JSngry

This, perhaps? http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...a_washington_32 Is it "normal" for a governor to "sign over control" of their states' NG to the Feds in times of emergency? Or to be asked to?

Horrendous sound, incredible music. Makes Our Man In Jazz sound like the Reader's Digest version of Ulysses. But the recording quality is rough. There's a third volume of stuff from the same tour on Magnetic, in supposedly excellent sound, but I've not yet been able to get a hookup on it. Something to live for, I suppose...

My question for those who advocate rebuilding the city "someplace else" - what are you going to do with the land that gets left behind? Who will end up owning it? To what purpose will it be put? Can it be guaranteed that this wouldn't result in some sort of "land grab" by business interests, somewhat comprable to the seizure of some Japanese-American's California property in the wake of Pearl Harbor? I'm in no way suggesting that there is already a coordinated effort afoot for such a thing, but surely nobody is naive enough to think that somebody somewhere isn't already seeing this tragedy as a "business opportunity" (or a political one, but that's another matter). If you get the people off/out of the land and rebuild the levee system to where it should have been in the first place, you can't tell me that you're not going to have a very valuable commodity on your hands. "Merely" restoring it to it's former usage is going to be seen by some as not "maximizing the potential" of that commodity. So, how can we seperate a legitimate discussion about rebuilding elsewhere from planted propaganda geared towards achieving a land grab? Or can we? Certainly not suggesting that either Guy or GA has such motives, just that in the days ahead, you can bet that we'll be hearing more calls for this plan of action, and that nowhere near all of it is going to be altruistically motivated.

Deeply appreciated, Mike.

Other than versions of "This Is Not America" & "Amazing Grace" that just don't connect with me, this is a beautiful album. The LMO has certainly "mellowed" over the years in terms of overtness, but there's a depth of feeling to Carla Bley's arrangements that the earlier works didn't necessarily have. Or maybe it's just the interpretations. The band is mostly younger players, some of whom probably weren't even born when the first LMO album was made. No matter - they're living in the aftermath, and they play like they get it. They no doubt do. Carla Bley is a great arranger, and the program here is full of truly beautiful writing. The main soloists are Miguel Zenon on alto (whose playing here reminds me of nothing less than Charles McPherson's great work on Let My Children hear Music), Chris Cheek and Tony Malaby on tenors (Malaby plays with a great feeling for the music's subtleties, Cheek addresses its more blatant aspects; both do what they do most admirably, although its Malaby's near-haunting work that stics in my mind the most), Steve Cardenas on accoustic guitar (the delicacy of the accoustic is very much in sync with the overall mood of most of the music). the trumpet soloist is either Michael Rodriguez and/or Seneca Black. I don't know either player, but they too play to the music quite nicely. Not for every taste, to be sure. There's very little "swinging". Otoh, there's next to no "raging" either. It's a mostly somber but deeply heartfelt set of music that speaks to our times soberly and with no small amount of sadness. Highly recommended to all those who think they might share the sentiments of the music.

Doug Watkins was recorded very well on this album.

Yeah, it's the Byrd albums that got me to thinking that maybe Horace was right.

Yeah, but isn't that like saying until the Levees broke, they were doing an adequate job of holding the water? What did N.O. do to prepare for the worst? Here is a photo of a bunch of ruined School Buses, would have been nice if they had them surrounding the Superdome before the flooding. ... Hell, I first thought when I heard all these folks were going to the Dome, what if the then 175 MPH Hurricane(Can it seem possible this story could have been worse with a direct hit with those winds!) damaged the structure? Imagine if thousands had died in that type of disaster. But, it seemed better than having them killed in the houses. So much delay....systems have to be improved...phones go down, no way to communicate? I see the media has satellite phones, perhaps cities need to invest in them.... ← You're right as a matter of speculation (and by that I mean no dis. Just because there wasn't a direct hit doesn't excuse not being prepared for one), but the fact remains - this specific tragedy occured because people lived, and they lived because the specific plans in place worked. Until the levees broke... It's a cruel, grusome even, irony that we'd have a lot "cleaner" disaster on our hands if the worst case had transpired - a direct hit. Then we'd just have a lot of dead bodies to clean up, and a national period of unambiguous grief. Scapegoats could easily be found, fingers easily pointed, etc., etc., etc. But people lived, and how they ended up living proved (and will continue to prove) to be more than a little embarassing (dare I say humiliating?) to, I hope, all of America. Dead people are easy to handle. You pick'em up and bury them. Living people, though, people locked up in near-death camp conditions for longer than there's any good explanation for, well, they're not as easily "processed", physically and mentally, as dead ones. No way do I seek to exonerate anybody for not being prepared for the worst-case scenario of a direct hit of such a superstorm. But one thing I don't want to see is for investigations to get so caught up in finding fault in general that they fail to recognize the fact that people survived the storm with the plans already in place. If that happens, you push aside the reality that this catastrophe wasn't a result of poor pre-storm evacuation and planning, it was a result of the levees breaking, pure and simple. Nobody was ready for that, least of all, it seems, those on the outside who were so desperately needed to come inside. Once your locals are under water, there's not a helluva lot they can do from the inside to evacuate themselves. If the levees had remained intact, you can bet (I hope...) that those school buses would've been put to use. Yeah, it would've been smart to have them stationed outside the Superdome before the flooding, of that there is no doubt. But it would've been smarter still to have not f-ed around and left the levees in the state they were in. And whose fault is that? Who knew how perilous the levees were? Who tried to get them upgraded? Who stopped them? Why? Who knew what, and when did they know it - the basic questions that follow in the wake of any disaster. They are the questions that must be asked and fully answered along with all the others, perhaps even before all the others, since they have direct bearing on what actually happened rather than what could have happened. Failure to be prepared for a direct hit of a storm such as Katrina is negligence indeed, and it must not be overlooked or otherwise excused. But it's not what caused the devastation in New Orleans. Not this time.

