JSngry

For all Krall's vaunted "sexiness", I find her a bit "cold", frigid even. Elvis' first post-breakup album? "Almost Blew"?

"Hawk and his wings" - THAT works! Or "Pops when he sings"...

NOT SO FAST!!!! There's some awfully good live stuff on that box, and..... there's VIDEO!!!!!!!

I've learned some of his tunes, played and studied a few of his solos, enough to get a feel for what he's up to, but I'd never immerse myself in anybody's music too much past that point. I've always aspired to play like ornette the same way I've aspired to play like Prez or any body else - as honestly and spontaneously as possible, to tell a story and convey expression, not just "follow the rules" - ANYBODY'S rules! The best jazz (hell, the best MUSIC, period) is "free" in that it follows its own logic and rules and does not aspire to fit into a mold. Louis Armstrong is just as free as Albert Ayler in my book! What Ornette's major contribution was/is, in my opinion, is to show that jazz musicians didn't HAVE to be limited to a cyclical, recurring form in order to create. Think about this - in the developement section of a symphony, does the composer limit his writing to the exact harmonic progressions of his opening themes? Of course not - he develops them by taking them on an imaginative "journey" through various keys, major/minor "games", motivic malleabilities, and any number of devices that suit his needs. Ornette seems to have intuited that jazz could be played the same way - that after you played the theme, you could variate it any way you wanted to. The guy's always "playing changes" in his solos, they're just not following a predictable pattern of repetition. What John L says/asks, Is that to say: "just invent melody, any melody, and the harmony will follow in step?" is inevitably true - harmony is inherent in melody. The question is, WHAT harmony are you going to put to your melody? The most advanced boppers (Bird in paarticular) came up with such elaborate substitutions that it was inevitable that somebody would eventually say, "Why not just make it up as we go along?" Tristano's two Capitol free improvisations from the late 40s do this, even if their "perspective" is coming from someplace entirely outside the "jazz mainstream". But they show that the idea of 100% improvisation as a true life philosophy was already in the air, which follows perfectly with the spiritual/scientific teachings/discoveries that what we can immediately see/experience is but a fraction of what actually "is". Opening oneself to the myriad possibilites and implications of simultaneous/parallell "realities" (or, if you like, "dimensions") could only lead to a broadening of options for concieving of form. The fact that the person who crystallized all of this perfectly in the jazz realm was a self-taught, semi-rural African-American from Fort Worth, Texas makes perfect sense for any number of reasons, too. The deepest blues have NEVER been about succumbing to the demands of rigidly impost linearity, musically or lyrically, and definitely not philosophically in any regard, social or otherwise. It's that intuitiveness, that so-called "naivete" that give Ornette's correct (in my opinion) assumptions about the fluidity of time and harmony (and life) such true power - his was no intellectual theory that created the music as a demonstration of it. His was a music that created the need for a theory, one that, if you ask me, is a LOT more philosophical than it is musical, after its creation. In other words, his music explains his theory rather than the other way around. That's pretty much the way its always worked in music - the visionaries create, "just because", and the theorists come along afterwards to explain the "hows" and "whys" in "technical" terms, to codify the products of the imagination. Anytime the theory comes before the music, I need convincing of the music's actual "truth". Well, almost anytime - George Russell gets a pass, a BIG pass. But honestly, I think that his theory was formulated on an intuitive basis also, at least in its earliest phases, and the end results, in practice, are not TOO terribly removed from Ornette's less "academic" concepts. Different roads to adjoining cities, you might say, with more than ample transportation between them to provide ample opportunity for crosstown copulation, even if producing mixed offspring on a regular basis might prove genetically impossible, or at least highly difficult.

Pretty sure that "I Can't See For Lookin'" was out on COOL COOKIN', a early 70s Cadet 2-LP commapullation, which also included "How Could You Do a Thing Like That to Me" (aka Ellingon's "Sultry Serenade"), a Vanguard track that to the best of my knowledge ahs never been released ANYWHERE else.

