JSngry

There'll be enough someday. Billy Harper is a true healer. 'Nuff said.

That's Mondo Grosso, who I gather was the premier Japanese "Acid-Jazz" of the 90s. Good stuff, and a group/scene I wouldn't mind checking out at leisure in the future. But Monday's moved way, way beyond that... And yeah, today's Saturday, and I do go out and play. For a Memorial Day "extravagnza" featuring a Bob Hope impersonator hosting a "Cavalcade Of Stars" which is also a bunch of "celebrety impersonators". Don't think I'll be going to church on Sunday, but after all that, you best believe I'll be getting down on my knees to pray...

Matthew Mark Luke

Don't know nearly as much about Dekker as I should, but I do know that he was a pioneer, and that "The Israelites" was just the tip of the iceberg.

John Boy Danny Boy Roi Boye

Sir Loin Sir Duke Dear Sir

There was actually a tangental personnel and/or personal connection between the Bonzos & The New Vaudeville Band, but damned if I remember what it is, and damned if I care. But I do remember seeing the NVB on, I think, Hollywood Palace back in the day, and they had a pretty off-the-wall stage schtick. Come to find out, they stole it from the Bonzos. That I do remember.

Well, I don't think I'm in any way a stereotypical eltitist jazz fan, but I gotta tell ya', the Idol show don't do much for me at all. Different strokes, and all that, but like a friend of mine once said when I responded to his dissing of the Elvis Sun sides as music for ignorant hillbillies by saying that it was soulful music for ignorant hillbillies, "Fine. Let them have it then!"

Definitely a joke.

What's up w/the heart attack on the way to the hospital? And why is the family suddenly "satisfied" witht he police account? Hmmmm....

Randy Wood Roy Wood Lewis Grizzard

They get the joke.

Trip Hawkins Tony Hawk Lord Haw Haw

My god....

Gimme the Bonzos any damn day.

The only thing that would make these renditions more perfect would be vocals by Darlene Edwards.

Who ia Katharine McPhee? Seriously.

I'll take your word for that, but how about his liner notes? Stanley Dance was a bad muthafukkah.

That's Earl, brother!

Hold off a few days, Rod. More "content" is coming your way shortly.

Best wishes and deepest thanks to Generalissimo Alfredisson Organissimo!

Stoney Burke Steve McGarrett Thomas Magnum

Stanley Dance was a bad muthafukkah.

Nothing wrong with that game last night that better first half shooting wouldn't have fixed. So fix it guys, fix it.

The "big deal" is relative, I suppose, to what you're looking for and/or get excited about. And on that, of course, mileages can, will, and should vary wildly. For me, it's the creation of a "unimusic", one in which any and all heretofore "genres" can (and do) exist simulataneously, not as grafted on or otherwise self-conscious "fusions", but as a natural, organic, whole. This is the way the world is moving, and this is the way that popular music is eventually going to have to end up if it's ever again going to be a truly relevant form instead of a simple catering to people's prejudices and limitations. Is she the only one doing something like this? I don't know. I do hear some "jazz" groups trying to do much the same thing, and I do hear the occasional "pop" artitst who's musically literate enough to approximate some of waht she does. But I've yet to hear anybody do it so naturally or so totally. What relevance does this have to me as a "jazz" musician? Plenty, really. In the first place, jazz as we've known it isn't dead, but it's on it's way. Has been for quite a while, really. The sociological environment that produced the really real shit is all but over. We can play the various styles of the last 100 years or so with all the sincerity and conviction we can muster and it will still be "good music". But will it be as relevant to the "now" as the originals were? No. Can't be, and won't be. That may or may not matter to some of us, and that's cool, but to those of us for whom it does, we're faced with the quandary of having acquired all this knowledge and all these skills and not really having an end with which to put them other than holing up in a niche-world and feeling "special" because we've got what we've got. Hey, go for that if you want, but that's not my idea of a good time. There's a lot of musics that are inthe same awkward position. Jazz is just one of them. There's all these tools to put to use, but what use really matters? Well, Monday's music has a place for damnnear all of them, and the thing I like about it is that it doesn't sound in the leat bit "retro" or "fusion-y". That's because she's got as much of an ear for contemporary music as she does for the older styles. In her stuff, a Joe Henderson-inspired tenor solo on a house track that also has African-derived percussion and phrasing in the vocals just ain't that big of a deal. That's the way she hears that shit. That's also the way that I think a lot of us are feeling things internally/subconsciously. It's just that we're very much in the midst of a paradigm shift of consciousness right now, and a lot of us aren't quite yet able to hear what it is we're feeling going on around us. And if we can't hear it we can't play it. Or, if we can only partially hear it, we can only partially play it. That's where the various "fusions" come in, I think, the sincere ones anyway. But Monday feels it and hears it, so she can write it and play it. I've had the reaction more than once of listening to one of her things and not being really blown away by it until I listen closer and suddenly WHOA! Just what the hell IS this? An examination of the "ingredients" reveals that there is no one "style" at play here that dominates over the other. There's a mixture, and if you could take any one of them away, you'd be left with something altogether different in both intent and execution. This notion of a "unimusic" excites me, because as far as I'm concerned, it's the only logical "next step" not just for music, but for humanity as a whole. Progress, evolution, whatever you want to call it is inevitably a process of thingsgrowing indivdually for as long as is healthy and then eventually losing their specific identity into the formation of a new whole. From there, of course, the process of separation begins anew, but the process is dependent on an eventual assimilation at some point. We're at that point now, I think. Have to be. And "unimusic" is going to be the result. Has to be. Monday's music is just the first (or among the first) to sound the call. There will be a helluva lot more to follow. But right here, right now, somebody's doing it. It's a taste of things to come, again, not just musically, but socio-culturally. That's what the "big deal" is to me.