JSngry

The Internet wants you to know that the full unedited Village Gate recordings do exist. Our Man In Jazz did not have to be the record that RCA said ok, let's put it out like this, let's put it that way. As for Our Man In Jazz, other than Doxy, it's my least favorite of the known recordings of the Rollins/Cherry band. The arrangements are a little too clever for my tastes, and what that band did best was set up the tune and then stretch it whatever way they felt lie stretching it. The Euro-tour recordings capture some really excellent examples of that in shitty sound, but oh well, ain't no living in a perfect world, ok? RCA seemed to want the emphasis on the "cleverness" and edited/released accordingly, that's my theory. Give them something OBVIOUSLY "different" but make it something EASILY FOLLOWED, yeah, that's how you recoup that mammothass advance, yeah, that's how you do it. As far as post-Cherryband Rollins goes..."conventional"? Seriously? That's some of the most elastic tone and time ever displayed in any music, period. Never mind the setting(s), and there's a pattern that began long before the allegedly dreaded "post-Comeback" Syndrome. Once Tenor Land woke up from its Trane-induced tunnel vision it was like, oh, wow, the instrument can do THIS TOO? Oh shit, WHO KNEW? Well, uh...welcome to THIS party now. Bley - and Herbie(!) two guys with the ears and sensitivity to follow and contribute in real time rather than just lay out the landscape over which the Flying Trapeze Man defies...everything. Now - a voucher good for 100 fake bitcoins to anybod y who can name every album in the RCA Our Man In... series.

So...Augie Blume...what was the story there?

Don Lombardi Joseph Rogers Johannes Link

Well, yes, but the disharmony in the Daley Trio was based on significant musical differences as well as personal ones. In particular, and rightly or wrongly, Thorne and Hal Russell regarded Daley the way Ornette might have regarded pianist Walter Norris on "Something Else!" OTOH, it was Daley's group, and I don't mean at all that the final results weren't fascinating. Also, it should be said that Thorne and Hal Russell were fairly high-pressure personalities, while Daley was no shrinking violet. Exactly, and my gut feeling is that if the group had tried to form as little as, say, 2-3 years later that it would have been dead in the water. But there was that little window when decisions of that sort had not yet really been...finalized, and there they were. Not having been there (or there then), perhaps this is an illusion of hindsight, although Bill Barron is a rough-ish example of a "conceptual" (not executional, not at all) strain of thought that did successfully strike that fine balance between "in" and "out" playing that the Daley trio was rather strongly suggesting (intentionally or otherwise), although not in 1963, no, not in 1963. And of course, Jimmy Giuffre, but that's really another world altogether, Giuffre is, especially by 1963. What I'd really like to know is this -exactly what was Daley looking for with that trio and that concept? Seems like he was temperamentally incapable of being either a totally "free" player or a totally orthodox bopper or an at-root "blues" player like so many other Chicago tenorists. The guy was obviously a serious dude (I went to school with a former student of his, and the stories of his hardass perfectionism and withering rebuttals of anything cheap/easy were many), but what was his end-game with this trio? Did he even have one? That's another "human" dimension to the whole thing that has me eager to hear more. Because as you say, there doesn't seem to be anything remotely "easy" about any of it, or any of them, and I kinda like that about people sometimes, especially when it comes to music.

On the issue of "discomfort" in music...I can't help but think of the Ellington band and how much ongoing friction there was within the ranks, some of it the stuff of "legend". Now, the conventional wisdom is that everybody forgot about that when they hit the stand, that it all went away and that Music Helped Everything, but no, that is so much romanticized silliness. That band was almost always loose (and occasionally sloppy) as hell, and it came from everybody playing it as they heard it, and if Paul & Rabbitt & Cootie all heard it three different ways and not one of them was going to yield to the other because fuck that asshole, ya' know, it came out those three different ways, and that was the beauty, the functionally successful coexistence of the disagreement, not the elimination of it. And Duke wanted that, Duke wanted that diversity, disagreement and, even, animosity to be there, because he knew that that is the purest real life, and real life can be made to work if it is allowed to be what it really is, that you start stuff falling apart when you attempt to stifle that, and if things resolve organically, so much the better, but don't fake it. Do not fake it. Ever. Which is not to say that the Joe Daley Trio is Ellington, just the notion that "successful" music is always predicated on "group harmony" is fallacious, to put it mildly. And truthfully, the more I live, the less I enjoy things, especially musical, where everybody just jumps in all happy and starts rowing together and singing happy songs, Life, especially the people part of it, is just not wired to work that way these days, if it ever really was. "Success" comes in a lot of ways besides the obvious. All I've heard of this Daley trio is the RCA record, and as noted, it's fascinating to me precisely because of the tension in the results, not because of the inherent "harmony" of the participants.The possibility of even greater results, no matter what the source of them, is exciting, yes, exciting! Really, really looking forward to this one.

