JSngry

Dude, that shit was always on at night (and on weekends). I'm talking daytime 70s stoner dorm fare, like 3 PM, when class were over, but before dinner came.

Finished Season 3 of The Wire last night...finally getting around to it. took too long to get to it, perhaps, but otoh, ain't nothing on that show you can't already know from just driving around and paying attention. I say that not to trivialize the show but to praise it in the highest terms.

Pops was a banger-in-waiting. Good thing he lived when he did, in a lot of ways.

I seem to remember that he hooked with Gil simply by Billy meeting Gil on the street, chatting a little bit, and Gil just saying "give me a call", which Billy did, and that was that.

Yes, and grocery stores sell greens. I'd recommend the latter in every regard. Just saying, although I have certainly had that experience, not once has it put me in a Billy Harper mood, not even remotely. Not saying that you're not supposed to feel it like that, just that I'll never be able to understand - or, really, want to understand, why.

Not being in the least bit qualified to offer any insight into your personal defecatory sensations, I'll leave that one for you to have for yourself.

Same here. Given a choice of "breakfast" or "more sleep", it's not even close. Dude, I work from ho,me. Anybody think that being to work by 8 means you can't wake up until 7:59 ain't never worked from home.

Just one of those guys, eh? Don't have none of this without those guys, somewhere.

The Booker Ervin "distractions". Booker Ervin would not always have an unlimited supply of ideas, you know? But he played through it, willed the music to be more than that. He'd get hung for an idea or be wanting to move more fingers than he had, and just will himself through it. I love Booker Ervin because of that, that and his sound, that sound. That sound, more than anything else. Billy got that sound too, and that's more than it anything for me. But Billy's fingers don't have the same distractions that Booker's did. In that way, Billy is Booker with a library card, dig (if I may be allowed a sideways Brother Mouzone reference)? Anybody who has any true love at all for Booker Ervin will get that he could have played the same solo, literally, on any changes and it would have took you out. As it is, he played a lot of the same solos in a lot of the same ways, and it still knocks you out. Power of the will, triumph of the soul. At the macro, Billy does the same thing, but with a lot more variety of fingerments. Billy's zones don't repeat as often or as readily as did Booker's. But they hit me every bit as hard, because I hear that sound saying that thing (and no, I'm not going to attempt to "explain what that is, because if you feel it, you feel it, and if you don't, you don't...ain't no thesis needing to be wrote about it, nor no witnesses for the prosecution). and no, that's not a question of "technique", that's just a question of one man Billy carrying on and moving on to where he had to have it, same as Booker did. Them souls still be speaking the same truths.

Lunch, usually. If I eat a breakfast meal at all, it'll be before bed the night before.

Dude, he's kinda like Booker Ervin without the distractions for me. Not that there's anything wrong with Booker Ervin with the distractions, hell no, but I hear that tone and I know exactly where I am, if you know what I mean. Train tracks after midnight, that horn sound dopplering, wondering where Next is. Them sounds run through the country and the city alike, and they sound the same in the dark no matter what. I've heard it alone in the woods, alone in a bed, alone in a bar, and alone in a church. That's just me, but it is me.

Not THAT John Carter, but THAT Valerie Capers: http://www.albanyrecords.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=AR&Product_Code=TROY387&Category_Code=a-BS Albany is the label of Never Assume Anything Until You've Looked Here. Oh yeah, $1.99 @ Berkshire. Bargain.

Absurdist Pop Culture Near-Genius, I say. At the very least, supreme stoner fare for 70s dorm life.

What do we know about Ardell Nelson?

Jackie Mills, baby, Jackie Mills. Let's talk about those Milt Bucker/Jo Jones things while we're at it, and then adjust the tint button on the Milt Buckner set, roll off the green and use what goes away to fill into Sonny Stitt. Or if your TV is not programmed for that, just play THIS record, more fun, less work, win-win, with the added advantage og TV-lessness.

Indeed.

The OJC CD is out there, with a copyright date of 1999. 15+ years, I still don't see how there's been no heads-up on this, given all the OJC-ness of our times. I only found out about it because a buddy passed along a copy of some Euro-generic DL-only Hip Jazz Tracks For People Who Want Some Hip Jazz Track On Their Playlist type of things. The title cut was on there as by Gerald Wiggins, nothing else, no label/album credits (DUH), so I looked around and voila there it was, OJC OOP, but I found a copy with a notch in the case for 7 bucks, Amazon reseller

You know what's lazy? The notion that music should always present you with a series of clear, unambiguous, and easily registered beginnings, middles, and endings. Like, you know, hey music, life is hard that way, make it easier for me, ok? I think I'm entitled to that much. No. Music ain't your bitch, lazy humans.

If I want M&Ms, I buy M&Ms. If I want a Snickers, I buy a Snickers. But never do I complain that pigs have hooves and monkeys have toes.

There are, allegedly, live recordings of Billy with the 1:00. I say "allegedly" because taking the department up on their open invitation for all students to avail themselves of the opportunity to the totality of the recorded legacy (the totality of which was assured to be total) led to the response that those tapes were "not available". That was then, though. Who knows about now?

Not understanding why it took me until the recently-turned age of 59 to find out about this record...minimal pimpage across the net abounds in its absence, how does that happen? I mean geez, Harold Land here is like the daddy that every baby needs and the Daddy that every Baby craves. and that Jackie Mills bass drum...secret weapon, I tell you. Hips, not hip, ok? For its own time/place/purpose, this is every bit the music as Face To Face, like the side of the house that Mrs. Freeman wished that Von would have put his shirt on and posed in front of. Proper attention has not been paid, and probably won't be. But let me not be That Guy.

All those Sonny Stitt records with organ where he's playing nice and groovy for the people, right? You know all of those records? THIS is what everybody involved probably thought they were doing. Other than mabye DJ Lounge (and then, thanks to John Board), sorry, close, but no. Harold Land is like oiled mercury, Wig is like, ok, floorshow and dinneranddancing music at once, hey, we can do that, and Jackie Mills is THE SECRET WEAPON BOMB - all swing, from the hips, please, not just the feet and/or fingertips, no, movin' dat ass baby, Night In Tunisia as shimmy dance, well DUH OF COURSE! Beautifully un-self-conscious groovy lounge music organ trio JAZZ, hello world, doggone ya'. Soul out the ass, mopping and waxing the floor for your dancing and listening smoothness pleasure. Recommended for any tastes that don't believe in old-fashioned as an eventuality of inevitability,.

I knew Claude, played with him some over the years. He'd become a wonderfully lucid eccentric of a "hard bop" composer pianist, a master of "chunky-ness", if you know what I mean. Knew that he played some sax, but he never mentioned being at NT except in very general passing...wow...lots of things explained knowing that... From what I've hear about Billy, it was very much a case of a talent that could not be denied. This cat did everything that was asked as exemplary as it could be done and then pretty much dared them to turn him down. Also think that the band itself was putting out the vibes to Breeden, like, c'mon man, this guy is RIGHT. Just thinking about all this is creeping me out, in a lot of ways.