Trifecta time. Not really my "favorite" per se, but DAMN that sucker hits a groove unlike any thing else I know of. It's vote worthy for "I Wish You Love" alone!

As a leader? The obvious choice for me would be Max Roach, since he sorta bred that whole vibe w/his mid/late 60s bands. Woulda like to have heard Kenny Dorham do a leader date for Strata-East. The Last Poets. Bartz, obviously. Frank Mitchell. Joe Lee Wilson. Betty Carter. Hannibal. DEFINITELY Hannibal. Ishmael Reed. Andy Bey. K'atetta Aton (still looking for somebody who's heard of her and/or knows where she is today...) Cannonball. Imagaine Cannonball on Strata-East throughout the early 70s instead of Capitol and weep for what was not. Oh yeah, the whole Black Jazz roster. But they had their OWN label. And believe it or not, the very earliest Earth Wind & Fire. Seriously. Those were the days...

Shirley Scott did a beaut of an album for Strata-East: ONE FOR ME. Sorta/kinda has a Young-ish vibe to it w/o being explicitly Youngish. REASONABLY ACCURATE AMG REVIEW HERE!

The "Dimenuendo..." interval in the original ELLA AND DUKE AT COTE AZUR" is mind boggling, as is "Happy Reunion" from the TOGA BRAVA SUITE album. There are many, MANY reasons for pursuing the Ellington live documents, and catching Gonsalves at moments like these (and others) is one of the better ones. Another vote for TELL IT LIKE IT IS - "Body & Soul" from that album is so out that it's in, or vice versa. The rest of the album is pretty badass too. Absolute MOST favorite Gonsalves moment though has to be "Naidni Remmus" from the Musicmasters NEVER-BEFORE-RELEASED RECORDINGS (1965-1972) disc. Whoa....................

There was a Down Beat interview made shortly before his death and published shortly after it.

I've always been perplexed by the comments of some (notably Budd Johnson) that Fuller was a bit of a scam artist - relying heavily on ghost writers and otherwise getting credit (and money) not really due him. Surely his track record speaks for itself?

