JSngry

Laugh all you want, but if those buggers are anything like the fire ants that are slowly but surely taking over here, it ain't funny!

Yeah, many of them attorneys!

What if you get killed in a car wreck during the last week of September?

Lord knows the man deserves this kind of recognition. But what I want to know is who he had pushing for him through the whole political process that surely accompanied this award, and how llong the whole process took. They don't just pull names out of a hat for these things you know...

Money aside, would you rather play "Minnie The Moocher" every night or "Mood Indigo"? Egos and such aside, I'd think that nearly every musician who played in Duke's band knew that it was a special thing, not just another gig. Maybe even a blessing, if you believe in such things. Those kind of work situations are incredibly rare, so I'd think that everybody put up with all the extramusical bullshit for as long as they could (and for some it was longer than others) just to be a part of that blessing.

This well-beaten horse has long been dead, and I'm getting there. Good night, Gracie.

It has been promised (or at least held out as attainable) for centuries. Some believe it is attainable, some scoff at the notion. You pays your money, you takes your chances... But don't you think that "a multiple-consciousness artist, with an emphasis on the consciousness of it all" (an assessment with which I agree 100%, btw), is going to eventually look to find the unity, the "consciousness of it all", within/amonst all the multiples? Warne Marsh springs to mind as somebody who DID find it, but lord knows, his was a career out of the limelight, to put it mildly. And that relative obscurity, intentionally imposed (somewhat, I'm guessing) or due to/caused by personal factors (moreso, I'm again guessing) might have been all for the better, at least as far as finding what he was looking for, which I do believe was "the consciousness of it all". Maybe the lesson is that the puzzle is better business than the solution!

There's a quote from a DB interview with Rollins, late80s/early 90s, maybe, where he is asked to define jazz, or some such inane questions. His answer is something like, "All I know is that what I hear in Louis Armstrong is what jazz is." That's a rough, probably more than 50% innacurate quote, but the gist is true. My first reaction to this was that Sonny was playing the neo-con card, but further reflection leads me to believe that what he meant was deeper than that. That the essence of life as expressed through this music is ultimately the joy. Not the "ecstasy" or any of that mess, just the JOY of being alive and doing what it is that you love to do. Now, that's kind of an antiquated notion in these days of slaying the dragon and such, but maybe... Sonny as Louis Armstrong for the late 20th/early 21st century? A once bold and innovative force who for years simply goes about doing what they do w/o any expectations of getting somewhere other than where they already are, but letting the personal joy of that "there" be enough for them, if not for many fans and critics who grunmble that it's not "real" anymore? If you don't hear the joy, then no, obviously not. Otherwise, stranger things have happened. Sonny has yet to sing, however....

What can I say? We hear two different things. Vive le diiferential!

Bummer. Inevitable, but still a bummer.

