JSngry

I don't know that not tucking in a non-square-tailed shirt is the best way to hide your gut or to let everybody know that you care about making a good impression (in fact, I know it's not).. But as far as actual fashion sense goes, reasonable minds can and do differ: http://www.styleforum.net/t/46676/square-tail-or-regular-tail-for-untucked-shirts

It sounds like it might not have ever happened if they both hadn't been signed to Vanguard at the time... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX07s5DXIU0 I mean, that's pretty good, really, but it could totally have happened without Elvin. But there is this one, for which, yes, that's Elvin, but there's that triplety doodly-doo that and passionate yawling that was already sounding more signifier than reality, and it was just the 70s! (hell, Elvin's own bands embraced it and moved it along!). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLFfoh0BMJ4 But now, objectively and with the now historically proven fact that Trane-isms (as opposed to post-Trane conceptings) would not be moved past themselves but would simply become more accepted as ok to do by general audiences, hell, that ain't too bad, ok? But as long as they were label-banging each other, why not bring in James Moody, that would have no doubt resulted in a curiosity...Last Light Beam To Overbrook or some such! Or maybe even Bunky Green. Yeah, Bunky Green, that was the time when the "new" Bunky Green was emerging, not that anybody was thinking about that happening at the time...but Places We've Never Been should not be ignored, ok? Those 70s Vanguard jazz records were a mess, which is not a complaint mind you, just an observation. Oregon's records might well have been the most focused of the lot, actually. But.

Lady Marmelade Joseph Orange Anita Bryant

Thanks, Ted!

Didn't really care for them that much back in the day, associated them with Paul Winter's Icarus, a very popular album with all the "wrong people" for all the "wrong reasons", but have come to appreciate them a lot more with the passage of time as music. What it came down to was once it used to really irk me that all that was being called "jazz" and I was like, oh HELL no, and now, hey, whatever, they could play, period. I will say this, though - I went through a time when I was getting called for tux gigs by "classical" musicians who said they were playing "jazz" and it was all Winter Consort/Oregon type stuff, and they would cringe whenever I played a flatted third over a major chord. To me, that's still a problem, but it's more one of nomenclature than of actual music, I mean, why do you want to call it "jazz", to get more gigs from clients who don't know shit about shit? That's rich, to think that "jazz" will make you more money..well, ok, maybe "jazz" will, but jazz? Make me laugh, please, at least try. Fortunately, time passed and they could start calling it "New Age", they got more gigs, and they stopped calling me for them. Win-win, that was. But in retrospect, Oregon was "hotter" than they seemed to me at the time, very engaged playing, and nowhere near as limp as a lot of people who followed claiming to be in their lineage (you may remember when Windham Hill came along and stole the hearts of millions, the label that was essentially ECM with the jazz removed... ... ...). It just took me a while to feel where they were coming from. Still a place I come at from "the outside", but I've gotten used to the view, and it's all good now.

T.D. Jakes Tommy Dorsey Dorsey Levens

How big is that sum?, that would be my answer. I do like the Cello Quartets, though, but I also like his Rhodes work on The Age Of Steam just as much, totally different realms equally well inhabited. But sometimes he just doesn't connect with me on a pleasurably level (that duet w/Red Mitchell actually irked me for some reason I still can't identify)...but sometimes he does. Go figure. Different strokes, etc. I think we'd all agree that his skill set is pretty damn immense, and to me, that's what should be universally recognized. Everything else is personal.

That Barry Harris clip is great - an impeccably informed dislike of the tune, based on a full understanding of it.

You know, I fully understand this, and for a long time defaulted to it, and largely still do, with the exception, now, that I'm willing to take that as a given going in, and appreciate what I hear that I like (and disregard what I don't), as not being an "expression of core self" and instead look at i as a sort of high-level cleverness, and yes, "clever" is always going to be just that, but also "high-level" creates its own world of sorts, a world of "amusement" if you will, and that's not something I can disregard, even though it is not something I can fully embrace without at least one level of protection, if you know what I mean. Yes, life is short, and yes, there is too much truly great music to fully engage in, but otoh, when the choice comes between choosing fully present "self"/second rate "execution" & less present "self"/first-rate "execution", it's not that I'm valuing the former less as time goes by, but I am respecting the latter more than I used to. Maybe it's just that "doing the work" means more to me more now than ever. Somebody like Kellaway has done a lot of "the work", more than a great many, actually, and if it has not been in the service of "self" as much as it has been in the service of....service, then so be it. It is what it is. In a way, several ways, actually, he reminds me of a latter-day Dick Hyman. Hyman gave a clinic at NT back in the day ( a very surprising choice, as nothing he did or said was relevant to "NT values") & his whole thing was playing "the history of jazz piano" from Joplin to Cecil to Jarrett and all steps in between. His was a masterful recreation, and he made it a point to highlight in his demonstrated the idiosyncrasies of each player. This wasn't a generic "overview", this was a really insightful dissection. But at the end of it, a lot of us asked each other, well, ok, but who is Dick Hyman himself? Is there one? It wasn't a disrespectful wondering, it was just kinda...wow, this guy has a lot of skills, but...what then? Of course, years later, it became apparent that Dick Hyman did have massive skills, and if he was not a strong "individual voice", he was a strong addition to many kinds of a gig, Dick Hyman was not going to fuck up a gig, right? and that's a value of its own,a very real value. Of course, it doesn't answer the question of "who IS Dick Hyman", but it does posit the possibility that the answer is simple - Dick Hyman is a guy who will not fuck up a gig, if you call Dick Hyman for your gig, rest assured that he will not fuck it up in any way, shape, form, or fashion. There are far worse answers! To me, Roger Kellaway is an extension of that "mentality", only with a lot more "modern" options at his disposal. He's known to be a very avid "fan" of "contemporary classical" music (in most of its forms), and he never does not bring that to the mix. So, think of Roger Kellaway as the next-generation Dick Hyman, amped up on Messiaen and such, and you might have something tangible as to who the "real" Roger Kellaway is. Then, proceed accordingly, etc. A more interesting "comparison", though, might be Clare Fischer, another guy whose tastes were broad & expressions diverse. Fischer, it has always seemed to me, had a core "self" to an extent that Kellaway has perhaps never displayed, or at least not a fully. There are times when Clare Fischer's music seemed just flat out nuts, whereas Kellaway's best has been...interesting. All of it in a good way, but there is that difference.... Having said all this, I will summarize by saying that if Roger Kellaway came to my town with his own program, I would likely go see it, but if he came as a single to play tunes in a club or an auditorium, I might just as easily forget to go.

