JSngry

Dude, in real life I'm a stutterer. This is my only outlet for fluency. Be a pal and work with me, will ya;? Besides, I MORE than (de)compensate by some piss-poor typing skills. Show mw a post of mine that's more than a sentence or two long that's not been edited, and I'll show you one with some horendous spelling. I can spell, but I can't type. I've learned what little skills I have entirely by posting to these jazz boards. Now THAT'S sad!

Well, I had some friendds over a while back, and the topic of jazz 45s came up somehow and I pulled some out of my closet. The first one up was Grant Green's "Miss Ann's Tempo". My friends were convinced that the 45 was a rare alternate take at a totally different tempo! It wasn't until I put on my 45 of "Una Muy Bonita" that I realized that I had failed to change the speed on the turntable. DOH! Failing to take a hint, we all had another drink...

So when she tells the teacher that the Declaration Of Independence was signed in 1941, and the teacher counts that as a wrong answer, I should just tell her to tell the teacher that that's HER interpretation? Just kidding!

I guess I'm a bit of both. I can fully enjoy any number of things, do so in fact, without having the least concern of how they rank "historically". I mean, MR. SHING-A-LING changed the world and has about as much "profundidty" as my Aunt Donna did, but I'll groove on it HARD when I play it. just as hard as I do something like CRESCENT or a Bartok Quartet. Because they ALL make me feel good, albeit each in a different way. And I'd not be without any of them, ever. But I think we both agree that having an "educated" background on the history of ANYTHING makes us better rounded individuals, and allows us to enjoy things on what is, if not necessarily a "purer" level, then definitely a "broader" one than just digging on something because it's all we know and don't have any benchmark to compare it against (and comparisons need not be solely for the purpose of merely decicing if something is "good" or "bad". Those are the cheapest kinds of comparisons, imo, the kind that imprison rather than liberate, and I despise that which does that!). If anything, I find that the more I know, the more I CAN enjoy "less important" stuff from the past and the present because I have the perspective to see how it both fits in and stands out from the general currents of the times, and I can better enjoy and appreciate for what it may or may not ACTUALLY be, as opposed to what I, with a limited background might percieve it to be. "Seeing" things clearly, not for the purpose of judgement, but to better grasp EXACTLY what something is (to the extent that it's possible to ever do that with anything, which probably isn't much!) is a great tool to have at one's disposal, I think. And yes, it takes time to acquire it. But what doesn't, other than various appetites, the tencency to gain weight as one grows older, and the appreciation of a good nap? Of course, on the primal level, pleasure is pleasure, right? It's ALL good. But you're an educator by trade, and I was trained as one, so I think we can both agree that although historical knowledge is certainly not a prerequisite for enjoyment of anything, and that it's quite easy for the intellectual knowledge of history to obstruct or otherwise interfere with simple beauty of enjoying something because it makes you feel good (period, no questions asked, none needed!), that ideally, and I stress, IDEALLY, a balance between the two gives one the greatest capacity for satisfaction in the end. Having said all that, I can only add that this latest installment of "Dances About Architecture" was NOT brought to you by a grant from the NEA, so don't bother your Congressperson about it, ok?

Mind if I give that line to my daughter to paraphrase the next time she flubs a History exam (which, if the recent past is any indicator, could be as soon as next week!)?

Well, Bev, that's my point entirely! If you dig and others dig the cat, go with that, and those of us who don't, go with that too. It's not like this is a musician who is getting into the deepest areas of musical. sociological, metaphysical, or some other such thought. This is a cat playing some tunes, and if somebody like the results, well then, mission accomplished! For better or worse, though, I tend to enjoy either that which I've known for a long time and that I've become intimate with, something that is undeniably (whatever THAT means) new AND substantive (ditto and ditto) or else that which startles me with an intriguing blend of ingredients, all of which may be familiar in and of themselves, but are put together in a distinctive, unique combination. And how one recieves those stimuli is such an idiosyncratic procedure that I'll be damned if I'll claim to understand how it works for ME, much less for anybody else. I DO get bugged, however, when people make claims for a personal favorite that just don't hold up by any rational criteria. If somebody says, "I dig Eric Alexander. I like what he's doing and am interested in hearing more.", well, cool. Pleasure is a beatiful thing. But when somebody goes the extra mile (ordinarily a GOOD thing, right?) and says, "Eric Alexander is one of the most important musicians on today's scene, a force to be reckoned with. Keep you eyes and ears on Eric Alexander, HE IS THE FUTURE OF JAZZ!", well, I don't know whether to lauch or cry, because by no objective criteria do THESE claims hold up. There HAVE been players who have expanded the pallates of both their instruments and the music as a whole, both technically and emotionally, players who have changed the way that everybody ELSE thinks about music. THOSE are the "Giants", and they are very, very few. Then there are the "near giants", and on and on. No, I don't think like this when listening to music. Some of the stuff I listen to is mundane beyond belief, but I don't give a rat's ass - I like it for my OWN reasons, and that's all me or anybody else needs to know. I too go for the pleasure factor first and foremost. But I will get "academic" about it when hucksters or other false prophets try to sell me a steak and convince me it's a whole cow. I know better. A LOT of us know better. But not all of us do, and if enough people get to thinking that a steak IS a full cow, then the next time I go into the grocery store, I might be faced with the possibility of paying for a herd when all I want is a few steaks. And if a steak has become a cow, then a Big Mac becomes a steak, and down the spiral we go. It's "real", and it's all relative, of course, but is it REAL? You know what I mean, hopefully. My listening philosophy, to broadly paraphrase Charlie Parker, is this - "First you learn what's important. Then you learn what's real. Then you forget all that stuff and just have fun!"

