JSngry

Last album to have Charles Stepney's contributions. RIP, and DAMN!!! All this and all that about this and that, but some things you just can't get around, and EW&F firing on all cylinders is one of them.

The thing about Don Sebesky was that he was a total pro, meaning that if the client/job wanted/called for bullshit, then bullshit he'd give you. But if you wanted something really good, he could do that too. Both abilities are on ample display on this Peggy Lee album. Get them both over to CTI, let that thing do its thing, I think it might have been pretty nice. Not crazy.

Lee's 1971 Capitol album Where Did They Go? (partially arranged by Sebeskey) includes blatant fails like "My Sweet Lord" & ""Sing", but there's a few keepers, notably a really gorgeous version of "I Was Born In Love With You" with a wholly uncompromisingly expansive chart by Sebesky that begs for that Creed Taylor close miking/RVG reverb combo & Ron Carters Bass Hum Of Infinity, but instead of Creed Taylor making a whole album of properly sounding proper material like this for CTI, no, this is Snuff Garrett on Capitol, and...no...that's just not good enough.

I don't know where they went, but she should have gone to CTI

...get Peggy Lee to do a CTI album arranged by Don Sebesky? Ca.1972? Leaning yes in possibility, but realityising no. Willing to listen, though. Convince me! Motivation of thought - hearing some of her 70s work and not feeling that anybody involved understood why they shouldn't be doing what they did the way they did it, and thinking that, DUH, CTI would not have that problem with doing that with all that. Problem - Peggy Lee by then in that arena...probably not going to show up no matter what. But all things being unreal, in theory...well, would you?

If I were you, I'd just say "phuk itt".

NP: Produced for Abbott Laboratories! The biggest words on the back cover are these:

It filled a hole in my Gil Evans collection and it was under $5.00, so...

I think we should all say "fuck it" and then get to lunch while we can still get a table!

Keeping up with the implications of Trane's harmonic systems, not aping every aspect of him. We've been through this before, but "keeping up with" the music itself is nothing to look askance at, especially for players who start out learning and not just playing more or less purely intuitively. Besides being a charismatic spiritual and social figure, John Coltrane was also a deep, profound musical thinker and theoretician. It should be neither surprise nor disappointment that a serious thinker disappointment that a serious thinker such as Land would be compelled to pay attention to and explore in the new territories that Trane was positing. If anything, it would be a surprise and a disappointment if he hadn't have done so. Thinkers gonna think. I do wonder if he had dental issuesat some point, though, because it does sound as though at some point his embouchure loosened quite a bit, perhaps more than would occur voluntarily.

God, did early digital recordings sound like shit. Not that this is particularly good music, but still...

You may well be right. I have only a faint memory of it.

This was the unknown for me: Wish the song was even half as good as the title...oh well!

Surely "flounce" is one of the less-commonly used words here on the O-Board. That's kinda like a Johnny Richards piccolo part!

Well, how much more honest than that can you get? I mean, that's some integrity right there, in it's own way, to actually turn your anti-social tendencies outward and not inward. If not exactly integrity, then at least...industrious. Fuck all this self-loathing, self-pity shit, I want it, I take it. If I get it, I worked for it. Frank Morgan, BeBop Corporatist! Would you feel the same way if your grandma fell victim to his supposed charms? Nah, I'd get a crew to go pick him up and bring him back. Then I'd tie him up, slit his throat, and drink his blood straight from his throat. Wouldn't even use a straw. Good for him my grandma was dead before he made his comeback!

Yeah, how many lives have been fucked up by bad math? Hell, why would I know? How should i care? People do like their suppostional premises, and they do like for us to believe them. But me, I say fuck that!

Well, how much more honest than that can you get? I mean, that's some integrity right there, in it's own way, to actually turn your anti-social tendencies outward and not inward. If not exactly integrity, then at least...industrious. Fuck all this self-loathing, self-pity shit, I want it, I take it. If I get it, I worked for it. Frank Morgan, BeBop Corporatist!

Paul Revere (the bandleader) The Oakland Raiders Tower Of Power

Hell, to be a junkie is to be a con, they're inseperable. You want to hear a con-man at work, listen to that Jackie McLean outtake where he's giving his rhythm section a pep talk, like he's a Really Nice Guy trying to make a Really Good Record. The guy's got his ass on the line and can't afford to fail, period. Nothing "nice" about it. Or for that matter, ask Freddie Redd about Jackie McLean (or so I've often been told)... But Jackie McLean was indeed a great player, and a con-man. I also think that, con-man or not, Frank Morgan played some beautifulass ballads in the last stage of his life. Con-man...jeez, that's so obvious as to have no real meaning beyond the obvious.

Shakers Quakers Fakers

I bet him and Rod Serling got together and watched cheap porn while chain-smoking and drinking. Just a hunch.

I said "con-man" because in order to do their work con artists typically must pretend to have emotions (i.e. deep concern for those they aim to bilk) that they don't actually have, and there was something about much of Morgan's "comeback" era playing that gave me that feeling -- in particular, that the overtly emotional gestures in his playing seemed to be just that, something separate from rather than the inevitable outgrowth of the musical flow. I should add, though I can't be wholly sure about this, that I think I had this feeling before rather than after after I became aware of the details of Morgan's criminal career. Everybody pretends to have emotions to one degree or another, except those who get overwhelmed by the thought, and then they pretend they don't have them. Eitehr way, there's no judge or jury in the world that can make the right call on that one, and there's so much projection involved in our ascertainment process as to render the whole thing absurdly comical. I mean, really, there is so much "emotion" in music, great music, even, that is affected and/or there for the purpose of artifice, so much that I'm to the point where I'm fully prepared to be conned at least as often as not, and if it's a good enough con to get over on me, hey, props to you for a job well done. You can guard your heart, or you can guard your wallet, but its more trouble than its worth to think you can do both at the same time on an ongoing basis. Now, speaking of con-artist California alto players, Art Pepper's 50s work is exactly that. And it's great playing, although for "honesty's" sake, give me the pest of his 70s work any time. Art Pepper was one fucked-up dude (and hey, aren't we all?), and his 50s playing was all about portraying it otherwise. But if it's "better art" than the more honest work, then hey, Kudos to the Con for again working its magic.

Sandman Sims Sander Vanocur Vancouver Canucks