JSngry

Emus, perhaps? I often wondered what the deal was with that label. Remember, though, Roulette was Morris Levy, one of the most notorious gangsters in the biz, so ANYTHING is possible!

Multifaceted, yes. Omnifaceted, no.

Not on the list, and not a true Founding Father, but Thomas Paine has always been a hero of mine. An unabashed, wild-ass radical whose spirit has yet to be totally eradicated from the American Character, in spite of innumerable attempts to do so!

Out of respect for fellow board member connoisseur series500, who I believe does some telemarketing, I'll not tell y'all some of the more elaborate stunts I've pulled with telemarketers. Alan Funt would be envious! Let's just say they'd best not call me unless they have LOTS of time on their hands and plenty of commisions already in the bag. One guy got hip to the trip about 20 minutes (!) into the call and called me "LOSER!", to which I replied, "When this call ends, you'll have spent HOW much time earning HOW much money?" He then called me "ASSHOLE" and hung up. To this day, I am the only person I know who has gotten a telemarketer to hang up on THEM in disgust, an honor which I hold with no small pride. Sorry, cs500 - should you ever call me, identify yourself up front and I'll be totally civil and straight forward. I promise!

Just found this thread, so belated Congrats, and hope the interview goes splendidly!

Sorry to hear about this. Only knew him through his announcements on records, but never heard anything but good about him. Has the Rev. John Gensel also departed? And since we're dealing with "jazz clergy", is Father Tom Vaughn still with us?

I have both FIRESTORM & CONCEPT, and thoroughly enjoy both.

HELL YEAH!!!! For all the evil that it has contributed to the world, Texas periodiaclly produces something like this to say, "I'm SOOOOO sorry!"

Heels or not, Dex was no match for Griff in the big shades department, on that we can most likely DEFINITELY agree!

Tony, if you'll go back and read carefully what I have said (and if you got THAT much free time, I'm envious!) , you'll see several times where I say that you no doubt didn't mean things in the way that I responded to and that you were kinda "in the wrong place at the wrong time". It is the bane of all "creative" musicians to have to "compete" with each other (and even with themselves, their past work) in the public arena, as if there's only room for one "king" at a time, and that respect for one player comes at the cost of another. The classic example would be the attitude that Bird made Johnny Hodges obsolete or irrelevant. That attitude was once actually fairly common among "fans"! It still exists today, and has absolutely nothing to do with music itself, nor does the notion that an artist has an obligation to constantly "reinvent" themselves and obliterate their past heights. That's not just anti-music, it's anti-HUMAN! So no, no rift whatsoever, and please know that it was the implications of that initial post that set me off, not the person making it, or even the literal post itself. But I stand behind everything I have said in this thread in a general sense - EVERYTHING! Especially the thing about Dexter Gordon being consistently taller than Johnny Griffin, the ultimate in true but meaningless comparisons, if I do sy so myself! But no, dude, we're cool. Totally.

Well, I'm not up-to-date, because I don't have the most recent Blackhawk set, and I only have it and the Carnegie stuff (including the newer released stuff) on vinyl, but I've long maintained that Carnegie displayed that band's charms to better advantage than Blackhawk. I think they were more tightly focused, which, given the difference between a one-off concert at a major international venue and a long club date in a toilet, is totally understandable. It's a question of degree, really, but if push comes to shove, I'm taking Carnegie.

And btw, the Stitt deal was comparing him to HIMSELF. Go ahead and say that Sonny Stitt was more consistent than Sonny Rollins. I know of no sane individual that would disagree with you, nor of any sane individual that would agree that that comparison is irrelevant to anything having to do with too much of anything except some "rating system" that serves what purpose? I know some people get a kick out of that kind of thing, but are you telling me that it's actually a SERIOUS consideration? If you're a bandleader contemplating a hire, yeah, I can see it. But otherwise... Ok, I see your point completely - the criticism of Hank was unfounded and/or missed the point of what it was that he was about (God knows I'll not disagree with you there!) and the overall consistency of his work over the years is notable and definitely worthy of note. Again, no argument. But what does that have to do with ANYBODY ELSE'S work? Not a damn thing, and that was MY only point, at least until the "Sonny has been lost for the last 30 years" thing, which sent this thread off on a whole 'nother tangent, and I'll argue THAT one until the day I die (which I'm sure that EVERYBODY agrees will hopefully not be necessary ). In closing, I'd also like to note for the record that Dexter Gordon was consistently taller than Johnny Griffin, and that Sal Nestico was consistently more Italian than Stan Getz.

Sorry, but THAT is bullshit.

