JSngry

Damn straight!

The Mighty Sparrow Eagle-Eye Cherry Steve Swallow

Damn straight!

Somebody please keep us informed as to when this actually gets released.

Well there you go. "Smooth jazz" doesn't have to be synoymous with barf, but it's become that in the wake of G's mega-success. He's become the de facto "industry standard" of the genre. But Grover would always give you good slink if he didn't give you anything else, and good slink is the link between this stuff and "regular" jazz, the swing/groove factor kept alive in a format that "everyday people" of the post-JB era can groove on. To use but one example, Ralph MacDonald produced the hell outta Winelight and gave it layers of rhythmic and textural seductions that made it slinky like a mofo. It ain't "meaty", but it's alive, and elegantly so. There's some shit happening there. G don't give you slink, he gives you stink. Not stank, which would be cool, but just plain Caucasoidial stink, the odious odor of nothing exerting itself past its point of effectiveness in an attempt to assert its supremacy by celebrating its lifelessness as a triumphant alternative to somethingness. There's some shit happening there, some very real evacuation of that which is already dead. It shouldn't be so.

The question of what Mosaic will have at their disposal in the future as all the "obvious" material slowly but surely gets covered has been answered, it seems to me.

Well, you can always buy, beg, borrow, or steal that live Albright side and that Earland side. Neither one will rock your world (although the Albright has enough genuine groove to at times almost bring to mind a latter-day Bill Doggett vibe), but neither one will imperil your innate love of life either, which is more than you can about the rest of their stuff.

Thanks, I had forgotten about that. Yes, it is good. Some people ask where the African-American Jazz Audience has gone, and the truth is that a significant portion of the "Smooth Jazz" audience is the answer to that question. which is why it pisses me off so much that a lame, pencil-dick (soulwise) cat like Kenny G has defined that sound. If cats like Albright and Najee were following Grover's example, we'd be getting our fair share of tastefully produced pop-jazz/jazz-pop music with some semblance of real jazz feeling in the undercurrent. Instead, all we get is unqualified shit as each man tries to out-bland the other in pursuit of G-Dom. Of course, if the whole notion of pop-jazz/jazz-pop is of no personal interest, then it's all a moot point. But frankly, I think that something like Winelight was a damn good record, "jazz" or not, and I still enjoy pulling it out for those special moments of pulling it out, if you know what I mean, and I'm sure that you do.

When the G-Man releases something even half as good (relatively speaking) and "from the roots" as Albright's Live at Birdland West, then we can talk about "equivalancy" or some such. As for Najee, I've heard some passed around 10th generation or so tapes of things that he's recorded for his own pleasure. Again, the cat can play. He ain't no scary motherfucker, but he's no wimp either. Very skilled player with significantly more under his hat than you hear on the records. As for Herb Wong, hey, whatever. He's both knowledgeable and verbose, at times simultaneously.

The first thing I'd say would probably be, "Hey! Mona!"

If I looked in my mirror and saw Stanley Crouch, I think I'd probably be more than a little perplexed.

Dino Desi Billy

Short answer = yes, but only with a lot of hustle, some good breaks, and a damn good business sense. Longer answer = same as the short answer, but with the added qualification that times have changed and continue to change, which means that there's fewer quality gigs to go around, and stiffer competition for them. Also factor in the fact that the market for live music that commands the type of audience that can sustain consistently good-paying jobs continues to shrink. You can either live on the road, build a following, and parlay that into something bigger, or you can stay in one spot, network like a genius, and create a profitable niche for yourself among bandleaders, contractors, industry honchos, festival promoters, etc. But that's about it. The days of being able to make a passable living just doing club dates and recording sessions (jazz ones, that is, and truthfully, the "commercial" studio scene ain't what it used to be either) are rapidly drawing to a close.

Sorry, dude, but Najee can play, as can Gerald Albright. The records suck (Najee's moreso than Albright's), but those are cats who could play "straight ahead" in an at least competent (and in Albright's case, convincing) manner. I really don't think that the same can be said about the G-Man. Which is ok, I suppose, but as somebody who enjoyed both Grover & George Howard at face value, it bugs me to no end that the market for this type of instrumental pop-jazz/jazz-pop has been defined for so long by one of its least gifted (both technically and expressively) practitioners. Nothing good has come out of that, and nothing good will.

Before he re-invented himself as The Champion Of The All That Is Pure, he was actually a halfway astute chronicler of the NYC loft scene. He also wrote some pretty good liner notes for the BN two-fer LP reissue of the Herbie Nichols session. But that was long, long ago, in a galaxy far far away.

Blaine Nye couldn't have said it better.

Sonny Jackson Danny Coombs Grady Hatton

This thing. Well worth a checkout. Anybody heard Bu Pleasant? I got one Muse side by here, and her occasional singing ain't none too cool, but she sounds like a very decent organist to me. Plus, you gots yer Harold Vick and yer Ted Dunbar and yer Freddie Waits.

The Charly LP contains the same eight tracks that are on the Red Bird compilation. Apparently that's all there is. It also contains ten tracks recorded for Imperial, six of them originally unreleased. There's also at least one single on Atco (the superb "Let Me Down Easy"), as well as the aforementioned Joe Jones Records release(s?). And yes, I believe that it is the same Joe Jones who did "You Talk Too Much". Not a massive amount of material, but enough for a really, really nice CD.

Indeed it does...

Oh man, well... interesting note choices, that's fer sure! Understood, believe me, but there's a few things here and there where all the action is in varying the stops and working the volume pedal, and that stuff is amazing. Very much coming from the Gospel Organ bag. Check out the Baby Lloyd cut on the WB Loma anthology for a prime example.

James Brown. Limited finger technique, but he could freak on the organ with what he had.

Then I would hope that they would do an Alvin Robinson set! I'd like to hear that stuff on the Joe Jones Records label.

Esther Rolle Teddy Bunn David Gates

On the slow tunes, yeah. I thought I was listening to a Ray cut with the vocal tape slowed down. Figured that was the only way that anybody could draw that much out of a song. But no, that was Alvin au natural. I can honestly say I've never heard anything quite like it. Ray always had different levels going on in amy one number, even the most raw and gut-wrenching. This cat doesn't have those layers, he just wrings you dry with the shortest distance between two points. A two minute and some change ballad can literally devastate you. At least it did me... And then he's got that Chis Kenner-ish drawn out drawl on the funky stuff, but the way he does it is damn near unduplicable. Again, I can honestly say I've never heard anything quite like it. The Coasters did "Down Home Girl", and it was dandy, but the way Alvin does it is something else altogether. It's no longer a Lieber/Stoller tune, it's a freakin' maifesto every bit as powerful as "Say It Loud". It's not just in a zone, it's in a zone of it's own making, and that is something else altogether! Alvin Robinson would seem to be a prime candidate for rediscovery amongst the Dusty Groove Deep Soul crowd. When will somebody from England (seems like that's where most of the good "obscure soul" retrospectives come from) step up and do the honors? I'll buy a copy of a well-done, complete compilation yesterday, and I'd pimp it to everybody I know, and a few hundred I don't. There's different types of greatness, to be sure, but by the standards of at least a few of them, Alvin Robinson must be considered GREAT.