I'd not rule out checking out ALL of Weather Report's albums up to AND including HEAVY WEATHER (a "pop" album after the fact, not before it, and although definitely not as "loose" as their previous work, still very well written and performed). The first two (3 if you count the incindeary LIVE IN TOKYO import) are totally different than anything to come later - very improvisational, with an "everybody solo, nobody solo" (their phrase at the time) approach. The music just unfolds gradually and organically, as the main voices (& you'd have to count Miroslav Vitous as one of them) plays what is needed (and when), and otherwise respects the silence. EXCEPT for LIVE IN TOKYO, which is some of the fiercest electric jazz (as opposed to "fusion", which it definitely is not, by ANY standard) at least to my ears) on record, in my opinion. With SWEETNIGHTER & MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER, the focus becomes more compositional, but such compositions they are, especially on the latter. This is the period where Zawinul really begins feeling his oats and becoming the dominant compositional voice, but Wayne is still a key lead voice and contributer of some beautiful pieces. The former is definitely "transitional", but "Boogie Woogie Waltz" is one of those pieces where it seems like nothing REALLY happens, and KEEPS not happening, but by the time it's over, you're in a trance and want to hear it again. And again. This was a REALLY killer piece live. MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER is the band's first unqualified masterpiece, in my opinion. The seemingly exponential expansion of synthesizer technology had finally reached the point where Zawinul could begin to paint the colors he'd been hearing, and paint them he did, in rich and varied hues, using Wayne to exquisite effect. Wayne never really played a lot in WR from here on out (at least on recordings - live was another story altogether), but what he DID play carried an enormous punch. If it were really that simple to do what he did with this group, then everybody could do it, and we'd live in a far better world than we now do! TALE SPINNIN' is basically a funky jam album, but with these guys, that means something different than it would for anybody else. As Lon has noted, it's a fine album with a really nasty groove throughout. This is close as WR ever got to being a "jam band", and it ain't a bad place to be. But things changed... I can sympathize with those who have reservations, hesitations, or outright dislike for WR for any number of reasons - the electronics, the "pop" elements (although, truth be told, there's a LOT more "Third World" influences in their work than anything else, at least until Jaco came on boar), and it not being "real" jazz. I feel that way myself about a LOT of what happened in the 70s, notably the whole "jazz-rock" big band and horn band scene. Except for the cornerstones/archetypes of the idiom, Fusion as a genre is something that I've not had ANY enthusiasm for since about 1975 or so. But Weather Report, as I've said previously, still strikes me as something else entirely. If things got a bit (lots. actually) wierd in the Jaco-and-beyond years, the albums up until then still strike me as a very rich body of work full of new ideas, and above all, musical substance. And even the later albums have moments (or more) of really inspired, creative music that defies easy categorization. In these post-Marsailis times, the idea of "real" or "pure" jazz is still very much in the collective consiousness. But I did not grow up in those times, and the barriers/categories/whatever that are still "hot buttons" in the jazz world today seem a bit artificial and unnecessary to me. I checked out Weather Report from their first album on, and the music seemed a totally logical and creative use of all the elements and concepts that were "in the air" at the time, free of contrivance and/or condescension to commercial trends. Zawinul has ALWAYS had a populist bent to his esthetic, but I believe he comes by it honestly - how else can you explain "Mercy Mercy Mercy" AND "His Last Journey"? One's "about" pure unadulterated blue collar African-American soulfulness, the other about his grandfather's funeral in Austria. Hell, even "In A Silent Way" was supposedly inspired by Zawinul's memories as an Austrian shepherd boy. This is not some abstract musico who live in the realm of the theoretical and obscure, this is a guy who first and foremost is A GUY! a pretty wack one with all sorts of wild sounds floating around in his head, but a guy nevertheless - a real "man of the people", so to speak. So too is Wayne, in his often enigmatic, "cosmic" way. Wayne's always talked about the "universal", not as something that only a physicist or a holy man can grasp, but as something that we are ALL a part of. If he's as ethereal in his speech as he is in his playing, let's not confuse eliptical with evasive or solitary with isolated. Wayne in Weather Report was a consitently VOCAL player, using his instrument to sing, cajole, joke, and otherwise "speak". Very, VERY seldom do you hear Wayne in WR play in a way that indicates that he's thinking in a purely "musical" (ie - theoretical) manner - there's nearly always a very human impulse in everything he plays, and often, the less he PLAYS, the more he SAYS. My point is merely that for all the electricity, energy, and eventual hype, Weather Report was first and foremost a "people band" - they played about life and people, they didn't get all off into various musical devices/tricks/gimmicks like so many other bands and artists that they're still lumped together with did readily, willingly, and ably. They had an "international" makeup from the beginning, and they did all the way through their existence with the notable exception of the Jaco-Erskine quartet - the most "rock" oriented lineup and output, as well as the most comercially successful. Their music is definitely not "pure" jazz, and it may not be jazz at all from SWEETNIGHTER forth, certainly not jazz of the African-American, finger-poppin, nightclub variety. But that's not who they were as people - Zawinul's from AUSTRIA for crying out loud! Wayne remarked as early as, I believe, SPEAK NO EVIL that he was beginning to feel the need to broaden his outlook beyond what he later refered to as "nightclub music", and in the first edition, what with Airto & Miroslav, you had a band that almost HAD to play something besides straight-ahead, 4/4 jazz, such was the combination of backgrounds and potent creative minds involved (and really, after Wayne's stint with Miles, where he played as fast and furious as possible for so many years, wouldn't the opposite approach seem the logical next step?.) I'm not trying to change anybody's mind one way or the other, but suffice it to say that Weather Report is a band that continues to hold much fond fascination for me in all its phases. "Jazz" it may or may not be, but creative music it most definitely is (at least most of the time), and for me, that's enough to give it my respect, and, given it's liberal usage of jazz, R&B, and "folk" (Third World AND "Old World") elements, all musics that I have deep affection and affinity for, my enthusiasm.

