JSngry

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

Wow, the concept of "we don't make it until you order it" applied to a "record store" that only cariies bootlegs, that's the hippest thing ever, quite probably. You get only the FRESHEST records at Boris Rose Records!

And also get that head out of you ass. David's right - just executing the score is not the end game, it's just the beginning of the game. Sore-headed reactionary projections to the contrary, "Interpretation" does not mean the simple projection of one's scoiological fetishes onto a piece of music. No, it means exmining the socre and then finding greater shapes, contours, transitions, ccolors, main points, secondary points, passages that reinforce, passages that contrast, finding all these disparate elements and making them come together into a unified statement, a true composition, not just a composite of materials. The beauty of interpreting music is that there's not necessarily one correct "interpretation". Lots (well, sometimes) of different ways to interpret any given piece and still have it speak. A recording or a live performance is not just a score for the ears. Now, yes, I lot of socioscatlogical baggage gets thrown around in terms of trying to tell people what something "means", and ok, that's a whole 'nother world right there, and for me, make that universe a parallel one, please, but jesus christ, a listener who has a broad and/or deep resource bank, one who knows music well enough to understand the musical aspects of interpretation, they can, do, and should have ideas about what works or not, and then can, will, and should not necessarily reflect any particular "conventional wisdom". Anybody who listens seriously has this ability, and anybody who produces music seriously has an imperative to to this, although the rewards for not doing it are greater now than ever before. Personally, I have found Adorno and his crew to be irksome pecking hecklers of big minds and small spirits, the type of people who may be right more often than not, but you'd still rather be anyplace in the world than in a room with them, even if they should accidentally be keeping their mouths shut, but when David says that: I get what he means - simply that for him, the music has not yet been examined, put together, and interpreted to the point that a cohesive vision for it as music (quite apart from any sociological meanings) has not yet been found, that work remains to be done in finding the music inside the music, that so far, what he's hear is just a score for the ears, with the upshot of that being that if you can in fact read a score, there's really no need to actually hear the music itself, and is that really what the object of the game is? And the whole rehearse-record syndrome, that is endemic to some many different musics. On a good day with good participants, good things can happen, but there is no substitute for living with the music you record for a while before you record it. I don't care what the idiom is. At some point, there's a peak right before ongoing discovery starts rolling downhill into complacency, and in a perfect world, that peak is what you document. But in a regular world, you just try to get the best that's there a the time. Now, I've never heard this Weinberg cat, nor can I guarantee that I ever will. But it's highly unlikely that it's anything that is so self-evidently brilliant that all you have to do is play it once and listen to it once and BAMWHOOSH there you are at the top of the Weinberg Mountain. Nothing's like that.

Nick Venet JohnBenet Ramsey Clark Terry

How do you explore the future? You can't explore it if you're not there, and if you're there, then it's not the future, it's the present. Maybe the best chance you have at making the future is to create the present, but that's not always as easy as it sounds. Other presents can come out of (seemingly, but not really) nowhere, collisions occur, and then it's like, wtf? has happened here, and now?

Good Neighbor Sam Neighborhood Watch Captain Kangaroo Court

The other Tommy Flanagan.

"No one" is not quite accurate, but it was probably no more than 150 or so. Glad the home town could do significantly better!

Sir Galahad The Wild And Peaceful Heart The One Who Makes The Rain Stop

The Texas Rangers thank you for noticing that Texas is now a city, one bigass giant city with some, but not all, areas waiting to be populated by people, places, and/or things. Rick Perry, Mayor of Texas!

Played the Houston Eye Ball last night (a charity event for Prevent Blindness) and the guest of honor was none other than Bob Aspromonte! Said a quick hello and got a watm handshake. Bob Aspromonte, who was, upon retirement, the last Brooklyn Dodger left standing in MLB. http://www.csnhouston.com/blog/astros-talk/aspromontes-be-honored-eye-ball-2014

Hey Ken, knock off work at lunch & make a quick jaunt down to Houston. Catch The Cookers and then come by the Prevent Blindness Ball. Or maybe just catch The Cookers and head back home....yeah, that's the better idea! Seriously, I did not know that Cecil McBee was 79. Still playing beautifully. All those guys are.

I'll say goodbye to Ralph Kiner, if nobody else will.