Yo, I'm so there with this. YES!

I'd also add that the sight of hardcorejazzfans suddenly being worried about somebody losing their money on a sure-to-be top shelf legitimate presentation of obscure music of no small historical interest (and of at least some historical importance, Chicago being the one American city left that continues to move forward with an organic indigenous jazz scene, and every time a light gets shone on all the "local" things that have happened over the years, the more it becomes obvious that always was it so) is most touching, to say nothing of amusing! If this is the Face of 21st Century Jazz Fandom, I have to say, it's as anti-climactic as 21st Century Jazz itself. Chicago, of course, excepted.

"Love without guts is worthless!" Philip K. Dick from "What if our World were their Heaven"

Beethoven 9, DSO tonight @ the Meyerson. Taking the wife & son & daughter-in-law. Putting my ass where my money used to be.

It's that "discomfort" that makes the music so interesting to me. It refuses to become either/or and is too damn...substantial to become "nothing" as a result. In a world where disagreements (polar or otherwise) tend to threaten to render productive functionality impossible and/or irrelevant, this band is a hoot, a real joy, becuase it worked in site of itself. Music as its own reward, yeah, there's plenty of that to be had (real or imagined!), but after a while that gets too easy and feel-goody, especially when that's the programmed cultural default. It gets to easy to "celebrate" the music and comfortably diminish/dismiss the humans from whence it springs. Music as human - and all that implies - endeavor - and all that implies - hey, that's some real fun right there. Not always pretty, often not, in fact, but put me down as Beauty Is Not Always Pretty. For me, "hmmmm...." music played by and with real/full engagement is infinitely preferable to "perfect" music played by massaging the Already-There Gland. It's got nothing to do with "style" and everything to do with Honestly Attempting To Resolve. And if No Resolution is to be had, don't fake one. God, please don't fake one. That's ugly. Put it all out, Jonathan, put it all out.

I was lucky enough to find the Daley RCA album in a cutout bin when I was 15-ish, so I've lived with the record for over 40 years now. I think it's one of those things that will stimulate people as a "discovery", because that trio was really something. A quirky blend of "in" and (then) "out" that thrived on their inability/unwillingness to finally/firmly land on either side. The tension was its own release, if that makes any sense. And Russell Thorne was not just on the cutting edge, he had already cut through and repositioning for the next cut. You hear this guy and think, 1963? Really? So yeah, I want all of everything that's available by this trio, and will pay for it. Will pay for it. And will pimp for it. Am pimping for it. It's not for the casual listener, or for the casually curious, but for people who like stuff like this, bands that are provocative not just because of their results but also because of their sheer makeup before even playing a note, it will be a treat, a real treat. If you want predictable reinforcement of history, this will not be the band, music, or set for you. But otherwise, carpe diem. Carpe all dat diem.

Frank Loesser Frank Lowe Alan Jay Lerner

That Graz thing needs some serious pitch correction on the trio tracks. Sonny sounds like he's on alto!

Esther Rolle Evans Bradshaw Roosevelt Wardell

How the hell do Goodwill & Salvation Army get by not accepting used clothing and/or furniture? What do they sell in their stores? That's just a world gone wrong. Here's an idea - find some of those people who do, like, the storage locker auctions and get them over, see what they'll take for the lot. Cash and carry. I'd guess that the management of your storage unit facility would know who they are.

Goodwill/Salvation Army. Tax Deduction. They give you a blank, signed receipt and you fill in the blanks with inventory and estimated value. No need to take it in all at once, just as you're able. We do this every time we clean out our garage and closets and attic.

That dude was cool.

Mrs. Lott Mr. and Mrs. Sum Bobby Few

The Jazz Singer Danny Thomas Phil Donahue

I have that record, bought it just for the cover, and...there's an appealing corniness to it, like some old-timey trumpet player who sounds like he came by it honestly, in real time, if you know what I mean, like it's not the guy that's making himself sound corny, it's just the passage of time. I think /i only paid a buck for it, and I'd not recommend spending too much of that if you should ever see it, but I was expecting some pre-fab yehbeer elevatist music, and, actually, no, not at all.

I'd like to ask him the difference - for him - between playing with Max & with Elvin, as well as what effect did playing with Wilbur Ware have, did that free up as much time and harmony in real time as it appears to have listening to the records?

Cal Ermer The Collins Twins The Minnesota Twins

Oh, I know who he is. Phylicia Rashād's brothr, also played on a mid-70s Louis Hayes Muse date, iirc. And I think I have an old Lab Band "Spring Concert" LP, '69, I think, that he takes a solo on with one of the bands. Also have that Muse leader date, it's a good enough "late night" album. Just did not know he was still around. Not a name you hear every day, or every year, or even every decade, sometimes.