JSngry

I feel sorry for any woman who loses her virginity to a man who thinks that sex should be like Stan Kenton sounds.

...and well he might, but did you hear that Delmark side he did with, I think Brad Goode & co. a few years ago. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed that whenever Fuller stepped up to play that the sound suddenly got swarthed w/massive reverb and a different EQ. The "real" sound inside all that seemed really small & feeble to me. It really made me sad.... I know that sounds disrespectful, and damn, I don't mean it too. Fuller's long been one of my favorites, often my most favorite in that post-JJ "hard bop" context. And like I said, much love for fuller here, no matter what the ravages of time have (or haven't) been. I only make these comments in the context of HP's sense of disappointment after seeing him live over the last few years. Tell you what, HP, besides all the great work he did w/Blakey, see if you can find an old Bob Brookmeyer Emarcy side called Jazz Is A Kick. Half of it is by a two trombone frontline of Brookmeyer & Fuller, with a rhythm section of Wynton Kelley, Paul Chambers, & Paul Motian(!). There's a long jam on there by that quintet called "Cooperation" where Brookmeyer & Fuller go back and forth and DAMN is it good. Alos, his two Mainstream sides, although not wholly successful from a "production" standpoint, show him progressing into the modal/post-modal bag in a more than causal way. All I'm saying is that even if he was totally shot today (and I don't think he is), this is a guy who's definitely been there and definitely done that.

I think his chops have been shot for a while now. In his day, good player, sometimes better - or much better - than good. Definitely deserving of the name & the reputation. but between age and...things...I don't know what he has left physically.

Dude...I miss Bill Cullen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BerVyqhk4qQ

I'm guessing a reissue of this: http://www.amazon.com/Turn-Out-Stars-Vangu...s/dp/B000002MYU ?

See also here: http://www.bonle.com/low-more.asp?ProductID=6416 and here: http://www.bonle.com/high_1.asp?ChannelID=15&ClassID=343

Interchangeable. That, and I felt that the subtleties of his style - displayed very well in the sounds, I thought - were too often sacrificed for the "grand gestures". But that's just me.

You're right to hear the west coast vibe here, & yes that's Lanny Morgan--there's a particular Birdish lick he tends to play every 8-16 bars that gives him away! Shew is in the band but isn't the trumpet soloist. Not Christlieb. I included this in part just because I really like listening to these kind of dazzling workmanlike players who really feel the music. I was reviewing this album at the same time that Dave Holland's first big band album was getting a lot of press & I was thinking how the Holland album sounded like it was the work of players who really had very little big band experience mostly & how much it sounded like that. & while, yeah, the chart's not anything that speaks to me, I still like the panache with which it's delivered, especially the trumpet solo. I've had the same reaction to a lot of big-band albums made of all/mostly soloists. There's a reason there's parts, and there's a reason people who play them well had a valued place in a time when most music had parts. Sure, the feel comes first, if you have to choose, but if you do have to choose, you should be asking youself why.

Like another track here (Bonus #2) this is included partly because I actually saw the saxophonist in concert (though of course not this particular performance, which was way before I was born). Not a big name, though I think he recorded a disc or two for Concord near the end of his career. The pianist took his life a year or two after this recording was made, & remains something of a "what-if?...." A shame. to be continued.... Fraser MacPherson?

Mid-1980s. Yeah, I'm somewhat ambivalent about this kind of music, but, hey, I found myself enjoying this more than I thought I would the most recent time I pulled it out for a listen, & it's certainly got rarity value, so I thought, hey, let's put it on the BFT...... -- You have any clues to the saxes? I was wondering what your thoughts were on the tenor in particular (who's spoken of respectfully in these parts from time to time). Starts out very Wayne-ish, and goes from there. Good use of space too. Is this a Laswell thing?Sounds like him, but...not Last Exit, surely?

Dude - one word for those times & why I can't be expected to have remembered everything: BACARDI.

I think what happened is that A) It was on Concord & B) Post-3 Sounds Gene Harris has proven a mixed bag for me. So I don't think I ever bothered to turn the record (or, later, CD) over to see who the "Plus One" was. OOOPS!!!

Don't know how in the hell I missed this one for so long (well, I do, but you know....), but DAMN. Let me put it this way - Stanley Turrentine cattin' is one of my all time most favorite tenoristical joys in life, and this mufphlucker is cattin' all over this bad boy. If you need, or need to know, more, this is not an album for you.

I really dig the broken beat myself, but what is dubstep & who does it best?

In keeping with the typically Organissimoistical concept of thread sprawl, "people" in this thread has come to mean "units" of people as well as individual personages.

The alto player was a student of Lee's in the 1960s. Bob Mover?

