JSngry

If anybody can make those admittedly, uh, "idyosyncratic" lyrics work, it's Andy Bey. I just wish that Horace would lose the "neo-con" horn players and either go with vets (the sessions w/Red Holloway and/or Eddie Harris work just fine for me, and then some) or young guys who feel a little frisky. But he knows what he wants, I suppose, and his unease w/the Shaw/Washington front line, as well as the later Brecker brothers front line (I've heard a private tape where Michael, who I really don't care for as a rule, is just SCORCHING, but the word is that Horace put the kibosh on that kind of thing, which led to a parting of the ways) tells me that what he wants is not too much, if any, pushing of the envelope, even though his music is more than capable of standing up to some pretty extreme pushing. But hey, it's Horace Silver, ya'know? It's all good.

Agreed, but I think the song selection and pacing was intentional. sort of a "mood" album ala those of Tina Louise & Julie London, to use two totally disparate examples. Her singing is tentative in spots, but at times she shows a really good ear for harmony and phrasing. Like I said, far from perfect, but overall, there's been worse made by better. AND by worse that's been released. I'm just wondering if the decision to withold the album was for musical or "political" reasons. If her biographer doesn't know, who would? Oscar Peterson, perhaps?

Not to my knowledge.

Well hey. The first VSOP had the "they've been playing fusion, how has it affected their jazz playing?" allure, as well as the "you know, a lot of this stuff never really got played live" thing happening. Plus, it was "Freddie 'fronting' Miles' band, how's THAT going to be?" All of which, I think, were legitimate issues for players and listeners alike. But by the time this last thing rolled around, all those dynamics had played out and been resolved for all concerned. Now it was like "Miles died, let's get Wallace Roney and do the album/tour TRIBUTE thing" which is not even remotely the same dynamic. I've got a promo "interview" CD that was put out in conjunction w/the actual album, and it's the biggest bunch of nothing you'll ever hear - cliched soundbites clearly made to create a consumer-ready "image" of Miles and this music. Ho-fucking-hum.... It's not "bad", really, it's not. It just reeks with the stench of whoredom, and although that's a fact of life in the music biz, this is music I'd rather not have tainted by that kind of reality. But good luck on that one.

That's no limb, Dude, that's the trunk of Absolute Certainty!

"Che La Luna" shows up on these two Prima CDs http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=Ausjv7i24g76r and http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=Ausjv7i24g76r Both originally issued, I think, as LPs on Prima's own label, and both now available on CD. FWIW, I think that the Prima/Smith/Butera band was, at it's best, a fascinating encapsulation of a lot of the musical identity of the New Orleans of their time. They'd go from R&B shuflle to honking tenor to "Dixieland" and back w/o batting an eye. Don't let the novelty aspect of a lot of the material fool you - these folks were coming to play!

Actually, I think I could enjoy target shooting as a hobby, at least in theory. But after having spent a night playing a 4 hour gig 3 feet in front of John Nitzinger's fully cranked amp w/o any earplugs (I was told he would be on the OTHER side of the stagee...), my hands tremble uncontrollably at even the hint of loud noises...

Yeah, Dude, you should have blindfolded her first....

Is the sky really blue? It is what it is, and for whatever reason.

It works for me.

Surely we can find somebody to burn us some... (aw hell, who am I kidding? If I find a used copy, I'm buying it.)

The day of infamy, by the way, was 03/03/03. Good things come in threes... not! 3-3-3 is half of 6-6-6, so draw your own conclusions...

I think we should all celebrate the day they "ruined" the board (long before they closed it) by handing out free burns of the new Norah Jones CD to all of our friends, half of our enemies, and all strangers dressed in stylish footwear.

Very nice, intimate, sexy chanteuse date w/the Oscar Peterson group. Ms. Dandridge has a tendency to fall on the flat side of the pitch, but I've heard worse from "better". Other than a 45 of totally different, "Hollywood-y" material w/a large ensemble, this date was never issued until a few years ago. I'd think it was good enough to have come out in its time. Verve was certianly not averse to putting out albums by "nonjazz" singers. Sal Mineo comes readily to mind, for instance. Is there a story as to why it didn't? Hollywood politics, or did it just get "lost in the shuffle"? Certainly not a revelatory session or anything like that, but like I said, I've heard far worse from supposedly better talent. Very tasty song selection as well. I've only heard the music, don't own the disc. Apologies if this is covered in whatever liner notes accompany the disc.

It was out on Fresh Sounds a few years ago, which is how I have it. Very good stuff. The date w/Lockjaw Davis and Big Nick Nicholas is worth the cost of admission alone.

