JSngry

I voted for ODYSSEY OF ISKA, but my cookies were turned off, so the vote didn't register! It's not my favorite (don't have one), but in many ways it's the most interesting to me, since it marks the beginning of Wayne Shorter, Opera Singer. Really, you listen to that album, and there is such pure MELODY to everything Wayne plays, and it's not the melody of a "jazz improvisor", it's the melody of a man singing arias. It's fascinating listening for me to hear this most facile of improvisors play such focused, directed music, especially given the loose, atmospheric accompanimental environments he created for himelf to do so in. I think this is not an album for jazz "newbies" or jazz "purists", but anybody who has the reference points to appreciate the concept of an improvisational saxophone opera (and the liner notes create an even more than usual "programmatic" scenario for the music that just reinforces the operatic concept) ought to check this sucker out and give it some time. It very well might grow on you more than you'd think. Or not. It has on me, that's all I know. BTW, it's a REAL bummer that ODYSSEY OF ISKA and MOTTO GROSSO FEIO were listed as a single choice. Totally different albums w/totally different results (and are you SURE that they were recorded on the same day?) ODYSSEY SOARS, but MOTTO just sort of rolls around in the mud, and not very lustily at that. Not for nothing was it witheld from release until Weather Report started becoming popular. ODYSSEY, otoh, came and went OOP in the blink of an eye as the "real time" successor to SUPER NOVA. Life ain't fair.

A definite recommendation here as well. A humerous note - I bought an 80s-vintage cutout cassette version of this on some "off brand" label, and on the spine, the artist was listed as "Archie Sheep". A great co-billing with Thelonious Monster, no doubt...

DECEMBER 14: Budd Johnson *1910 (HELL YEAH!!!) Ted Buckner *1913 Clark Terry *1920 Cecil Payne *1922 Phineas Newborn *1931 Leo Wright *1933 Curtis Fuller *1934 Jerome Cooper *1946 Dan Barrett *1955 (same year as me) Find them all here: http://www.jazzpages.com/jzzbirth_fr.htm

Yeah, much of the Atlantic stuff still holds up, notably DREAM WEAVER, THE FLOWERING, IN THE SOVIET UNION, &, of course, the hit album FOREST FLOWER. The (several decades) later ACCOUSTIC MASTERS 1 is a good'un as well. DRUMFUSION is a keeper, as are Chico's PASSIN' THROUGH & MAN FROM TWO WORLDS, both on impulse (although to get both albums today, you have to buy the CD versions of MAN FROM TWO WORLDS & THE DEALER, the latter a VERY different album. Why they did it like this defies reason.) For later Lloyd, try his BN album recorded at Montreux. that's some good stuff. The ECM stuff is different in feel, but I like it just fine, especially CANTO. Lloyd's never been a "heavy" player to me, but I've always enjoyed him because of his tone - very distinctive, very personal, and at it's best, very moving. I do think that he's really, REALLY come into his own as a player with the ECM things - there's a depth there that even the best of his earlier work lacked, but that's just my opinion.

The NPR bit focused almost exclusively on the "history" of "the band", much like Spinal Tap. Interesting that the movie goes in a different direction. Guess I should have recorded that NPR thing!

Comparisons of Boz' loose, bluesey/jazzy vocal phrasing in even his most blatantly pop outings to, dare I say it, Norah Jones' might prove instructive (or not...). I think it's a Texas thing. GOT to be a Texas thing. Y'all DO remember that Boz is a Texas boy, doncha? :D

