary but nevertheless so not necessary). Anyway...third rate lesbians have the right to have movies too, just don't expect me to watch them. Is that gonna please everybody? No? Well, fuck it then, I too am disappointed, because a great book about about a great artist deserves a great movie, lesbian or otherwise. Seriously - there was potential here, and it sounds like that's a ball that was dropped and was then never even thought about being picked up.

Started, briefly, then stopped, quickly: Harmonies move like late Beethoven, but it felt like Mozart Plus, and tonight is not the night for that. Someday/night perhaps, but breath not being held. File this one under education of a musical illiterate...for some reason I was thinking that Menotti, being 20th Century and Italian was some kind of Berio peer/protege or something. Well, that's a lesson learned. When in doubt, Google before purchasing. Cell phone, right? But old habits die hard, and one of mine is hey, this looks interesting and is cheap, so why not? That was ok when there was still wall space not being occupied... OTOH, I might listen again at some point, because aside from a few pops of the "a good cleaning should get rid of that" variety, the vinyl is pretty clean/quiet, and the presence/soundstage is pretty breathtaking, even on my halfass system. And the harmonic dexterity on display is nothing I take lightly. But the whole Mozart Plus thing...not feeling that, just not.

I swear to god, there are times on this record when I swore it was Duke Ellington's voice I was hearing, tone, inflection, pitch, phrasing, everything. Adam Clayton Powell could have as easily been the speaker of the introduction to Afro-Eurasian Eclipse as was Duke, this i do believe. Sidenote - for years, I thought this record was on Capitol. It just looked like a Capitol record. But nope, Jubilee.

Documentation, me personally, I need less and less as time goes by (except for really well written new or original notes), but yeah, the cheapos don't give you that because it would be, like, too much trouble/expense. What they do give you is basic facts that anybody with a computer has access to. As for why they don't give better audio quality than downloads, that's easy - they're using - at best - the exact same files you - or your favorite 12 year old - can get yourself. Guaranteed. Not just copyright and intellectual property, but also the entire notion of where information "is". Hard copy data can be guarded, locked up, protected, etcetcetc. If it leaks, it leaks, but some leaks happen easier than others. Digital data, once it leaks, its gone. And then the issue is not CAN I find it, it's WHERE can I find it. So with that reality, it's time to start reimaging the notion of what creates value as separate from what creates product. And that ain't gonna come into focus or be clearly/cleanly resolved in my lifetime, I'm sure, because right now, everybody i all about keep what you earn rather than earn what you keep, so...not a lot of common ground to be found right now, desperation breed counter desperation and then people get stoopid.

...whoa....

I figured that was the deal when I heard that his nickname was "The Phantom" - nobody would see him until just a few minutes before downbeat, and then he'd be gone again soon as the gig was over. But he never developed a reputation for unreliability that I know of. I'm sure there were instances along the way, but it seemed like the guy generally worked in some pretty straightforward business environments.

I've seen this referred to as a "jazz" album over the years, and, uh, ok, I get it, but...er.... First things first - there are three Gil Evans arrangements on this record, and all three are magnificent. Mathis himself only seems to get inside one of them, "It Might As Well Be Spring", and when that happens there is magic. But that doesn't always happen, either with Gil's charts, or the others (Manny Albam, Teo Macero,John Lewis, & Bob Prince). It really seems like producer George Avakian contracted the writers with something along the line of hey we got a great new singer, he can sing ANTYHING, write whatever you want, and then Mathis showed up and said, ok, I can make this work, and, yeah, it all "works", but stories are seldom told. The arrangements and Mathis too often seem to echa be trying to make their own points, and although both succeed individually. And sometimes the shit just gets weird. Side one ends with a really frantic, intense, PASSIONATE reading of "Babalu", with an eually frantic/etc Teo chart, and Mathis had no end of top range, like Clark Burroughs, but... On the whole, the album is like Mathis is thinking Sinatra but coming out Burroughs, and nobody is in on the joke. Nobody. Plus you get a gangster-tv-syle take on Angel Eyes (aranged by Bob Prince) with R&B honking bari and recurrent solo/obbligato spots by Phil Wood that do more than merely suggest his later descent into triteness. This to close the album. What this record shows to me is that whoever took over Mathis' production had a much better understanding of how pop music works. These jazz guys were like, ok, sweet voice, lets balance it with lead and portent. The pop guys were like, ok, we got a sweet voice, let's weave a sky of cotton candy, and, really, that was and is the right move, build around an on what you have, don't try to counter it. "Wonderful, Wonderful" is XXXX better a musical experience than is something like the "Star Eyes" found here. But those three Gil charts (and the John Lewis chart on "In Other Words (aka Fly Me...), those are enough to where if I ever see this as a used CD in the $4.99 zone, I'll grab it. But until then, I got this record now, and now I have heard tit. Time to move on. Nevertheless, given all Gil and a little acclimation, a whole album of this would have been SO right. But that's not what happened.