Believe it or not, the most hazardous stretch I ran into was getting out of my neighborhood. After that, everything was clear as Saran Wrap. No patches, not nothing. I actually made Denton in less time than usual because traffic was so light. 121 to 35 like it was past everybody's bedtime. Did NOT see that one coming! Anyway, The Cookers were inspiring (I had no idea that Cecil McBee was 79!). George Cables, Eddie Henderson, and the two real surprises for me - Billy Hart & Donald Harrison. Records do neither of them jsutice. And Jabali is said to have flown in from Japan that morning. Such power, again, records do not do him justice, at least not the way I've heard them. Billy Hart can flat out drive a band. And of course, Billy Harper. Billy Harper is just one of my guys, period. Horn, composition, philosophy, everything, he leans into that sound, and yeah, that's where I go when I want to go to a better place. Was able to talk to David Weiss for a quick chat afterwards too, nice guy, warm, friendly, and oh by the way, helluva player. Go see The Cookers when/if the chance comes around, and go see Billy Harper even if you gotta walk.

I'm still a little amused at how unprepared mentally Denver seemed to be. Seattle was gonna rock'em, sure, but Denver that decision to go on 4th and 2 in the 2nd, that was just stupid, like uhhhhh....why are we here again? Things like that, your center puts the opening snap up and out, wtf kind of "preparation" is that? Laughable, that's what kind it is.

I think I might kill a motherfucker trying to take my Chobani, especially a stranger. Well, ok, "kill" is a bit harsh, but only because of the implications.

Bummer, man, sorry to hear that. Things are looking better up here, thank goodness. Called the box office, and they said that Denton is fine right now. Channel 5 confirmed via live report. But Dallas proper, lots of reports of not-so-good, and now that the sun is going down, who knows? That black ice is treacherous. I'm going to start going, that's all I can say for sure...

The snow has stopped, thankfully. We got enough to see white in the yards, but December was a lot worse (and was ice, not snow). Looks like roads will be mostly drivable with caution (which in Texas....good luck on that one). The show is in Denton and sponsored by the school. Pretty sure it will not be cancelled. I'm planning on heading out, see how the roads are, and plowing (no pun intended) ahead unless something ends up being totally bonked. For those coming from Dallas, I'm not so sure but that taking the Tollway all the way up to 121, or maybe even 287, and then coming over to 35 from there might not be better. 121 is expressway now, and 287 is well traveled four-lane. 35 going north is notoriously a jungle of WTF-ness during early evening hours, and throw in this weather...just a thought. One never knows until one gets there. Funny thing, I have a charity ball gig in Houston tomorrow night. Maybe i can catch The Cookers while on break there....and then not go back.

I've never seen that album before - I know Time Cycle, but not Echoi. And I know a Larry Rivers portrait when I see one. Cool! That inspired me to pull out the version on Wergo. Different players, but also features a well-known composer on piano, this time Lukas Foss himself. The copy I found is pretty noisy, and apparently it's a rare-ish item, but seriously, the group that plays Echoi is in a zone. Superb execution is one thing (and the group on Time Cycle gets to that point). But these other cats go past that and bring that "fully engaged RIGHT NOW" feeling that only the best musics have. A cleaner copy at a higher price would definitely be something I'd consider, I think it's that good.

This snow is supposed to be lightening up....it's getting heavier instead...c'mon now, snow, we got a Billy Harper gig to get to tonight...Denton ain't but a 45 minute to an hour drive, so cooperate with us, ok?

Still, learned a new word.

If there was still any doubt that Al Jackson was god, this should dispel it. But Duck Dunn sittehed at the left side of god, and is entertaining as hell to watch in the process. And they still "don't know" who murdered Al Jackson. How does that work, exactly?

Diana Ross Hank Ballard Brian Wilson

May be, but I'd hit it, if not for already gonna be out of town on a gig on Valentine's Day. Dallas, your game is getting mighty lite (like anybody who could do anything about it is gonna care, much less read this...).

(Shaking head): Paul, Paul, Paul.... Okay - if folks can enlighten me as to what I'm missing, my ears are open. If nothing else, incredible fluidity/fluency of execution and superbly full & even tone in all registers. Chu Berry played without hesitation, intellectually or physically. Remarkable even today, but especially so then, in light of the relative "newness" of the instrument, not just to "jazz", but to music as a whole. That much is objective. Everything else, subjective.