JSngry

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!!!!

And a good Lunceford jam or two would be significantly more convincing as to the rightness of our cause!

Well, I'd DISagree on this! I would (and have, and more than once!) been in similar circumstances, not just with film, but with other "arts" and other non-arty occupations. If somebody tells me that there's more to something than meets the eye, ear, nose, pallate, groin, whatever, and I know them well enough to know that they ain't just blowing smoke, and that they aren't just flavor-of-the-month trendmongers, I gotta allow for the possibility that there's more there than I'm getting. Of course, that's not going to make me change my mind about how I subjectively feel about it, not right away, but whereas I might have beforehand said, "this is a big load of crap", respect for those who DO know more than me about whatever the medium/occupation in question is compels me to modify the expression of my opinion to a somewhat less more "all-knowing" stance, at the very least to "this seems like a big load of crap to me, but people who know the field better than me say otherwise, so who knows?" or something like that. Just admit that what I know isn't all there is, even (ESPECIALLY!) what I know of and about myself. And, make the occasional effort to figure out what it is that they see in it. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I get some of it, sometimes I never get it. But I feel better for having tried, and I feel better knowing that there are still things that I don't readily comprehend. That means there's still room for growth and it ain't time to die (that's how my mind feels anyway. How my BODY feels these days is another matter entirely... ) As for Desmond & Hodges, all I can say is that reconciling their personalities with their music can and should be done. It's one of those things that is well worth the effort, and probably more instructive than graduate level psychology courses. It's "in there", but finding it require challenging most everything you think you know about the predictability of human nature. Now Tony, this has been a fun-but-serious discussion so far, thank God, and hopefully it will continue to be, but Dude, THIS business here REALLY perplexes me: And therein lies what I feel is a big tendency for people who push the envelope (in music, in any art) to want to have it both ways. They're quite happy when they're in the vanguard, pushing boundaries, critics' darlings, etc...but when living on that razor's edge gets kind of exhausting and they'd like to have an actual LIFE for a while and they ratchet back on the intensity, and the music inevitably SOUNDS like they've ratcheted back (flat even), and the fans and critics call them on it, then suddenly it's THE FANS AND LISTENERS' FAULT for just not being hip enough to appreciate their "later period." COME ON! Give me a break folks. I've used this quote of Neil Young's before, coined back in the 80's rock period: "Every wave is new until it breaks." So there are times when I would like to tell certain artists who were once avant garde darlings but have, well, by my ears (crap detectors) lost the edge amd/or are casting around for a sense of relevance and purpose, "You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Please don't whine about people calling you on it when you've descended from the heights to mere mortaldom." What the HELL does that have to do with Sonny Rollins, one of the most notoriously NON-comfortable-with-the-critical-and-public-fuss in the history of the music? This is a guy who has a legendary distrust of the media and an equally legendary dislike of hype and publicity. And this dates back to the 50s, btw. I think a reading of the jazz press over the last 40-50 years will fail to turn up any indication that Sonny Rollins was EVER thrilled or delighted by the hype he recieved in his percieved heyday. In fact, you'll find just the opposite. So leave Neil Young to those for whom it applies, ok? If you can believe what he says the few times he speaks in an interview in terms outside of his usual set answers, his life has been at least as much about reconciling the demands of functioning in the public arena with what for him is a very personal, spiritual even, act. "Get over it" might be a reaasonable enough answer to that (and I suspect it's one that Lucille Rollins has proffered more than once...), but we all have our quirks, no? Let him who has never been cast be the first stoned, or whatever that line is... One could argue that this is a dillemma that every artist faces, and that others have found a way to deal with it. Yeah, and so what? I could argue that every "compromise" one makes for the public presentation of such personal matters adds a layer of "artificiality" to it and means that the public is being sold a representation of the real thing, not the real thing itself. I DO in fact hold this position about a lot of music, but don't necessarily view it as a "bad" thing - the veneer's been around so long that it's become part and parcel of the thing itself, something that automatically gets factored into the equation. And sometimes, as in horace Silver's work, the veneer is where the substance actually lies (in my opinion). But DAMN do I love it when somebody has the balls to either ignore it or attempt to subvert it, even to the point of stubbornly (but knowingly) producing work that is ALL veneer, just to make the point that "product" is not the be-all-and-end-all of things like music. Of course, this whole matter of subtext is of little or no interest to many "fans", and so be it, c'est la'vie, c'est la guerre, etc. Everybody makes music for their own reasons, but the "system" isn't set up to provide everybody with whatever audience might be suitable for them. Therein lies the basic "art vs. commerce" bugaboo that has been around ever since music began to be something besides a wholly communal, ritualistic, folk activity. Those who for whatever reason choose not to be aware of or contemplate that are well within their rights, of course, but refusing to acknowledge something does not make it disappear, any more than being aware of it means that it should be front and center in everybody's perception. Like my college buddy Don Coleman used to say, "There it is if you like it, there it is if you don't like it". BTW, Tony, I'm glad to see you backed off, if only implicitly, of the whole "Sonny's been lost for the last 30 years" position. That really was over the top, and not at all justified by ANY evidence, recorded or anecdotal. You can say that Sonny's been a LOT of things over the last 30 years, but "lost" is not one of them. I spent last night on my job (data entry, YIPPEE! ) repeatedly listening to +3, GLOBAL WARMING, & THIS IS WHAT I DO, and if THAT'S lost, well, would that we were ALL so lost! And Creaming off the relatively few excellent tracks from a 25 YEAR PERIOD and saying it's a strong set is fine and well, but to extrapolate that as an accurate representation of the period as a whole, well...let's just say the scientist in me really balks at that kind of methodology! while a joke that I get and appreciate also points out an inherent conflict between jazz and "rational" thought and linear reality. The question of what the true nature of any music is, especially jazz, and to what extent recordings capture and/or distort that nature, is as old as recording itself (and has morphed into the music video debate as well). Many have debated if Sonny's dislike (some have called it a phobia, others a hatred) of recording, live or otherwise (and this too goes back to the late 50s) is a stubbornly courageous holdout against the corruption of an all but lost "original purity of intent" that deserves commendation, albeit laced with INCREDIBLE amounts of frustration, for staying true to what he (and many, MANY other more pragmatic individuals) feel is the ultimate "truth" of the music; or if he is just a brilliant but naive holdout against the inevitable nature of the world to get a taste of a good thing and move on/into it until it consumes/subsumes/assumes it as its own, and if he is a fool for resisting (although, again, the last 3 albums show that an internal compromise might FINALLY have been reached). Or if he is in fact both. The Winnie The Poohs of the world will have an easy and predictable answer, but the rest of us...