I'm familiar with 3: Charles Earland: "Intensity" - VERY nice, and w/Billy Harper as well (other material from this date came out on CHARLES III - did Fantasy collate them all for their CD?). Plus, there's the "classic" version of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow", an obvious, but successful, attempt to follow up on "More Today Than Yesterday". Bobbi Humphrey: "Flute In" - don't ask...Lee & Billy are on this one too (as is Hank Jones), and it's Humphrey's most "jazzy" BN, but, just as regardless of the context it's still Lee Morgan & Billy Harper, regardless of the context, it's still Bobbi Humphrey, and it's mostly her show. Enough of Billy & Lee to make for a decent enough casual listen, but essentially for completists and cheap-used-LP-bin denizens only. Lonnie Smith: "Turning Point" - pretty good. A bit draggy in spots for my taste, and certainly no THINK, but w/Benny Maupin & Julian Preister sharing the front line w/Lee, good stuff happens often enough. I've heard really good things about the Wilson, but have never heard it, and know nothing about the Mabern - the lineup looks good, though, & Hubert Laws play tenore as well as flute, so that intrigues me.

Limited time here, so here's what I've glommed from Ornette's music from a theoretic standpoint: Take a note, say a "C". That C can be the root of a C chord, the 3rd of an Ab Major chord, the 5th of an F chord, the 7th of a D chord, etc. This mutability of any note's harmonic function opens up the door for the spontaneous creation of non-predictable harmonic movement throughout the course of improvisation rather than a cyclical, recurrent form. THAT part of Ornette's music has been around since the early (earliest?) days. The rest of the Harmolodic Theory, I suspect, is a philosphical extension of that basic precept - that any note can "mean" any thing at any given time. Two more things - there was a Down Beat Workshop column or two in the late 70s where Ornette expounded on the Harmolodic Theory. It's nothing if not"theoretical", if you get my drift... Also, if you can find the old Artists House TALES OF CAPTAIN BLACK LP, the booklet includes "James Blood's Harmolodic Guitar Clef", which seems to show 3 distinct ("Natural", "Flat", & "Sharp") juxtapositions of Harmolodic scales over Concert scales. There's no READILY apparent logic to it, and I've had neither the time nor the inclination to pick this thing apart over the years, but it does suggest that Ulmer, at least, has come up with something a bit more "formal", "fixed", "specific", "rigid", take your pick, than Ornette's original notions of absolute harmonic equanimity.

What's the story with the Dauntless label? Who, what, when, where, etc.?

Is Freddie Jenkins the cat who wore gloves as part of his "uniform"? Not heavy gloves, but lightweight, "dressy" gloves? The reason I ask is because a few years ago I was hanging with some cats in Johnny Taylor's road band, and part of their uniform was women's gloves with the fingers cut off/out. I saw this and immediately thought of Jenkins (I think?). When I asked them why/how they came to this addition to their on-stage apparel, the trumpet player said, with typical chitlin'-circuit directness, "B*tches love 'em". So much for elegance...

Yeah, I read that, and I still remember Zawinul saying they're synthisized all the way. I go with Zawinul - a close listen reveals no actual words being spoken, merely the SOUNDS of voices. Listen REALLY closely, and the "artificiality" makes itself heard, but only then. Acuna also says, "You recall the song 'Elegant People?' [Wayne] wrote that because of the way I play. He didn't tell me that, but I knew it, because he is like a tailor--he makes the suit to fit the person. So it was because I was in the band." Notice that in both cases, "(They) never told (him) that. I think that perhaps Mr. Acuna might be feeling the fire just a bit too warmly.

Dusty Groove (the bastards!) have this guy's stuff out the wazzoo. I had no real idea who he was, but he sure seems to have been prolific!

