JSngry

I see they've found a way to automate Dianne Warren...

Well, I daresay that not having any Louis, or just some sort of sampler, in a collection is probably more common these days than might be thought, and this is as good a place to start as any, since it's marvellously "hi-fi" AND totally kickass musically (but you're going to HAVE to get the Hot Fives & Sevens eventually. You just are!). Yeah - the CD bonus material is fascinating, notably the cuts where you get to hear Louis the bandleader in action, rehearsing some things and structuring the routines for recording purposes . So much for the myth of the "naive genius" - this guy knew EXACTLY what he wanted and how to get it. And, again, GREAT liner notes. And yeah, the alligator story is almost worth the cost of admission alone!

Red was kind enough to ask me to select the next album of the week, and my response was, "I'm sure I can think of SOMETHING" Well, I could, and I did. Many things. In fact, TOO many things. I wanted to dip into something that I felt "essential" in some form or fashion, yet something that was not overly familiar, something that might stimulate some people to check out something a little different than their usual bag(s), something, like BLACK MARKET, that stepped outside the "usual" music discussed in this great forum. Which way to go? Warne Marsh? Albert Ayler? Anthony Braxton? Lester Young? A vocalist? Brian Wilson? Gospel? Blues? Maybe even a COMEDY record? Who? What? When? Where? WHY? ????????????????????????????? Finally, I decided to go where any good jazzman goes when he/she needs a simple yet profoundly true answer - Louis Armstrong. Therefore, my selection for Album Of The Week for June 1 - 7 is LOUIS ARMSTRONG PLAYS W.C. HANDY (click here to buy) Simply put, this is, in my mind, one of the greatest jazz records ever, as well as one of the better reissues. If you only have the earlier CD, the ill-fated one with the "drum major" cover, treat yourself to the later issue. It's true to the original LP, has a wealth of priceless new material, sounds freakin' GREAT, and the liner notes tell a story (or two!) that you'd not believe if you heard it from anybody else. As good a major-label single disc package as there is, in my opinion, in terms of presentation. As for the music itself... If you don't have this album at all, get it A.S.A.P. and B.A.M.N.. Trust me, it IS that good. If your impression of Louis Armstrong is still that of an sweaty old man with a handkerchief singing "Hello Dolly" and/or an aging manchild who "naively" sang "What A Wonderful World" at the height of the Vietnam conflict, or even as a once bold firebrand who somewhere in the 1930s settled into a comfortable, nice-but-not-too-involved routine, YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS ALBUM! Hell, EVERYBODY needs to hear this album! Great band too. Maybe not the dazzling array of "name brands" of the Hines/Teagarden/Cattlett/etc. years, but whoopdee-damn-doo about that. Dig THESE players - funky-ass Barney Bigard on clarinet, the consistently invigorating Trummy Young on (do I have to tell 'ya? ), Billy Kyle on piano (Young & Kyle were both pivotal "swing-to-bop" musicians, something largely forgotten today but worth remembering if you listen to this album and find it "traditional" but still vaguely "modern" at the same time), the recently deceased Arvell Shaw on bass (and playing with a great big, old school, FULL sound that is marvelously captured), the irrepressible Barrett Deems on drums, and the warmly warm, nothing if not down home Velma Middleton on sometimes vocal. Nobody's slacking, everybody's in the peakest of their peak form, and if "St. Louis Blues" doesn't rock your world like getting hit in the face by a steel beam swinging into your face from across the street (only in a GOOD way. of course...), then I just don't know what to say. Hope y'all dig it!

Much props to my homie Hank, and no dis intended, but it's CHARCOAL all the way for me. Did a brisket, burgers and dogs yesterday as a matter of fact, and will probably do some ribs the next week or two. Just curious - do other parts of the country have a cut of ribs called "country style"? These babies have next to no bone, and are essentially rib STEAKS, that's how big amd meaty they are. Tender too! My kids have gotten spoiled now and won't eat anything else, which is fine with me, because they're a lot cheaper than babyback or other "rack"-style ribs.

Sorry, I misread the date and thought that it was AOW when I posted. My bad... And hey - what I say is just what I think/feel. There are no "rights" or "wrongs" or whatnots when it comes to your feelings about music. Nobody, NOBODY, can "say it all", and if you feel it and say it, it's as meaningful as anything anybody else says! If any of my posts get somebody to think a bit harder than they might have elsewise, to dig a little deeper into themselves and maybe get a better grip on things they might have had inside all along, then good! But if my posts "intimidate" (PLEASE note the quotes) or otherwise discourage discussion, then that's a BAD thing, and definitely something I don't want to be responsible for in ANY degree. Besides, when it comes to music the magnitude of that Massey Hall album, there are NO words that can adequately describe it - we're ALL gonna come up short! :D

Have you considered podiatral amputation? A bit extreme perhaps, but hey - problem solved!