Tough call. The Alladin stuff is GREAT, but it only covers one time period. But damn, what a period it is! If this is you VERY first excursion into Lester, I'm tempted to suggest the Proper for the same reasons as John L. But unless you're one of those rare birds who just doesn't dig Pres, you WILL end up going deeper and deeper, and the Proper box will soon be redundant. OTOH, once it's no longer needed, what a perfect gift it will make to get somebody ELSE into Lester! Either way, you win. How many times does THAT happen?

Interesting, isn't it. How's the music? Haven't heard that one, but most of London's Libertys from this era (mid-50s-early 60s) are cool-jazzy/pop affairs. Nice, but nothing heavy (and vise versa) the covers, though are uniformly, uh, well, mmm, you know...

It ALMOST looks like one of those old turntable strobe discs you used to check the table's speed, but I don't think that's what it is.

You mean Rhino didn't reprint the original liner notes? THAT sucks!

Thank God Golden Pond's not in Vermont!

Yeah, I still need to post on SIGNIFYIN'. LOVE IT! But sometimes I get wrapped up other posts and time runs out. Damn reality!

Thanks, Big Wheel! Cachao has long been a favorite of mine.

Dr. Pepper @ 10, 2, & 4, Julie London at 10:10, 2:50, & 3:45!

Not familiar with Cachaito, but am quite familiar with Cachao. Are they related?

