JSngry

Ah, but then there's the Zawinul Syndicate, which, after a rough start, made some very organic & successful pan-global improvisation-centric music. I'm already hearing the influence pop up in some "advanced" dance records, the kind of things that get made about 5-6 years before they hit the mainstream... what effect it's having on "jazz", I can't say, but really, does it matter any more? Jazz has (mostly) allowed itself to become codified to the point of being a "repertoire" music in one sense or another, so anything that's not already been done ain't gonna get done in that house anymore. For the most part.

Django's most immediate influence was in the 20th century. Zawinul's may prove to be in the 21st. The cat found a way put a lot of things different together organically and artistically (ok, for all you folk with art-o-phobia, musically), and if that ain't the way the world is going, then I don't know what is. Myself, I dig Django more than I feel him. Such is not the case with Zawinul. But that's just me.

Now, bring that one on! Clem.

Hey, you know how sometimes you hear cats talking about their music and how "it's not from me, I'm just the vessel" and all that? Well, those are usually "spiritual" types who say that, but the fact of the mater is that they are right, and what nobody considers is that when some really fucked up people make wonderful music it's for that exact same reason - it's not from them, they are just the vessel. And as I stated earlier in this thread, you can put some breathtakingly beautiful flowers in an uglyass vase, and damned if the flowers still aren't beautiful & the vase still ugly. Which is why I believe in "art" a whole helluva lot more than I do in "Artists"...

I suspect that record was put together to create some joy, make a little money, by people trying to do the best job they could...So why does it have to be picked out of the 'pop' box and put in the 'art' box? And who decides if it should move? Why do you assume that I have these multiple boxes? Or shelves, or anything? Look, I give a rat's ass about whether it's "pop" or "art". Screw that. My point/concern is that it is both, and that settling for pop music that doesn't elevate and/or being paranoid of art that actually reaches out to people are both signs of the same sickness, a fear that one is placing oneself in a position to be "contaminated" by somebody/something else, a contamination that will destroy something essential rather than enhancing it, growing it. It works both ways, it does (as a youth in rural East Texas, it was far from uncommon to hear education beyond the basics ridiculed as "high falutin'" or some such), and it's wrong in both intent and outcome both ways too. Anything "cultural" that seeks to enforce (or creates the net result of enforcing) the attitude of "no, you can't, because you are who you are" or "no, you shouldn't, because that's not who you are", be it to prop up or keep down, is just flat out wrong in my book, simply because it presupposes the right to deny self-determination of identity. And that, to me, is about as big a non-physical crime against humanity as you can commit because if you believe in the notion of a "soul", either real or abstract, then it really comes down to who owns your soul - you or some other human? To all of humanity, I have just one simple message - ELEVATE MOTHERFUCKERS, ELEVATE!!! It is not a particularly difficult challenge, nor is it in any way an exclusive one. And there is no end to the road, either. Unless one does not believe in the first place, in which case...

I wouldn't dispute that there are higher qualities - the St. Matthew Passion or Ellington 40s records clearly show people realising the fullest human potential. It's the game playing that grates - where something that can perfectly convincingly be regarded as an example of high achievement gets rubbished as a way for the rubbisher to claim a higher standard of discrimination. Music, painting, writing...the lot...exists for me in a sort of three dimensional spectrum. Dividing it into 'art' and 'not art' is purely arbitrary and more to do with tribe forming than anything else. I've no problem...and I don't think British culture - actually has much problem with intellectualism (using the brain to create, investigate etc)! We're just very guarded when it comes to pseudo-intellectualism. We've grown up with it being used by some to maintain a sense of exclusiveness. I don’t think Carey is being anti-intellectual. He’s challenging the abuse of intellectualism - the use of the intellect to create an exclusive zone rather than using it for the benefit of the community at large. Well, ok, the "problem" I have with all this is the poo-poo-ing of the notion of "art", which to me is nothing more than creating work which aspires to stimulate those "higher qualities", either in self, community, or, ideally, both. Now, sure, there's been games (mind, spiritual, money, you name it) over the what & whos & "ownerships" of these qualities, but since they have been framed in terms of the word "art", I myself feel both an entitlement and an obligation to hang on to the word on my terms and make it fully and honestly relevant to my world. Otherwise, I fear abandoning the word signals abandoning the concept, and therefore the idea(l), and then what do you have left? What are you signaling to your peers and your offspring, that there is no higher potential, no further possibilities, that imagination and the exhilaration it can produce are essentially elitist constructs of class-based enslavement? WTF kind of responsible role-modeling/guardianship is that? No, the problem is not with "art" itself, it is how the notion has been used as a weapon. If y'all can come up with another, less..."tainted" word that doesn't sound like some sillyass wounded inner child psychobabble, hey, I'll go along, I guess. No, I take it back, I won't. The notion itself of "art" is quite fine, thank you, and it belongs to everybody, in what it is, how it can be made/found, and what it can inspire & stimulate. To argue against "art" because of the misuse to which it has been put is akin to arguing that since restricted voting rights were historically used to enslave and/or limit the potentials of people of color and women, that voting should be done away with altogether. Nonsense! The best weapon against elitism, the one that most effectively erases its vestiges is not destroying that which elitism seeks to keep for itself, it is to open the eyes of those to whom that thing has been denied/discouraged that it is every bit as much "theirs" as it is anybody else's, not just in terms of "entitlement" but also, especially, in terms of "source". I mean, hell, my Cut Of The Week was a freakin' Supremes record, for cryin' out loud. Hardly an "approved" source of "art", but damned if what that record stirred in me didn't have me thinking, reaching, living higher for a little bit. Anybody tells me that I'm wrong for that, hey, fuck'em. It's my "art" for that moment at that time, and damned if anybody else has the authority to proclaim otherwise. And no, I don't think that people should be encouraged to "stay native" in where they go for art. That's enslavement of a different kind. But definitely start native, and add on from there if that's how it rolls for you. It's a big beautiful world, and it's an old one and a new one simultaneously. Plenty to be had at plenty of locations. The biggest overall problem I see in the world today is a loss of optimism/vision/hope/whatever amongst "the masses". Sending out the message that things designed with "elevation" at their core are self-absorbed vanities, and that the seeking out of same is an elitist fallacy do nothing towards bettering this condition, and are every bit as harmful as those who actually do practice/espouse the elitism. Denigrating the language risks denigrating the concept itself, eventually destroying it,and the destruction of the concept of Truth And Beauty And Higher Potential most assuredly does not produce a world that reflects humanity's higher potentials. Agreed? I mean, France is a beautiful country, but what was the goal when it was occupied by the Nazis, the destruction of the country or the ouster of those who held it captive?

