JSngry

And you gotta remember - Cuscuna's research (at least as it has been publicly documented) was about the label's activities. I don't know how much he can give us a detailed account about Hank's European sojourn like he could the activities at and around Blue Note records. What there seems to be no confusion about is that he (Hank) wrote this music while in Paris, and that it was intended as some kind of film music for some kind of a French film about the French-Algerian war. What nobody seems to have documented is a lot, really: Who approached Hank to write this music? Were they legit filmmakers of any variety? Or were they just hustlers trying to get names together to get money for a project that had no hopes of ever materializing? Did the film ever even begin pre-production? Did Hank do any preliminary recordings of the music in France, like demos, or just a few themes? Not did he make an album, did he record anything of this music, professionally or otherwise? What prompted Hank to do the "Thinking Of Home Suite" for Blue Note? Was this all the music that he wrote, a final distillation borne of frustration, or just what? To look for all the answers about that and limit the scope to Blue Note/NYC and Blue Note albums is a bit myopic, perhaps? That little bit of history almost seems like a postscript to a story that has yet to really be told...

I gotta ask, just how leveraged are these motherfuckers? I get that a mom and pop shoe repair shop ain't gonna have a lot of cash reserves, but THESE folks? Where them squirrels stashing all them acorns anyway? Winter come early this year.

RIP Bull

Yeah, here we go, that's a door still open, Shepp. Hopefully he's still healthy and lucid. Who were the BYG people, exactly? Besides records, did they have any other media...presence? Would they have had the hookups to try to do a film of this nature, or at least talk it up to get investors they could fleece ?

Well, if you're Mark Cuban, you do. Not that I advocate everybody becoming Mark Cuban, much less expect everybody else to act/think like him, but I guess he crunched the numbers and decided he could do it. So there's that.

Pretty sure that in some instances, there are no good choices. None. COVID-19 is not a good choice, and neither is losing everything, literally. Do you let your family get sick? No. Do you let your family lose everything they have and be alive but flatass broke and out on the street? No. Pretty sure there ARE options here, but not within the current economic orthodoxy. "Anything for a buck"...that could be greed talking, or that could be desperation. Gotta listen closely to decide which it is.

OTOH...long game. It's documented, "in the wild". Unlike the ancient civilizations, there will be NO doubt who this person was and what they did. Nobody creating the Braxton Historical Narrative but for Braxton Himself. For now, anyway. Ancient's a long time ago, and a long time away. Shit happens between now and then. But until it does, don't judge a long-gamer by standards with which he's not engaging.

And, you know, this IS a free country, not a perfect one. And there are stupid people who are going to do stupid things for stupid reasons. Which is not to say that there is only one "smart" thing to do, just that there are definitely some stupid things to do, and that there are going to be some people doing them. Same as it ever was. Proceed accordingly, and y'all stay safe.

I do think that this is the time for everybody to step back and look at the options. If you can continue to something with no or minimal contact, then by all means, continue to do so. And what you can't - or just don't want to - then be responsible for protecting yourself and others as best as possible. And for crying out loud - look at the data. Every place I know of has daily updated official data. And if you can't trust that data, then one or both of you have a problem that the rest of us can't fix. Just stay out of the way while the rest of us try to be sane and sensible about shit, ok? Just because it "feels safe now" doesn't mean that it is. And just because it "still feels dangerous out there" doesn't mean that it is. Totally depends on where you are and who you're around. KNOW THE DATA. PAY ATTENTION TO FACTS. In the end, it all comes down to everybody being responsible for their our own behavior.

Nothing past what is mentioned in the Litweiler piece, almost verbatim. The more I think about it, the more I wonder about a BYG connection to this "film score". BN didn't really seem to keep tabs on Hank while he was out of the country, I don't see any "Hank Mobley appears courtesy of..." on those Shepp sides he's on. So maybe instead of continuing the deead-end that Blue Note is in regards to this mystery, maybe redirect towards BYG? And good luck with that?

People people people time is precious words get in the way etc THIS is the only Beatlebook you will EVERneed

good that you don't believe it's a hoax. but as far as "forcing" anybody to be afraid...seriously? People allow themselves to be afraid. I'll welcome the distinction between people making informed decisions that don't jibe with your informed decision and people just being buttskinned SCARED. There is a difference, and one size does not fit all. Freedom does not equate to everybody reaching the same conclusion, and that works from ALL sides.

I'd like to know what interactions Hank had with BYG while he was in Paris. He did those two sessions with Archie Shepp for the label, so there was mutual contact. And by many (all?) accounts, the BYG guys were a, shall we say, "fast bunch". So maybe they talked him up about doing a film score?

We all know the rules.

Yes, I have seen that, and no, I will not be discussing it here.

Alright, that hole has been rowed, let's all move on.

I wonder who paid the band?

Ok, about this Hank/Movie/Paris thing, let's read exactly what he says: I wrote an entire movie in Paris. It was about the French-Algerian war, and I wrote Algerian music and French music, back and forth. Then I came back to New York and recorded it for Blue Note and they didn't put it out. I had some of the same people I was playing with in New York - Cedar, Billy, Bob Crenshaw, Curtis Fuller, Freddie Hubbard... wow. There's a lot to unpack there, and none of it unpacks 100%. There's no record with that exact personnel, so is Hank saying that he did the music in Paris with those players? Or that he recorded it for BN with those players? Or just what? I agree that the Thinking Of Home suite is a good consideration for what bits of the film score got recorded. I can hear that opening theme as being "Algerian" (at least to Hank's thinking), and he did make a point of recording that part again, as the intro to "Summertime" on Breakthrough, so obviously(?) it meant something to him. But, where's the "French music"? "Home At Last"? Is that "French" to anybody's ears? Maybe, as in "Continental" or something? And where's the players he mentions? The closest match is Caddy for Daddy, and...no. Not even accidentally. Were they ALL in Paris at the same time, that time? Or on ANY Hank record at the same time? A scenario that almost lines up is that Hank was commissioned (or otherwise approached) tin Paris to write some music for a film that never got made/finished, and then he came home and didn't want it to go to waste, so he used some(?) of it for the "Thinking Of Home Suite". But not with the players he mentions. He seemed pretty lucid, if a little bitter, in that interview, so thinking that he just got ALL confused doesn't seem a really safe assumption. But neither does the notion that there's this LOST SECRET HANK MOBLEY RECORD either. Wish John Litweiller could speak to what exactly was said... One thing I could almost consider is that BYG was involved somewhere in all this...except not with all THOSE players. Yeah, forever a mystery, unless and until.

I could be forgiven for thinking that the Mobley Miracle I experienced was the work of a catfish.

Let them stand, please. If/when a certain poster gets flagged, I want everything on the record, Rudy. ALL of it.

And yet, the record company got its turn!

that could be a good thread...Records Born Of Spite... #1 on my list:

I sincerely hope that any discussion on this board which invokes the 2nd Amendment does not turn political. Because, you know, discussions don't exist in a vacuum either, Brad.

A Covid-19 Thread...if you can keep it.