JSngry

Ok what is this i don't even... https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/motown-unreleased-1962-gospel/id585361950 https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/motown-unreleased-1962-jazz/id585005250 and what else? and why? 50+ years old, nobody ever gave a shit about this and now they do? Sortakinda? Really? Reeks of desperation? Maybe? Uh, yeah?

Ah, I get cranky these days, that's all. Achy joints, slow bowels and stuff like that. I need for stuff to be lucid either in its insanity or its factuality. Normal but meaningless just makes it all worse than it already is. A lot of restaurants do that to me too, especially the ones where the servers introduce themselves, say they'll be "taking care of you" and then you get home after a mediocre meal energetically served and all your bills are still unpaid. You wanna talk about a BIG wtf?, there's one for you right there.

I don't read Myers enough to know if he's so reactionary in the face of 50-60 years of Already Done Happened so as to find 50s Rollins & Trane "un-reasonable" or something, but if so, hey...I got a Cee-Lo song for him, edited or unedited. Me, I think he's just a frequently sloppy fan-boy. Prolific, with great access, and not always uninteresting in subject matter, but a frequently sloppy fan-boy nevertheless. Nothing wrong with that per se, but like the song says, I can do bad by myself, dig? And when he shows up here (and I'm sure he will at some point, so many people do once they get wind that a bunch of "amateurs" are not crazy about their work), I'll tell him the same thing...more or less. And then he can tell me that I'm a even-more-frequently sloppy fan-boy who's not prolific, does not have great access, and who is often quite uninteresting in subject matter, and then I can say, well, yeah, but I already know that about myself (and besides, I've been called worse by better!), so what's your next point, to wit, wtf does "If the hard bop movement had a musical voice of reason, it was Hank Mobley." mean anyway. Explain that to me before you try to explain me to myself, and then let's discuss the whole Jordi Pujol thing, hmmm?

I see that it's on the Mount Vernon Music (MVM) label. FWIW, there was a Bennie Green w/Jimmy Forrest record on that label as well. But it looks like a lot of stuff was: http://www.discogs.com/label/Mount%20Vernon%20Music

Getting to this one now and liking it a good bit. A lot of the "new" jazz today doesn't really grab me because a lot of it seems kinda "been there done that" to me personally, and this guy could fall into that vibe. But his energy strikes me the right way (whatever that means), there's a deep enough personal voice that the vocabulary gets shaded into the personal, and that's all I'm looking for really. That and some skills, which he's also got. Not at all bothered by the cover either. It just looks like a isolated portion of an old Pedro Bell Funkadelic cover or something. Can't get enough Pedro Bell!

I'd like you to see if Marvin Cabell is available and affordable...that's a bit more of a request than a particular song, I know.

8 years'll do that to ya'!

That Prestige side is an unsung gem.

Oh, btw - wtf is a "exciting fanning sound"?

I don't know what this means. Me either, not quite. But it does sound somewhat related to that dire gobbet of spit that Whitney Balliett hocked up about Sonny Rollins (the "bad taste ... hair-pulling" phrase IIRC) in his liner notes for the original issue of "Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West" (a.k.a. "Grand Encounter"). Don't think those notes were reprinted in any of Balliett's collections, BTW. The passage in full would be instructive to read if anyone has access to it, because it certainly encapsulates a moment in the pipe-and-slippers mode of responses to jazz. In any case, What Myers probably means is that Mobley's relative/surface air of calm or lower intensity, versus the often extreme surface turbulence of a Rollins or a Coltrane et al., made him "the hard bop movement's musical voice of reason." No, no, a thousand times no, but I would guess that's what he was thinking. I don't even know how to guess what he's thinking, because he follows that up with this: So "anchor and dependable force" = "voice of reason"? Ok, let's go down the list: Horace Silver - so much of an anchor and so dependable that he became one of the best businessmen of his era, and maintained it until health took him out of the game. Art Blakey - not always "dependable", especially in the days right after Horace took the Messengers as his own band and the replacements were generally strung out, but he got over that. And ok, he "played loud". But more people seemed to not mind than did. Elmo Hope - Seriously? Was Elmo Hope ever anything other than an "insider's favorite"? Was he ever a "face" of the "Hard Bop movement"? Even for a quick minute? Not that I know of. Clifford Brown - Anchor? Yes. Dependable"? Totally. I guess getting killed in a car wreck was his own fault? Lee Morgan - Ok, I'll give him Lee Morgan Donald Byrd - Geez, this guy was the epitomization of reliability (and predictability, not that there's anything worng with that). Gimme a BIG break, ok? But no, I'm not buying that either, because being the "voice of reason" out of that bunch seems to inply that there was a lot of un-reasonableness going on in that group, and c'mon now, Rollins & Coltrane making Whitney Balliet and Fans Of Coll nervous and shit, and Miles pissing people off because he dared turn his back and not emcee and stuff, what does that have to do with people like Donald Byrd & Clifford Brown & Horace Silver, who were some of the most "reasonable" - and not coincidentally, successful - practitioners and presenters of "modern jazz" in their or any other time. I think what he's trying to say is that Mobley was a steady, dependable talent in a time and place where those were in no way regular qualities. But "voice of reason"? What, was Hank standing at the door giving temperance lectures, or making sure that cats didn't veer outside the changes too much, or that drummers not get too bashy, or advising everybody to cop at the agreed upon time and place so the sessions ran smoothly w/o any unpleasant surprises? Hank Mobley, Voice Of Reason, The Hard Bop Good Cop? I don't think so.