Simply put (GOT to get to bed!) - Desmond is the nerd who secretly is boning all the cheerleaders but puts up the geeky facade so the jocks don't kill him. He gets more action with less hassle that way. His tone and endless mindgames reveal a deep physical affection for and intellectual appreciation of sensuality it its plushiest manner. Rabbit - the guy with a heart of gold who ain't gonna let anybody get the best of him, ESPECIALLY his bandleader! Play by his rules and he's the sweetest guy ever (he actually travelled with his wife on the road quite a bit!), but try even one fraction of a trick on him and he'll freeze your ass out harder and faster than humanly possible, and good luck waiting for a thaw. What you hear in him is fire and ice in equal measure, and if they don't exactly cancel each other out, they coexist in a harmony that can only come from a lifetime of indulging and testing each equally and equally deeply. There's people like this in all our lives, right? These guys just happened to be brilliant musicians. G'night!

OK: NEXT ALBUM (unhesitatingly recommended) IN JAPAN (ditto) Side One of THE CUTTING EDGE NUCLEUS (takes some "getting used to", but worth the effort, at least it ws for me) DON'T ASK (ditto) G-MAN DANCING IN THE DARK (for Sonny alone) FALLING IN LOVE WITH JAZZ (gets stronger to these ears with every hearing, even after a lot of years!) as well as bits off of all but HORN CULTURE, THE WAY I FEEL, REEL LIFE, & OLD FLAMES (not sure about the last one, but it has yet to grab me even slightly) and more unhesitating recommendations for the most recent 3: + 3 GLOBAL WARMING THIS IS WHAT I DO And if you come across a grey-market thing caleed JUST ONCE, grab it immediately. It's "live" in the way that none of the official stuff, even the best ones, are. WHOOEEEE!!!!

If I remeber right, and that's a big "if", I was comparing their stylistic similarities and differences, not comparing their, for lack of a better word, "essences". Big difference, at least in my mind. On is purely technical and can be noted "scientifically", the other purely personal to each player and not at all quantifiable, which is what I objected to, even though I doubt that was Tony's real intent. But rightly or wrongly, that sort of comparison strikes a nerve with me. I think it's fundamentally wrong 9.9 times out of 10.

Well, there you go - I FEEL great beauty and power in a LOT of Sonny's later work. After I feel it, I can rationalize why I feel it, but only up to a point. I feel the life in the music, the joy, the experience, the wisdom. It ALL stems from receiving those feelings. It starts, as it does with any music for me, with the sound, the tone, the vibe(rations), if you will. When THAT hits me right, I don't care if a cat plays whole notes for an hour! (in theory, anyway... ) Or, as is sometimes the case w/Sonny, somewhat cliched (for him) lines. The lines don't matter to me, because that's not where the story is being told - it's being told in the tone! Now when the lines are happening, and they often are, that's just icing on the cake. But there's more stroies in that cat's tone alone than there are in many people's most impassioned outpourings. At least for me there are, and I'm not insane enough to be TOTALLY imagining it, nor am I alone in hearing it. Seemingly in the minority, sure, but NOT alone! But how do you intellectually explain an emotional reaction to a tone? I sure can't. I can explain the rudiments of how he gets that tone, but I can't explain WHY. There is no intellectual explanation for that, thank God! And as far as all the nuances and shadings he puts on that tone, forget about it! Again, the "how" is meaningless compared to the "why", and it's the "why" that captivates me and holds me in its spell. That's why there's only one or two Rollins Milestones that I can honestly classify as flat out boring in terms of HIS playing - that tone is usually telling me something that I can't resist, even if everything else is imminently resistable. A LOT of those albums, especially in the 70s and 80s are erratic, and often annoyingly so, but that's quite different from being boring. At least it is for me. Hey - I've said what I have to say on this matter, and I realize that it just don't make sense to a lot of people, so I'm gonna let it slide for now. But just let me say in closing that there is a LOT of life (in the truest sense) in Sonny Rollins' later music, and its life of the sort that we can all learn from, if we are so inclined. Get it if you want it, ignore it if you don't, but don't make the mistake of thinking that it's not there to be had. It is.

No rating for me, but I dig the cat muchly. Great writer, great player, totally personal in both regards. If I had to "define" what he was all about, I'd say blurring the lines between literalness and abstraction, finding that "in-between" zone where nothing, and therefore everything, is REALLY real or false. If you could hear a Monet waterlilly painting of Monk's music, that might give you something approaching Andrew Hill. Stupid analogy, I know, but there it is.

She was married to Bobby Troup, you know. "Route 66" might have been a few roads, ah, never mind...

