JSngry

I have no idea what Steven Sondheim would say about these lyrics, but I'll bet you both of my tongues and one of yours that he could not make a record like this, or sing like this, if his life depended on it. Magic happens when it happens to who it happens. No guarantees or entitlements. Gene & Debbe had the magic hit them with this one.

So I've heard...I'm like you, though. I think it's fine. It's Tanjah I have a hard time with sometimes, just the way it's recorded.

Definitely live. Taken from cassettes and "cleaned up". The accompanying booklet also appears to be as much a labor of love as the budget would allow for. I gotta love this comment from there, in light of how this is "Volume 1": A realistic look at things, to be sure!

I figured you might go with the CTI or the Polydor...if you had to.

Just wondering, what would be the other one? Destry. Oh, the no-brainer of the batch, eh? Other than that, none?

Just wondering, what would be the other one?

Assuming that the house/garden metaphors were intended as suggested earlier, why the condescending tone? It's a metaphor to which many people can relate to their own life experience, probably at least as many as can relate to "The starless night were not in vain"...that it's not "artfully constructed" assumes that it is even concerned with working the same "technical" turf as Dietz/Schwartz, which I seriously doubt is the case. That it for whatever reason "should" be so concerned is a conceit which I do not share. This specific instance is hardly a "glorious" example, but I have a very difficult time justifying why anybody "should" strive for one mode of expression over the other, especially when somebody is communicating effectively to/with whom they are attempting to communicate about that which they are attempting to communicate. I have an even greater time assuming "superiority" when I myself may very well not be able to communicate effectively with that target/group/audience/whatever. What I have no difficulty in saying is that my wife enjoys gardening, that my heart would have to ready be very hardened for me to even try to take that from her, and that if I did, her heart would be irrevocably hardened, and that, yes, that would be a pretty damn sad thing to have happen, no matter how you express it, the bottom line is that it would pretty much suck as hard as anything could suck. There's an infinite number of ways to express that, but none of them would make it suck any less.

Dude. I know the songs. ok? Well, uh, ok, but that's kinda like saying that "Gloomy Sunday" & "All The Things You Are" are both about "life"...

Listened to this several times today...Ellis is one of those guys who can have you going from thinking he's a genius to thinking he's a totally tool and back and forth all over again in the course of a single phrase, never mind solo, never mind piece, never mind album... But like i said, take the good with the bad or else you don't get any of it. FWIW, the good is very good, imo. So....proceed accordingly.

I've not yet encountered a Randy Weston album that hasn't been worth the time or money, including the two about which you are inquiring.

Would you care to show me how those two are separated to any meaningful extent in the current "enlightened" environment? Ticket receipts end once the game is over. But memorabilia sales go on forever. Well, actually "forever", becuase eventually most people forget most things, which overall is really a pretty healthy, if messy, trait. Beware those who will sell you your "heritage", especially if you have to take their word for it...odds are it's neither truly yours nor truly heritage. You've been warned! Nor will I, but I'll do as much as possible to get to the art(ists) by bypassing the hype-masters as much as is humanly and (quasi)legally possible.

How are those two lyrics similar in feeling? One's about being without a partner, the other one about having one. And anyway, "play of sound and accent"...what does that mean exactly? To me it implies a linguistic ploy, and what if the language being used is no longer widely spoken? Or what of people who never really spoke that language in the first place? Are we to assume that their expressions of similar life-realities are somehow less "noble, or that they are less "sophisticated"? How much "understanding" is on display when said "understanding is only situationally displayed? Not very much, if you ask me. Yet we are hit upon on all sides by those who claim to possess the "true" American voice, higher sophistication, greater insight, what have you. It's all bullshit, including Our love is as deep as the sea our love is as great as a love can be or I'll go my way by myself, this is the end of romance. I'll go my way by myself, love is only a dance. both of which could just as easily be from a freakin' prepubescent doo-wop song as from a Great American Popular Song (and I know, in the doo-wop song you'd not get all that superb adult commentary that comes along with it, but adults can be just as big of ninnies about "love" as can kids, probably worse, because adults know how to, uh, justify their fantasies, a lot better than do kids...). Which is why I like me some of both, but have no great illusions about either. Words don't mean a whole helluva lot. Sentiments do, a little bit more, but really, sometimes (often, actually), a "well-crafted song lyric" is something that contributes about as much to the ultimate welfare of humanity as does a "well-crafted sitcom". I'm a big fan of both, but let's not kid ourselves, in either case, you get out of it what you bring to it in the first place, so let's not get too feel-goody about things being "special" when we like what we see in the mirror just becuase the mirror is in somebody else's house. Or shop.

Of course.

That strikes me as a symbol of a man taking control of her life both inside & outside the house, not just her material world but her dreams, her escape, hell her ability to escape, as well. House=forced construction=masculine, Garden=organic growth=feminine. Anybody who has a spouse who gardens will know what I mean... Not bad, in that sense, but really, I mean, who cares? All the great "songs" have been written (well, almost all, enough to count as all in any meaningful sense), and there's only a handful of themes running through life anyway, so let's just call the rest of it what it is - comfort to get you through whatever it is you need to get through. Nothing to sneeze at, that, but I'll be damned if I'm going to build a monument to it, or anything like that, much less pay money to have one built... You should move to the DFW area. You could also find godawful rock (of almost any kind!), country, jazz, and classical. Especially notable is KEOM: http://www.keom.fm/index.html High school kids rockin' those Groovy 70s Sounds all the damn time!

