JSngry

I'd not rule out the Weston so quickly, Kevin. I understand that the "Uhuru etc" vibe is not for everybody, but Weston has produced a significant body of work that, besides drawing on African motifs, also extends the musical concepts of Ellington & Monk in a profoundly distinctive fashion, and if this new MS hits on some of those works, you might find yourelf pleasantly surprised.

Think I videotaped this episode. Might be stashed away in the closet. Don't know if I got Miles' Honda(?) motorcycle commercial or not, though.

Mmmmm...steaks marinating....if not for the husband/wife reunion thing, I'd be over for dinner! Ron, I lived in Albuqueque from spring 1982-summer 1984. I played in a wide assortment of groups, ranging from kinda "commercial" blues bands, to the Albuquerque Symphony (one gig only, they did "Ebony Concerto" and needed saxophonists) to the Albuquerque Jazz Orchestra (or as I called it, The Garlic Band, due to it's being the AJO), to everything in between - rodeos, shows, society bands, grungy "non-commercial" jazz groups, pretty much everything. Big fish in a small pond, you could say. Played at Danbi's, the Cooperage, some club over by the university with the beautiful soul Jesse Sawyer (R.I.P.), and lots of other places whose names I can't remember, as well as the ever-otherworldly Madrid Jazz Festival. Did a fair amount of recording, mostly demo sessions as a hired gun, but nothing outside of Albuquerque proper. Played Santa Fe on occasion (again, can't remember names, one club was in a hotel, that much I can remember), and caught a few concerts up there. Beautiful cities, both, although the last time I was in Albuquerque (2 years ago), the apparent lack of zoning laws had really take it's toll on that city's natural charm. Hey Scott, what's for desert? Ice cream?

I'll second this praise - a well nigh perfect program of freshness. Great remastering job too - it sounds freakin' great in my car, and NOTHING sounds good in my car!

Try this for starters: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=A5g77gjwr86ic http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=A4pkku3ugan8k http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=Aprb8b5f4bsqe http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=Ay97uak8kgm3x http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=A5fe67uw070jf http://www.gerrymulligan.info/m_gm'63_cjb.html

You're in mighty fine company Barak. Just don't go off on a riding lawnmower when you get thirsty, ok?

This is kinda cool, in a Secret Agent Man kinda way: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...ne&CODE=listall

Yeah, dude, I knew. It just kinda got "lost" in the middle of all the other stuff. Glad to see you pimpin' yourself. Keep it up! You know, we could put an "Organissimo Forums All Stars" multi-band package on the road and come to every members hometown and sleep in their houses and eat their food and "know" their neighbors and never be sleepy or hungry or horny ever again! THAT'S why I became a musician, dammit - comfort without responsibility! :rsmile: B) :rsly:

Being a Pip is a full-time trip! No man, this was in 1983, when I was living in Albuquerque, I went to Gunnison w/a group led by one Laney McDonald, an ex-Chicagoan pianist/singer who did a "lite" jazz/R&B trip. What club it was, I don't remember, but it was a "jazzy" bar. The hotel they put us up in shared a parking lot with the club. Walking from the room to the club was like being in a real-life Golden Circle cover. As for Quartet Out travelling, yeah, we'd love to. All it takes is a coordinated schedule so we can make enough along the way and back to not LOSE money, and that's where it gets tricky. To bring a band like ours into a club for one or two nights without having anything in between is most likely a losing proposition, unless the club has a really generous budget. But get a string of these things set up, a circuit, and it becomes more feasable. Of course, concerts and other venues are always alternatives. Bottom line - if we can do it w/o losing money, we're game if the scheduling is far enough in advance. If anybody has a plan, let me know. I'm reasonable, practical, and a real Pip to deal with... Sorry to throw the thread off topic, but you asked!

Very nice work!

How far is Parkertown from Gunnison? I played a weekend there in January once, and the warmest it ever got was -22F. The snow was up over everybody's head. I dug it for a weekend, but I don't know if I could live in it. OTOH, it beats the hell out of tornados!

People with a fuller awareness of prebop jazz than I can fill in the blanks, but there had been pianoless/chord instrumentless things done before Mulligan, if not that many of them. As for the Dorham thing, I really don't know what the impetus was it. I'd like to learn more about these things myself!

