JSngry

Dude - that's a basic human right, ok? Two words - Bob Wilber. Two more words - Sonny Rollins. Three Little Words:

Oh hellfukingodddamn no. No. The point of these damn things is to sell magazines and for musicians to get face time. The notion that anybody goes into these things to "learn" is...laughable. Look - Sonny's old, widowed, and for the last year, more or less musically incapacitated. He's a great figure in this music, and a bit of a personal idol to me - which is why all the, by any objective standard - extreme inconsistencies of his commercial output do not bother me (that, and the fact that the inconsistencies are anything but a Sonny Stitt-ish Autopilot being turned up or down to varying degrees). I'm glad that Bret Primak and whoever else is getting him out in public like this is doing so, it seems to be a level of engagement that he both needs and welcomes during this period of his life. But geez, be happy that he's happy and end it there. Anything past that is just weird.

Or we could look at Ellington who rode all his horses until they all dies, horse and riders alike. It can go both ways, and what is important (to me) is not which way it goes, but why is it going there. There are those who are genuinely disturbed by what they percieve a Rollins' reasons. I'm not one of them, I figured the man figured out what he had to do to be who he wanted to be, and that was that, none of my business. Usually, I can easily dismiss that, but Sonny Rollins, I think most of us would agree, is not just a Very Good Jazz Player, the man knows like few others have known. So I get it that the glimpses of that knowledge have been deemed by its possessor to be an entirely discretion, at times, fleeting, and at even more times unrecorded for commercial consumption quantity frustrates some, infuriates other, and spurs an appreciation of the image than the reality in many/most more. I get taht, but, again, to me...not bothering me. People want warm/fuzzy, hey, go sit on Santa's lap, with or without the suit on. Sonny Rollins ain't here to be no Santa Claus, even now. Let's not anybody be confused about that.

Nothing wrong with them, but what would they have to offer Sonny Rollins other than the ability to name-drop with confidence? At some point, an artist stops growing outward and grows inward. If they don't do that, then they've yet to find their voice, so...game not over, but lost. At least, that game. That's not to say that they shut themselves off from everybody and everything else, but as it pertains to their own pursuits directly with their instrument,..Michael Brecker made his first record in when, 1970? Think about how music saxophone Sonny Rollins had already played by 1970, not "styles" but saxophone. the instrument itself. what it can do, what it can't do, what you think it can't do but oh, looks like it can, By 1970, Rollins had heard, and lived with, a.o.Hawk, Prez, Byas, Bird, Trane, Ornette, and Ayler - real giants from within his own continuum that carved out space for themselves as foundational beings. What is Michael Brecker going to bring to Sonny Rollins' table about things you can do on a saxophone that are relevant to further becoming Sonny Rollins? Not a knock on Brecker, or Lovano, or any of these people. They're all great musicians and fine jazz players. But I'll give you all their collected works if that's what it takes to keep one copy of, say, Sonny Meets Hawk or Alfie, never mind the Golden 1950s stuff that everybody's so damn stuck on as being the "apex" of Rollins or some such foolishness. Those are documents of a - another - foundational being. The other people are nice add-ons, but like all add-ons, they can be disappeared at no great loss to eternity. Not so the foundations, and there are reasons for that, not the least of which is that the foundations aren't always bothered with the need to keep up with P.R. niceties like being able to name-drop with confidence. Would you expect Louis Armstrong to have picked out Donald Byrd in a Blindfold test? If so, why? Did Louis Armstrong "need" to hear Donald Byrd, or for that matter, Clifford Brown? Does Sonny Rollins "need" to hear James Carter? Hell, Sonny heard Lockjaw, what is James Carter going to tell Sonny Rollins that Sonny Rollins needs to hear? Sonny made an album with Branford guesting on a few cuts. It sounded like a current Sonny playing with a 30 years younger Sonny - imitating himself. Nice for consumers, but relevant to Sonny himself, how, exactly? These are artists, all of them, not consumers. It's one thing to know them as peers (or at least co-questers), quite another to get into knowing their work to the point of fanboy record-collecting them. Especially when you wonder what's wrong with an 80 year old man who has played as much music as Sonny Rollins has for not being able to recognize Joe Lovano in a Blindfold Test. I mean, really, that matters, at all? What is it that makes people want to bring everybody down to their level? If Sonny Rollins aced a Blindfold Test of nothing but people who began playing post 1970, what, would that make him "better"? Or would that just make consumers feel safer about the good/great Medium-Sized Life that passes for "greatness" these days? Oh wow, Don't Ask, not so bad after all, instead of wow, Don't Ask,at once great AND not good at all, gee I have to think about this now...uh...this is hard...I think I'll play a Josh Redman record instead, that's easier, it's Always Very Good...Ahhhh...that's better now! World gone wrong, Very Tall People are not Giants, simple as that, and killing all the Giants doesn't change anything.

