JSngry

Oh, I in NO way blew that one off, at least not personally. It just came at a significantly more crowded time than this one did. My posting's become a lot more irrregular the last few months or so, and the excellent compilation you were kind enough to share came at a time when regular posting was not a regular thing, if you know what I mean. The numbers probably don't give that impression, but believe me, "sporadic" has been the order of the day for me here lately. Hell, I didn't even post about Big Moe -- Live At RC's Place (Circa 1972), a somewhat similar-in-orign compilation which I think you'll fully dig, if you haven't already dug it. If you haven't, feel free to contact me for a bit of "reciprocity", ok?

Well, ok, "racist" was too strong a word, even if it was qualified with "unintentional". It's a loaded word, to be sure, and I should have been more careful in throwing it around as I did. Perhaps "reflecting the cultural/environmental perspectives and/or biases of the author" would have been more accurate, but that's kinda lacking in zing, doncha' know. Still, the point is taken, and taken well. But as far as the "red flags" go, that's exactly what they are for me as a player. Whenever I meet a player, especially a rhythm section player, who does everything short of wetting their pants over Evans' "lyricism", "beauty", and things like that, I know (or more accurately, have over time come to realize) that we're not going to be able to have an effective musical relationship. Not because they value these qualities, but because, again, it seems, inevitably, they hear in Evans' work "qualities" that they don't hear in other types of jazz, which, truthfully, I find totally absurd. I mean, how can you hear the "emotion" in Evans' playing and not hear it in Bud Powell's (and yes, there are more than a few people out there who are like this, strange as it might seem). How can you hear the "lyricism" in Evans and not in Bird? How can you hear the "coherence" in Evans and not in Sonny Rollins? I could go on... What irks me to no end about these type of people is that they almost inevitably latch on to Evans as some sort of personal validation, like since they dig Evans and his manifestation of certain qualities, they're not missing anything by not appreciating others' personal manifestations of those exact same qualities. That Evans himself no doubt felt, and felt deeply, these qualities in other, different, players (including those that his followers seem to have little, if any, use for) doesn't seem to matter to them. Well, it should. Such denial goes beyond "stylistic preference" into the realm of willful, in some cases malicious, ignorance, and with that I have little patience as a player or as a person. So yeah, "racist" isn't quite accurate. David Duke is a racist. But thre's gotta be some kind of word for somebody who hears a white player doing what any great player in any type of music does and then proceeds to frame it as the ne plus ultra of the entirety of music, especially when that framing uses a comparison to "black" music (and no, bebop wasn't excluively a black music, but I think the author's meaning here, conscious or otherwise, was clear) as its foundation/specific point of reference. Something weird about that, don't you think? Especially since Evans himself would probably have had no part of it whatsoever.

Oh, it's not his opinion of the Evans material that bugs me. It's his comparison of "pure emotion, produced without impediments" to "an entire self poured out without inhibitions, the bebop dream" that send up all kinds of red flags. I remove my previous qualifier - that is bullshit, and most likely racist, although certainly not, I hope, intentional. It's certainly not unusual, though. Whenever a white player produces a high level of work in jazz, there are always those who find themselves rushing to proclaim its difference, and, implicity, its superiority. That is bullshit, and that is wrong. If Bird wasn't "pure emotion, produced without impediments" expressed through music, then surely such a thing has yet to exist! I would defy Gopnik (or anybody else) to define how the "pure emotion, produced without impediments" of Evans' Vanguard work differs from the "an entire self poured out without inhibitions" of, say, the best of Bird in a way that doesn't eventually come down to a matter of race, at least as ot pertains to the shaping of an artist's personal perspective through their cultural experience. Of course there are differences, but to say that one is "pure emotion" and that the other is "an entire self poured out", one "without impediments", the other "without inhibitions" seems to me to be somewhat self-contradictory, redundant (obviously?), even. At the very least, it is an unconscious admission that the "impediment" that white jazz players often face comes from an "inhibition" about getting in touch with their own specific "pure emotion" in a jazz setting, which results in an "inhibition" about "pouring one's self out", which too often leads to imitation of one kind or another. But the irony of that is that black players often come up against the same hurdles and resort to the same solution - it's only the lesser degree of cultural separation that allows for that imitation to be achieved more, for lack of a better word, "transparently" and "comfortably". But hey - derivative is derivative no matter what. And in today's jazz world, it seems that damn near everybody is faced with the same barriers. But that's another kettle of fish... The real difference between Evans (at least the Evans of the period under question in this set) and Bird (as the personification of "the bebop ideal", anyway) isn't that they were on different planes of emotion in terms of "intent", it was that each was on their own personal plane of same. And although the "wholeness" of expression of this particular perspective that Evans brought to his work here was indeed rare, it was not unique (Warne at the Half Note, anybody? Bix? Gil Evans?), and it was a difference solely of perspective, not of "quality" or "degree". To take it beyond that is risky business indeed.