I have as little use for "anti-intellectualism" as I do "intellectualism". Anybody who can seriously claim that there are no such things as "higher qualities" of humanity is just as full of shit as somebody who claims that "they" have an exclusive on same.

Are we talking "fusion", or its immediate predecessor, "jazz-rock"? How about that Peter Herzenboofendozer guy who did the MPS stuff? And oh yeah, what about Pat Williams?

And as for Turk Mauro, a fellow for whose playing considerations of Truth And Beauty might be a little...."lofty", hey, he's a fucked-up dude who's a good tenor player. Happens all the time, in all walks of life.

Not difficult at all, really. Truth And Beauty are qualities. People are merely (among) the vessels that deliver them. Just like a really ugly vase can hold some beautiful flowers, and vice-versa. And what might it mean if the same hand that created the vase also is that which filled it with weeds? Maybe it don't mean shit except that, hey, there it is. And shit, by the way, makes for excellent fertilizer. And so it goes.

How does the Tilton version of "Moon Dreams" compare to the transcendent Johnny Desmond/Miller AAF Band version?

Sunnuvabitch, you're in Tampa? I listened to WMNF regularly for the year and a half I lived there. Almost made the experience bearable! Good luck on the show. I know you got some goodies ready to go!

Olk, now I'm reading on AMG that it's Johnny Bristol & that it wasn't from the booth at all. That's not waht I heard on some "nostalgia" show back in the day, but oh well. Still a great record, a great song, and a great groove. If I ever start playing seriously with a group of my own again, this one's getting played.

That old Supremes song "Someday We'll Be Together", the one with Bobby Womack's from-the-booth-to-the-singer-throiugh the-phones cajolations to Diana Ross captured and kept. Damn, what a groove that sucker has. Easy to overlook since it was such a big hit and it is a Diana Ross minus the real Supremes puffjob and after all it is just a good Top 40 song from last century, but it's actually a pretty nice song. And besides... DAMN, what a groove that sucker has.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxXxvkK6IlQ&NR=1

If I was gonna go there (and some day I might...), then this looks like a good place to start: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...10:3ifqxqtjldae Plenty of Chronological Classics discs as well, if that fans the flames.

Thilly boy, I'm quoting a Dithyy Gillethpie/Joe Carroll thong baithed on thith nurthery rhyme!

You wanna be king for a minute, or Queen For A Day?

Murray, Lester, Fred Hopkins, & Phillip wilson.

I'm gone again.

Believe it or not: I was a freshman at NTSU when all this was going on. Leon Breeden just turned the band over to Lyle Mays, the first and only time he surrendered control, and since the Lab Band program was an "open" experience for all, rehearsals were public affairs. To say that witnessing them was an education would be severe understatement, This stuff was out of everybody's box except its creator's.

Much better than the aforementioned Light My Fire!

Word on that, but the highlight for me is a gorgeous (and gorgeously soulful) version of Galt MacDermot's "Weeping", a song with which I was wholly unfamiliar, but one which sounds like it might have been a prototype for John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy". But truthfully, all the material is nice, or at least played in such as way as to make it nice.