JSngry

The image is blocked, Jim, and the properties only say "Linda" as a possible clue. Linda who?

She looks like somebody I've seen on TV at some point in the past. Any ideas?

I checked out clips on CD Universe, & this is indeed the session. Thanks, Jack! BTW - "Billie's Bounce" is actually "Now's The Time". But I have to say that I do not hear Thad Jones anywhere on the cuts he is supposed to be on.

Tunes include "now's the time" "hot house" "shaw 'nuff" "things to come". No personnel or other details listed, but Woods is pretty unmistakable, I think. Seems to be a mid-50s thing. Tailing that, any ideas who this mystery group might otherwise be? As always, tahanks in advance!

Was it on Honeydew?

Fields. What I wonder is this - if a brand new hard copy of some 15-20 yr old records by some less than household names that sold not too many copies back then is only worth $4.99, what would be the "fair market value" for the same material in download form?

Please convey my warmest regards and highest fondness to Mr. Cabell! What's he up to these days?

Why does "Pandemic" sound like the name of a really lame metal band to me?

It's not a great movie, not even a "good" one. but it's better than it could have been, or maybe even should have been. And the score is, for my money, Duke's best, even better than Anatomy Of A Murder.

Dammit Aric, STOP MAKING SENSE! Sonny's dressing better than Hawk did, though. But then again, these are different times. Style matters, even when you are lettin it go and tellin' em all to go to hell.

Probably so, but dammit, everybody's gonna nut before cashing in, myself included. So there.

Is this the one he did w/Buddy Rich's band?

Haven't heard it, don't want to hear it. Her doing Bacarach/David in all of their primes is good enough for me, and if they all should have quit while ahead, hey, that's a line with more than a few people in it.

Dionne's phrasing on her version of that one is at times almost Dexter Gordon-ish in it's behind the beat-ness. She used to be married to Bill English, right?

I've recently begun to explore the Warwick Scepter catalog in an effort to learn more about the Bacharach/David catalog beyond the most obvious hits. So far, the albums I've checked out are Presenting..., Make Way For..., Here I Am, The Windows Of The World, & I'll Never Fall In Love Again. I'm too tired to write much right now, but a few things jump out right away: Dionne Warwick in those days was a helluva singer. Some of these songs are so unconventional musically and/or lyrically that a lesser singer would not be able to give them even a straightforward reading. That Warwick is able to give the the highly sympathetic & nuanced readings that she did is not just a tribute to the producers, but also to her skills as a vocalist. The "hits" of Bacarach & David might actually be their "lesser" work. Some songs, like "In Between The Teardrops", "The Wine Is Young", "The Last One To Be Loved", & "Paper Maché" (to name a few) are far beyond being "pop songs" in any sense other than the convenient one. Even thought that is what they are, it is not what they ARE, if you know what i mean. I think they're more "art song" than anything else, since composition, performance, arrangement, and production are all in the same service to the same end - fulfilling the fullest artistic potential of that specific song. These albums are often quite erratic. You get some Bacarach/David gems. some Bacharach/David..."stuff" ranging from "almost great" to "not even trying to be great", and then some other stuff, old-school, pre-album-era FILLER. But I gotta say - Here I Am sounds more and more like like a Hidden Secret to the genetic code of Pet Sounds with every listen... Fully aware that this type thing is probably outside the interest of many/most here, I nevertheless would welcome any comments on the subject(s), as well as input regarding other Warwick Scepter albums.

Ok, y'all know him & say he's cool and all that, so since I know y'all, ok. But he's still wrong here, and his reasoning (beyond the undeniable and no-need-to-be-defended subjectivity of "it just doesn't do it for me") is just silly, to say nothing of "tone-deaf". And yes, I did say wrong. I'm reminded of Clem's dismissal of The Beatles as essentially being that they weren't important because they stopped being important while they were still important. It's wishful thinking that attempts to make one's personal opinion into "fact". An opinion, hey, cool. We all got them. Beyond that, well, 50,000,000 Elvis fans might well be wrong, but not about what you'd like for them to think that they're wrong about.

I won't be angry.

I'm lovin' the hair, for real.

If you can find an older LP copy, get it just for the colors of the cover photo. The greens in particular are gorgeous beyond description.

So why the use of the word "covet"?

Is the thrust of the interview going to be to make a point to him or to get his ideas about that point? I could see this going really well or really badly, depending on which it is... Not sure I agree with the notion of "coveting" African American musical traditions, though... The whole "White Negro" thing is at worst a case of arrested development and at best a part of a growth process that is eventually left behind (the part, that is, not the growth process)...And I'm not so sure that the notion of defending against "white folks wanting to be black" is not part of the m.o. that Wynton has used to make his power plays...