Fortune has been kind.

Dude - I saw Oliver Lake on PBS in, I think, 1974. And that was before he became famous!

Funny, I was going to say Houston. Their local scene seems pretty healthy, all things considered. Check this site out: http://www.jazzhouston.com/ They even have a bulletin board! Of course, it ain't enough there, either. I play a cuppla "society" gigs down there each year, and the band is always stocked with local jazz players, and that's what they say.

Nice samples, Barak. More "aggressive" than Evolving Silence, but still very much of the same spirit. And welcome back!

Well, the secret word for these guys is tempo. Not just in terms of the speed of each song, but also in the pacing within each number. On both counts, they take their time. And it works. Oh yeah - it works.

Nothing more to say, really. If you're intrigued, get it (somehow - I found mine used. The CD seems to be a hard bugger to get, but DG still has the LP in stock). And - if you're intrigued, I seriously doubt that you'll be disappointed. But is you insist, here's the AMG review. And they got sample to listen to.

The one that was never there.

Everything you'd ever want out of 70's "Afro-Centric" funk but were afriad to ask for, for fear that it didn't really exist the way you thought it did. It did. And here it is. Carpe diem!

Got to hear an album called Evolving Silence, Vol. 1 (recorded February 27 of this year in Tel-Aviv) that featured Beger in a trio setting with the ubiquitous William Parker/Hamid Drake tandem and enjoyed it thoroughly. Beger's tenor work here seems to be a combining of the work of late Trane, Trane-era Pharoah, and, of course, early Ayler. The "Holy Trinity" of mid/late 60s tenor playing (Hopefully none is taken in this context, as none is intended). But in spite of such powerful, iconic role models, Beger finds his own voice, of sorts at least. Lots of people use these ingredients, so there's nothing startingly original here, but Beger has his own shadings of them, which is are attractive ones to me. Plus, he seems to have a certain humility about doing what he does the way he does it, which is a quality I often find lacking (and unappealing) in others who take somewhat the same path. His spirit definitely seems true. His flute playing is another matter altogether, reflecting, as I hear it, a lot of Middle-Eastern folk influences, and little, if any, overt "jazz" traits. I find his work on the instrument both involving and moving. The Parker/Drake team are all over this stuff, btw. Whereas sometimes, in other settings, Parker sounds to me as if he's primarily concerned about Making An Imprtant Statement, here he sounds like he's just come to play the music as well as possible. And that he does, splendidly so. Hamid, well hell, Hamid's a natural for this kinda stuff. "Nuff said. All told, a warm, inviting, refreshing, and above all, satisfying listen. I'd like to find out more about Beger, as well as if his type of jazz (at least as presented here - for all I know, he might make a living playing bebop, or something like that...) is warmly received in his home land. The guy seems to play with soul, facility, sincerity, and a deeper than usual sense of perspective. I certainly hope he's not having to scuffle too much.

