JSngry

Eyes!

Still working on the smile thing, but I finally got a haircut.

Yeah, good stuff. Love it. The kind of thing that gives "middlebrow" a good name, I think.

I can tell you that the tape hiss is on the LP. I suspect that it's because this was a home recording and the equipment, perhaps even the actual tape iteself, might not have been of the highest quality. But that's purely speculation.

So are you saying that she's obscure even in Europe? And that I heard her on a college radio program in Texas? Man, life never ceases to amaze me...

Well, hey! Now reviewers are being held to an unattainable standard of perfection when reviewing books that attempt to meet an unattainable standard of perfection. Makes me glad that all I have to do is play. That's easy in comparison. Actually, I find reviews like Larry's most useful, because I'm not a "deep" expert, but I probably know more than the average fan (and lest that be read as arrogance on my part, let me add that so do most of the people who get into discussions like this in forums like this), so what I am looking for in a review of something like this is simple - is the item under consideraton going to prove to be a reliable source to turn to in order to learn more about what I don't already know when it comes time for me to want to learn it? And I figure, rightly or wrongly, that if a book screws up badly on what I already know, how/why should I feel comfortable turning to it for help with what I don't? Unless I sense some deep-rooted underlying agenda, when people who know more than me (or more accurately, people who know more than me AND have demonstrated what, to me, is an understanding of what it is they know that goes beyond mere recitation of facts) question things like the accuracy of both "simple" history & critical appraisal, I listen, even if it's only to "file away for future consideration" when formualting my own opinion further on up the road. Ignoring/disregarding people who know more than you is a good way to never learn, and I'm SO not into that. As for Collier, he might have more facts at his disposal than I do, but I've seen no indication whatsoever that he "knows" more than anybody.

This is indeed it, John. Thank you much! Thread has beeb retitled, and hopefully some of our members have heard this group: http://www.lj-records.se/mwendo.html Discussion/illumination/whatever by those who have would be most welcome!

Tonight on the KNTU show "Global Mix", I heard some recordings by a Sweedish quartet led by a woman whose name I swore I wouldn't forget, but did anyway. She played piano and keyboards, and she had a tenor player, bassist, and drummer. The group's name was (her name)'s (something). The DJ said that her music was totally unheard/unknown in the US, but that she had had released something like 17 (or was it 12?) albums of her own music, mostly on her own label, the name of which was two letters. The DJ thought that the first of the two letters represented her name, and the second that of the tenor player's name. I do remember that her last name ended in "-berg", "burg", "-borg", something with that sound. The music was very "modern", and not at all "jazz" in the traditional "American" sense. It was, however, very thoughtful, inventive, and full of feeling, and I enjoyed it immensely. The synthesizers at times approximated elements of 20th century "Classical" music, and at other times seemed to use the more "advanced" textural elements of Joe Zawinul's work as a starting point. The tenor player played in a somewhat typical "European" manner, at least tonewise, but I was taken by his use of space, as well as his willingness to play in "bursts" of ideas, rather than in long unbroken strings of notes. I realize that this is all very sketchy information, and I can probably get in touch with the DJ eventually (he only does the show once a week), but I thought I'd try here first. this was really interesting music, and apparently it has seldom, if ever, been heard on American radio. Any help in identifying this music would be greatly appreciated. As always, thanks in advance. EDIT: Thanks to John Couwenberg for figuring out who this was. Now - has anybody heard this music? Pretty interesting stuff!

Every time I listen to this, I ask myself, "What the hell is Coleman Hawkins doing on a session like this?", and none of the answers are pretty... Otherwise, ditto to Lon's evaluation.

This is a big can of worms to open, and rather than doing so, I'd suggest reading what Ira Gitler wrote about this subject in Swing To Bop. That's always struck me as the most realistic and objective view of this topic to be found in print. It ain't nearly as simple a matter, one way or the other, as some would like to think...

Fair enough, I suppose. I've been known to wash off a few turds to get to an occasional nugget myself, so I guess I'm in no position to argue further! All I can say, though, is that for me, Collier's shit is SO stinky, SO foul, and SO off-putting in its very nature that I feel as if what ever pieces of worth are buried therein are best looked for elsewhere, or else not important enough in the long haul/big picture to subject myself to the personal befoulment of wading through the effluvient sludge looking for them. But that's just me.

