JSngry

I'm reminded of one of the most cruelly humorously sadistic musical experiences of my life, an afternoon corporate cocktail party whre I showed up ready to drink it out of the way and got there early so I could. And did. Long story short, the entire first set was spent listening to a guitarist and bassist easily a quarter tone aprt from each other, and both of them defiantly fending off the dirty looks of the other by waving their electronic tuners at each other to show that look motherfucker, I'M in tune, I ain't moving. The bandleader was too unwilling to stop the set, so the break waw a free for all of datadicking. I was definitely not drunk enough (but not for lack of trying, so I jsut said, "don't you cats use your ears?" And then headed for the bar, because, drunk enough was not yet happening. Point just being, my 90s era cheap Casio, whatever it's tuned to, has this one sounding just a teence sharp to A, and a buttload flat to Bb, which is in line with what it feels like to me, away from my horn. Of course, "correct intonation" has never been a particularly avid pursuit for me, so there's always that. Still...that's what my ears tell me, not jsut my cheap Casio. For that matter, my Tonette tells me that too, and that was my VERY first instrument.

Listening to the OG bootleg today...the edits are probably less egregious if you don't know about them (or in my case, halfway forgotten abot them), but to hear this music organically (as possible) is jsut...different. The trio dynamic is truly organic, at times foreshadowing Air, sortakinda...not exactly, but...you can hear things moving towards that gravitational pull. It was happening. Not that anybody at Resonace would care about that for their product, but still, there it is anyway.

The guy was a truly great pianist, musician, spirit. In his own way, a visionary, albeit not a particularly aggressive one. Still, look at his entire discography and you can seel more than just pianojazz records, there's a real breadth there. His loss is significant. Thoughts, prayers, and...sadness. RIP.

Fluid, yes. But like other fluids, it merely takes the shape of the container in which it is found. It never stops existing. Especially when the container is the consciousness of humans, individually and collectively. It's not a question of if there's right/wrong, there always is. It's a question of where they are at any given time. I hear there's an app for that now. It reports and you decide. Comes in hand at bachelor parties, fiduciary meetings, loft sessions with Bob Brookmeyer, contract creations, and other porno shoots (sand that's why I have it on my phone but not my desktop). Just remembered...if they didn't do one for Lee Konitz, somebody did it for them.

I gather that Woods and Chan hooking up was quite an extraordinary situation in the immediate post-Bird days. The jokes about cats bragging about they got Bird's axe pale in comparison. And they probably weren't jokes at all. I shuder to think at what was going on in that world at that time in this regard. Think about ALL that was involved...wow. I can only imagine the intensity of having to live with that.

More than jazz, more than music, there's people and the life that comes with them (or is it the other way around)? Jazz is as good place as any to start, maybe a good place to finish (I mean, everybody's got to die someplace, right?), but in between it's really the least of it. Besides, I keep looking where "jazz" ends yet "interest" continues, and there's no real check point there. no barbed wire fence with armed guards and dogs and shit. Some people in suitiforms keep asking to see my papers, but fuck them, they're frauds looking for a mark. I just keep going. They keep hollering but they don't stop me. I have found out that I can go further than they can yell. Hey.

Start from the day I died and count backwards to today.

Roomful Of Teeth!

wow...

I gave Phil my $21 a few hours ago, so I think he can stop his waiting and move on the other things.

When it comes to interesting...it's everywhere. Literally everywhere. Thinking otherwise is yet another form of confirmation bias, another way to get very fat in a very skinny space.

