JSngry

Perhaps "the mistake" was, but the inability to restore to a more current backup isn't yours at all. I would, however, consider switching dentists....

http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/9938/archive/arch120.html

Burt Baskin Irv Robbins Tom Carvel

Looking forward to the inevitable Bolton/Debbie Boone duet album and tour!

I concur. Give me something to believe in. Yet, "positivity" in lyrics (and elsewhere) is too often denouced as naive, "hippy-ish", or some other dismissive. Well, maybe sometimes it is. But sometimes it's nothing more than an attempt to express hope, positivism, a refusal to succumb to darkness. And I'll have me some of that, thank you, because I've lived in darkness and I've lived in light. The choice is obvious, at least for me. A world where hope is looked at as foolish and cynicism as "realistic" is a world that has surrendered. Period. Our attitude is something over which most of us have a choice, and if I feel good, dammit, I'm going to be happy about it. Maybe even try to spread it around, just because. And if I don't feel good, it's not because this is a dark world. It's a dark world no matter how I feel, dig? Shit is what it is, and a lot of it ain't cool. That's a given. I make as much right as I can, knowing full well that it's ain't never gonna be enough. But I ain't gonna let the bastards get me too down for too long, because what they can do entirely on their own is limited. Anything else requires some personal acquiesence on my part, and that ain't gonna happen, not on an ongoing basis. "The world" may well be beyond our control, but what we let it do to our minds and spirits isn't. Not if we know we have options. Those who know have an obligation to pass it around, becasue it ain't exactly common knowledge these days.

and on the way.

Did they process the order for weekly backups to the point that you've been being charged for it? God, I hope not...

Damn Yankees Gwen Verdon Bill Virdon

Toot Monk Steve Blow Cokie Roberts

I suspect it's an evolution of the way Miles' groups did it.

Between Reganism and digitality, the word has changed in a fundamental way over the last quarter-century. Things ain't what they used to be. No value judgements in that statement either, at least not here. But - if one of the yearnings of "nostalgia" is to restore things to how "they used to be", all I can say is that, although that's never really been possible, it's become even more impossible. Returning to an analog reality just ain't gonna happen unless all digital technology is destroyed and its residual memories and effects erased from the collective memory. The triumphs of the jazz past should be kept alive and celebrated as the triumphs of the human spirit that they truly were. But they were triumphs over a set of challenges that (generally) no longer exist in the form they existed then. The challenges still exist, definitely, but the specific social circumstances (positive and negative alike) that produced the music of jazz' "golden age" (and as far as I'm concerned, that age goes well into the 1970s, probably even into the early 1980s) no longer exist for the most part. Yet the challenges remain the same. We still have racism, we still have poverty, we still have rampant, for lack of a better term, "spiritual ?neanderthalism", we still have to struggle to identify ourselves rather than accepting identies created for us (identities which inevitably involve being somebody's involuntary servant in some way). We still got all that stuff going on, and probably more now than ever. But the degree to which we have these challenges is not the same as the way in which they are manifested. Shit's a whole lot more subtle and subliminal these days. Getting to the source of the problems is a much more difficult proposition these days, because it's become "decentralized". Back in the day, "evil" had faces, unmistakable faces that you could take direct aim at. Not so these days. Shit's become more decentralized than ever, and fighting something you can't really see is quite the daunting proposition. That, I think, is a key element in nostalgia in general, and jazz nostalgia in particular, the perhaps subconscious realization that "the enemy" can no longer "be gotten to", and a subsequent yearning for a time when punches could be taken and often landed with fatal fury. A time will come when we get back to being able to get a handle on what it is we yearn to triumph over. But that triumph will come in a different form than it once did. The spirit behind the triumph will be the same, and so will that which is being trriumphed over. These are the eternal truths, no? But in order to triumph over something, you gotta locate it first. And if you keep looking for it where it used to be, you ain't never gonna find it. It ain't there no more. A good backbeat will always feel good. It'll always get your ass to moving. But if it's a 3D backbeat, it's gonna get your ass moving into a 3D world. And the 3D world is rapidly becoming a theme park, a scaled down replica of a perfect world where you can always get what you want because the forces that keep you from getting it don't live there anymore (if anything, they own the theme park ). But at the end of the day, the park's gotta close, and you gotta leave. And where you gonna go when you leave? Sleeping in the parking lot until the park opens again seems to be a popular option...

HEY KIDS!!!! Free (full-length) streaming audio clips of Routes (as well as per-song mp3 purchase options, full lyrics/production/recording/personnel data, and a nice, basic bio) available here: http://iacmusic.com/artist.aspx?ID=23232 The stylistic labels this site gives each song crack me up, but then again, if that's how the core of the existing audience relates to these things, then that's how you target them. They call "Touch The Sky" "nu-fusion". I call it "a dazzling blend of Weather Report harmonies, house beats filtered through Africa (or vice-versa), and Carl Wilson-produced-era Beach Boys layered vocals carried into infinity". Same thing, I suppose, and "nu-fusion" is a helluva lot easier to remember. A lot of musical ground/styles covered here, and the only songs that I myself can't get too excited over are "Be Who You Are", "Remember" & "Dig Deep" (they don't suck by any means, but they're less to my liking than the rest). "The Right Time" I've already discussed above, but "Don't" is another impressive work in the arc that it takes from beginning to end. Another excellent Sipiagin horn arrangement here as well - one that goes from Gil Evans to Woody Shaw/M-Base without as much as a blink. But then again, I think they're all "above and beyond" contemporary pop music artifacts. Songwriting, arranging, production, everything. There is no better pop music being made today, imo. And when pop is this good, yes - it matters! Check it out - an indie artist (outside of Japan, where apparently she's still a BIG star and is still contracted to some arm of Universal) with a global following offering free streams of the complete album (American version), online per-song mp3 purchases, and full album credits online. Surely this is the future of the record business! Now, Ron Goldstein (allegedly) had the chance to get her stuff out in America and took a pass. Routes probably could have been released in America on Verve (much to the cries of "jazz purists", but ain't nuthin I can do 'bout that). Tell me again why this guy's not an idiot?

