JSngry

Yeah. It's MY-T-FINE indeed.

Cat could definitely play! Ain't he on some of the earlier Gerald Wilson things too?

I think Land's mother took ill and Harold wanted to tend to her. Not sure what Teddy's trip was. At least he got captured on record w/the group, that GNP thing.

Rick Holmes was a popular L.A. disc jockey of the time who can be heard briefly on Elvin's Lighthouse album doing some announcing. You GOT to hear the Zodiac thing (actually, there were 2! - one by Cannonball and one by Nat)) - black light poster and Champale should come packaged along w/the album, along with an option for shag carpeting.... :D I agree that both of the Cannonball/Holmes projects have some pretty cool music going on underneath the surface. Somtimes you gotta REALLY work on blocking things out to get to it, but it's definitely there.

Unless I'm totally off on all this, Land did tour for a while, but had to return/remain in L.A. for family reasons, necessitating his resignation. Edwards apparently didn't want to leave LA in the first place, thus Land's getting of the gig.

Looks to me like there's more than pictures being lifted in that image...

HUGE fan of Cabell's work on ACCENT ON THE BLUES (my vote) here, based on the LP version (how I came to know this album back in ye olden daze), a bit less so of his other work w/Patton, including the AOTB CD bonus tracks. Why? Easy - a totally natural swing, a totally natural tone, a complete lack of stress in his playing, some of the funkiest, bluesiest inflections heard on record for quite a while before or after, a sense of how to work within his technical limitations that bespeaks a rare musical intuitivity, a knack for hitting the right note at exactly the right time w/o even a hint of overplaying or doubt, and yet again, that TONE! You can sum all that up in one word - soul. Marvin Cabell on AOTB is as soulful a motherfucker as I've heard amywhere. Them chops was still clearly in the developmental stage, but to carp about that technical shortcomings at the expense of overlooking such pure soulfullness on a John Patton record, of all places, is high irony indeed! Check out Marvin Cabell on "Villiage Lee" and tell me that this was NOT one HUGELY soulful motherfucker! Cat wrote some good tunes too, icing on the cake. Intonation probelms? Nah - there's a whole way of "hearing" that comes out sharp in terms of "conventional" pitch. I've long suspected it's a carryover from so-called "African temparment", but have no proof. Still, you hear it in a LOT of "unschooled" African-American music almost as a matter of course. There's more to it than so-called "bad intonation, of this I'm sure. Besides, America used to be full of Marvin Cabells - brothers who came up learning the music on the street and in the clubs and who often had their souls together a LOT more than their chops. Some went on ahead and made up the difference, some KINDA did, and some never did, but continue(d) to play anyway, just because. The 60s & 70s found so many guys playing in R&B horn sections on and off the road going through exactly this process, and so did the local organ combos, while they existed. Most of them never got anything as "high profile" as a Blue Note date (although John Manning did), but Lord knows they were out there, moreso than many of us might realize, propulgating the sound of the soul of the street. Marvin Cabell, I suppose, is one of those guys you either get right away or never do, and there's no real "right answer". But I dug him the first time I heard him, just as I did ACCENT ON THE BLUES. We used to get REALLY stoned and listen to BN sides on a regular basis back in them days, and AOTB was always a fave for that deep, DEEP groove, the way Cabell rode it with such confidient, unstudied nonchalance, and for Leroy Williams unformed yet undeniable hipness. And, of course, Patton his ownself. Many years have passed, and the system is relatively toxin-free these days, but it's an album that STILL gets me high, and Marvin Cabell is still one of the major reasons. This probably TRULY explains nothing, but there it is anyway!

Yeah, the words "free" and "wife's birthday" don't go together in ANY context...

Yeah, like maybe the kids. What if the boys looks like Krall and the girls look like Costello? Seriously, I'd like to hear Krall take a crack at some of Costello's ballads. There's some good stuff there for her "icy cool" style that might work a helluva lot better than all the standards she's inadvertantly been denaturing over the years.

I can't think of basson withouth thinking of a mid-50s RCA album by bassonist Stuart McKay called REAP THE WILD WINDS that is jazz only in the most extreme foo-foo "West Coast" manner, but which features a version of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" that is delightfully bent, including a vocal chorus that displaces the lyric by beginning it with the words "Take Me" on beats 5 & 6 (of a 6/8 bar ; it'd be beats 2 & 3 if you're counting 3/4) with a iii-ii pickup. The result is that the lyric finishes in a definitive "drop the other shoe, dammit!" place. Try it at home (if that description is too technical, just try singing the usual melody, only begin it with the the word "Out" rather than "Take", and you'll end up the same way). Thanks to the late Buzz Mezzner for making that one of the many of his albums he brought (and left) to his band directing gig. Music education indeed! Haven't heard Rabinowitz, but if he's comparable to Pizzi, then he MUST be a freak! (that's a compliment...) Frank Tiberi plays a bit of bassoon too, or did anyway. And whoever it was played the bassoon on "Saeta" has my undying admiration. I've never heard such soulful music out of the instrument in a "concert" setting.

