JSngry

Peckerwood Cracker Ofay

Don't have any problems w/any of the albums myself. Yeah. it's different that w/Ornette, but everybody's playing, and playing well. Vive le differential!

I think my New Year's Resolution just became to stay the fuck away from wherever you are!

Jazzland released two Joe Harriot sides , including Free Form, both of which I found in the old Treasure City cutout bin back in my high school days. Gotta love'em both for releasing the albums, and for not preventing them from ending up in a cheapo Longview, Tx department store, even if the latter was one of those things they had no control over except by karma.

Yeah, but the shit I do that with ain't on the radio.

Pi.

Some of us are still like that!

But then I'd have to do laundry.

If push is going to come to shove, I consider the topic irrelevant.

I consider that question totally irrelevant, and it thrills me more than you know to be able to say that. It's not anything other than music, and I don't mean that as the flip endorsement of a "fan". You can dissect it to pieces and find more parts than there are in a JC Whitney catalog, but ultimately, that's all they are - parts. It really is an "omnimusic" in that although it's made up of seemingly damn near everything at one point or another (and there are so many points, since there is no one "type" of song she makes), no one thing is more "core" to it than anything else. I've been more liberated by hearing something that does it like this than anything since....I don't know. Think about it - what could be more natural to so many of us than to make a music that organically contains all the elements of who we are? But how many of us are still struggling with the concepts of "style" and "genre"? How many of us are still thinking in terms of musical "guilty pleasures"? These are all tools of self-imposed limitations, musical and personal, and they're encouraged both from within "the business" and from without it. And more often than is comfortable to admit, such a mindset provides safe haven for people who are looking to be all they can't (and/or don't want to) be. Life is so vast & infinite, and individuals are so miniscule & finite. Yet opposites attract. So why the seemingly innate (although I believe it to be conditioned) urge to limit the scope/range of this natural attraction? That's just not working for me any more. It did when what I had access to was limited (and even then, it was pretty damn diverse), but now that the "Global Village" (and where's McLuhan now that we need him? But that's ok, Braxton's still here) is more than just an idea, it really seems time to let it go. Let it go, that's the thing. Just let it go. And then see where it leads.

That number might be on the high side... Or not. But I agree with Ms. Graham.

Since Monday has come up in this thread, let me say that the biggest musical revelation I've gotten from discovering her (and it's the biggest musical revelation I've had in years, although in retrospect it seems so simple as to be painfully, DUH-ishly obvious) is that most of us have lived a life surrounded by all kinds of people and all kinds of music, and that in order to best make music that reflects who we are, there's absolutely no reason to shut anything out. But most of us have been precondiitioned to segregate first, and then "fuse" when needed. Monday's music seems to me to take the opposite tact - you include everything from the git-go, and then filter out what doesn't meet your needs for any given situation, which as her music amply shows, is actually very little. Even though it runs counter to the way that most of us have been thinking (and maybe feeling), that just makes more sense to me. I don't see any sense in limiting what "should" be a part of our music, or of having the equivalent of bench players, little things to call on when we want a special "effect". Jazz in particular (or maybe it just seems that way to me, and all musics are like this) has developed a really bad case of telling itself that this is what it must be, the result being that too many people are changing who they are (or could be) to make themselves fit "the music" instead of letting the music be who they are. Of course, you could/should ask the question, what type of person allows themselves to surrender their core humanity for the sake of "belonging"? Or, if they're really not surrendering anything, but are instead finding their identity by stepping into a ready-made, relatively firm set of pre-existing criteria and conditions, how is that any different from joining a cult? Jazz originally sprang up, developed, and evolved for a good long while, within a fairly specific set of "macro" social conditions & environments (which is not to say that the music was necessarily "about" those things, only that those things did have an intrinsic role in how & what the music became). The forces that created those conditions still exist, definitely, but the environments for the most part don't. We have more than basic documentation of what that all was, so why is there a need to so specifically replicate what alredy exists on such a seemingly broad scale? It's all in the mind, I tell you. Too many minds seem to be working on the assumption that since there is profund universal truth to be found in yesterday's specific conditions, that taking the specific manifestations of that truth and applying them to today's different conditions (and conditions today are far more different in some pretty basic ways than ever) will yield the same profound specific truth. I disagree.

Who was it who said that a great artist isn't ahead of their time, that most people are behind their's?

More than wonderful!

Vaughn Meader Lovely Rita, Meter Maid Janice Van Meeter

Well, it is, and it isn't. Sanborn was a master at "fitting the message to the medium" on those cameos he did on all the hits of the 70s. Eight bars or so, say what you got to say within the context, and then get out. If you listen to what he does in those few bars, it's actually quite musical, usually. Not at all unlike the soloists in the big bands in the 78 era, if you can entertain that notion.

No "Laura" on Pearls, but that one's got some other really nice ballads w/good arrangements by Johnny Mandel & a gripping cameo by Jimmy Scott on "For All We Know", along with some not-so-nice stuff. Recommended if you can find a used copy at a reasonable price.