Or, third option (why are there always just two "or"s in discussions like this?) - do we do for ourselves what these labels are doing for us? Simple .. because this third option is irrelevant to some (or maybe many) people. "Sorry I don't do downloads, not even payable ones" or "No, I don't use my PC as my main LISTENING source for my music" - does that ring a bell? Some (me included) just don't care for sound files randomly lurking one one's hard drive and the inconvenience of having to shift them around and get them into a playable format on where one prefers to listen to them. Not very many of those P.D. CDs or box sets can be THAT bad in their presentation that they would be worse than a downloaded file that comes with exactly NOTHING for additional information in final form. Quite apart from the fact that "legit" reissues from the majors have been known to exist and be marketed in just as bare-bones, cheapo presentations. And if the bottom line of some of those box sets in the quality/presentation/price tradeoff is OK to some (particularly in countries where they are perfectly legal by the P.D./ copyright expiry laws of those continents) then that's that. People making their own decisions based on THEIR criteria. End of discussion. Pointless of ranting or trying to pass allegedly morally superior (or just plain smart-aleck) "judgment" over and over and over and over again. Dead horses being beaten, you know ... Dude, you make it sound like it requires a PHD to download an album, burn it to CD, print out some artwork, and put it in a jewel box. It's not. It's so easy a 12-year-old could do it. Just be honest with yourself about why the EuroMusiPorn is so palatable an option for you - it's easy and it's cheap and that's your driving motivation. Acknowledge that yes, there are other factors involved for other parties, but those don't concern you. Don't go constructing all sorts of trifling "arguments" or "logics" about why you feel morally - or whatever - justified in buying this stuff. You don't need to be justified, hell you just need to be honest about it. You like it cheap and you like it easy. That position is completely defenseable. Not particularly "noble", but fuck that, nobody is noble ALL the time. The oversized outraged excuses, not so much. And the attempts to paint some sort of creepy technoworld where downloads are these disease carrying netherworld insects hovering around your hard drive like flies over a dead dog' carcass and you know, oooohhh, it's HARD WORK to get them under control are just plain moronic. I get it - you don't like to be bothered. But "I don't like to be bothered" and "It's too HAAAAAARD" are not the same thing, not even close. Because, really, with the type of material we're talking about with these sets, "I don't do downloads" is just as much 100% bullshit as is "it's not available ANYWHERE else!". When you buy this stuff, you ARE doing downloads, you're just paying somebody else's 12 year old kid to burn it to CD and then put together some halfass pictures and slam it into a jewel box. Just say it - it's easy and it's cheap, and in this case, for you, that trumps all. And to that, all I can honestly say is "been there, done that". You keep rantsquawkin' all this other bullshit, hey...

Or, third option (why are there always just two "or"s in discussions like this?) - do we do for ourselves what these labels are doing for us? We can - we've got access to EVERYTHING they do, and we are not doing it to create a marketplace presence.

I was out and about today and heard the first part of a live Met broadcast of The Rake’s Progress on the radio, and the audience was LOL-ing at the humor in the libretto (which obviously(?) was being telegraphed at least a little by the cast, I thought I could hear it in the delivery.) Is this normal behavior at opera gigs? I know there’s a lot of wit in a lot of them, but do audiences actually “have permission” to bust a gut at the really funny stuff? Back in the day, I know, but in these "modern times"? I admit it was a little disarming, yet refreshing...or vice-versa.

