JSngry

Did not know that Nelson had a son or that he was in your area. That may or may not be a lead worth pursuing. I played in a student bib band in college that had 6-7 of Nelson's original charts (photocopies of the original parts) that the leader had obtained directly from Nelson's widow. The leader said that she had all of Oliver's music and was dedicated to seeing it properly archieved and preserved. Supposedly, there was a sizable body of "classical" compositions, most of them unplayed (talk about frustration...). That was almost 30 years ago. She might not even still be alive. And I don't know how successful she was in accomplishing her goal (although I seem to vaguely recall the establishment of an archive at UCLA, or some other large california college). But this son might have all the info, and if the widow's wishes were never fully realized, he might have more than that...

Did you put them on the left side of the room?

Well, yeah, sure. But I think that it would be a mistake to label such a move as strictly commercial, simply because there were so many different ways that these "new directions" took throughout jazz, from the cynical sell-out to the actual creative exploration of the possibilities of the new instruments, rhythms, and song forms. I believe that Cannonball's moves were closer to the latter than the former, although, as seemed to be his wont from the beginning, he pretty much trod a middle ground, not shunning the "experimental" (Zawinul's claim that the Adderley band of the late-60s was playing "hiipper music than Miles'" might not be the idle boast it at first appears, although the records get in the way of an objective evaluation), but always keeping one foot planted firmly in what was happening "down here on the ground". You didn't see Cannonball covering R&B pop hits of the day, nor did you see him adding electric guitars and basses just for effect (in fact, I don't think that he ever had an electric bassist in his working band, which is something to think about...). He created (or, more accurately, facilitated) the creation of a repertoire, style, and sound that was unique to him and his band. And the monologues that he used to deliver this new material set a "tone" for it, gave it context, made it more plausible as a genuine musical expression rather than a device. And I don't think that he was influenced strictly by what was, as you say, happening around him with other musicians as well as in the larger jazz scene. I think that he was influenced by what was happening around him in America in general, and in the African-American community in general. He was a "jazz musician", sure, but that was just a part of wht he was. This was a guy, remember, who had always "played for the people", and being a "populist" was nothing new for him, not at all. So it makes sense to me that as the "populace" changed that he would move likewise and to keep finding a way to have something personally relevant to add to the landscape. His success and popularity all through his life suggests that he succeeded. And frankly, I don't think that what he did is nearly as cheap or as easy as it might appear. He always kept a high-level quality of player in his band, and he didn't switch to just one bag at the expense of all others. When I saw him in 1974, the sets covered pretty much everything from "down home" blues to funk to semi-free to burning straight-ahead. Hits were played (including "Work Song") and new material was introduced. And most significantly of all, I think, all of it, all of it, sounded and felt like Cannonball. It's not like the funky stuff suddenly took on the flavor of an annoymous bar band doing a generic James Brown imitation or anything. It was all "characteristically Cannonball" in sound and feel. and the audience, which was large and diverse. dug it all. Some segments dug some portions more than others, sure, but nobody left until the night was over, dig? A pretty diverse cross-section of people was being reached and made happy with a night's work of mostly original (to the band, anyway) music, the sole exception being a burning version of "Autumn Leaves". No, it's too easy, I think, to dismiss all this as crass commercialism. Crass commercialism is when you take whatever is selling at the moment and crank out endless variants of it w/o adding anything personal to the mix. That's nothing new to jazz, and not just in the wake of Rock & Soul. Besides, "commercial" is not necessarily a dirty word. It only means that you're trying to create something that other people want to spend money on. Beyond that, tere's as many varieites of "commercialism" as there are people practicing it (and anybody who puts music into the general marketplace is practicing it, make no mistake). Cannoinball's commercialism had integrity, I believe, because he created/facilitated music that had himself in it. Just as he seemed to enjoy putting himself in the middle of a party off the stand, so he enjoyed the same thing on it. What good is throwing a party if nobody comes? Now, you can get people to come by offering them whores and free booze, or you can get them to come by finding a way to entice them into your world on their terms, which is how Cannonball did it. No small feat that, regardless of how one feels about "their" terms. Sure, once it became "commercailly viable" to do so... Myself, I feel that "All Blues" & "Mercy Mercy Mercy" are both equally commercial these days. If anything, it's more commercially risky to play the latter in a jazz club today than it is the former. Tell me that's not perverse!

Eggs and acid are natural enemies. Don't ask me how I know. I just do.

Y'all come on over! I'm not a very good player and don't really know all the rules, but I do enjoy hanging out with friends. How do you put a price on that? I don't mind losing if I have a good time doing it. Bring lots of money too. That's exciting!

Agreement on all of that. Those non-calls were totally bogus. I was pulling for Indy (not hugely, but enough to say so), but geez Louise, that was some bullshit there.

What, that mrjazzman doesn't know any better?

