JSngry

So, what's the joke here, anyway?

oh i agree but that's a question for Titans & musicologists. i could be wrong but at present my instinctive feeling is OTC dead-ended in its time & the various elements therein kept pushing forward like the river across a shipwreck... meeting up again later in different, sometimes similar sounding forms. So, what - it came out, nobody heard it in its time, or if they did they just blew it off only to later look back and say, "Oh. Now I get it!" I can go for that a fairly high percentage of the time, but nowhere near 100% Somebody was listenening and getting it. Hell, I even remember listening to K104 ca. 1978 and thinking to myself that I was beginning to hear hints of Miles's shit popping up in the mix. Had a conversation w/Dave Liebman ca. 1979 where he said (complained, actually) that the only cats around paying attention to OTC were the funk bands. Liebman was not necessarily my go-to guy on the State Of Funk Today , but it kinda confirmed what I thought I was already beginning to hear. Now, like I implied earlier, it might have been the producers, not the players, who were hearing it, but the point is that somebody was hearing it and acting on it, even if it was only circuitously. Now, I also do think that "ahead of its time" applies here as far as direct influence goes, that maybe/probably there's a lot of retro-archeology going on. But I also do think that that's paid off with some direct influences, some clarifying/refining of visions that already existed w/o ever having heard it (for all the BeeBopperz 4ever, think Dexter Gordon being influenced by Trane or Luke finding out that Darth ws his dad). Like I said, I hear too much similarity for it to be accidental. And in my book, that's still "influence", although of a different kind than you are talking about. But something, anything, that changes you is still an influence, and when it's an "ancestor" doing it, hey, attention must be paid.

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All I'm saying is that no matter what anybody knows or doesn't know (or says they do or don't), I don't see how you can trace the stuff backwards w/o eventually hitting up against OTC. And before that, what? Somebody(s) heard it, and somebody(s) passed it along. The similarities are too many and too frequent to be accidental and/or parallel. Shit just don't work that way. Bottom line for me is this - OTC happened, and then so did everything else in its own sweet time. Now whether or not who it got passed on to and whether or not they passed it on to etcetcetc knew/knows the source is an interesting academic question, but so is whether or not it's going to rain tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll know, and not before. So let's look at yesterday's forecasts and ask ourselves this - what would all this sound like if OTC hadn't happened? Your guess is as good or better as mine, but I'm having a hard time seeing (much less hearing) how it would sound like it does today. And that matters as far as it matters. Which is all I'm saying.

But Ben's "Deep Purple" justifies its existence.

If you had said "Poly-Currents" & "Genesis" instead, I could say that's ok, you know what it is you're passing on. But...

I got the LPs. I can dub 'em in when I want to hear 'em. If that time ever comes.

The "this cat" link got screwed up (at least for me). Here's one, unscrewed... Grooverider Sorry about the screwing. Can I buy you a bottle of syrup for the inconvenience?

Points well taken all about how it got there, but I still think that OTC & GUWI form a "crystalization point" for much of what came after, especially in terms of basic pulse. There's Euro-pulse & there's Afro-pulse, & the shit that I'm talking about has Afro-pulse. If anybody else was doing Afro-pulsed ambientloopybrokebeattrippycutnpaste shit like OTC at the time, I'm unaware of it. Correct me if I'm wrong. Dub? Nope, that was that, and this was this. Would it have happened w/o Miles? Sure, probably, eventually, in some form or another. The currents were already there waiting to cross. The point is that Miles (and Teo) did it. It might well be a matter of indirect influence at this point, but that's life in the cultual vacuum. Indirect influence is still real (quick, no peeking - who invented the internal combustion engine? Hell if I know, but I drive every day anyway.) Indirect is just direct that nobody knows enough to look at. And yeah, there's been a lot of noise for OTC from downtown for quite a while now. But downtown is downtown. It's relevant to all this the same way that a boat dock is relevant to the life in a lake. Anybody remember the quote from the Tingen book from one of the 70s band members about who their audience for the live gigs was? It wasn't Whitey, and is wasn't rock. I have a strong suspicion that the reason why contemporaneous history paints the music of OTC & GUWI as not really reaching any audience in particular is that the people writing that history didn't know where to look. And they still don't, other than where they get called to by people who want to call attention to themselves. But who am I going to believe, them or my ears?

Man, when I moved to Albuquerque, the only hump I had to get over was the fact that I ws from Texas. They hate us there!

Dude, if you told anybody in Albuquerque that you thought you were in Texas, you're lucky that you didn't get murdered!

Did you take locals or expresses? Locals can take you to some very unusual places...

