JSngry

Hell, if you know it's a Wayne Shorter tune but just can't remember the title, you're already ahead of most people's curve, it seems to me. And don't be afraid to "look it up". No harm, shame, or real investment of time there. We all forget tune names, album facts, etc. & need to make a quick trip to the shelves to confirm what we think we know (and usually do). And after a while, yeah, certain "basics" just take root. I mean, if you don't know "Footprints" or "Infant Eyes" right off the bat, wellsir, might be time to tighten up. But if you know it's either "Witch Hunt" or "Speak No Evil" and just can't remember which (as happened to me recently, one of an increasing # of embarrassing "senior moments") , go ahead and look it up. Shit happens to everybody, right?

So I hear, but with neither Braxton nor Konitz, alas.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...10:0pftxqrjldde http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...10:apftxqrjldde Also w/Konitz & Braxton (together and seperately).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jJHb9m4ccmQ

Long story short - a humbling reminder that Earth can easily survive, perhaps into infinity, without us. Other than that, some cool computer-generated images of Life On Earth as it progresses w/o human inhabitants, on into 10,000 years ahead. Watching shit like all of Manhattan eventually disappear at (and back into) the hands of Nature is quite a...thing. Check it out.

"music" it is.

I wondered why Free For All and Joe G. were about the only ones who responded to it. When I die, if I go to heaven, I'll be listening to Raney/Zoller. Around these parts, the "wire choir" sound is one that seldom (never?) reaches this level, whereas tenor players, hey, we've had some damn good tenor players. It's cold & rainy here, and I be hongry (soon to be remedied). Them tenor thing the "comfort food" right now, and truthfully, usually. The other thing...just not in the mood for that much "rumination" right now. Certainly not the "fault" of Mssrs. Zoller & Rainey.

Yeah, I got that one, and it's good like you say, but that Porter-Praskin thing is something else entirely, trust me.

I've long been aware of that interview, and poignant is exactly the right word, especially where Sal talks about getting away from the "big band tenor soloist" role. Knowing how his life played out post-Herman ("not pretty" is all that needs to be said, and yeah, thanks to "the usual suspects"), it's like he had done that "thing" for so long that it had burned something into his psyche that he couldn't lose, but that he never wanted to accept either, and as a result he spent the rest of his life trying to run from something from which there was no hiding, musically and personally. There is one side, an Enja thing from 1988: where Sal seems to finally have found that "center" within himself that has nothing to do with the countless (literally) nights he spent standing up and running rhythm changes faster than hell on "Apple Honey". blues changes faster than hell on "Caledonia", and in genral just having to pop up and blow energy on demand no matter what might have been (or not have been) going on inside him. Here, he finally sounds as if those demons (real or imagined) aren't puirsuing him any more, and "poignant" it is, and in no small measure. Thing is, he was really, really good at that Big Band Tenor thing. Really good. But maybe too good for his own good. Looking at him in that picture (that's him in the center) is as potentially upsetting as Woody Shaw's cover photo on the Muse LP of Setting Standards.

Like it or not, Metheney's got a thing, and it's a real thing that holds up under close scrutiny, I think. I'd be a liar if I said I warmed to it in < 10 years, maybe even < 20, and I'd be a liar if I said that I gravitate to it naturally or consistentnly. But I'd be an even bigger liar if I didn't cop to eventually realising, appreciating, and even sometimes really liking how his tunes' harmonic structures have a distinctly "narrative" quality to them that is quite durable for that purpose once/if you get to where you can hear it like that. In other words, his tunes often tell a story, and in a world full of "standards" that essentially follow a handful of formulae in differing combinations, "originals" that too often end up being "music about music", and a set of "sketches" that more often than not end up existing...for what?, hey, it's none too bad to hear somebody telling stories, even if they're stories that I only get in part a lot of the time. I've finally gotten happy/secure/whatever enough to be happy at other people being happy when their happiness is not my oen, just as long as their happiness doesn't seem predicated on the destruction/negation/denial of mine, and god knows, I don't think that Metheney is anything like that, not even remotely.

Put another way, up until Tubby starts to play, I was feeling compelled to just listen, with a little toe-tapping or whatever (props to whomever that bassist is). But when The Man began to play, hey, it started getting good to me and I started getting all dance-y and shit. Which is like just listening, only in 3-D. Which is a good thing, for the same reason that respiration is better than holding one's breath, playing catch is better than throwing a ball into open air woth nobody on the other end, and defacting is better than being constipated. Gotta keep that good stuff cycling around, ya' know?

Yeah, as in lines that are fine. But the Hayeser, man, he's the playser. I really, really dig how he structures that solo. Check it out, everybody else is just linelinelineline (and that guitarist is either fully aware or wholly unaware that you breathe through your nose and not your fingers), and the pianist is sorta doing the same thing, although more with "swing" than with lines. Same thing only different, ya' know? But then tubby starts to play, and it's like, got a natural pace to it, thought, pause, elaboration, very conversational in a pleasant way, like having somebody talk with you, not at you. And it's all about not just chugging it all out. It's all about...just...letting it happen. Now, I dig some Tubby Hayes more than other Tubby Hayes (but none of it less than "pretty damn good), but hey - this is A-Grade Tubby hayes in my book, made all the more impressive by the setting. Big band tenor playing is not like small group tenor playing, the pacing is different, as is how you relate your soloing to the inevitable ensembles that will come in behind and/or around you. You gotta set that up along with playing your own solo, and then you gotta know when to pull back but still stay on top if/when the backing starts getting gonzo. Not that many players have excelled at it (hell, I don't know that that many players even think about it any more, what with all the "rehearsal bands" and shit), but Tubby Hayes here gives a lesson about how to do it, and how to do other things as well. It's a beautiful thing, it is.

Mr. Hayes shows his trueness by how he unfolds his solo with all due naturalness and doesn't jump in playing licks and lines and too many fines, unlike so many other people, some of whom he shares that performance with, all of whom are just dandy players, but it is his Hayesness who makes it real.

Depends on how thirsty I am at any given moment.

Only thing about a dog is...you get attached, and if some scum shoots/poisons/etc the thing to facilitate yet more burgling, then you got material & emotional loss. But I love the idea of a creature that's Baby to you and Death to the Bad Guys!

Well, Old Patriot = Boston, which is a subset of New England, so proceed with caution when making generalities and such. However, there is a New Boston, Texas http://www.newbostontx.org/cake/ and I wonder if they're pissed, happy, or just plain indifferent about not being relevant to this most scintillating ponderance of the possibilitiies. I wonder...

Sorry to hear about this. Is moving a realistic option?

Ola, Senor Moose!

It does but now dawn upon me that since the New York football Gaints play their "home" games in New Jersey, that the scope of this great debate need be now expanded to include the relative merits of New Jersey vs Old Jersey. What sayest thou, oh ye great ones?

So, in a battle of Old York vs New England, would this be a vote of confidence in/for Old York?

http://www.impossiblearkrecords.co.uk/RELE...8C22D71DCB.html Not quite "Recommended", just because of the retro-factor, but if not for that, it would be. You can hear far worse from far "better".

What was so bad about Old York that they had to make a new one anyway?