I got a passport, a band, and an axe. Who could ask for anything more?

"...and CDRs too! Or so it seems," he said with a mixture of surprise, delight, and bewilderment, remembering the piece he cowrote for a locally-produced jazz album about 20 years ago that supposedly became #1 in then-Yugoslavia, and for which he has still yet to receive a penny, much less a dime ("Not that ANYBODY has, necessarily, but who knows? Not me, that's for damn sure," he mused.) Ah to hell with it (for now...). Book a tour, pay expenses, let some cash exchange hands, and it's all good. Almost...

JG, dude, if you want cut-and-dried with all the answers in advance, don't mess with no jazz.

SAY WHAT?????

Here's your secret weapon, right here:

Yep, I know the LP as well and echo Lon's comments. The tunes are a bit shorter than I'd like, but that's the Capitol Control at work no doubt. The actual playing is indeed fine. You can hear an elongated (9 minutes, and sans Lloyd at that!) version of "Fiddler on the Roof" (the song) on RADIO NIGHTS, available now on Hyena. Fiddler or no, that's a good one to get too.

Dude - let her buy you the shoes, and try them on. OOPS - they don't fit just right, gonna have to take them back and exchange them, never mind honey, I'll do it myself, you stay here and rest. Whilst out, RETURN the shoes, and with the credit, buy the box set, placing it in the shoe box for the return home (gives the term "box set" a whole 'nother dimension, eh?). Postpone wearing the new shoes, insist on waiting for "the right moment". When she gets TOO suspicious, fess up, and everybody have a laugh. She's GOTTA love you, ya' big lug! Trust me, this'll work like a charm, or else my name's not Millard P. Fillmore!

As for the box, a buddy of mine bought it, and then for grins (this is the kind of creative soul he is) ripped it to his hard drive, put the whole set into a jukebox program, set it to random play, and then reburned the output, after which he put THOSE results through another program to make smooth crossfades between tracks and to perform other audio niceties. The result is a set of about 12 or so CDs of Miles concerts from Montreux, none of which occurred as represented on his remix discs - the different bands from the different years appear side by side seamlessly, and truthfully, it succeeds splendidly in a way that the documetary approach of the actual box might not (haven't heard it yet in its "natural" state, so I can't say). Heard like this, I have no qualms about the music whatsoever! I'd buy it for the right price (which these days would be, like, "free or less"). I like what Miles was up to in these years - having a pretty much unabashed pop show of a band. If its not "cutting edge" in any way, its still the Miles esthetic at work, and there were no slouches in those later bands, that much is for sure. And Kenny Garrett CONSISTENTLY smokes.

Bob probably wrote it disappearing cyber-ink...

Hmmm...when I think "Blue Note Sound". I think soulful, bluesy (concrete AND abstract) music that was very much of its time, sometimes reflecting it, sometimes defining it, yet music that also continues to sound fresh today. When I think of pianists who defined that as the label's "signature", I come up with two names, pianists whose work laid the foundation that all the others built upon and examined the various components of in myriad different and personal ways: Albert Ammons & Meade Lux Lewis.

STRONG seconds for this one, Randy. HELL yeah! "Save Your Love For Me", "Happy Talk", & "The Old Country" were staples of AM jazz radio in these parts for years, and when we had that kind of programming on a 7-day basis, these tunes got ingrained into my subconscious, the same way any "hit" does. Unlike the kind of hit where you eventually get to hate it and try to erase it from your memory, these tunes's appeal only grow stronger as the years pass. Great stuff - timeless joy and eternal soulfulness in action.

Short answer? Because most people have a poor sense of history beyond what happened yesterday, and tend to think and react totally in terms of the here and now. Doesn't matter HOW we ended up segregated by race (well, of course it matters, but you know what I mean in this context...), if that's all people know, and all that their parents, grandparents, etc, knew, then the assumption that race is the definition of "our kind" will most likely go unchallenged by the vast majority of any group until circumstances force a confrontation with that "conventional wisdom". We saw (and still see) the "our kind" principal at work in the waves of immigrants over the last century, including those of today, and it never really goes away. For example, ask Catesta if he doesn't feel a slightly special bond with other Italians (at least initially), and remember also that these immigrants were often victims of cultural discrimination upon their arrival in America, and that members of those groups who still retain a lot of "old country" identity are much less likely to be percieved as "normal" Americans (unless they pimp it out for show biz purposes). I see nothing wrong with this bond based on ancestral national origin- it's a level of the whole "family" dynamic at work, I'd say, and a cheerful recognition of a shared cultural heritage is certainly nothing to shy away from in and of itself, is it? It's the foundation we all draw upon as we go forward, and if we acknowledge the deathly effects of slavery on erasing several generations of African-Americans' collective cultural identity, are we not the equally acknowledging, at least implicitly, that the identities that other cultures have, share, and celebrate are good things for them to have? Of course, we are ALL family at the end of the day, but forces over the centuries have "conspired" to cloud that fact in our collective minds, destroy it even. But things play out in such a way that The Truth cannot be hidden forever, and as our world becomes smaller, and isolation inceasingly difficult, if not impossible, the fallacies of the past will inevitably be put to the test and found wanting by the portion of the population that is interested in TRUE survival. Those who speak of the "preservation of the race" (regardless of what that race may be) are kidding themselves - races can never be totally destroyed, but species damn sure can!

