JSngry

Here's a seemingly comprehensive list of all the Tristano school contrafacts: http://www.uni-duisburg.de/AVMZ/frohne/marsh/standard.htm

You mean it's not spiritual?

They own Mainstream too, and are fucking it over big time.

I'm amazed by Andy Williams sometimes. Now, I'll admit he did record some schlock from time to time, but there are also some jaw-dropping performances, IMO. With pipes like that, all he had to do was find that right combination of great song, great arrangement, and the right feeling. Jim, I don't know if you're already familiar with it, but if not, check out his version of "Maria" sometime. Wear headphones, if possible- you'll get a better sense of the dynamics that way... and you won't blow out any windows. Yeah, I hear you. That type of singing is an art unto itself, and Williams could do it quite well when whatever the neccessary mojos were in place. Looking at his records in the used bins, I'm inclined to say that he recorded more than "some" schlock, , but if there's a CD compilation of him doing all standards, or something similar, I could probably be persuaded to consider buying it. The whole thing about that kind of singing is to entirely serve the song, not personalize it into a vehicle (OOOPS, inadvertant Neil Diamond reference ), which is of course the direct opposite esthetic of jazz, blues, etc., and the interpretive techniques involved are pretty involved. I'm particularly struck by how these type of singers "unfold" their vibrato on held tones, and how they do they do the same on sustained vowel sounds. It's something that it's real easy to overlook until you notice it, and then it's easy to notice how artlesslt a lot of singers don't do it. And that's when the ones who do do it begin to stick out and shine. To return, hopefully back to some sense of relevance to this thread, it's been checking out that tpe of singing that has gotten me to thinking of "songs" and "songwriters" in what I suppose you could call more "classical" terms. It's just another dimension to music, that's all.

What's up with all this longitudinal research without any latitudinal research to balance it out? BALANCE!

What kind of medicine are we talking about?

The Second is my favorite, hands down.

Well, ok. I admit that I've gotten kinda dorky about how I view the whole matter of "songs" and "songwriters" the last few years or so, mainly due to an expanding awareness and appreciation of non-jazz singers who nevertheless deliver artful interpretations of the so-called Great American Songbook. So whenever I hear the phrase "great songwriter" or such, that's the perspective I reflexively come from, just because I've really developed an awareness/appreciation of the craft involved in that realm, a craft that is "different" (but indeed, not always better) from other types of songwriting, probably due to its roots in musical theatre. I mean, hey - I heard Andy Williams doing "On The Street Where You Live" on the radio last weekend, and it was superb. Just a few years ago, I'd have not gotten past "I have often walked" before switching the station. OTOH, the craft that Chuck Berry displays in his writing is every bit as connsumate as that that all those guys displayed in theirs, so yeah, it all IS good. OTOH again, though, how Chuck Berrys or Smokey Robinsons are there? Not very, that's how many. I still believe in practicing discernment and discrimination regardless of idiom. I'm just open to more idioms than I used to be. Now if we want to talk about a skillful use of words to effectively tell a story and the construction of chord sequences that reinforce the flow of the lyrical narrative, hell, you gotta talk about Bill Gaither. Corny as hell, sure, and the subject matter automatically limits the audience, but viewed objectively, the guy does what he does just about as well as it can be done. I'm no fan of the stuff, not even slightly, but chops is chops, and in his realm, he definitely has them. I've stumbled across some of those Homecoming shows whilst channel surfing, and when I don't automatically go on through, I'll hear one of his originals, and I'm consistently struck by how perfectly crafted his songs are for what it is they're aiming to do.

Yeah, I stay away from anything less than VG+ from them (unless I'm desperate and/or the thing is DIRT cheap), and even then it's kind of a crapshoot. But VG+ from them is almost always acceptable enough from a "play copy" standpoint. Whether or not the particular VG+ is consistently in line with the price they get for it is another matter...

Yeah, I hear you. Same thing with me and Art Blakey - those press rolls sound so late-50s/early 60s.

And both of you have yet to convince me that African cultural patterns and the way other, non-African-Americans perceive them do not play an important part of this! I'd not try to convince you otherwise, Mike. I agree with you.

I dunno, but that Bill Barron side is a b@tch!

Well, ok, all well and good, but you've not yet convinced me to consider the possibility that the traits in Monk's earlier music that you hear as signs of his supposed battle/coping/whatever with mental illness are anything other than genius in action. "Sundowning", depletion of coping skills and stuff, yeah, sure, no problem. But does it follow that when those coping skills erode and the person gets a bit wacky that they were ALWAYS mentally ill, just an accident waiting to happen? I don't think so, dude. That's kind of like saying that Roy Campanella was always a cripple and that the car accident reduced his coping skills to the point where he needed the wheelchair. Just seems to fall into the "hindsight is 20/20" category, as well as assuming a causal link between creativity and/or eccentricity and mental health that might be tempting to pursue, but to what end? Taking the Campanella analogy from the absurd into the practical, there's also the factor of the heavy drug use possibly triggering the erratic behavior. The stories in the Gourse book are of indicriminate pill popping - lots of speed and stuff - alpng with coke and stuff. All things with neurological implications as well as behavioral ones. Don't think that there's any question but that that's as likely a source as anything else for the eventual problems. You take a tightrope walker and subject him to repeated gale force winds, and sooner or later he's going to fall. I have no problem with the notion that Monk eventually became mentally ill. I still have a deep distrust of the notion that he was always mentally ill to one degree or another. On that one, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Bland, but effective, eh?

