JSngry

Yeah, there's that too. But I once had a very wise old guy tell me that no matter what you do the night before, never start your day later than 12 noon. Of course I didn't listen, but I see now that it wasn't bad advice. Not at all.

"Most people who play music for a living don't wake up early enough to pay attention to legalities." Never thought of it quite like that before, but...

I say this with a twinkle, but also with complete seriousness - is this continuum something that you young folk now recognize and accept without a whole lot of botheration? World gone right for a change it it is. I don't speak on behalf of young musicians everywhere, but I did ask a drummer friend of mine right in the middle of a rehearsal yesterday--"do you remember the last time you had trouble juggling so many genres?" He replied, plainly, "I don't think I've ever thought of it in that way." All I know is that I have to activate the same nerve centers playing afrobeat that I do playing neo-soul that I do playing JBs type stuff. I don't think of it all as "the same," but the notion of a continuum is very present and real for me. First of all - how you ever gonna have a career if you don't claim to speak for young musicians everywhere? Second of all - Excellent. All of it. Thank you, fwiw. I say this as somebody who first heard of Fela in the mid-late 70s, when Mercury released Zombie and something else. Rolling Stone had a big article/review/something. Sounded interesting, but couldn't find them in the stores. But did stumble across a discarded promo copy of Zombie about six months later and carpe diemed. What I heard suddenly connected what was then the last Miles Davis music, JB, & Sly in a way that clicked instantly. One of those, ok, things will never be the same again things. Now that time has passed, etc. it's obvious. But in "jazz circles"...you know... Etc.

Re: Herbie & business - he was one of the first, under Donald Byrd's tutelage, to actively investigate controlling his own publishing from the "beginning" rather than accepting the status quo. So, yeah, Herbie got his business chops together, consciously and deliberately, and seems to have always wanted it that way. That's not a problem for me. I say this with a twinkle, but also with complete seriousness - is this continuum something that you young folk now recognize and accept without a whole lot of botheration? World gone right for a change it it is.

What I really dig is on "I Thought It Was You" is the bass walkdown into the chorus. That's such a simple thing, but it's perfectly set up and it works, kind of like a waiter in a good restaurant who delivers your food with a little extra flourish, not a lot, but just enough to give it that little extra something, kinda like saying, yeah, I know you'll enjoy it, but I want to let you know that I'll be enjoying you enjoying it. I love it when people do shit like that.

They ain't bad, ya' know?

Sunlight & Secrets both, I have come to appreciate much more in the last few years, as I've come to more fully appreciate "dance music" (what was conveniently but ultimately sloppily labeled as "disco" at the time) as dance music and not expecting everything to be overtly aimed at also being "mentally engaging" (which was definitely going with those first Headhunters-era records). Finally hearing what it is that is trying to be done rather than what I'm expecting to happen. Sunlight in particular has some really nice tunes on it that might have benefited from just a teence more imaginative arrangements or productions. Perhaps not coincidentally, that's the time the whole VSOP thing started happening, so...too many irons in too many fires, maybe. The ones I've still not gotten into are Feets Don't Fail Me Now & Monster. Those...should not have happened..but they did, so, hey. But Mr. Hands is a bitch, so it's not like the well was totally dry during those years.

That's not hand-wringing. That's hands desperately trying not to clap on 1 & 3.

Yeah, well, that and four quarters will get you change for a dollar. And then the baby can have toothpaste for supper. Look, you don't like the music. I get that. But as a musician, I would encourage you to at least check out what is happening in this music you don't like before you go off head-first into something like this. "Middle class" as it might be, there's more often than not some thoughtful musical choices being made, which is not something you get often enough in any music. That should at least be respected, even if everything else about it is still hated.

That's a good thing. I'm finally emerging from a too-long period of avoiding exercise and sensible eating. Hope it's not too late, don't think it is. But it's going to be a loooooong road back.

What "principles" has he violated, exactly? And whose are they?

Dude, you're just chasing your own tail now. Have at it. And just to give you some Red Bull to fuel the run... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcEwFuU5irU&feature=related Try not to have a heart attack, please.

Certain things make Allen "uncomfortable". Apparently Herbie Hancock is one of them.

So a slick and shallow person making slick and shallow music is inauthentic because it doesn't sound like it's coming from a slick and shallow soul? That's just too weird, dude.

Like George Benson & Lou Donaldson, right? Damn those middle class values. Damn them all to hell. They ruin everything they touch. Especially the Negro-American ones.

"Us"? Really? George Romney is dead.

Rather than being a 70 year old "starving artist"? Uh, yeah, let's send him to the fields for wanting that, the damn ingrate. What's wrong with The Jazz Plantaion, huh? Herbie was 34 years old when he did Thrust. Yeah, and that's a damn fine album too, still admired by many who don't "go all the way" with Herbie. Lots of music on that one. Lots. You'd have made a potentially more credible point if you had referenced Secrets. But...you didn't.

Oh I absolutely agree, Jim. Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier had a huge impact; no doubt. We should never forget what that meant back then. All I'm saying is the Civil Rights movement of the late 40s, 50s and 60s coupled with the integration of the US Military in 1950 and Brown vs. Topeka or Plessy vs. Ferguson had a demonstrably larger impact on society than did Jackie Robinson in that regard. But other than Plessy (and seeing Robinson as one of the "opening statements" of the Civil Rights Movement), which came first? If you celebrate history, you gotta celebrate history, ya' know? I mean, I know it was the Dodgers and all that, but still... Didn't know he was gone. Agreed, great news. I used to not like him, found him too facile/slick/whatever, but the longer I heard him, the more I realized what a badass he really was (and that his name was Vin Scully and not Vince Culley).

