JSngry

Yes. There are, generally, no easy "either/or"s with Oliver Nelson. Conflict, both internal & external, both in the music and in the business surrounding it, is more or less built in to all of it. This was not a guy who was hellbent on being one thing to one group, this was a guy who was determined to be one thing to a lot of different people, to get it in there somehow, somewhere, and to get paid well for doing it. Worth quoting Amiri Baraka here, from Black Music,:about ..."Oliver Nelson's use of R&B and so-called "Mickey Mouse" music to beautiful effect" and that "some, like Oliver Nelson, occasionally, they have taken their talents and gone on over to Marlboro Country, where all dee big dough is"... Now, if we as "jazz fans" get uncomfortable with the notion of an Oliver Nelson packing up and moving into Marlboro Country, we should also consider that such a move did not occur without the landscape of Marlboro Country going unchanged as a result, and that whatever one ultimately thinks about and hopes to see happen to Marlboro Country, it will likely always exist, and, really who was ultimately fucked with more by Oliver Nelson moving there, us or them? I don't know that there's an easy answer to that one, either, so...yet again with the conflict. At the root, conflict, all kinds of conflict.

My copy doesn't have the yellow thing on the cover, but does have the original insert. Apart from that, excellent, especially the Mahler, the orchestration of which very much intrigues me for some reason I can't yet pinpoint. But both pieces breathe in a very palpable way.

Do the Comedy Math on this one...amazing, just amazing.

Pie Traynor Home Run Baker Rich Fillings http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=fillin000ric

This album is so good, so damn good...and so imperfect, so damn imperfect. My hunch is that it's going to be one of those things that doesn't change anybody's mind about anything, but will reinforce, with significantly greater certainty, whatever you already think.

Wish no more!

Jack Webb Shaaron Claridge June Foray

One w/Mariano

Yeah, ok, here we go:.

So, the Messengers saw The Beatles on Sullivan and then the next day figured oh shit, let;'s do this while we still have a chance?

The Girl From The Agency The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. The Girl From Ipanema

Clem DeRosa Professor Paradiddle Clem Kadiddlehopper

Southpaw Park Adams Gomez Addams (not to be confused with Lefty Gomez)

Peter Gunn Shelly Manne Joe Bonner

"...from now on." Priceless.

You want a drummer that looks good and sounds good - Al Jackson. Posture, balance, direction of motion translated to exact output, a flowing of energy from source to output straight through with no stops along the way. Looks easy, but isn't, looks great and is. Hey. I know we're not talking about Al Jackson here, but if any drummer looks good and really does sound good, it's no accident. It's total body muscle memory, and that never happens by accident, especially when it gets up to "that level". As for Drake, I've never heard him not be in that pocket, so...anything past that, different strokes.

I would hope that you understand that at some point, far away from the world of social criticism and/or cultural policing, long before the music even/ever gets to that point in its life, that inside the world of composing, practicing, and performing, those two are in fact the same thing, and that unless one blindly (and/or deafly) subscribes/succumbs to the notion of The One True Way of Proper Performance Practice/Rules Of Composition (and, really, even then) that those are the same thing, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, but always there, present, driving. Music has meaning within itself as well as outside of itself, and it is neither wrong nor misguided to ponder that. It is, however, wrong to assume that all such talk is rooted in the desire to control, pigeonhole, whatever. It is not. It is based in and driven by, the need/desire to understand, to have a meaning within and for one's self for what one is doing, be it as composer, player, or, yes, listener. What happens after that, hey, some days are better than others, ok, but to simply dismiss the concept of "meaning" out of hand as being intrinsically malevolent in impetus strikes me as just...neither right nor correct. David at one point used the word "judgement", and although I know what he means, I myself would use the word "decision". The whole process of creating and executing, and even experiencing, damn near anything is predicated on decisions being made and then executed at what seems to be an infinite number of levels. At some point, ok, la-di-la-di-dah, but before it gets there, hey, yes. And the closer it is to the beginning of the process, very much so. Decisions made at many different levels, not the least of which is "what is this going to be, why is it going to become this, and not that, and if so, then how?". That decision doesn't get made, then oh well, you have got nothing except, at most, more of what you already have (if even that), and it will keep on coming until that decision does get made.

All I can say about Drake i that I first heard him on record about 35 years ago, on that Fred Anderson Moers album where he was known as "Hank" Drake, that to this day, I have never knowingly had the chance to catch him live, and that if that day ever comes, I'm willing to make a fair-to-good number of adjustments (only most of which might be sane and/or sensible) to see to it that I get there. I can't say that he's exactly "overrecorded", but he's amply available on record. But - records are one thing, live is another, and I can tell from the feel on the records that live is something I want to experience with him before it's too late.

Betty Crocker Frankie Crocker Christa Helm

Internet radio might have to do the same thing these days...I use this one a fair amount: http://www.live365.com/stations/20classics I have it on my Roku, and what I really like is that there's a feature there that will email me the track info of any given thing that they're playing. So if I hear something that sounds like something I want to get more into, I just hit that button, and then at some point, check the email, do the research, and then, if desired, go shopping, all from the same chair.

Vols. 1 & 2 of The Art Of Improvising would be one of the more significant reissues ever. And if you could get all full tracks in a big box or something instead of just the 12 that Verve put out, there's a Nobel Prize in it for you, in the field of Quantum Jazz Improvisation. But first things first - the Joe Daley collection must see the light of day!

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Steven Mackey https://play.spotify.com/album/7IVmcE50FFn1Jon2ROCxip "Jackass" is a particular favorite.