JSngry

The Depends are strapped on and I'm waiting. I finally ordered AT YOSHI'S today! B-) And now, Dieter, you are as happy as a little girl?

Dennis.

Dude - the joke in my circle when Geroge Winston/Windham Hill started getting popular was that it was "ECM without the jazz". And yeah, the Jarrett solo albums were a direct conduit into the George Winston thing, which at the time was considered "New Age". I know things are different now, but back then... Personally, I think that Jarrett's music has deepened and darkened quite a bit since those days, but fersure, those ECM solo albums of the 70s sold in pretty big numbers, and spawned a lot of imitiators, noneof them offering anything more than superficial gloss. And that's what, to a significant extent, became "New Age" when New Age began to be.

Just got a package from Phoenix Beach. Once I get the sand, bottle caps, and pubic hairs out of it, I'll be good to go. Oh yeah, to whom do I need to return the tongue stud?

Well there you go.

Well hey - dig Percy. He's the only one who went for the longer lapels, even if it meant showing a little buttonhole. And his tiework is the best of the band, too, at least in this photo. Lewis has a great knot but is a tad off-center (still not sure about the propriety of that...), Connies right but non-descript, and Bags looks like he put the thing on and said, "Ok, fuck it, it's on. Let's play some blues." Besides studying clothes in photos, I also like to study eye contact with the camera(or lack thereof). But that's not always an exact science. Checking out clothes, otoh, is a pretty safe bet.

Ok, this photo raises an issue I've long been unsure about. Is it considered "ok" to have the knot of a tie uncentered in relation to the collar of the shirt? I've always felt it to be a little bit "careless" myself, but I see lots of "well-dressed" guys who do it (and just as many who don't), so I'm wondering what the "code" is about such a matter. I'm not a habitual tie-wearer myself by any stretch of the imagination, but when I do it, I try to make it look as sharp as possible. It just seems that the rewards of going to the trouble of getting a good tie and tying a good knot are a little bit negated by having it off-center. But damn, them sure are nice suits. Not crazy about that short lapel look (there's a term for that style, where you button the top button and have that reduced shirt-visibility along with the shorter lapels, but I've forgotten what it is), but looks lie a good fabric, and defintiely well-cut. And GREAT ties. Who was the band's outfitter? This is all serious, btw.

So now they're going to be a re-public? See, corporations ARE taking over the government!

Panicked yet dutiful!

I didn't realize that Warner's wasn't already public...

I got a burn of the CJR (Cadence Jazz Records) LP from a friend. Don't know if they still have any in stock, but Slim would.

Listened to it last night. It's a compilation of sorts - a Sandole 4tet date from 1958, a long "jazz opera/ballet" or something like that performed by some kind of workshop orchestra from the 70s, and one each solo piano and quartet readings of two of his tunes from the 1980s. The 80s quartet is a gorgeous ballad, and John Stubblefield plays on it. Sandole himself only plays on the 1958 stuff (Wendell Marshall is on bass, btw), and its fascinating in a Gil Melle-meets Lennie Tristano kind of way. Kinda sounds like music of ants scurrying around in panicked yet dutiful circles, which I know doesn't sound like much of a compliment, but, honestly, it's meant to be one. If you like the Fantasy album, you'll probably like this one just as much, but in a totally different way.

I'd like to know what it was like being employed/gigging with Bull Moose Jackson, especially with Tadd Dameron in the piano chair. How did he view the overall experience at the time, and how does he view it now, in terms of both his musical and "social" point of view? Did it seem like total bullshit then and total bullshit now, or was there something else going on, either then or now?

Well, if by your own admission, even if it is, to your sensibility, So, what is it - does he not deliver "real playing", or does he not deliver it in a format that is to your personal preference? If you say that it's the latter, then, finally, I think this particular phase of this discussion will have reached an honorable end. but if you insist that "often brilliant" playing, no matter what the surroundings and/or format, isn't "real playing", then... Well, then nothing. Finish your argument with yourself before you get into one with me.