I was involved a few local projects w/John Purcell during the time he was recording for ECM w/DeJohnette, and if he was to be believed (certainly no reason for me NOT to), there was a DEFINITE ECM "sound" in those days as it pertained to EQ'ing, soundstaging, use of reverb, stuff like that. The sound of the record as opposed to the style of the music. I seem to remember George Adams expressing, if not exactly displeasure, at least a bit of frustration, that his sole ECM effort had been "flavored" by Eicher's musical "suggestions". Of course this is going to be true at most all labels, but I think if one doesn't go too overboard in defining it that it's safe to say that there is a general ECM "sound" (especially as it pertains to recording quality), and that there are those items in the catalogue that both define and defy that sound.

I've not heard SOUL COOKIN', but DIGGIN' THE CHICKS is a pretty interesting album for me. One or two people whose opinions I respect quite a bit don't dig it, but I hear a pretty personal story being told. Leslie plays on Larry Young's GROOVE STREET as well. Sorry to hear of his passing. Yet another unheralded "local" figure of the type whose place in the overall makeup of the jazz landscape often goes unfairly unnoticed. R.I.P.

It's not a question of enjoyment (or the lack thereof) that I was addressing. That is totally beside the point. A person's gut reaction to music (or pretty much anything else) needs no justification, nor can it be attacked - to be ultra-simplistic, it is as reflexive as breathing, and must be accepted as such. But I think you'll agree that there is a major difference in the opinions "I don't like this" and "Mr. X doesn't know what he's doing". The latter opinon presumes that the opinionholder knows both what Mr. X is trying to do, and more to the point, what he SHOULD be trying to do. And at least 50% of the time, I'll wager dollars to donuts that somebody who says this don't know jackschitte about either. Similarly there's a difference, although not quite a big, between "I don't see what all the fuss is about" and "this is over-rated". The first is again a totally personal expression of opinion, albeit one sprinkled with just a wisp of confrontationality. The latter is again based on a presupposition - that the holder of the opinon is the arbiter of what and how things should be rated in the first place. Now, that's a gig I'd like to have! There are no "right" or "wrong" opinions on matters of taste, on this I agree. But to apply this principle across the board to all manners of expression of all maners of opinions is requires a generosity and tolerance that I'm both afraid and glad that I don't have. All opinions are NOT equal! The further they stray from expressions of strictly personal, subjective reactions into objective statements of fact, the more they are open to challenge. Now, for the first time, it's time to get personal! You say that Sonny Rollins has basically been lost for the last 30 years. This is your opinion, so cool. And you have qualified that opinion by saying that it is based solely on recorded evidence (although I must ask what the most recent Rollins albums you've heard are. The last 3 (+3, GLOBAL WARMING, & THIS IS WHAT I DO are VERY good!)), which is a major qualification in the case of Rollins. But I would ask you to to expound on that opinion by answering the following questions. If Sonny has been "lost" for the last 30 years, what would/should he have been doing if he had been "found". Is the answer to the first question based on an intimate knowledge of the man's life, or is it an expression of what you personally would like to be getting from him? Have you heard the SILVER CITY set? Ok, the third question is easy, but the first two cut to the heart of the matter. If you say that Sonny has been lost for the last 30 years, then I'm going to ask you what qualifies you to make that assertion. "It's just my opinion" ain't gonna cut it, because unless you have the factual, firsthand information to back up such a statement, your opinion don't mean shit (animated, friendly barroom banter, not an expression of anger or challenge, btw) in this instance. "I don't like it", "I don't get it", "It sounds like crap to me", anything like that, THAT I have to accept, but I don't have to accept that you or anybody else knows what is "right" for Sonny better than he does without seriously challenging your qualifications to make that statement. Now, you may continue to hold on to the "it's my opinion and I'm entitled to it" position as a matter of principle or a matter of pride, but I'm not buying it. I've often questioned a lot of things Sonny's done over the years myself, and actually found a few things to be totaly meritless (when I heard THE WAY I FEEL, I wanted to send the cat a sympathy bouquet and a get-well card...), but I would never be so bold as to assume that I knew better than him what he should be doing. That's a whole 'nother trip than "I don't like it"! All I know is that Sonny Rollins is a notoriously "complicated" person whose massive achievements in the past have come at the cost of great personal struggle. That's not "tortured artist" hype, that's basically how it is, and there's numerous firsthand anecdotal evidence to back that up. So out of respect for both his historical accomplishments (of which I have much awareness) and what went into their creation (of which you and I alike probably have but an inkling), I'm going to hold off any grand pronouncements about how the cat has lost his way or any other such expressions of omniscience. #1, the live shows, both through recordings and reports I've heard, don't support it, and #2, the records are NOT uniformly bad and aimless. There are moments on most of them that are QUITE good in fact, at least in my opinon, and SILVER CITY collects some but not all of them. Why they aren't all mo'betta is a fair question, but "Sonny has lost his way" is an answer I'll only accept from somebody who knows him really, REALLY well, and even then that acceptance will not go unquestioned. It's not like we're talking about Phil D. Phenom here, you know, some kid who pops up, makes everybody cream their jeans for a few years, and then just can't do it anymore. And yeah, some guys do lose their way. Pharoah Sanders did in the mid-70s (again, firsthand anecdotal evidence), and he's not alone. Actually, some people were saying this about Sonny after EAST BROADWAY RUNDOWN. I think the Down Beat review of it found it a fascinating but ultimately disturbing album, and fwiw, Sonny took another sabbatical shortly thereafter, gave up music completely, went to India, and studied Yoga intensely. But he came back, and he's stayed back, longer than ever. If only for this reason, I'd have to question the "lost his way" position. but beyond that, again I ask - what SHOULD he be doing, and who are YOU (or anybody ele) to say what that is? Again - "that's just my opinon" ain't gonna cut it. You've gone beyond expressing a totally personal opinion into the realm of presupposing that you know what is best for somebody else. There are times and places for lettting anything that comes out of somebody's mouth go unchallenged, and there are people who are willing to do so. I'm oftimes one of those people, but not this time and not this place. It's your lucky day! (and besides, it'll be my turn someday, I'm sure!) Seriously, that's a pretty heavy thing to say about ANY human being, don't you think? Unless you believe that it's cool to say anything about anybody under any circumstance (and I don't think you do), then I'd ask you to perhaps consider refining your opinon and the expression of it. No, I'm not the "opinion police". I'm just a guy who thinks you can and should do better, and I do this kinda thing every so often just to keep in touch with my inner bitch.

