JSngry

Hal Crook used to play with Phil Woods.

I didn't know that about Tabackin (and don't really care, if you know what I mean, but duly noted for the sake of accuracy). I thought that I had read in several places where Monday & Toshiko went back & forth between America & Japan after Toshiko & Mariano split up because Toshiko had work there, and as a single mom she took both it and Monday. But I could be wrong about that.

Well, is samples is all you've heard, then I understand. Just know that her body of work as a whole is pretty much "all over the map" stylistically, sometimes from album to album, and sometimes within albums, and even songs. "Boundaries" of styles are one thing she seems to not be too impressed with!

I think that's been true of Marley for 25+ years now, that's not new. He's probably more revered in the global non-African population as well. Agreed. But that's still going to come as quite a shock to a large portion of the American music-loving/liking community.

And what style is that? And FWIW, I don't see "pushing" boundaries as her thing nearly as much as ignoring them.

I'll even up the ante a little bit by saying this - America is no longer the cultural center of the popular music world. There's a whole generation, a global generation, who doesn't give a phlying phuck about our baggage and how it continues to circle around itself (although they dig the shit out of some of it's more serendipitous results). They're moving on, and we are going to be left in their dust. To use but one example - I'd venture to say that Bob Marley as a musical figure, never mind cultural icon, is far more revered amongst the global African population that are James Brown & Aretha combined. Far more, not even close. America, can you see the tailights? Look quick, they'll soon be out of range.

Fair enough, & I totally understand where you're coming from, if for no other reason than it could've (hell - would've) been me not too long ago. All I can say is that for me, it's a new kind of "colorless" soul singing, one that's international in scope, and one that's put all the societal baggage that went into the creation of the old soul singing behind (as much as possible). There's a fair amount of it going on in the world at large, still mostly underground, but it's there, and it feels real enough to me more often than not. There's a pocket of multi-racial "neo-soul music" going on in England that's neither "white" nor "black" sounding, at least in American terms, but that might be the point. It excites me, because at some point, the world is going to have to let go of the rancid legacy of European colonialism and get on with the business of moving on, just saying "fuck it, I'm done with it". That's going to be especially difficult, if not impossible, here in America, but hey, that's where I am. Let the dying play the games of the dead, and let those who want to live get on with the business of living the way living should be done. Monday's certainly got the background to come by this attitude naturally - Japanese/Italian parentage, Anglo step-father, totally jazz-surrounded household, a childhood split between the US & Japan, and by all accounts, quite the club (i.e. Black/Urban Dance Music) kid for quite a while. At some point for her, I'd imagine, she finally caught on that "soul" really is a universal quality if you let it be, and just went with it. Fuck being any other race than simply human & just let it roll like that. For that, I think she deserves some sort of Role Model For the 21st Century award. No, she doesn't sound "black". But she doesn't really sound "white" either. Aretha she's not, but neither is she Helen Reddy, dig? She just is who she is, a pan-cultural child of the world who loves it all, and she doesn't pretend to be anything else. That mike take some getting used to for American ears, who are accustomed to having racial identity telegraphed from a million miles away every time they open their eyes and ears. It's how we are, and it's not our fault. But at some point, we're all going to have to let it go and be "from" someplace and be here now, if you know what I mean. In my opinion, the whole "white folks needing to feel black to prove they have soul" thing was necessary for a good long while as a societal transitioning tool. But the thing about transitioning is that sooner or later, the transition has to complete itself and a new thing has to start getting on with business. To me, Monday's there. Like I said, for Americans as a whole, it might seem (and may actually be) unreasonable or even unfathomable, to imagine such a thing, much less put it into practice. Very well might be. But for what it's worth, I'm down with it all the way. Just my opinion, and I'm certainly not expecting a unanimous round of applause from the house for it. But there it is anyway.

I'm still figuring it out myself... But it seems to be a form of house music where the beat is fragmented like hell, w/all kinds of stops/starts/sputters not unlike Andy Newmark's drumming on "In Time", or the freakier stuff that DG did w/Tower of Power, except there's silences in between the accents. The shit grooves like a motherfucker, I'm telling you, because some cats layer that shit and you got all this polyrhythmic stuttering - with stops and starts - going on in the service of a deepass groove. What ups the ante for me is that the musical sophistication required to program like this means that the form is not at all unfriendly to some equally/relatively sophisticated songwriting, and, in the case of a group called The Society, that goes so far as to use it as a foundation for some "real" "jazz" improvising over some "real jazz" type compositions. Of course, it ain't nowhere near all the way there yet in those terms, but the potential is definitely there for the if/when of real "real" players decide to go stepping into it. For a good taste of it, check out the KJM side I referenced above, as well as a cut off of Ursula Rucker's Silver Or Lead called "Q&A" that'll damn near dizzify you to death. I'm sure there's a lot more (and maybe better, still haven't really gotten to IG Culture or 4Hero outside of some Monday remixes which certainly caught my attention by the huevos), but that's the thrill of ongoing discovery, no?

