JSngry

Dude, there was a little bit of tongue in cheek going on. I mean, I love how wynton "justifies" his quasi-rapping by saying that it was a part of his growing up in New Orleans... Looks like the storyline of the second half of this cat's life is going to be that of a man trying to get back in touch with shit he tried to kill for the first half of it. Only now, it's "legitimate" because he says so, and because he's going to use it to move ahead. Well, ok, how do you move "the music" ahead when it's already light years ahead of you? It reminds me of a man being dragged by a galloping horse thinking that the reason the horse is moving so fast is because it's being pushed by the man being dragged, not because the poor horse is trying to shed that dead weight in as expedient a way as possible. Pitiful.

Y'all can keep the eyes...

Glad to hear that whatever rumblings there were of Ms. Mercer's possible "bimbo-ness" appear to have been greatly exaggerated, if not in fact totally unfounded!

If you wanna believe Fred Wesley's book (recommended, btw), every one of JBs musical directors (including Wesley himself) faced the task of translating a set of half-articulated vocal sounds and body movements into an actual groovesong. Those were the specifics, and that's why I think the progression of JBs music can be traced by changes in MDs. OTOH... Although Wesley doesn't give JB any "real credit" for this, he does point out how the music would transform itself immediately when Brown would step in front of the band, if only to listen. He had a palpable kineticism to him that I can vouch for from the one time I saw him live, in 1981 at probably the low point of his career, palying in a loca club for no more than a few hundred, at most, people. He still kicked ass and left no room for doubt. He just projected this....thing, and you knew what it was, where it was, and that you damn well better get there or else be left in the dust. That thing is something that neither Nat, nor Pee Wee, nor Fred, nor anybody else could make JB music without first getting to (I'll give Jimmy Nolan a pass, just because...good god, JIMMY NOLAN!), and that's why all those names, "important" as they are, don't mean shit unless considered as translators of something bigger than any of them, including, eventually, Brown himself. Although, let me risk apostasy here and suggest that this is not at all a bad album: as well as that Brown was still capable of getting there himself damn near any time he wanted to. It's just that things change when you beat the woman bloody just for grins just because you can one too many times and she still sticks with you anyway. It's still love, but it ain't no ways "pure" anymore. And yeah, I'm talking music. Bet on it.

Animate that mofo!

Pank, gimme some WANG!

The one that really fucked me up was "I Got The Feelin' " Still does. Especially how on the bridge how the guitar takes the horn riff for what, two notes, and then gives it right back to 'em. "Insiders" credit Pee Wee Ellis w/putting the specifics of JB's funk into place, and I've got no problem w/that, but then again, no JB, no specifics to be bothered with in the first place. so... Linear-/literal-oriented white folk (of which I am one by birth, if not by destiny) have a problem with that "concept", but this so ain't about all that, nor none of all that, if you wish. Now, when you talk Alvin Robinson, you're talking New Orleans, even if by inference, and that's a whole 'nother type of funk, although deinitely familial. Somewhere deep in the bowels of Lost History there's probably a geo-/personal- "missing link" thing going on, but so far, I'm not aware of it. But The South IS The South, even now, and shit gets around more than the headlines lead you to believe that you have believed.

(but you need the back cover to get the full story line...)

"top edge of okay" certainly works for me if the goods are worthy, and that's a subjective call for each of us, to be sure! The cynic/old-enough-to-remember/bitter-cuss in me wonders if "top edge of okay" is going to be where all this ends, or if eventually they're going to be asking us to pony up $17.95 for an album download in whatever format they deem acceptable, and if we want a "deluxe" CD (you know, one with a protective case and some artwork...), well, that'll only be $22.95 (plus postage & handling). Or $2.95 at BestBuy... You'd think not, but this is an industry that seems to be able to plan ahead about as good as General Custer, so...

...so here's a friendly "heads up" for those so inclined. http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=yjd...p;ref=index.php I've long had a scratchy LP of this one, and I think that "historically interesting" is a fair description for it. Definitely not a mindfuck or anything, but not an "inside the box thinking" thing either. Credit is indeed due, if not a particularly big lot of love or affection. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary (either way), especially at this price, but at least you know it's there if you want it.

