JSngry

Dug Clapton w/Mayall & Cream. Since then, I'll take "Lay Down Sally" and the like, but only on the radio. Blues? No doubt the guy is sincere, so I give him that. Sincere and/but harmless. He's there if you want him, and if you don't, he won't hurt you by being there. He never slapped my momma or pissed on my carpet, and I haven't bought any of his records since the days of Cream, so I guess we're even. Whatever that means... People ragged about Marvin Gaye being on a Blindfold Test, and here we are, in the Artists section no less, 4 pages into a seemingly serious discussion about ERIC CLAPTON? Some of my best friends are white folks, including my parents, but jezzuskhrist we some weird motherfuckers sometimes...

Buddy's hardcore devotees are quite rabid and tend to stick to themselves. There's also a lot of them, but you'd not know it unless you went into their world. Maynard's fans are a lot like that too. Those of us who can take or leave either one of them depending on the item in question tend to not dwell on them, because the choice is usually "leave", or at least "remain indifferent". But there are a not insubstantial number of people who really, REALLY dig these guys. Interestingly, though, they tend to not mingle in the realm of small-group jazz as a rule. Whole 'nother world, that of the "big band fan"...

Indy. Manning comes to play, and does.

Titans. McNair comes to play, and does.

Pack.

I'm going w/Carolina. Dallas has learned how to be a winner, but not how to stay one. Yet.

I don't "get" Harrell either. Respect him, just don't get him.

Occupational hazard... Seriously, I'm fascinated by Thorne. The RCA album mentions a "strong classical backgrouns" and him being " a former symphony musician who was drawn to the work of the most advanced contemporary composers as well as to jazz", but that's it. I know from private conversations that Thorne kind of "went spiritual" in later years, but I've been able to find nothing of his background. Anybody got anything?

I see no trick here. I took that picture 25 years ago, before I met LTB. I didn't realize it had survived. Oh well...

God knows I hate Toby Keith at least as much as anybody else, but to give the devil his due, his road band, which is drawn primarily from the local Dallas talent pool, includes both African-Americans and horn players in a music that traditionally has little use for either. From what I hear, his pay scale is incredibly generous, as are the accomdations he insists on for his band. The guy's making beaucoup bucks, and he's spreading it around at least a little bit. But, jeez, is he the most irrtiating SOB in Country music today or WHAT?

Larry, is this something you could elaborate on? Besides the "personality conflicts", how much of this tension between "pushing out" and "holding in" existed at the time amongst the players of roughly this generation that you knew? FWIW, I think that Thorne's playing on the RCA album is incredibly ahead of tis time, getting into Gary Peacock territory before Peacock did? Where did Thorne "come from" in terms of experience and attitude?

One of the cuts on my recent Blindfold Test that seems to have stirred up some curiosity is The Joe Daley Trio playing "Dexterity", from his RCA album THE JOE DALEY TRIO AT NEWPORT (1963). Daley and his band (Russell Thorne on bass & Hal Russell on drums) seem to have been into sommething rather unique if this album is indicative - a music firmly based in hard bop, yet one that gladly (and naturally, it feels like to me) welcomed Ornette Coleman's liberation from the rigid strucutres of song-form jazz. These guys both played "with" form, and "played with" form, if you know what I mean, a very attractive "middle ground" between conventional structures and total freedom. Daley apparently was a teacher of legendary status in Chicago for several decades, but his recording history was incredibly spotty. The RCA album, one cut on a Charlie Parker Memorial Concert album recorded in Chicago, and a duet album with Rich Corpolongo that seems to focus on free improvisation and electronics (I've yet to hear it). I know that Larry Kart & Chuck Nessa have stories to tell of this man and/or the trio that made the RCA album, so I'll solicit input from them. But any discussion of Daley (in or out of the context of the Thone/Russell trio) is welcome here.

Work from the melody, and take your time. It IS a world of its own. A while back, I played all Monk tunes in private duet sessions w/a drummer for over a year, 2-3 times a week. It took about 6 months of this for me to even BEGIN to feel "comfortable" with them, to begin moving about in the music's own language without being totally concerned with getting the structures right. And that was just a baby step. We finally had to stop doing it, but by the time we did, I felt pretty comfortable with things like "Played Twice", "Off Minor", "Brilliant Corners", "Jackie-ing" etc. The trick, well, ONE of the tricks anyway, is internalizinging the harmonic rhythms - the changes don't always come WHERE you expect them to, never mind being what you expect them to be. That's where the melody comes in - everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, you need to know abut playing a Monk tune is in the melody. Fromt he melody, you can begin to construct melodies that build from the inner voices of the chords, and that's a big step right there. Melody is key in Monk's music, at least it is for me. That means not trying to skate through the things playing licks, which of course you can do. But that takes a lot of time too, so why not get something out of the effort more than finding yet another way to play licks? Really, building a stronger melodic conception is something we all need anyway, I think. Too much lick playing going on these days, and even when it's expertly done, it's still lick playing. Gots to be a better way... Working on those tunes really made me focus on pacing, placing, spacing, erasing, and all that good stuff. Not for nothing did Roswell Rudd (?) say that playing through those tunes w/Lacy for as long as they did brought him through "to the other side". Once you realize that you can actually create a genuine MELODY in improvisation, the whole blobbashibblybopdebop of connect the dots lick playing takes on a much lower priority. At least it did for me. Don't get the idea that I'm an ace at playing this stuff. I'm not. Far from it. FAR from it. But I did take the time to get into it a little more than some of my peers, so I'm speaking from experience here. Might not work for you, but it worked for me.

There have been a response.

I'm all for fully appreciating things with an equally full awareness of their relative stature in the grand scheme of things, but the only problem I have with this "B-Team" concept is that if the "A-Team" consists of folks like Louis, Duke, Bird, Trane, etc., (and it must, I think, unless you're going to look at those guys as out of the game) then a lot of the folks already mentioned as B-teamers are actually C-teamers, D-teamers, or lower, and I don't like the sound of that!

I'm not sure what "very much of its time" really means, but this is one of my favorite Tyner albums, period. Adams & Tyner were a natural fit, and it's a shame their time together was as limited as it was. For those keeping score at home, "Sonship" = Woody Theus, one of the great (and relatively unheralded) drummers.

But imagine it anyway...

That was in incredibly poor taste. I apologize profusely.

Imagine a battle of the strap-ons between those two!

The McCann vocal album is pretty darn nice. Found a LP copy a few years ago. Great version of "Please Send Me Someone To Love", a.o..

Does the Mosaic include the Les McCann vocal album that Wilson and his band participated in?

No "probably" to it, they did!

I'm driving to Corpus Christi to play a debutante ball at a country club. Big Bux/Tux/Big Sux. I'll feel good about it once the money's in the bank. My name is Jim Sangrey and I am a SHAMELESS whore. But only if the price is right...

With song titles like "Be Here to Love Me", "Creepin’ In". "Toes", & "Humble Me", the potential for more of Norah's earthy sensuality that borders on quiet but steamy erotica seems high. If that bothers you, complain to somebody else!

Is it true that she's still Ravi Shankar's daughter?