Late to the party, but you know how life is sometimes... TRACK ONE - Ronnie Ball, I believe, with Ted Brown & Willie Dennis. Good stuff. TRACK TWO - Not sure. I'm engaged more than compelled, which is more than most things do, so hey. Sounds like these guys all have other "ways of playing" & that this is a "growth exercise" of sorts for them rather than how they play by gut. That's cool. TRACK THREE - Funny how the Tristano influence keeps hanging on & becoming more abstract. Those who dismissed him back in the day, boy, wouldn't they be surprised! Sounds recent. Very plotted out, and to good effect in one sense, less so in another, in that I get no sense of anybody other than the composition, which might well be the point. Not sure if this is "relevant to my lifestyle" or anything, but everybody sounds like they mena it, so all's well. TRACK FOUR - 80s? 90s? 2000s? We had a couple of things in this basic vein in Quartet Out, vampish, and...I got played out on it. I "hear the math" before I do the music, which is not the fault of these guys at all. So kinda like they used to do on To Tell The Truth, I must disqualify myself from the proceedings. But I will say this - there gets to be a quality of... specific masculinity in these type things that is not really good for anybody over the long haul. TRACK FIVE - Now, this is charming! A little "light" over the long haul, but not defectively so. In a better world, this bunch could take it out on the road and get it a little looser. But this ain't a better world, so this will just have to do, eh? TRACK SIX - Sounds like either a really old guy who's still at it in his last years, or else a younger "out-ish" guy who's right on the verge of getting his/her changes together. No real opinion here. People do what they do for whatever reasons they do it, and that's how it should be. TRACK SEVEN - I must confess, I've never really checked out Derek Bailey, but this is what I've always suspected he sounded like. Sounds like he's having fun, and it's a little contagious, that fun is! TRACK EIGHT - "Crazy Rhythm", by one of those old school badass motherfuckers who could just wail on anything. Jug, Tom Archea, Eddie Chamblee, cats like that. Trombonist is kinda...working on it. Pianist is kinda showing off ain't he? Like he's more advanced than everybody else. He plays one of the trombonist's licks back at him, that "Parisian Thoroughfare" thing. And he is more advanced. But advanced and better ain't the same thing, so him & the tenor player are totally peers in my estimation, at least at this time and in this place, which was when, half a century ago? TRACK NINE - Repeated listening find me either getting all the way into this or else just not giving a shit at all. Depends on how I'm feeling at the time. Either way, "self-indulgent" is the phrase that keeps coming to mind. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. But... TRACK TEN - Rightly or wrongly, this simultaneously reminds me of the 80s and Abbey Road. The latter, I still dig, the former less so. So you can see my quandary. TRACK ELEVEN - A wild stab here - Bobby Shew? Lanny Morgan? Highly competent all the way around, the chart is kinda Boss Brass-ish, which is not really my bag, but I've played a lot of those charts, and they do require some panache. Pete Christlieb? I'm definitely feeling West Coast/studio players here, guys who can all play one thing and make a living playings anything. Nivce work if you can get it! Truthfully, in my younger, more ideologically-driven days, I would have hated this. Now I respect the hell out of it, and even kinda like it. You just don't get to this point of competency without paying some dues. And if the dues you pay to get here are not the dues that others have chosen to pay to get someplace else, oh well. TRACK TWELVE - Oh geez, I know that alto player. Or else I know who he's copping from. These days.... Very late-60s/early 70s-ish, and if it's retro, they've kept the spirit and not just the excution, so good for them. BONUS DISC TRACK THIRTEEN - Oh HELL yeah! Larry, from CONTRASTS. UN-mistakeable! godDAMN this is the shit right here! Not in "style", but in spirit. Tyrone's tune, "Tender Feelings". This is what playing live over time in the context of a real, all-purpose, uncontrived scene will get you. If I said to accept no substitutes, I would be being cruel and unreasonable. Things have changed and irrevocably. Nevertheless... TRACK FOURTEEN - For some reason, this player reminds me of Frank Strozier, particularly his features with Oliver Nelson & Don Ellis. At least on the a cappella intro. Less so as it goes on. Veteran playing all the way around. Probably too long, but oh well. Anybody who checks out something like this in the first place probably ain't gonna be too upset by that anyways. TRACK FIFTEEN - Oh, ok. HARDCORE! Let's hear it for the true BELIEVERS! Seriously! Hey Nate, that was fun. Sorry I took so long to get in, but even for this, I had to put aside some things that "others" were insisting I do. You know how that goes... But for real - a nice collection. Enjoyed it.

The Benny Goodman Sextet The Temperance Seven The Dave Brubeck Octet

Here's the record: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5zQG3Bx0Gc

Gertrud Heathcliffe A Flock Of Seagulls

Q: Oh Zain Verjee, why re you so beautiful and charismatic? A: Because I'm Zain Verjee, dammit. That's why!

Who indeed! All I know is that "Zain Verjee" rolls off the tongue in a wholly sensuous manner in a way that "Tom Brokaw" or "Brit Hume" does not.

You know, the "gurnish, gurninsh" & "stop seein' the wolf" & all that. I assume it's idiomatic something, but what? As always, thanks in advance!

This is good.