JSngry

ECM is darker and deeper than this imo. Certainly more mature, adult. Windham Hill maybe. I have not been following this guy at all. The things I'd heard were not in the least encouraging.

Checking that one out as we speak. Not bad, very sincere. But it's telling me a story to which I'm afraid I cannot really relate. I'm old and the notion of "jazz" today is often one that feels alien to me. But oh well about that. The piano playing itself is pretty frilly. Frictionless. And I need some friction in my life. Not conflict, just friction. Friction is what makes things stick. This music is very pleasant, but it ain't sticking. Sorry, but this still sounds like children's music. Maybe as he ages his music will follow suit. Or not. None of my concern one way or the other

Yuja Wang...I had 3rd row center seats for a concert she did here. Her playing was like a machine gun, which was an interesting approach, ultimate valid as a personal interpretation. But initially arresting. But what was really arresting was how she was able to maneuver that dress so the obviously any-second-now crotchflash never occurred. Piano is not all that she has practiced!

Year before last was my first time making it. Our daughter has moved up there so that cuts the expense considerably! I think it's a great festival, and all free, hey.. I don't know that KG has made a record that shows him at full power in guite a while. But live...yeah!

He definitely left a mark. RIP and full tributations.

No need for details, but the poem/,recitation of the male vocal rings true to various life experiences I've had l. Yes it's horrible, yes it ends in a tragic murder. But Emmit still wins because he DENIES the murderers their evil desire. And believe me, denying people like that the satisfaction of bending that knee...it ain't a legal triumph, but in the battle for your soul - THEY LOSE. You can never let them win.

Also note that THAT Young Lions record was released thru Elektra-Musician, which was under the aegis of Bruce Lundvall, whereas post-Lundvall Columbia jazz had mostly fallen to George Butler, who was being picked off by the Crouch/Etc. crowd. The wounds are old, and not yet totally healed.

It was a time when marketing had yet to be finalized. You can see that decisions were made, and here we are.

I thought it was a great set, made more great by the active engagement of the audience. It indeed felt like church more than a few times!

That's more like it!

You mean on CD or on LP? In the LP days, only Complete Communion stayed readily available IIRC. I remember the other two being "finds" when I did find them. When was the Don Cherry Mosaic released?

Blessie Smock - Allow Me My Joy!!!

I don't do social media so I have to ask - why was he removed in the first place?

I like the whole thing, musically and visually. That pair was special for a lot of the time before it soured Bottom line for me - if your body language is telling me you swing, I believe you. And if you can do that while doing an "act", you win!

I don't pay attention to :critics" anymore, but I keep hearing about them anyway, mostly thru advertisements for records or gigs. That's definitely "hype". And I mean, I just don't care. Their world is not my world, and I'm sure that we're both ok with that. But - I think my vision of the world heading towards total real hell with increasingly alarming acceleration is more "real" than theirs' of nirvanic wonder and awe. Now, for my granddaughter's sake I hope and pray that they're right. But as they say, hope is not a strategy, Wayne could write "Lester Left Town" and Mingus "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" because they knew Lester. Literally knew him, ran into him on the street, heard him play in clubs, talked with him, drank with him, all of that. I hope that somebody who did the same with Wayne will do the same, but I don't know that something like "Wayne's On The Astral Plane Now" is going to work as nightclub music (Wayne's own phrase, remember). I would like to hear the music of somebody who watched movies with Wayne deal with that information, supposedly that was a BIG part of Wayne's life esthetic. And people like Wayne and Herbie, people who were well-versed in "modern classical music", yes, you can/should definitely do that, but to balance that with nightclub music...there's gotta be real nightclubs, ranging from swank joints to JOINT joints, but not playing joints at all...that's an essential ingredient being removed from the recipe for which no equivalent substitute has been found, at least not for my palate. Ultimately though, what I'm missing is stuff that is gone and ain't coming back.

Those guys gigged. Pretty much everybody could get some kind of gig. And pretty much everybody did the work in the woodshed AND on the bandstand. A broader set of experiences will give you a broader perspective on life, and therefore on music. Even if your were in a relatively small subset of the population, playing with people in the same room as other people with whom you are not playing is just a fundamentally different type of life experience. I don't think this is particularly complicated, but I guess the fact that being a "young jazz musician" today mostly means being a different type of human than it used to upsets a lot of people and their economies.