My experience, for what it's worth: The so-called "Great American Songbook" - I don't love the phrase, but I don't know what else to call it - was largely my introduction to music. I knew all these songs through my parents. I have gone for years at a stretch without listening to any pop/jazz/song-stylist vocalists, largely because I've been more into instrumental and oddball music for the past few decades. Still, I recognize that, for better or worse, these are at the center of my musical universe, regardless of whether I listen or not. I do most of my listening these days on my computer, at work, and stick mainly to jazz, classical, soundtracks, and electronica - all instrumental. Words distract me while I'm working. I realized recently that I haven't listened to standards for years. So, lately, I've made a habit of playing the great vocalists in the car during my commute. I skip past overplayed stuff like "The Lady Is the Tramp," and concentrate on the more atypical tunes, like "Night Bird," "Autumn in Rome," etc. I especially pay attention to the neglected verses. Anyway, I still get a lot out of this era/style of music. I've reconnected with something relevant. Even if that is not your experience, I think that Sondheim's trashing of these lyricists is worth noting. Hey, I still get a lot out of the stuff too. But I don't think it's the apex of American musical accomplishment, or an emblem of our spirit, or anything like that, and frankly, (as is true of all musics) all but the very, very best of it stands alone as "musically noteworthy". The rest of it is just so much products of its time and place and right now we all "treasure" it because of a nostalgia for a world gone, but precisely because that world is gone, the more time passes, the fewer people are going to give a shit, and really, who can blame them. Thus the hype and ongoing machinations to "institutionalize" it (and other 20th Century musics). There's money to be made there, much easier & more plentiful money, than actually creating something new, and what a "comfort" for those spending that money to be reminded of a world of innocence, elegance, and whiteness, a world that most of them will never experience now, and damn sure would not have experienced -except as a distant consumer (the more things change...) if they had been alive then. Even though I agree with Sondheim in general principal (I used to think that Cole Porter was clever, just like I thought Frank Zappa was clever), and I fully understand/respect the relevance of his comments, but ultimately I think it's also (also, dig, not just) more incest-speak, which only goes to serve the brand-name, and to that whole scene, I offer a hearty and heartfelt Fuck You!, as I also do to Nashville, that Lubinsky guy who does the Oldies shows on PBS, and anybody else who makes a living offering Even Easier Options Out in a land that has too damn many in the first place.

Items Ordered 1 of: For Basie [Audio CD] By: Paul Quinichette Condition: New Sold by: newbury_comics (seller profile) $5.99 1 of: Basie Reunion [Audio CD] By: Paul Quinichette Condition: New Sold by: newbury_comics (seller profile) $2.99 Item(s) Subtotal: $8.98 Shipping & Handling: $5.96 ----- Total Before Tax: $14.94 Estimated Tax To Be Collected: $0.00 ----- Grand Total: $14.94

And we're all grateful for that, I'm sure. Just as we are that you don't remind us just as frequently how clever a lyricist Ira Gershwin was or stuff like that.

http://www.sleepynightrecords.com/media.php It's all here, the goods and the bads, but ultimately it's all...interesting, and worth at least knowing about at some point. Quoth DGruv: The one thing that struck me immediately was how "fusion"-y the thing sounded, yet Ellis was just being Ellis, and Ellis was Ellis long before fusion was fusion. And the guy could play some serious trumpet when the urge struck him. That's here, as is a tribute/answer to "Birdland" called "Storyville" that is at least as much an abomination as you might think... Don Ellis. Take the good with the bad or else you don't get any of it...

I have an official Sonny Rollins app too - my CD player & turntable.

Why not ... some times? Oh, right -- The Great Wave of History Is Blowing In The Wind, So Get Out Of The Way, Mr. Jones, If You Know What's Good For You ... Mop Mop. Jim, I think you're becoming some sort of totalitarian "progressive." Oh, please. Stop angsting out about becoming obsolete. It ain't that big a thing, really. I'm enjoying it quite nicely, thank you. Give it a try -it's fun! All I mean is that it - the whole "American Popular Song" thing...it's already happened, it's all there, it's not going to change, and it is what it is. No amount of retro-fretting will change any of that. Of course it's clever, and of course it's inane. Of course it's brilliant and of course it's trite. It's whatever whoever is listening to it wnats/needs it to be, and it will always be there, both because there's something valid there and becuase there's too much money and power and "prestige" involved to ever let it fade away. But - about a century's worth of "other" Americans (regional, economic, racial, religious, you name it), and other peoples of the planet (once we found out about them as peoples rather than as stories...) have provided just as much to work with, just as much that is relevant to yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and just as much, if not more, that speaks to what it means to not inhabit a world that is as irrelevant to them as they are to it. So yeah, this "song" stuff is all good, really it is, but like everything else, it is what it is for whoever needs it to be that. And frankly, I don't need any more "discussion" about Ira Gershwin, Steven Sondheim, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Hank Williams, Fela, Mozart, Beethoven, or any damn body that is there plain as day for anybody with even half a clue to pick up on that tries to (re) establish a "position". People debating their "brilliance" and such. Well DUH. Fuck "brilliance". It's where you find it, and it does what you need it to. Anything else is just either idle conversation or marketing, both of which have their place, but ultimately... Songs? Still? Really?

So I guess unless I'm going to stay at home or within predictable radii thereof, a smartphone is an inevitable necessity? Not just a convenience, or a cool toy, but a g.d. prerequisite? I really, really don't like being forced into that...

The vanishing pay-phone is a drag too...had a flat on the way to a gig a few months ago, didn't have my cell on me, and it took forever to find someplace that would let me use their house phone.

Songs? Still? Really?

Don't think I like this... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101111/ap_on_re_us/us_goodbye_white_pages

SAvoy Jazz SJL 1166 (1986) pairs the 3/6/52 Nichols date (7 cuts) with the Gigi Gryce Signal date where Monk was a sideman.