I don't know what this means.

That second cut on the first disc is the damndest thing I've heard in quite a while...all I can hear is some weird John Klemmer/Chico Hamilton/Albert Stinson thing that I know never happened, then I think it's maybe Joe Farrell and Elvin (because Chico would be totally relentless, and this drummer breaks it up every so often, and at one point he briefly hits his floor tom and it sounds like it's tuned like Elvin's), or maybe Harold Vick and somebody but no, it's not even that, then the guitarist sounds like either Tiny Grimes or Wally Richardson or Billy Butler or Gabor Szabo or Sonny Sharrock, a really quirky attack and intonation, and then the spring reverb on the amp starts making noise and then I just freakin' give up. Everybody sounds really familiar, but nothing adds up. It doesn't help that I've played it on three different sets of "speakers", none of them my main ones, and the tenor player's tone sounds just a little different on each. The slurry, full, fat upper register stuff sure sounds like John Klemmer, but if Klemmer ever made this record, I've never even come close to hearing it until now. And if he did, I want the rest of the record, like, yesterday - and I'm not a John Klemmer fan at all. Whatever - that tune is hip as shit - a nine bar thing. That extra bar at the end makes everybody take their time from chorus to chorus, and everybody involved is playing in the moment every step of the way. Just a glorious thing.

By "heavy lifting", I was referring to inflicting enough stunnage and/or brain damage on Eric Alexander to get his time into Dexter's pocket. It was a joke, as the two men's time concepts differ radically. And later Dexter is a Time Zone unto itself. It is my sincere hope that neither Mister Cables nor anybody else is up to that much heavy lifting in real life. I do hope, however, that this tribute to Dexter contains a lot of reminiscences and such, because Dexter was not exactly a Great Jazz Composer per se. He had some good tunes to his credit, but... He was, however, a truly great jazz soloist, but how do you effectively duplicate that? I don't know that you do, really. Or want to. If the object is to feel good about Dexter Gordon, hell, I'm already there, no special concert needed!

FWIW, I was being ironic. If so, they would have to beat him in and about the head several times (or more) in order to get his time in even the remotely semi-correct zone. And that's for relatively clean Dexter. To get loaded Dexter, there might be unethical medical procedures required. George Cables might not be up to that much heavy lifting. Maxine Gordon, otoh... Bebop is the music of the future!

