JSngry

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?

Spears, Aguilera Trading Insults NEW YORK - Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera aren't exactly in the same Mickey Mouse Club anymore. The pop stars, who both kissed Madonna a few months ago during a performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, are now trading insults about each other's careers and personalities. In the December issue of Blender magazine, Aguilera said of Spears, "She seemed very distant, even during rehearsals. Every time I tried to start a conversation with her _ well, let's just say she seemed nervous the whole time. ... She seems to me like a lost little girl, someone who desperately needs guidance." Spears responds in the magazine's January issue, "I can't believe Christina said that about me." Then she relates a story about seeing Aguilera, her former friend and fellow Mouseketeer, for the first time in two years: "She comes up to me in a club in front of all these people and tries to put her tongue down my throat! "I say, 'It's good to see you,' and she goes, 'Well, you're not being real with me.' I was like, 'Well, Christina, what's your definition of real? Going up to girls and kissing them after you haven't seen them for two years?' "A lost girl?" Spears says. "I think it's probably the other way around." Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Bigger than Milton Berle?

Ron, have you heard, or heard of, that private tape of Pepper & Walrath in Idaho? I heard it through a friend in Albuquerque back in 1982, and I've been kicking myself in the ass ever since for not getting a copy of it. It's truly amazing stuff. Hopefully other copies exist.

Perhaps your computer, accustomed as it is to your selections, merely failed to recognize 'N Sync as music...

Happy Birthday, Tony.

Damn, does EVERYBODY have a birthday this year?

I think it was the Rev. John Gensel (????) who called Prez a "poet of profanity" or some such. Carse his lnguage may indeed have been, but he was one of the very, very few who used such language in a totally non-abrasive manner. At least that's how it strikes me. I'd have like to have heard Prez with a smaller string ensemble myself, something nice and intimate, nothing overblown, some soft and inviting strings and a nice, mellow rhythm section. For that matter, Prez with Chico Hamilton's first quintet, the one with Jim Hall and Fred Katz, might have been all the sympathetic stringage the man needed. But as much as the man dug listening to Jo Stafford & Frank Sinatra, I'd think that in the right hands a strings date could have been darn successful.

I'm not a Buddy Basher, by any menas. I saw him live once or twice w/his big band, and the power of his music and personality (same thing?) was undeniable. I think he ahd a hard time finding players who could meet him head-on when he was fully unleashed, which is why he so often seems to be overpowering, I think. He was, but not necessarily due to his lack of "taste". He's going all out, compromise be damned, and not too many players were either technically or emotionally equipped to match him. Not that I find the results appealing, because as a rule, I don't. A bit "tunnel vision"-y for me in terms of focus. But I respect the hell outta him for both his chops and his musical integrity. Interestingly enough, a date where he impressed more than the hell outta me was the Groove Merchant date w/Lionel Hampton that resulted in "Psychedelic Sally" et. al. I first heard it on a cheap CD w/no personnel, and besides noticing that Hamp was in peak form, I couldn't help but notice that the drummer was totally kicking the whole bands' ass, and in a GOOD way. When I found out it was Buddy Rich, I was surprised, but only for a second. And, Hamp, btw, was meeting him head-on. That session reinforced two things that I always try to remember, even when it ain't easy - 1)never, NEVER underestimate Lionel Hampton; and 2)Be careful when dismissing Buddy Rich with "incredible chops, just not very musical"-type comments. They may very well be true quite often, but not always, and "not always" is what'll get you thrown in jail in the wrong county, if you know what I mean.

It is!

It is?

The difference, for me anyway, is that those dates were done several years earlier when the "swing to bop" thing was the vibe of the moment. By the time this date was cut, that vibe had already passed, and the playing of the three principals had subtly but definitely changed to the point where you notice Rich's anachronisms in a way that you don't Cole's or Big Sid's, mainly becasue they weren't anachronisms then.. Which perhaps leads to an interesting question - there's plenty of examples of older players successfully fitting in with more "modern" rhtyhm sections, but how often had the reverse succeded, of even been attempted? Gonna have to put the thinkin' cap on for this one, if I can find it...

AMG lists a Moody Muse CD called JAMES MOODY & THE HIP ORGAN TRIO, or something like that, which seems to be NEVER AGAIN coupled w/the organ tracks off of TRYPTYCH. Anybody ever, EVER, seen this? And somebody asked me a while back who the tenor player was on the Marvin cut. It's either Charles Owens (an intriguing figure in his own way) or Fernando Harkness, about whom I know nothing other than he's got a cool name.

Minnie had also been a significant voice (no pun intended) in the Rotary Connection, if you remember that wacked out crew. A major talent indeed, and somebody should post that album cover of hers where she's holding a melting ice crem cone in her hand while grinning the slyest of grins in th e Babe Thread as a tribute, except that that doesn't really pay tribute to her talent, but what the hell, we know what we mean, right?

Yeah, I thought that Bessie had been ruled out too. But that doesn't look like Bessie to me.

Guess it depends on intent and placement. Interludes, seques, etc. work for me if they're part of a well-planned overall form. Sort of like a transition shot in a movie. Or if it's a "gag" cut, one played for laughs, it usually works best at the end of an album. Of course, the pieces themselves have to work as intended, or else they're merely an annoyance. Either way, small doses of the technique is all I care for.

Thanks for those kind words. The Chicago thing really happened accidentally, but I myself became aware of it after finishing the final mix and began listening through the discs for the first time. I guess I've got an empathy for the sounds that have come out of that city over the years, perhaps related to me being a Texas jazz musician, another group that seems to all to often get relegated to "second-tier" status in terms of where people reflexively think to look for to find quality jazz that is a little different from the New York mainstream. I might even go so far as to say that although New York was unquestionably the center of the jazz world for a very, VERY long time, and still is the center of the jazz industry, I think the vast majority of new jazz that I find interesting and/or important is soming from somewhere else these days. Of course, the "seasoning" one gets from living and playing in New York is still nothing to sneeze at, but as far as producing new jazz (and not just of the "avant-garde" variety) that has personality and individuality to spare, a good, albeit far from automatic, case could be made that the action is really happening elsewhere today, especially in Chicago.

http://www.tantra.com/index.html

http://www.ideas4.co.uk/ideadetails.asp?idea_id=302&

Ma Rainey?

Dude, my book is well into Volume Two...

I made sure earlier to differentiate "light" from "lite", which is where I think Andre Previn, et al would fit for me, for the most part, at least in those more conspicuously "lite" settings. "Light" is ok by me!