JSngry

Did they actually charge it or just preauthorize? I've stopped ordering from them directly, but truthfully, there's never been an issue that they didn't resolve soon enough. I just don't like taking the time to do all that.

Crystal Illusions is a darn good album as a whole, you can proceed with confidence, imo.

Not sure I get your reference to the Salvador "fusion" dates, Jim. They're pretty straight ahead IIRC. Might be a faulty memory at play...for some reason I recall them being "contemporary" or some such.

Did not know that, and find it interesting, especially with James Clay in the picture. Thanks for that. Another piece of the puzzle!

Order a Spring Roll while you're at it, rite?

Am I reading this correctly, a Don Cherry-led group with James Clay playing Canada in 1957?

Post-Milestone Bartz?

The firemen (one in particular, our man Higgins) were nice enough to bring me some of Cornbread from the kitchen, which is where the fire started. "I Should Care", but that's a Consequence of not having a home fire extinguisher.

Oh crap, that's Eric Kloss with Hannibal! DUH! I should have recognized that, didn't sound that much like George Adams, but it was the only name who came to mind with Hannibal, and I made myself believe it. Sorry But I am confused about Not Jean Carn on Azar's "Bridge into the New Age"...really? On #1, does "not Spaulding" mean IS Bartz, or wrong on both counts?

Maybe there were technical problems.

Don Draper, prophet. Ray Draper, not so much. Destination Out & Hipnosis, the half with Grachan. But if my house really is burning, I grabbing my tenor first.

Just looking at the contents is enough to have me wondering if this is one of those things that I get into and don't get out of... The sound footage of Calvin Coolidge's hunting trip on the Gullah Islands was surreal...

Use a lemon. They're good for that.

Jazz Mission To Moscow was one of the first 150 or so jazz albums I owned, found in the black hole of the Treasure City cutout bins ca. 1971-2. It's good, spry, and frisky, but also a little...huffy-puffy full of itself. for that reason, I dumped it at some point and always think I want to hear it again until I do. Let me put it this way - the "spiritual leader" of the record seems to be Phil Woods in full "fuck you" mode, with no humility around to check him. As much as I love Mel, Mel is just egging him on here. Everybody, even Willie Dennis, seems to just want to piss on the corpse of what they had just gotten away from. That BG USSR tour must have been a tortuous experience for a lot of people in a lot of ways. But considering all the genuinely horrific atrocities that humans have committed against each other, ancient and recent, I don't know that it would rank in top half-million, if you get my drift. So, a lot of the horror seems to me like maybe more bruised egos than genuine human rights violations, although, yes, Goodman was by all accounts King Self-Absorbed Asshole. Then again, perhaps the band just resented being topped in that area. Phil Woods screaming FUCK YOU KING OF SWING on a hotel balcony, I mean...yeah, right. If that sort of thing sounds appealing in whole or in part, then this is the record for you!

Pepper/McLean? Parallel, at best. Let's try Rollins/McLean - neighborhood buddies, went through a lot of life-shit, came out on the other side, let their wives manage their career because that's about the only place the trust was, and both always having to, for some, live up to their past music while having a no doubt infinitely preferable present personal. and are ya' like me, were you listening to No Problem for the first time in a room with somebody who heard those squeals and said "Lennie Pickett!" and then you had to say, no, dumbass, Jackie McLean!

