JSngry

After hearing about A-Rod & Carmen Diaz hiring a hooker for a 3-Way at some film festival - and then contracting clap or herpes or something as a result, I can never again hear "A-Rod" and "sniff" within 500 miles of each other without becoming nauseous.

Oh, two more influences I hear in Levitt's writing - George Russell and Raymond Scott.

You We Paleface

Here's a good article about the historical Pigmeat: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/11/the-forgotten-pigmeat-markham.html On the back of Pigmeat's At The Party (Howard Theatre, 1961), it says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_Mae_Harris There was a recent(?) PBS(?) re-appreciation of Moms Mabley, appeared to have been a Whoopi Goldberg project (and does anybody still remember how startlingly fresh her first appearnce/LP was?)...I'd love to see the same thing done for Pigmeat. I've yet to hear anything of his that wasn't reflexively gut laugh-inducing, and as a drummer buddy of mine said about two sentences into his first exposure to a Pigmeat record, "DAMN, that swings like Elvin!" Darden left us in 1995, Santa Fe being his point of departure: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0201089/

Finally got around to checking out Rod Levitt this week, had long had The Arrangers and was intrigued, but just never went there. No good reason, just never did. But this week, checked out the Riverside/OJC and the EuroMusiPorn 2-fer (paid for with store credit/trade in, so...I didn't really BUY that, did I?......? Anyway, wow. Holy shit wow. For real. The detail in this writing is...profound. Choices made that only the guy writing it would have had to have heard for anybody to think of, if that makes any sense. No genericisms, or very, very arch use of them if/when they occur, commentary, not coasting. Meaningful, purposeful, specific statements. To make an at best incomplete analogy, if Billy May in the 50s wrote like he was getting paid by the note, Rod Levitt wrote like he was getting paid by the idea, and oh yeah, no small bills or loose change, please. And I kinda get the above points about the lack of strong soloists, but also kind don't find that a problem there, because the pieces aren't really presented like that's the object of the game. So, yeah, on the one hand, the whole traditional jazz is an improvior's art thing, and on the other hand, writing is, in theory, as personal expression as anything else so, which one trumps? AFAIC, fuck it, that's not a choice I'm going to make. Music either speaks clearly in a personal voice or it doesn't. Period. And shit, did Rod Levitt's writing speak in a personal voice. Beside, Rolf Ericson gets off some things on the RCA material that kinda come out of nowhere as far as what "Rolf Ericson" means to me. And the bass/drum tandem swings at ALL times, deeply and truly. As for the writing itself, yes, Ellington seems to be the primary motivator, but I also hear some sounds of other writers of the time, Thad Jones, Oliver Nelson, and Slide Hampton, sometimes very explicitly. I never take this as "copying" but rather "observing", as if Levitt might have been working at Radio City, but he was one of those guys for whom a gig like that kept his ears open to stay alive rather than closing them to keep from dieing..I totally get that, and I totally get that a band like this gives this music a lot more organic voice than would the same charts played by The Usual Suspects. Not that I find fault with the latter group, they were masters at going into a studio, reading the shit down, and giving an expert voice all its/their own, but I think that Levitt wanted a different voice than that, a quieter and perhaps less "cocky" voice, and lord knows he got it out of this band. Also, a personal trip to see/hear Gene Allen on this...I first came to know Gene Allen on the Glen Miller AAF RCA box, my folks had that, and I knew about it before a LOT of things. and then, one of the very first 10 or so jazz LPs I bought, Benny Goodman Moscow side, again with Gene Allen on bari. So I'm thinking, Gene Allen JAZZ STAR, and all that, only soon to find out blahblahblah...but hearing him here, one helluva musician, as are all the players in this band. sometimes people look at people like this and say oh yeah, highly competent player but...and NO, not at this level, its more than that, people who keep the discipline and do the work to get THIS kind of good...minimize that and you minimize human dignity, I think, and there's too much of that as it is. Along those same lines...Bill Crow in the booklet for the EuroMusiPorn disc kinda...rankles with his tone, he's talking about how he first met Levitt at his college, and they hung out/jammed in Seattle and so far so good, but then: Honest enough (very honest, I think), and not at all negative, but also, that's the problem with music as a "profession" right there - too often, and especially as the stakes get higher, curiosity devolves into the tunnel-visioned interest that derives from hanging out with your peers, who are, of course, the people you work with all the time. On the one hand, natural tribalism based on common experiences, but on the other hand, dammit, I think about a cat like Lew Sollof (RIP) and you'd never tell where he'd turn up, but you can bet that he came to PLAY, no matter who it was with or where it was, and no matter the social/professional ramifications. It seems like he was proactive about staying in a lot of different loops, not to keep working (although that) but also, just because, to keep playing, to keep himself fresh and frisky. It would not have surprised me at all to see Lew Sollof in a Rod Levitt band, if the chronology would have allowed for that. Anyway... Yes to Rod Levitt, please, and the one album left is 42nd Street which is maybe scaring me a little because it was his last for the label and is all show tunes...was this a bit of a "last go" with the music adjusted for a little commercial buzz in hopes of keeping it going, or is this more of the same beautifully idiosyncratic onmiviewiousness as before?