Regular airing of this new release on KNTU prompted a purchase and I have to say that this one is a monster. Along with Von Freeman's THE IMPROVISOR, easily the best "straight-ahead" jazz album I've heard in many, MANY a year, driving home the point (as if it needs driving home...) that if you don't live it, it can't come out of your horn. Teddy lived it, and it DOES come out of his horn. Gloriously so. You can name that tone in one note, and if that ain't one of objects of the game, perhaps THE object, then I don't know what is. No signs of health problems either. If anything, the man sounds like he's going for broke knowing that his time is limited, and the chops were all still fully functional. I'll go out on a limb and say that this should be in most everybody's collection sooner or later. Carpe Diem. Teddy darn sure did.

Keep in mind that the Summer comes before the Fall...

The last few years I've been hearing some underlying tonal, harmonic, and rhythmic similarities between Gonsalves and Lockjaw Davis, similarities that are every bit as strong as their obvious differences. What gets me is how these two are such obvious admirers of Ben Webster, and do the Ben thing without really sounding like Ben at all. That's the way it should be done! And what is it about aome tenorists who delve into the Websterian tonal pallate that makes them prone to such harmonic outness? Here again, Jaws and Gonsalves are prime examples - what they do to changes sometimes defies any logical explanation. It's as if Ben's malleable tone opened up something in them that allowed them to take it one step further, from just bending and worrying a note to actually coming up with some new pitches outside the chord. Go figure. And check out LOVE CALLS.

Well, it's not that Carter CAN'T paly funky or lay down a solid vamp that grooves, it's just that I don't hear him doing it here. Might have been an off day for him, maybe he just didn't feel it, maybe the personal vibe in the studio got funky, who knows? Stuff happens. My bad in stating that Freddie Waits was on the unreleased session as well. Of course it's Morris/Muhammed. But what does it tell you that Idris Muhammed cops a better groove on an Andrew Hill date than Freddie Waits? Muhammed is a fine, often great drummer, that's not what I mean, but Freddie Waits was a FIREBREATHER, and I don't even smell smoke here. Regarding Ervin, I think that Chuck's (?) comment somewhere else a few weeks ago to the effect that Booker Ervin's accompanists made him sound interesting (or something like that) comes into play here. I don't necessarily take that as a slight (not a full one, anyway), becasue it takes a really confident player to hang w/a rhythm section like Byard/Davis/Dawson or the Mingus/Richmond whirlwind. But the fact remains, Booker's gonna play what Booker's gonna play, and if the accompaniment doesn't offer either some active rhythmic interplay or a REALLY strong groove (as was the case w/the Parlan/Tucker/Harewood trio), Booker's not gonna do anything different, and given his penchant for exclamatory playing, if there's no heat backing him up, as I feel is the case here, the net result is akin to a Sanctified preacher delivering a sermon to a Vermont Espiscopalian congregation - one guy's trying to get all worked up, but he's in it all alone, and the void is uncomfortable to experience. I actually feel the same way about Lee's work on this album, albeit to a much lesser extent. Still, the "crackle" that makes Lee Morgan such an unforgettable voice seems missing on this date, and I don't hear it as him just being "mellow". That, of course, is entirely subjective though. The thing about GRASS ROOTS that intrigues me, though, is that it was Hill's "comeback" album in a sense, made and released after a stretch of for whatever reason "failed" sessions. One wonders how much control Hill gave Wolff on this album, and how comfortable each of the players were with that control,especially seeing how the earlier session, which to my ears DID have some spunk, was rejected. Who knows what tensions were in place as the players tried to make a "keeper" for Hill and Wolff? Maybe Hill really, REALLY wanted an album with what he perceived as "popular appeal" and made that known going into the session. Maybe the "big chill" was there as a result of everybody consciously playing it safe for just that reason. Or maybe not. Maybe the original GRASS ROOTS is one of those albums that I just don't "get" the way it was intended to be got. Seems like enough people like it well enough, so that just might be the case!

Hmmm...I've got some Wallace Roney albums that I bought just to hear Geri Allen, so this is a rule I'd have to bend on occasion. Then there's Louis & Lil, Stanley & Shirley, John and Alice... And what about T-Bone Burnette & Sam Phillips? Or John & Michelle Phillips for that matter? Jackie & Roy? (not my bag, but still...) Now if you're talking Steve & Irene, count me IN!!!! :D:D:D

Yep. Classic. And not for the naive.

What's the deal with Charles Sullivan's Strata-East album? Seems like ther was a "custody battle" between the label and Sullivan after the label folded, with Sullivan winning and releasing the album on Inner City. Did the label retain rights to sessions that were self-produced/financed as a matter of course, or did some artists in fact get financial backing to one degree or another from the label itself?

Heard it, don't have it. It's interesting, as are all those American Clave releases. I also have him reading one piece on a Broadside LP called NEW JAZZ POETS. We used a slight sample of it on WELCOME TO THE PARTY, on "Hip Bop". Listen closely and you'll hear a voice repeating the phrase "Burning lakes of fire". That's Reed. The jazz/spoken word thing was a small but interesting part of the Strata-East scene. Various albums had passages of poetry and/or spoken word, usually of a political/Nationalist bent (see ALKEBU-LAN) and Jayne Cortez did a REALLY interesting album for S-E accompanied only by Richard Davis called CELEBRATIONS AND SOLITUDES. If it ever gets reissued, snap it up, if only for "How Long Has Trane Been Gone?".

