JSngry

This just in from the PR geniuses at BN: For your listening pleasure, we are pleased to announce the return of Blue Note Radio. Since our original version of Blue Note Radio became extinct over one year ago, we have seen a flood of emails, consumer inquiries and requests to bring Blue Note Radio back online. It had always been our goal to revive Blue Note Radio, but it had to be better than it was. A new Blue Note Radio would need to be easy to use, with more features and customization tools and of course great sound. All of this and more has been achieved with our new Blue Note Radio. With a new look, a new technology partner and new functionality Blue Note Radio delivers free streaming audio of your favorite Blue Note tunes. Classic and current Blue Note artists and songs are represented here. Listeners can choose high or low bandwidth, select artists and songs to hear more often, and can easily purchase and learn more about music heard on Blue Note Radio. Once signed in to Blue Note Radio, you can even listen from more than one computer. Blue Note Radio is only available in the US to PC users. Blue Note Radio sounds great at home or at work. Sign up is free and easy and Blue Note Radio is accessible from every page on the Blue Note web site. Sign in, Listen & Enjoy: http://www.BlueNote.com/Radio Truthfully, I dug the old BN radio. It was like any radio (a surrender of your listening choices to somebody else), only safer, because they covered the whole catalog, old and new (and the whole catalog has come to hold so many labels besides the REAL BN that the variety quotient trended favorable). Anyway, just thought I'd pass this along in case anybody was interested. Chow, Gym

Moms are funny - I was home from college one summer and was jamming SORCECER and my Mom walked in during Herbie's solo on "Limbo" and says, "That's NICE! Who IS that?" TOTALLY out of character for the woman, but hey... Here's some more recs for Moms - Coltrane/Hartman (Impilse!): works for damn near EVERYBODY! Milt Jackson's SUNFLOWER on (CTI): perhaps the apex of the CTI sound. Easy on the ears, yet some truly beautiful and GREAT playing by Bags, Freddie Hubbard, and Herbie Hancock. Dexter Gordon - THE JUMPIN' BLUES (Prestige): Mom might not be ready for the full-frontal Dexter of the BN or Steeplechase things, but this is a really good side with plenty o'meat, yet it maintains a mellowish vibe throughout. One of my favorite Dexter sides, actually, and seemingly underecognized, so give Mom her first taste of "insiderism" and of Dexter all at once! SO many more to recommend!

I knew him casually, that's all. It might be a while before I have the time to (re)post in depth, but I'll try to, eventually. Suffice it to say that he was very much "the real deal" and that I learned innumerable and immeasurable life and musical lessons from being in his company, even casually.

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!!!!