JSngry

I sincerely hope that all is well.

What the hell is gun swording your kid?

Nicotine, yes. Caffine, no.

"Great" has many meanings, and/but this one fits at least some of them...

I keep hearing names like Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Brad Mehldau, etc. etc. These are all fine musicians with "something to say", but I'm not excited or particularly interested in any of them (overall, anyway. All of them have made a few things that I enjoy immensely. Just not enough, and not ongoing enough, for me to "invest" in their music). Why? It's simple - there's too much "reference" in their music. I feel like I'm listening to "music about music" rather than music about life. Maybe that's what thier lives are, and if so, then they're doing what they should be doing. But don't blame me if I find Trane at the Half Note more alive, more relevant to the actual living I've done and hope to yet do than endless contemplations and permutaions on the music with the end result being (it seems to me) nothing more than....contemplations and permutaions on the music. That ain't what I want, and it damn sure ain't what I need. It's the difference between driving a car to get somewhere and driving a car because you have a car and since you have it, why shouldn't you drive it? I need to know that I'm going somewhere (even if it's not perfectly clear where). I don't need to take a long ride to nowhere in a really comfortable car with all the bells and whistles. The "real stuff" still exists, definitely. But since it's so damn real, it son't look, smell, or sound too much like that of yore. It's free, it's electric, it's all sorts of stuff that makes "jazz purists" cringe, and rightfully so. And it's also heard in the voices of old fucks who have managed to stick around long enough to see their herd thinned to the point where their unorthodoxy no longer causes them to be dismissed or ignored. It's in lots of places, but what it all has in common is that it's music in the service of life, not music in the service of music. Our world today, and jazz is but one small portion of that world, is one in which too many people are so concerned with the possible effects of inevitable change that natural ®evolution is subject to an often fear-based analysis by both those who would evolve and those who would buy into the evolution. And if evolution ain't natural, is it really evolution? Myself, I'm waiting for the next Henry Threadgill record, and hoping that it don't cost $45.00...

OTOH, both (iirc) Blakey & Silver are on record as saying that the Charles band was their favorite. I think we have to look outside the strictly "jazz" world to get a handle on this. At least some jazz people listened to some R&B records for entertainment, it was part of the overall fabric of the time and the culture. I suspect that if you spent any time in any urban African-American community like Harlem, you definitely heard the Charles Atlantic sides as a matter of course. And I also suspect that those sides struck a chord with a lot of jazz musicians who spent a lot of time in such an environment. So, I think that what Wexler says is in essence true, as Dan says, "probably true, but also probably overstated".

Yeah, it's a cold cold world when a man has to pawn his shoes...

Jazz is forever, but "Jazz" has for the most part been dead (or on its last legs) for about 20 or so years. If somebody like Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, or Dave Douglas are to "redefine" jazz, I suppose it's all but evident that things ain't what they used to be. Which is not to say that things are bad, just that the rules have changed, the game is different, and so's the object of that game. Which, again, is all well and good, but how many layers of "reference" can you have before they start blocking self-reality altogether instead of illuminating it? Or has living in a hall of mirrors, some straight, and some of the fun-house variety, become our inescapable lot? Is there really no other way? Or way out? I think we're beginning to find out, whether or not we realize it.

Why?

Bob Hammer Jim Adler Stacy Keach

Freedom, unity and birthday!

Mike Cuellar was a damn good pitcher for a fair amount of time that everybody seems to have forgotten about. Didn't get w/a good team until he was 32.

Jerry Lewis Gary Lewis Hugh Heffner

I know!

It's the job of critics and fans alike to have a clue. Obviously that system doesn't always work. Oh well..

Not at all, just as it doesn't mean that white musicians shouldn't play the works of black composers. All I'm saying is that when you confront a work, anybody's work, it behooves you to have an understanding of what that work represents in its original form, and then do with it what you will. If you rape it for a reason, or if you bring it a little more in the realm of the "conventional" (as McRae/Hendricks did with Monk) then afaic, that's a "statement", and that's cool. Whether I (or anybody else) likes it or not is besides the point. You're doing what you do from the basis of knowing what it is you're working with and, in one form or another, adding commentary to it. Since you know what you're dealing with, that commentary has validity imo. But if you confront a work without having that understanding, and just go about doing what you will with it, you're not adding commentary. You're just appropriating somebody else's stuff for your own "glorification". No matter how much you call it a "tribute", no matter how much you think you're "getting it", if you can't show at least a fundamental grasp of what the original was dealing with, you don't get it, and therefore, what's the point other than self-glorification of one type or another? It's pure vanity, and although vanity has its place as part of a Well-Balanced Personality, in it's pure form... And yes - there are tons of "jazz tribute albums" that fall into this latter category (actually, any "tribute album" is particularly prone to this syndrome, just by the nature of the beast. It's a rare one that escapes totally undamaged.) and by no means are all of them by white artists. And yes - they are every bit as evil (a loaded word to be sure, but evil comes in the abstract as well as in the concrete, I believe. But if we must avoid the word, let's settle for "esthetically ill-advised") as Feather's. This stuff is everywhere, not just on Feather's album, and not just in jazz. It's the nature of our world today. Reflected/stolen glory co-opted w/o a clue and then used to fuel god knows what ends. If being bothered by this makes me some sort of loon, then so be it.

And they always will. That shit was not "recorded well" originally. My advice - go for the LP/LPs and hear it the way it was originally heard. Less frustration that way.

Tony Scherr played in one of my bands waaaaaay back in the day (1980s). Great player, and an even greater spirit. Nothing but love for him from here. As for Sex Mob, hey, they're doing it how they feel it. Not necessarily something I feel too warmly about too consistently, but so what?

When Dex settled in Denmark, word has it that he stayed pretty straight for a while. Now, whether "pretty straight" and "totally sober" are the same thing, I can't say...

I was pretty sure that I had made it crystal clear that cf http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...ndpost&p=456962 Guess not. My point, and I believe that I have made it right (if not in this thread, then certainly elsewhere), is that I in no way "damn, criticize or dismiss the overall practice of taking on the music of great names in jazz". That's absurd. Surely you jest. BTW - does the "F" stand for Feather?

If Ellington was "all about" any one thing (other than presenting his unique world view to a mostly unsuspecting world), I've yet to figure out what the hell it was. The guy had so many layers the he makes Wayne Shorter seem one-dimensional! For a reasoned examination (if one is in fact needed) of how Ellington "played" the Cotton Club image/gig to further his true ends, you might want to read Graham Lock's Blutopia (if you haven't already).

Pete Brown Georgia Brown Her Nibs, Miss Georgia Gibbs

And yet I will try - Feather likes/loves/respects/whatever Ellington. As do we all. Carmen & Hendricks get Monk. Maybe not profoundly deeply, buth they get it nevertheless. As we all don't. Big difference. And of course, just my opinion.

I don't know that I can say it any plainer than I already have. Although, if you're old enough, you'll remember a CBS prime-time "tribute" to Ellington shortly before he died that featured The Biggest Names In Show Bizness. What transpired that evening was most definitely rape, not because of quality of the music (everything was strictly professional), but because of the total lack of understanding for who Ellington was, what his music was about, and the notion that these Great Names had conquered it and made it Their Very Own. The more things change...

Walt Garrison Garrison Keeler Michael Landon