JSngry

One more thing...I've gotten less and less determined to have music as I "like" it in order to "appreciate" it. This in regard to some of the comments about certain players in this band...I've heard the group live just once (fairly early on at that), but, you know, shows circualte these days...and this music is all about making choices of the moment in the moment, and I've never heard any of the individual players make a choice that just fucks everything up, ya' know, brings everything to a screeching halt or throws everybody off so much that pfffllllttttt the whole thing goes. Seems to me that everybody is attuned enough to everybody else that whatever input comes is taken in with an implicit, deep trust, which in improvisational music is a much more rare - and ballsy - quality than might be imagined. Even "pure improvisers" have comfort zones... Just sayin' - different players might make this band different, but different would not necessarily be better. Sometimes "it is what it is" is more valuable than "it's not what it should be", especially if "it is what it is" is what everybody involved collectively wants/needs it to be.

The funny thing about the current group is that conceptually it started taking off where the very earliest Weather Report left off, just with acoustic textures & with Wayne as the "dominant" driver (or if you like, alpha Male ) instead of Zawinul. so it's not like nobody's ever even though of doing anything like this before. But those are big differences in how the results turn out and in what direction they've eventually gone. For me personally, I think it's a great way to think and play, to have reference points (i.e. - compositions) in place as reference points without ever needing to explicitly mark them out as you go along or even having them unfold is a set order, or even to exist as "this, now this, now this". You can have "this and this, then this while that but be ready to bring this in too, or to take it out" and so on.. Structural fluidity to the max. And that's not a really "new" concept either, but this group of players and this group of material does end up being quite unique and, if they hit their zone and the listener is in theirs, exciting. I get how it might be too "abstract" for some folks, but hell, jazz itself, any of it, is too abstract for a lot of people. Oh well! So yeah, I've got this pre-ordered, and yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing it. I've never not looked forward to hearing what Wayne's got to say now, even if some of it is more gripping than others. None of it has ever been even remotely cheap or worthless. It's always made sense to me, both the "what" and the "why". So if I say that Footprints Live grabbed me more than Beyond The Sound Barrier, all that's saying is that on the former, we were more in the same place at the same time than on the latter, which is, of course, always as subject to reexamination and redistribution as this music itself is.

Yeah, I get people not liking this stuff, or the electric stuff from earlier, or whatever, not everybody relates to everything, but the music itself....there is no slacking going on there, ever. The guy's always been moving in one direction or the other, and he's been consistently precise in doing it. No guesswork or easy solutions or haphazard "close enough"-ness. Wayne ain't going for the okie-doke in his own music, ever. If somebody doesn't like it or can't follow it, hey, c'est la vie, different strokes, all that. But it ain't because Wayne ain't doing shit, that much is certain. And fwiw, I've known people who thought/think (some are dead now, some aren't) that Wayne was bullshitting from Day One, in his Blakey & Vee-Jay days. For real!

Not you, but...I've heard this "what the hell happened to Wayne" talk for almost as long as I've been actively listening to jazz, and....it's silly, really. What happened to Wayne? Nothing, really, he's just kept on being Wayne. It's not like he's a pet or something who's expected to stay by your side and be loyal at all times, ya' know. And it's not like he all of a sudden started playing badly and writing trite music for sitcom themes or something like that. Quite the opposite. So, yeah, Wayne be Wayne. Same as it ever was. 5 stars for demonstrating the ability to separate the objective and the subjective and also combine them into a single thought.

Poor Wayne, so many people haven't really "approved" of his new works for almost 40 years now, and he still keeps moving ahead anyway. You'd think he'd have learned by now that he's got nothing left to say and/or that he used to be somebody. All this music he's been making, the stuff that keeps finding new forms and colors and group aesthetics, it's all just....THE DELUSIONS OF A MAD MAN!!!!!! Poor Wayne. I guess he's too far gone by now. I'm sure that music will eventually ignore him, just as he has ignored it.

No more Harbaugh vs Harbaugh Super Bowls again, ever, please.

Is that Ray Brown on #13?

Listen to that vibrato and that lower register. That sounds like later Dexter!