It is indeed the latter. It's not just "creative" types for whom this is a problem either - the world is full of "FEED ME" type pigs who want only to thoughtlessly and/or selfishly consume, and I suspect most of us feel misunderstood to one extent or another, if only because mostof us have to answer to one or more of these types somewhere along the way. Even the most self-confident among us has to get bugged once in a while because somebody just doesn't "get it". When people expilcitly express up front that they only want to consume the results of a person's labor, and have no interest in or respect for its creation (which is quite different than expecting respect for its creator - the publicly pompous self-centered "artist" is a nuisance we can all live without; also - expecting a consumer to be interested IN the creative process is asking WAY too much, but having respect that extends beyond lip-service FOR it would seem to be a fundamental courtesy), an inevitable frustration results, especially when an attempt to correct fundamentally untrue assumptions is met with casual dismissal, as if anything that interferes with the unrestricted consumption of the results of a person's labor is self-indulgent whining or some other kind of "baggage". YIKES! How Colonial! Would the Colonel like another Mint Julep while he's waiting for Maizey behind the woodpile? To most of the world he's a lovable little fluffymuffin. But to the bees of the world... We got any bees in da'house?

Why they putting a Capitol logo on it when it was a Liberty side? And no. I haven't lost my perspective - it's just that Liberty was home to some of the most, uh... "ravishing" covers of all time, and I'd like to see them credited. I'd also like to see a book of lifesize reproductions of every Julie London album they ever released.