I start dancing when this comes on in the mall or wherever. Seriously. Don't know if it's necessarily "great christmas music" but it sure brings holiday cheer to my heart!

If I had Sonny Rollins' Unprocessed & Unfiltered Ideas running through my head all the time looking to be worked out/through, I don't know that I'd listen to records too much either...and if I did, I don't think it would be those of the people listed here.

Not necessarily...I've found a blog or two that specializes in those, and it has made for pretty interesting listening at times, especially older recordings of then new(ish) works...the arc that all music and its peoples takes, sometimes in response to the music itself, sometimes in reaction to what has been done to/with the music, I think that's interesting, especially with classical music, which came to recording not just as a game already well in progress, but also in a stadium that was really just beginning to be built.

Yeah, Blanda started as a QB with the Bears, iirc, then moved to the AFL with the Oilers, led them to the first two AFL Championships and almost a thrid in an epic double OT loss to the Chiefs (who were still the Dallas Texans...this is all by memory so...). Then he moved to the Raiders where he played into his 40s as a really fine kicker. It's perhaps impossible to understand what the AFL was "about" pre-merger if you weren't there for it. Hell, I was just a kid, so didn't really understand the business implications of it, which were profound and which echo to this day. I just knew that AFL was new, exciting, and colorful, NFL was old guard rigidity. Namath's hair and fur coats vs Johnny U's tops flat and high. If you're 12 in 1967, do the math as to what you're gonna look for and where you're gonna look for it. If you watched the ABA in the 70s, it was like that, except the NBA never agreed to a "Super Bowl" thing where Namath could shock the old guard like he did, and then Len Dawson again the next year. Can you imagine a time when Hank Stram was a hip rebel contrast to Vince Lombardi? Bump and run, baby! Such a 60s vibe, bump and run - excuse me? No, do not "excuse" me.The AFL was very 60s in that way, old world, we're here to stay, with you or without you, you been bumped, now try and run to get back to where you think you belong. Oh, it was hot, let me tell you...I got bullied a few times for being an Oilers fan instead of a Cowboys fan, and the early rumors that the Cowboys were going to the AFL in the merger were met with, literally, tears by some fans. Dig it - the NBA absorbed a relatively few ABA teams - the NFL not only absorbed every AFL team, they moved three of their teams to the new AFC. OTOH, instant expansion, but OTOH, rivals not exactly vanquished into oblivion, either...Not sure if anything quite like it has occurred before or since. George Meany was, to me, at that time, some guy who I saw with LBJ & Nixon a lot. Not the "AFL" I was into then, for sure! Of course, what do kids know? All the flash can be so alluring...but every bit as enduring, even after the reality takes root. Namath's a sad creepy drunk now and Johnny U is a hero for all time. So let the kids have their head for a minute or two, reality is the great equivocator, and reality will have its time, which is for all time. Nevertheless, sometimes you just got to bump and run, even today. GOT to!

Wow...started with Rosa Parks, ended with Barbara Streisand...not sure if Dec 14 was on the upward or downward side of that arc...but I think it speaks to being born in that year that to me, my first-and-forever association with "AFL" (as opposed to "AFL-CIO") will always be the George Blanda, not Meany.