Well, yeah. I wasn't aware that we were in disagreement on that. Not at all. What I am in disagreement with is Allen's essential position (as I'm reading it, anyway. Allen, correct me if I'm wrong) that the music was inferior in both intrinsic merit and actual execution, that there were either no such aesthetic judgements being made, or, if there were, that the ones that were made were not of a sufficient quality to warrant respect and/or enjoyment. And, yeah, I do disagree with that. I'm not in any way suggesting that he should enjoy them, just disagreing with the notion that there was an iinherent "inferiority" to the whole thing. Maybe on the night that he heard them that was indeed the case. Everybody goes through the motions from time to time, and with material that is all but totally dependent on fuuly engaged personal input to really come alive, the lack of such input can make for some dreary goings on. But there's enough evidence, both recorded and anecdotal, to suggest that the type of, as you put it, acts and judgements to which I refer were in fact being made as a matter of course overall, and in such a way that they were mutually beneficial to all concerned. And that's something I have a huge amount of pwersonal and professional respect for. Although, I might add that in a truly comfortable "social" or "art" setting that the notion of "how to act" (and I know, I think, that you mean musically) is not a factor, at least not consciously. The best of all worlds, for me anyway, is when the notion of "art" and "social" are not even considered and it all becomes one and the same. Love it when that happens! But to get that on a regular basis requires a cultural dynamic (from musician's goals to audience expectations to the abilty to keep a working, touring band) that is almost gone, if it's not alrready gone. More's the pity.

Did Indy forget that the Steelers can actually play?

And anyway, it's a Half-Horse. Now, if the person who made that could give us a similar rendition of a Cutting Horse....

This is great news, I hope!

Not a perverse question at all, Larry. In a "social" situation, it's gold when a mutually enjoyable dialogue of communication, exchange of energy, whatever, is established and sustained. The nature of the material really doesn't matter. It can be a one chord vamp with a simple beat, the basest of raw material, but if you're feeling it, and the crowd is feeling you feeling it, and if you're playing it like you mean it because you do in fact mean it (at that particular moment, anyway), then it's gold. Anything one of those ingredients not being in effect in full force, and the likihood of shit increases proportionally. An "art" situation is a different dynamic. there, you're playing material that you feel is valid in and of itself. You can play the shit out of it, it goes totally over the audience's head, and you still feel good about it. Of course, you feel better if they dig it at least a little, you want them to dig it, but it's in no way a prerequisite. Of course, tehr's all sorts of "in-betweens", and some cats will take an "art" attitude towards a "social" setting, and vice-versa. There are no hard-and-fasts. Which is why Cannonball's later bands were so cool, imo. They played it all, literally, and they played it all like they meant it. I'm sure there were off nights (how could there not be?), but overall, this was a setting in which "it's all good" seemed to be a genuine reflection of their outlook on life, not a cynical credo of condescesion. Take Roy McCurdy's playing on "Mercy Mercy Mercy". It's a simple enough tune, simple but truly soulful the waay the Adderley's & Co. put it across. It would have been real easy for McCurdy to have just kept a beat, and it would not have been inappropriate. But he doesn't do that - he drops in little things here and ther that, while they don't make the simple complex, definitely keep it alive and breathing. He definitely doesn't sound bored or cynical. He sounds like he's tiinking that this is this tune, and hey, it is what it is, and I can get a groove on it. Simple, right? Wrong! A lot of guys would get all impatient and either overplay or passive-aggressively underplay or, worst of all, agressively and contentiously play it totally straight. Drama for the sake of drama, dig? Not my idea of a good night at the office... Now, part of McCurdy's ability to function in such a groovy manner on a tune like this (and the many more that followed) was his natural temparment. But I'm also guessing that he was cool with it because he got to play all types of shit with that band in the cours of a night's work. Other than short festival/concert package type gigs, Cannonball's bands were well-known for presenting a greatly diverse set of material over the course of an evening. So there was a "give and take" that set up a mutual trust between band and audience, and also within the band itself. And trust does indeed breed love. Now, I'm in no way claiming that the latter-day (or any day, really) music of Cannonball Adderley was "pushing the music along" or anything like that. But so what? The music was being pushed along anyway. What a Cannonball gig provided everybody, band and audience alike, was a place for everybody to get a little bit of what they wanted, comfortably get some things that somebody else wanted, and, quite possibly for many, a little taste of something you'd not get elsewhere, if only because you'd not know that it existed. "Popularizing"? Maybe. "Populist"? Definitely. But again, I've got no problem with that if that's who you are. And I really do think that that's who and what Cannonball was - not a hard core New York be-bop alto whiz, but a down-home, highly sophisticated Southern cat who deeply enjoyed the simple things in life and the complex in equal, truly equal, measure. Those who knew him best portray him in this light, and I think that that's what his latter-day music represents. If it were that "common" a combination, the world would be full of Cannonball Adderleys, and we'd all still be going out to hear music for reasons as much "social" as "artisitic", and we'd be rubbing elbows in those clubs with hipsters and doctors, pimps and lawyers, hookers and school teachers, musicians and bus drivers. Are we?

...and just flat-out getting outplayed...

Speak for yourself - an underachieving Cowboys team makes for significantly more entertaining local sports-talk radio!

