JSngry

Has anybody ever seen Charles Stephens & Madeleine Peyroux in a room together? I didn't think so.

No specifics on the MCA disc. Geez, you know time is flying when a 1989 CD is "off the radar" of cats like you and Alfred!

There's another one on here, with Charles Lloyd in good form: Highly recommended, btw...

Now, there's something that doesn't get commented on nearly as much as it should. A lot of Monk's tunes (not all, certainly, but a lot) ignore (or at the least, downplay) the implied single key center that a I-vi-ii-V progression creates. Instead, the consist of blocks of dominant chords that, when traced from beginning to end, create a bold but logical journey, each stop along the way creating a zone. The symmetry of these structures is as organic and, again, logical as it is bold. They very sound "mathematically", if you know what I mean. Even the tunes where he uses a I-vi-ii-V progression as the foundation gets tweaked. Take "Bemsha Swing" - the changes of that tune are an exercise (hell, a textbook!) in different ways to apply tritone substitutions over the most basic of progressions. With Monk's music, moreso than most "songs" digging into the micro reveals the macro, and vice-versa. Get a grip on one and discover the other, over and over and over. It's the never-ending spiral of logical genius.

I came to like/appreciate/whatever Rouse a lot more once I began playing the tunes myself. Still not my "favorite" Monk tenorist (that would probably be Rollins), but I too once found him virtually "unlistenable", whereas today I find him anything but. Interesting on a sustained basis, though, is another matter altogether. I think he actually played "better" away from Monk's orb. But that's another matter... And oh, yeah - make mine Dunlop. More than Blakey (although not "officially"), Max, Roy, etc.

Has enough time passed for it to be ok to ask what the difference was between Charles Stephens and a frog?

Albert Ayler can be heard playing it (labeled as "Rollins' Tune") in 1962.

I have both Alexandria Impulse! LPs on a 1989 MCA/Impulse! single CD. 20 songs total, did anything get left off?

Three points - 1) An intellegent discussion of any Popular Music should consider the "Popular" as well as the "Music". Popular Music of any era is popular because it resonates with a large number of people, and those reasons are usually only periphially musical. If any of this shit was just about the music, it wouldn't be really popular, dig? The lesson for jazz? Easy - leave the street, lose the street. Lee Morgan was a street motherfucker (and let's not fall into the trap of equating "street" with "uneducated", "uncouth", or any other such Anglo-centric assumptional predispostions, cause it just ain't so). Jackie McLean too. They were street, they played street, and they held street appeal. What street is Eric Alexander from? 2) Personally, I thnk that some of the most truly self-degrading African-American Popular Music of the 20th century was done by Roy Brown. But nobody mentions him in this light. Go figure that. 3) If you dig the culture, or are otherwise predisposed to keep up with it, you go up with where it goes or else get left behind. It's not going to wait for your permission or approval before going where it's going to go. Getting left behind is more likely to happen along racial lines, but age is a factor too. And quite natural. It hurts to realize that we're not as "hip" at 45 as we were at 20, but hey - c'est la'vie. That hot chick in your 1974 yearbook that you used to fantasize about sneaking out with and fucking all night is now your daughter, dig? And she was somebody else's daughter back then.

In their approach, sure, totally different. As well as in thier attitude. As you say, rich was totally about clean and precise, all metrical/metronomic and shit. But in terms of what they were going for, yes - totally different as to their personal backgrounds/situations and the musical manifestations thereof, but otherwise, more similar than different, I'd say. You don't hear it in the Swing Era Rich, because he was still "playing the style" (or the role), or even so much in the 50s (definitely not on the Bird/Diz/Monk Granz date, for which even the most severe castigation of his work therein to date has not been adequate), where he's still playing an essentially Swing Era style, and to hyper extremes. But by the time the mid-60s roll around and he forms his first big band, you can definitely tell that he's been checking out, not bop or Hard Bop, but Elvin. Not in terms of looseness, polymetricisms, or such, but just in terms of providing a constant "chattering" underneath the music that didn't rely on Swing mechanisms. The loud rim shots are all but gone, replaced by a running commentary from the snare that seems to me like a Rich (re)interpretation of Elvin's game. You could also make the same (possibly even stronger) case for Philly Joe, but I think that Elvin is probably who caught Rich's ear, although I've no doubt whatsoever that he'd have denied it vehemently. Philly was somebody who no doubt admired Rich's chops, but Buddy probably heard him as not doing anything that he couldn't do (technically, of course), but Elvin, well, Elvin was a whole 'nother world.

Chuck will think I've totally gone off the deep end when I say this, but I do hear a basic conceptual similarity between Rich & Elvin. Totally different vibes obviously, but that constant motion underneath the music is something both players share. On the 60s big band sides, it's like hearing Elvin play with a big band if Elvin was a much older, hyperactive, egotistical white guy who had come up in the Swing Era.

Intereting how many people hear a bari on #17.

Seperated at birth?

1990? Japan only release? I can kiss that dream goodbye... I have a friend who just paid over $125 for an original LP, and he sent me a burn. That will have to suffice for now, I guess.

Oh yeah, I've fallen. And landed hard. Ouch, Starting with the melody is the best way to learn the innards of the tune, mopreso thna with most things. Staying with the melody can get you into some into some very interesting places, since those pieces aren't just "songs". They're self-sufficient, self-sustaing organisms. My respect for Steve Lacy grows daily! There was a cat who stuck with Monk's melodies no matter where it led him. To hear his later readings of Monk tunes is like "Fantastic Voyage" taken to a whole 'nother level. He's not "out", he's in - waaay in. It's a cliche, and it's trite, but it's nevertheless true - Monk is DEEP. (and no D'Imperio jikes, please... )

They're on the way from CDU.

Well, so is jazz. So what's the problem?

"A Remark That You Made", was that about one of his kids?

In-DEED!

Ok, who was "Guy Remark"?

Details, please!

Competitive is one thing, professional is another. He wasn't contracted to play the gig wit that group and was merely a stand-in for Bird until Bird arrived. It would have been unprofessional to remain, as this was a concert, not a jam session. I've no doubt that he wanted to stay and play. This was music that he had been actively involved in, and he played it very well. I'm sure that, based on what I know about him, that he was probably chomping at the bit to hamg around and blow, especially since by June of 1945, he might well have been feeling the first gusts of the draft, and it no doubt didn't sit well woth him. But that would not be professional behavior in this context. In June of 1945, Don Byas was still a player with a name on the New York scene. To cause a disruption at a Town Hall concert would not be a good career move, and I'm pretty sure that he was smart enough to realize that. Think about it - here's Don Byas, one of the most competitive and proud men in the hstory of the music, a man whose resolute determination to position himself as a "modern" tenor man, no matter what, was perhaps his defining characteristic, all of a sudden being so overcome by feelings of inadequacy in a concert of music which he was intimately familiar with that he turned tail and ran out. That just doesn't make sense.

Here's to life.

Happy Birsthday. Too bad you're retired. Guess you can't take those gis, eh?

The Birth of Soul box only included Charles' R&B sides, the new box will include everything he recorded for Atlantic, such as the jazz sides. ← Well, not everything. Ray returned to the lable for four albums in the 1970s. I have the first three. They're all a mixed bag, but when they're good, they're very good. The first one, True To Life, is easily the strongest (there's a version of "How Long Has This Been Going On" on there that is Sesert Island Material). The following two are much more variable/erratic, and by the tiem the fourth one came out, I decided to pass.