Ok, Warne - Keep an eye for when Chuck reissues ALL MUSIC. It's coming soon, lots of new material and spectacular sound. Besides that, start here: Mind boggling stuff, it is. Then go for the various Storyville & Criss Cross dates, and then go for it all.

That can easily be done. But honestly, I'm drained to the max right now. November & December were intensely packed with work and everything but sleep. I'm backed up with some pretty old things I need to get out/to. Remind me in a month or so, please. But - it's no problem.

The only other Prima title that I can think of that she might be getting confused about is "Angelina" (sort of sounds like "Alla Luna" if you're a member of the short-attention-span generation, but not as much as "Che La Luna"). Unlikely though, becasue "Angelina" is in English and is an "Italian novelty" type song. I'd not look too far past "Che La Luna". As somebody who spends a lot of time fielding requests from the public, I can tell you that the odds of her getting the title of something like this exactly right are pretty low unless she really knows her stuff.

Ok, here's how it works. Maybe. I suggested using the melody to a Monk song as a basis for improvisation, true. But when doing that, you've got to fit the melody to the changes, more or less, and the structure of the song, the number of bars and where within those bars the changes come, is going to remain constant, at least as a basis. So it's not like I'm saying "Ignore the changes and the structure". It's more a matter of what do you use as a starting point for your improvisation. Now, let's say that a player gets so deep into a tune that he/she evolves a new melody and new changes to go with it that spring from the original source but end up something else entirely. You now have a different song, especially if the # of bars is not the same as the original. Or if everything stays the same "foundationally", you could an abstraction of the original, which is what Steve Lacy does a lot of the time playing Monk, especially when he plays solo. But just becasue you allude to the melody of, say, "Well You Needn't" over a structure that has a different set of changes and a different # of bars, that doesn't mean you're playing "Well You Needn't", unless you're doing a deliberately stated re-/de-construction of it. All it means is that you've created a new piece, an original piece, whose melody is reminiscent of that of "Well You Needn't" . As far as musicians who change the changes but still call the song by the melody, it happens all the time and is called a "reharmonization", or "reharm" for short. It happens mostly, but not exclusively, on standards, and if you saw the original sheet music changes for most standards, you'd realize that it happens damn near every time out, especially today, when harmony has evolved far beyond that used by the majority of Tin Pan Alley songwriters. But it also happens on "jazz originals" too. I'm embaraased to say that at this exact moment I can't think of any obvious examples other than Miles' reharm of the bridge to the aforementioned "Well You Needn't". Monk goes to Db, Miles goes to G. The easiest place to hear this being done is in a piano trio, becasue for some reason most every pianist likes to reharm their standards, sometimes it's subtle, sometimes not. Try THIS ALBUM for a conspicuous and deliberate example of what I'm talking about. Hope this helps at least a little. If not, don't sweat it. Just enjoy what you hear and let it be.

I suppose, but I've never let it bother me.

Pete Rose deserves some kind of documentation in the HOF because of his records, but defintiely membership. The guy was a prick as a player, and has evolved into a full-fledged dick post-retirement. Commision a 1:32 Aurora model of Charlie Hustle running to first base, another of him on the phone to his bookie, hang them side by side with some fishing line in some secluded hallway in Cooperstow, and be done with it, I say.

Don't have one, don't want one, don't need one, but have absolutely no opposition whatsover to responsible gun ownership and usage.

As far as owning it, it's for completists only. As far as listening to it, I checked it out once, and that could very well be it. Has been so far. Nothing, and I do mean nothing on here you haven't heard before and better elsewhere. Even though they "invented" this style, it just doesn't sound real here. Although the old VSOP bands always had a "retro" thing happening, and a little bit of "role playing" going on, there was still an element of freshness to the stuff overall. That's not the case here. Too much time passed, too many new directions, whatever. Here it sounds like they just don't have their hearts in it AT ALL and are whoring out by playing the style without meaning it even a little. Not a bad record, to be sure, but certainly an abominable one. Save your money and buy some burgers and wait to defacate them. The results will certainly be more genuine and sincere than A Tribute to Miles(Qwest)

Thanks again! Learn something every day if you ask the right people.

Hey, no problem. Seemed in the 70s like he had a new album out every day and a half or so, and after a while, that just got to be his sound, if you know what I mean. To me, that kind of thing is just the "sound of McCoy", it's the McCoy that I first experienced contemporaneously, and his work of the last 20-25 years has largely sounded "retro" to me by comparison. Great, but a step back into a more "general" territory in terms of ensemble sound. No matter. It's a killer side, period!