And oh yeah, I couldn't agree more about something not having to be "great" to get my attention. Most of the time, in fact, it's the "non-great" stuff that I notice these days. But it's got to have some distinctive quality, some element that stands out as being totally personal, and in a way that I can feel some kinship with. That may or may not be a form of "greatness" in and of itself, I don't know. But the idea that something must be radical or groundbreaking or in some way redefine our existence in a fundamental way is not one that I subscribe to, not at all. After all, that's the kind of mindset that gave us Stan Kenton! ;)

Well, ok, to grossly simplify... It seems that every waking moment of my life, and many of the sleeping ones, are spent with somebody trying to tell me something. Not just musicians, but family, friends, strangers, politicians, telemarketers, preachers (actual and would-be), neighbors, strangers, you name it. After a while, it all starts to blur together, to sound the same, because a lot of ti IS the same, either in content, or in delivery, or sometimes both. I've got to be selective, to weed out what I've already heard and what I already know, from everything else. I simply do not have enough time, patience, or energy, to give full attention (or often enough, ANY attention) to that which seems redundant, or attractive yet ultimately hollow. Aand this goes for non-musical things as well as musical - I used to love sitcoms, now I don't watch any. I used to LOVE movies, now I hardly ever go. Etc., etc., etc. I already know what I know, what I need to be finding out is what I DON'T know, so when something or somebody gives me an inkling that they might know something that I don't, and if it seems like something that I'd LIKE to know (an identifications that is sometimes immediate, and sometimes takes years to make), THAT is going to get my attention in a way that "nice, but..." just isn't. Like I said, the bombardment seems constant, so choices must be made. Maybe I'm old, maybe I'm jaded. Could be that I'm both. But this is my life, and these are my decisions. I certainly can not denigrate the opinions of those who find pleasure in Alexander's work, because I can see what the attraction is - he's a good player with good taste in material who does a good job every time out. But my "room" for players who do that has long been filled, mostly by swing players of the 30s and 40s many hard bop players of the 50s and soul jazz players of the 60s. THAT particuar box is full, or darn near close to it. It's not as much a question of "emotion" as it is "can you interest me?". The world is full of emotion, what I'm after is somehing else, something I don't yet have an adequate word for, but it would be a combination of timelessness, uniqueness, personality, knowledge, local flavor, and a bunch of other stuff. We all have emotion, indeed, so that's not the issue, not really. It's more of a why should I listen to YOU?" kind of a thing. I hear Alexander, and the FIRST thing I hear is that tone, which STILL strikes me as being far to close to George Coleman's for comfort. That's not enough for aautomatic disqualification, but it IS 2 1/2 strikes. I've listened to a LOT of George Coleman, dig the shit out of him in fact, and anybody using THAT tone THAT blatantly is setting up expectations that it is disingenous to not expect have met. A player's tone is the MOST personal aspect of their playing for me, and you don't use somebody else's tone to make a point unless it's for effect, jsut like you don't call somebody on the phone and impersonate somebody else unless it's as a joke or something. So when I hear that tone, I can't help but think "Ok, you dig George Coleman so much you took his tone. I can dig that. What ELSE do you have for me?" The other aspects of his playing just don't overcome that for me - I just don't hear anything beyond a competent player playing nicely. Now, I have far too much respect for the craft to dis him. THAT is ignorant, imo, and whn I read the snider remarks that make this guy out to be a nothing and/or a nobody, I get angry.. The guy's a HELL of a saxophonist. But I just don't have room for his particular brand of excellence - like I said, that bag's long been full, and I'm not currently taking applications, if you know what I mean. And it's not just these so-called "neo-conservatives" who do this for me (or don't do, such as it is...). It's a lot of the current free players, electric players, you name it. I don't hear that much "new" music in ANY genre that is really telling me a story I haven't already heard, and/or with a slant I've not heard it told with. Maybe that's my problem, maybe I AM getting jaded, but I don't think so - when I DO hear something that strikes me as fresh (and it doesn't have to be "new" music either - it's not the age or the style that matters to me, it's the individuality), then I get all gooey in my nether zones just like I did the first time I heard Trane on record, or when I first heard a roaring big band (Basie, 1970) in the flesh, etc. Again, to those who like Alexander, I'll not take an air of smug superiority (and I know there are those who will, and do). That's not my goal here. My goal is simply to explain why the cat doesn't so anything for me, and perhaps to let my situation serve as a "guidepost" of sorts for some of y'all who are still in the earlier stages of your jazz odyssey. After a while, you WILL find that there are things that yu used to have time for that you just don't anymore. I've seen numerous posts to this effect, so I know it's going on with a lot of you. And I know full well that we all have our "soft spots", things that we all like for no rational reason other than that they tickle us in our sweet spot. For a lot of people, that sweet spot is the "advanced hard bop" genre that Alexander works in. He gets a lot of airplay on KNTU these days, and I don't change the dial when he comes on. The guy doesn't repulse me by any means. But I don't think I own anything with him on it, and seeing his name is not going to induce me to buy something. He's in that zone of things I jsut don't care to invite further into my world, not because he disgusts me, but jsut because I don't have the room, I'm saving it for something that will hopefully give me more of a life experience. So all I'm saying is, I know where you're coming from if you dig the cat, I'm just not there with you, and probably won't be. But have fun anyway! Life's too short not to. Besides, I've got a TON of "Eric Alexanders" in my world already. I got mine, y'all got yours. It's a beautiful thing!