Hudson & Landry were on the same label as the Paris Sisters? Wow, less than two degrees of Phil Spector, who knew?!?!? That Eddie Harris album is nasty as hell (and occasionally funny) but also has some musical interludes of Eddie on electric sax that GO THERE, if you know what i mean, this guy playing all his freaky-deaky intervallic shit with full frontal pick-up, wah-wah, and god knows what else, totally in command of the situation...there's not much of that, but like I said, the comedy is occasionally funny (although the attitude might carry the material for some who want it to), but don't pay a whole lot of bucks for it. OTOH, don't pass up a good price, either. Speaking of Laff...those LaWanda (Paige) albums are some of THE nastiest comedy I've ever heard in my life, but that doesn't meant they're not funny, far from it, especially if listened to while contemplating the possibility that Aunt Esther might have made Rudy Ray Moore blush...yeah, it's like THAT. Larry mentioned elsewhere about finding out who wrote David Frye's material...I just picked up a copy of Frye's Richard Nixon Superstar and noticed that Gabe Kaplan seemed to have been the chief writer. Is that what you were talking about, Larry?

Bouncing with Bud, yeah, that's the one right there. Magic. In Paris as well. More magic. But of the two, Bouncing with Bud, yeah. Just....endless "on". I like all of Bud, truthfully, because there's not ever a story not being told, or trying to be told. I don't think Bud could have "coasted" under any circumstances. But some of those stories are more...difficult for me to enjoy than others. Having said that, the 1961 association in and around Don Byas was wonderful (besides the Columbia things, also look for the Americans In Europe Impulse things, couldn't tell you what CD form that's taken, sorry). Definitely do not miss the Essen Jazz Festival gig with Coleman Hawkins. I have it on Black Lion LP, but it was also on Fantasy/Debut before that, and no doubt has been other places since, probably on Black Lion CD. Strong Hawk, strong Bud, OP, and Klook. Also, the whole Blue Note 50s run was strong, I think. Much stronger than the RCAs and most of the Verves. It's coming from a different place, but there's no doubt about what is being said either. The most uncomfortable one for me (in a bad way) is The Return Of Bud Powell on Roulette. Sad. Not tragic, just sad. However, "'Round Midnight" from the extremely uneven (imo) Ups and Downs is mesmerizing to me, it's so far....gone as to be from another world. Bud Powell and Lester Young don't often get "linked" stylistically or anything, but they were both two of the least disguised souls this music ahs produced, I think. They both can break your heart.

I still can't believe that Redd Foxx got me to thinking of early Joe Williams and/or Sam Butera. wow....Do we have any inkling as to who the tenor player on that cut was? Re-listening to it just now, and the Sam Butera guess doesn't seem totally whack, especially with the trombone, but Joe Williams? Where the f did THAT come from? Hell if i know... And the Dutch thing, that was not at all vernacularly inappropriate, although it did have an "accent" to it, which is why I guessed "British" as a possibility. But I also seriously considered Yusef as a possibility on tenor, so if I had any vernacular uncertainty...Yusef would not have even begun to be entered into consideration! And maybe a ballad whould have revealed any "learning curve" (or maybe the lack of one), but for this groove at this tempo, hey, worked for me.

Tony Williams, actually, and I was thinking of Tom Harrell for a quick minute, but was in no way even remotely considering Shelly Manne, so...no way I could have connected those dots. Shelly Manne was a helluva drummer, obviously, but perhaps less obvious is how his kept his ears open to musical evolvements (not a real word, sorry). If you had told me up front that this was Shelley Manne, I would not have been in the least bit surprised, but if you were gonna wait for me to guess Shelly Manne...neither one of us would live that long, separately or combined. And I like that composition a lot...is this a "typical" Bill Mays piece, at least on this album?

Whoa...you got that shit transcribed...are you the secret Andrew White of comedy? I have all the Mercury Second City albums (including the later ""writhes again" one compilation with a bonus cut), but you mentioned a solo album by Darden over in that other thread, and that kinda fucked me up, I've never even heard of it until now, and now I'm liable to be irresponsible in looking for it. By far and away the best gut on an otherwise inconsistent album: Better writer than performer, but a damn funny writer.

