JSngry

It's not, it's just taking one of those patented Organissimo Thread Detours. based on what? some patented non-specified hearsay anecdotal thread-crap? I like those detours, as long as they stay positive. I do not think it is very nice to have a thread about Horace Silver and then fill it with all the shitty bandleader stories we can come up with. Somehow that strikes me wrong. Well, my story ain't hearsay, and it's got nothing to do with Horace Silver, but it does play to the notion of Company Store Bandleaders, of whom I bear no particular ill-will. It's an old-school way of doing business, and it's served many a bandleader's business quite well over the years. Ray Charles was another one - a good friend quit the gig when he realized that, in his words, "the real object of the job wasn't to make music, it was to see how much of your money you could hold onto each week". Athough I myself don't get involved in it, I look at this type of dealing as part of the Cultural Landscape Of Professional Musicianhood. Nothing really "negative" to it, just "local color", if you will. It's something you run into at all levels, and it's in no way a reflection of anybody's talent or artistry or how I feel about same. I love Ray Charles, and I love Horace Silver, and given the opportunity, I would play their Company Store games, at least for a little while, just to get an up-close-and-personal taste of thier unique genius-ness. Hell, if only "saints" made this music, it wouldn't get made!

It's not, it's just taking one of those patented Organissimo Thread Detours.

And do the band members have to pick up their checks at the union hall because the leader won't spring for postage stamps? There was a bandleader in KC like that. WHAT union?

True story - There is a local "Show & Revue" R&B bandleader around here who holds regular mandatory, marathon rehearsals for his crew. You don't show up early and stay late, you lose the gig, simple as that. Get hungry? Not a problem - his wife will fix you a hot dog ($1.00) or a sammich ($3.50) right on the spot. Ditto on beverages. Need a pack of smokes? $7.50 will get you a pack from this bandleader's private supply. And so on... Of course, if you don't have the cash on you, it can easily be deducted from your next check, which, it probably goes without saying, is waaaay below scale in the first place. Needless to say, this band (and it's a huge one - 6 horn players, 5 female vocalists - is populated by people who either can't get other gigs or else just haven't yet learned how to get other gigs. But the "Company Store" type bandleader is not at all as uncommon as you might think.

Ah, but it will serve Massa's purposes quite well... Marssalis No, not that Massa. Although he's unwittingly in cahoots with the Massa I'm talking about. The "this music and these people have a very specific place in my world and anybody and anything what thinks that they and it don't, or think that it's not my world are gonna find out otherwise in no uncertain terms" Massa, that's who I'm talking about. To which all I can say is - Fuck you, Massa. You can kiss my uppity, self-important, don't give a righteous goddamn about your world ass. You can take you liberation-of-self-by-creating-servitude-for-others bullshit and stick it so far up your ass that it comes out your mouth. Maybe then you can taste it as the pure self-created/self-contaminated taste of death shit that it truly is. But I doubt it. Some people love the taste of their own shit.

Ruby Dee Ossie Davis D.D. Lewis

The triplet thing leading into 4 bar solos didn't last long.

Robert Bork Porky Pig Mel Blanc

Wasn't aware that "Take Five" was a Billie tune. But nobody seemed to notice. Hey, it's all "jazz", right? And she didn't make the changes on the bridge either. But nobody seemed to notice. Hey, it's all "jazz", right? This was my first time watching Idol other than in drips and drabs. I can see the attraction, such as it is, but I think I'll resist, thanks anyway.

Ah, but it will serve Massa's purposes quite well...