Waking from the BFT coma long enough to take a day off work, sleep late, listen early, all thanks and disclaimers nailed to the floor, here we go/ TRACK ONE - Wanting to say Gary Bartz, but not 100% sure, the tone, at least on my computer speakers, is not as "dry" as what I normally associate with Bartz.. No matter. I like it Not as many altoists get as into the overtone vocabulary as do tenor players (or so it seems), and whoever this is has it down and is speaking it naturally. Also very much dig the rhythm section, very natural in their space. One lick in middle of the alto solo hit a James Spaulding vibe, so this might be a Spaulding date, maybe? TRACK TWO - Thought it might be Adele Sebastian, but no. Very familiar early-mid 70s "spiritual" thing, I always liked that, still do, and now we have the soprano player, who is probably also the flutist, pretty damn fluent on both axes. and...I don't know who this is, some Strata-East thing, maybe. And maybe the poet is the flutist is the soprano? Sounds familiar, though....Ah, ok, this makes sense, Google "complete the circle" and "jazz", and there you have it, JuJu, Nia, Strata-East indeed. This is one of the Strata-Easts I didn't find until later on, have only heard it a few times, but yeh, Plunky always brought it, no exception here. TRACK THREE - Freddie with the Wayne Shorter Orchestra! I love this record, Wayne writing for big band, and only sometimes being realistic about what he writes .The chart on "Chocolate Shake" is a real grinner, Wayne was always one foot where he was, one foot where he was going to be, and both feet always moving. This is not a perfect record, but it's a great one, just because of who is doing what is being done and how they are going about doing it. Anything else is just...details. TRACK FOUR - Oh my...I want to wear white and billowy...and be surrounded on stage by dancers and sweaty percussionists shooting love bullets at Donnie & Marie, love bullets aimed to kill, but kill with love...but nevertheless kill. Ok, period-ness aside, this is a pretty nice cut, true to it's conception from top to bottom, no weak links or betrayals of not really getting it. almost sounds like a Gato Flying Dutchman side, but that's not Gato, nosiree. And it's not Azar Lawrence (is it?). nor Harold Vick(?) but it does have a kind of Earth Wind & Fire vibe to it, the Latin rhythm/R&B attitude/Jazz harmony gestalt that was EW&F at its creative peak. So, no idea, but it sounds better as it plays through the second and third times, and honestly, i wasn't really expecting that to be the case. Good one! TRACK FIVE - Well, that sure sounds like Hannibal on trumpet, and George Adams on tenor, this is what you need to get up get goin', and stay goin', so much energy, not frantic not edgy, just...goodness, energy to get good stuff done well. Can't say that I know this album, but sure would like to! TRACK SIX - Pretty sure that's Jean Carn(e), but on what record, I don't know. Hope it was at the end of an LP side, because, where do you go from there except either turn the record over or let that side play again? I love this little blip in the commercial/jazz zones, I mean, it's almost a pop song, almost a "spiritual jazz" song, ant the hook is all these fourth-y intervals, and ultimately, it comes out like something taht you could play for anybody anywhere - during that window of time when you could. I'm wanting to say that Norman Connors would be in the mix here somewhere too..oh hell, yeah, I remember this! Slewfoot! Yeah, at the time, this felt to me like Connors was going pop (but who saw You Are My Starship coming on?), but in retrospect, that thing, this style has hung around, keeps being fed upon by new generations, usually those with roots in dance music. So hell yeah, this. THIS! TRACK SEVEN - Well, that's Jean again, with Azar Lawrence on Prestige. Hell yeah. That's all there is to be said about this one - hell yeah. That, and whatever happened to Woody Murray? TRACK EIGHT - Sergio Mendes, Lani Hall, Vera Cruz retitled as "Empty Faces". My appreciation for Sergio Mendes and what he did within an overall pop environment has more or less ballooned over the last few years based on overall albums strength, and this cut is a prime example. This might(?) have been the first American recording of a Milton Naschimento song, and where did it happen? On a freakin' Sergio Mendes album. Not just that, but they played the shit out of it, Lani Hall, hey, outside of a certain zone, no thanks, but inside her zone, like this, and whoa, you got something there, something good. All those A&M albums are worth checking out for the deep cuts, as are some of the post-A&M albums, I'm thinking in particular of the "soccer" album that's got some super dope stuff on it (as well as some super dopey stuff), the one where Stevie Wonder contributed a few songs (The Real Thing + 1 more), but there's a Clifford Coulter(!!!!) thing on there that is all-time excellent. But this - this is so damn good, so hello Sergio Mendes, hello Lani Hall, and hello Milton Naschimento. Y'all c'mon it! TRACK NINE - Oh crap, I think I have this record...but can't call it..hate it when that happens. Anyway...cats sound kinda drug, not really hitting on it. It's a familiar tune too...but it seems just a bit saggy to me. But dammit, I know I have this record! TRACK TEN - My only guess would be a very aged Leon Thomas playing with a young-ish retro-band, but I can find no evidence of such a recording. Good vibes, though. TRACK ELEVEN - Terry Callier, "Dancing Girl", What Color Is Love. Hello, Charles Stepney, one of the unheralded geniuses of a comparatively narrow window in time, but genius, definitely. Terry Callier's cool too, very, but as to why this record sounded like this, Charles Stepney, RIP Genius. Thanks, John, this was a very nice day to begin an off day. I was supposed to be having a rehearsal with my band today, but the drummer's got the flu, so not gonna waste a day going to work when I don't have to, and besides, this is better than that, just better, period, than going to work, at least that work, not the rehearsal, that's work too, but that's my work, the other is jsut a job-work, and yes, this is a lot better than that, so again, thank you, sir!