Hey, thanks all!! So far so good, needed, gentle rain all day, lunch at Fearing's (our new "go to" place for special occasions, not quite as expensive and a LOT less "fancy" than we used to think it would be), orders placed at Amazon, Berkshire, & Dusty Groove, Cowboys/Eagles tonight, series finale of The Newsroom/new episode of The Comeback on HBO GO after that, trio rehearsal tomorrow, and all week off from work. Life is always good, even when it's not always great!

Gee, I was there was some way to save YouTube videos to your computer...

Wynton's being extra generous with the bonus checks this year, eh? :g :g

Got one copy, lost it in the black hole that lives somewhere in this house (which, if I knew where that was, things would stop getting lost in it, duh), got another copy, and have begun reading it. Joe had told me that if I make it past the first 32(?) pages, I'd be fine. Well, I have, and I am. At first I had no idea what was "really" going on, but the more I read, the more it comes together. Still no idea what the laundry thing is about, Frank and "Mr. Lee", but I'm sure that will come too. I ain't worried about it. It's getting interesting, Joe, it's getting really interesting.

Sally Forth Salty Parker Talty Chevrolet

Booty call to the ex, hoping (at some level) for some make up sex, but willing to settle for just getting to touch that ass one more time and doing it in front of your current girlfriend makes it that much more obvious to all concerned. You think I'm kidding, and yeah, ok, but...when you bond with a player or a group and it breaks up because one partner just can't go on with you like that, still the love, always the love, but not gonna be the partnership ever again, no, not gonna be the partnership, it runs deep sometimes. This shit is personal.

One of the greatest pop records ever made, imo, regardless of seasonality. And as long as I don't have to hear it except when I want to, that Mariah Carey record is a worthy-ish successor. That's how you do it! I can't stand the gramma/reindeer song, nor the one about the little boy wanting to buy shoes for his near-dead momma. Other than that, show me what ya' got, I'm game. I play Christmas records anytime, sometimes. O Holy Night, For Your Precious Love, Unchained Melody, hey, it's time to slow dance, people.

But what about the use of the wah-wah to not just cover up perhaps deteriorating chops issues, but also to turn the trumpet into a combination plunger/blues harp? One step backward, two steps forward? The plunger thing is more or less conventional wisdom these days, but the harp thing didn't really strike me until the other day when I was singing in the shower, trying to do a Sonny Boy thing and it came out sounding like electricwhawah Miles instead. I thought to myself, damn, that was easy, to take that one thing and turn it into that other thing. But if Miles hadn't already done it, I'd never have noticed. So yes, shower regularly, with or without premedicated musical intent.

We can do that!

Choice didn't get a lot of distribution back in the day, at least not where I was. But they had a good catalog, small label, good offerings. The first Giuffre album, the Mosquitoes thing, got a 5-star review in Down Beat, might have even been offered as a subscription premium, but i never saw it in a store, not even in a Peaches. Finally found it used, in the 90s. The second one, I didn't even know about it until it got reissued on CD!

That was a good band that was not at all "big band-y" in the traditional way (it never screamed, but could sure roar when it needed to...and it always purred), this is a great set of their performances (Mulligan himself ended up not contributing all that much to the book, so you get contributions by George Russell, Gary McFarland, Bob Brookmeyer, other people who knew how to write), and that's a pretty darn good price, really. The music is in no way "west coast" or "cool jazz", and hello, plenty of Mel Lewis driving the bus. Carpe diem, somebody!

Subsidized a lot, ok, cool. Now as for the works of Mr. Pettersson, is the work I heard pretty much representative of his intent & method, or is he one of those guys who morphed/evolved as he went along?

Wow, that's some pretty touching stuff, thanks for sharing. I've always been somewhat intrigued by Guy on those Minton's recordings also. And wasn't it him, not Cootie, who played the solo on "Fly Right" (the original recording of "Epistrophy")? For some reason, I've been led to believe that a lot of the contemporaneous indifference/contempt towards Guy was based in his less than noble behavior with/towards Ms. Holiday. But perhaps he was kinda jerky with everybody at that time? I wasn't there. I just know that he's not nearly as uninteresting as some liner notes writers make him out to be, nor is he quite as heroic as it sounds like he thinks he is. But hey.