CS 500, I believe you're a good guy without a malicious bone in your body, but there are certain aspects of being an African-AMERICAN that you, through no fault of your own, just don't seem to comprehend (and I strees SEEM to - plese feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), and they have to deal with the legacy (legacies, actually) of slavery. Things like attempting to maintain a solid family structure, a solid business base, a lack of crippling distrust and fatalism, these are all things lurking beneath the surface for many, MANY African-Americans. They are specific to the African-AMERICAN experience. Blacks from the Carribean, Africa, etc. weren't born and raised in this unique dynamic and often don't have any real empathy towards it. Some of the most blistering anti=African-American rhetoric I've ever heard has been from African blacks, who just don't understand why their American brethen can be such a complicated lot. They don't get it because they haven't had it. Now please don't misconstrue this as the tired old cop-out that slavery and its aftereffects is an excuse for people not seizing control of their lives. It's not, and leaders from W.E.B. DuBois to Marcus Garvey to Malcolm X to Jesse Jackson to Colin Powell have preached and lived that it's not. I'm not looking for an "excuse" of any sort. But the fact remains that the legacies of slavery DO linger on in the collective American subconscious, and for a lot (certainly not all, but a lot) of African-Americans, it's often a little bit more to the fore than in the subconscious. It's not like anybody has a CHOICE as to whether or not to deal with this or not either. People certainly have a choice of HOW they deal with it, and thankfully, I believe more and more people are beginning to feel enough direct distance from the past, as well as enough solid self-identity, to see it as somting that's just there, something to acknowledge as you move past it, rahter than something to constantly have lurking in the background, ready to strike when you least expect or want it to. But this welcome and positive evolution has taken time, a LONG time, it being an evolution and all. Think about this - when I first started attending integrated schools in 1965-6, there were a few kids who had greatgrandparents, LIVING ones, who had actually been slaves, grandparents who had lived through the most evil days of Jim Crow, and parents who were right in the thick of getting out from under the fallacious and specious "seperate but equal" system that permeated the American South. Is it realisitic to expect a kid who is born into such an environment to NOT be touched by that history? The kids were (and probably still are ) the same age as me, so they've got kids now that are anywhere from their late teens to early 20s, kids for whom the ex-slave ancestor was never known, but quite possibly all the others were/are. If you haven't done your homework on how totally and purely EVIL the American system of slavery was, how it totally raped and robbed a people of any sense of self-identity and human worth, how it instigated a whole set of sexual and moral ambiguities into a people, how it basically took them from humans to animals, and then upon it's abolition basically told them to start over, to become fully human again (yet discouraged, crushed even, so many attempts that looked as if they might be TOO successful), PLEASE do so. And try and understand that in terms of how far we as a country are removed from those day in the bigger, truer, sense of time, that it's really not that long ago. The Civil Rights Bill was signed in 1965. Things didn't really begin to settle down until the early 1970s. That's only 30 years ago. Is it reasonable to expect a legacy of several CENTURIES to dissipate, much less become impotent in a mere 30 years? I think not. I think that 30 years is the eqivalent of 30 seconds as far as these things go, and it's going to take a LOT of time for things to begin to balance out (if they ever in fact do - a look around the globe at even longer-lasting ethnic tensions is not encouraging in this regard). It would be wondeful if the avearge human could pick up the daily paper, see what the current conditions were, and immediately program themselves to take full advantage of those conditions by programming out all the things that would interfere with said goal. Unfortunately... I know lots of