JSngry

Available in full online here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/raised-voice

Have a nice day, Scott.

"polite", yes. Fairly often. "Meaningful", no, not really. They always (and this is not just with me, this is with anybody you feel is not seeing things your way, the"right" way, the DOLAN way) lead off with a barrage of HEY BROTHERs rapidly followed by the DEMANDS to justify myself, and dammit, then, no broader possibilities are considered, the beginning and end of the game is the Defending The Dolan Point, THE Point, End Of Game. In this case, even though over the length of this interview, sonny rollins went on at length about how sensitive and irked he was at the general vibe/attitude of the New Yorker piece in the context of how he has experienced the media in his life, and even though, yes, there's a few general statements about, well, of course you can be humorous in and about jazz, the simple math adds up to but not like this. Any fool (well, almost any fool) should be able to see this, it's not "reading between the lines", or "confirmation bias", it's basic looking at something in context and being sensitive to the speaker's history and inclinations. I myself didn't find the piece funny, but I didn't really find it offensive, either, except in the sense that not being funny with something like this is the biggest offense of all! But this is not about what I thought about any of it, it's about gauging Sonny's reaction. If you can weigh a few general, polite "acceptances" against a lot of long (perhaps even rambling, gee, the guy even goes to great pains to point out that he's not in favor of kicking dogs) irritation/agitation and not get an accurate weight of the overall tone and feeling...I've known drug dealers who measured like that... ...very easy to see what's going on, reliving/projecting previous unpleasant and no doubt intense persecutorial experiences you've experienced on to others, refusing to admit anything but, at best, "well you might have a point, BUT I'M STILL RIGHT, always with a "Brother" thrown in, and at worst, there's all these projected images of your haunted past about abusive authority figures, which, hey, that is what it is, and that's your burden to bear, Good luck, brother, I guess. Please understand - I don't want or need, much less crave the respect of people who play the game of Argue With Me Long Enough And I'll Begrudge You Some Respect, I mean, really, that's just Angry Clown bullshit right there. Amusing for a moment, but finally, disposable. I laugh at your "attacks" until I yawn. And then I go to bed, or to the piano, or someplace where there's a real imagination to play with instead of some...repeater pencil. You sir, are a repeater pencil. So tell yourself that this is all about your "defense" of the New Yorker piece. It's not.

Ulysses S. Grant Tomb Raider Fred Biletnikoff

Word, Paul. I was just about to ask him to give me more than one and less than three samples of anything he's posted here that should give me pause to take him seriously about anything I care about. Otherwise, the schtick is always the same - he's right, and either you agree with him or else you're wrong - it's DOLAN, DAMMIT! Defend yourself - you are guilty until proven guilty, and then you are guilty! There's just nothing this guy has ever said that lets me take him seriously as anything besides an Angry Clown with Audio Stats in hand, I think it's kind of cute, really, although as with all things cute, there is not enough substance for it to ever become beautiful. And now I wait to again be accused of the usual charges of ego-driven pseudo-intellectual slight-of-hand, perhaps even of being a danger to humanity. Again. Like I said, cute is cute, but it's sooo one-dimensional. I know the dude was scarred for life as a child, I read his memoirettes on Jazztalk, so, really, I do understand. I just don't care.

Thanks, David. It's good to know that that series is available today. The original LPs tend to be kinda expensive if/when they can be found.

And they could use Keith's own words, most likely!

Just got a copy of the Time album (on Mainstream)...from an Amazon seller in Georgia...and my copy has that same Roulette sticker on it..how 'bout that! Not exactly cheap, but it's for items like this that letting those other $20 deal-breakers actually break the deal The pressing is fairly clean as far as those things go/went, and I'm trying to imagine the impact his had amongst whoever was listening to it at the time in terms of hardcore flute playing. Even today, damn. I have to think that this is important music, on several levels. Has ANY of the Time Series 200 material seen an reissue outside of those Mainstream LPs, legit or otherwise?

Is this the proper place for me to ask for help in "getting" latter-day Duke Jordan? It's never really resonated with me.

Please don't feed my ego, especially when I'm on the 'roids.

Let me go out on a limb and throw in the two Prestige albums with Eric Kloss..at least some of them might be heard as "boppish", if one is willing be stretchy about what the means. Same thing for the Bill Evans Montreux album on Verve...one of the relatively few "later" Verve albums that I embrace with gusto, and DeJohnette's contributions to the trio ethos are a big part of that. A lot of variable mileage in all of that, though, because if the object is to find a JD appearance where he sounds like Art Taylor or somebody...such a thing probably doesn't exist.

BTW - WTF is that at 1:47, hitting/pounding the last bar of the modulation? The combination of YouTube Sucksational Audio and my punkass PC speakers has it sounding like a toy piano!

Yeah, but you know how long "now" lasts - just long enough to suck you the soul out of you.

