JSngry

Can't say that I ever heard Elton as "humble", other than as one layer of his veneer. Never could get into Elton John, Now, James Taylor, that's a differnt story...

Same spirit, different players from different times.

I lost interest in "Rock" for quite a while after the Beatles broke up, which was, concidentally, about the time that I discovered jazz. EJ's songs just seem too...labored for me in terms of the ratio between what they went through and what they delivered. Felt that way then, felt that way now, although I've come to appreciate his craftsmanship. Plus, I never cared for his singing. Just a little too many layers of veneer for me, never really seems to have a "core", which is really how his total vibe hits me. But again, I respect that many feel other wise. He's just never done it for me. Rod's never been a problem, though. He is who is is and he does what he does. Some of it I dig, some of it I don't. And none of it's really been ""essential" to me. When it's good, it's fun, and then it's over. Thank you. Now Stevie, that's a whole 'nother deal. The songs always delivered effortlessly and fully striaght out the gate, no matter how involved they got. Same w/his singing. Always seemed like the craft was in service of the music, instead of the opposite, which is how Elton's always hit me. It was weird being so thoroughly alienated from the pop/rock music of my high school years. Post-Beatles rock just seemed like so much dreck, noise, fluff, convoluted simplicity acting like complexity, and/or fal-out empty posturing. Fortunately, by the time I got to be a senior, the tide had begun to turn, and Stevie, Steely Dan, EWF, and other stuff that I dug had begun to be popular, and I didn't feel like such a total loner. But even now, I jsut can't get moved by too much of that early-70s stuff that tried to fill the void left by The Beatles. It seemed like a step backwards then, and it still does now. But it certainly sold a lot of product, and it still has its fans. I'm just not among them.

Police my ass! It's the fucking Jazz Fascisnazis. Paul Motian being banned for life from a "high profile" gig for not playing in a "jazz style"? Paul Motian? Fuck peace and love - kill 'em all, then get back to peace and love.

I guess with hardbop, as with a lot of free music too, I do feel diminishing returns are (and have been) a more regular outcome than they "should" be. For me, it's certainly not a matter of "concept" (that often works only insofar as the concept is played out), and I do feel that there are a lot of gems within hardbop, free jazz, and whatever else. Maybe I'm confusing consistency with sameness, or maybe I just have a tin ear. I just meant that w/Silver, the consistency/sameness/etc/whatever is the result of having actually had a traditional "career", which has afforded him the opportunity to actually do what it is that he does in a way that has allowed him to evolve, slowly but surely. Sure, it is all "the same thing", but many a Horace Silver song from, say, 1967 is going to be different in some subtle but still real ways from a Horace Silver song from 1957, and you can say the same thing about the songs from 1977 in relation to the songs from 1967, and so on. On those "Silver 'n'..." albums of the '70s, yeah, you get "gimmicky" concepts. sometimes less than fully inspired soloing, and on the whole I'd feel better about buying them all at once rather than as individual albums, if you know what I mean, but the writing on those albums is definitely more advanced and evolved than it was 10 or 20 years earlier, and Horace has always been first and foremost about the writing. Silver's one of those guys who built their house early on and have lived in it ever since, but unlike some, he's kept that house inviting, interesting, and changing in ways that don't involve wholesale rebuilding. I think there's a place for that, not just in music but in life in general. The "drama" of radical change is correctly appreciated & celebrated, but the perhaps more "natural" course of slow but steady evolution might, might be less appreciated than it should be. I think it might have something to do with how we see our lives in terms of time. Sometimes we feel that life is too damn short, so we better get it all done asap, so let's not linger too long on any one thing once we get it down. But some folks look at it like this is our life, it's one of many both now, then, and tomorrow, so the best thing to do is to stake a claim to a place in it and make it as good as it can be for the duration. Far be it from me to claim "superiority" for either POV, because I'd be a hypocrite either way. All I'm saying is that there's a difference between literally doing the same thing over and over and doing the same "thing" over and over but continously finding new slants, possibilities, and implications in it over the course of time. I think that Silver's taken the latter course, and if he's found fewer "new" things over the last 15-20 years, well, that's natural too. You don't go to your grandma's house to see her new HD tv, ya' know? You go for the comfort, the warmth of things remembered, and that twinkle in the eyes that tells you that life is still a groove in spite of it all. Now, if and when grandma loses any or all of those things, yeah, that's a drag, but as long as she keeps going with that spirit, you still gotta love her, and not just because she's your grandma. You love her because she's lived and built a life that's been both constant and warm. You don't always get that combination of consistency and warmth in the same package (in fact, you seldom get it), but when you do, ain't it a groove? And don't it give you the power & confidence to live maybe a little/lot differently yourself, knowing that somebody's got that ground covered, and covered well?