white folks with one (or more!) black friends who can, will, and do pooh-pooh this notion of the devastating legacy of slavery. "Why, I asked (insert Friend's name here) about it and he/she nearly laughed out loud at the idea!" is a more than common refrain (dare I call it a mantra?) heard from whites, especially whites who are eager, admiringly so, to move on but less eager to confront exactly why doing so seems to be such a damn laborious process. Well, if "Friend" did in fact make such a comment, my instinct is to suspect one of four things: 1) Friend is totally clueless; 2) Friend is one of the lucky ones who was born into a family with a multi-generational legacy of strong, directed family life and belief systems (and, truthfully, that's the whole thing in a nutshell right there); 3) Friend has bought into athe system and is using the system, whether or not Friend realizes that Friend is being used every bit as much in return, especially if Friend is eager to present a "Happy Negro" face to the system - let friend get the least bit, uh, "questioning" and watch those opportunnities fly away!; or 4)Friend knows more that he/she is letting on. Shocking as it seems, 4) is a LOT more common than the average white folk realizes (and, perhaps, cares to admit). Like I mentioned earlier, I've had a unique (and, I suspect, relatively rare) opportunity for a large portion of my life to observe racial interaction as a kind of "double agent", in that I found myself able to be involved in regualr everyday life in African-American circles, not as a "white friend", but just as somebody who was just there all the time and as a result, ceased to be "white" anymore (not that I "became black", though, THAT'S impossible unless you're Johnny Otis...) in these circles. Suffice it to say that I don't make the comments I make here based on social theory or intellectual supposition, but instead on real-life experiences obtained over time. What "we" (average white folks) are "allowed" to see ain't always all there is. Believe that. PLEASE believe that. Far too often than some care to admit, it's DIFFERENT being a Black American. It just is, and wishing it weren't won't, unfortunately, make it so. People are all the same at root,sure, but their LIVES aren't, and that's something that gets overlooked too often. History is a bitch; trying to escape it or transcend it is at least a bitch-and-a-half. Neber, EVER assume that things are as they seem, not with black folks, not with whote folks, not with ANYBODY, because everybody, and I do mean EVERYBODY in this world has issues, some individual, some collective, but ALL issues nevertheless. Therapy 101, lesson 1 is that the only way to get past a problem is to admit to it freely and openly. Part of America still feels a very real effect (an indirect effect, sure, but does that differentiation REALLY matter?) from slavery, and another part seem to be unwilling, DETERMEDLY so some times, to concede that such a thing could possible exist as anything other tha a "bad attitude". Seems to me that if somebody insists to you that they have a problem, and if you want to maintain a productive relationship, that it behooves you to listen - REALLY listen, objectively and without any foregone conclusions coloring your listening (this is one of the MAY things I've learned, often the hard way, from 20 years of marriage...). Nobody's listening, it seems to me. A lot of white America really DOESN'T have a clue, a lot of black America is convinced that white America just doesn't give a damn AT ALL, and opportunists on both sides find putridly fertile ground for self-serving exploitations. People of good will across the board grow weary from trying to fight the seemingly perpetual headwinds and eventually give up (or worse). I could tell yu stories, and if I get wound up enough, I probably will. But I shouldn't have to - there's stories everywhere you look, IF you know what to look for and where to look for it. You don't need my stories to elucidate the problem. The problem ain't fixed yet, so it must still be here. WHAT problem? We don't have a problem anymore. THAT problem - the one that ain't here no more, even though it hasn't gone away. Sounds like you're looking for an excuse. No, I'm looking for a SOLUTION dammit! A solution to what? To the problem that ain't fixed yet. WHAT problem? ...and the band plays on.... GOTS to be a better way.