Because, B-Sides

As saddening as it is inevitable.

Bumping this back up in case anybody's intrested. Awhile back, I found an Orson Bean record on Fantasy...pretty funny stuff, very intellegent standup with an aim for the well-placed gutlaff. Have also bought, but not yet listened to, a later Columbia album of his that looks to be "conceptual" No idea what that one's going to be like. But obtw - Godfrey Cambridge on Epic is....EPIC. Carpe diem suggested when/if.

Thank you. THIS is the type of content I look forward to on this forum. Thoughtful considerations of angles - and subjects - not always considered, thoughtfully or otherwise. This and the PR, of course.

Great PR for Dewar's then. Hipster Appeal! Shoulda been paid in/with more than whiskey, though. That's kinda Conquering The Wild West-ish, at least at face value. OTH, Henry doesn't look like he was appalled at any of it, working that game like it ought to be worked. More vile PR bitchery signalling a desire for musical mediocrity: I looked for the Columbia stand-alone ad (1/4 page iirc) for Let My Children Hear Music to no avail. Gotta be out ther somewhere, though. Whoever duke said it to, "it's my job to make records, it' your job to sell them", oh, wait, Duke never played the PR game, did he...he was too pure for anything like that.

But wait, Steve Coleman is no Henry Threadgill! Well, no, but he is Steve Coleman, and there's enough body of evidence and reality to be touched to confirm (objectively (enough)) that as a structuralist/conceptualist, both him and Henry Threadgill are pretty damn unique, thorough, and evolving. Look at the evidence and then look for equivalents/paralles as far as who's dealing with what - specifically - and how. As well as hellacious alto players, yin-yang, but hellacious, still/especially. Coleman's got that very Tristano-ish macromathlogic going off into his own specificlogics and Henry's this guy who carves fire sculptures out of ice, but both, hellacious in terms of both concept and effective applications of techniques to establish same in their playings. Ok, so much for evidence and reality. Now it's time for the touching on the realities of the personal taste appreciation of same instead of making it like "I don't dig it that much, it must not be that hip, because if it was that hip I WOULD dig it" (ain't nobody THAT hip, some come close, but ain't nobody THAT hip). Take it away!!!

Yeah, PR, what a vile bitch she is.

If we kill the rich, who do we replace them with? Not at all a fan of the NYT, seems to keep getting more absurd with each day, and Nate Chinen rankled my red flags when he came on board at Jazz Times (another thing I no longer bother with) with his introductory hey, I'm a typical young person, I like some jazz but not all of it and do love some other non-jazz things so don't be surprised if I piss you off, I'm like, motherfucker, please, just write your stuff and let my view of you emerge, don't create a "fully-formed type" and then proceed to fill it with all the empty at your disposal, I mean, fuck that, and fuck you too Nate Chinen, just...world gone wrong for me and mine, you and yours, not so much, apparently. But Pi, yeah, Pi has been doing good work for quite a while now, and if they now feeling the frisky moneydick to move in on the Vanguard & the NYT, then swing that moneydick boys, SWING that moneydick. This is what a label is supposed to do, this is why people dreamed of getting a Columbia contract back in the day, to get that money machine working for them, and if we find all that repulsive, well, hey, I've given up on repusivity not being a simple fact of life, and if repulsivity brings me Henry Threadgill records, then...no such thing as a free lunch, etc. Moneydick IS gonna swing somewhere, that's just what moneydick do. Court composers, etc., always. Moneydick not swung is Moneydick impotency. There is always a game to play, always.