Ok, now we're getting a, sorta, more honest set of evaluations, namely whether or not the individual likes the results. Myself, I'll strongly disagree that the recordings are awful. Some are indeed that, some are pleasant, some are actually pretty engaging, and almost all of them have at least one cut where the action gets going pretty good. But there's only a handful that I would advise people to unconditionally stay away from, and most of them are from the 70s and early 80s. Then again, I go into any Milestone Rollins album expecting to not hear Saxophone Collosus IV, or East Broadway Rundown Revisitied, if you know what I mean. If that's what you're looking for, well, then, yeah, I guess the records would be awful. An honest difference of opinion, no harm, no foul. I'd disagree a little stronger, though, about the "phoning it in motivation" about the electric bass and such. In Japan, parts of The Cutting Edge (what a maddeningly inconsistent set that is!), and a video of a performance in France(?) all have that type of rhythm section, and I really don't hear any "phoning it in". Inspiration coming and going, yeah, but when it works, it works superbly (where have you gone David Lee? COME BACK!). Your explanation is easy enough, but the evidence is a lot more complicated. I would say that the 70s probably did find Rollins in a bit of a "confused" state as far as how to put all the elements of that type of a band together. If ever there was a case of good intent being doomed from the start, it would be the ever-quioxtic Sonny Rollins trying to lead a consistently tightly structured R&B-centric band. Oil & water! But there's enough evidence of it working that I do believe the intent was sincere, and in no way a cop-out. As for electric bass, hey - Bob Cranshaw, mostly, a dependable musical and personal anchor for a helluva long time. Can't ignore that. Electric guitar? Big whoop. I prefer guitar to piano myself, so that was never an issue for me. Percussion? Hey - the aftermath of Elvin, simple as that. Who didn't try to get more rhythmic layering in their bands after Elvin (a rhetorical question, obviously...)? Are the players "worthy" of Rollins' talent? Mostly, no. Do they bring the gig down when they solo? Yeah, usually. But they stay out of Sonny''s way when he plays (at least in his ears), and that. I strongly suspect, is why they're there. That's what he's decided that he needs to do what he does on the most regular basis, and all things considered, it's a decision I respect, even if the results often bug me, too (where have you gone Mark Soskin? STAY THERE!). What I want to hear is Sonny Rollins being Sonny Rollins, by any means necessary, and in whatever shape that ends up taking. I can hear plenty of "good bands", plenty of "group concepts", and plenty of "good players challenging each other. But how many "Sonny Rollins'" are there? It's not like a "better band" is automatically going to make for a better Sonny Rollins. For proof of that, go to the Milestone Jazzstars. Or better yet, take my word for it and don't go to the Milestone Jazzstars... To that end, let's put together a "dream band" of your suggested Jason Moran, William Parker, and, since you didn't name a drummer, let's put Jack DeJohnette in there for grins. Let's take that band out on the road, and let's see how distracted Sonny gets in his playing, and let's see if the distractions prove benefical more often than not. I seriously doubt that they would. It wouldn't be Sonny Rollins being Sonny Rollins anymore, it would be Sonny Rollins being poked and prodded by Jason Moran, William Parker, and Jack DeJohnette, which although it might be more immediately "interesting", at least in a sensationalistic kind of way, may very well not prove to be "better" in the long haul, not if his goal is getting closer and closer to that thing that really makes Sonny Rollins Sonny Rollins (and I suspect that what that "thing" is at root something wholly apart from, yet residing wholly within, himself, which may well be why he goes to such lenghts to avoid being poked and prodded - how can you lose yourself in something that won't let you get lost? It's like my wife constantly waking me up when I snore and then getting upset I finally get up and go sleep on the sofa. And feel free to make the obvious "sleep" joke about that analogy! Besides, if you're paying the guys, you got to let'em play. You need your breathers (especially if you play like Rollins plays), and they need the experience. And how often did Dizzy Gillespie lead "worthy" road bands from the 70s on, Sam Rivers notwithstanding. You didn't hear a bunch of weeping and wailing over that. Nor for that matter, did you hear a lot of talk that Dizzy's work from the 50s and beyond more often than not pales significantly to his heaviest work of the 40s. Not that he didn't deliver lots of fine playing - he did. But how often did he do what he did in the 40s? Not very often. Realistically, in terms of sheer musical "profundity", not very often. And that even during a time, partially, when it was relatively easy being a "professional jazz musician"! You want "honest and focused" out of Sonny Rollins? I'll say that honest is always what you get, and that focused is always what you hope for. But geez Louise, the guy's never been focused, at least not in a day-in-day-out Coltrane-like Mission From God manner. For all the talk of the "glory days" of the 50s, there were a [b[LOT of recordings (and from the airshots, etc. I've heard, live gigs) where the focus just wasn't there, in highly varying degrees. You want to put Way Out West on the same level as the trio sides on Brass/Trio? Didn't think so. And the list(s) just begin there. Volume 2 vs Volume 1, etcetcetcetcetc, the list does go on. Yeah, at least we GOT a Way Out West back then, but the point is that "focus" and "Sonny Rollins" are concepts that have always intersected at random, if spectacular, junctures, and the more things change...

