JSngry

Great session, really. Hank squeaks a lot, & Blakey seems to wanting to punish SOMEBODY with the tempos and all the retakes, but Lee's loose and laughing at the whole thing. Or so I hear...

Would you be more, or less, impressed if I told you that I guess Lancaster becasue I thought I recognized his tone? And who is Harold Smith? That was a fun cut!

I've just heard a few things off their Columbia album on KNTU and have been neither impressed nor repulsed.

Aw, Campbell's not the "future of jazz" or anything, I just like his spirit. Sounds like he always comes to play and has a good time doing it. Guy's got chops and a free spirit. I like that. As for Shipp, well, yeah, he's really, REALLY "conceptual" more often than not. Perhaps too much for his own good sometimes. But he's got ideas, that's for sure, and if they don't always come off the way that I'd like for them to, they do often enough for me to stay interested. Sorry, that's the best "explanation" I can offer. It ain't much, I know.

Had a chance to hear STRAIGHT UP last night, and, yeah, it's definitely in the "looking for airplay" mode of so many mid-late 60s Brad McCuen produced RCA jazz sides (shorter songs, familiar - or familair sounding - tunes, arrangements that aren't really necessary for "jazz imapct", stuff like that. But, as on those other, similar sessions, no attempts are made to hide the princiapl's personality. So, yeah, the settings ain't so hot, but when Vick plays, all is forgiven. Especially on a gorgeous "We'll Be Together Again", which a malevolent producer would have had a seizure over due to it's mixture of deep soul and Tranesque false fingerings and harmonic insertions. Which, really, is Vick's trademark afaic - playing "soul jazz" w/some pretty "advanced" technical devices. Harold Vick was one hip motherfukker. One tune is unencumbered, a good straight-ahead uptempo blowing number. Albert Dailey & Hugh Walker sound great throughout, even with the stylistic restrictions placed on them by the contexts. But that's professionalism in action - being able to take a less than ideal setting and turn it into something worthwhile. Not an "essential" side (other than that ballad), but if you dig Vick and got some spare buckage, hey, go for it.

This one:

Oh yeah, short (too short, really) samples available here: http://www.quadraphonicsoundmodule.com/elements.htm

http://www.dustygroove.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap...&GO.x=11&GO.y=9 or http://www.quadraphonicsoundmodule.com/contact.htm Quoth Da Bastids: Incredible stuff -- a free-thinking, loose jamming jazz ensemble -- recorded recently, but with a sound and vision that really takes us back to earlier years of the New York scene! The collective features Matthew Shipp on piano, Roy Campbell on trumpet, Atiba Wilson on flute, Sabir Mateen on tenor, Brian Carrot on vibes -- and an assortment of other players on percussion, bass, and drums -- all jamming together with a flowing, spiritual sort of feel -- stretching out on longer tracks that groove with an undeniably organic energy! The sound is incredible -- almost on a par with older Strata East work at some points -- and the album comes off wonderfully, with out any sort of gimmicks or modern noodling to mess it up. Titles include "Astro Nugget", "Back To Black", "The Move", "3", and "Blue 19". Well, I don't know bout all that, but this is a damn fine session. All the soloists play superbly (Campbell in particular - people looking for a new trumpet voice who's got the moves of today with the spirit of yore should definitely be checking this guy out) and Atiba Wilson, who comes off like the Artie Webb of the new millenium. The Groove doesn't prop them, but Clark Gayton on trombone is on board as well, sounding just dandy, and on one cut (the first) Alex Blake's bass threatens to create a new continent. Shipp also contributes mightily when he plays, but he's not on the entire album. When he is, though, good things things happen. As they usually do. But the real thing for me on this one is the bottom, the bass/drums/percussion hookups. Part Afro, part funk, part whatever, ALL groove, and recorded incredibly clear and clean. It's nice to be able to hear a multi-percussion set where everybody's contribution is readily audible, so you can hear the conversations w/o having to dig too deeply into the mix. Only drawback, and it's a very minor one, is on one cut, where one guy talks to the soloists as they play, "conversing" with them. It's a cool enough thing to do in private occasionally (VERY occasionally), but on the record it just sounds a little jive. But maybe I'm too old and have had too many people who didn't have a clue pull this on me. No matter, it's not a deal-breaker, not by a longshot. Anybody looking for some new names to check out can find them here, and in a context that is more than friendly to anybody who digs Fela, the JBs, descargas, A.K. Salim's AFRO SOUL/DRUM ORGY, and any other kind of groove-based jam music with plenty of jazz in the mix. Maybe or maybe not music to live by, but definitely music to live to. Check it out.

YES! But I had forgotten what the product was. Thanks for the jog!

