JSngry

I'd eat that dog. In a minute.

First big league starts for both starters tonight, and indeed, both pitched well.

No, real Spaghetti sauce not cheap stuff , you never heard of a Michigan ? I know that in Ohio they put cinnamon in their chili and then use that for spaghetti sauce, but no, what's a Michigan?

I'm really glad that Julio Bourbon didn't die after all...Rangers play 8 innings of groovy ball tonight, but a bunch of seeing eye puffball singles off of three different relief pitchers take it from 3-0 to 3-2 in the7th, bases loaded, 2 out, and there goes a fly to center, one of those that just that "it's gonna drop, dammit" looks all over it, but my friend, my GOOD friend Julio Boubon dives for that motherfucker and snares it in the webbing as he rides the waterless Slip 'N Slide of the outfield. DArren Oliver throws like a 8-9 pitch 8th, Nefti comes in for the close, and hey, we're 5-0 to start, the kid threw a GREAT first start, and aside from the 7th, we held the reigns, even if they were trotting instead of galloping. Is this going to last all season? If any of y'all see my old buddy Julio Bourbon, tell him Mr. Jim will buy him a drink next time I'm in town, ok?

Alright then, there's three for ya'. Carpe diem!

Thanks! Can you send me a credit card number to go with it too? Anybody's but mine, please! (I'll send you a PM with mine so you'll know which ones not to send, ok?) BFF!

Or maybe they do and don't want to spoil the mojo you exude from thinking they don't!

All what? The desire to make jazz "popular" again? Seriously, if you got the capital to do it on a bigger scale, then hell yeah, carpe diem. But the principle of finding who it is who wants what you do, be it a few people on a chat board or agents who book festivals or people with record labels or whatever it is, and then giving them what they want (which is, after all what you do, and if it's not, then either you found the wrong people or else maybe there's a deal to made with somebody, even the devil, it all depends on what you really want and what you really do), hey, that's always going to be how things work, for as long as they do work, no?

The best way to keep up is to let the other person think they know more than you do. If they really do, hey, you won't blow it. If they really don't, you can give 'em enough rope to hang themselves if they're assholes, or else enjoy a light conversation with a nice person who doesn't know as much about the subject as you do.

Incidental, maybe. Coincidental, maybe not... comfort in one's own skin - and all that comes from that - is a pretty contagious quality, truth be told. As far as thinking small...I've never had the opportunity to be directly involved in the logistics of a situation where it was necessary, or even feasible, to start by thinking big...but having been around enough "big" things (musically and otherwise), it seems to be that the principles are still the same. The scale changes, obviously, and with that comes a different, for lack of a better word, "slant" (or tone, or whatever), but yeah, at root it's still the same thing - know who you are, know what you do, find the people who want it, do your damndest to get it to them, and don't fuck up the relationship unless you need for it to end. The devil is in executing the principles, not in the principles themselves.

Two separate issues, perhaps, although they ultimately interact...but the first is about the "artistic quality" of what gets played. The second is about how do you get whatever it is you play to enough of an audience to be "popular". The first is ultimately a private matter, but the second...hell dude, it's just basic business. Let's break it down: Jazz as it has been played in the past will never again be a music of mass popularityYou have a natural affinity for playing jazz as it has been played in the past (not a value judgment, I assure you)There will always be an audience for jazz as it has been played in the pastYou would like to be favorably accepted by that audience (i.e. - be "popular", not necessarily you personally, just your music)We have identified at least two people who have expressed an enjoyment of the type of jazz that you playSee if you can get what you do to themLather, rinse, repeat Find them, one by one, and give (ok, sell, whatever) them you doing what it is they want to hearSet obtainable goals, have realistic expectation, and know that, besides an audience of two being more than an audience of 0, there are people all over the world share an interest in the type of jazz you play. There is only a finite-sized market for this stuff any more, and it ain't exactly "sizable". So you ain't never gonna have platinum-level sales, unless something freaky happens like a movie placement deal or some such (but even then, the more you get heard...).Do the work, reap the results, be thankful, and take nothing for granted.That, sir, is the only way to get this music "popular again" - to find the people who want it (in whatever form), make sure that they get it, and keep giving/getting it to them in such a way that they'll continue to want it. If it sounds like more trouble than it's worth, then it probably is. But that will be your decision, not the audience's. Proceed accordingly. That ain't no joke.