Well, ask yourself this - if you went to the top of the mountain, saw all there was to see, and decided to come back down, wouldn't your first reaction most likely be a letdown? Maybe even a bit of depression, disillusionment, whatever? Well, sooner or later, you've got to come to grips with the fact that you're not one of the "lucky" ones who saw god and then proceeded to leave the building to take a gig on another plane, and that you're going to have to get on with the business of living out the rest of your life in a sane, functional manner, or at least as sane and functional as you can. I doubt that this would be an easy thing to reconcile one's self to in a quick, non-linear fashion. Surely there would be all sorts of experiments to find a way to "fit in" with your new surroundings, and some would work better than others. but none would get you back to the mountaintop. But I'd also think that after the requisite-or-more amount of soul-searching that you'd eventually, if you really DO want to live a sane and functional life for your remaining days, that you'd find what it is that gives you joy. and in Sonny Rollins' case, I believe that that is playing the tenor saxophone. NOT looking for new heights every time out (that WOULD drive you crazy, because as we all know, you can't go home again), but just playing because it is the one true joy in your life, the way that you achieve that metaphysical/spiritual/whatever state of "completeness. Just playing the damn thing as often and as well as you can. And THAT is what I listen for in Sonny Rollins today - not some new innovations or discoveries, but just that JOY in being alive and playing the damn tenor, because, really, that's what it's come down to for him, I think - this is what I do. And I DO hear that joy quite often, sometimes in the records (and sometimes not, but Sonny's recording history has ALWAYS been a spotted one), and/but more often in the live performances I've had the pleasure to hear recordings of. Now of course, Sonny having been to the mountaintop and all, sometimes I hear him reminiscing about what it was like up there, and sometimes I hear him sounding really bummed that he came back down. Is it realistic to expect otherwise? Is it realistic to expect somebody who's already seen all that they can see to keep trying to see more than all, if what they want to do is live a sane and functional life down here with the rest of us? Granted, it's awfully tempting to want/expect that, but it's also easy to say when it's not US that it's being asked of. I'd rather just let the man be, let him pursue his joy in his work, hope that he finds it as often as he is able, and continue to listen closely to what he says, because what he might drop as an offhanded aside might have more relevance to the big/long-term picture than some whiz-kid's latest innovations. No, I don't expect, even WANT to hear Sonny climb the mountain any more. Once is enough for anybody, don't you agree? All I want to hear from him is that life is still good, and that playing the tenor is still good. Maybe that playing the tenor IS the best that life has to offer. Are those "low" expectations of a man who once routinely levitated (musically) and displayed an ability to routinely exist in multiple dimensions simultaneously? Well, maybe, but maybe not. When the joy is as powerful as it sometime is when it comes from Rollins' horn, I'd say that asking for anything more would be asking him to do something that I should probably be doing myself. He's already done it once, and I've done it....uh.... NEVER (had a few trips up the mountain, occasionally made it up part of the way, but that's been it so far). If the lesson of all of this is that climbing the moutain is good, getting there is even better, but after THAT you gotta work for the rest of your life, and so you might as well work at doing something that you love, that "this is what I do", no irony or slyness intended, then so be it. It's not a very Romantic lesson. to be sure, but it damn sure is REAL. For those of us who dream, probably in vain, of someday getting to that mountaintop, the lesson that there's joy, a deep, fundamental joy, in the work itself, and that a life spent in that joy is better than a life spent without it is not a trivial one. Nor is the lesson that that joy is not always going to be at your immediate disposal, and that sometimes you just gotta go ahead and get through the shit to get to the shower. Yeah, you can probably learn the same lesson from a coal miner. But how may coal miners can play "Cabin In The Sky" like Sonny does on +3? THAT'S the difference, and a huge one it is.

Cumulatively, or for an individual album? For the latter, I'd guess Donald Byrd, for 1972's BLACK BYRD. Cumulatively, as of 1975, I'd guess Jimmy Smith.

Nothing to say except that A)Sonny Rollins still matters to me, mediocre records and all. I still hear a story being told, even if it is often VERY much "between the lines", and it's a story that I continue to find riveting, warts and all; and B)Von had an "advantage" (a knowingly ironic word to be sure) in staying "local" until well into middle age. All things considered, it's been best for everybody that it worked out that way, no? No need to gild the statue. It's real gold, always has been, always will be. As for maintaining it, I say let it be what it is, and let it do what it will do. Venus Di Milo with no arms is still Venus Di Milo. The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see. And if all that he could see was merely the other side of the mountain, well, hey, he sees it from the perspective of one who had to get to (and over) the mountaintop first. Not all mundaneness, such as it is, is equal... Am I being irrational about all this? Maybe. Maybe not. Don't know, and as of now, don't really care. Someday, perhaps. All I can tell you now is that the guy still gets me. I offer no defense other than that.

Now THAT'S a interesting album if ever there was one. One of the great "unknown" Wayne Shorter appearances, along with that Buster Williams side on In+Out.

Lundvall is on record as saying that Baker will do a "jazz" (or maybe it was "standards") album for BN.

Probably a Ducal punishment Seems he was not the only one with this tactic - Basie applied it, too... One of the funniest Ellington moments is on ALL STAR ROAD BAND VOLUME 2, I think it is, where Hodges is most likely waaaaaay drunk. Duke calls on him to play these ballads, snd the poor guy is WOBBLY like a mofo. Not enough for the spectators to notice, but if you know Rabbit, you can hear that he's struggling just to stay between the lines, much less drive straight.