True enough, Bev. but I've met quite a few who get so wrapped up in the mecahanics executing a particular task that THAT sort of becomes their primary emotion, at least at the time of executing said task, and I think that's what some of us feel is happening with players like this. It's not that these people have NO emotion, or conversely, that players who we feel warmth towards are ALL emotion and no intellect (although their is a romantic notion amongst some that such is the case), it's just that there are levels of development, and the "highest" one, at least in my opinion, is to use the technique of one's craft as a tool of free expression, not to hone that technique into an ever more precise, less flawed, tool as an end to itself. The thing about music (and not just music) is that is is both craft and art (note the lower case "a" ). The craft involved in the music that Alexander is pursuing is a time-consuming one in which the bar has been raised to almost superhuman levels where there is perhaps nothing "new" to be found (and there are some schools of though that ask, wisely in my opinion, if a bar that has been raised that high is worth striving for in full, or if it is better to go looking for other fields to plow, excuse the mixed metaphor). When there is SO much technique and theory involved, when a player does not come through it through osmosis and has to CONSISTENTLY be "thinking" about EVERYTHING they play, and every aspect of it, one of two things is going to happen - either one day it's all going to soak in and click, and the cat's going to be a true monster of a player and artist, or else the pursuit of the improvement of the craft will eventually become an end unto itself. Now, I get a lot of pleasure and enjoyment out of hearing that kind of music, if the "craft" being pursued contains elements of emotional signifiers that I can relate to, but it's NOT, by ANY stretch of the imagination, music that moves me to the point of having to have it on the proverbial desert island, if you know what I mean. It's the sound of people doing a job as well as it can be done, as opposed to the sound of people opening doors and expanding our consciousness. Both are worthy and admirable, but I'm sure we can all agree that the latter is somehow more "special" to us (if it reaches us) than the former. And that the differentiation betwee the two categories is largely a subjective one. and one that might not always be clear cut and sometimes have an overlap or fourteen. I wouldn't rule out the chance of players like Alexander ripening into deeply expressive voices in time, but the indicators this far are not promising. Nearly all the players I really dig have had that expressive quality in place from the git-go, even when their chops were ill-formed, mal-formed, or flat out UNformed. But there are exceptions, and Alexander might be prove to be one of them. Stay tuned, as they say!

