JSngry

I'll take a link, please. for the non-.exe file.

Any ideas on how to get the side on Golden Crest? I first encountered him on Woody Herman:1964 where he easily held his own with Sal Nistico. No easy feat, that.

Carl Ballentine was/is a trip!

Cozy Cole Bob Cousy Crazy Eddie

Not only that, but she got an attitude about it!

Yeah, well neither is anybody else! Seriosuly, though, there is a certain "mountain" look, that coal black hair, squarish jaw, full cheekbones, slight overbite, we don't usually think of white folk in America as ever having an "ethnic" look, but what Loretta Lynn has certainly is. Same with June Carter. And if you spend some time in that whole Tennessee/Kentyucky/West Virginia/Southern Ohio area, you'll really develop an appreciation for its own unique beauty, when you see it, which you don't always do... Here ya' go, if you won't take my word for it, take hers!

Q.E.D. !

T-Bone.... much

Times is tough all over. So why don't they cut scholarships for more well-to-do kids instead? Could it be that they have an eye out on sustainable legacy contributions? Nah...couldn't be. Now that's Julliard. A big kid on the block. Taking care of #1. Business is business. And indeed it is. But imagine some not-outstanding but not totally sucky jazz-ed program, what are they gonna do? they're gonna take'em in, make 'em happy, and churn 'em out, that's what. They're not gonna be "challenging" their creative psyches or anything. And I don't blame 'em. Times is tough all over. But whenever the question comes up why do all these school players sound just about the same, remember a big part of the why - it's what the customer wants! Everybody gotta eat, which means that there's gonna be a lot of bitin' going on...

Loretta Lynn was never unattractive, at least not in a "country" way.

If "austere" is Belgian for "Dizzy's chops were all but shot by then & a duet might not have been the best idea, except as a matter of spirit", then I concur!

Yeah, ok, put it on top. But where there is a top, there must be a bottom. And if you're like me, you like a good strong bottom that takes good care of what's on top.

I use Spybot, I just shut off TeaTimer. Don't knoiw if that hurts the "immunization" protection or not, but the TeaTimer thing was buggin' too much for my liking. Spybot still scans just fine though.

Well, I thought I had said what I meant, but I've been listening to myself for so long I can easily be deluded into thinking so... Short answer- it don't mean a thing, etcetcetc. Longer answer - In my world, in my life, in my time, the pulse drives everything else. It is the impetus for all that follows. A chord is just a sound, and a melody is just a series of notes until something forms it, and that something is for me the pulse - be it irregularly regular, afro, jazz, latin, funk, bebop, swang, disco, whatever, maybe even something new, who knows. But if it don't begin from a/the pulse, then it's gonna come up short with and for me. Loaded answer - Miles said that a lot of white folks didn't get his electric music becuase they don't understand that black folk compose from the bottom up. Me myself, I don't think it's a race-specific thing, although I don't think it hurts to say that different pulses might well have different "cultural heritages". But hell, I can't hear Bach w/o hearing the pulse first. So in that sense, yeah, from the bottom up is what makes it real as opposed to just "nice". And nothing pisses me off faster than a bunch of people obsessing over "melody" with a limp pulse underneath it. YUCK! But I can say the same thing about texture or harmony or any other element of music. Understand though, that for me, "pulse" does not necessarily = "beat". "Beat" is just one type of pulse. Pulse is just an urgency of rhythm, the (safety?) net against which all else bounces up and down and all around. All of which is to say that the "pulse" of life is constant throughout time, but the manifestations of it do evolve, both locally and globally. And this, I think, must be not just accepted but embraced (as well as that "pulse", implying vibration as it does, also extends to timbre, color, and by extension, instrumentations, and ok, while we're at it, ideas of "form" that best let the evolving pulse(s) of our evolving times best fit into, i.e. - be , whatever they will be)). Does that make more sense?