Hello, hard-won victories. Hello, mommas don't let your babies grow old having to sell records/shit gigs to people who only want you to be one thing just in order to stay sort of alive until you have to make the next one(s). Hello, true personal dignity eats "art" for lunch - if it can ever get the damn food to the table. Hello, this isn't sometimes/maybe, this is always.

Blaine Nye Nellie Bly Joe Milazzo

Got this to hear the pianola/piano roll, and whoa...glad I did. Don't know too much at all about the things, but apparently Stravinsky was into them, and supervised the creation of the roll itself. It was not one of those "recording" rolls, which simply "recorded" a live performance, but was instead a form of transcription of the score onto the roll, no live playing required (although to be played, I guess there is a role - no pun intended - for somebody to control certain aspects of the playback). The results are immediately attention-getting, and, for me, fascinating. Not sure how it's accomplished, but the result is the piece being played significantly more percussively than any orchestral version I've heard, pretty damn intense. Couple that with the mono-timbre created by all parts being played on the same instrument, and the effect is pretty disorienting, in a good way. It really is a "new" way to hear a familiar piece. I know Conlon Nancarrow's work, and it's tempting to look at this as a precursor/inspiration/whatever, but I don't think it is. Nancarrow's work begins with a forced suspension of disbelief that you're hearing a piano being "played" live. This one doesn't force disbelief, if dares you to believe, and it's a dare pretty easily accepted, and to great end. Maybe, in the end, a novelty, or just a historical artifact. But for an immediate "shock value" that really, immediately, brings out the inherent "jazzy" and/or "primitive" impact that was so shocking at the time, it works wonderfully.

It's a public service, really.

Grapefruit are for lovers.

http://www.alexlore.com/

Perhaps McLean's deepest/ultimate "quest" was to reconcile/resolve that?

Different decisions, different results, that's all I'm saying. Not just about drugs, but about "place". In fact, mostly about "place", geographic, occupational, and, yes, personal/self - I once was this, I will no longer be that, I will now be THIS. The "emotional springs of his music-making" have always seemed to me to be very much about that - who am I, where am I, why am I, and what am I doing with/about it. In that regard, nothing changed. What changed - as I hear it - was different answers to those questions brought about by the decision to answer them in a different way than before, to not look for new outcomes from the same answers. For that matter, we had different answers to those questions in the '50s that we did in the '60s. Not as dramatic of changes, but definitely a progression out of/away from NYC Junkie Jazzman. Aspirations not yet realized, but definitely in the mix, final break eventually made, and never really re-paired. "Quest" perhaps realized/ended, but plenty of meaningful life left. Don't know if we're going around in circles or not, but I'm not looking for an argument. There was a change, we both know it, we both hear it, you're less compelled to listen to it after it happened than me, nothing to argue, really.