I've got a few downloaded albums/EPs/etc. in mp3 form (bit rate uncertain) that I've burned to regular CD. I can hear a little bit of quality loss, but not enough to ruin my day, if you know what I mean. Since these were "freebies" (hard to come by Monday Michiru Japan-only things found on the NetherNet ), I'm content for now. If I'd have had to pay for them, though, I'm afraid that the price/quality issue might become a factor in my determing whether or not it was indeed a good day. That good day could definitely still be had, but not at too steep a price. And I'm still looking for real .wav/CD copies of most all of those items (having found two already), which I think says it all in the end. Here's my question - is $10 for a downloaded album, regardless of file format, a bargain (or even a "fair" price) in "real" terms, or does it just seem like one in relation to retail CD prices? This is not meant as a "provactive" question either.

Here's hoping that the music matches the rhetoric...

When you have music after it's downloaded, it's gone, in the air. You can never buy or sell it again.

Clever!

In chewy's defense, his statement is not w/o merit if you want to consider the impact that JB had on Civil Rights Era & beyond African-American culture. Brown's impact was much more than just musical, it extended to self-image as well, and that was/is hugely important to that whole area of examination. Those of us who were around while it was happening should know this, and know it well. To bust chewy's chops, his statement was phrased in such a way that one might think that he only knows about "black people" from watching Entertainment Tonight or some such.

Damn.

By far and away, imo, the most "cerebeal", inward-focused music Miles ever made. The cover says it all, as does the back cover photo. I still enjoy listening to it very much, but let's face it, sometimes it's just plain weird. Interesting, though, that part of "Country Son" would later reappear in "Ssshhh/Peaceful" on In A Silent Way".

Wow, we got rhetoric and a potential wink? She didn't look away when I called her by her name. Call the preacher, we're getting married!

No CD that I know of, but the LP's been reissued in its original form. Dusty Groove carried it recently, but at the moment doesn't seem to. Japan seems to have it, though: http://www.ticro.com/search/D10001991/no_sub/detail/

OK, but why should I let the bad behavior of the (too) many make me not look for or feel strains of genuine familial life? If I can tell the difference between the real thing and the fake, isn't shunning all familial coherence because some of what's on the market under that name is fake, even nasty fake, like letting the bastards win far more comprehensively than they ever dreamed of? Fair enough, but I guess it all depends on if you want to let a once proud & vital family evolve into a tiny little sect in the dark or if you want to keep that pride & vitality and bring it into the light as an ongoing & growing entity of relevance to more than it's ever-dwindling own. "Shunning" anything real and good and alive with the spirit of life is not something I'd ever advocate. Neither, however, is keeping it so close to the vest as to render it invisible to all but our own. If that means circulating in circles outside the immediate family, hey, send me. If that means closing the doors from the inside, count me out. That gig's more than covered as it is. Light under a bushel, and all that.

Indeed. And I'm in no way making that corellation. But too much, way too much, of the family's been getting more than a little incestuous & necrophilliac, especially inter-generational, and that has but one inevitable outcome in results mental, spiritual, and musical. And strength and integrity it ain't.

People Who Eat Manwich Sloppy Joe Sloopy

Pi is on a roll. Check'em out.

All I mean is that I'm not interested in 21st Century Jazz nearly as much as I am about 21st Century Music. There will definitely be music called "jazz" in the 21st century. Whether or not it it continues to represent the creative, insistent-on-freedom spirit of the jazz I've come to know and love or something else (like I've been sensing it doing in alarmingly increasing measure for a few decades now) entirly is out of my control. If the "bad guys" win, then "jazz" will have become something in which I really don't have an interest. I'd hate for that to happen, which is kinda why I've been here howling at the moon and the washing machine. But if that spirit gets ran out of "jazz", my concern is that it continues to live somewhere, and of that there is no guarantee. "Dark Ages" can and do happen. If ideologies and perspectives get so hardened acros the board that music becomes a group of different and rigidly defined "styles" from which one dare not deviate for fear of being banished from the landscape by the forces of fear and/or ignorance and/or meglomania, then it will happen in music. Personally, I think it already is beginng to happen.

Actually, the first Jazzland was called Southern Horizons and was straight-anead stuff. Compiled from two UK EPs, I'm told.