JSngry

Mentioned over in the What Are You Glistening To NOW? thread, but would like a perhaps greater focus on what is, to me, a damn fine album. Martino as a session leader is somebody I've long admired more than actually dug, but this one, is really grabbing me, and hard. Trudy Pitts! And who is this drummer, Mitch Fine? This cat is ON it! The only other Martino Prestige date I have is Strings, and that one is mighty fine too, but it has more of a "seasoned" feel to it, no doubt because it's a bunch of seasoned pros making a record date the way that seasoned pros do. El Hombre, otoh, feels to me like a club date where everybody is in that zone and stays there. Something to be said for using top-shelf "local" players instead of "the usual suspects", perhaps, at least sometimes? Anyway, this one sorta came out of nowhere and knocked me out. Any other fans?

Franlkly, I don't care what they think. I'm old enough and "experienced" enough to know that what Freddie Roach says is true, and that what Crouch says is at best (which is not all that often...) "true". Even if Roach speaks from a perspective that is wholly personal and therefore not always "macro" in scope, what he say contains no lies. Crouch should be so blessed.

Marvin Gaye? Stevie Wonder? Tom Terrific?

Stanley Crouch?

Louis' Arm Strong!

Blanda?

I mean, Crouch relative to Jones/Baraka, Spellman, et al, even Kofsky, devolved in real time to me like Marsailis' music did to it's sources, from a thinking that there might be something relevant going to happen, to a realization that, no, guess not, oh well, to a final, oh god, how much more fucked up can it get? (and they're still working on that one, it seems...) All that "doctrinal" writing of the 60s had "flaws", but they were (mostly) the flaws of passion and the flaws of "the moment". In other words, the kinds of flaws you almost want to have in your work if you're getting on in there and doing it in real time. But Crouch, damn, that shit is just evil (and not even particularly well-written evil at that!), especially since I'm pretty sure that he knows better, or at least did at one point... Shit, for a "Black Perspective" on "Black Music", I mean, hell, it don't get too much better than a set of Freddie Roach liner notes. Seriously. Stanley Crouch should take a lesson.

If it's part of a 3-way with Marsailllllllllllllis & Spellman, hey, it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. What's the relationship like between Crouch & Spellman anyways?

Yeah, I feel his pain (thinking of the "Why not? That's how you did it last night" joke...). Thank god for the exceptions though. There's enough of them that hope springs eternal, although not nearly as eternal as the bullshit. A gig with a good singer, though (when/if you can find one) is a thing of joy. That human voice, hey, it's a groove, it is...

And they need to be, don't they? Unless they're gonna go the Patti Waters and/or Betty Carter routes, and some might say that the drama inherent in those approaches is a form of "acting" in itself... As for Astrud, hell, not a great "singer", but history does what it will do, and damn if she and her thing ain't some kinda iconic in spite of that. It's out of the hands of logic, reason, taste, or anything, really. that voice, that sound...it has made its place, and there ain't nothing gonna change that as long as the current "pop culture" paradigm stays in place either in part or in toto. Myself, I like some of the moments she's had, and am pretty much indifferent about the rest.

Oh, btw, just what are the parameters here? The second Atlantic run (talk about finding some real gems...), Columbia, what all is going to be targeted?

There was a song, "One Drop Of Love" off of some '90s(?) album that was a perennial favorite of this DJ who played on the push dance gigs I used to work. A gem, just a real gem, although it took a few spins for it to really sink in how much of one it really was. That DJ had damn good taste, actually, as did the dancers. I learned a lot from all of them, actually.

You are correct, sir: http://bookculture.wordpress.com/2007/12/1...alling-editors/

Seriously, I've had ongoing casual offline contact w/Clem since the days of Board Krypton. Never knew him to be anything less than 100% decent, honest, and civil in those contacts. The board persona was just that, and knowing so made a lot of his ranting humorous to me, to see the poits he was making beneath the bullshit (points which were very often spot on, imo). Yeah, he sometimes got on my nerves, especially towards the to-this-point end of his stay here, but then again, most people do, especially people I consider friends. Whatever he's doing, I hope he's doing it well, and along those lines, I hope that his beloved Titania is falling into that category.

Ok, here's our guy:

https://www.electberger.com/

http://www.brianbergerpr.com/

http://brianberger.org/Bio.html

The toe bone connected to the foot bone, and the foot bone connected to the ankle bone, and the ankle bone connected to the leg bone. The leg bone connected to the knee bone, and the knee bone connected to the thigh bone, and the thigh bone connected to the hip bone. The hip bone connected to the back bone, and the back bone connected to the neck bone, and the neck bone connected to the head bone.

Possibly the Breaking Point quintet w/Spaulding?

Glad (for what reason, I don't know) to hear that Lester dug Freddie, Chuck. For some reason I was thinking that that might not have been the case, at least not fully.

If you have to ask...

Word.

The Hub Of Hubbard (MPS) will always be special to me. That stuff is just nuts, and in the best possible way.