I found a mint Capitol 45 RPM EP of 3 tunes from Serge Challoff's BOSTON BLOW UP for $1.25 in the far righ back corner of a Kilgore, Tx newsstand one Saturday afternoon ca. 1971) after helping my Dad mow the chuch lawn. They had a few older records for sale, including an original Prestige TRAIN WHISTLE (Lockjaw w/an Oliver Nelson big band), but I was just getting into jazz, didn't have much money, and recognized Stan Kenton's name from the "Stan Kenton Presents" logo. Similarly, in a Kilgore junk shop called Uncle Ted's, I found a Gerry Mulligan Mercury LP, and a MINT copy of Buddy Rich's THE LAST BLUES ALBUM VOLUME ONE (w/Illinois Jacquet, Jimmy McGriff, Kenny Barron, George Freeman, & Bob Cranshaw) on Groove Merchant, both for $2.50 each. Since I came of jazz age in the very early 70s, a time that also coincided with a lot of labels purging ther catalogs, I found more gems in cutout bins back then than I care to mention. One that stands out, though is Joe Dailey's RCA album. And speaking of RCA, I found two RCA gems at Keoun's Music Store right in my hometown of Gladewater, Tx, literally within weeks of deciding to pursue a life of buying jazz records. One was Sonny Rollins' WHAT'S NEW, and the other was Benny Goodman's IN MOSCOW. The Sonny thing's was rarer than anything until the late 70s, and nowadays, you can get it someho, somewhere, some way. But the Goodman thing is a treasure, a GREAT record by a GREAT band, including a lot of nice, openended small group jams, and it's NEVER been officially reissued. Giants Of JAzz apparently did a partial reissue of it, but those guys are theives. The thing I learned a LONG Time ago is to look EVERYWHERE all the time. You'll come up empty quite a bit, but boy oh boy, will you hit the jackpot sometimes, too.

For those who dig UNITY to the nth degree (and that would be me, for sure), I would suggest checking out Charles Earland's LEAVING THIS PLANET, originally a 2-Lp set on Prestige, and now available as a single OJC CD. You got Joe back on baord, Freddie Hubbard in place of Woody Shaw, no Elvin, a conguero, and some of the material is funky/fusion oriented, but the best stuff (easily enough for a single Lp w/leftovers) is very much in the spirit of UNITY. It's not as startling, because it's 10 years or so after the fact and you can't replace that rush of the now in the playing that comes through in the listening, but still, it's a DAMN fine record, perhaps the last great organ record made before the drought. Highly, if a tad conditionally, recommended.

Chip Jackson? Played in Woody Herman's & Elvin's band in the 70s, been around since then. Cadence ran a nice interview with him a while back. He's one of thiose guys that does a lot of live gigs with name players but doesn't get called that much for record dates where the producers like to have a "recognizable" name on board (and there are a LOT of players that fall into this category, btw). Not a high-profile guy obviously, but he's a player nevertheless.

I read Paper Lion somewhere between the ages of 13 and 15, right after Ball Four and to say that it made a big impression would be an understatement. Plimpton's accounts of similar experiments with boxing and football were eargerly sought out shortly theeafter, and were much appreciated. This guy, this ADULT, was doing what damn near every kid fantasized about - just showing up and saying, "let me play with y'all and let's see how it oges", and DOING it! Talk about vicarious thrills... A few years later, when I saw him doing commercials for Intellivision, it kinda creeped me out. George Plimpton doing a gig for MATTELL? And the last few years, when he's just been old and old-looking, haven't done much of a service to those memories of a younger time and a younger man. But please - if you haven't read Paper Lion, by all means do so. It is a superb work, and like the best sport and sports literature, totally transcends its subject.

Those are the most beautiful thighs ever seen on a jazz bulletin board make-believe album cover in the history of the world. It would be wrong to keep them to myself, profoundly and fundamentally wrong. Wrong, but no jury in the world would convict me if I did.

Dude, remember this - Unless serious misfortune befalls you, you will always have and not have money. You may be hungry today, but you can probably eat tomorrow. If you can find a way to add somethig good to your life, ESPECIALLY something that is here today and possibly gone for MAY tomorrows, do it. You may be broke for a minute, but once you got it, you got it forever, at least in theory.