Which is EXACTLY why comparisons of this type are so ill-formed and irrelevant when used for either praise or for dismissal. Ok, I see the merit in them on a superficial level, but they ultimately don't lead to the truth. They don't necessarily lead to a lie, but they don't lead to the truth. Sorta like "we" like to say about certain players - ""They don't NOT swing..." Anyway, Tony's right about one thing (well, actually LOTS of things, even if his take on Sonny isn't one of them ) - I DO have a personal attatchment to an issue like this, and if my telling y'all that you're missing the point and y'all keep telling me that it's a valid point from a listener's POV, is a recurrent theme, then that's all well and good. No doubt there are things involved in musicmaking that really SHOULD be known or of interest only to those who make it. It's just hard for me to filter that stuff out in public discussion, for hopefully obvious reasons. It's what I know, my POV. It doesn't, and I can't stress this enough, make my opinion about how I FEEL about anything more valid than anybody else's. However, I do think that when musicians (and there's more than a few on this board) talk about the circumstances and processes that go into the production of the music, that it's worthy of more than casual dismissal by any but the most casual fan. But maybe that's just me - I tend to be fascinated by the "whys" and "hows" every bit as much as the "whats" (I very much enjoy watching INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO, MONSTER GARAGE, and other "look inside" shows, superficial as they are. That's just me). Anyhow, I stand behind everything I've said in this thread, even if the "tone" is more, uh, "up front" than usual. Nothing personal, but the further one gets from home, the more either realises its importance or its lack thereof. In my case, it's been the former. If the comparison had been between Joe Lovano and George Garzone, I'd likely have just let it slide becasue although I dig both those guys VERY much (especially Garzone!), I don't have the lifetime investment in them like I do Mobley & Rollins. And my secondhand investment in their lives totally pales to their firsthand living of them (duh! ). So a guy makes a perfectly legitimate-in-the-context, if ultimately meaningless-in-the-broader-picture, comparison, and I feel compelled out of love of God & Country to speak up/out, if for no other reason that when things go wrong in bunches everywhere you live, and you maybe see a chance to maybe stop one more thing from maybe going wrong (at least wrong by the rules of the world you live in, the world where everything's going DEFINITELY wrong), then you do. Hey, best laid plans, and all that...

The 70s BN lacks the session w/Cole but is otherwise complete to the best of my knowledge. It's still how I have the Alladin material.

HELL YEAH! I bought the Cuban stuff on PanArt (now THERE'S a label with a history more about which I'd like to know!) LPs back in the day, and STILL play them relentlessly. Gonna have to check out those CDs! CHOMBO SILVA!!!!

And a good Lunceford jam or two would be significantly more convincing as to the rightness of our cause!

