JSngry

Continuum/continua... I believe that there's at least several continua - the stylistic, the socio-cultural, the "spiritual" (as in what kind of spirit you are, although if you want to go churchy with it, you can), probably more. For the longest time, "jazz" naturally, as a matter of evolution, hosted a convergence of those three continua, and hosted it naturally, graciously, and spledidly. But if a continuum does indeed by definition represent continuity, does that also not imply motion? For anything to remain alive, does it not have to be in motion at some level? I think we're at a point in our evolution where the variuos continua that once co-existed in one place are beginning to go there own seperate ways, slowly, gradually, but inextricably, Of course there will still be intersecting, temporary as well as permanent, but "jazz" as it came to be and how it came to thrive was the product of a massive set of circumstances that either don't exist any more, or have changed in some pretty fundamental ways. The various continua were all there at the same place and the same time for the same reason. It's not like that any more, and I don't think it's anything to get too weirded out about. As noted above, plenty of young people have the spirit, but the socio-cultural element has changed, and the stylistic continua might no longer be "relevant" to them getting done what it is they feel they need to be done. Yet the stylistic remains firmly in place. You can go to damn near any university and study it to death, and you got plenty of people who are most proficient practitioneers of it, some of whom actually bring a little something special to it. But the "jazz style" has become that - a style. Nothing wrong with that per se, but if you're young and looking for a true voice of your own, a "style" may not be what you're looking for, even if it is what you end up with. Shit's funny that way sometimes... To bring Wynton back into it (sorry), I thnk the biggest lie that he tried to perpetrate was that the stylistic and the spiritual continua had to continue to coexist in a state of mutual bondage. That's just so wrong in so many ways, and I'll leave it at that. But we find ourselves now in a place where old "friends" are beginning to go their own ways here and there, and rather than wishing them well, offering moral support, and just in general keeping the love, a lot of folks feel a sense of betrayal and abandonment, like a parent who gets pissed when their kid doesn't do what they think they should do with their life and cuts them out of their life (and looking at the average age of the average jazz fan, this is probably very much to the point!), or like a clinging spouse who won't tolerate the notion of you so much as even thinking about spending one second away from them. Where's the love there, and what good can possibly come of it? Like I said earlier, just let people be who they are. If the stylistic continuum doesn't go with them in full, or even in part, fine. If the spiritual continuum stays with them, hey, it's all good in the end afaic. And if the stylistic continuum loses the spiritual one, well, ok. It still means something to somebody, right? Let them have it. I don't think we have to get that drastic about it at this jucncture, but the last 25 or so years in too much of hjazz have not been lived in the spirit of love and community and encouragement of going wherever it is you need to go. They've been lived in the spirit of smothering, clinging obsessiveness. And how many young people get into that? Us Boomers and near-Boomers ain't kids any more. Some of us are damn near old, and most all of us are closer to our deaths than we are to our births. If we have any love of life left in us at all, we damn well better start recognizing that noblest legacy we can leave our children is not fucking them up and/or over by not letting them be who they are in the best, fullest way they can be it.

Yep. It's Shank. Lou Adler tells the tale: http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20020708.me.dreamin.adler.ram (REAL PLAYER REQUIRED)

Of course. My bad!

Well! I retract any and all comments about the team lacking flayva!

Yeah, I've got that one too. Best listened to in its entirety, from start to finish. It's a trip, and in more ways than one.

For that matter, try explaining the notion of recorded music that you can hear at any place at any time as often as you like...

Go HERE and scroll down the page. On the righthand side there's some tapes of Levan in action, spanning the years 1982-1987. Real Player is required, but the links work.

"For a great blowjob visit..............." ...............Lydia Lunch Is this based on first hand knowledge?

Well, ok, I guess we differ on that. I wouldn't, however, rule out the notion of taking on circumstances on their own terms in order to turn them into a triumph rather than a defeat. There's a long & deep history of that throughout the history of humankind (including our beloved blues & jazz), and I see no reason for it to stop now. Some things never stop happening. And I do have to wonder what's "natural" about living in a post-Industrial Age world. That's all any of us (here, any way) know, & we've done quite well at defining what is and isn't "natural", and if you presented it to the people of a pre-Industrial age, they'd look at you like you had sold your soul to the devil. And then some. Times change people, and people change times. But the more things change...