The Statesmen Quartet The International Sweethearts Of Rhythm Galactic Cowboys

I think there's a theme here of live recordings, not all (if any?) commercially released. Always fun to deal with that stuff! So, the usual thanks and disclaimers in place, away we go! TRACK ONE - "Darn that Dream". Impeccable technique, and/but a little stiff and/or "prepared" for my taste. Some Django-y influences too. Joe Pass? TRACK TWO - "In A Sentimental Mood". Flute tone goes from sounding intentionally overblown like Dolphy or Kirk to sounding just a little uncontrolled. At times one might think it was a baritone penny-whistle (if there is such a thing) or some such. But the phrasing is really together, so...music trumps instrument, and that's a win, always. The only flutist I know of that regularly plays with that kind of rrrreeeaaaalllllyyyy deliberate pace is Sam Most, but I don't think this is him. Maybe...an older Yusef Lateef? In which case, everything is very intentional. I love that about Yusef. TRACK THREE - IASM again, this time by a seemingly significantly more accomplished flautist. My initial impulse was Buddy Collette and Jim Hall! The approach to the instrument of this player and the previous one couldn't be more dramatic, but in both cases, in the end it's the music getting played that stays in the mind, not "how" the instrument is played. TRACK FOUR - "Giant Steps". There's that Mickey Tucker version, but that was studio and this is live. I seldom get moved by what anybody does on this tune. Trane used it as an exercise to open up some math for him, but very few other people have been able to get past just the math. Admittedly, the math is a bitch, but...that's just me, though. TRACK FIVE - Clark Terry? If it's not, it could be! TRACK SIX - "But Beautiful" and damn, once again, the phrasing is just wonderful. Everything is in service of the melody, everything.Spaces in all the right places, and, yeah, let them speak. Nobody values space any more unless it's as a self-conscious effect or something like that. No, just sing the song and let each phrase resonate before going on to the next one. At first I thought this was an alot, such was the richness of the upper overtones. But no, it's a tenor.The use of the side keys reminds me of Fathead, as does the tone in parts. But not consistently. I heard one phrase @ 1:31 that sounded like Houston Person. Whoever it is knows the lyrics as well as they know the melody and, yeah, ok, that's what happens when you know the whole song, you can get inside it like this. It is very beautiful, no buts about it. TRACK SEVEN - "But Beautiful" again, and that's Dexter, I believe. Everything I said about the last player, same here. TRACK EIGHT - "Recorda Me"...not really feeling this one. Everybody gets their licks in, but that's all I really hear - licks. Instrumentation suggests one of these Timeless All Stars bands, but the playing, not so much. TRACK NINE - "Monk's Mood" into "Body And Soul". Maybe a little "frantic" in spots, but it seems to all be of a piece, so it's all good. Seems to be somebody who has paid attention to Jaki Byard, but maybe not the same parts I would have...Roger Kellaway is this goofy sometimes, is this him? TRACK TEN - "Isfhan" played through a Mingus-y lens. The alto player had me for the melody, I'm like, ok, if we're gonna do this thing, then let's do it. But then the solo comes, and it's like, no we're not gonna do this thing, and I'm, ok, well, that's you're prerogative, but now all I got is a come-on and then a never mind, kind of a bait and switch, and then I fell like, hey, I've been Marsalised! But I do like the background horns, or at least how they're recorded. They got that part right. And that's such a great tune. TRACK ELEVEN - Coulda been really noodle-y, lord knows that melody would encourage it, but actually not noodle-y at all. So I like it just/if only for for resisting temptation. Not as easy as you might think. TRACK TWELVE - No idea, but I find it very attractive and...human (in a good way). My earliest memory of accordion is Muzzy Marcelino every afternoon on Art Linkletter's House Party, and those are good memories, so I've never had the aversion to the instrument that many do. Also interesting here is how the accordion's lower notes sound like a bass harmonica (you can learn something from studying Brian Wilson!), which makes sense when you consider that they're pretty much the same instrument, wooden reeds that vibrate from moving air across them. DAMN this is nice! TRACK THIRTEEN - "Easy Living". Vocalist sounds like a cross between Carmen McRae and Nancy Wilson...Ernestine Anderson and Scott Hamilton? Or, to go another route - Frank Wess? Or Flip Phillips? Phrasing is rather symmetrical though, play, stop, play, stop, lather, rinse, repeat, but in a nice way, not complaining. so I would lean towards Hamilton. I like the singer, she leaves spaces. I've played behind a lot of singers, and you know, they want to to play "fills" and then they don't leave any damn space to play them in - and then bitch when you step on them. Well, hey, here's a lesson. And the tenor player plays no fills at all! But that's cool, I'd listen to this singer too. And the piano player is playing nice chords, and the bass player GOT this, ok? TRACK FOURTEEN - Hey, how many medleys of "Nuages" & "Going Out Of My Head" could there be? http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/jazzdownloadv.php?id=1564#.UQyMVme41Hg There are some really truly gorgeous ballads on this BFT. And the accordion thing, wow..I like a melody, no matter how you want to define "melody" (and my definition is pretty wide open). But if you're doing "songs", hell yeah, definitely understand the melody, understand that there are probably words to go with it (and if there's not, make some of your own), understand that space is the ultimate resonator, understand that licks and music exist a Venn Diagram with very, very little intersection. There's some things on here where everybody involved gets that.Gotta clear some space on the iPod for those. Thanks for the gift, much enjoyed and sincerely appreciated.

Pete Barbuti tells it better than anybody.

OTB&B

Here's another source for the article: http://www.arcamax.com/entertainment/entertainmenttoday/s-1272918

From a Whipper to a Whopper!

I feel sucker-punched by the German Sticker Authorities, like a Collector's Human Rights Violation. Can I petition the U.N. for redress of my grievances?

Like the music, got a copy of the broadcasts a while back, now have a moral compunction as well as a musical pleasure to buy this officially.

When it comes to Gwens, make mine McCrae.

Goody Two-Shoes Puss In Boots Mistress Kitty

Jude Law Vernon Law Mitt Romney

Peter Duel Simon Peter Joe Simon

Wilkrist Buildings, Inc. whose president is Mark Stein: http://www.wilkrist.com/index.php/home Mark Stevens, the brains behind Sunkist sodas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunkist_%28soft_drink%29 Armand Hammer, who maybe enjoyed a good soda, but who also owned stock in the company that owned Arm & Hammer Baking Soda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hammer

whoa...