This, too, is avant-garde. ← Is it just me, I love Lester but this session is really poor. Much like th eworst of Bud on verve it should have stayed in the vaults IMO ← Well, this is one of those session that people either love or hate, and it's hard to argue it one way or the other, simply because the criteria for one reaction have very little, if anything, to do with the other one. I love it, and the recommendation is sincere and ongoing. On a session like this, it's as if Prez, not having the physical resources at hand to deal with the instrument in a "traditional" (even for him) way, found a way to get his story out anyway. A triumph of mood over matter, if you will. Granted, that story is sad, at times even disturbing (deeply so, in fact), but it is his story for that time and for that place, and like the "worst" of Bud Powell, I think it's a mistake, at a level beyond "musicality", to equate unpleasantness with unworthiness, much less with "unrealness" of some sort. The story was what it was. What it was not was false in any way. I listen to this session for a sign, any sign, that what came out of Prez' horns that day was unintentional, and I don't hear any. Even the clarinet work, which finds him struggling with an instrument which he was ill-prepared at the time to return to, comes out as a statement, a message that took instrumental shortcomings & physical perils into consideration before being delivered. I don't hear a man "trying" to do something and falling short, I hear a man who knew in advance what he had to work with, physically, instrumetally, spiritually, and then proceeding accordingly from there. The results are such that one can either embrace them or be repelled by them, but it's hard to imagine anybody being indifferent to them. That's how strongly the message came across. Yes, it's painful to listen to, no disputing that whatsoever, and those who wish to argue that such blatant pain and dissipation has no place being put on public display will get little if any argument from me. But it was, so how do we deal with it? For me, it's a matter of love. I love Lester Young (to the degree that I "know" him through his music), and to a depth that I love very few artists. Because of that, I'm as willing to hear the "bad" with as much empathy as I am the "good". My love is unconditional, and that means sharing the deepest pain as well as the highest euphoria, no questions asked, no "judgements" made. Very, VERY few artists reach me like that, but Prez is definitely one of them. Can't say that I've ever heard a note from him where I didn't feel it, good bad, or indifferent (and there are plenty of each). When somebody reaches you like that, even the "bad" has meaning, and sometimes that meaning cuts closer to the quick than the "good", or than is comfortable. But so be it. Love's a bitch sometimes.

All The first It's not totally Reggae, Afro, or anything else. You got your mellow Santana-esque guitar, your Rasta-inspired lyrics, your War-like percussion, and tons of other stuff, including odd meters and a bass player who lays it down where (and ONLY where) it needs to be, but none of it is forced, not in the least. It's got that floating groove where time stands still and you have all the room in the world to move around inside it and resisting the dance impulse proves all but impossible. Wish I had know about these guys a LOT sooner!

Actually, I'll say that the bonus cuts are the highlight of the disc - three gorgeous ballads, with sublime Getz. And on "Daydrema", damn near perfect Getz.

Just finishing up on the Brookmeyer, and although it's still as "lightweight" as I rememeber it being (at least relative to the personnel), I gotta say that it's much more pleasant a semi-background listen than I remember it being, and by that I mean no dis. Getz in particular sounds better than I remember, and the tentative but audible interplay between him and Herbie on the ballads is something I'd never noticed before. The bonus cuts are all cool, and Gary Burton's recounting of the tensions involved in the sessions are darn near priceless.

Just got done with the Dexter, and although Chuck's "beginning of the end" appraisal was in my mind the entire time (and not dismissively, either), I still dug the shit out of it for memory's sake. This was a great band, and even if Dexter's playing is in hindsight (for me, anyway) pointing towards things to come, the overall level of energy is downright buoyant. The bonus cut of "Secret Love", however is a whole 'nother story. Power to spare here, no signs of impending dissipation, and Eddie Gladden totally kicks ass. That's two killer renditions of this song with Gladden on board, the other being James Moody's from Never Again! Interesting how Dexter stays so much in the lower register of his horn for this one. Quite uncharacteristic, but it adds to the power of his playing, which is a lot less "riding the groove"-oriented than it is on the rest of the album. The whole purchase would be worth it for this tune alone, even if the rest of the album sucked, which it most assuredly does not!

Yes, on Metrojazz in 1958, and the title of the album, Get Those Elephants Outa Here! might well be seen as patriotic, at least in some circles.

Whatever happened to "Buster"?

After a few more listens to this, I feel confident in saying that if this session had had the benefit of a better, less "local studio" recording, and if Bob Porter would have been the producer, that this album would go down as the Legends Of Acid Jazz Album to End All Legends Of Acid Jazz Albums, even though there's not too much organ on it. The closing cut, "Medusa" is as fierce as this stuff gets. And the rest of it ain't far behind.

You know what I reflexively think of when I hear "Kenny Dorham"? That solo on "White Christmas" from the Roost with Bird. Weird. But it's a great solo.

uh-oh...

Been done already.

I dunno, Byard & Burrell are/were two different creatures... I mean, I think that Burrell knows the "style" well enough to use it to his own unique ends. I'm not sure that actually "playing the style" (and all that implies) or even making it "contemporary" is what he's really about. Somewhat of a "grey area" afaic, but I'm not gonna press the issue. That's how grey it is for me.

If it's crazyass keyboards you're after, look no further than I slept on the Syndicate for years, mainly because the first few albums after the breakup of WR were guitar-heavy fusionintheworstway duds or near-duds. But whatever happened in the years since was a damn good thing, because THIS bad boy is GREAT. Zawinul is nuts. He's GOTTA be nuts. Thank God!