See?

"Surprisingly" few responses to this thread...

What is "wildlife"?

And yeah, McLaughlin's on it. Play it loud. Play it VERY loud. You want McLaughlin-less Lifetime, it begins with Ego, which has Ted Dunbar.

otoh, "sameness" is what fleshes out concept, what turns ideas into ongoing realities. Without it, we'd be faced with a succession of "projects" which might be "interesting" but don't have any viability/impact other than as items on the shelf and/or a one-off tour. Kinda like where too much of the music is now - make a record and then what do you do with it? And what do you do next? Look for another "concept" or develop stuff into a body of work that ultimately defines itself instead of allowing itself to be defined by a series of outside influences? There's certainly validity to both approaches, but which one is most likely to result in the creation of a truly personal, self-defining body of work? Let's be thankful for "sameness", at least until it reaches the point of diminishing returns.

Say what?

Doc/Tonight Show Band albums: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...10:8g57gjer86iw http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...10:7n8j1vy8zzua http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...10:sykqiknhbb69 http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...10:dsyvadokt8wo Not at all my thing, but the players & arrangers are all top-shelf in their world, and some, like Snooky Young, Bill Perkins, & Bill Holman, need no defense in anybody's world.

Mom had issues...

Or TO....

Hell yeah. Cut to the chase, shortest distance between two points and all that. Life's too short to think you have one kind of friendship only to find out that you don't.

As much as possible. Scott, do/did you ever get into the bootleg thing? There's some 65 Trane out there that's truly a religious experience...

As a section player, yeah. As a leader, depends on what you mean by "credible". Although I've never heard it, didn't the Tonight Show band do an album or two after Carson left? Not sure if Doc was the leader on those of if Tommy Newsome was, but that was a band full of fine players and a book of credible charts. Although that's not at all a bag I find appealing beyond the level of "professional admiration", if I was going to look for some credible Severinsen-led jazz dates, that would be where I'd start. The guy could/can play decent bop (I've heard a few Command cuts, like you, from my high school days, where he shows this), but his priorities lay elsewhere.

Well, it's still a Bill Evans trio album, and that comes with a ceiling on where it's going to go (for me, anyway, no sense rehashing my overall ambivalence about Evans), but Jack does his damndest to move the whole thing beyond that, and succeeds more often thatn not, so yeah, I think you might enjoy it.

Well, that is sort of what I thought of! It's is indeed very similar to Push dancing - the dancers have lanes, and a lot of the moves are identical (at least to this untrained eye). That clip is set to a slightly slower tempo than a Push dancer would feel comfortable with, though, and there's moments where contact is lost. But otherwise, I see a lot of similarities. Interesting!

Has anybody mentioned DeJohentte's great work w/Bill Evans on that first Montreux album, the one on Verve? That's one of my more favorite Evans albums, and Jack's a big reason for it.

Judging by the cuts the DG always touts as favorites for this style dancing, it sounds like it might be similar to what we call Push Dancing down here, although I bet it's really not. Any info welcome!

Wanna bet?

Only her hairdresser knows for sure.

Yes. Ballads. Crescent. And the sides w/Duke & Hartman. '65 was an incredible year, definitely the "peak" imo, but the live stuff is even more intense than the studio stuff.