And I ran out of money at the table just as I was getting ready to get a Full House, 4 Queens, and a Royal Flush. huh? You heard me! Defence begins to dominate game then special teams and offense turn the ball over. My point stands. Stick to music... Dude, don't cry like Belichick looked like he was about to do post-game. WTF was that all about? I saw the same game you did, and at no point did I see the Pats getting ready to take over the game and dominate it. I did see them starting to get back into it any number of times, but the assumption that takeover and domination would inevitably follow is just a bit too Manifest Destiny/Dynasty-ical, don't you think? Denver came to play too, you know, and they looked to be playing very good. I don't think that they were about roll over and play dead. Most of those turnovers were created, doncha' know...

Chicken George Bert Lahr Ken Lay

And I ran out of money at the table just as I was getting ready to get a Full House, 4 Queens, and a Royal Flush. huh? You heard me!

I'm saying no such thing. I'm simply saying that the criteria for critical evaluation, including relative "worth" of the music, are different for "social" music than they are for "art" music. Different means, different intents, but absolutely, you can get shit or gold either way. How you determine which is which, though, that's where "conventional critical wisdom" often fails. Put another way - I've played "Mr. Magic" in situations where I felt as if I was being mortally punished for unspeakably vile acts from some previously life that I had no consccious knowledge of whatsoever. I've also played "Mr. Magic" in situations where I felt as if it was the most naturally and gloriously right thing that I could be doing with my life. It was the same song in all instances, and, at times, the same band. But it wasn't the same situations. So, it's a nifty little ditty piece of whatever that can be either the cliche from hell or a blessing from above. Critically evaluate that.

Tee Carson Truck Turner Van Johnson

Yeah, I think that in Cannonball we have a person who genuinely and unabashedly loved life, and by extension, people. I really think that he wanted to appeal to all types of people because he genuinely dug all kinds of people. Which is not to say that he wasn't hip to the way things were (or could get), just that in the end I think he probably saw it all as part of the same "human condition" that he himself was a part of. Those monologues - that's all love there. No doubt, a "man of the people" in the truest sense. And he programmed his band accordingly, it seems. The Zawinul bio has Joe talking about how him & Walter Booker would often get totally pissed at Nat - often to the point of threatening to quit the gig - because Nat wanted to play all straight-ahead and down-home stuff, and they wanted to stretch everything out. But Cannon, it seemed, wanted all of it, no doubt in part because it was good business, but also just because he was that kind of guy. That comes through in his music, I think. Whatever it is, no matter how "commercial" the setting, I never hear the sound of a man condescending, not even slightly. That's a rare quality, actually, all things considered, and I think that's what made some of the material that was objectively banal take on a spirit that got people going. The material wasn't always the message, dig? It was just a vehicle with which to project the message, the spirit, and, gawrsh! the love. Granted, it didn't always make for "great music", but then again, "great music" doesn't always make for "great times". "Great musiic" ain't always all it's cracked up to be. Neither are "great times", but the point is that there's room for both - should be room for both - in a well-balanced lifestyle, and in both instances, the situational sacrificing of one for the other is not always such a bad deal. Worse things can happen. Just my opinion.

Hall Overton Ruth Underwood Booker Ervin

Black Messiah & Mercy Mercy Mercy would definitely be two of them. Live in New York would likely be the third. In Chicago, yeah, no doubt. After that, probably Inside Straight and a player or two to be named later. Frankly, the Riverside (& Mercury) material is a lot less heterogeneous in style than either the Capitol or Fantasy material. The latter no doubt are not without "problems" from a "pure jazz" standpoint (and some are just too... blatant (overall) to do anybody any lasting good), but a lack of diversity sure ain't one of 'em. And who wants to be on a desert island without some variety? And in my earlier posts about the "social" aspects of Ball's later music, I'd like to make it clear that I'm in no way impugning the character or taste of those who find it boring or whatever. What I do find to be perhaps a little curious is the implicit notion that this music is in fact boring or banal or whatever. when in fact it's far more likely that it's just telling a story to and for an audience that one feels no real personal connection with. Why not just say that the music's not relevant to your lifestyle rather than dismissing it as somehow unworthy, or that for your wants/needs, "liberating" it is more likely to bring it onto your personally relevant turf than it would otherwise be? That's honest enough, I should think (and I say this as somebody who tends to have one foot on each side of the line when it comes to this "populist vs progressive" stuff. Sue me!). But when you take a man of obviously equal parts sophistication & earthiness such as Cannonball and dismiss his ability to connect, truly connect with "the people" as basicallly being the result of little more than playing simple and boring music (for simple and boring people?), I think there's a lot that's being overlooked and not considered. Why that is is not for me to say, but I sincerely doubt that the matter is as simple as Cannonball selling out to make some bucks. I really doubt that it's that simple... Suggested reading: Freddie Roach's liner notes to All that's Good, another album of boring and simple music for and about boring and simple people...

Bob Cooper June Christy Chico Alvarez