Well, see, that's nonsense. There is. Don't get suckered into thinking otherwise, that's not a way to open a mind, it's a way to obliterate it. But note this distinction - there is indeed right or wrong in music - but there is no one right or wrong for all musics. Each language certainly does have its own set of rights and wrongs, all languages do. Some of the wrongs of the existing language prove to have enough validity and meaning to the existing language that they evolve into the existing, and become an addition to the existing right. Some are so incompatible with the existing right but have enough conviction and relevance to enough people that the become a new language, albeit on with strong roots in an old one. And some shit is wrong, stupid wrong, Stuff that leaves suckers marveling at the infinity of creativity, which of course there is, but as they say, the bigger the front, the bigger the back, the greater the greatness, the dumber the dumbness. It does go both ways. If there was no right or wrong in any music...there would be no traction, and there for damn sure would be no growth, no evolution. Even something like 4:33, the point of that is not that ANYTHING is music, but that EVERYTHING is music. That's a crucial distinction in that the imperative is that there be a framework for understanding intent, there must be an idea to express and there must be a frame for the idea. Even if the concept is for the frame to create itself rather than being created to impose, that's still an idea. I mean, I think it's a great idea to perform your own self-created version of 4:33 by driving in a nasty traffic jam with the windows rolled down for exactly 4:33 and just LISTEN. But to just sit there for 4:33 on the phone and cursing at the other drivers and distractatory shit like that,, that's a WRONG way to perform 4:33. That's NOT 4:33! 4:33 involves, not the silence of the external, but the silencing of the internal. If you want to spend 4:33 creating your own noise, that's fine, do that, but that's NOT 4:33, and if you think that it is, you are WRONG. Don't fall for there "there is no right or wrong in music" bullshit. That's a sucker move. What there is is a LOT of rights and a LOT of wrongs. Some of the wrongs might actually be kinda cool (omg, pop records, especially "local" pop records), but coolness does not equal "right". Those type of things just illustrate that wrong can still be cool, just as right can suck. My Grampa Sangrey was a VERY flatulent man, especially after turning 80 or so, even in church. And one day, during Silent Prayer, he inflicted the most and longest UN-Silent Prayer on the congregation, probably on ANY congregation in the history of the world. I'm not talking periods of interrupted silence, I'm taking straight-through continuous unsilence, which to be fair, did have arcs of pitch and texture that could objectively been seen to have "musical quality". If you could distance yourself from the event but retain the context, it would probably be one of the more amazing music events in the history of humankind. But still....wrong. Very wrong. Still it did have a FFFF coda, supplied by my mom as soon as we got out of the church, shook hands with the pastor and started heading for the car - DAMMIT GRAMPA, THAT WAS DISGUSTING!!!! So don't tell me there are nor rights or wrongs in music, of course there are. But what do they mean or matter? Farting is wrong in Silent Prayer church music, very wrong, but right in Grampa Sangrey Internal Organism Music.

$22 for the softcover, I'm in.

Ok, no video yet, but proof that it happened: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1438138/ and this WTF?!?!?!?! postcripted sidenote:

Price?

Which one of me?

Well of course he was, that was the point!

Oh no...

List price.

Race, no. Religion? I don't think that the conversation has really been explored. Seems like a few people got really excited for a quick minute and everybody else just shuffled their feet and said okay sure whatever. But you tell me which is a more profound change - recording ' Hello Dolly" or deciding to reevaluate your relationship with who and what you perceive to be you creator?

Hey, I can do both. And will, lol!

Bingo.

Sold out or took over?

Keep in mind that the way you and Rooster are talking about is exactly what I was - and will always be - dealing with for pretty much any and all jazz made before 1971-72. Which is, of course, a cosmic buttload-full of the music. And what I have found is that, oh wow, the "critical consensus" and/or "received wisdom" is almost never "wrong". What it is, though, is incomplete, a damn near 360 of incomplete. And that incompleteness (caused by any number of unavoidable and/or willfully accepted limitations and agendas) is just a fact of life in its being. But individual acceptance - and all that comes from that - of it is all about individual responsibility. It's not just in jazz either, btw...modern creative music is someplace/something else now, the old paradigms have evolved/dissolved/re-volved, so listening to 20th Century (and earlier) music is useful, but increasingly more as prologue, a way to figure out what is/has-isn't/hasn't going to be used going forward. And forward is really the only place life goes. We can only be in the moment, but we need to be in that moment fully anticipating that as soon as we're in it, it's over. In this, we have no choice. We really don't have a choice. Now never lasts, Then is not going to move anywhere, Next is where we all go, no matter what we're looking at while we do it. What this is ultimately all about is language - how is the language of sound evolving, why, to what ends, through what modes for what purpose. Language, communication. Nothing is worse than people talking behind your back, or, especially, people talking right in front of you and you not even being aware of it. HATE it when that happens!