JSngry

Avoid the strictly/directly personal attacky stuff, please, some (from multiple posters) of which has just been removed. Passions will rise, but let's not let them flare, ok? Save that for the gigs and/or the face-to-face (which tempting as it is to perceive as such, this forum is not).

That's fine as far as it goes, as a basic sound-bite and/or macro-starting point but the reality is that life in America, especially rural southern America has been such that although black & white experiences have not been the "same" (damn near impossible in an environment of direct and after-shock of unfettered apartheid-or-worse, they have very, very often been overlapped, and the poorer you get (and there have been all kinds of poor people in the American South), that overlapping has been more than casual, and the ongoing effects have been mutual. To claim that overlap as the entire story is dishonest, but it's just as dishonest to not accept it as part of the whole, and wholeness is what we're all after, I should think/hope/wonder. I really, really have no - I mean zero - tolerance for the "white apologist crybaby" line, the whole "hey, it's our music TOO" lines that keep popping up from people who have probably never lived in a warm-weather climate in their life, much less belonged to a social culture that was based on living off the land in some form or fashion. Too often, that comes across as "hey, I get it, I can play it, so I can own it", and well, ok, you can own what you do in it, but the bigger "it" is not yours to own (or any one person, really, and besides, "owning" is useful only for selling, and there we go with all that again). But somewhere along the line, the reality gets more blurred than it all being just one thing coming from just one place. "Our" music as an expression of purely racial identity, I get that. (And nobody has issues with "Latin" music, or "European" music or anything like that. Or even "African" music. But "Black American Music" just pisses the holy shit out of a huge number of people, it seems, and really, I don't get it. I mean, I get it, but I don't GET it). But it (ALL of "our" musics) forms a pretty large set of tributaries that ultimately have to end up feeding in the greater river of "Our" music as a larger cultural, and eventually universal, identity. Drying up and/or attempting to divert the various tributaries is not wise, as it will ultimately fuck up the big river (and nature will have its way eventually and put everything back like it was meant to be anyway). But trying to avoid the big river is just as foolish, because...you can't stop running water. As far as "black anti-semitism", well, that's playing with fire, but a more on-point question - especially now - would simply be, what do we have to do to get away from THIS, and who do we have to get away from to get there?" I guarantee you that there are a lot more "we"s who want to get away from "this" than just Black "we"s, more than a few of them Jewish and/or White. Now how many of them (any/all of them) just want to get away from this so as only to become The New Boss (who really is Same As The Old Boss), I can't tell you. My gut feeling is that it's more than a few. But effective action can only result from aiming at an accurate target, and the whole "Jews" thing is like...put on some glasses before you fire that gun, son, lest you hit us all, friend and foe alike. Basically, I'm tired of everybody telling everybody else who they are and why nobody else can be them and why yes I can be you and blahblahblah. Just be who you are, dammit, that's hard enough to figure out right there, that's a life's work right there.., never mind who is everybody else and who is not. On the whole, people are fools. Often lovable, but even more often fools. But that's what we got to work with, so...work with it we must.

John Ore E. Power Biggs O. Henry

Otis Redding Live In Europe, though....I'll not get that on CD unless and until I lose the LP (god forbid). Two perfectly sequenced sides, each whole unto themselves, yet both combining into one. You can listen to one side or the other, but if you listen to both you damn near have to listen to them in order, else what's the point?

Always enjoyed Stanley Dance & Joe Goldberg, a.o. And David A. Himmelstein, if only for this epic:

Don't know them well enough to make specific recommendations, but I've heard enough of Zap Mama to know that the day is coming. Not so much "harmony" (although there is that) as a very broad timbral palate, very arresting in "vocal group" terms.

Oh, if you want to hear some mind-bending Hi-Los/Fischer, check out the version of "There's A Small Hotel" on This Time It's Love. The first chorus is normal enough, but what happens thereafter, and what incentivized it to happen...I can't help you there, I really can't. As long as we're including Gospel groups, this edition of the Statesmen Quartet was pretty much all the way there.

The entire broadcast is available in the "classical" blogisphere. Doubt that here's any copyright infringement involved, but just in case, here's a non-woking link that should be reverse-engineerable w/o too much difficulty: http://metrognomemusic.blogspot.cXX/2013/11/nXXember-22-19XX.html

It's associated with Country Gospel music, and therefore corny/rigid/etc. everything that a rock/pop group doesn't want to be. But I'm kinda like oh well about that.I like that bass. The bass works to make the upper notes pop more, it's just overtones, science, really.

GEORGE FREDERIC HANDEL Concerto Grosso, Op. 3, No. 1 WILLIAM SYDEMAN Study for Orchestra No. 2 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Funeral March from Symphony No. 3 in E-flat SERGEI RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 Idil Biret, piano Boston Symphony Orchestra ERICH LEINSDORF, conductor Symphony Hall, Boston, MA on 22 November 1963

So sorry to hear of this. Whatever peace you can find, try to build on that going forth...easier said than done, I know, but...

Yes, Cassandra Wilson, especially if one contemplates the different realities between being a jazz singer and being a singer who sings jazz-sounding music.