Sayeth Ecaroh in his "as told to Donald Elfman" essay for the recently reissued Silver's Blue: So... Does this mean that Hank Mobley & Doug Watkins also had a Columbia contract at one time, if only for one album? If so, are there any indications that sessions, formal or otherwise, took place? Or is Horace having a Senior Moment? As always, thanks in advance!

Well then, this is a good'un!

Seeing as how the real disaster didn't begin until the levees cracked, isn't it fair to say that the local evacuation plan was at least adequate up until then? People had a place to go to if they chose, and other than the hole in the Superdome roof, they were safe during the storm itself. If the levees hadn't breached (breeched?), people could well have gone home to their respective messes as early as Monday, right? Tuesday for sure. The surely forthcoming investigation needs to pay attention to who knew that the levees were in need of upgrading, and who prevented that from happening as much or more than it does the mishandling of the evacuation/rescue. The need for the latter might well have been averted if the former had been handled responsibly. Spare no blame, I say, but let's get to the root cause of what really caused this mess, not just the mess itself.

Barring any snafus, preorder price usually stays constant until one week after release.

How much beautiful is the dance of Mr. Mobley on this tune! And much love also for the dance of Mssrs. Silver, Watkins, & Taylor, both behind Hank and behind donald Byrd as well, whose own dance is full of love and dance and dancelovelovedance. But HANK! Surely this is one of his most special moments.

Here's the best way to experience this album: Get your woman and turn off all lights in your listening room. Remove all outside stimuli, including clothing, and let the music take over. You should be transported, thrilled and amazed. Of course, for a 16 year old, this is probably not prudent advice. But it'll give you something to look forward to.

Dance!

Haven't been feeling the dance these last few days. Not good. I need the dance, even thought the dance doesn't seem to manifest itself as gracefully and as joyously as I feel it. When I feel it. And I haven't been feeling it, what with all the sad-ass excuse for "America" that's been on display on the TV the last 60 or so hours. Depressing, literally depressing. So I finally schlepped away from the TV and laid down for a nap, carrying the new, copy-protected Silver Blue reissue with me. Slid it into the bedroom boombos, and laid down to sink out of a conscious funk into an unconscious one, hoping that the music would give good sleep. It did, and I woke up just as Hank was beginning his solo on the last tune, "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes". I'd heard this album and this solo before, but less than sixteen bards into it, it started getting GOOD to me, and my still-horizontal body began to dance. When it was over, I played that cut again, remaining upright. This time, it got damn good to me, and I was dancing all over the bedroom. I felt uplifted, better than I had felt all week. What a great piece of music this is! I think I have done had a total response!

I didn't see that. Details, please. Mind-boggling...

C'mon dude, you know that nothing has anything to do with anything else. It's a freakin' miracle that anything ever happens at all!

I can dig the sampleability of the Mizell's work, just as I can Bob James'. But they both still work better for me in that form than it does the original. It's like it's real good for that moment or two (which is what makes for a good sample, right?), but that doesn't transfer to it staying good for five minutes or more. Just my taste in the matter.

NOW you're talking!

Well, nothing like that is a purely "local" issue these days, what with all the federal funding (or cuts thereof) and all the bullshit games that get played around it. But yeah, the city failed its citizens when crunch time came. I too hope that it gets analyzed and that lessons are learned. And I suspect that there will be blame aplenty, and not just at the local level. We'll see... But now wait a minute, are you saying that there were people who couldn't get out and were forced to stay? Any idea how many? You think that demographics might provide us with a starting place for a rough estimate? Well, then...

And how many of the people still in New Orleans chose to ignore the warnings? Let's set the figure really high, say, 50%. Now let's get those people out by any means necessary. That's still a helluva lot of people. I've no doubt that some people had a chance to leave, and I said so. I also said that they made their own bed by choosing to stay. My point is that knowing what I know of the "real" New Orleans, the city that the tourists don't see, that there were a lot more people who had no independent way out than some people seem to be willing to consider. Why this would seem unfathomable is beyond me. Lots of poor (and old) people in New Orleans. And they don't have basements either. We're not in Kansas anymore, as they say...

No....for the most part, we don't have basements in Texas. Want another lecture?

You call THAT a lecture?

I make no such assumption about all the people who stayed behind.