JSngry

Well, there you have it - the ambiguity of the blues!!!

Someone should tell Thom.

The album that started the James Clay rennaisance! Great stuff indeed.

Ditto on both points!

I care enough to send the very best.

DAMN that's some hip shit. God bless Jon Hendricks.

FUCKIN' A!!!! THAT'S IT!!!! Nah, I didn't even THINK to look for it on Google. Silly me... Kick my ass if that ain't Jon Henricks! Now - that might explain how HEndricks was able to take his Hendricks Family act on the road - this commercial was airing about the same time I caught them in Albuquerque. Mighty fine shows (I caught 3 out of the 5 nights they were there, and had him autograph my copy of New York, N.Y. He really flipped when he saw it, said that that was one of the most special things he's ever done. His inscription? "What can I say? It's all in here." I'm SUCH a Fan Boy!

Here's hoping you already have...

Oh yeah, about Chevy Chase - anybody see one of the earlier episodes of SNL where, at the end I think, the cast members were each singing a chorus of blues, and Chevy scatted "Billie's Bounce'? Seems like I saw him do the same thing once in tandem with his ex, Blythe Danner (who LOOKS like she'd make a GREAT jazz fan if you know what I mean... ).

Orson Welles, if we can go deep, as in 6 feet under deep.

Nina Simone's "My Baby Just Cares For Me" was in a spot for something a few years ago. Something else - in 1982, I was in the position to wake up early every day and watch the Today show. There was a commercial for Mazola oil that sounded very much like it was the work of Jon Hendricks in both musical style and performance. Not a sample of one of his records, but an original jingle. 8 bars - the first 4 being either scat syllables of else scatted ways to use the product (hey, I wasn't THAT awake...), the last 4 being the hook - "MaZOla...has no..choLESterOL at alllll". Anybody ever hear this jingle or hear of Hendicks doing some annoymous jingle work? Some good buckage there...

Well hell, I'm a asshole, a jerk, a fat fuck, and an Internet whore all rolled into one, so what would MY gripe be?

I think that REAL blues of today, the direct descendant of all the tradition of ambiguities of emotion and the use of time and pitch to express them, as well as the feelings that come from being a stranger in your own home, are to be found in certain rap/hip-hop artists. Not the top-40 ones or the cartoon gangstas, but the ones who are serious about their craft and their content. Don't ask me to name names, because I really don't follow that scene. But I hear my son playing some stuff, and listening to it on the radio, and I hear and feel the connection quite easily. A lot of people knock a cat like Roy Hargrove for working with rappers, and they look at the attempts at jazz-hip-hop "fusions" as purely commercial ploys, but I'll tell you what - if I was in my early-mid 20s now, that's EXACTLY what I'd be doing, and entirely of my own volition. It SHOULD have happened a long time ago - remember Max Roach's pronouncements on the subject, and his performances with breakdancers and rappers back in the early 80s? Unfortunatley, there were all these "distractions" in the jazz world at the time, and a lot of "Big Chill"-ing went down as far as keeping the music's street heritage a set quality rather than allowing it to be whatever it needed to be. Hell - the ESSENCE of blues/street/whatever is taking the RIGHT NOW and finding the eternal truth in it. It damn sure ain't about holding up what your parents and grandparents did and claiming that as the absolute standard for time immemorial. BIG difference there. I fail to see the logic in claiming the street as your lifeblood while at the same time attemtping to turn that same street into a manicured thouroughfare. Discomfort with a/the current vibe is one thing, but the solution there is, and will ALWAYS be, meeting the situation on it's own terms, not a distanced attempt at reclamation for something that is long gone. Gentrification isn't necessarily victory... Time moves on. Athletes have limited careers, but broadcasters can last seemingly indefinitely. Who sets the standards and makes the action - the player or the commentator? You go to the booth when you can't hang on the field anymore, not when you should be on it. Jazz should've kept this in mind.

With the exception of Shameless Whore Weekly (a trade publication for working musicians), Tom's hunch is correct.

My copy seems to be pretty plowed, fwiw. I agree that the idea of 60 second tunes ain't too thrilling, not at all, but you never know...

Did you see Harold Vick?

I think of BLACK RENNAISANCE as a Strata-East-esque take on one of those hip CTI sides where Don Sebesky wrote arrangements AFTER the fact, and weaved them in and out of the already performed small group jams. Only in this case, instead of brass and strings, it's the voices that weave in and out. Don't think of it as a CTI side where Sebesky wrote the charts up front, though. THOSE were pretty much a drag. As for the comparison to the Gale, BNs, well, yeah, sorta kind of, maybe, just a little, not really, but ok... If you get my point.

Dude, as long as you got the gift, you should really set your sights higher! But hey, thanks.

"Blues" is fine with me, and truthfully, it's the music and language nearest and dearest to my heart and soul (although I think that even "blues" is an offshoot of something else, just as jazz and gospel are). But I can't pretend that it's the only language that "goes deep". There was a time when I could and did, but that time has passed. If my appreciation of these other languages is more intellectual than primal, well, that's just my personal evolution. The world is "getting smaller", and I thnk it's inevitable that commonalities will find each other and morph into mutually accomodating forms and such. I'm probably too old and too "set" to get into it 100%, but otoh, thee's a reason why, usually, young folks playing older styles just doesn't "click" - it's not the reality of the times. The reality is that things are coming together, and if there's some awkwardness involved along the way, that's just how it goes. We only know jazz from the recordings. we have no real idea how it came to be - plenty of theories and lots of anecdotal informational bits, but the process no doubt took a long time and wasn't accomplished effortlessly or overnight, or even intentionally, probably. Times are moving on, obviously, and something new is forming, something that will speak to, for, and of the people who live in these different circumstances. I'm sure that it will communicate the truths of the blues, but I don't know but that its eventual language will be a mixture of God knows what, of which "blues" may or may not be a dominant part. I hope it will be, because that will make it a LOT easier for me to understand! Nothing to do really, but watch, learn, and when possible, participate. But at 47, the odds are that my life is more than 1/2 over, so....

Wayne!

Something completely different... Two live John Mayall albums, JAZZ BLUES FUSION and MOVING ON, although not earthshattering in even the least, capture Blue having a funky good time. Fellow sidemen include Clifford Solomon, Victor Gaskin, Billy Mitchell, Ernie Watts, and Charles Owens. Not anywhere near a "super jam", but it happened, and Blue actually sounds like he's having a blast.

Performing the Magic Ritual right now, even as I'm typing this. Let me rephrase that... Well?

Will PRIMAL ROOTS ever be reissued?

Oh hell, if it's CHEAP, get it. Just don't expect anything "great". If you're curious enough to ask, you probably owe it to yourself to hear it at least once, so get it. But only if it's cheap. Not every side we buy has to be a masterpiece or even close to it. I had/have it on LP. and finally got a CD when I found one cheap. Some things are worth hearing just because. So get it. But only if it's cheap...