That was the intention, no doubt, but I'll go out on a bit of a limb and say that the Leroy Vinnegar/Donald Dean tandem would have served the purpose MUCH better than the Carter/Waits one, on THAT day anyway. (on that note, and off topic altogether, rememberering that "who would you like to have heard Lee Morgan play more with" thread. how about Les McCann, in Les' less guarded/less commercial moments? I'd mention SWISS MOVEMENT, but that might be a dis to Benny Bailey, and that would be wrong!) And by all means, DO disagree. Half the fun of having a strongly held opinion (and on this one, it is VERY strong) is in the bluster and faux-"superiority" of expressing it! It's fun to be a blowhard sometimes!

Well, we have a difference of opinion here, Lon. I'd never really cared for GRASS ROOTS in its original form, and its all because of Ron Carter. One of the most appealing things to me about Hill's music has always been its rhythmic dynamism, the constant churning underneath. The original session just dooesn't have this - it's the most rhymically static Hill I've ever heard. This has always perplexed me, since Waits is a great drummer, always interactive, and more than willing to stir the pot. The choice of Booker Ervin seemed a bit "off" to me too, but it wasn't him that caused me such unease over the years, it was just how the whole thing just laid there and didn't move. A very un-Hill like trait. (and, Lee & Booker are BOTH players whose strengths come out over an active rhythm section rather than a static one, Booker in particular) After a couple of years of trying to figure out what was missing, I finally heard it - Ron Carter is making no attempt whatsoever to interact. He's just contributing these really limp bass lines and is content to let them flounder flaccidly. Musta been a bad day, or a bad vibe, because in those days, Carter was involved as a player. But on this one... Just because you're vamping, no, ESPECIALLY if you're vamping, that's no excuse for letting the pulse go all to hell, which is what Carter does here - there's just no "OOOMPH" in his playing, at least not to my ears (and feet). The time stays cool, but the BEAT...Waits sounds like he occassionally tries to get a thing going, but Carter just seems oblivious to anything but his own little zone of doing nothing. Every time I hear it, I get more and more frustrated, and wish that somebody would have reached over and slapped Carter out of his stupor, or at the very least given him a bump or two. There's really no excuse for being THAT listless in THAT company. So for years, I wrote GRASS ROOTS off, pulling it out every few years or so just to see if there was something there I had missed. Alas, there wasn't. Then, shortly after I had discover the BNBB, I wrote a post expressing my disappointment with the album, and some kind soul responded that I should check out the CD version instead of the LP version, because the CD had a whole 'nother session that might, MIGHT cause me to reconsider. I had kind of lapsed on the whole BN reissue trip then, so wasn't really aware of it, but saw Woody Shaw and Jimmy Ponder in the same band, an ANDREW HILL band at that, and thought, "Well, THAT'S something you don't see every day!" and checked it out. Long story short, I have a significant preference for the unreleased session to the "official" one. It's got all the spunk and verve that it's predecessor lacks. Freddie Waits sounds like Freddie Waits here! And no wonder - Reggie Workman does everything Carter didn't. He plays the vamps but doesn't get straightjacketed by them and keeps things lively and frisky, the way a good Anrew Hill session ought to be. I really wish I could say that the original GRASS ROOTS album is one of those that grew on me little by little over the years, but it just hasn't. There's really no "cutoff point" for such things, of course, but it's 25 years now, and if anything, I like it LESS now than ever, having heard, roughly, what the album COULD have been like. A very rare misjudgement on Mr. Wolff's part, I must (reluctantly) conclude. But at least he didn't erase what he didn't use!

You mean there's bootleg DVDs to look forward too now? Damn, I'm gonna have to work 3 jobs now...

There's little to choose from, but check out DRUMS UNLIMITED, and even the two impulse! albums, PERCUSSION BITTER SUITE and IT'S TIME.

So ya' think you know colors, eh? Nah - THIS guy knows colors!

You guys are making me blush! I'll try and answer e-mails tomorrow, ok? Time's gotten tight again.

Yep. A third, fourth, and fifith, too. Several hundred listenings are in order. several thosuands, perhaps. As John L noted, there is a LOT going on in this music, none of it readily apparent on first listen. At least it wasn't for me. I never disliked it, but it took me several years of bothe musical and audio growth to begin to get a handle on it. It ain't easy music, that's for sure. Stockhausen-meets-India-meets-"There It Is-era James Brown, all filtered through the Miles/Teo expereience is KIND of what it is, and that for damn sure ain't easy, nor commerical. "Red China Blues" is commerical. You may never actually LIKE it. But I'm the type that believes that you should at least know as exactly as possible what it is you don't like when it's musicians of this caliber and music that has had such a profound, albeit stelath, influence. This is one album where the essence is DEFINITELY beneath the surface. WAAAAYYYY beneath...