My thing about Alexander on this cut wass what I said over in the guesses/reaction thread. He sounds like he's "playing phonetically", and if it's less noticable on his more recent work, or on his earlier work where the material was not as bare-boned as this kind of blues, it's something that I just can't shake everytime I hear him. and his tone is still WAY too close to George Coleman for me to feel comfortable taking him seriously as a true "voice" in today's music. Not just his tone either, but his entire approch - licks, concept, whatever. This cut has moments where it literally sounds like he's sight reading a George Coleman transcription. Hell, that's a PERFTLY normal, essential even, part of developing a s a player, but I'd rather not pay money to hear it on a record, unless there's some OTHER stuff going on in the same player's playing at the same time. Make no mistake, the guy is a SUPERB musician, but musicianship is only half the battle in this music. At least it used to be, maybe it's not anymore. The thing about studio sounds is not as amazing as it might seem. It just takes time and awareness. The Van Gelder sound is darn near patented, and if you think about it as the Van Gelder sound and not the "Blue Note Sound", you can recognize it almost immediately. The piano sound, the bass sound, and the room sound/reverb ratio (in varying proportions over the years), as well as the blend of the horns, that's where I hear it most readily. The old Columbia studios always sounded to me like the air conditioning was on. Not literally, but that's the mental metaphor I have in my mind. The old RCA studios always sounded "hard" and in your face. These are not literal desctiptions, just my personal impressions. The thing is, you can hear these characteristics going back to the days of 78s. The rooms didn't change as time went by, only the means of capturing the sound did. So each studio's "flavor" was/has been documented for a good long time. It's like anything else - if you start WANTING to notice it, you will. It's not a gift, it's the scar of listening to too many damn sides for too many years!!!! That's true of individual players too. If you talk to somebody enough, you don't need to see them to know who the are, right? You get a phone call, and even of the connection's really crappy, you can still recognize the voice. Well, musicians are like that too, at least the ones I like the most are. They'll all have a distinctive voice, a combination of tone, phrasing, whatever, that makes them as recognizable when listening to a record as your crazy Uncle Billy is when he calls you on the phone at 3 A.M.. Of course, the more you talk with somebody, the more familiar their voce becomes, and music is no different. And similarly, the less contact ou have with a person, the less likely you are to recognoze their voice on the phone. And that's what a lot of jazz records are - phone calls from folks who want to tell you something. Hey folks, music IS a form of communication, a very direct one ideally, so if you're not listening to it like you would somebody literally speaking to you, you might want to start doing so. Jazz is not a simple music, but if you like it well enough to have come this far with it, you need not worry about that. Just start treating music like you would a conversation, because that's REALLY all it is.

I had a college friend who had it back when it came out. If I knew where he was today, I'd hook you up. Alas...

Now that one DEFINITELY needs a Granassa model!

Just goes to show you what an underrated composer Irving Mills was...

I have heard it, and yes, you would!

You gotta think that for a while there Miles was on the verge of, consciously or not, slipping into a comfortabilty zone befittin a man of his age, stature, and career success. Look at who he used after Trane booked - Stitt, Mobley, Jimmy Heath, JJ, excellent players all, but none of them really looked forward in the way that Trane (and much of the then-current jazz scene) did. I'm sure Miles didn'y mind having a good salary and a bit of celebrity, and I don't doubt that he could have maintained both for years to come. AND have been a totally satisfying musician to keep up with. But for whatever reason, vanity, fear of complacency, a genuine curiosity, all/none of the above, Miles finally decided to move forward and get into what the younger players were into. I think it ws Herbie who said that he felt, at first, that the gig w/Miles was like playing for an old cat, that you fit what you did to their appraoch, and that he and Tony kinda viewed the repertoire as just a bit stale. So Miles reached a crossroads - stand pat or go off into the unknown. After having spent the last week listening pretty heavily to some live tapes of the ON THE CORNER core band, stuff that just melts in your mind, not in your hand, I for one am glad he did what he did. I'm glad that Stitt, Heath, JJ, etc. did what THEY did too, and Hank will always have a special place deep in the bowels of my heart, but hey...

Frank Sullivan-piano, Scott Walton-bass, & Billy Bowker-drums make a damn fine rhythm section, at least on this tune and for this groove. That was 20 years ago. Any idea where they are today? That Teddy thing continues to slay me. So much beauty. That's the most genuinely frisky (as opposed to seeming to just "play the style") Junior Mance I've hear in a LONG time. That's a good thing to hear from him. Now, if only they'd have used Red Holloway, that would REALLY have been the shit!

The JuJu of Uncle Ben...

Check out http://www.helenmerrill.com/ For some reason, it doesn't come up on Google, at least not for me. The adventures of Miss Merrill on the wheels of steel: I am a fan. A SHADE OF DIFFERENCE is one of the most arresting vocal albums I've ever heard. The later collaboration w/Gil Evans, COLLABORATION, is outstanding too. I think I prefer it to the earlier one.

Fine musician. Excellent, actually. He did have a prettty big exhibitionist streak in him that he didn't try too hard to contain, but the cat could play. Not really on my "favorites" list, but there's absoluteley no reason whatsoever to not check him out either.