Outside of the cave, if there's more of them than us (and more people wanting to hear them than us), does it really matter what we think?

re:The Cover - dig the photo, not sure about the font though. Oh well. Don't understand the Roques suggestion. That's just weird. Sorry.

Surely you remember all those Black Panther cartoons...

Even if it's 4 over 3?

Unless you're there, it doesn't sound like you will...

Oh, really, yeah, ok. I mean somebody who genuinely feels a compulsion to do it, not somebody who phones it in just to get the bread. Believe it or not, not all "commercial" music is made strictly for the money. Some people actually enjoy making it!

Need/want, I guess, is a matter of motivation. You got some guys who play this stuff because they like it like they like other things, it's something they do because they enjoy it, but it's one of many things they enjoy. That's "want" to me. Examples would be, say, Grover Washington, Joe Sample, Chris Botti, & David Sanborn, all players whom I'm not ashamed to say that I respect and at times genuinely enjoy as recreational listening. "Commercial" or not, they bring a very musical mind & spirit to their proceedings far more often than not, and I can often enough find something there that makes me say yeah, ok, that's nice. I don't feel insulted by that type thing. "Need" would be when somebody goes that direction because that's the music they feel compelled to play because that's their language, the home of their voice. Examples? Nationally, I can't think of any right off hand, but locally, there's any number of people who take to that stuff naturally and who wouldn't want to play any other type music. Good for them, even if it's the "want to" types who seem to have the edge for me, just because they have a broader pallate with which to paint, both technically & emotionally. But that's just me. Noticably absent from the above are the true cookie-cutter "Smooth Jazz" types, because frankly, it sucks, and so do they.

Did I ever suggest that old folks try to pretend to be kids? No, and with good reason - I'm old enough to remember Big Bands full of old folks trying to play "rock". It weren't pretty. On the other hand, I'm old enough to remember gene ammons, so I ain't jumping to any conclusions too hastily... But I'm not talking to old folks, I'm talking to younger players, the ones who are coming to jazz not because it's in their blood, but because it's in their mind that this is serious music, by god, and I'm a serious motherfucker, so goddamit, I'm not going to pollute my bad self by straying from the fold, it's SWING BABY, SWING, CHING-CHINGA-FUCKING-CHING-A-(and now, in tribute to Elvin)BADIDDELYBOOM. Yawn. A nerd is a nerd. And a jazz nerd is even more of one. Jeezus kids, you're supposed to piss us off, not lick our asses. I better stop now before I get too worked up... Miles? Say what you will about the post-retirement stuff, but ask youself this - If you really want/need to play instrumental popjazz, what makes a more, ummm...substantive role model - a Yellowjackets side or Amandala? That's a no-brainer afaic. And what are we to make of somebody like Joe Zawinul, who came in one side, went out the other, and is still going? At what point are we to say, "C'on, Joe, you're too old for that shit. Time to settle down and play "Hippodelphia" for the rest of your life"? Never I hope. I keep having nightmares about being 70-something, getting called to play a jazz gig, showing up, and there's all these bald guys with oversized glasses and beards (gotsta be beards) and a 19-year-old drummer who thinks it's A Real Honor to play with us (and who can't get a gig w/people his own age...), and the crowd is mostly younger people who come out of cluelessness, curiosity, a mixture of both, or else just being there for no good reason whatsomeevr. Them and a few house drunks who may or may not be between the ages of 30 & 97. The pianist is mightily jacked to have this gig, and is just besides himself when he turns to me and virtually orgasms while saying, "Hey man, let's play NARDIS!!!" I...would...rather...die. Seriously. Dude, I've always been a natural "eclectic" and see no reason to stop now. And I don't see any reason why I can't be influenced in a positive way by things like energy, vibe, etc. w/o having to resort to mere mimicry. It's one thing to mature joyfully and gracefully, to maintain an interest in things new & interesting while not necessarily doing all those things, to be more about the appreciation of them and the pleasures they offer than hopping aboard a bandwagon for futile commercial ends. It's something else entirely to reach a point in life and say, that's it, there's nothing else, I'm moving to (insert complacency center of your choice here) to play my shit over and over and over and over. Later for that shit. Much later, as in never. We can't help but get old. But we sure as hell can keep from no longer being open and full of curiosity, the joy of discovery, and the thrill of seeing the world change & evolve. Life is a blessing, not a curse, and appreciation is called for, I believe. If I ever reach the point in life where I lose that spirit, kill me. Immediately. And yes, I'm serious. Like a motherfucker. In fact, kill all the "jazz musicians" who are at that point now, be they 25 or 65. There won't be all that many left, I'm afraid, but the ones that are will be choice. (and P.S. regarding house - I've heard some Masters At Work shit with Gene Perez on bass that swings - honest-to-god effortlessly and gracefully SWINGS - harder than 99% of the new jazz I've heard in the last 20 years. Tell me why I shouldn't be impressed.)