JSngry

Hey, somebody had to do it.

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I found the portrait of Tristano in the recent Warne Marsh biography to be quite unsettling. I still love the music, but...

BINGO! (and thanks)

The CMS stock is on EGEA, and it is copyrighted as 2000. Like I said, I've had a bear of a time foinding either issue of this stuff. But no matter - now I got it, and I can tell you that I'm, uh, "happy" that I do.

Uh, you guys ever consider the possibility that, as long as he's not taking a bath on it, that Jim might actually LIKE having the expense as a tax deduction?

BRAINS ON FIRE!!!!

I saw Lester w/New Directions, Roscoe w/the Space Ensemble, and Malachi w/a group of his own, but none of those was the Art Ensemble experience, nor were they intended to be. The Art Ensemble was/is a world of its own. I only saw them live once (and although I hope to see them again, without Lester...). They came to UNT (then NTSU) in the very late 70s and were NOT sponsored by the School of Music. Nevertheless, there was a buzz. Apparently Lester came to NT in the late 50s or so and was told by his trumpet instructor to quit playing, because he had no talent whatsoever. The "jazz department" was issuing a lot of premptive bulletins a few weeks prior to the concert, with all the instructors spouting empty platitudes like "you have to know the rules before you can break them" and "it's important to know how to play correctly if you want to have a career playing any kind of real music". It was simultaneously hilarious and disgusting, as if McDonalds was going on the defensive because they feared that their customer base was going to be seduced into becoming backyard barbequers. They (the band) gave a Q&A session the afternoon of the concert, and it was awesome. All this equipment totally filled up the stage, percussion out the wazzoo, more saxophones than Manny's, just stuff everywhere. Roscoe spent the entire time adjusting his axes, while still participating. Malachi had a bemused look about him the whole time, and answered in a calm but mystical tone. Jarman, well, he was kinda like, "this is our life, you're getting just a taste of it, so don't think you REALLY know what we're about", but in a kind way. Don was really down to earth, and fielded the multitudinous questions from the drummers in the house (the percussion dept. @ NT was always the hippest group there) with total grace and enormous technical acumen. And Lester, well, Lester was Lester, the serious clown who would tell you everything you wanted to know, a bunch of stuff you needed to know, and a few things that you didn't want to know but really needed to anyway, all with an air of bemused irony, as if to say, "you either get it or you don't. If you get it, it doesn't matter what I say. If you don't get it, it doesn't matter what I say. So I'm just going to tell you the truth. No hard feelings either way." I never knew Lester Bowie personally, but I felt, and still feel a spiritual kinship with him that I might be entirely imagining. But I still feel it, and feel it deeply. Finally somebody asked him, "Lester, is it true that you came to school here for a little while?" "Yeah, I was here for a semester or so." "Why did you leave?" "Had to go somewhere". And then a BIG grin that said all that needed to be said. The concert was sold out. Full house. The crowd was about equally divided between those who dug the band ("new music" types, non-music students, lots of percussionists, and a few "rebel" jazz students) and those who came to see, somewaht skeptically, if they could "really" play. The latter faction was entirely "jazz education" students and professors. The first set started quiet and got quieter. Lots of long ringing gongs and softly stuck cymbals. vocal puncuations, etc. Individual timbres of any and all typeswere luxuriated in for hedonistically long intervals, and silence was made love to as if it was the key to life itself. This went on for about an hour, and then it was break time. What we had just heard was supremely beautiful as far as I was concerned, but it most assuredly was not an adreline-buzz inducing exploration of chord changes, modes, or anything else that is reduceable to a point that people can build careers teaching it to you. The predictable suspects all got up and left en masse, with one major faculty member saying fairly loudly, "Well, wasn't that nice?" with a more-than-slightly-audible smirk in his voice. Students could be heard mumbling the usual "what the hell was THAT?", "you call that JAZZ?", "I thought these guys would at least TRY and swing", and other things that drove home the point that, yes, you either got it or you didn't, and these cats didn't even BEGIN to get it. Time for the second set. The band comes out, probably expecting to see a half-empty house, and with just a nod of the head, BAM!!!! they were off to the races with some of the fastest, most complex and SWINGING shit you'd ever hear in your life. And it stayed there for the rest of the night - swinging madly, deeply bluesy, and full of the type of expertise that you can learn ABOUT in school, but only really learn through experience. It was as if the first set was a purification ritual, the cleanse the audience of all who would corrupt or misuse what was forthcoming in the second. It worked. The music school was all abuzz the next day, as the more "confident" students crowed on about how the AEC was not anything worth dealing with, and how they left after the first set and went home to practice so they didn't waste any more of their time. I told a few of these buffoons about the second set, and the few that took me seriously all said something like, "well, damn, I wish they'd have done that the FIRST set, I'd have stuck around. I KNEW they could swing!" It was then that I began to wonder if perhaps that people who obsess over whether or not other people can "swing" should probably look inward to see why the hell it concerns them so damn much. It was also then that I began to be fully awakened to the concept that the people who insist that the music always come to them on their terms alone will never have to be worried about being overcrowded.

