JSngry

It's cool, they all went to bmi.

More than once, I've heard/seen his singing mistaken for that of a woman.

Dude, I've seen guys spend 15+ minutes dissing some audience member who paid them a compliment (not to their face, thank god...). Why? "What the fuck does that idiot know? Has he put in the hours? Does he know the tunes? Can he play the changes? Why should I give a shit what he thinks, he don't know a damn thing." This is like a chick who thinks that every guy who pays her any kind of compliment at all is just trying to fuck her. It's some weird combination of vanity, insecurity, and self-loathing that extends beyond the strictly musical (where, yeah, ok, self-flagellation is an essential ingredient of a well-balanced esthetic). It ain't right, and I've seen it more than once or twice.

Like Kateta Aton (geez, whatever happened to her?), I'm a resonator for the creator, who has a master plan, so yes, I am an evolutionist. Or something.

And now the end is near.

Remember, Mama said you can't hurry evolution. No, you'll just have to wait.

I've heard that that one features a totally cool version of "Pet Sounds" as an up-tempo bossa!

HA!

Let me refine that...becuase there's always been a lot of players who "don't like people"....what I've seen an increase in over the years is self-absorption, perhaps even "narcissism", people who are pretty much incapable of seeing anything but themselves - and who don't particuarly want to be able to. That's a problem. Except that they are all young...

Of course. But that welcoming vibe is a function of his belief in/involvement in his music. People get that and dig it. Ahhh....but we both know people who are equally involved in their music who do not project that "welcoming" vibe. And some of them play what seems to be very "friendly" music! I still say (and say it after a lot of observation and deliberation on the subject over the last few years), that there's an intangible element of "personality" that transcends the music. It won't make "difficult" music any "easier", but it can make it less immediately off-putting to some. Just as in "real life" we can often get a vibe from somebody that "something ain't right" about them and keep our distance, so can that same vibe manifest itself in performance. No absolutes here, just tendencies, but tendencies that play out over time, it seems to me, and tendencies that I've increasingly observed in a lot of "jazz musicians" over the last, say, 20-25 years. Lots of players just don't like people, period.

Portable music with a short shelf life reflecting a world that desires the same. It is what is it, why it is. The question for me is this - can/should/will "jazz" become interested in getting its message, its "content", into a similar delivery method? In otehr words, will the object change from Building A Lasting Memorial to Giving People Some Good News And Inspiration For Today. Sure, that's what jazz has (almost) always done, but what difference does it make if nobody's listening to get it? Now for this, I really don't ahve any answers. but I'll continue to ask the question, because it's a valid one, I think. And I also know that a lot of the possible answers will be unpalatable to many of us who just can't get our mind around the concept of "nowhere" and "everywhere" becoming the same thing. But as time goes by....something is going to have to change, and I've got no doubt that it will. But as the Ghost said a few pages back, maybe not too many of "us" are gonna like it, or even recognize it. Oh well. The beat goes on...

Bring 'em here, we can use an influx of new talent.

We miss you out here, Joe. For real.

Ain't no "luck" to it. It's people carpe deiming on their time and place, and it is to be encouraged!

That's certainly something to tell somebody who didn't like what was being played and who was expecting to have their personal desires catered to above all other considerations, but why would you tell that to somebody who was digging what was being played, as long as it wasn't disrupting the audience? Hell, somebody lets it get to feeling good to 'em and they wanna get up in the back of the room or something and let it continue there, I count that as a good thing!

Yeah, far too often the music is not the problem, it's the people who are making it. Too much navel and/or mirror gazing, not enough, for lack of a better term, sirit of "outreach" , whcih is most decidedly not about "commercialism" or anything like that. Too ofthen I hear/see people playing who give out the vibe that the audience is either an inconvinience or a classroom or a jury or...anything other than some people to share something with. Larry, you talk about Roscoe, hell everytime I've seen him, he wasn't exactly extroverted, but thru body language and playing demeanor, I never once felt that I was anything less than welcome in the room. It's just a vibe tha people give off no matter what/how they paly, a vibe that says, here, this is for you, from me, you're welcome to it! And that is not a function of musical style, that's a function of basic personality, which means that if there's a root problem, the source is the deliverer, not what is being dleivered. A small audience can still be a loving audience, but a consistently disinteerested audience of any size is,,,jsut not cool.

Jackie Mills? The Jackie Mills?

So,,,you're saying that you want people to leave home, spend money, and just sit there and watch you work? Gee, when you put it that way, it's a miracle anybody goes out! But that's what I go out to do about three times a week and am almost always richly rewarded. About the dancing, you might say that I'm dancing in my head. I certainly don't sit there solving formulas, drawing diagrams, and wondering about sententious remarks I might make. To borrow an old phrase, It's the most fun I can have with my clothes on. Well sir, you're dancing while people are WORKING by god, even if it IS in your head. Have you no RESPECT for the ARTIST? Seriously, I've heard stories, too many to number, where a band gets a good groove going and somebody DARES to let out a whoop or something, and people call security and have them bound and gagged and thrown to the wolves or some nonsense and the band approves and...sorry, but anybody who wants that type scene of "enforced coolness" is more than welcome to it...hell, if I can get people to holler at something I play in a "jazz" context, I feel like I'm making my point! And if I can get'em top move, hell, they might accidentally take it out to the street with'em for their real life.

You've been playing for the wrong dancers...

So,,,you're saying that you want people to leave home, spend money, and just sit there and watch you work? Gee, when you put it that way, it's a miracle anybody goes out!

And FWIW, I've had some profoundly great times playing for dancers as well as some profoundly drinkable ones....but the great ones are ones I'd not trade for anything,

Vertical Max Roach or Horizontal Max Roach?

Ok, for real - LTB & I both want to see this and are looking to have a "date night", what with diner and a movie and all that. (I haven't told her about Ms. Childs & Ms. Roberts yet, though...ssssshhhh....)

Ms. Childs & Ms. Roberts were doing it in the kitchen then? Just trying to get a handle whether I will or will not be able to probably handle this most unusal coupling. Is the nudity I've heard so much apart real of implied?

Ralph Bunche Trent Lott Lauren Masse