Which would be what? Just curious, really.

Oh geez... (insert extreme embarassment smiley here). Yes, thank you. Your package is forthcoming.

Well, I'm of the mind that for sheer dancing delight, nothing comes remotely close to Andrew!!!, so that just goes to show ya'...

Stollman wanted and did make a play. CT did not want. And that probably happened more than once with more than one label during that time?

Never saw that much of a resemblance between Monday & Toshiko until...

The Warne/Tabackin was a Toshiko-produced thing for the Japanese Disco-Mate label that she/they then leased to Inner City. Same thing w/her trio side, Tributes.

Dude, I'm just not into anything "Eurotronic" right now. Just a personal POV at this moment. I'm old enough to have caught both the first & second wave of it (and to have lost interest by the time the third wave came around). What's hitting me now is stuff like the Broken Beat shit. Some of that stuff is just nuts, swings like a mofo, and yeah, it's costing me money. But it's making me happier about music than I've been in quite a while (even though it's making me realize that I'm probably obsolete now, but oh well, I had my fun and then some, and besides, you never know what kind of freaks you're going to hook up with at some point...), so it's all good like that.

Cecil was too big to fit into BN for any longer than he did, especially after Lion quit. Hille, remember, had a bit of a sabbatical around the time Lion left, and he definitely made a different type of music upon returning (again though, that sabbatical and the change in music might have been a personal change as much as anything). Really, we can play the "what if" game for a lot of scenarios, and this Cecil/BN thing is definitely a major one, but I don't know if but that by doing so we run the risk of building up some subliminal resentment against what really did happen because of what could have but didn't. Hell, it happens to me, especially when I hear In The World & wonder where the fuck damn near all the rest of that music was studio-time-wise during that time. Hill's gain at BN didn't necessarily come at Cecil's expense, dig? Theile could've done it just as easily, no? But Impulse! was pretty much TraneTown, and that was that. You gotta think that Stollman could've at least made a play (and maybe he did?). Lion did what Lion did, and that's how it went down. Hey -fate is a cruel bitch sometimes, and if anybody can find a way around that, they can have my momma's car, my wife's negligees (very tasty, picked most of 'em out myself, with an eye for detail), and my other tenor.

And if you can't find anything by the Madonnas, look for something by a band called Giorgio Moroder...

Yes, I know that. But only the first was done for the Theile-led Impulse! The others were done after Ed Michel took over at the label. Different deal altogether, and outside the scope of this discussion, I think.

I think that griff was significantly better served at Riverside than at BN, although whether or not that was as much a matter of his own maturing as anything else, I'm not ready to say. But Riverside was definitely more amenable to different/expanded/whatever settings than was BN, for whatever reason. Now, about Unit Structures, again, some historical perspective is called for. You gotta remember that prior to that, the last Cecil date that was out there was the Into The Hot material, and that that was still "Cecil playing over time". (I know that some of the Montmartre stuff was released in the US on Fantasy/Debut, but A)that was a trio date, B)Fantasy back in those days was not all that widely distributed except for a few "hits", and C)I don't know exactly when that album was released. Anyway, good luck finding a copy, then or now). Anyway, Unit Structures was the first side with profile (and quite possibly the first side period) to present Cecil Taylor's music in the form that we all know today. It could be argued that pretty much everything that's come since is an expansion on what was first documented on that album. So afaic, it's "classic" status is a no-brainer, even if the music wasn't as incredible as it is ("Enter Evening" alone is one for the ages, & getting an alternate of it on the CD was a gift from on high). He'd have come out (no pun intended) somewhere sooner or later, but this is where it happened, and there ain't no changing that. There literally was no Cecil Taylor music like this on record before Unit Structures, but there's been plenty of it since. So I say you gotta give recording props to the recorded archetype.

The rest of them I'd expect that from. But Bob Mintzer should know better.

Indeed. Don't forget that solo album made for DJs to sample. Still have yet to locate a copy, although I have found a compilation w/a few selections. GRAND stuff, believe it or not.

Jim, that can be true if an entire artist is being dismissed, (good point made later about artists vs. albums being discounted) but is a dangerous general assumption even then. I agree that I need to dismiss myself from judging good hip-hop from bad hip-hop, etc. because I can't "hear" any of it. But when I dig 'Spring' and am left cold by 'Lifetime', when I love 'The Gigolo' but feel lukewarm towards 'Cornbread', when I am crazy about 'Complete Communion' but can barely listen to 'Symphony for Improvisors', when I will take 'Ready for Freddie' to the grave but never feel any urge to play 'Hub-Tones' or 'Night of the Cookers' something different is going on there other than 'I don't get it simple as that'. There has to be aesthetic involved even within a sub-genre. Not a problem. You obviously are judging "from within", with a multi-informed perspective, as are others in this thread. But there's been some really dumb, one-dimensional shit said by others. And I ain't naming names! However, for the sake of argument, I think that The Gigolo & Cornbread are fully equal, both among Lee's best, that Spring & Lifetime are apples and oranges, that Symphony For Improvisors suffers from inadequate recording, and that I'm with you on the Hubbards.