Cast a vote in this poll? Talk about a quandry! I am unable to decide because I somehow got hold of a defective, unmarked set that has Hank playing solos on all the Freshmen's tunes, and the Freshmen singing background on "Avilla And Tequila" and "My Sin". Cuscuna declines to answer my questions as to how this happened. Personally, I think he stays drunk all the time these days.

There are no easy and/or immediate solutions to the race problem in America. There might not even be any difficult and/or longterm solutions. The scars of slavery, not just the financial scars, but the cultural and emotional scars, still linger on today in spite of there having been enormous improvements over the last 30 or so years (along with a few setbacks in the last 20). These scars need neither be dwelt upon or ignored, but they do need to be acknowledged, because they have played a large part in creating the racial schisms that exist in America today, schisms that go farther and deeper than the natural human inclination to associate primarily with one's "own kind". Myself, I gre up in an extremely racist area of America, and upon leaving it for college, entered into about a 15 year period of working and associating primarily with African-Americans, not by some conscious choice or rebellion against my point of origin, but just because that's how things worked out in terms of things like music, roomates, etc (it all began with the music though - that was the catalyst). I learned a WHOLE lot in those years, not just about Blacks, but about Whites as well. The most important thing was how each group percieves the other when they think nobody's listening. Many Blacks have as much distrust of Whites as Whites have fear of Blacks, and each group can provide plenty of anecdotal evidence to support their feelings, and that is not to be discounted on either side. But that doesn't excuse it either. How I always got along was simple - I treated everybody as an individual ("conservatives", don't cheer just yet...), and that included recognizing and respecting their background, racial and otherwise. Some of the absolute SMARTEST (and some of the dumbest!) people I've ever met were hustlers on the street - brilliant minds at work in an unsanctioned economy. If you try to "reach out" to these guys in the "spirit of brotherhood", they'll play you mercilessly, just as they'll suddenly become absolutely invisible if you try to "straighten them out". You got to be true to your own code while at the same time respecting theirs - respect does NOT equal approval, contrary to what the more moralistic among us try to persuade. Similalry, I learned very early on that there is as diverse a makeup of interests, personalities, and beliefs in the African-American community as there is in any other sector of America. The notion of "Black People", used scornfully OR "desiringly", is a doomed one, because there just ain't no such simple a classification, not even in a simple matter like skin color! You want to make friends with "Black People"? Well, good luck - next time you go to buy an automobile, when the salesman asks you what you're looking for, tell him, "a car" and see how far you get - it's the same thought process. I don't say that to be cruel or cutting, but merely to point out that America went through its "Brotherhood" stage. It was fun while it lasted, and it served a useful purpose. But it's past time to move on to the next level, which is simply acknowledging differences and commonalities alike and relating to others as individuals. Again, however, relating to people as individuals means KNOWING WHERE THEY'RE COMING FROM. Not just in some vague, academic fashion, but instead having a PERSONAL sympathy to why Mr. X always seems distrustful, or why Mrs. Z seems so nice to your face but never REALLY gets friendly. Some people are going to be assholes no matter what, but SOME people have reasons, and it behooves us to try to understand those reasons if we wish to establish anything remotely resembling true communication with them. I can't stress my belief in this enough! And - if you automatically assumed that the above-named Mr. X & Mrs. Z were black, well, the jokes on you! Maybe they are, but maybe they're not! It's normal, healthy, necessary even, for white folks with a conscience to go through a phase of somehow being "ashamed" of being white - our race collectively has contributed, and continues to contribute, to so much of the ill-will, mistrust, and unease between races in America. But, just as it's wrong for whites to think in terms of "Black People", it's also wrong for us to think of ourselves in terms of "White People" too. THAT contributes to the division just as much as anything. Think about it - how can you relate to another person as a true individual, or expect them to be able to relate to YOU as an individual, free of all the bullshit that "society" imposes in that way, if you can't think of YOURSELF in that way? Not every white guy is the Devil, and not every black guy is a martyr. The "problem" with relating to people as individuals is that so often it takes time for for a MUTUAL relationship to develop. People want a quick-fix, and there ain't none. The history of America has taken care of that quite nicely, thank you. But it's been my experience that friendhips that coalesce around TRUE respect and commonalities between people of different races come about once the barriers are eliminated the old-fashioned way - by just dealing with it, rolling with the punches, and in general dealing with the bullshit as it comes up (and it does, most assuredly) rather than trying to run an end-around on it. There's STILL a lot of conscientious "reaching out" going on between the races, where everybody is all smiles and glows and aren't we all just SO happy. That kind of superficiality, as my father used to say, "won't last until the water gets hot". The answer to Rodney King's famous question is "Yes, absolutely. But not all at once, and not all the time." To pretend otherwise is to ignore basic human nature, and how many times has THAT failing bit our collective butts? Personally, I'm at the point now where my friends and professional associates are indeed a "rainbow coalition" of races and cultures. Tellingly, though, my BEST friends of other races are all people I've know for quite a while. It's still MUCH easier to make friends with somebody of my own race than it is somebody else. But that's cool. Like I said - there are barriers, and there probably always WILL be barriers. But I didn't put them there, and neither did the other guy. But time, and ONLY time, will reveal to him/her what kind of a person I am and what kind of a person they are. I'm old enough and have had enough life experiences to know a fair amount of what makes people tick, both as individuals and as part of a larger "group", and I always try to conduct myself accordingly (in public, in private, and with myself - you gotta be consistent, and that's a tough one there! ). If a bond is eventually formed, it will be real and lasting. If not, c'est la'vie. You don't HAVE to like everybody, nor does everybody have to like you, even if their basis for not liking you is one that is entirely (or at least largely) inside them. Not everybody can hurdle every barrier every time. That's life, dig?