You are allowing for the possibility of being convinced of something that you don't think regarding a moral duty which you stated earlier is something that you feel? In other words, you have a feeling about not having a feeling that will continue to not be there until it is put their by somebody else? All this over estate taxes?

There's a lot of Moral Midgetry that comes out in discussions like this, all the Corporate Greed/Corporate Rights/Consumer Greed/Consumer Rights/BlahblahblahBlah BLAH. Whatever. Justify your own positions how you will. But broken down to its basics, here's the deal: The notion that there are things that you "can't get anywhere else" is just pure bullshit. If it exists, you can get it, or die trying. When it comes to old jazz records that have already seen the light of day, it will be very unlikely that it will come to that. These triflin'-ass EuroMusiPorn Boxes are getting it, so if they can get it... If you want it badly enough, you will try to get it yourself. You will network, you will search out alternative means of distribution, you'll call in or ask for favors, but there are ways. The less you really want it, the less effort you will make to get it yourself. You'll settle. And don't kid yourself, the only people who don't settle sometimes are either assholes or devils. Either way, you make the decision. Nobody forces you to get it or strong-arms you into not being able to get it. This blaming others for what is a totally free individual choice seems to me to be rooted in a desire to cover up the "fact" that we all steal something, sometimes and/or that we're all comfortable with getting a bargain at somebody else's expense, sometimes. Hell, remember when Home Taping was Killing the Music Industry? Well hey, I confess, I'm the guy who did it, Music Industry blood on my hands, currently awaiting extradition to RIAA Hell, yeah, that was me. I'm The Motherfucker That Killed The Music Industry With Home Taping. And nobody made me do it. I didn't have enough money and/or access to everything I wanted/needed/thought I needed to hear, so by god I taped it. And then, next time around, i bought it, or got MP3s of it. And then next time around, I bought it new or used. And at some point, shit, I might just give it all away, the hometaped cassettes, the CD-Rs of the MP3s, all the shit I bought new, used, traded, borrowed and not-yet returned (a few people have died before I got their stuff back to them, seriously). Just give it all away, a delayed catch-and-release program for recorded musics, you got the truck and the backbone to walk it all out of here, it's yours. But not yet. And I want to be alive on the plane that allows me to see who takes up that offer and then gets all sniffy about what's what and what's not what. Like Allen, I have bought a lot of shit legitimately, and plan to keep doing so. None of that, however, none of it, was or is because of some "moral duty" to behave one way or the other, it was/is all a choice that I made/make for myself based on what I want, when do I want it, and badly do I want to have it, and how soon do I need/"need" to have it? Nothing else. no copyright law has infringed upon my personal ability to procure, nor has any desire to give people money through standard business practices stopped me from doing so in the face of a less personally expensive alternative. Just...own your behavior people. Own your own freakin' behavior. You want ____ and will not do ____ to get it. And then when you do/do not get it, that needs to be why/how., always. Just that, only that. If what is in the blank ends up at odds with what actually happens, even just once, you filled in the blank wrong. What, did The Government or The Music Industry fill in that blank for you? No, they did not. And let's not limit it to just music, ok? That would be, like, waaaaayyyy too easy. You bet! And I certainly feel a moral duty to buy the issues of his recordings which will result in his getting paid. So, the day he dies, your moral duty expires, is that how that works? If so, I'd suggest you get a live feed running anywhere and everywhere that might give you the earliest possible breaking news of his demise, lest you spend unnecessarily.