http://www.cybermusicsurplus.com/online_ca...tag=APL3EUJ1001 http://www.cybermusicsurplus.com/online_ca...tag=APL3EUJ1002 I've had a bear of a time finding these puppies, and I imagine some of y'all might have as well. But here they are. Gil's last albums could be wandering, unfocused affairs, but these are anything but. It's wild, wooly, and electric, so don't expect "Moon Dreams" or anything like that. The pitfall of a loosely organized big band is that when everybody's not on the same page, you get a mess. The upside is that when everybody IS on the same page, magic happens, and goodgodalmighty does it happen hear. Profoundly and profusely so. Everybody was more than on the same page for this gig. It was a single mind, Gil's, operating through 19 players. Trthfully, it's not a band, not an orchestra, it's an ORGANISM. That's they way this band functioned. I was listening to Volume 1 at work last night and damn near was moved to tears more than once, the collective power and beauty was so strong. Fortunately I was able to control myself, but it was a struggle. Still, the goosebumps came, and they remain as we speak. Magic? Oh HELL yeah, it's magic. Probably even more. The band consists of: Gil Evans(piano, conducter), Lew Soloff(tp), Shunzo Ono(tp), Miles Evans(tp), David Bargeron(tb,tuba), George Lewis(tb), John Clark(f.horn), John Surman(b.sax,Kb), Chris Hunter(sax), Gearge Adams(sax,v),Tom Malone(tb), Gil Goldstein(kb), Peter Levin(kb), Delmar Brown(kb, elb ), Urszula Dudziak(v), Emily Mitchell(harp), Mark Egan(bass), Danny Gottliev(drums), Anita Evans(perc) This is amazing music. Act now, because knowing how cybermusicsurplus works, when they're gone, that'll be it.

Woody Herman's band back in the very early 70s confirmed that "America Drinks and Goes Home" was really a hip blowing vehicle, and not a clever parody of a lounge band.

Nobody has any opinions as to Reggie Workman vs Jymie Merrit? Personally, I think the "difference" on INDESTRUCTABLE is twofold. #1 = Lee. Him and Wayne always had a chemistry. As hot as Freddie was at the time, Lee was FIERY, and Freddie himself admotted as much a few years later. With Blakey, Hubbard lit many fires, but Lee lit them and poured gasoline on them, just to be sure. #2 - the material. No emphasis on arrangements or other complexities here, just simple structures designed for hard blowing. My two favorite tunes here, "The Egyptian" & "Mr. Jin" are based on the kind of rhythmic centered vamps similar to what Trane was into, and Blake carpe diemed like a mofo. This stuff played right into his hands, and the band responded in kind. It's my favorite Blakey record, period, and one of my favorite BNs as well. When the desert island comes to call, it'll have to wait until I pack INDESTRUCTABLE.

I really like the Boyd (which Muse also put out under Dorham's name, in the 70s, as EASE IT). He's an interesting player with a distinctive sound. Not a "heavyweight" or anything like that, just somebody with a little something different. And KD is in excellent form, so it's a "can't miss" as far as I'm concerned.

Also be on the lookout for a third, as yet unreissued, Columbia LP, HERE COMES THE JUDGE. Not sure if it's leftovers from the other two, but if it is, seldom have leftovers been so tasty!

And what if she overdubbed? Would ANYBODY remember? How far back do Union sheets for recording sessions go? But what if she scabbed the date? Who produced this date, and who engineered it?

Do you know if Blakey & Johnson played together or seperately? The reason I ask is that after hearing all the outtakes from Blakey's Bethlehem big band date, I get the distinct impression that coming in and reading charts (or perhaps even preparing to do so, if the material was available to him in advance) was not his forte, to put it politely. If Quincy wrote charts that required a lot of specificity as far as kicks, fills, etc., then perhaps Blakey didn't catch on fast enough to make continuation of the session practical from an economic standpoint. The band was probably contracted for the one date only, so besides the money, there would also be the scheduling issue. But that's just an uneducated guess. Or maybe Blakey was too preoccupied planning to kill Bird to focus on the charts... That's one helluva trumpet section - 3 lead players!

Don't know how accurate this is, but a friend who played and hung w/Clifford for a while in the early 80s says that Jordan considered IN THE WORLD his best, or at least favorite album, and I'd go along with that. But this one comes in at a photofinish for second as far as I'm concerned.

That explains the smooth ride down, And out...

Thank you Jay Stewart! (But where's the Turtle Wax? )

Hey Chris - I sure wasn't offended!

You guys give me WAAAAYYY too much credit.

I like Mingus with a gun. You think he's sending a message to Art Blakey?