Depending on who you believe, Beethoven.

OK, here's a devil's advocate typ question for those who proclaim an aversion to vocal jazz, or singers in general: How much of your dislike do you think is reflective of a desire to somehow be "seperate" from the world of Popular Music, where, after all, vocals rule. Do you think of jazz as a citadel of superiority, a domain where virtuosity, seriousness of purpose, and sophitication (in the good sense) rule and there's no room for the infiltration of something tainted with the possiblity of commoness as a singer, somebody who reminds us of the song's (and therefore the music's) roots in a world FAR less rarified than the instrumental jazz world? A devil's advocate question indeed, but one I ask without some slight degree of seriousness, because the ethos described above is one that I myself once shared, not fully, but to a fairly significant extent. I didn't want to hear "just" the song dished out by a singer, I wanted to hear something done with/to it by an instrumentalist. I wanted to hear the song made better than it really was! :D Wellsireebob, I kinda grew out of that (or more accurately, am GROWING out of that). I still don't care for a mundane singer, and probably cut them SLIGHTLY less slack than I do a mundane instrumentalist (otoh, I've been digging this thing they've been playing on KNTU by JOANIE FREAKIN' SOMMERS, and digging it pretty hard for God knows what reason, so maybe I've crossed the line and need to be shot before it gets any worse...), but for whatever reason, I've become quite attracted to the resonance, physical and emotional, of a good voice communicating directly, without the in-between of an instrument. It is a deeply personal matter, no doubt, but when, for example, Shirley Horn sings "Goodbye" on I LOVE YOU PARIS and hits that wavering climax, it grabs me in a way that I don't think that ANY horn player could. Not better in any way, but most certainly different, and unquestionably REAL and unambiguously DIRECT, the objects of our game, indeed! So never say never, Dear Friends - it could happen to you too!

Sorry, not familiar with Roberta Gambarini. Where can I hear her? As for Torme, I'm not a fan, actually. Great, GREAT chops, totally agile with a great ear, but the emotional "tone" of his work just doesn't reach me at all. My problem, no doubt, because the guy's skills are undeniable. Somebody mentioned Ella too, and this is a sticky one for me, because I'm slowly but surely going from "like" to "love" with her as an interpreter. but her scatting is something I am very much on a "case by case" basis with. She comes out of a strong Swing Era bag with it, and can throw down pretty nifty in that vein, but sometimes it seems to me that seh goes for effect more than content when she scats. Again, that's no doubt my problem entirely, but that's just how it hits me. But GOD what an instrument she had, one of a kind. With scatting, like so many other things, Louis Armstrong set the standard, and as easy as he made it sound, he did it with such a totality of musical sophistication AND emotional naturalness that he actually set the bar INCREDIBLY high, at least as far as I'm concerned. Now, somebody who was an INCREDIBLE scat singer was Eddie Harris, but he was a freak anyway.

I respect her abilities, which are undeniable, but what she does with them has yet to appeal to me personally. For that "wordless vocal" thing (or even "that thing" WITH words) to work for me, the context has to be JUST right, and rightly or wrongly, I'm pretty damn finnicky. Two examples that spring readily to mind are both Ellingtonian - Adelaide Hall on ' Creole Love Call' & Kay Davis on "On A Turquoise Cloud". What I meant by horn-like was the improvisational language that a soloist uses, a language that as the music became more technically involved became less vocalistic in terms of actual vocabulary (although not in terms of inflection and tonal quality). The practitoneers of vocalese, notably the great Eddie Jefferson, could sing the actual lines the horn players played (with words no less!), which besides the often daunting speed of execution required often involved some harmonic play that was decidedly non-diatonic in nature, and therefore a bit more demanding for the average singer who dealt mostly with melodies that were usually not too chromatic or harmonically altered, or if they were, not done so at the speed of an instrumentalist's improvisation. But I don't know of too many vocalese singers who could actually improvise in the manner they sung other people's solos. Jon Hendicks is definitely one who can/could, although most of his recorded work is in either the traditional melodic mode or the vocalese bag (yet another indicator that, important, invaluable even, as they are, records are an incomplete documentation of the totality of this music) - I think he began as a tenor saxophonist, and it shows. Betty Carter had the harmonic ear for it, but she had her owm deeply personal bag, and scatting in the traditional sense wasn't really what she was all about. But DAMN did that lady have an ear!