I know what you mean, but after having gone digging into the "dance underground" and actually listening to the insides of the music, I've realized that, like all musics, there's people making it who don't get past the stereotypes (the majority) & people who either disregard them or else turn them inside out and make them beautiful. MAW's secret weapon is a bassist named Gene Perez, who can and does groove just as hard as anybody. Put him on the bottom of a track, and it immediately becomes something else altogether. MAW apparently know this, and build thier tracks so as to let him shine. Some glorious results there! The ironic thing about the best dance music I've come across is that even though it's not designed to be "listening" music, the deep & closer I listen to it, the more intertesting it gets to me. So much subtle detail, so many ins and outs as things are added and removed, sometimes almost subliminally, so much attention to the push/pull of complimentary/contrasting rhythms and tonal colors. The people making this stuff might not be "musicians" in the traditional sense, but the best of them have a musical "ear" that exceeds that of a lot of the "real" musicians I know. And the best of it really does have an improvisational qulaity into how things are brought in and out of the mix. I'd think that the music's roots in being "created" on the spot in DJ booths in dance clubs would foster that, just as playing for dancers back in the old days helped bands like Basie's develop head charts and such. For such "mechanical" music, there seems to be a lot of spontaneous human spirit being put into how it's going to go at any given moment. And like naything else, there's players, and then there's artists who can improvise in the moment and transcend the genre, the setting, and all that. How can ther not be? The best of it does, that is, and the best of it really does seem to be underground. I'ver tried looking for this stuff on the radio, or even the cable radio. Very little, if any luck. Just the same old shit like in that SNL bit. Fuck that. You know who's really caught my ear? A DJ named Ron Trent. This cat does some really heavy mixes where he keeps a constant-yet-shifting "Afro" underpinning going, and the results are more than a little intriguing, since he's not afraid to mix in some material that's got some real meat to it. This one in particular has got me excited: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...10:2m831vj3zzza Underground as hell, this one is. I've not heard anything like it through media outlets, Dusty Groove doesn't carry it, and I think it was only released in the UK. I suspect that if you put this on in many mainstream dance clubs, people would bug out, and not necesarily in a good way. Music for weekend warriors this isn't. So this ain't exactly "common" shit, if you know what I mean. But it is good shit, and it is reflective of the fact that there are fresh, invigorating, and creative musical things being done that reach far beyond the stereotypical coked/x-ed out Pavlovian club airhead.

It is? There must be some version of it I've not yet heard or played... Every version I've come across is a 12-bar blues from start to finish, save for the intro. Sure you're not thinking about "Please Come Home For Christmas"? That one's got an 8-bar bridge, but the A-sections are also 8 bars. "Saint Nick came down the chimney, 'bout half past 3 Left all these pretty presents, that you see before me". Ain't that the bridge? Nope, that's just the first four of a 12, sung over a break. You, sir would be correct!

Not so much that I mind seeing Parcells go as much as it is Jones getting to pick a new coach...

Useful information. Thanks!

Enjoying retirement? http://www.stereo3dgallery.net/cgi_bin/gal...rientation=NORM

I like Billy Harper's ECM date - Capra Grey.

1965 Hawk was a tough son of a bitch, wasn't he.

No, he means a ticket consolidator, they're much cheaper. Gotta admit, I know what that is myself. Help?

Yeah, that's been the thing all season, right? But yesterday, he came through big when they needed him to. Whether that was a true stepping up or just one of those flukey things remains to be seen. No clear pick in my mind right now, which is kinda cool. All I ask is, please, no remakes of "The Superbowl Shuffle".

That's more like it then. "Ashen"? Oh my. "Crestfallen", yeah, that's pretty normal. "Despodent", that I can sympathize with. But ashen? Good god, did his wife die in a car wreck or something? (No, I ain't cutting him any slack. At least not this morning while I still got the postgame thankgodthefukkersgotbeat buzz going. )

Probably so, but there's a whole generation now who knows nothing but that. And it looks like it's going to be that way for a good while to come. For better or worse, that is the "new world", and it's going to be increasingly populated by people for whom what to us seems wholly unnatural is totally natural. I'd be surprised if those among them who are so inclined (and they'd be the same ones who would be so inclined in the world we grew up in) aren't finding there own space/poetry inside those ever tighter cicles. People don't really change what they do, they just change how they do it.

Telemarketers.

Well, that's this year's Official Super Bowl Story Line , right(?) - has Manning finally gotten the monkey off his back or has he just momentarily brushed it off? We'll see.

Another thing to mention is that I've never known really driven people to accept defeat gracefully. They just don't. I don't think Ali was very good at admitting defeat; neither were Gary Kasaparov nor Bobby Fischer in chess. They hated to LOSE. Maybe Belichick is the same. I don't think he's got any kind of a life outside of football. I was thinking the same thing, Paul. Did Lombardi lose graciously? Billy Martin? Ali could prove gracious in defeat, if only momentarily. Billy Martin was a freak, and the Lombardi legend is highly over-romanticized imo. Bobby Fischer's mental quirks have been well documented, and Kasparov, well...I don't know. I can think of any number of "really driven" people who can put on at least a facade of graciousness for at least a moment in the face of defeat. The two aren't incompatable, nor should they be by any reasonable definition of mainstream civility. If Belicheck once gave credit to the Colts for not giving up & coming back, I didn't hear it (which is a possibility, I admit. I just heard immediate post-game growlings, er... comments). I did see him walk past Manning on his way off the field and barely acknowledge his presence. Just a humph and barely a glance in his direction. Not at all classy, imo, and yet another reason why so many people hate what is unquestionably one of the great teams of the era. Although I must admit - it must take a helluva lot of discipline to be at once so bland and so arrogant. A stiff upper flip of the bird to them! At least Brady didn't cry this time. At least not on camera.