Beautiful. Thanks for posting this.

Don't even remember the name of the school. Sorry. If it helps, it was an "inner city" school, at our insistence. That's a whole 'nother story, though. And our website is VERY much in need of an update. Stay away until firther notice!

Oh, FWIW, there was a Beaver Harris interview in Cadence not too long ago that contained reminiscences of the 67 SF gig. Veeerrrrry intereting.... I've got a partial copy of the 69 London gig, but didn't know the year. It's somewhat of a shambles, as the rhythm section does not/cannot/will not/whatever follow sonny on his stream-of-consciousness instant-medley thing, and that just throws him WAY off. But it's interesting, because the Netherlands date shows him (and his accompanists) absolutely THRIVING in that bag, and the Copenhagen date from a year later shows him very much having reverted, for the most part, back to a "neo-classical" approach (ie - start a tune, play it, finish it, repeat as necessary). Just trying to get a handle on some of the changes the guy went through in his path towards retirement (which by his accounts, was a true retirement - not a sabbatical for practice purposes) and what, if any, part those changes migh have had on him when he decided to resume active performing. London '69 gives a vivid indication, but the amount of 1969 activity (more than the preceding two years combined. And those solo concerts!) before the true layoff of 1970 is intriguing. Just trying to figure out a piece of something that is really none of my business.

What do I think? I think he's brilliant. Visionary, even. A bit "mad scientist" (even though there's really no "madness" -of either variety- about him, but I think you know what I mean) at times, but never so much that I've ever had to say, "Dude, sorry. That's just TOO freakin' nuts!" NEVER. Some of his projects "work" for me better than others, and there's no way in hell that I've been able to keep up with his voluminous output (I guess that Lee Konits is his hero in THAT way too!), but he's on the short list of people I listen to unhesitatingly, and on the even shorter list of people whose "failures" I find more provoking than many, MANY people's "triumphs".

No piano. And thanks for that listing, Mike. I was under the impression that there were fewer American dates (and more European ones) during this period, but perhaps not. Interesting, indeed.

Mike is reading my mind, apparently. Look - I PLAY the stuff, so I know full well what the effects of "insularity" are, and they aren't beneficial beyond developing a self-caontained community, which is ok, but just for getting started. Once you got that, to keep it there intentionally is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy about how "nobody else likes us". No - nobody KNOW you. Big difference. Maybe most people won't. But some will. Hey - that's life. Tell you what - by far and away the best recptions that Quartet Out has ever recieved have been at A)a St. Louis elementary school assembly and B)a free outdoor gig at White Rock lake where joggers and other "civilians" heard the music while passing by, decided to sit a spell, and ended up loving the music (for that moment, anyway. But that's good enough). Two situations where nobody knew nothing about the "difficulty" of the music, they just got hit with it, and they liked it. Works for me. I understand that there's a "social" element to the Rat thread, and I'm more than ok with that (as if it matters). But if the object is to get the music out into "public" view, then there's a better way to go about it, I think.

As I understand it, as Sonny gradually withdrew from American gigs, and before he withdrew from performing entirely, he still played occasional "low profile" jobs in Europe w/local (as in geographic, NOT as in quality) rhythm sections. One of these, from 1968 in Copenhagen, was captured in part on 2 Moon CDs, and another one, from 1967 in the Netherlands, I've just recently found out about. Does anybody have a complete listing of these appearances (personnel would be nice, but not essential) at their disposal? Failing that, do we have individuals in the house here who have partial knowledge about this, first-hand or otherwise? Confirmed existence of private recordings would also be nice to have, but again is not essential. I'm trying to get a better handle on this "winding down" period of Sonny, how long it lasted, how gradual the wind-down was, and what players he might have played with on these gigs. As always, thanks in advance!

See the post above yours for confirmation of that!

Getting roasted does that to you. But I fear we go off-topic...

"It's hard work, Mike. HARD work!"

Bingo!