Ok, I have time to do Disc Two right now, just because I have more ready IDs....excuse the "jumping ahead" of response. DISC TWO TRACK ONE - "Shotgun" by Willie Bobo. It's got a good beat and I would dance to it if I could dance. Haven't picked up this one yet, but once they got to the lyric, it was pretty easy to identify. For some reason, this arrangement puts me in mind of Woody Herman! Is this that Kenny Rogers guy on tenor again? TRACK TWO - Stanley Turrnetine, Donald Byrd, & Kenny Burrell, possibly Herbie Hancock, that's all I can tell (and that's enough to know). Don't know this particular album...with that lineup, you'd think Blue Note, but it's not anything I know. Good stuff, not great but good, stick-to-you-ribs meat-and-potatoes jazz. TRACK THREE - No idea, seems slightly generic but still grooves. I'd not necessarily ask to hear it, but wouldn't change the dial if it cam on, either. Like all the percussion except the vibra-slap. Do like the (electric) bass playing, although that should have been pulled up in the mix, and the vibra-slap pulled down. Really liking the conguero, though. Nice timbral variety, very musical (whatever that means...). TRACK FOUR - Sonny Stitt playing some blues. If I had a dollar for every time Sonny Stitt played some blues, I'd be rich, to say nothing of what Sonny Stitt would be if he had a dollar for every time he played some blues...but alas, life is not fair. I'm going to guess that this is later period Stitt, something from the 70s? Barry Harris on piano, maybe. Nice rhythm section, more interesting than Stitt, actually, at least to me. This is one of those solos of his where the beginning of every chorus could be a head, and at some point before or after probably was. They weren't all like that, thank god, but a lot of them where. TRACK FIVE - Very, very VERY Zawinul-esque, right down to the "Gibraltar" cop for the head. I don't really like copying, but I do like Zawinul (a lot) so I'm going to take this more as inspiration rather than exploitation. And for no particular reason other than the electric piano sound and the fact that it changes to organ, I'm going to guess Claire Fischer. Truth be told, I'd rather hear Zawinul do something like this, but by the time whoever it was made this record, Zawinul had probably "moved on to other things" as they say, so somebody else had to do this. It's a nice cut in spite of the derivativeness. TRACK SIX - Oh my...I think I hear Bob Brookmeyer...maybe now I better understand what drove him to drink so much when he did... TRACK SEVEN - Old Socks, New Shoes, let's rob some banks and keep Patty in a closet. I love this tune and this version of it. Massive yet subtle overdubbing. People wonder why the SLA chose this as their anthem, hell, just listen to how those drums and that fat, open bottom keep intensifying with each chorus until it gets to be pure down home soul freaking MARCHING, not being stopped by anything or anybody...you gonna get somebody to do SOMETHING with all htat...too bad it was the SAL, but they weren't the only ones, I can tel you that. This thing just GRABBED HOLD of a lot of people, just because of all that, I know it did me...this was one of the first 5-10 jazz records I ever bought. Very much a mixed bag, but when it was good, it was REAL good. BTW, this would be the last tune on the last album by The Jazz Crusaders, btw, on Chisa. The next one would be Pass The Plate by The Crusaders (also on Chisa) and for those who haven't checked, there's a few tunes that overlap between those two albums and the Hutcherson/Land San Francisco album on Blue Note. Needless to say, they are interpreded quite differently on each album. TRACK EIGHT - Tristano, Konitz, Marsh, etc., Capitol, 1949. History. Don't know if it really counts as "free jazz", but it sure counts as displaying a willingness to improvise outside of song-from that was pretty radical for its time. Truthfully, I like all these guys bettr playing song-froms, but for them, this was a part of the process that enabled them to be as free with that material as they ended up being. Lesson being, perhaps, that "freedom" is not so much any particular specific action nearly as much as it is the state one is in when performing that action. Maybe. TRACK NINE - Don't know the tune, but that's Ben. I'll never not like Ben. Gotta listen to the first disc some more, some real stumpers there, as well as gotta get more time to post at this length, but hey, some good stuff here already. Thanks, al!

Just started listening to these cuts, probably won't have time to post until the weekend. But - this is probably the first BFT with a Domestic Terrorist Group's anthem on it, so...is it safe to even have this thing? Tanya, can you hear me? Do you need socks? Shoes? A new name? Cinque. (you're welcome)

You and me both...and Pacific Jazz/World Pacific, etc. The great purge of whenever it was...maybe when United Artists (or Transamerica) bought Liberty...I forget when, but it I do remember seeing one Schwann catalog where there was a buttload full of BN/PJ/etc sides marked with the black diamond, signaling that they had been designated for deletion. For several years afterwards, the cutout bins were the best records stores in town sometimes!

Punch hole does not necessarily = promo copy. I might well be a good old-fashioned cutout.

Boo Berry Chu Berry Lou Berry

Between him and AJ, "Summer's Eve" no longer relates to the Rangers strictly in terms of when most of the games will be played....

I'm having a rough, untempered thought that technology once made fundamentalchanges imperative and inevitable but now makes it unnecessary unless desired...not sure how I'd go with that, or even if I would, but...

U Thant Lou Grant Sue Ann Nivens

The Fuller Brush Man The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Ant-Man

The notion that Peg Enthistle was the inspiration for "Peg" is (or was) erroneous! http://www.banyantre...rviews/q&a.html