Well, I'm no Coleman expert, but I can tell you that the piano was absent in the two groups for different musical reasons (and remember, just for history's sake, that Ornette's first album DID have a pianist (whether or not that was the label's doing, I don't know), and the whole original Coleman Quartet sprung out of a Paul Bley gigging group). Going back to Mulligan's pre-Quartet work, it's quite apparent that he dug counterpoint and backgrounds to solos. QUITE a bit, actually. This manifests itself in how the guy constantly played behind everybody's solos. He didn't really play simple background riffs, and he didn't really do a collective improv thing either. He combined the two and did improvised background counterpoint. "Bopsieland", some called it. Having a pianist on hand would not just increase the density of the group's sound, it would result in the existence of another harmonic/rhythmic layer that would render Mulligan's penchant for melodic background counterpoint a little unnecessary and/or cluttered. In spite of Mulligan's persona today as a "cool" player and a "genial" West Coaster, by all accounts he was a very opinionated, dominant, sharp, and at times difficult personality who very much insisted on playing his bands' music his way, and his way only. (Gary McFarland told of bringing in some charts to the CJB, and Mulligan edited/rearranged them almost beyond McFarland's recognition, but McFarland willingly conceeded that the changes were for the better). The man wanted room to do what he did, and the man made it happen. Ornette, otoh, was all about playing the song without playing the changes or the pre-existing form. As his later recordings with Geri Allen show, his concept of music allows for a pianistic presence just fine, but at the time, who was around to deal with the piano as simply another melodic instrument in the ensemble instead of a time-keeping, change making, form demarcating part of the rhythm section that only soloed when it's time came? I think it's revealing that AFTER Ornette, a bunch of pianists came to reevaluate their role in the ensemble. No Ornette, no Herbie w/Miles, that's my guess. In both cases, the leaders found that a piano clashed with, or at the least inhibited, their overall musical conceptions. But the WAY in which it clashed, i.e., the musical reasons, was totally different. Not unlike the Tristano "free improvisations" of a decade before, somebody else got there first. But comparing what they did and why the did it with the whats and whys of Ornette's music suggests that parallel, not intersecting, paths were beng followed. If anything, I'd guess that Sonny Rollins' trio work might have had a bigger imact on Ornette's final path than Mulligan, simply because Rollins, not unlike Coleman, used the format to indulge and encourage his natural propensity for rhythmic and harmonic flexibility and elasticity. Listen to the occasions where Mulligan played w/a pianist - does he SOLO any differently than he does without one? Not much, I'd say. The same cannot be said of Rollins! And, as SOMETHING ELSE and to a lesser extent (Bley was not an agressive comper in this band), the Hillcrest Club recordings show, it cannot be said of Ornette either. None of this is to minimalize Mulligan - his innovations were real, significant, and stand on their own. No doubt, the openess of his quartet's sound set many wheels to turning and put the idea of a more "airy" sound in the, well, air. It is just merely to point out that the same thing can be done by different people for different reasons. If Ornette had his own distinct idea of what he wanted to do early on (and it seems that he did - anybody who has not already done so, PLEASE read John Litwieler's Coleman biography), the odds are that the elimaination of the piano was inevitable, Mulligan precedent or not, simply for musical reasons.

Well, ok then. I suspected as much, but this openness is something of which I was not aware. Any leads as to where I can read/hear about all this? I'm not trying to be sensational or voyeuristic, not at all. I have a genuine curiosity of the "sociological" type. The guy's career/life fascinates me.

And perhaps this is the golden lining inside the silver cloud of recent Verval actiontivities? One can but hope that somebody with some sense has an ear over there now. Maybe Mark got a promotion! (Is there justice in this world, even though it be fleeting? Tell me no questions and I'll ask you no lies...)

Dude, you live by the Eb, you die by the Eb. Simple as that. Hell, if Art Pepper had played tenor, he'd have probably gotten through all his mess and still be alive. AND deep! Don't let the few fool you - God is a Bb kinda God when it comes to horn players. He just lets the few special ones through the gate so it's not TOO easy.

Given their current holdings, Fantasy could make an "essential" (and probably best-selling!) catalog item by putting out a compilation of announcements/introductions by Cannonball Adderly & Duke Ellington. I may yet do it myself and offer it as a freebie. But don't hold your breath, not just yet. Let me get my kids graduamated first...

I suspect tha many of us here were alive and cognizant when Ball passed. Surely it wasn't just me who felt it to be a heavier than usual blow, not so much to the music as to the overall culture? Has time proven that gut feeling accurate? I myself think it has.

I hope that is true, in many different ways, on many different levels.

Thank God for ".org" & the preconcieved notions of the "general public". Thank God for Organissimo Forums. I'd not raise this issue anywhere else. But the crowd here can hang, at least I HOPE they can. To wit: Nobody's anwered this yet, so I'll be blunt. How the hell does somebody who's spent most of his career doing music and projects that can crudely, but best, be described as having a "white" estehetic show up playing TOTALLY badass hard bop trumpet with a bunch of African-American junkies? Flame away. but only if you really grasp the implications of what I'm saying.

Re:Waldron - Wow.... Re:Grimes - WOW! I suppose I could look it up, but where does SPEAK BROTHER SPEAK fit into the Waldron story?

Any thoughts on the RETURN OF DON PETERSON album (that's how I have it) w/Eddie Daniels (still sucking Joe Henderson's jimmy, but doing it in such a self-respecting way), Ted Dunbar, & Freddie Waits? For me, it's worth it to me for "Love Story" alone, And what's up w/Don Schlitten & that tune anyway? Cedar did a trio version of it on BREAKTHROUGH. It's a better tune than whoever had the hit on it (Mancini?) cared to reveal, but it's not THAT good. One has to wonder, one does...

Checked in over there this morning and all was well. Went back a bit later and my non-framed link didn't work. Went there through the JC homepage, got the framed link, and all there was was a cryptic message about temporarily shutting down due to heavy spamming. What did I miss?

I think Soul Stream was referring to Yanow's calling the Varitone a baritone.