Well, hey Jim, people who are out on a limb are usually too worried about falling off to notice that there's other people in the same predicament, sometimes even on the same tree. Having been out on a limb or three myself over the years, I don't begrudge the sentiment at all, although, having seen the rest of the tree (and who else is on it), I'm not inclined to make such statements myself (too much) these days. But I'm rapidly getting to be an old fart, so what do I know? Now, as far as McLuhan goes, he was one of the visionaries of our time, afaic. But since he was not a "jazz critic" (or even a jazz fan for all I know...), I'd not take umbrage at his definition of an artist. Viewed objectively, he's right, I think ("comfort in the present" needn't always manifest itself in creating the future imo). He was talking "artist" in the VERY broad sense. But being right, it's easy enough for anybody who wants to to appropriate that statement as a "defense". Sometimes they'll be right, and sometimes not. Depends on how it all shakes out (DAMN That tree! ), which, again we don't/can't know until it happens. Pretty much how I see it is that confidence in what you're into translates into being able to bring it into the world to at least some degree, w/o fear of getting pummelled (hey, that;s what scar tissue is for, to protect you in the future, right?). And it also translates into not fearing or feeling the compulsion to attack anything else that's different (older or newer). Because how it shakes out, as I see it, is that ther's only so many stories you can tell, period. That's the nature of the human condition. What IS unlimited is the ways to tell those stories - there's as many perspectives as there are individuals. New individuals from new times, new perspectives on the same old stories (aand just because the perspectives changes radically, and the form of the story follows suit, does not (no no no no NO!) meant that the story itself changes. It can't, unless the fundamental human condition does, And how long have we all been waiting for THAT to happen? Sure, there's going to be some radicalass teenagers bent on destruction, but that's the way it goes (and that's also an eternal story). Sometimes they succeed in their goal (and often enough blame somebody else for it when they've got nothing left), and sometimes they go on to become wise elder statesman. Sometimes they just give up (those are the ones you REALLY gotta watch out for - they'll try to take you down with'em...). And sometimes what at first appears to be destructive is actually a reconstruction of something that was about to die anyway. So the result is actually CONstructive. You just never know. But that's the game. Same as it ever was, same as it will always be. Let's play!

A valid concern, afaic.

And yeah, there is a lot of truly "new" music being produced that gets lumped together under the umbrella term "avant-garde". But since most of it involves elements of electronics and/or hip-hop and/or other technological elements outside of the traditional accoustic ones in one form another, and since most of it is decidedly non-linear, it's not likely to appeal to the average "jazz fan" of today. Which is cool, don't misunderstand me. But it kinda bums me out to think that there's "avant garde" fans and detractors alike who are still operating under the illusion/delusion that the territory plowed 40-45 years ago is still AVANT-GARDE. It ain't. Accoustic Ornette is mainstream, bygod. COLLEGE KIDS play that stuff these days (how well is irrelevant...)! Ayler's probably in more people's (not "jazz fans' but ALL people's) collection than is Grant Green. On and on. Not a lot of this music has gone on to great fame and fortune in the marketplace, but it's stuck around, and it's influence has been permanent. Peter Brotzzman is only "avant-garde" if you've missed out on the last few decades... Now, when Matthew Shipp deconstructs a Roy Clark song in real-time and production terms simultaneously and turns it into a group blowing vehicle AND fodder for a DJ remix, well, that's pretty damn new, and, yes, "avant-garde". For now, anyway. Will it have staying power and influence? That remains to be seen, but the peril and the thrill alike of living in the present is that you don't know how the story's going to end. We all know how Lee Morgan ends. So there's one less degree of "danger" in following his story and investing in it (although there's plenty more in finding out what that story really is...). Don't get me wrong, I have a pretty big investment in it myself, but I like a, uh, "diveersified portfolio" if you will. And Lee would be a "blue chip" - tried, true, reliable, and always rewarding. Risky as hell when the franchise was being built, but in terms of today, safe, but worthwhile. And vice-versa. I like that a lot. But... Matthew Shipp's (a great example of somebody who really is dealing with the "now" element of music-making) story is far from finished, so to invest in following his thing is risky in a way that doing so for the legends isn't. If Lee's a "blue chip", Matthew's a "high-risk, high yiled potential", or whatever the hell the investors terminology. Because you just don't know. You don't know what his next record's going to be like, you don't know who's going to be on it, you don't know if it's going to suck or be great, hell, you might not even know if you like it or not, much less if you'll like it 5, 10, 25 years from now. You just don't know. And i like THAT a lot too. Because I'm alive in the now just like he is, and I bet that he doen't know either, not truly. He's discovering every day just like the rest of us are (hopefully), and none of us really knows anything except what's already happened. Hey, if you did know, you'd not be living in the present, right? The only way to have all the answers is if the test has already been given, right? The past is a great place to be from, but a man could get killed trying to live there.

Anybody have any commetns on the switch from McCall to AkLaff? Personally, I feel that although AkLaff was/is a great drummer, that it became a different band with a different dynamic when McCall passed (well, actually it did that literally - went from Air to New Air), and that Henry might not have been ready to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, and moved on to the Sextet relatively quickly. But I sure like those two Black Saint sides by New Air.

It's the same gist as the one that says that "Great artists aren't ahead of their time, most people are behind theirs" or something like that. Uncomfortable as that might make some feel, and as often as the faddists fall by the wayside after the novelty wears off, I nevertheless believe it to be true.