Musta changed the water...

For those who make the Monk/Brubeck parallel, though, it's worth noting that BRUBECK and Mingus recorded together. One track - "Non-Sectarian Blues", for Columbia.

It might seem like Jurassic-Era lore to the younger folk, but the impact that the introduction of polyphonic synthesizers made on Zawinul can not be understated. They gave him the liberty to create textures that were orchestral in density yet had timbres unlike any orchestra was capable of producing (although there's a few years later, on WR's version of "Rockin' In Rhythm", where, just for a moment, you SWEAR you're hearing the Ellington brass section doing a sustained trill). Zawinul, always one to think big, took this ball and ran like hell with it in a way that very few others did. You here this liberated imagination all over BLACK MARKET, as what was once an already exploratory quintet suddenly blossoms into a Technicolor Electric Orchestra of seemingly unlimited range. Maybe the impact is lost on those who come to the album after the fact, but as one who heard it when it was new, I can tell you that the textures and colors were very refreshing, startling even. "Newness" aside, though, the point is that much of BLACK MARKET (and beyond) could easily be transcribed for traditional big band/orchestra, but the results would pale in comparison. Just the other day I heard some new big band doing a chart on "Teen Town" (as a TUBA feature no less!), and the arranger got the voicings right, but it sounded old and tired. Zawinul's and Shorter's pieces for Weather Report from BLACK MARKET on were indeed frequently orchestral in intent, but it's worth noting that the synths were not used to mimic a traditional orchestra in any form or fashion - they WERE the orchestra, and that is no small point (or feat). Along those lines, and to pick a nit, I've read several references to the "train sound" on the opening cut. Well, that train sound was/is indeed memorable (and was reproduced live to even greater effect), but it's on "Barbary Coast", track 6. The album itself opens with the sounds of a crowd, the main voice vaugely reminiscent of the wacky female who shouts out "Perfidia" on one of the old Panart "Cuban Jam Session" albums from the 50s (sorry if that reference is Dennis Miller-esque in its obscurity). The thing is, though, that's NOT human speech - it's entirely synthisized, as are, I believe, all the other "sound effects" on the album. Zawinul was very enthusiastic about the potential of all this this in a Down Beat interview of the time, as he was about the whole possibilities of the then-fairly-new polyphonic (and, I think, FM) technology. I'm not enough of a synth geek to give you the chronology, but I seem to remember that BLACK MARKET followed in the footsteps of the introduction of a major synth breakthrough - the Oberheim perhaps? Whatever, the album to me is full of the beautifully wacky imagination of a man (a band for that matter) in the first thrall of FINALLY being able to get the sounds that he/they had been hearing but souldn't quite heretofore get a handle on, and that giddy rush remains contageous to this day. But then again, maybe you had to be there...

Just in case it's not clear (and if it matters), Sonny is only on the first side of the album, the tunes w/Cleveland. But it's all good.

Yeah, I'm reminded of a quote by George Harrison somewhere in the last 15 years or so - "How do you explain Gene Pitney?" That's one I don't think will EVER be answered!

I've mentioned this several times before in several different places, but it bears repeating - "Up, Up & Away" is a VERY good song. The changes move in a most non-diatonic fashion and the song has a "long form" similar to some of Cole Porter's more winding pieces. It's a song that should have been covered much more than it has, I think. I called it at a session one time and nobody wanted to play it but the drummer, so I told him to "give me some Elvin", and off we went. By the third chorus, the other guys heard what was REALLY up with the song and joined in, and a blast was had by all. It ain't an "easy" song - the movement of the changes and the long form make it a bit tought than most of your typical "sacred" standards (many of which, truth be told, are formulaic in the extreme from a harmonic standpoint); and, as is so often the case, people, including musicians, have a hard time differentiating between the record and the song itself. But I'm telling you, it's a DAMN good song and makes an excellent vehicle for improvisation.