I was stating that Pi was the one pushing the promotion of steve coleman, ie. interviews, booking Vanguard etc. generally it is the label that does the promotional push around the time an album is released. My comment was in reference to mainstream validation, which I can't imagine Steve to be seeking, but wouldn't want to speak for him. Hey. I'm with you on all of that, maybe my poke at the sheer ludicrousness of the notion that Steve Coleman was ready for a total sell out/buy in was not made clear, in which case, my bad. When was the last time you read anything in the NYT that was not a publicity piece for something. either a gig or a book or a record or a party or SOMETHING? These guys do not - for reasons I would not claim to know - do not just wake up one day and say, hmmmm....Don Byas was one helluva tenor player, let me do a column about Don Byas. Now, if somebody has a book coming out about Don Byas, or if some guy is giving a lecture about Don Byas, or if somebody has discovered a treasure trove of heretofore unknown ANYTHING about Don Byas and wants the world to know about it, then there will be that article that Don Byas was one helluva tenor player. It is, after all, a news paper, not a collection of gentle musings. To what extent tail wags dog, I don't know, but I do find that I'm never disappointed to just assume that to be so, and wake me when I'm wrong. A different era, perhaps, but I wrote a whole lot of pieces for the Chicago Tribune from 1978 to 1989 that were entirely generated by my own musical tastes/interests and were the precise equivalent of me waking up one day and thinking "Don Byas was one helluva tenor player, I'll do a column about Don Byas." The piece I wrote about Roscoe's "L-R-G/SII Examples" album was one such; there were many more. Occasionally I might get a "Who's that?/why's that?" question from an editor, but it was my beat and either they trusted me or didn't know enough to care that much or say "Why not Kenny G?," in which case I would have told them why not. I'll add that if there had been no Don Byas music available to listen to, I might not have written such a piece, though I do recall more than once writing pieces about "Why is there none ( or so little) of this important stuff available?" -- in particular one about all the wonderful important comedy albums that were out of print. But then I knew that a fair number of readers would remember some or most of the albums I was talking about. In general, it was my belief and practice that you could (and should be able to) get away with writing about almost anything in a mass-market publication as long you could set the table swiftly and in an inviting manner. But I can see that times probably have changed. And that is why I would have read the Chicago Tribune instead of the New York Times between 1978-1989, if I was going to read either. Feel free to locate and resurrect that piece about the great OOP comedy albums here if you feel like it, please. That's a little side pursuit of mine, looking for those things in the used bins. Would love to see what your list has on it!

That's a question that presupposes a limited curiosity and an even more limited capacity to absorb. Are you sure that you want that to be your leading line of inquiry?

"Pay attention to Steve Coleman" is like "Drink Coca-Cola", a wish for success disguised in the form of a command. Although, yeah, pay attention to Steve Coleman. Unless you don't want to, in which case, don't. Again, it's not complicated. At least not that part of it.

I found Lucidarium to be a real WTF? experience, in the good way. For the older stuff, the Hot Brass series the first time I felt that his concepts had been fully internalized by his band, and when that stated happening, it went from being "theoretically" "interesting" to being some for real shit, ya' know? One of the few times, maybe the only time, in my adult life that I've actually heard that much evolution of that much concept in real time, which got me thinking, still thinking, actually, about how much of what we think of as "instinct" is actually learned/internalized mathematical/neurological processes. In a very broad way, I'd liken it to the development of Tristano and his original crew, and although Tristano didn't have hip-hop in his mix, he did have "Melancholy Baby", so...it seems that the math has to entail all of the stimuli of the world with which one intends to influence, otherwise there's no transcendence, just avoidance, which is a whole 'nother thing. Neither better nor worse, just different.

But seriously... I am neither the biggest fan nor detractor of Iyler. Pretty much depends on how I'm feeling at any given moment. But I do give him credit for moving. Not all do. And no matter what you might think/feel about Coleman's overall musical world, you'd have to be deaf and/or willfully ignorant to not hear how it's creeping into the general esthetic amongst younger-ish players. which is only logical, really. The old linear math has been a dead end for decades now, and the not-quite-as-old omni-planar window opening is needing some further clarification now that the novelty's worn off. A refined, events-specific omni-planar logic is not only inevitable, it's attractive, irresistable, perhaps, although not immediately, and not for people still enjoying those other rides (and no, I do not discourage the enjoyment of any ride). But in time, math don't lie, physics don't lie. Hello, gravity. People who are wondering what the hell Steve Coleman has to do with Bird, well, hey, that. And as far as what Steve Coleman has to do with AACM, well, hey, that. Not about defining a "new" math, but RE-defining THE math. People who don't believe in math, sorry, you're SOL on this one. People who jsut resist it, hey, I can feel you on taht one, but...good luck riding it out to the end. At some point... Not that this is the only "truth" out there now, but it is A truth, and no, wishing it away or denying it won't change the math any. As for walls shaking, yeah, ok, oooohhh SCARY. But when it times to come home, I'm thinking you'll want to end up someplace where the walls are intact. That earthquake shit is cool, but then what? That's the question nobody asks - then what? But Steve Coleman has been asking it, and he has found some answers. So, fuck the NYT, but pay attention to Steve Coleman.

You might want to send Mr. Iyler a personal advisement that he's mis-developed his entire musical concept, is completely misdirected about music in general, and just talks too damn much for his own good. He seems to be a warm, personable guy still in the embryonic stage of his career, and I'm sure he'll appreciate the personal interest. Or, I suppose one could also consider the possibility that Coleman's continued development has involved some fundamental reshaping of a lot of the structural elements of "jazz" in ways that people who don't really care for them would have neither an inclination nor a need to appreciate. All things considered, though, Id opt for the first approach, since it leads to the possibility of the actual saving of an actual human's very soul. Think BIG!

Gonna have to ask...what isn't?