Heard an NPR -exclusive "interview" segment a few weekends ago, complete w/songs, and laughed my ass off.

Those who are hardcore AOTW junkies might want to consider an AOTW supplement next week - the Bud Powell trio set recorded at the same concert. Marvellous stuff, and available to vinylheads and old-but-not-too-old fans as Prestige 24024 - THE GREATEST JAZZ CONCERT EVER, where it (and some later pieces w/George Duvivier & Art Taylor) is coupled with The Quintet's set. All that's missing is Max's "Drum Conversation" and the big band set that opened the night, the latter not recorded to my knowledge. Why Fantasy doesn't just go ahead and put the whole shebang into one package and give it Dee-Lux Remastering and that two-fer title (and even use the same cover art, pretty cool if you ask me) is a question worth asking. Or have they? I'm still digging the twofer, Luddite that I tend to be.

Is a Complete Note the same as a Whole Note, philosophically speaking?

Sure. Pretty interesting player at times. He's on a bunch of the early/mid-70s Woody Herman albums on Fantasy, but to me his best work was on MEL LEWIS AND FRIENDS & Chet Baker's Artist House things. I've heard stories that Herbert's addiction made him a real prick, even by junkie standards. One anecdote had him swimming in the ocean somewhere while on tour with BS&T (a band FULL of junkies in those long-past-their-glory days) when he began to flounder in the water. His bandmates heard his cries for help and asked each other what they should do. After a few moments silence, somebody said, "Let the motherfucker die". With that, they all turned and left. Herbert recouped, but the tale is an indication of just how nasty the whole drug thing can get, and how badly Herbert got caught up in it. His best work is conservative-yet-probing (or vice-versa), with a pretty personal tone. It's also got a very real emotional ambivalence to it as well, which may or may not be a result of the drugs. That's a door not worth opening unless you knew the guy really, REALLY well personally.

It's an album that has never been released anywhere besides Japan, ever, as far as I know, going back to the LP version. It's some intense stuff - Side 2 of I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC is the "Readers Digest" version of this album. Nothing even remotely like the stereotypical WR "sound" to be found here - it's intense, borderline free music full of distortion and wild improvisational abandon. Besides Shorter, Zawinul, & Vitous, you got Eric Gravatt on drums and Dom Um Romao on percussion. It's one helluva wild ride. As to whether or not it's difficult to find or not, I suppose not, not in these days of the Global Shopping Village, but in the Pre-Internet Era, it used to be a BITCH to find in all but the most urban areas. Iif the price is right, I'd pick it up ASAP. I don't think you'll regret it.

"Legend" has it that Norman Granz was interested in releasing the Massey Hall tapes and asked Mingus to name his price. When Mingus asked for $1,000,000, Granz demurred.

Get a copy of LIVE IN TOKYO by any means necessary.