Sorry David, you are not the future of America. I don't know if you're a good investment. I'm not really good with such things. Maybe Lowe can front you some money? That cat always seems to have a budget for something! Then again, he's always seeking funding, so maybe he's not such a good investment either, that he doesn't have investors seeking him out. You know what they say, money attracts money. True! Me, I'd ask Scott Dolan - that's a man who knows. Everything! All the time! Hell, I'd ask him for some money myself, but I know what he thinks about me.

I hope to someday be worthy of your favor. Of course, you're still wrong, but you're diligent about it, and diligence is a mark of character. You, sir, are the future of America. May I send you some money? It would be an honor.

I would love for Gold to have done this piece about Jim Hall, a dead man. That would have removed any suspicions about how clueless the whole idea - and the magazine - was from jump, to not just pick on an old man, but to pick on an old, freshly DEAD man!

No, did not imply that he was "alright with the piece overall". The man is 80+ years old, still standing,has been deeply in the trenches and has had to step over a lot of wounded & dead bodies, including those of some deep soul mates, to keep going, with a lot of those bodies being the result of one sort or another of institutionalized/systemic/hard-wired/whatever hostility towards the very notion of "jazz" and the "type of people" who make it. I got the impression that he was not at all okay with he certainly sees as a "major mainstream media vehicle" (now, to me, the New Yorker is basically a relic of a past that no longer exists except, mostly, as faux-symbol/signifier in the minds and psyches who care to believe that is still does...but I'm not Sonny Rollins) using his life as raw source material for anything that created the could engender an image of jazz and jazz musicians as ironic imps who are at root members of The Ironic Fuck It species of humanity, like, ok, Shadow Wilson dead in a trash can, gee, where am I supposed to put my carrot peels and coffee grinds NOW, that inconsiderate fuck. HA HA HA HA! You can argue, well, hey, it's satire and all that, and you can argue that, hey anybody dumb enough to think that's really Sonny Rollins talking, fuck them, yeah, I get all that, but those are all points that in any court of law would be stipulated to in advance. Arguing them past that point is belaboring the obvious. If I was one of those salty ass judges you see in the movies, I'd call counsel into chambers and ask, really, is that the best you got? Is that ALL you got? Because although not too many of us here have put our life as deeply into this music as to have true battle scars (and none of us here to the extent that a Sonny Rollins has), the point that's not being considered is that there are people who have, and regardless of intent on the part of the New Yorker, those people seen that sort of weaponry fired before, and they've seen it aimed, successfully aimed, to kill. Never mind that this is, in today's world, just some halfass Fourth Of July cartoon fireworks, THEY hear the noise and just don't not see what's fun or funny about any of it. Who am I to convince them otherwise? So, stop trying to put forth the line that Sonny Rollins is "ok" with this type thing. He's not, and he has damn good reason to not be. An internet full of geeky record collectors, maybe not so much. But by the same token, an internet full of "hey, get over" it types, not so much either, because either way, it's a cheapening of an individual has been there, done that, and when it comes to having been there and doing that, pretty much makes most people on either side of the argument look like the midgets they are when it comes to having been there and having done that. There is a real life involved in this, and I don't mean that in a touch-feely "oh the humanity" way. I mean. Sonny Rollins, day-by day, that can not be reduced to ideas, a pile of statistics, quotes, records, etc. without some serious disservice being done to reality. We can read about a young Sonny Rollins waiting on the doorstep for Coleman Hawkins to get home, or about playing the Audubon dances with Miles & Bird, or getting so strung out, or hearing the news that Clifford Brown was just killed, or ANY of all that, we can hear about it and form pictures, and ok, good. But we can do that about anybody. Second-hand (at best) vicarious life,that's all it is. Infinitely invaluable even at that, but...not the same as actually having it happen to yourself. When somebody who I know has been there, done that, and at the highest level for the longest time tells me something about how they feel, I will show them the simple respect of allowing them their feelings on their own terms. When they're dead and gone, the historians, estates, and other people who stand something to gain from so doing will all hold forth with their correct interpretations of What This Life Really Meant. But that guy, that guy in the goofy-ass red and white and Jim McKay cans (a long-time top-shelf visual presenter, Sonny Rollins has been), that was a real man still living.

One of their best of the period, imo.

Steely Dan Iron Mike The Irish Washerwoman

Chris Davis.

That's the back cover of Blues At Carnegie Hall, which adds a little extra "Uhhhh...." to it. To that end, I always get a little "Uhhhh...." myself whenever I see a "foreign" cover of an American album I know so well, so..

He also says he subscribes to Mad magazine, and implicitly rated the writing of a New Yorker piece as worthy of belonging in Mad. That, I thought, was the biggest and best "fuck you" of the bunch.

Yeah, I goth that box (and all the material as individual CDs, and all the Novus/etc material as original releases as well).. I decided to order the mosaic when I needed to make a drummer a copy of "The Jick" for reference/study purposes and only had the LP. Got to thinking that it would be nice to have all this stuff with the "under one roof" thing, all in digital, as well as getting to the unreleased X-75 material. Bottom line, the lazier I get, the more inclined I am to send links to You-Tube videos than to rip an LP cut, even though YT audio is just nastybad sucking. Oh well, 2015 will be her soon enough, one hopes!