JSngry

In 100 years (definitely 500 years), it's all going to sound dated...

Ok, so the guy wants to be a functional human being in the world he lives in. What does any of that have to do with jazz?

I dug him in those days. The record with Frog, Soulmates, is a m asterpiece. Great Joe, great Ben, Great Thad. To put a qualifier on my earlier comments---I wanted to avoid talking about music (so I won't answer your Barry v. Joe gambit) I have to say for clarification mostly that listening agian Weather Report to me is a bit turgid and pompous. Very little holds up. Also a guy I'm staying with here in Holland played a Zawinul Syndicated world tour CD and it also sort of bored my ass off. Again, I say this for for, er, clarification purposes....yeah, yeah. That's it.... Well there you go. You don't particularly like where Zawinul went. Fair enough, but are you sure that's not coloring your other opinions? I mean, any decent musician (and I stress musician because I don't expect non-musicians to have an interest in too much beyond whether or not they like the way something hits them) should be able to look at Zawinul's post-Cannonball music and recognize that it's not just a bunch of flashy formulaic easy bullshit. There's plenty of meat there, whether or not its a type of meat that's to your liking. Now, if you, as a musician who I'm sure recognizes the various elements that go into a composition, can't at least hear that much, then I just have to say that you got your head up your ass, which would offer a feasible enough explanation of why your ears would be full of shit. Is he wrong? It doesn't mean Barry is a bad player (he's a monster) but there are stylists and there are innovators. Zawinul didn't want to be a stylist, he wanted to innovate and so he did. Simple as that. It doesn't mean Barry's music is any less valid in the general sense, it just means that Zawinul didn't want to go down that route. Thankfully, he lived up to his own expectations of himself! I really don't agree with this. You don't 'choose' to innovate.' You evolve. Otherwise it could very well end up being awfully self-indulgent. To me the proof of and in part the definition of 'innovation' is usefulness to other people. That's why we call them trailblazers, right. I really mistrust this thing of wanting to innovate and then poof it happens. Real individuality is very, very rare. I've known a lot of guys that sang that song and their music didn't hold up. Again, there has to be a use of the innovation because it replaces and improves something that came before and outlived its usefulness. And that, I thhink, is one of the biggest lies of the post-Wynton generation, that one shouldn't "choose" to "innovate" because it's something that you can't make happen. Well, no, you can't force it, but you can seek it by challenging yourself to go beyond what you already know. Remember Miles' dictum to "don't play what you know. Play what you don't know"? Whatever happened to that? No, this whole, "I'll explore what's already known because pursuing my own individuality is going to be a dead end anyway" thing is a cop-out masquerading as "humility". Even if you'll never be an "innovator", you owe it to yourself to at least be an individual. And this fatalism towards accomplishing wven that little bit of not too much is what's allowed a lot of boring people with no ambitions beyond becoming competent craftsmen to kid themselves and the world at large into thinking that it's some sort of major accomplishment to to stand pat and just polish what's already been polished. That's a caretaker's job, nothing more and nothing less. It sure ain't the stuff that makes for progress in music or, more to the point, in life. Of course you can't "choose" to innovate. You either have it or you don't. But you sure as hell can choose to dig inside yourself to see what's in there beyond what's already been put there by history. I mean, sure, it's a "challenge" to perfect one's own abilities in a pre-existing paradigm, but let's be real - pretty much all the questions have already been answered, and the "challenge" mostly lies in getting the fingers to do the work. No small challenge, that, but if you already got a map, somebody else has done the really hard work. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of craft & craftsmanship (and I have real issues w/people who try to "move ahead" wthout it), but it really pisses me off when I see craftsmanship equated with spirit. They're not at all the same thing, and this implicit contention that they are is nothing but a goddamned motherfucking LIE. A spirit that allows itself to be content with "mere" competence is a spirit that is content to leave things as they are, and that can be for only one of two reasons that I can see - either the way things are are already to your liking and you don't want to be "upset" or else you're at root, a coward who's afraid to find out what's really inside you. (and I'm using "you" rhetorically here, no personal directiveness intended) If you reached the first zone after doing a lot of searching & discovering (like, say, Horace Silver), hey, more power to you then, you've earned it (as long as you (hopefully) continue to evolve through refining and don't just turn into a regurgitator living off your past glories). But otherwise, it's a concession that to one degree or you're "done" as a growing, actively evolving human spirit. And quite possibly you never took the first steps towards even realizing that you could be such a thing. You're just going to be one of those people who accepts your role as defined by somebody other than yourself and who goes about the business of being a happy servant to a master who you chose w/o first exploring all the options (especially the ones that may or may not reside within yourself). Volunteered Slavery. Fuck that. Whatever one's opinions are of Zawinul's music (and for the record, I'm a big fan of a lot of WR, as well as that live Syndicate thing, but find a lot of "failures" along the way as well), I'd think that it must be noted that he was not somebody who chose to accept somebody else's definition of who/what he "should" be, and that alone makes him a hero of mine, as it does damn near every "jazz musician" who's worth a flying fuck in my book. He's stayed treu to his own definition of himself, even when the results weren't what they should have been. And when they were (more than often enoug imo), he accomplished something that the "craftsmen" of the world never can, will, or maybe even be able to conceive of - he built a house to live in that was of his own making. Some people rent forever (and DAMN is the joke on them...). Some people buy pre-owned and leave it as it is (oh well...). Some people buy pre-owned & rennovate (not a bad deal there, if you can pull it off). Some people buy new and either do or don't keep it fresh after they do (America is the land of opportunity, even if the opportunity is to get somewhere and stop). But a few people take up the challenge to design and build what they want how they want it. That's the Old World/Pioneer spirit at its finest if you ask me (especially when no indiginous peoples are exterminated, and I sure as hell don't see Zawinul "exterminating" Barry Harris or anybody else), and to hear all this talk that it's not even a goal worth pursuing in the first place tells me a lot about why the Jazz Cave continues to get mustier and mustier.

