JSngry

Yeah, let's all support anything and everything "jazz" because if we don't, then jazz will die a lot faster.

Yeah, it was some more of that "gee, I've never hear anything like this before!" stuff that seemed to be the norm there for a while. Right place, right time for everybody, I suspect...lots of things that probably inevitably would come together came together. I thought it should always be like that, but...I guess I was wrong. Maybe in another 50-60 (or more, or less) years there will be some more not-really-loose "loose ends" floating around to (re)connect.

Julius LaRosa La Raza Unida Frederic Rzewski

Great music, possibly the apex of Joni's musical creativity. And definitely my favorite Jaco, bar none. Look at who all is on this record, what they had done before, and then how they brought it all here to make a basically new type of music. No easy feat, that, but then again, it was a time when "purity" was not the be all and end all either.

That's all a lot of people heard, because that's how "we" have been conditioned to hear music - hear the top & feel the bottom, whatever is in between is...not for anybopdy to worry about except for the musicians. Think about it - that's how pop records were made, that's how big band music was (mostly) made, that's what "classical" music ultimately comes down to far more often than not, that's how most of us intuitive hear & think about what we hear. And with good reason - the brain can only process two separate audio stimuli simultaneously. So yeah, you grab the top and the bottom, and yunless you're really curious or else some kind of freak (and god bless you if you are) the middle is just...there. But this is where Miles fucked with people - he put the meat of his music smack dab in the middle. Mtume, Al Foster, Reggie Lucas, & Pete Cosey (when not playing lead) had a near-perpetual rhythmic and textural conversation going on. Now the thing about that is this - the records are a little on the muddy side sometimes, and you reallyu gotta dig to get there from the original LPs. But the "thing" that I knew I was digging when I didn't have half a clue what it was was exactly that - the middle of the music. Miles more than once siad that he composed from the bass up, and most people took that to mean that the bass line was the "song". But what it really means is that the bass line was the axis around which the music - the middle, that chunky stew of "electric jungle" - revolved. The middle was the music. The top was color, an occasional "melody", but mostly either a bright primary-ish color or, in Miles' case, melodies that were really organic rhythmic extrapolations that came from the middle, bubble p from the middle, and then soon disappeared back into the middle. This was not a new way to make music, hell, it's African like a mofo in concept, this notion of everything revolving around a central axis and the music being the sparks and coolings that come out of the frictions and resolutions thereof, but for a "western" mindset that overwhelmingly equates "music" with "melody", hey, this was...unfamiliar. and challenging. And coming as it did in the form of "jazz", more than a little off putting to many who were still feeling that America's Classical Music was getting royally reamed every which way. Well, I can speak only for myself, but others have told me the same thing about themselves - there's two ways to "listen" to this stuff - at it, or in it. The first, subjective approach can be bewildering, or worse, becuase there the tendency is to listen in terms of "expectations", most of which are liable to most certainly not be met, often militantly so. But you get to listening in it, just taking it in as it comes, and it's like there's this whole other world of possibilities, of time and space and color and meter and just all kinds of things, and it's a pretty damn glorious place to be, at least if you like what you find there. As time has passed, people have had time to figure this out about this music. that's why it's now "easier" to play it, and that's why seemingly continuously more people seem to be "liking" it now. Our synapses have gotten hipper (and our recordings have gotten clearer), and, yeah, what once seemed outrageous now makes a lot more sense. Just think about how much music now is more oriented towards sound (i.e. - de-emphasis of "melody" and instead putting various densities together with and against each other in a rhythmic boxing match). And "Maiysha", hell, that little beauty echoes in the textures and colors and notions of more nu-jazz, acid-jazz, trip-hop, deep house, broken beat,, etc. than any of us have time to list. But honestly, most "jazz" people are still looking at it as a different groove to solo over/on, and that is just...not the point, at least not in my estimation. The Wadada things do get it more often than not, even if, hell, everybody's had 20-25 years to more or less begin to figure it out. No real point to any of this other than... if Message To Our Folks is the REAL New World Symphony (or one of them...), the Get Up With It is the after-party for Opening Night.

http://classicshowbiz.blogspot.com/2009/06...an-winters.html

Briggs & Stratton Martin & Lewis Rogers & Hart

heeeeyyyyy....: http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/londonmusic65.htm

Gerald Wilson Julie London Julie Wilson

Well, it's not like they're all perfectly nice people who needed convincing to become assholes, but...last time I looked, simply being an asshole still constitutional... Well, it's not like they're all perfectly nice people who needed convincing to become assholes, but...last time I looked, simply being an asshole still constitutional...

Judy In Disguise With Glasses King Midas In Reverse The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

Hey, I admire his talent; I'm just not sure I enjoy watching someone being a really, really good asshole. Much the same thing was said of Allen Funt & Candid Camera back in the day, but nobody ever said that Funt & Co. didn't "show some love" once the cat was out of the bag...or that they failed to let people in on the joke before things got really ugly.

When it comes to "getting it", Aric, I don't think you need to be concerned.

Just as there's always been a lot of commercial mindless jazz posing as "real jazz"...

Dear Eloise Carrie Anne Jennifer Eccles

I dunno...it's one thing to share in the misery of others for a laugh...it's another thing to create it... A fine line (and a slippery slope), fully stipulated.

IIRC correctly, the first sign of a "critical re-evaluation" was an article that Greg Tate wrote for down beat in the very late '70s, maybe even 1980. And then came the comeback and then everybody started looking back and saying, "well, maybe we didn't get it the first time around, let's reconsider..." Hearing those albums in real time is something I don't think I'll ever quite experience again...that sensation of "I know something happening here, and DAMN do I dig it, but I don't even have half a clue as to what it is...", well, if you can get that sense of excitement and discovery and just all-around sustained positive mindfuck in any part of your life, it's a blessing, I think. I can tell you this - that music takes time to process. There's so much there, and it posits some pretty fundamental reconsiderations of "Western" paradigms of musical structures and "priorities" that imo it's on a par w/AACM as far as setting the stage for new realities in music (an by extension, life...) that a lot of people still either refuse to accept it, or else are still "befuddled" by it to one degree or another. But the shit happened. It's real, and you can't turn back time. So expect this "reconsideration" to be ongoing, becuase...when you finally realize why it was done - becuase somebodies recognized that there was a time when new roads would have to be made, then the fact that they in fact were made ahead of time is a lot less daunting than just seeing these...unknown paths leading to unknown places made for unknown reasons. In other words, it ain't really scary no more, this music of Miles, AACM, etc. Progress!

Steve Katz Fred Katz Dr. Katz

Are we looking for true "legacy", as in things that came with significant space after the fact, or things somewhat contemporaneous as well? Assuming that it's the former, the Wadada sides work well for me. And, like Lon, I'm swimming against the current in liking big chunks of the Miles From India. Also worth seeking out: Sonny Fortune (saxophone, flute); Michael Wolff (keyboards); Barry Finnerty (guitar); Michael Henderson (bass); Ndugu Chancleor (drums); Badal Roy (tablas) A very spirited outing, this one is. More "groove-centric" than the actual Miles stuff, but inevitably all of these type things are...without Miles (or Teo...), that ineffable "otherness" of the original just ain't there, which is as it should be, I suppose.

Loren Schoenberg Arnold Schönberg

That's the impression I have too, although like you I've not watched all that much. Great comedy is quite often cruel, but it shouldn't be mean.

Maneater Sara Smile Rich Girl

Moises Alou Black Moses Betty White