Had an interesting listen yesterday, Cannonball's Capitol side Live! (recorded in 1964). On "Work Song", his solo is definitely stretching the harmony, and he's definitely working with some Trane-ish rhythmic ideas. And on the modal-ish "The Little boy With The Sad Eyes", although his harmonic approach is still pretty straightforward, his phrasing is a lot morefocused and "definitve" than in was on KOB from five years earlier. But on "Sweet Georgia Bright" (Charles Lloyd was in the band, btw, as were Zawinul, Sam Jones, & Louis Hayes), he takes what could easily be a vehicle for Trane-ish blowing and approaches it old-school Cannonball, masterful slash-and-burn boppishness in every regard. All of which suggests to me that Cannonball looked at "figuring out" Trane as an ongoing personal quest. He wasn't going to alter his whole approach and bring his career to a standstill just to do it, but he wasn't going to keep it strictly to himself either, much less let go of it entirely. As he got more comfortable with it, he started playing that way on even the more "commercial" material (a lot of it, anyway), which is what I meant early on about him doing it "on the sly" careerwise. Listen to him on almost any of his 70s albums for either Capitol or Milestone and you can hear what he'd been working on really come to the fore in his playing, no matter what the context. He didn't "back away from the challenge" and he didn't jump overboard in a rush to be somebody he wasn't. He just did it at his own pace and in his own way. Like I said, I gotta love him for that. BTW - that Live! side is very nice, perhaps the most "uncompromising jazz" Cannonball side that Capitol ever released. Four long cuts ranging in time from 6:25 to 15:05, even with what I suspect to be significant editing of Zawinul's & Lloyd's contributions. It really should be reissued, and bonus/unedited cuts would really raise the ante. It seems to be his first recording after the 1963 Japanese tour, and although I prefer Lateef to Lloyd, this was a cooking band, as their portion of the Night Music/Hyena Radio Nights side attests.

There seems to be some dispute as to whether or no Dolphy is the soloist/obbligattoist on the Platters sides listed. My question is this - how can we know for sure one way or the other? Dolphy would probably have been "playing the style", so easily recognizing him might be all but impossible. Might be. And if it doesn't really sound like Dolphy, even if it is, if he's just entirely role-playing, what difference does it make? Well, ok, if it's Dolphy on tenor, any style tenor, I want to hear it...

Yep. Go to the site and watch the film clips. Also note - the Ed Townsend sessions that are listed as w/Dolphy & Gerald Wilson are by the same Ed Townsend who became Marvin Gaye's co-producer in his last years.

The Stinky Cheese Man Amelia Bedelia Amber Brown

Theo Huxtable Chet Kincaide David Brinkley

A wild guess - George Young?

Cheesey it might be, but it's totally sincere. Black Nationalism goes away with The Age Of Aquarius for a Love-In Of The Mind. Truthfully, I dig it. It's not "great" by any stretch of the imagination, and calling something like this "good" is a purely subjective call. The "production values" are rough, the "messages" are incredibly naive (but again, sincere), and at times, the combination is "embarassing", or at least unintentionally campy. Of course, if you "weren't there", it probably just sounds silly. But I was - and yes, it sounds a bit silly to me too, but not just silly. A lot of cats in "the community" were doing stuff like this back in the day, this Trying To Reach The People With A Positive Message thing. We can all laugh/cringe at it today, but there's far worse things to do with music. This kind of thing is exponentially less cynical than is a young cat of today attempting to build a career off of playing retrobop thinking that it's somehow a more "dignified" thing to do. It's not. Give me the naive sincerity of the moment over necrophillia as ego trip any day. And by all/any means necessary, always Do Right.

The lack of published method makes it even worse. It reminds me of the "non scientific" polls that CNN runs. It is a classic paradox. The presentation of the poll is intended to induce the belief that the poll is meaningful; but the poll is explicitly disclaimed and the lack of controls and adherence to scientific methods entails that the poll is meaningless. If you want to know how much ignorance is expected of the viewer/reader, that is a measure of it. The same is true here. Anthony Braxton would no doubt call it an example of the Spectacle Diversion Syndrome, and he would no doubt be right.

http://adale.org/Discographies/RockAllNight.html Recieved via e-mail: That site is definitely worth looking at. Here's a sample photo: And there's more...

Don Redman Cindy Blackmon Sidney Greenstreet

Or put another way - the names and faces of "the experts" (and who determines just who "the experts" are) change, but the bullshit stays the same.

Personally, I think it shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Wasn't aware that the guy had changed instruments.

Randy Weston, Ran Blake, Muhal, Paul Bley, Dave Burrell, they're all living. However, whether any of them is more worthy than Peterson, Evans, Previn, & Green of being included on this list is highly debatable...

I'll say. How did a trombone player make the list?