Well, ok, I doubt that the majority of hip hop / funksters practitioneers have given this music a good listen, but I'm more than a little sure that the majority of the producers have. And that's where the creative action is in that music, with the producers. Now, if you're talking drum'n bass, beatcraft, remixology, etc., that's a whole 'nother thing. I've got no doubt whatsoever that those cats probably know this shit inside & out. No way they couldn't. Find a copy of this & tell me that this cat hasn't totally absorbed On The Corner: And this, I'm finding out, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Truthfully, it's both.

Wally George George Wallington George Wettling

I took a road gig w/a mediocre but working "hotel show band" back in 1981 and stayed with it for 15 months specifically to have the opportunity to see the US. The routing was lousy (one month's itenerary went from New Mexico to Alabama to Kansas to Calgary (international bonus points! ) to Washington DC, and the travel was by van, but by god, I got to see the US in real time. The only areas I didn't get to see were Washington/Oregon, New England, Alaska, & Hawaii. I've since had the opportunity to hit Hawaii, and the others remain on the "to do" list. We almost made the Pacific NW jaunt a few summers ago, but Toot Toot's lack of due dilligence necessitated a summer school session, so that didn't happen. But it will, as will all the others. LTB & I have made a New England vacation a top priority for our "retirement years", if/when we get to that point. One thing I learned from all that travel was that this is a great country, even if it's largely populated by morons. They're beautiful morons, by god, and the more you see of them, the more you realize that being a moron is pretty much par for the course for humanity (and that we all carry the capacity for deep moron-ness within ourselves). Helps you appreciate those who aren't, as well as lessening the hostility towards those who are, unless they go on ahead and make it a point of militancy. Back then, there wasn't a whole lot of that going on except with the usual suspects. Things have changed though... But hey - I still love America & its people. I'd encourage everybody who hasn't done so to hit the road and stay there as much as possible for as long as possible. It's an education you can't get any other way and its probably about as "true" an education as one can get. I still feel a void from having had extremely limited travel outside of North America, but that too is a project for the if/when years.

HA! Good one!

I couldn't have said it better. Thanks, Tom! I really want an On The Corner box. So much of the shit I've been listening to lately has its roots in that album and Get Up With It. No matter how much that period of Miles' music rubbed/rubs a lot of people the wrong way, it obviously rubs/rubbed just as many (or more) the right way, and its impact continues to reverberate today. I dare say that it's left a legacy just as profound and far-reaching as Kind Of Blue & probably moreso than that of Bitches Brew. Even if that legacy is off the radar for much of the "jazz" world, it's a legacy that is international & multi-generational in scope, and it's a legacy that is going a long way towards breaking down a lot of technological, cultural, & "intellectual" barriers. That's no different than any of Miles' other legacies, but it's a legacy that needs to be properly recognized by the "establishment" in order for things to get back on track (which might be precisely why it's not being recognized - there's a pretty good market these days, it seems, in things being off track). Like Billy Harper said, Is It Not True Simply Because You Cannot Believe It?

Bizarre indeed.

Fair enough, but the incomplete clause "with the permission" is ambiguous at best. A misunderstanding is understandable, no? Still, it's all good. I'm not at all offended by music promos, authorized or otherwise. The notion of "Keith Jarrett Spam", however, a low-grade luncheon meat endorsed by Mr. Jarrett, cracks me up! It's like a jazz equivalent of

Buddy of mine sends me this burn of a promo copy of a side called Bowling by a band called U-Street All Stars. Things got a Capitol logo on the promo sleeve, and a German EMI weblink. The band's good, actually, high-energy retro mod-bop. Nothing here (absolutely nothing) that you haven't already heard from (now) several generations of young cats who want to swing it like they used to, but there's a good vibe to the whole thing anyway. These cats sound like it's all fresh and new to them, so hey. Right on! Anyway, a little websearch shows that this is a Finnish band, and that this album was actually released on Blue Note Finland. WTF is Blue Note Finland anyway? And come to find out, the band's released two albums on this label! http://www.u-street.com/bio_eng.htm What's up with all this? The U-Street All Stars ain't gonna rock my world off its axis or anything, but they're a good solid band that gives good fun (the title track of the one I got features a drop of a bowling ball knocking down some pins. It works, believe it or not!). If BN America can hype Kerrie Anne Fisher (or whatever her name is) surely they can hype this. Many members of this forum would be well pleased by U-Street All-Stars! Blue Note Finland? What else they got?

Maybe so... You can (and should) buy when/if it becomes legitimately available.

Does he still have that big ol' bald head?

How recent is your information? About 3 weeks ago.

Oscar Peterson completist that I am, I'm excited to the point of fitzwilliness to hear about this!