JSngry

To your first point, I would say that I'm not so sure. You take a labellike Sharp Nine, and I don't think that "extending" is what they're all about. They're more of the "once good, always good" school Or you might call it the Keeping it alive" mentality. I'm not here to argue for or against that point, just to point it out. Then you got the labels and artists who position themselves as "contemporary" or some such by combining elements of free and inside. There's certainly validity there imo, and some oftne interesting enough music. But really - is combing 40 year old music with 50 year old music really pushing the envelope, or is it just getting around to some overdue cleanup work? I can see where the labels promoting this type thing are sincere in thinking that they're "extending", because it is a type music that's not been done to death already. But again, it's an "extension" only to those so deep on the inside of the jazz world that that the rest of the music world (or the world's music) is uninteresting, unknown, and/or irrelevant. It's a weird world, that one, because the sincerity and dedication is inspiring as well as noble. But, geez, it's a big world, and relevance only to self is only going to matter so much in it. And that goes to your second point - you're saying, I think, that "originality" and "innovation" maybe ought to be given more consideration than they are currently being given. Well, part of me hears you loud and clear, part of me says that you can only be who you are, and part of me knows deep down inside that this whole "jazz culture" has gotten so neurotic & inbred, musically and mentally, that they type of originality and innovation that we'd both no doubt like to see is going to take a lot more than the conviction that honor is all it takes. Me being past my prime and shit, but still caring a great deal about the music itself, I'd like to issue this challenge to all young players - forget about "jazz". Forget you've ever heard it. Forget all the names, histories, etc. Now here's the catch - do that with all the other music you've heard and learned about over the years. All of it, from the oldest to the most recent. Now, here's the final catch - don't forget about the music itself, just forget what it's called, and forget that it matters which is which. Now, after you've done all that, just play what you know, hear, and feel. Don't worry about what fits and what doesn't fit. If you can't make a singer hear how to fit in with those those Trane licks that aren't fitting over the hip-hop beat with the power chords underneath and the drummer's forays off into Sunny Murrayland, don't sweat it. If you all truly feel it & hear it, you'll find a way to make it fit, eventually. Just fit it, don't force it. Let it fall into place on its own terms, not yours. Once you get there, go out and play it for people who don't know or care about "types" of music. Play it for motherfuckers who don't know A-Flat from A Train from Aaliyah from AA from AAA from A Love Supreme. Play it for them and see if they dig it. If they don't maybe it's just because they're some ignunt motherfuckers. Or it may be that you ain't playin' shit. You gonna have to figure that one out on your own. Just don't rush to judgement either way. But if they do dig it, hey you might be on to something. You might have found some music that's not either consciously or subconsciously trying to live up to its parents out of a latent inferiority complex. And maybe then we can maybe start talking about "21st Century Jazz" as a designation of an actual music instead of a simple chronological designation as to when 20th Century Jazz is being played.

If it were that simple, you could sync up two metronomes & it would swing.

Since you be goin' that direction, how 'bout "Come Go With Me" - Del Vikings. Too bouncy for whitefolkschurch. No news here, but The Fleetwoods had moments where the shit would just shut up and stand still. Doesn't matter to me if the songs themselves were crap (and they almost always were), those moments were...unique.

If I can be serious for a second (and that's a big if...), how about "Our Prayer", the Brian Wilson thing? Do handbells do chromatics? If not, get the choir to do it. It's a beautiful little thing, it is.

"Come Softly To Me" by The Fleetwoods, done w/o the dumb "dum-dum, dumby-do-dom-be-doobie" part. The Fleetweood were a human handbell choir unto themselves.

Some things defy any rational explanation. Ron Carter's consistently inconsistent intonation is one of them.

Ah, but the future is merely tomorrow's today.

The differnce being that in each case, the question of the then-current decade would have been in response to the previous decade's question having been answered in, by and large, no uncertain terms. Some of us have been asking this question for at least 20 years and still don't have a satisfactory answer, which is, I think, shaping up to be a going-to-have-to-be-satisfactory-whether-we-like-it-or-not answer...

Oh, it's a team effort, belive me....