Well, I'd DISagree on this! I would (and have, and more than once!) been in similar circumstances, not just with film, but with other "arts" and other non-arty occupations. If somebody tells me that there's more to something than meets the eye, ear, nose, pallate, groin, whatever, and I know them well enough to know that they ain't just blowing smoke, and that they aren't just flavor-of-the-month trendmongers, I gotta allow for the possibility that there's more there than I'm getting. Of course, that's not going to make me change my mind about how I subjectively feel about it, not right away, but whereas I might have beforehand said, "this is a big load of crap", respect for those who DO know more than me about whatever the medium/occupation in question is compels me to modify the expression of my opinion to a somewhat less more "all-knowing" stance, at the very least to "this seems like a big load of crap to me, but people who know the field better than me say otherwise, so who knows?" or something like that. Just admit that what I know isn't all there is, even (ESPECIALLY!) what I know of and about myself. And, make the occasional effort to figure out what it is that they see in it. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I get some of it, sometimes I never get it. But I feel better for having tried, and I feel better knowing that there are still things that I don't readily comprehend. That means there's still room for growth and it ain't time to die (that's how my mind feels anyway. How my BODY feels these days is another matter entirely... ) As for Desmond & Hodges, all I can say is that reconciling their personalities with their music can and should be done. It's one of those things that is well worth the effort, and probably more instructive than graduate level psychology courses. It's "in there", but finding it require challenging most everything you think you know about the predictability of human nature. Now Tony, this has been a fun-but-serious discussion so far, thank God, and hopefully it will continue to be, but Dude, THIS business here REALLY perplexes me: And therein lies what I feel is a big tendency for people who push the envelope (in music, in any art) to want to have it both ways. They're quite happy when they're in the vanguard, pushing boundaries, critics' darlings, etc...but when living on that razor's edge gets kind of exhausting and they'd like to have an actual LIFE for a while and they ratchet back on the intensity, and the music inevitably SOUNDS like they've ratcheted back (flat even), and the fans and critics call them on it, then suddenly it's THE FANS AND LISTENERS' FAULT for just not being hip enough to appreciate their "later period." COME ON! Give me a break folks. I've used this quote of Neil Young's before, coined back in the 80's rock period: "Every wave is new until it breaks." So there are times when I would like to tell certain artists who were once avant garde darlings but have, well, by my ears (crap detectors) lost the edge amd/or are casting around for a sense of relevance and purpose, "You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Please don't whine about people calling you on it when you've descended from the heights to mere mortaldom." What the HELL does that have to do with Sonny Rollins, one of the most notoriously NON-comfortable-with-the-critical-and-public-fuss in the history of the music? This is a guy who has a legendary distrust of the media and an equally legendary dislike of hype and publicity. And this dates back to the 50s, btw. I think a reading of the jazz press over the last 40-50 years will fail to turn up any indication that Sonny Rollins was EVER thrilled or delighted by the hype he recieved in his percieved heyday. In fact, you'll find just the opposite. So leave Neil Young to those for whom it applies, ok? If you can believe what he says the few times he speaks in an interview in terms outside of his usual set answers, his life has been at least as much about reconciling the demands of functioning in the public arena with what for him is a very personal, spiritual even, act. "Get over it" might be a reaasonable enough answer to that (and I suspect it's one that Lucille Rollins has proffered more than once...), but we all have our quirks, no? Let him who has never been cast be the first stoned, or whatever that line is... One could argue that this is a dillemma that every artist faces, and that others have found a way to deal with it. Yeah, and so what? I could argue that every "compromise" one makes for the public presentation of such personal matters adds a layer of "artificiality" to it and means that the public is being sold a representation of the real thing, not the real thing itself. I DO in fact hold this position about a lot of music, but don't necessarily view it as a "bad" thing - the veneer's been around so long that it's become part and parcel of the thing itself, something that automatically gets factored into the equation. And sometimes, as in horace Silver's work, the veneer is where the substance actually lies (in my opinion). But DAMN do I love it when somebody has the balls to either ignore it or attempt to subvert it, even to the point of stubbornly (but knowingly) producing work that is ALL veneer, just to make the point that "product" is not the be-all-and-end-all of things like music. Of course, this whole matter of subtext is of little or no interest to many "fans", and so be it, c'est la'vie, c'est la guerre, etc. Everybody makes music for their own reasons, but the "system" isn't set up to provide everybody with whatever audience might be suitable for them. Therein lies the basic "art vs. commerce" bugaboo that has been around ever since music began to be something besides a wholly communal, ritualistic, folk activity. Those who for whatever reason choose not to be aware of or contemplate that are well within their rights, of course, but refusing to acknowledge something does not make it disappear, any more than being aware of it means that it should be front and center in everybody's perception. Like my college buddy Don Coleman used to say, "There it is if you like it, there it is if you don't like it". BTW, Tony, I'm glad to see you backed off, if only implicitly, of the whole "Sonny's been lost for the last 30 years" position. That really was over the top, and not at all justified by ANY evidence, recorded or anecdotal. You can say that Sonny's been a LOT of things over the last 30 years, but "lost" is not one of them. I spent last night on my job (data entry, YIPPEE! ) repeatedly listening to +3, GLOBAL WARMING, & THIS IS WHAT I DO, and if THAT'S lost, well, would that we were ALL so lost! And Creaming off the relatively few excellent tracks from a 25 YEAR PERIOD and saying it's a strong set is fine and well, but to extrapolate that as an accurate representation of the period as a whole, well...let's just say the scientist in me really balks at that kind of methodology! while a joke that I get and appreciate also points out an inherent conflict between jazz and "rational" thought and linear reality. The question of what the true nature of any music is, especially jazz, and to what extent recordings capture and/or distort that nature, is as old as recording itself (and has morphed into the music video debate as well). Many have debated if Sonny's dislike (some have called it a phobia, others a hatred) of recording, live or otherwise (and this too goes back to the late 50s) is a stubbornly courageous holdout against the corruption of an all but lost "original purity of intent" that deserves commendation, albeit laced with INCREDIBLE amounts of frustration, for staying true to what he (and many, MANY other more pragmatic individuals) feel is the ultimate "truth" of the music; or if he is just a brilliant but naive holdout against the inevitable nature of the world to get a taste of a good thing and move on/into it until it consumes/subsumes/assumes it as its own, and if he is a fool for resisting (although, again, the last 3 albums show that an internal compromise might FINALLY have been reached). Or if he is in fact both. The Winnie The Poohs of the world will have an easy and predictable answer, but the rest of us...

Tough call. The Alladin stuff is GREAT, but it only covers one time period. But damn, what a period it is! If this is you VERY first excursion into Lester, I'm tempted to suggest the Proper for the same reasons as John L. But unless you're one of those rare birds who just doesn't dig Pres, you WILL end up going deeper and deeper, and the Proper box will soon be redundant. OTOH, once it's no longer needed, what a perfect gift it will make to get somebody ELSE into Lester! Either way, you win. How many times does THAT happen?