Now that Gene Puerling's gone, Take 6. Maybe even before Gene Puerling left. These guys know how it works. There seems to have been a resurgence of a capella and/or "harmony singing" the last few years, and I hear a lot of groups that do indeed sing well and do indeed take advantage of having 4-or more part, but the number of groups that understand the actual mechanics of harmony well enough to extend & extrapolate out past the basic diatonic are, like, few or none. But like Puerling, Take 6 loves to move that shit all around, in, out, and back again, and yeah, it gets fun when that happens.

Yeah, it's white-bread/jingle/cotton candy/whatever. I don't care. Gene Puerling was a badass, a total badass. We all die, and just a very small handful of us end up being total badasses, so...I'll leave the "categorization" to the living and/or the trivial among us.

Looks like all you gotta do to get a free Chris Dave joint/sampler/mixtape/compilation/promo-discwhatever (23 tunes, 66 minutes} is agree to receive the newsletter. http://chris-dave.com/download-drumhedz-mixtape/

whoa...have not heard these Drumhedz before...will remedy that ASAP.

http://www.concertvault.com/schlitz-midnight-jam-session-band/radio-city-music-hall-july-06-1972.html Sessions 2 & 3 look like they're from the Newport In New York jams released on Cobblestone, though w/o tune names, I don't know that it might be other material from the same gigs. The set with Mingus, though, that was a serious. m.f., that one was By the way - when you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer.

I'd like to think that it's possible for both to happen at the same time, and that the partiers are still receiving and processing the "technical" information, just differently than the "dedicated listener", who I'd also like to think is receiving and processing the "social" information. Of course, the more attuned one is to either/both of those elements, the more through is the conscious (and sub/unconscious as well?) processing that goes on, so for me the best of all worlds is for music - any music - to stimulate the brain, the body, and the spirit as thoroughly as possible - and for me to be in the right "place" to handle it all that way. Some days are better than others in that regard, but the really good ones, hey, life is good. When we talk about people and places where "music is part of the fabric of everyday life", that may well be what we're talking about, a state where playing/listening/experiencing don't get separated out like ingredients in a recipe or science experiment. And to me, that's the ideal, if it ain't broke, don't take it apart...and if you do have to take it apart, maybe it's not working right in the first place. No matter. I do not accept that "close listening" in an end unto itself. I do believe that it is a very important means to an even more important end, but only if you're not already there, in which case, hey, onward!

One to get if you can find it:

Bimbo Jimbo Zimbo

As fro the Vegh, the above-mentioned set appears to be reissues of their 1972-74 recordings, but - Music and Arts released a set of an earlier cycle, recorded in 1952, and if this reviewer has tastes/ears like mine, this is the set I would really want to hear: http://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-7667/ Unfortunately, the M&A set has long come and gone, and look at these prices today! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005NG65/ref=dm_dp_cdp?ie=UTF8&qid=1385227197&s=music&sr=1-4 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00005NG65/sr=1-20/qid=1385227114/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1385227114&seller=&sr=1-20

That Quartets set that Paul Secor keeps showing is a great set at a great price from Berkshire.

Here's a different perspective on the trade and its longer-term meaning for both teams: http://www.minorleagueball.com/2013/11/21/5130606/tigers-rangers-prince-fielder-ian-kinsler-jurickson-profar-nick-castellanos-trade It wasn't that any one player failed to replace Hamilton's offense last year nearly as much as it was that the collection of players who were projected to either step up or fill in failed to do so, and in no uncertain terms. So, David Murphy - enjoy Cleveland. Nelson Cruz - enjoy your shopping. Mitch Moreland -yeah, just what IS your role now. Giovonny Soto - yeah, you're still here, and have gotten a vote of confidence, but...Merry Christmas, and then back to reaality, ok?

Remembering Ian Kinsler, Texas Ranger: http://www.lonestarball.com/2013/11/22/5132242/some-thoughts-and-some-things-about-ian-kinslers-career-with-texas

I'll always go to war for and with the men (and women) of the people. But these guys are the People Of The Man. Fundamental difference there! New faces, but the same tired old game - manufacturing heroes. Don't be fooled by nobility/rightness of cause. Any cause is only as noble/right as the people who bring it about, not the people whom it is purported to benefit. At one level, I get, I really do, the visceral satisfaction that one of "our" fuckheads is better than one of "their" fuckheads, just because it's refreshing and new and the "tone" will be different, and yes, all that does matter. But at the end of the day (or week, month, year, whatever) you still got fuckheads doing what it is that fuckheads do. So the question of who do you want being the fuckhead is just a diversionary tactic designed to keep all the fuckheads in the game. And fuckheads love nothing more than having themselves a game to be in, you can sure believe that! How about this question - kill (figuratively, of course) ALL the fuckheads, and let's see what happens then. Just let people be. This notion that replacing colonialism with "xenophobia" (perhaps not the best word, sorry, but I'm in a hurry) is neither enlightened nor practical, nor, truthfully, humane, not in the least. It's just shoveling the bullshit from one field to another.