This wouldn't have happened under Dr. Bellows' reign.

Well yeah. Even if you throw everything out, what's already in there is still going to be in there at some level. It's just more likely to come out as spirit rather than imitation.

http://britam.org/genealogy/Hebrew-Names.html

Ornette Gardenshire

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlib...drith_Hobie.stm

Spun it last night myself. Fun stuff, "classic King R&B" in style, and towards the end of it, you can hear James really start to get his confidence bumped up a notch or three.

Alan Douglas was certainly no stranger to jazz: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...6on20r5ac48i~T4 I'd have liked to have heard more Gilmore.

Zawinul studied w/Barry Harris to get his bebop playing together. Once he did that (as much as he could/wanted to), he went his own way. I don't think he means any disrespect for Harris, (in fact, I'm nearly 100% certain that he doesn't), just that Harris' way was not going to be his way, and that the sooner he got on with doing his thing, the less time he'd be wasting. Zawinul's never been particularly "diplomatic", but those who know him say that his heart is as big as his ego. Imo, he guy's a giant (albeit an erratic one, but that's the price you gotta pay sometimes), one of the most original voices of the last quarter of the 20th century. Like him or not, he's created a sound world that's uniquely and identifiably his and nobody else's, and he's done it with compositions that are challenging for player & listener alike, and with playing that avoids "easiness" at damn near every turn. They guy's a bad mutherfukker in my book, and to even think that he should appear "humble" towards Lincoln Center Inc. is akin to thinking that the wind should be humble towards the windshield.

Don't hate me because I'm old.

Having seen Woody Shaw live on several occasions, when I hear his playing I think of the tai-chi exercises he would do on stage during other people's solos (if that's what those movements were). Is that a good thing or a bad thing? How to judge? Depends on whether or not you've also seen Pee Wee Russell's feet...

Thanks guys! So, I take it that this material has not yet been released on CD?

Duke mentions that Anatomy Of A Murder "opens next week". The whole thing is splendidly recorded. Any info on performance date, label background, CD issue, etc. would be welcome. As always, thanks in advance!

James K. Polk Poke Salad Annie Brook Benton

Of course not. But do you ever think of sad feet when you hear Pee Wee Russell play? And if so, is that a good thing?

From my experience (which is in no way definitive...), the "v" as hard "b" thing is a mostly Cuban thing. Cuban Spanish is a whole 'nother thing...

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy/appreciate/respect/admire/etc. Balliet's gifts as a writer. I just get no musical insight from them. Different skills in my mind, and liking one doesn't necessarily lead to liking the other.

Yep. Nothing like that on record by either one of them. And factor in Red Garland on piano...

Y'all hearin' OTC. I'm hearin' Blood Ulmer.

Does the Gritsville Flying J carry these albums (on cassette or otherwise)? http://www.dyxploitation.nu/issue2/mom1.html

If nothing else, try Aura. It's a breed apart.