JSngry

No fault found here! (and yes, that is Sal Nistico on 2nd tenor)

Yeah, the one RCA compilation I got opened my ears to that. I was like, WTF, this is NOT OT, this is NT!!!! Only it wasn't. Again, narrative becoming convention wisdom, or vice-versa. And to what end? To steer the consumer's spending? To accrue power over same? Ego-trippin' out? Or jsut general myopia? I just don't know. But no wonder we accept the concept of evolution better than we know it as we see it.

Lanolin!!!!

I put laziness and ignorance in the same taxonomy. And somewhere in there is fear. I mean, it's one thing to not like something. It's another to not like it AND not own your dislike AND the (bonus points!!!) recognize that hey, what's behind all of this. Adjective are too often projectiles of projections!

Maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome, Shepherd Variety? He's identifying with the sheep?

An insidious record, full of the worst kind of earworms!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's a deep and recurring undercurrent of class/race/etc conflicts/unfamilarities/insecurities/etc. in the "neurotic" comments such as that one, and it is still very much alive and well, not just in jazz, but everywhere we go here in the 21st Century. Sometimes there's even hostility attached to it, unwittingly or otherwise. And it goes the other way too. Humans are their own worst enemies.

Not wrong at all, only that there was apparently a very real-time feeling to it that carried over well into the 80s, maybe even longer than that. And there were grumblings about hey, you got rid of Gus Johnson for THIS????? I think a lot of it has to do with the puritanical patriarchal impulses of so many jazz writers and fans of the time (not that it's all that much better now...), you know, this is OUR Basie, WE know what's Best and True about this music, how dare it be defiled! The Old Testament band...hard for me to say how much of the ongoing adulation/idolotry of it was genuine admiration and awe, and how much of it was/is just fetishism. There's an air of militantism to some of it that raises some suspicion on my part, but otoh, yeah, those guys were the shit and kept going at it until the very end. But oth...my first live jazz was Basie in 1970, with Lockjaw in the band (oh, to have a time machine to go back to be able to hear that again with what I know now....), and to say they made an indelible impression is putting it mildly. They're both great entities, imo. And if we could get a full accounting of the Columbia and RCA OT bands, we'd likely here that the change was both inevitable and necessary. And now that there's enough room to separate fact from emotion (or should be...), hey, this has that Basie thing that I love form ANY era:

The original "VSOP" concept, remember, was part of a three-part concert at Newport-NY(?). One of those Three Faces Of Herbie Hancock type things, the 60s, then the Mwandishi band, then the Headhunter/beyond. Who set THAT up, I don't recall. George Wein do doubt had a hand at some level, but business factors would have entailed others at a more granular level. Herbie, I think, was is one of those "perpetually open" guys who will just do shit to be doing it. He's also got a good market sensibility. I'm sure that they all thought that it would be nice to take a break from their current pursuits and "go back", just to see what would happen. That it made money certainly incentivized the to keep going, but if you listen to the VSOP records in sequence, the keep getting further and further away from the retro concept. The last one is a VSOP record in name only, lol. Wayne...not sure where the "creaky" stuff is. He actually had a touring electric band in the Phantom Navigator/Etc era, and they were really good. some of it's on YouTube, but all the market noise during the time was directed elsewhere, so not a lot of "buzz" about it. and then he went back to doing studio works for a while before coming back out again with his acoustic quartet that stuck around for a while.

Tell you how un-clued into this period I was...I opened up the Clef Mosaic and started looking for Little Pony/Wardell. I had always just assumed that that was New Testament Basie, and as such was going to be in there. DOH!!!

80s and 90s Freddie, live dates in particular. The guy was just all-out all-in. Incredible trumpet playing that coincidentally is very strong from a content standpoint. As for "going back" from electric to acoustic, it's not as simple as that. It's about what the music itself was, the compositional elements and the approaches to playing it. That 60s Blue note sounds...they had done that, and in the cases of Herbie and Wayne specifically had pretty much done all with it that they could (or would) do. Asking them to do a retro thing like VSOP was weird, like asking Joyce to write Ulysses all over again, just change the names, I mean - why? How? I can tell you with absolute certainty, there are players who really "can't go home again", nor do I think they should be expected to. There are alos other players who never really leave home, even if they add on some wings to the old place. And that's cool too. My favorite VSOP record is that last one, where they actually did play more "fusion"-y material and approach. Five Stars, i think it's called. As for Hutch....different setting, but none of the really "fusion". "Crossover" in nature/intent, yes. but "fusion"???? Not as I understand it.

If it's Kenton (and there is a bass sax in there, but no mellophoniums), it would be Charlie Mariano?