Well, I like New York in June.

The dichotomy between the recordings and the live performances is too dramatic and too ongoing to be coincidental (and btw, anybody who thinks that all the recordings are equally poor or totally without high points hasn't been listening, but that's another story...). It should be obvious that leaving a trail of "classic" recordings is no longer where his priorities lie. But if this was an artist who had lost "it", the live shows would be at the same level as the recording. Clearly this is not the case. The point is not that Rollins is not playing the game, it's that he's playing it on his terms, which is what I've been saying all along. Attempts to "rope him in" to the traditional market paradigm have failed, and to me, that's a tremendous triumph of the individual over the marketplace. Would I like to have a string of consistently strong, beautiful albums from the last 30 years? Hell yeah. But I'd rather have a strong, healthy Sonny Rollins still walking the planet playing (usually) at the peak of his powers in personal appearances. And that, we still have, and that, I suggest, is what matters most to Sonny Rollins himself. It does seem to me that the nature of live playing vs. recording carries with it some pretty fundamental differences of intent, concept, approach, etc. For most people, it's a question of degree, but for Sonny Rollins, it seems to be a question of the very nature of what you do and why you do it. He's not the only great player who's questioned the basic concept of recording, btw. His conclusions might seem unfathomable, naive, or even anachronistic to those of us for whom recording opportunities are rare, or for whom recordings and other "hard copy" documentation matter for personal and/or professional reasons, and, especially, those for whom jazz is a music mostly (or exclusively, and that too is another matter entirely...) enoyed through recordings. But Sonny Rollins is not one, or any, of those people. As I said earlier, the manner in which he's handled his overall career over the last 30 years makes perfect sense to me, and the "plan" is so obvious I can't understand how it can be overlooked. Play the "record game" just enough to stay visible, and keep the real stuff for playing live. It infuriates me probably as much as it does anybody else, but why is it so hard to see that this is the plan, has been, and most likely will continue to be? And why is objectively confronting the issues raised by such a plan from the performer's POV so difficult? I sense that many people (and I'm no exception) feel "owed" by their favorite performers. But what do they owe us? If the only plane we can think of is that of immediate material self-gratification, that they what they owe us above all else is a good record or two... Never mind. NOT gonna go there. If you have to ask...

Kevin?

Surely you jest! I didn't say anything about not being concerned with "what you do", btw. but there's a lot of different ways to do "what you do" that have little or/to no relevancy with "documentation". What you, as you but it, "leave behind" can be very profound without being "documented" in the traditional (can I say "Western" w/o being drawn into an intellectual/philosophical jargon-battle?) sense. Mainstream public documentation, as it mostly exists in the jazz world, inevitabley goes hand in hand with commerce to one degree or another, and that inevitably changes, if only subtly, that which it is that is "what you do". To decide to not play that game as an opening strategy is idealistic to the point of naivete, but to come to that conclusion after a long and often tumultuous series of battles seems to me to be another thing altogether. Is it better to preserve something that is truly sacred to you by leaving it out of the commercial equation as much as possible, or is it better to go ahead and fully include it in the equation in order to play the "legacy" game, no matter what the game eventually does to it? It's a deeply personal question, and anybody who thinks that the answers are simple (or even worse, doesn't see why there should even be a conflict in the first place) obviously doesn't get exactly what the "it" is that is at stake. For some musicians, it's not an issue, and god bless'em. But for some, it's very much an issue. And god bless them too. I figure that you, Allen, do get it, so again I say - surely you jest!

So the only choices are between playing just for the money or else being concerned/absorbed/obsessed/whatever with documenting one's work in order to "leave a legacy" or some such? Surely you jest!

Yes we can, and that (thinking and talking about it) is what I have done. We have reached different conclusions, that's all.

Why? And for who?

Exactly!

Why all this emphasis on records?

You will after it's too late.