waitwaitwait...am I being told that paying somebody else to repackage (and pretty poorly at that) stuff that is (in the case of the type of sets being discussed here) at the very best straight rips of shit that's already out there somewhere (and at worst, poorer versions of stuff that's already out there somewhere) is not a concession to one's one laziness/technophobia/whateverelse, but is in fact a Libertarian Moral Obligation If One Is To Avoid The Imposition Of The Tyranny Of Government Based Anti-Liberty Economics? Seriously? Kid: Hey Dad, you know that Gigi Gryce album you were looking for? I found it on a torrent site, straight up exact copy of the Japanese reissue. You want it? Dad: No son, that's not the American Way. Wait for somebody else to steal it and then pay them for it. Let them know that's there will always be a market for dirty deeds done dirt cheap, especially where there's variances in international laws to loophole in and out of. Kid: So Dad, what about that $5 hooker you were wanting me to line up for you? Dad: $5 my ass! Tell her it's $3.50 or she can stay home! And she better bring a friend this time. Kid: Geez dad, why don't you do all this yourself? Dad: Dammit boy, you're not paying attention. The purpose of life is not to steal for yourself, it's to get somebody else to steal it for you, and for as little as possible. Quality be dammed, the cheaper the better. Anything else is TYRANNY!!!! Why don't you pay attention? Kid: Oh, I am, Dad, I am.

Well, that's a bummer, then. Sounds like some more using dead icons to project a current reality/sensibility/narrative onto..on the one hand, perhaps that what icons are for, but otoh, fiction only has meaning relative to fact, I think, "moral of the story" don't mean shit if the story ain't sound to begin with. Either way, that's what people do these days, it seems to me, take all these complex, delightfully rich real heroes and turn them into LCD/dimensionless "heroes"...maybe it's always been that way and I'm just getting old enough to figure it out. But no matter, all the good energy in the world don't excuse a failure to resist temptation, and it sounds like HBO got that temptation card always at the ready...don't think I don't notice how there's always naked and or fucking in HBO world, and not always for just cause, more like just becuase...yeah, i notice that, as do the women in my life. HBO, you are not going unnoticed for that. Here's hoping that Bessie makes an unexpected Cameo From The Beyond and rains fiery hell on ALL their asses!

Chris, I seem to recall that you said (years ago) that Dana Evans would be your #1 choice to play Bessie if your book ever got adapted for film/etc. Glad it happened for her, but it sounds like now its a case of right person, right role, wrong version of the story. More's the pity...I really like Ms. Latifah's vibe, I think her place in "pop culture" really does a disservice to the depth of her energies.

I would like to hear him start collaborating with singers (not just pianisitically, but also as an arranger). If Helen Merrill was still actively recording, I'd start there. As it is, let's go with...well, fuck it, the time for that has come and gone, all the ones who could go there all died or went out for a permanent break while Keith was having his various artistic isolation fits. Joni Mitchell (under a pseudonym, of course) would have been spectacular, though. Imagine "Paprika Plains" meets Arbour Zena only exponentially older, wiser, and skill-ier on all sides. More of the feeling, less of the emotion, and tricks all the way up everybody's sleeves that just need to be hinted at to be effective. See, that's why its important to do your best work while you're alive, everybody.

Paid my second visit to Josey Records today (my first unaccompanied one) and purchased the following, all LPs. The Ramsey Lewis Trio + Jean DuShon - You Better Believe Me (Argo) Sonny Rollins - Easy Living (Mainstream) Chuck Wayne - Tapestry (Focus) The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (Gerald Schwartz, cond.) - American Music For Strings (Nonesuch) James Newton - Romance And Revolution (Blue Note) Johnny Otis and his Orchestra and introducing Barbara Morrison - Back To Jazz (Jazz World/ALA) Hungarian State Orchestra cond. Antal Dorati - Bela Bartok Orchestal Music ((Hungaroton) Ivry Gitlis - Violin Concertos by Stravinsky & Hindemith (Turnabout) Charlie Rouse - The Upper Manhattan Jazz Society (enja) Pony Poindexter - Pony Poindexter (Inner City) Ketty Lester - Ketty Lester (Records By Pete) Satie - Erik Satie (Candide/Vox) James Newton - Luella (Grammavision) Boulez/Haubemstock-Ramati/Maderna - The New Music - Volume 2 (Victrola) David Burge - Avant Garde Piano (Candide/Vox) Sensational Nightingales - Glory, Glory (Peacock) The Atilla Zoller Quartet - The Horizon Beyond (Emarcy) All priced between $4-$12/ea. but the thing I'm looking forward to is going through the mile-long aisle of "$1-$2 Records", because that's how I got my start, and god forbid I should ever forget my roots.