Impulse! was not built around the concept of "rotating house bands" either. They mostly brought in "known quantities" as leaders, and, other than Trane, didn't do the whole "artist development" thing like Blue Note did, at least until they got into the "New Thing". And even then, the focus was almost entirely on the leader. How many Impulse! sidemen (again, out of the Trane orb) came out of "nowhere" and were so impressive to Taylor/Thiele that they got Impulse! contracts/dates a result? Hell, Shepp had to almost gangster Trane to get Theile to give him a date. And whatever Shepp did for Marion Brown, the net result was what? One album. If Lion had've been behind those cats (and if they had come along when he was more energetic about growing the label), there would've been a series of sideman & leader dates. The talent would have been nurtured to one dgree or another. That was Lion's way, at least in his prime. With Impulse!, Thiele was, apart from Coltrane-related items, a record-maker first and foremost. Not a problem, but it does point out a difference in conceptual/working methodology between the labels. which in turn points out a difference in what their respective outputs "represent".

Well yeah. But otoh, this "overrated" business seems to be more aimed at deflating the mythology (which I'm all in favor of, btw) than it does at understanding what the mythology is all about in the first place (which I'm even more in favor of). A lot of Blue Note fandom has its roots in uncritical acceptance of any/everything put out during the Lion/Wolff era. I mean, there's no way that Dippin' & Reach Out are the same "quality" record, if you know what I mean. But you got your "faithful fans" who will swoon over both equally just because it's Hank Mobley, and just because it's on Blue Note. Later for that shit. But... There's also a level of appreciation for the label as a whole that is quite legitimate, I think. There's no question in my mind that the aforementioned "quality control" aspect of the label paid off handsomely. Even on a record that I find to be pretty much a dud overall for me, like, say Byrd's Mustang has its moments of truth and beauty. That's not something that can be said about too many other labels (although Impulse! would probably be one about which it could. But that was a label that operated from a different premise than did Blue Note). Taken as a whole, the BN catalog is remarkably consistent. And what they did in providing ongoing documentation of a whole set of players (some of whom would not likely be documented as thoroughly, if at all, elsewhere) in differing (and not so differing) contexts cannot be objectively denied. So between consistency and documentation, there's definitely legitimate grounds for respect and admiration. When you come at it like that, then yeah, I think you can certainly be discriminating between albums. You should be, in fact. But to simply dismiss a unique document like Fuschia Swing Song misses the point - it's exactly the uniqueness -in every way - of that document that makes it special. Now, if this whole aspect of uniqueness, documentation, etc. doesn't float your boat, fine. I understand that. I personally couldn't give a rat's ass about, for example, the 70s Prog-Rock that gets a lot of dicks hard on this board. But since I simply just don't dig what it's all about in the first place, I'm not going to use the few odd things therein that I do like as a benchmark to claim that everything else is "overrated". I don't have the enthusiasm for the music as a whole to make that distinction honestly, and I don't have the depth of understanding as to what particular albums really represent to the overall perspective of that type music to do that. I'll just shut up. And snicker. And Prog-Rock is just a random example. Within the realm of "jazz" itself, there's more than enough subsets of genres and scenes to make Blue Note just another one of them. The devout fans should recognize that, but so should the not-so devout. Otherwise, everybody says some really stupid shit along the way. And that has happened in this thread. Now as for Hubbard, yeah, most of his BN leader dates are to me "lesser" than his sideman dates. That's a puzzle to me, actually. Always has been, especially since he made such a strong showing as a leader on CTI (say what you will about the music itself, there's no denying that Freddie very much presented a "strong leader face" on those dates, especially the earlier ones). But few of the BN leader dates are "bad" as much as they are just....not as distincitve as they could/should have been. And again, that's a mystery to me. But yet again, there's things on those records that need to be heard if that era and those players are of more than just passing interest to you, and although I understand the "overrated" tag in this instance, I think that it's too easy to slide from "overrated" into "easily dismissed", and I'm nowhere near ready to do that, not in the context of understanding this era and these players. Because there is "relevant information" to be found, and not just a little bit of it either. Quite the contrary. But you have to want to find it, and not everybody wants to do the work. Not saying that they should, mind you, just saying that it's there if you want it. And that holds true of a lot of "lesser" BNs, and of a lot of "lesser" records in general. The information is there. Besides, I'll go to my grave digging the shit out of Ready For Freddie. Would that they had all hit that vibe!

Why don't you see if they're hiring?