The tactic of citing how influential a work has been in the service of arguing its lack of influence is one which I do not understand.

I first heard it in 1972, sophomore in high school, into jazz for a little over a year, lots of big band, "jazz-rock", Impulse! "avant-garde", and loud, bouncy combo music of various eras. It was in no way, to my knowledge in my admittedly isolated word, a "classic" like it is now. It was, however, something that people wanted to make sure you heard and knew about. My band director, otherwise a West Coast "cool" guy made sure I heard it, and a classmate with an older brother who was deep into jazz had a reel-to-reel dub courtesty of his brother that he would play in the band hall. In fact, it was this dubbed copy that I first heard. The band director brought in his copy after hearing us listening to the dub. The thing stopped me dead in my tracks because of its sheer sparseness. It actally seemed weird to hear so much space in music. I remember going around all day trying to "get" all the space, just singing a wnote while walking, taking 5-6 steps, singing 2 or three more, and so on, trying to find the "core logic" to such sparseness. Obviously not something that a 16 year old is going to figure out immediately, but still, that's what the initial fascination was, the "novelty", if you will (and yeah, I had already heard a bunch of electric Miles and a little 50s Prestige Miles). But I kept listening because of it was obvious that there was substance here. The rest I worked out over time, but to my still inexperienced but not ignorant ears, it was obvious that this was one to keep coming back to, more than others. It wasn't tjhe only one, but it was definitely one. Another way to look at it, maybe - I am "tired of it" in that, no, I hardly ever listen to it any more. No real need to, not at this juncture. But when I do hear it, I am never put off, and never fail to feel the mojo. So if I "stay away", its from the comfort of satisfaction, not the exhaustion of dissatisfaction.

To quote Mr. Costello, I used to get disgusted, now I only get amused. So, here's another, "this "big thing" y'all see? It's really not that big after all" attack on reality. Of coursxe there are otehr albums of the time that might be "better", and of course the use of modaility on KOB was neither totally original nor the bulk of the album. Ane sure, the "marketing" of the album exists, to this day, just as it does with A Love Supreme. But geez, Louise, you can only market something so much. You can't create such an enduring (if you can call a mere 50 years "enduring", but let's do it for the case of this argument) classic on hype alone. There's got to be something there. And that "something" is simple - mojo. "Better" music often has less of it, but that's irrelevant to anything, because mojo is one of those things that you either get or you don't. Of course, there's always somebody who just doesn't get it, refuses to get it, and somebody whose subjective disengagement with an item gradually turns into a bow-tie-wearing-ish contrariness that delights in denying the existence of something that most people get without too much, if any, effort. That's the nature of mojo - it bypasses "reason" and "subjective analysis" and just goes straight to your own personal Point Of What Really Matters. If somebody comes up and just says, "eh, I don't get it. That's just me" and stops there, hey, cool. Not necessarily right, but cool. It's the guys who go one step furhter and say, "I not only don't get it, but I think you've been duped if you do" that make me wonder if they don't have some misanthropic streak in them somewhere, some inabilty to not only understand what others feel that they themselves don't, but some need to disallow others to feel what they themselves don't. You want to "blame" somthing fo this album's iconic status, try this - has there ever been any other album whose music has been so consistently, as in 100%, perfectly in sync in terms of timbre, tempo, texure, and space with its recorded sound? No, I think not. Has there been anything else quite like that seemingly eternal decay of Jimmy Cobb's "crash" (I use the term advisedly) cymbal coming out of the head of "So What" and the seamless emergence of his ride cymbal while Miles leaves the space for it to happen before riding back in to perfectly add yet another texture to the mix? No, I think not. And this is an album virtually full of such sonic moments, moments that would still ba as musically valid if recorded differently, but not as "magical". Reverb is an instrument unto itself, as is room sound, as is (as has long been noted about Miles) microphone technique. All are items to be "played" just as felicitously (or not) as any instrument. And all go a long ways towards creating mojo, since all are things which function (unless specifically directed otherwise) in the realm of the "extra-musical", even though when played right, they become as integral to, as much a part of, the music as "the music" itself. There's more to this album than just the playing & the tunes. KOB is not just about "music". It's also about sound, environment, ambiance, experience beyond the subjective, all those "extra-musical" (although not really, not in my book) things that make the difference between a greeting card and a nice romantic note and a love letter that convinces you to pack up your bags and begin your life anew. That is mojo, and you either get it or you don't. Mr. Myers is apparently one of the ones who doesn't get it. Many, many more do, and contrary to what he migh be hoping for, this proves nothing more than that he doesn't get it and that many, many more do. Good for him, but excuse me if I pretty much give him a rousing, "so what?".