Well, yeah, it could have been somebody else..it would have been somebody else (eventually, probably....who's to say that American Apartheid wasn't going to just linger on for damn near forever without some kind of mass-culture kick start?)...but it wasn't. I do think we need to remember who it was, but even more importantly, what it was. And why it even had to happen in the first place.

And yet he succeeds! Dude, it's not music that is aimed at/intended for you. It's for people who like "that kind of thing". You're not one of those people. Ever, I would suspect, not for this particular type of thing. Light, poppy, cheerful, danceable but not sweaty, that's never struck me as being "you". And that should be ok, both for you and for it. If it's not...I don't know why it wouldn't be. In a world of nearly-infinite "that kind of thing"s, nothing is for everybody. Being the center of your own world is ok (enough), but being the center of everybody's world is damn near impossible. And certainly not desirable!

Perception is reality only until you realize it's not. And then, it's like, ok...hmmm....and all that. I mean, there may be some level even "below" basic vibration, something that might exist but we have no idea of it because we're not "there" yet, and don't even know enough to know that we might not be. What I do know (for now) is that the more music I listen to (and the more I listen to it), the more the foundation/primacy of vibration/rhythm asserts itself in every conceivable aspect, and the less away from that I can get. Same thing with colors and the geometries of design (up to and including the shapes of peoples faces and the contours of their features), they all have a vibrational pulse, a rhythm, some of which immediately appeal/repulse, others of which intrigue and compel further review. But everything has its rhythms. This has become my world, and I ain't complaining about it.

Who said anything about "funk"?

Rather than being a 70 year old "starving artist"? Uh, yeah, let's send him to the fields for wanting that, the damn ingrate. What's wrong with The Jazz Plantaion, huh? The question is - when Herbie and others "change direction", what do they bring to it, which is at least as important as what they take (or seek to take) out of it. There's a lot of cases of alleged "sellouts" where the alleged "sellout" material is still done with taste & imagination, and the essential personality of the performer remains intact. Herbie's one, Miles is one, Maynard's one, Turrentine's one, Lou Donaldson's one, There's a bunch of 'em, actually. Johnny Hodges, there's another one. You may not like where they go, but oh well. Charging "sell out" reeks of self-righteous 60s "idealism", the kind that can't bring itself to deal with pragmatism, because being pragmatic condemns the soul to eternal damnation, or some such imaginary utopian bullshit. It's also true, very true, in fact, that in some cases, more than not, actually, it's actually more commercially viable to hold what you got until the day you die. But people who like what that is never consider that maybe people be doing that for "commercial" reasons to, that it's got little or next to nothing to do with "muse" (which is nowhere near as "real" a proposition as many would like to believe) especially as time goes by) and everything to do with keeping them gigs. Here's something - Herbie's Lite Me Up. For years, I hated that record. Not even ambiguously. Then one day, a friend of mine who's a damn fine musician, and very open-minded and hyper-critical said that he loved it. So I asked him why, and his response took me aback - "Hey, that's just Herbie making a L.A. Pop record. Nothing more." And yeah, you got Herbie collaborating with Rod Temperton (a true talent), and producing an album with players like Jeff Porcaro & Randy Jackson & Abe Laboriel & Steve Lukather, and guys like that. The Wrecking Crew of their time. Now me, I don't really like the L.A. pop of that era too much, but...upon an objective listening, that's exactly what it is, and as such, it don't suck, and actually has some tunes with attractive moments, all of which are the result of Herbie's writing and/or Vocoderized vocals (and I don't say that casually, believe me...). AFAIC, Herbie making "a L.A. Pop record" is not selling out in and of itself. If you decide to make music for a living and you have a desire to work in different areas out of a natural curiosity and/or a desire to "have success", then by god do it. Hell yeah, do it. Just don't do it in such a way that you're a plug-in generic on your own album, and don't put out something blatantly bad and pretend it's good when you know it's not. Lite Me Up does have a "Herbie Hancock flavor to it", and it is in no way "bad" musically. It's still not what I like, but if Herbie wanted to make an L.A. pop record, for whatever reason, hell, why shouldn't he? He's a free man, not some beaten-down myopic jazz field-hand who gets lost on and off the bandstand without a ii-V and a ching-ching-a-ching, and god bless him for that, at the very least. "Selling out" and "branching out" should not be confused, but they often are. Reaching out in acknowledgement to a commercial audience I would have bought the 45. If only I'd known. There's live versions floating around that freakin' levitate. It's a damn good song, period. Song, not "jazz composition" or anything like that, just a song. I'll take it!

That was among my points, I think, though I'd rather say, again, that timbre can become rhythm, just as any other parameter (sorry for that word) can become any other (as in take on some of the essential in-action language qualities of the other in the course of the making). Fpr me, "is" a tad too determinative; it tends to imply that rhythm (or something else, but in this case rhythm) is the obvious, righteous boss. Tain't always so, McGhee -- not IMO. Show me anything that happens at any level without vibration, and you'll be showing me something that doesn't exist. Everything is vibration. Now, if it suits your personal frame of reference to say that vibration is boss instead of rhythm, that's a deal I'll make on nothing more than a smile and a handshake, no problem. I'm good for that one. But- once you get past semantics and general usage oversimplifications of "rhythm = beat" and the like, I don't see how you get around vibration & rhythm being the same thing.

Timbre is rhythm too, because in order to get "your sound", you have to control the speed and direction of whatever it is that directs the vibration of the sound (i.e. - the mechanics of your instrument's sound production). In other words, every timbre has its own vibrational rhythm. Hell, vibrations themselves are rhythm before they're anything else. So yeah, sound itself is rhythm. Play me one chord and sustain it for 30 minutes. I guarantee you that at some point a "dancing" rhythm of the overtones will start to appear.