Bigger than a mere Eli-vis, it's a website of bottomless scope, spread, and recongealed stereo: http://bluenote1553.tumblr.com/

My order from Amazon.uk arrived...Monday, I think it was? Later than some here got theirs, but, it appears, earlier than some others. I got no shipping notices, though, which I found odd (especially since I got a shipping notice this evening from Amazon.it that I can not read one freakin' word of, a shipping notice and a promotional credit for some kind of a something, two separately sent emails sent in a language I do not understand, vs none sent in one that I do). Just went out to the mailbox one day, and there it was, Hello To You From Miles Davis, From Love, United Kingdom. So maybe there's some trans-oceanic skullduggery going on here that we might now want to know about, because if they told us they'd ahve to kill us, so, just, you, know, enjoy your CDs and leave the driving to us, ok? Just be patient and let your mailbox be there for you when the time comes.

Brown-Eyed Girl The Isley Brothers Shout Factory

Yeah, I've seen them all, on Crackle, through Roku. I hear the web versions have additional material, though, so I need to get to those. And I'm in no way a "car guy" either, not like that, but this show makes me feel like I should be. Such glorious rides, each in their own way, all of them!

B.T. Express Yourself Your Mamma

That whole series is a favorite of mine. Most of the episodes range from pretty damn good to absolutely killing. A few, not so much, but how much did you pay to see it, right? Mostly, yes, very good stuff. The Don Rickles one in particualr, I watch that one over and over, and I'm not really a "fan" of Rickles per se. Hey. Yes. This right here. Not getting that anywhere else, and dammit, I need that on my TV, if not everywhere. But TV will do for now, at least until it's not there anymore.

Is the PJ "Joyspring" in fact the first recording of the tune? I said earlier that it was, but now I'm wondering.

60 Years Of Music America Loves Best, if you want to go there, although for how long and/or for what purpose, that's between you and your soul and how you like the odds going in and of coming out. But yeah, Let it serve as recommendation and/or warning that this was in the household growing up for as long as I can remember and got played fairly regularly, part of the benefits/hazards of belonging to the RCA Record Club, ok? I mean, my answer to the question, "Jeez, how many Frankie Carle records do you need, anyway?" would not have been the same as my dad's, but otoh, hey, I knew who Caruso and Duke Ellington and Hugo Winterhalter were before I could write cursive, so...whatever, to name but a few. Definite win, though - I did not learn Day-O at no stinkin' ballpark. Ok?

Uh, excuse me but I think that you got my chair, says Eddie WHO?

Wanted to go to Houston tonight, but life got in the way. That and tickets went faster than I could accommodate. Hope that all who are able to go are touched and moved. Steve, hope you enjoy those Evans concerts. It's not "the same" as hearing Gil in his time, there's that gap that just has to be accepted. But I got over it with Trusedell's CD, took me about three listens to accept the fact that nobody was ever going to play with that exact feel unless they there at the time, and then...oh well, ok? It's still written at such a damn high level of...everything that if you just play it right, it takes care of itself. Now, that's a far sight easier said than done, and to one extent or another, that's true of all music. But this stuff, shall we say, responds quite well to proper execution, if you know what I mean. Depending on which year it was, I would give a year off my life to hear "The Barbara Song" played really well live. If we're talking about the not so good years, more than one. Quality over quality, etc.

I used to have Spirit Feel, then sold it, then a few years bought it again. No regrets one way or the other, about any of those transactions. OTOH, I bought Stride! a few years ago and was almost instantly upon listening filled with deep regrets beyond the total capacity of linear measurements. He's one of those guys who can be really interesting and really irritating, often at the same time. But there, credit goes to not being "invisible", ok? He has a lot of decisions at his disposal, so if some are not so fun to hear, hey, you know? Ain't no living in a perfect world, at least not all the time. But hello world (doggone ya'), how many of us heard him every damn week without realizing it at first?

Them What Devils The Ham Them What Made Some Typewriters Tim Watts

I'm no longer a rabid nightly viewer-fan, but still very much a fan. When I watch a talk show in that time slot, it will always be Dave, as long as he's there. Also have a very strong sentimental attachment to his shows for personal reasons not worth going into in detail. But those shows have been in my life only a few weeks less than my wife has. Smirking, mean-spirited, condescending, whatever, I've heard it for decades from some (but not many, overall!) and I'm not particularly sympathetic to the complaints. The guy is funny as hell (was, still can be on a good night), a true innovator, and if he's deeply/darkly cynical at times, too bad. Life frequently be like that, so you might as well get a laugh out of it when it is. If you want to whine or cry, do it in private. If you're in public, laugh for crissakes. And laugh at yourself before all others! In the beginning, it was magic damn near every night. Now it's just...an occasional visit with an old cranky funny guy, and pretty soon it will be just memories. I can relate to that.

Oh great. Now I have a legitimate reason for feeling old and depressed simultaneously and perpetually.