I still say not only that those who have it will find a way (and schooling can be of enormous help, make no mistake), but I'll also say that those who don't have it - and they are virtually by definition The Many - can, will, and do find open arms for as long as they got the money. The repercussions of several generations of this Mafia of Mediocrity on the overall jazz scene cannot be underestimated. As individuality becomes harder to obtain (options are running out...), Proficient Mediocrity becomes easier to achieve. And there is strength in numbers, make no mistake. So the next time you go to a local "jam session" and it's populated my people who play the same tunes the same way and it all goes on and on and on and there's like, 10-15 people in the house and you wonder why this, and a few other gigs like it, is the only jazz in town, ask yourself why & where these guys got the idea that this was what they were supposed to be doing, anyway. And then ask yourself if there's anybody around who don't do it like that. There just might be. Or not. Who knows? There's next to no ways left to thin the herd. Used to be that the "street" did it as players came up through it. Now, with so many players coming up through the schools, the schools in theory should do it. But they can't because that's not good business. I'm not talking about weeding out the grossly incompetent, mind you, they still do that. I'm taking about the highly competent mediocrities who end up with a degree or something and then go out into the world to settle in somewhere plying their craft in a seemingly harmless manner. That type thing has always been around, but there used to be a healthy enough street scene to counter it, if you wanted it to be countered. But that was then, this is now, them streets ain't nowhere near the same, and what cha' got left? Here's a modest proposal - take everybody who graduates from a jazz program and keep them from getting any gigs for five years. You got five years where if you wanna play, fine, but only on your own, and no money involved. Co-mingle as you will, but for money, flip burgers, sell insurance, whatever comes to you to put you & and your music where you want to be. Then call them back together, after five years of every tub on its own bottom and then see who's got what going on, who's gonna keep doing it and moving ahead when it's all on them. It ought to be a law, I tell ya'!

Katherine Whitaker Dan Moss

Dan Morgenstern Rhoda Morgenstern Rhoda Scott

Well, you say "young people" like they're all the same, and no of course they're not. And by "very young" people, I assume you mean anybody old enough to vote, smoke, marry, commit felonies and be tried as an adult, voluntarily serve in the armed forces, in short, make adult decisions based on what they think their needs are at the time, including what kind of a musical path they want to be put on. And the anecdotal evidence I hear overwhelmingly suggests a scenario where the students come in not wanting to be challenged to find their own voices but to be taught a "style", or a collection of "styles" that will enable them to "be" a "jazz musician. And if they don't get it, they bitch about it. People get unhappy. Schools need the business and they don't want unhappy customers. So you can figure out what happens from there. The fact of the matter is simple - really creative people will find a way. For them, school can provide an invaluable workshop. Or it can prove to be a prison of stifling proportions. I've seen it go both ways. But it's also another fact of the matter that there aren't that many creative people in the world. Never have been, never will be. If you set up a program based on separating the creative from the craftsman, well, let's just hope that by "craftsman", you're referring to Sears products, because otherwise you'll be out of business before sunset. Let's not forget that a university program is constantly under pressure to prove itself worthy of funding, be it increased, sustained, or just flat out not getting terminated. During the Baby Boom years, programs of all sorts could afford to "challenge", because A) it was expected & B) there was a constant supply of customers. Now, money's tight, bodies are more scarce, so if some hot-shot freshman alto player walks in and learns all the licks and is totally devoid of personality, calling him aside and metaphorically cutting his balls off and telling him to come back when he grows a pair of his own is not something that is going to be institutionally sanctioned, if you know what I mean. People ask why "jazz education" is training people for gigs that don't exist. Hell, that's a question that's been asked for as long as I can remember, going back to the earliest 1970s. The answer is easy - there is a market. It's a business for the schools, the educators, and god knows, for the authors and publishers of instructional materials. "Real world" only comes into play when it has too, usually when a student starts getting called for gigs and realizes that a whole BIG bunch of what he learned at school ain't got shit to do with playing a nice quiet solo on "Ipanema" in a lounge and then a loud simple one on "Shotgun" a few nights later at a wedding. That's when the young innocent gets dark and thinks that it's a world full of ignorant-ass bullshit & jive, no-hearing motherfuckers. Hell, that should be Introductory Lesson 101, not Post-Grad 704! Again - there are some great people in the jazz-ed field, and there are some great pockets in some programs where The Ones are allowed to fly, and The Many can just go on ahead and learn their craft for a future of...whatever. But too often I've heard stories of professional survival depending on not rocking the boat and just keeping the customer satisfied, not matter what that entails, so long as it's not total bullshit. And for that, I do in large part blame the students, who far too often and for far too long have been conditioned to think that "success" is a right, not an uncertainty, and that if they ain't learnin', it's becuase you ain't teachin'. Now how are you going to confront an attitude like that with the reality of "first you learn the blues, then you learn rhythm changes, then you forgot all that shit and just PLAY!", as Bird so succinctly put it? Hell, students would rebel, parents would petition the dean (it happens!), all hell would break loose, and the truth would not be allowed to stand! Jazz Education is not exempt from the softening of the challenges and rigors that result intellectual artistic character that has befallen the rest of our world. The supply rises or lowers itself in order to capture the demand. If the customers start showing up in droves asking to have their asses and souls mercilessly kicked until they find their own voice and the schools refuse, then I will stop blaming the customer first and foremost. Until then, it's a sad state of affairs with enough total blame to go around, but you gotta ask where it all begins. Young people have been brainwashed by the likes of you-know-who and others, but since when were young people so eager and so gullible to accept the status-quo? What's up with THAT?