Beyond the Blue Notes, don't overlook: SALT SONG, CHERRY, & DON'T MESS WITH MISTER T on CTI. These two are easily dismissed or downplayed for their sheeny production, but that should not obscure the very real, high quality, quite soulful playing that is going on from beginning to end. The kind of stuff that gets under your skin and refuses to leave, all without your knowing it's happening. I actually prefer these 3 to SUGAR. T TIME (Music Masters) - yeah, it's got that yucky digital tinniness to it, and yeah, it's basically a rehash of your memories of the good ol' days, but what the hell? Turrentine is loose, inventive, and flowing throughout, and if that's not enough, then why bother with him in the first place? WONDERLAND (Blue Note, 1987) - funky, poppy, Stevie Wondery club music. It ain't heavy, but in its best moments it's your brother. Definitely one for parties! And lest we forget, best grab this puppy, like, YESTERDAY! Don't ask why, just do it and be glad you did.

http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/verve/artis...st.asp?aid=4834

A perfect example of why Cool, Hard Bop, and their various offshoots were at once imperitave social evolutions and a step backwards musically. What you hear on Massey Hall is not "Bebop". Or maybe it is. Either way, there is so much happening in this music at all levels (intellectual, emotional, technical, whatever) that it is beyond categorization as anything other than individual and collective genius. The music as a whole had to change because, simply put, only a handful of people in the history of the world have had the genius to operate at this level, and as inspirational as genus is, it ain't going to take the world by storm in its pure form. There just ain't that big a market. At the end of the day, genius, TRUE all-encompassing genius, IS the real deal, with any/everything else being perhaps more comfortable, more familiar, more easily confronted, and therefore seemingly more "enjoyable", but to ignore the very real qualities of genius and try to somehow work around them as if they are the downtown home office that we, the attendants at various branch offices in the suburbs will never really need to know all that much about, much less ever visit or, God forbid, WORK at, is at the root of the modern malady of comfort without conscience. Yes, Virginia, some people really CAN make music (and other things) that is/are virtuostic in the extreme AND is full of imagination and soul. But it takes a rare combination of intensive labor and intense imagination to do this. It takes a LOT of time and a LOT of courage, to say nothing of the luck of the genetic draw. Those of us who through no fault of our own, as well as a few faultsthat ARE our own, who fail to reach this pinacle of genius (and really, that's mostly all of us), need not feel like failures, or even console ourselves with the resignged acceptance of being "average". We are who we are. But dammit - there IS such a thing as genius, as endeavors that are of an absolutely unsurpassable level of perfection, and we sure as hell best acknowledge that if we expect to lead anything even remotely resembling an honest life. This is not an Album Of The Week - this is an Album Of Eternal Truth And Beauty and all that other artspeak crap. More to the point, this is music that is, quite literally, As Good As It (or anything else) Gets, or CAN Get. Period. Personal taste and/or preference doesn't enter into it, not at this level. Minmize that fact at your own peril!

Is this some kind of arcane and/or ancient practice that's being rediscovered?

HELL no.

Wanna hear Joe Hnderson jamming righteousy on "59th Street Bridge Song" and "Last Dance"? Apparenty Jerry Rusch/Rush did. Can't fault him for that. http://www.startribune.com/stories/466/3876285.html http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=B6fq5g4kbtvoz

Pate for cannibals perhaps?

Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to "When Bad Memories Get Worse, Should Somebody Be Hospitalized?" Tonight's Episode: How To Lose Friends & Alienate Customers In One Easy Step. Shawn & Shelley, you DO have names, and they aren't Shane & Sherri (unless y'all get into stuff like that sometimes...). Apologies of the highest possible magnitude for my gaffe. As for the Mothers Day wishes, I was totally unaware that there were little kartoffel·hadi blues afoot, so I assumed, with the same misfiring-on-all-cylnders logic that gave you guys new names (hey, don't knock it - new names, a wig or two - not necessarily an Eva Gabor, but why stint on quality? - , a cheap suit, and a hotel room can make for all the fun the law allows...) that there was some dry wit afoot. Sincerest & warmest (and, alas, most belated) Happy Mothers Day wishes to you. (And Happy Muthas Day to the rest y'all!)