I didn't love a lot of what was on here, but pretty much all of it caught my attention for various reasons. As a result, I sleuthed a lot, but the results did not change my initial responses, which I will stick to, with only minimal exception. The FULL exception for this will be the last selection, which imo is borderline epic and deserves full attention ASAP! TRACK ONE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolton,_Mississippi Bolton, Mississippi is a real place but with a population of <500 people, I don't know who on this record would be from there. I like the music well enough, it has a real-enough "down home" feel, although also not really "developed (looking at you bassist). The soprano has a Grover feeling underneath it all, and I mean that as a compliment. Grover was a man of the people, and this music is definitely by the people. I like it, yeah! Not gonna rush right out an buy it, but I do like it. TRACK TWO - Felser BFT Redux. Lakeshia Benjamin is a bold dresser with a musical intent to match. I say she should be encouraged on both counts! And Gary Bartz can hopefully give us a Great Final Act, sounds like he's more than paid some pretty deep dues over the years, been there, done that, all of it. TRACK THREE - No idea, really. Nice tune, very nice. Randy Weston, maybe? These soloists, though, not sure about their time, the ideas are not necessarily being executed as much in a pocket as they could be, sometimes they feel just a little bit rushed. Plus, some space wouldn't hurt anything, ya' know? The tenor is a bit better in that regard, good tone and a more developed sense of speaking. I hope these are younger players? This is type of thing where you miss working road bands, the cahnce to go to work every night and work out the kinks and clear away the clouds. But oh well, that ain't here no more. But the bassist and drummer are past all that! TRACK FOUR - No thanks. Where's the movie? TRACK FIVE - This sounds like Herbie Mann on flute, from back in the day when he still played bop. And that's not a diss, just a speculative observation. And this is obviously not from those days. Piano has waaay too much of the OP Gung-Ho feel for my taste. This guitarist is the most interesting player for me, but he seems to be playing in a different zone than the rest of the band and just walks a few blocks and then pops into a bar for a few drinks until the parade passes by. I mean no insult when saying that this sounds "Canadian". TRACK SIX - Hello Nasty! I was surprised, but that explains it! TRACK SEVEN - I certainly did like this, in spite of it's less-than-fully-fulfilled potential. But the groove is good (especially the drumming), and the piano progression is definitely fresher than old standards. The soprano solo spoke to me of Kenny Garrett and further sleuthing confirmed that it is. This record is nice enough, but hey, I saw h9im and his group at the Detroit Jazz Festival two years ago, outdoors, in front of a full/fully appreciative hometown crowd, and he played the everloving BEJESUS out of stuff like this. He was holding church with it, and keep in mind that a church needs both preacher and congregation to feed off of and back to each other, and that is fully what was going on there. On this record, not so much, but records ain't the WHOLE story, ok? TRACK EIGHT - Very nice retro sound. I thought I had heard this tune before, and I had - it's a Neal Creque tune first recorded by Grant Green, with a fuller isntrumentation, that's all I will say about that. But does this have lyrics? It seems like it should! And I wish that a group like this would go back and see what can be pulled out of "Cafe Reggio". TRACK NINE. I disliked this one so much that I sleuthed, I think that's a first...Ok, this player (who is not David Murray) is somebody I've been aware of in different contexts over the year, definitely a seasoned pro deserving of respect overall. But this one....yuck. Did Don Was put him up to this? TRACK TEN - All in here, full frontal SPIRIT. And very much in the pocket, musically and vocally and verbally. Google AI can often give you very straightforward answer and when you ask it about "jazz inspired Emmet Till" it will first tell you about Wadada and then Ernest Dawkins. And Dawkins it is, with a full suite that was premiered at the Velvet Lounge, and for this recording, Paris: https://ernestdawkins.bandcamp.com/album/un-till-emmett-till I truly feel this one, the holy defiance trumping and ultimately triumphing over the triteness and vulgarity of lowly humans. I will be getting the record ASAP. More than a few surprises here. Please play again, thank you!

When both life and music suck, we're living in the last days. Proceed acc9ordingly, and don't say you weren't warned.

I guess we all got spoiled by Horace Silver and Wayne Shorter and people of their ilk. Or by having jazz radio for that matter, where a DJ could interact with a community in real time. Or maybe this child prodigy hype is for marketing and never about music.

I actually like the basic Starbucks flavor. So ti me, that's not funny, it's just stupid. You know what else was stupid was that Starbucks Blonde, for people who wanted something else besides Starbucks from Starbucks. Talk about a REAL blonde joke...