Donny Hathaway - "I Know It's You" from Extensions Of A Man Good lord, what a song, what a performance, what a record... one for the ages. Sometimes I hear something like this and ask myself how many musicians (or teams of musicians, after all it's a Leon Ware song, and Arif Mardin arrangement, and a Jerry Wexler/Arif Mardin production that Hathaway's damn near god-like vocal is divining) of any "style" could come up with such a fully perfect musical statement, and the answer is almost comically low. But hey - it can happen, and here it did. 30 + years later, I remain in awe.

There were two - one on Soul Note & then a live double album on Hat. I think they're both indispensable. The Soul Note had the WOW factor for me becuase it was first, and was therefore a big surprise (besides being truly WOW in every way), but the Hat has the distinction of having longer performances, which may or may not be an advantage depending on how you look at it, but you do get to hear the ideas stretched out more.

I just want to add that there are a few jazz educators present on this board, and I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I don't mean any disrespect for their efforts. I've had conversations with various jazz-ed faculty members over the years, and I know that the pressures from many sides make teaching jazz anything but the idyllic picnic we'd like to think that it could - or should - be. The demands are that of so many other jobs - keep the customer satisfied, or else. So I still say that ultimately it comes down to the students. You got too many people wanting to be a "jazz musician" based on what they think a "jazz musician" is, and that's an image built on fantasy, romanticism, and all sorts of various and sundry other bullshits. And if you get the hose out and try and wash away too much bullshit too firmly, well, that's not the object of the university's game. Hell, even back in 71 or 72, Cecil Taylor flunked over half of his jazz history class at UWIS(?) for not really grasping the essence of what he was teaching - and keep in mind, this was just jazz history, not his music or anything else. Cecil Taylor then got flunked by the University and was out of work.

not only do I doubt that a young Thelonious Monk would be attending a jazz school today, a part of me is convinced that he would not even be playing what today is called "jazz". He'd probably be doing so Mike Ladd-ish shit, or something like that, Or not. Like I said, it's just a part of me that is convinced of that. But it's a part that I believe more and more as the days go by.

The first word that comes to mind would be "cluelessness". About so many things. That's a little bit harsh, though, so let me take a pass on that one until I can fins a way to say the same ting in a nicer way.