I got rid of it, sorta, but it keeps coming back. Entirely a nuisance, nothing more, but the regenerative powers of this thing intrigue me to no end. It might actually be easier to let it go ahead and infect my system. Maybe then the AdAware fix will find it like it seems to do for other people. As it stands now, it finds nothing, even when the file is clearly on my hard drive and has tried to install itself. I suspect some very crafty registry work is at play with this thing, and I'm not about to got there! Funny though, I've gotten into the happit of looking for the various files that I've found to be associated with it immefdiately upon booting, and very often the .pf file doesn't appear until after the .exe file gets deleted - and the .exe delete seldom is complete until a reboot. You think that maybe the delete somehow causes the .exe to morph into a .pf? Like I said, I don't know nuthin' about this stuff, but I love trying to figure it out anyway. One day, randreco's ass will be mine!

Good question, and ultimately it comes down to wholly subjective criteria, criteria which will inevitably reflect the tastes of the selector. Myself, I prefer to think of a "great song" as one in which conventions of melody and harmony are alluded to, even used, but also stretched, ignored even, when called for in service of the songwriter's "muse. In other words, a "great song" for me is one which is written by a songwriter who knows exactly what they are doing, and the end product is an imperceptible blend of consummate craft and inspired creativity. Also worth saying that my definition of "songs" and "songwriters" is pretty much limited to the realm of "popular" music, not jazz or classical composition, and that for me, "great songs" and "great music" are different things entirely, although there's often enough an intersect. Can you get more subjective than that?

Yeah, I may have... I may have even performed it a time or two...thousand Another great, defining moment. But is it a great SONG? (and could we consider the possibility that "great songs" are sorta NOT the point of stuff like this? That whether or not it's a great "song" is besides the point? That would be doing everybody a favor, it seems to me.)

Was it just my headphones, the general sense of disorientation caused by superimposing Ellington onto the environment I was in, or does PIANO IN THE FOREGROUND have moments of hard-panned-between registers stuff going on. There were moments when Duke was playing spread unisons, and I could have sworn it was two different pianos or something, just because the sound seemed so hard panned. But I was just trippin', most likely. Great record, though. Well worth the 30+ year wait, to put it mildly...

What are they, how do they work, etc. That randreco spyware thing keeps creating a prefetch file after I delete the .exe file, and THAT seems to be leading to the .exe file regenereating itself. But the prefetch file, I'm thinking, is probably being generated by a registry key, becaust the .exe file comes back AFTER I delete the .pf file, and the .pf file only comes back after I delete the .exe file and after I reboot the computer. The damn thing has never actually taken over my system, probably due to keeping current on all Windows/IE updates, etc, but it still TRIES to, and that's a nuisance. But by trying to trace its origins and such, I'm learning, or trying to. I know just enough about this stuff to know that I don't know squat, so if you guys could help me become a little less squattier, I'd appreciate it. So, how 'bout them prefetch files?

Oh no, you need at least three - FALLLING IN LOVE IS WONDERFUL, THE SOURCE (or LOST AND FOUND), and ALL THE WAY. The lack of love for Scott on this thread so far is disheartening (but not surprising, given Scott's iconoclastic take-no-prisoners style coupled with his semi-androgynous voice). I know we've got some pretty strong Jimmy Scott fans in these parts. Where y'all be?

A luscious feat it was, too. Might have to do it again....

indeed!

I'm a-wonderin' if some of these nominations might not a-be a-based on the power of individual performance and or recordings rather than the craft displayed in the actual songs themselves. A good/great record and/or a stirring anthem is not the same as a great SONG, unless somebody's moved the fences in quite a bit (or gone a step further and a-moved the game inside to a domed stadium where it's always airconditioned and never rains) in the afore a-mentioned 50 years. In all frankness, most pop songs of the 20th century aren't too much more than cleverly crafted ditties with lyrics that appeal to the common bond inside all of our soft little heads. It's usually a powerful rendition (or a series of renditions), that gets us to thinking "wow, this is a GREAT song!!!" Well, yeah, sure, ok. whatever. What it is is a great VEHICLE, which I guess you could argue is the same thing, but I'm a-thinkin' that maybe it's a-not. Nice tits, a good ass, and a curvaceous figure don't necessarily gurantee deep beauty. they just guarantee a certain, level of uh... "attraction", if you know what I mean, and most songs are like that. You can love 'em, even move in with them, but would you want them to be the mother of your children? And lest I be accused of getting in over my head in the shallow waters of elitism, let me say that for my money, "96 Tears" is one of the greatest events of the Rock Era, and that I'll put it up against any number of more "sophisiticated" pieces of music of the same time frame in terms of immediate impact, replay satisfaction, and a-getting inside your head forever in a good kind of way. But is it really that good of a SONG? You be a-tellin' me.

And I will respectfully disagree with this overly simplistic notion.

I don't know what shape his voice is in these days, but put me in the camp that thinks he's one of the all-time greats, no questions asked. Even if his voice is showing the signs of age (and I don't know that it is, that's just a rhetorical question), I'd think that his phrasing alone could carry the show. I'd definitely go see him, especially if Jamal's on the bill. The giants are a rapidly thinning herd, bordering on extinction, and those two are definitely giants. Whether or not you're going to "like" him or not is kinda besides the point at this stage of the game.

Thank you, Senator.