JSngry

Is it just me, or is there a hint of Boyce & Hart's "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" in the hook to "Momma's Not Coming Home Tonight"? Ah, manufactured pop music. Not to be taken seriously at face value (usually), but a goldmine of riches nevertheless. 50,000,000 Elvis fans indeed can't be wrong, but about what is still open for consideration!

"Venus", yeah. One of those moments in time. Might be insignificant in the overall scheme of things, but how many people live a life and don't even get that much? As fate would have it, I was listening just the other night to the Yukihiro Fukutomi remix of that song on the Soul Source Remixed Fevers and thinking the same thing. Fate is a quirky thing.

That last one puts The Cowsills' version into a whole 'nother light... Would that there was accompanying video.

Jack Daniels Jim Beam Rip Van Winkle

Totally agreed. But you get some people who will insist that Aretha's version is "more soulful", to which I counter that there are all kinds of soul, and that failure to hear/feel/recognize that is indicative of some sort of cultural parochialism which might be understanable given the world in which we live, but which nevertheless must be overcome if we wish to realize the fullness of our humanity, and therefore be able to transcend its limitations.

Do you like Roland Kirk's version more than Aretha Franklin's? Call me crazy, but I like Dionne's version every bit as much as Aretha's, albeit for entirely different reasons. The Warwick/Bachrach partnership was a spiritual thing, if it's allowable to consider the possibility that "suburbia" can be spiritual. And if that's not allowable, then that raises some pretty serious issues...

For how much longer will that box be available? If it's an open-ended thing, then yeah, hold off, if for no other reason than there seems to be a consensus as to what you need to hear before you hear something else . But if it's a limited edition type thing, then I'd not wait too long. You gotta balance the curriculum with the pragmatism.

Again, thank you sir!

The Cramps Buster Crabbe Busta Cherry Jones

Jim, looks like it is an original IC release. Just checked with the jazzdisco.org Archie Shepp - Doodlin' (Inner City IC 1001) Alan Shorter (flh) Archie Shepp (p) Bob Reid (b) Muhammad Ali (d) Paris, France, November, 1970 Sweet Georgia Brown Doodlin' Invitation Worried About You If You Could See Me Now More Than You Know Coral Rock LP was released in 1976. I guess he sold them the tapes. I can't open that discography page. I can't either... Looks like this one might have originally geen done for the "Carson Records, France" thing. That would make sense, given the date & personnel.

I can tell you that it was a division of Music Minus One, and that most of its original releases were of the fusion & vocal variety (Jeff Lorber got his start on thae label), and that there's a very good discography of the label HERE if you can get it to work. I don't think that the Shepp was an IC "original", they licensed from a lot of labels, but I could well be wrong.

Barry Manilow & copasetic? Hmmmm...I'm not that evolved yet... Copasetic:

Sterling Haden Joseph Haydn GoSikh

True, but it's like anything else - the more you do it, the easier it gets. And eventually, you do it without realizing it. Everything's copasetic until you run up against people who can't/don't/haven't/won't. But life goes on, and wasting time on people who can't/don't/haven't/won't is a game for young people who, statistically speaking, have more of it left to waste. And, by any reasonable standard, I've already lived over half of my life, so hey... All I'm saying is that it's a learned behavior for most folks, that the time to start is now, and the time to stop is never. Carpe diem.

I think it's a drag when people "listen" to anything more than the music being played. Case in point: About 25 years ago, I did a re-harminization of "Close To You" (yeah, tha Carpenters song, but it's also a Bachrach song, and Bachrach is one helluva songwriter AFAIC). Couldn't get players to even try it just because it was a Carpenters song. So I finally took the tact of just bringing in the changes w/o the melody. Cats loved it. The I put the melody, which I had slightly rephrased to fit the reharmonization, to it. Immediate reversion to hating it just because it was a Carpenters song. Sorry, but that's just stupid. We hear a lot of talk in jazz circles about "being in the moment" (which is a Romantic notion quite often more often honored in talk than in action, but that's another matter...). Well hell, if you got some good changes to play on, and a good groove to go with it, how "in the moment" are you if you can't get a 1970 AM radio hit out of your head and let it spoil your chances for happiness? Just how fucking "in the moment" are you then, Mr. Hip Jazzmuzishun? The whole thing about not being able to shed extra-musical connotations is a surrendering to the powers that be. It's a self-imposed refusal to see life where life has been (often) intentionally downplayed, disguised, or distorted. It's letting them inside your mind and letting them decide what you can or can not have for yourself. I ain't letting nobody tell me what I can or can not have. If I want to have Masters At Work and Bird and Ayler and James Brown and any other g-damn thing I want, by god, I am going to have it, and I am going to enjoy it fully and without guilt. If you're really "hip", you know good music when I hear it, you know what functionality is, you know the difference between records and songs, and you know how to listen to levels other than those of the surface. Somebody else can worry about "connotations" and all that shit. That's just an excuse to not deal with anything outside their own pre-construted box of a "comfort zone". Once again - how "hip" can you be if you're basing your "hipness" on what you keep out rather than what you can let in? How "hip" are you if you let The Man decide for you what you can claim for yourself and what you must reject? Open up your own freakin' mind and take what you're not supposed to have if you want it. That's the act of a true revolutioary! Anything else is volunteered slavery.

The Treniers RULED!

Soul Man Dave Porter Cole Porter

The Ganster of Love A Prophet of Doom Two Tons of Fun

WHOA!!!

James Petrillo Art Shell Red Skelton

Thanks. brownie! I've got the Strand LP also, but about half the front & back cover are peeled off. But it was a quarter in a thrift store, so...

What's the definition of a "crappy" pop tune? Most of the songs listed here stike me as pretty decent songs. It's the records of them, the hit versions, that are annoying as hell. "Alone again..." is not at all a bad song, but Gilbert O'Sullivan's record of it pissed me off from Day One, and things haven't changed since. OTOH, there's any number of insipid pop songs that have been made into great records. You think to youself, "man, what a great song", but when you try and do something with it other than cover it outright, there ain't nothing there.

"I Got Rhythm"