We're on the same page there, buddy, and thanks for that. Melody is what I live for. There you go, Joel, there's you niche/fringe/whatever. Now go find them & give them what they want. Make sure it gets to them, not some random people out there in the world (of which there are many!) Get popular with them, and most importantly, stay popular with them! Problem solved, I do believe.

I thought all it took to de-friend somebody was a thousand bucks and a few phone calls. When did everything get so complicated? Damn computers...

The internet is my friend...

The Moacir Santos Blue Note albums are so beautiful and so frustrating all at once...the L.A. studio players involved try so hard to get it right...

You will play by rote if all you're listening to is yourself and all that you already know. Same for playing with a group, as long as all they're listening to is each other and everything they already know, they too will play by rote. It may be a very high caliber rote, but it's still pretty much comes down to retaking a test after you've passed it. Been thre, done that, not really sure how/when/if/why to pick back up afterward either... If players are just playing what they all already know, in a narrow or a broad sense, individually or as a group, all they're really asking out of an audience is to come, sit down, and watch us test our reflexes to see how nimbly we can play by rote. Performance then becomes a spectator sport where the audience is asked to appreciate how well the musicians have learned their craft. "Clever boys and girls!" would be the ultimate compliment. Would you leave the house for that? In this economy?

...and you will be rewarded with a rare banquet of clarity, focus, and room to think. Unless you won't be, in which case, never mind. Bill Dixon is one of the most...patient players/composers this music has known. And patience is a virtue. This is beautiful music with a strong moral fiber. C'mon in.

Of course I do, just in a different language. I said don't think about the effects when playing, b/c it can distract. But, thinking about it, the energy coming back can also inspire. I don't know, like everybody else I myself am a work in progress. I try to focus on the music only in performance, and shut out 'white noise' like my own self-criticism or vibes I might think I'm getting from someone on the stand or in the audience that aren't the greatest. But in so doing I might miss something coming back that will make me feel good and play better. It's weird how the hypersensitivity that makes you a creative type can also do in said creativity if you let it. I don't know that you should shut out anything while you're playing, not if the goal is to play freely. The more you shut out, the more you risk playing by rote. And I don't know that audiences always enjoy that so much. Of course, you then run the risk of letting bad stuff interfere, but the trick there is to let it in w/o engaging it. Otherwise you're expending energy on blocking, and that too is a distraction. Can't really fault an audience for being distracted when the players are distracted too.

Angels & Demons (at play) The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady Lovers & Other Thieves

So you don't think of playing as saying something? Notes as words, sentences? And if you shouldn't think about the effect your notes will have on the listener, how is that not essentially saying "fuck the audience", only with notes instead of words? Either way, I think a lot of people can tell when they're being told to get fucked.

Still, if the music is all that matters..."all" doesn't leave room for anything else, does it, even an audience who presumably will like what it is given or else...fuck 'em? I'm totally okay with that attitude if it's consistently applied. But don't blow off the audience one night and then the next afternoon wonder how to get a bigger audience.

No quibbles there, but if a hot dog is within reach and a sausage is not, hey, I'll gnarf the dog and not think twice of it.

I thought you were asking me if Miles' ballad phrasing was brazillian-influenced, which is not what I meant at all because this doesn't sound like somebody by whom Miles had been touched, this sounds like somebody who had been touched by Miles, although not enough as to be slavishly derivative, but just enough to be spiritually nourished and encouraged. The kinship was all I was ever alluding to. No direct lines other than two people who used a lit of dramatic tools to get ballads across, though some of those tools (space, straight tone, dynamic drama) are certainly shared, they aren't necessarily executed the same way, thank god, and each one leaves as they came, beautiful, soulful, renegade senusalists