Well, yeah, the schlock potential is above average. But those aren't exactly bad songs. Over the years, in the hands of the right singers, I've actually heard them be good songs! I guess the question is how bad you think Joe Williams can get fucked over by potentially weird material and settings. I'd bet on Joe 9 times out of 10.

Looking at the song list (and knowing the work of the arranger a little bit), I'd guess that this was more an "adult pop" record than a jazz one. But there's some good tunes on there, and Joe Williams is a singer that I'd not mind an adult pop album from too badly. I mean, Joe Williams doing "Here's That Rainy Day", "Lush Life", "Didn't We", etc., those are good songs. It would have to be really bad for it to suck, know what I mean?

The goggle look is still in...

Do talk. I'd LOVE to hear lots of discussion from the ranks here - about how jazz history is and has been taught in schools (particularly at the college level, where there ought to be less of an excuse for it being bad). The Breeden story is the only one I remember. That and there was a lot of pumping of lab band alumni. The more things change... Really, though, that class was a joke. I came to NTSU w/a good sense of jazz history already in place after having spent my high school years obsessively reading every book and magazine article I could get my hands on (and w/the Gladewater public library having a complete collection of Saturday Review, I got to read some very interesting writing) as well as an equally obsessive habit of buying everything out of the various cutout bins that looked even remotely "jazz". The class, I soon found out, was a joke. You got the most basic history, the stuff that had to be there, and everything else was propaganda to lead you into Lab Band World. I mean, Marvin Stamm is a fine player, but giving him w/Kenton as an example of "a modern trumpet great" & Lee Morgan never even being mentioned....

I dunno... These "outside characters" are highlighting how "removed" from the rest of the world these guys are, how isolated and ludicrous they really are. Did you catch all the gaffes in the meeting w/Kingsley? Hilarious! And then Chris tells Bacall how much he dug her in "The Haves & Have Nots". Classic! I think we're seeing the writers setting up a dynamic where this whole mob world, so self-important but totally irrelevent to the outside world except for the damage it causes, begins to cave in on itself, and Tony, always conflicted, realizes once and for all that the world he lives in and perpetuates is truly empty, meaningless, and perhaps even evil. How he processes this realization is going to be where the action is, and the possibility of an interaction with the Feds about the "potential terrorists" may or may not come to pass. Will he see that as his "redemption" and then go back about his business, or will he use it as an "out" to escape? Or will he do like so many do - finally accept himself as an evil, trivial, self-loathing creature and go about calmly living the rest of his life as if he's got one foot in hell and the other on a bananna peel? I'm optimistic that the series is going to end with some pretty interesting shit, although probably more psychological than visceral. The again, this show has always been more of a "psychological drama" than a "mob show", at least in my mind. Let's just wait and see how this all plays out in the end. Then again, the show might really have jumped the shark, and all we'll end up is a big bag of nothing. Could go either way. But I can't (at this point) see that happening.

I was thinking more along the lines of "Guess I'll Hang This Moron Out To Dry"...

Geek Time... Those of you who have the LP, what kind of label does your copy have? Mine's blue with silver lettering. And it's mono. Wondering if there were any variants to that label for the stereo and/or later pressings (if there were any).

Y'all talk about "jazz history" classes... I took one at NTSU back in the day that was taught by Leon Breeden. Now, Breeden's favoring of the white/Kenton axis was never a secret (he wasn't consciously racist, although his actions seemed to suggest that there might be "prejudice" lurking somewherein his decision-making process). Anyway... When we got to the 60's, this cat played Dolphy's "You Don't Know What Love Is" from Last Date and after going on and on and on about how it was more "bird calls" than "music" (even though he begrudgingly admitted that it was a "display of technical virtuosity"), he finally played the record. But not before getting in this immortal line - "This is NOT something that the average housewife is going to listen to while hanging her laundry out to dry!" I laughed, I cried, I contemplated homicide...

Seriously, I'm looking forward to this. I've got no idea how good it will or won't be, but two albums in two years from Sonny (even if one was a live tape), that's an encouraging sign. And Bret Primack deserves major kudos for getting Sonny a web presence, as well as for seemingly assuming the role of the cat who's going to "nudge" Sonny here and there when nudging is called for.

Is Sonny Lester the son of Bobby Lester?

I've got that album (great stuff imo) but have never actually looked at the personnel or read the liner notes.

the Moonglows kicked both they ass.