21st Century Jazz will be what the 21st Century Jazz Audience(s) want it to be. Until somebody comes up with a music that is so obviously of the times that it can't be denied, look for more of the same, simply because that's what people want to hear. That means the opptions are classicism of superior technique in the service of material based on past premises (which is not to say that that material can't be quite "challenging"), the eternal greeeeeeeze, the eternal free, and Smoooooooooooth. Our times have changed in some pretty fundamental ways. The way we percieve "reality" now is every bit as different as the "reality" which is perceived, probably more different. Sure, the fundamental things still apply as time goes by, but the context in which those things happen is a whole lot more "multi-tasked" than it once was. In a world where people routinely do 15 things at once while being bombarded by 30 other things at the same time, the only "relevance" that some guy standing in front of a rhythm section playing changes in an acceptable-enough manner is going to have is that of a quaint reminder of how things used to be. Either that, or as comfort food for people who just can't get with These Newfangled Modern Times. But after they die off... The challenge is not to discover new information. This music already has all the information it needs, probably all it's going to get in it's current mindset, and definitely more than "most people" are equipped to handle. So the challenge now is to discover ways to deliver that information. And I'm not talking about delivering "product", I'm talking about the information in the music itself, the thoughts, emotions, languages, all that stuff. You know, the substance of the music. Finding a vehicle to effectively communicate this information in a way that keeps it alive and vital instead of archival is something that a lot of people my age (roughly) just don't want to deal with. They seem to think that it's always been about "keeping it real", not realizing that "real" is a function of content, not of style. In a digital reality, analog reality is going to have a hard time being heard. We neep the information, but change the delivery method, if anybody can think of such a thing without feeling that they're betraying The Great Traditon. I mean, it's cool to get a group together, play tunes/compositions, and everybody solos, but that's increasingly going to become the equivalent of spending an hour writing a letter when your kids have spent that same hour sending and receiving about 25,000 text messages, a few of which actually will lead to meaningful activity before you've even put a stamp on the envelope. Never mind getting it in the mail and waiting for it to be delivered. Your kids will have used that time to have made their first million. Ok, I jest/exaggerate, but I am serious about this- "soloing" is not going to be what the 21st century is about, at least not as a be-all-end-all, nor is a succession of "song forms". That might be where the information was discovered, but unless we find a more relevant way to deliver it, that's also going to be where it dies. That would be a true tragedy, but how many people are thinking that far ahead? How many are looking to the music to deliver today's headlines (don't tell me about "timelessness" and all that. "Timelessness" comes after, not before, the music delivers)? And how many people, including musicians, are using "jazz" as an oasis of "sanity" in times that just don't make sense to them? Tell you what - the "times" ain't going to be anything other than what they will be. Deal with that and proceed accordingly. And besides - if, in 2006, we're having to ask what "21st Century Jazz" is going to be like in, if we don't already have any really readily apparent leads as to where the music as a whole is going that's where it hasn't already been, isn't that kind of...uh....an answer in itself?

Seems like the whole Argo catalog (or a big bunch of it) got a reissuing w/B&W covers somewhere in the 70s. Some of 'em even had no back notes, just a repeat of the front cover. But I think they were legit, if shoddy.

Does it smell fishy down there?

Please do, because I have been paying attention to all of the above (including the edited-out-of-the-quote Branford, and I'm not excited. Entertained in varying degrees, yes, but excited? Nah, not even a little. And I live to be excited. So what am I missing?

My heart sings a song with a melody not yet composed.

I think Clem was oxygenated perfectly well myself...

Just to show you how long he's been around, I first heard him on those early-70s Maynard Columbia sides. Same thing there!

Well yeah. There's a big difference between playing, and then having it naturally become part of something ongoing, and deciding up front that you're participating in American Mythology or some overripe bullshit like that and then going out to play. Seems to me that once you buy all the way into a theory like that, you're no longer participating directly in it, but are instead becoming an impartial observer. Because this "mythology" (or whatever the hell it is) that everybody wants to love is the result of, not the impetus for. the action. If I spontaneously make love to a woman all night long, it's pure magic. If I pick her up specifically to just do her all night, it's simply stunt-fucking. Ain't no magic nowhere in sight. It's the lesson of Eden all over again - the way that Evil co-opts Truth & Beauty is to package and sell back to you what you already had for free. And it's sold back in significantly reduced quantity, because once you give it up, ain't never no getting it all back. There's a sucker born every minute...

Oh really? I mean, I like branford, always have, but "giant", in a music where "mega-giants" on even the same instrumet would have to include Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, & Albert Ayler, as well as a whole big lot of people who in any other creative realm might well be contenders for mega-gianthood, but instead are "merely" regular giants in this one due to the mega-sized mega-ness of the aforementioned mega-giants, I have a hard time considering Branford as even a semi-giant. Wow. Maybe the biggest mega-giants should be designated "giga-giants" to distinguish them from the merely mega and kilo-giants. (And of course, there's the rare tera-giant.)

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...myxvadokv8w2~T4 He's British, he's been around for quite a while, and as you've discovered, he can play!

Paul Desmond once said that he had another octave range on his alto until he started thinking about how he was doing it. Then he couldn't do it anymore.

Great tune, but I agree it's become a cliche. Too much of a good thing, etc... I still get the hardon for "Elegant People".

If it was real, he'd be wearing white drawers so we could see proof of his manhood.