All these people had moved on musically. It would be the difference between being in the moment then, and then going back now and trying to be in that moment all over again. They just weren't there any more. "Crowd pleasing stadium stance", such as it was, only came about because their newer music became popular to that extent. It certainly wasn't that they got popular because they had dumbed down their music (especially Wayne....). Herbie and tony, and even Freddie, had all moved on in different directions. Freddie would do some of the best playing of his life after he did (although you largely have to go to live dates to be convinced of that). Tony wanted to be a Rock star, really wanted that. And when he came back with his later bands, not a lot of what he played/wrote for those bands would have sounded right in the 1960s. They all moved on. The majority of jazz musicians don't. I would also disagree that Bobby Hutcherson "experimented with fusion as much as anyone"..."crossover" sure, lost of different settings (some pretty "commercial"). But actual fusion...about as close as he came to actual "fusion" was the Un Poco Loco album on Columbia. Or am I forgetting something? But Bobby Hutcherson never moved on, just because he was out in front from the beginning. In fact, there are people who would contend that he moved back just a bit after his NY period. The record is called "Preserved" which probably was meant to mean that they caught it on a record. But it also means, embalmed, mummified, something like that. so....

It does seem, though, that Sonny Payne was waiting in the wings, so to speak...and the Gene Ramey quote that Chris Albertson used certainly seems to indicate that there was at least some contingent of the band wanting to rid of Johnson. He also notes that Basie begged Ramey to stay, but that Ramey was firm in his decision. There's always factions in bands, even small ones, and the leader has to navigate them. Even in small groups. Zawinul talks about how him and Walter Booker were always advocating (and bitching about it after the gig) for even more open material against Nat's desire for more commercial stuff. So Cannonball seems to have split the difference. I love Stanley Dance, but I'd be blind if I didn't note that he also seemed to be moved by the desire to create and sustain narratives. And really, if this was a case of a faction in the band wanting to oust Johnson (and get Payne in?), well that's a family matter, not for the general public to hear about. And Johnson's story might well reflect the same spirit, especially decades later. Also...there was a faction of people (mostly musicians, but also fans) who really disliked Sonny Payne. I remember somebody, a musician (whose name I don't remember) being quaoted to the effect that Basie went all to hell when they threw out the Buster Harding charts and got rid of Gus Johnson. Other reviews were really scournful of Payne, one of them going so far as to lament that it's hard to believe that this new loud and tasteless drummer guy was related to one of the great swinging drummers of all time. Seems to have been a bit of a controversy, which is funny now, because Sonny Payne became the template for every Basie drummer to come.

Casually staying on this one for a few days. Actually a bit fascinating, hearing Al Foster playing his Miles style.

In the Clef Mosaic notes, Chris Albertson quotes Gene Ramey as quitting the band because there was a move afoot to oust Johnson, who was having some unspecified issues with unspecified band members and that Ramey wasn't going to be a part of that. So maybe the appendicitis was a good way to do what was going to be done anyway? Marshall Royal made "Don't get sick in the Basie band" a mini-theme in his autobiography! So that seals the deal that the relaunching of the big band was gestating in 1951 as well as being birthed the same year.

Does the Morgan book provide an account of how Gus Johnson got replaced by Sonny Payne? It appears there was some drama involved? I do know that reading contemporaneous press accounts that it was a highly controversial move. Sonny Payne was not at all universally loved at the time.

Thanks! 1951, yes. My bad on that one. So it does seem that Basie was already having eyes to relaunch the big band for at least a year before he actually did, and had was actually trying to get enough bookings to give it a go. Interesting about the Apollo gig and the purported Ed Sullivan gig. Seems that demand and supply were already in negotiations. Billy Eckstine finally brought it home, right?

Is it hard because it's unnecessary?

Recorded on Columbia by a Basie big band in 1950, when there was no such thing? Conventional wisdom has it that the NT band launched in 1952, but obviously Hefti was already engaged writing for the band. Hefti's Wiki page says something about Basie wanting to have a "stage band" that could do the Ed Sullivan show, but that is never mentioned in the conventional narratives, is it, that Basie was already getting a big band together for one-offs/projects as early as 1950? Or at least a book for one. Who was paying for all this 1950-51 activity to have a pump primed should a car pull up? Is there some solid documentation about all this so I can separate fact from mythology?

If they reseal, they do a damn good job of making it look untouched.

Gonna be more than a minute... More like Pete's Dead Now (Ain't Gonna Be No More Of That)

Jackie Flasper - Songs For Tomorrow's Breakfast

I like Jean Shepherd. Very funny guy. Jazz Shepherd, I don't know. Is he connected to Hal Crook in any way?