"Did You See Harold Vick" "Clear Cut Boogie" "Island Lady" "Echo Side Blue"

You say that as if it's a bad thing. I disagree. Totally. Things spread as you get older, trust me. A tone should be no exception. I really do NOT like "today's" tenor sound, which is all tight and so highly focused and devoid of depth that, yes, it cuts with laser beam precision, but it leaves no residue, in either the ear or the soul (my opinion). Like a laser beam, it comes strongly, but it leaves just as quickly. BOO! Give me a FAT sound, one that's been lived in, one that fills the entire room with its breadth (not it volume) and leaves a big glob of character on everything it comes into contact with, even tangentally. It's a TENOR, God's instrument, not a little analog sound generator that puts out generic beams of sound. Put someting into it or else switch to alto.

Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Arthur Blythe, Albert Ayler, Fathead Newman, Duke Ellington, Paul Desmond, David Sanborn, Kenny Dorham, Bill Dixon, Charles Mingus, Plas Johnson....

Anybody who's truly a "heavyweight" has their own, readily identifiable, tone. You can be a great player w/o it, but you're not worthy of consideration for inclusion in "the chosen ones" if you don't have a tone that is yours and yours alone. The entire purpose of this music is (or used to be, anyway) to speak in your own voice, to tell your own story about your own life (and how that life relates to any/everything else), and unless and until you have developed your own tone, you're still speaking in somebody else's voice to one degree or another. Doesn't mean you're not a bad mutherphukker, it just means that you ain't all the way there yet. And yes, there are players with lesser "skills" who nevertheless have their own tone, and I personally prefer them to more skilled players with less personal tones. Skills is the result of physical labor, anybody can get them if they put in the time and do the work, but tone is the result of physical labor and soul-searching, of finding out who you are. Ideally you get both, eventually, but this ain't a perfect world... That's just my criterion, my opinion, but that's the way I was raised, jazzically, and the people who instilled it in me staked their life on it. I guess I do too.

On the other hand, I think the matter of "residual Africanisms" (my phrase) is a very valid one, and not just for jazz, either. Cultural "habits" don't die away, they morph. They do like the people who have them do - change form, acculturate, assimilate, etc. But they don't just vanish w/o a trace.The only way that happens is through a total immersion in/absorbtion of a different culture. And even then, they might take a generation or two (or more) to really disappear. And I don't think that Thelonious Monk of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA took that route...

Love the white neckstrap, too. Works quite nicely with the rest of the ensemble.

And I don't mean that as an "excuse" or anything. I just mean that the way Sonny plays is a lot more physically demanding than some might realize. It's a miracle/blessing/whatever that he's still out there doing it. I heard the tone start to "hollow out" on GLOBAL WARMING, and it had me wondering if maybe the end was near. Luckily, it wasn't, and still isn't, hopefully. But it's WORK, genuine hard physical labor, to play like Sonny does. How Von Freeman does what he does at HIS age is even more miraculous....

74 is old, especially in tenor years...

My guess re:the feud is that one egomaniacal junkie white jazz superstar (not playing the race card, but to be a white jazz superstar in those days was a whole 'nother sociological thing than it is now) is twisted enough. Put two in the same room... And IIRC, neither Getz nor Baker got along well w/Art Pepper, another egomaniacal junkie white jazz superstar. These three all made beautiful music but were basically phukked-up human beings, probably with not a little self-loathing involved somewhere in the mix. You take somebody like that, they see somebody who is VERY much like themselves in a lot of ways, and the self-loathing (and fear, which goes back to the white thing - a big part of being a white jazz superstar back then was the whole "that white boy's got SOUL!" thing, and you're really supposed to be UNIQUE in that regard, but here's somebody else who shows you that you're not TOTALLY unique, so may you're a fraud, or he is, or you BOTH are, so here comes the self-laothing again...) goes off the meter, both inwardly and outwardly... Shouldn't you be asking Dr. Freud about stuff like this?