JSngry

plate?

I'd think that even an "unsuccessful" outing by this combination would be worth checking out. Musicians of this caliber aren't found in every corner bar, if you get my drift... In other words, carpe diem.

Indeed they did. Their <$100.00 pre-sale price was tempting, but then I read that they were going to charge your card immediately, not at time of shipping.. Uh-uh.

Weed's for losers. All the cool kids do speedballs.

My stuff just got here. Thanks you! Is this the thread for answers/discussion as well?

Bingo, other than it's "Space Oddity"... But you're too young to know that.... :g :g

But dammit Larry, for the most part, I'm on their side! Hope you got that in there too...

And you call yourself a jazz lover...

The difference between Brian Wilson & Rogers/Hammerstein, though, is that the latter probably wouldn't have written a "car song" if they wouldn't have had to.

And furthermore.... :g I don't think that anybody needs to "apologize" or otherwise attempt to validate for not liking anything that's handed down with "value already attached". Fuck that shit. Hear with your own ears, think with your own mind, & feel with your own heart. I do think, however, that blowing it all off just because it's "old" or some shit and therefore you just know that it's not going to offer you anything is pretty much as lame as it gets. But that's a different thing altogether.

I can't stress this enough - that song, and many more like it, are first & foremost situationally-specific compositions for musical theatre. They don't exists as Tin Pan Alley song-plugger's fodder or something like that, they were written for a specific situation to tell/advance a specific story in a specific manner. Which is not to say that musical theatre has not been without it's "got a great song, gotta fit it into the show" type things, just that I don't think it's fair to "objectively" evaluate these type things without considering original context/intent. I'm no expert on musical theatre, but I think it's safe to say that the lyrics (and probably melody) "Surrey With a Fringe On Top" would not have had reason to exist were it not for the creation of Oklahoma! If none of it speaks to you, hey, I can understand (even though I'm old enough to have a subliminal-residual "feeling" for the thing myself, especially having one side of my family coming from Pennsylvania Dutch stock...), but just say so. It's cool, ya' know? Claiming that there's a deficiency of some sort there, however, flies in the face of just how well that song fits/serves its purpose in its original context. And again, if none of that speaks to you, hey, no problem afaic. But like Aretha said, let's call this song just exactly what it is...

Ya' know, most people just enjoy a song that tells them some sort of a story in some sort of a way they can more or less relate to and get on with it after they do. It does indeed take a special sort of person to get into music too much deeper than that, but it takes a really special sort of person to not be able to understand the fundamental humanity of that most simple of reactions... I mean, debating the "musical merits" of various forms of "popular music" as if there's some absolute standard of "worth" that exists apart from the basic truth that whatever is popular whenever it is popular is probably going to have gotten an audience in the first place based entirely on "intrinsic music merit" or some such is just sorta....looney, doncha' think? It's simple, really - Rodgers and Hammerstein create a world that David Bowie never could. And vice-versa. If you like one and not the other, you cna find all sorts of "justifications" and shit, but it all comes down to that, whichever one it is, it tells you some sort of a story in some sort of a way that you can more or less relate to. Which is all cool, all good, but jeez, for once, the masses have it right - get on with it after it does. If Bowie turns you out, stimulates your mind, body, & spirit in a way that few things do, go ahead on with that. If Bowie turns you off, go ahead on with that too. The thing that turns me off about both sides of this "argument" is that both sides tend to presume that all ears hear/feel the same sounds more or less the same way & that one's "choices" are inevitable a result of one's mental acuity or (realtive) lack thereof. I definitely believe in the whole "lowest common denominator" thing, and the destructive effects of the manipulations thereof, but no way do I believe that a supposedly "lower" form of music having the power to truly speak to somebody in a similar - or perhaps even identical - way that a supposedly "higher" form speaks to somebody else is impossible.

Actually, the song is a vehicle for plot developement/exposition/whatever in a musical theatre piece. The melody & lyrics should be judged as to how well they function in that role. Everything else, everything else, pro or con, is "extra".

IIRC, "Down Home New York"

"Don't Stop The Carnival" I was confusing this tune with Global warming, thank you . A new melody from the same night: Unknown 15 "Change Partners"

There's so much right with what they're saying (as well as a few things wrong, but little, quibbling things they are overall), and so much wrong with why they're having to say them that it makes me wonder if the fact of the latter is an indicator that the existence of the former is so much whistling in the dark at this point, well into our third decade of What Jazz REALLY Is, which is a much bigger problem than Jazz That Isn;t REALLY Jazz... As a companion listening piece, try Monday's My Ever Changing Moods. Quite a diversity of song selection, quite a bit of "reimaging", and none of it done with as much as a trace of irony, including doing Blondie's "Call Me" as a smooth Afro-Bossa type thing. People gotta realize that the way of nature/life is push-pull, serperate-unify, yin-yang. Shit can only stay apart naturally for so long before it has to come back together again, naturally. It's only the freaks, fools, and stiffasses who got a fear about nature doing what it does that get too terribly wigged about that, but the ones that there are sure don't seem to mind making noise about it! When you gotta define what something natural is, hey, that's too late right there.

http://www.kimparkmusic.com/john_park.htm I heard Park w/Kenton several times. Usually in concert setting, but one at a dance, and that was something to hear, let me tell you, as the book sorta got set aside the later the evening went on in favor of loose blowing on standards by various soloists backed by head parts fromt he band. Park took 2-3 choruses on "Stardust" that were absolutely breathtaking. Just goes to show you that, particularly in those days, to be considered even "a good player" meant that you had to be very, very good indeed. Also goes to show you that records don't even begin to tell the story, and that somebody like Park, who made some good sides with Kenton, but nothing that even remotely approached what I heard at that dance that night, can have their most glorious moments heard by a realtive ahndful of people and the rest of the world will never know about it, or sometimes, even them. Sure, it's a small world, and it's getting smaller everyday. But it's still easier than hell to get lost in it.

http://www.astronautdiapers.com/

But how did you meet it?

And who says I don't understand opera? :g :g

Al, you would probably enjoy reading the Zawinul bio. Although it seems to me to be pretty much one of those dreaded "cut & paste" jobs, the "author" cut from some really interesting sources & came up with some really "insightful" pastings, mostly of Zawinul's own words. To hear Joe himself discuss the evolution of Weather Report - and all the factors that formed that evolution, including money - is pretty eye-opening. Bottom line for me though is this - I love this band, period. The last few albums were "spotty", sure, but... there was just so much music going on. Was it quite frequently loaded to the gills with "attitude" and "show"? Well, uh...yeah. Sure it was. But see, the thing is, when you took all that away, there was still some serious-ass music going on underneath it. Case in point - the second album called Weather Report, Jaco's last with the band. For the longest, I kinda shyed away from that on (other than the version of "Roking In Rhythm") just becuase it was so damn "macho" from start to finish. Faster than fast, flashier than flashy. But then last year, I pulled it out again, and guess what - it's still faster than fast, flashier than flashy, but this time I was able to just accept that and listen to what was being played instead of how it was being played, and....WHOA. Unlike so much "fusion" of this era, the chops were not churning out easily broken down licks based on easily deciphered formula. These cats were playing ideas, solid, substantial ideas. Yeah, I know, at some point style and substance become the same thing, but if that's the case here, then all I can say is that when the ideas are this heavy, and the attitude is this strong at the same time, well, maybe it was my problem if the attitude got in the way of the substance. Maybe there was some insecurity in me that told me to use the attitude as an excuse to keep from dealing with the substance. I have to say that I believe there was.