Sure, there's "something to it", but nothing even remotely worthy of the emphasis that Collier gives it. He's a descendant of the whole "jazz=sex-crimes" & "Reefer Madness" era. Fuck him, and good riddance when he dies, at least as far as the world of jazz goes. I'm as weary of the whole "hero worship" school of criticism as you are (although I freely admit to enjoying it when it's presented as nothing but, and especially when the object of the worship is somebody that I, too, admire), but I'll be damned if I'll give respect to any and all drivel that any idiot spews out just because it's attacking a sacred cow. That's nothing more than hero worship in reverse, and it's just as full of shit as serious criticism as what it purports to be running counter to. I'll not enjoy eating shit just because I don't like liver.

If you knew my TRUE feelings (and it sounds like you do...), you'll understand what I mean when I tell YOU to stop being coy about Collier. The man's maniacal obsession with pointing out character flaws and getting obsessive in the extreme about them (Trane's obviously real oral fixation somehow becomes grounds for questioning the musical merit of virtually all of his work , and the labelling of Bird as a "sociopath" is grounds for justifiable homicide in the parallel universe I'd like to inhabit for a quick minute, which I guess makes ME a sociopath too ) is the type of sensationalism that serves no purpose in serious criticism other than to foul the already less than pristine waters past the point of unpotability.

Mr. Collier is a writer who had outlived his usefulness the second he began to write. Just my opinion. He is also a truly dangerous writer, but only if anybody believes the bullshit he spews. Life being what it is, somebody probably does, but I can't prove that. Also just my opinion.

Brad - the listing above only covers Basie's second run on Verve, the one after leaving Roulette. BTW - missing from that list are the two Basie/Beatles albums. The first Basie/Verve association is usually considered the "classic" one. That would be the first priority for a Mosaic, I'd think, and I'm all in favor of it. There hasn't been one yet, has there?

I just got back from Houston. Hope I'm not too late.

Bill Gates has officially jumped the shark.

Oh, I'd KNOWN about it for the last year or so. Dusty Groove in particular was always plugging it. But I figured, "eh...retro-funk, it'll be good, but they got it right the first time around" etc. So I blew it off. But I kept getting sporadice reports form people I trust (some in this very community) that it was a bit better than THAT. I've actually been nibbling at it for about 6 months now. Finally, last week I just said "screw it" and went on ahead and bought it. I still wasn't expecting what I got, though...

See Brandon's first comment above...

I'm leaning that way myself, Joe. Great player, but some of those tunes you just can't get away from, no matter what. That was driven home listening to the new reissue of CAPTAIN MARVEL. STRONG material, the kind that melts in your mind, not in your hands, and that's not the only batch of such material he's written. Hell, Paul Gonsalves recorded "Windows"!

The VERY first thing was Cat Anderson w/Duke - the Bethlehem version of "Stomp, Look, & Listen" on some supermarket compilation album that a sophomore played for me my freshman yeaar of high school. That screech trumpet did something funny to my insides... But seeing as how I was already deep into Hendrix, BS&T, Otis Redding, James Brown, & Verve-era Zappa, once the seed was planted, it took took of rapidly in all kinds of different directions, and hasn't really stopped since. In the space of a little over the next year, I had heard late Trane, Ayler, Ornette, Shepp, Don Ellis, Maynard, Mingus, the MJQ, Bird, Mulligan, Konitz, Woody Herman, more Duke, and God knows what else, besides delving into my folks' records, some of which actually contained "Big Band" music of interest. The hits just kept coming, and I did nothing to deflect them. A victim of coimcumstance, that's what I am!

Yeah, but he was banging it around like pool table ball. Melvin's from Houston. The pool hall thing is environmental.

Mine is FRIENDS. It's just so... FRIENDLY!

Yeah, Foster's a fine player and all, but whenever I see him on a record, I look to see who ELSE is on it, if you know what I mean. Funny as it might sound, I actually much prefer the way he played in Miles' electric bands. More bounce.

The back and forth between Verve & Reprise is pretty interesting. Thanks, Mike!