JSngry

We not done here, are we?

I really don't understand this need to "glorify" a very competent, excellent musician like Eric Alexander in relation to a truly iconic socio/musico titan like Dexter Gordon. The only way I can begin to understand it is in terms of somebody needing to feel justified or something, and I very seriously doubt that Eric Alexander feels the need to be justified as an heir to Dexter Gordon. I mean, he knows what he's doing and why he's doing it and he continues to do it with full conviction. Lining him up with anybody who really built this music cheapens his efforts and trivializes theirs. Beside, time/music moves on. Eric Alexander is not solving any life/music riddles or solving for any X other than playing changes the best he can in a way that he can live with. That's a helluva task right there, and if he bores me doing it, I sure as hell don't see anything trivial about a life's devotion to hard work and personal development in pursuit of a very specific (and difficult!) craft. I don't feel even the slightest obligation to like anything for the sake of it's craftsmanship. Nothing. But I sure as hell feel an obligation to respect it. Those are tow totally different things, and it's out of respect to both Dexter Gordon and Eric Alexander that I say just leave them the fuck out of the same breath!

You mean somebody who can bring the life experience of playing with Lionel Hampton & Louis Armstrong & Wardell Gray in all those clubs in all those hoods in all those various states of highness in to every second on and off the bandstand? Somebody with that intense personal magnetism used to all kinds of ends? Somebody who can lean back and dig in and put all of that out there all the time, no matter how tore down he might have been, not as a reference but as a natural fact of life? Born 1965 or later? And this is a serious question? I got to see Dexter Gordon live, once, but that was enough to leave a mark. Props to evolved Rickey Ford (too old, I know) and occasional James Carter (b. 1979) for at least getting it, but really, heir? An heir to Dexter Gordon? A truly organic heir? Those guys are all either dead or very soon enough about to be.

It's quite good, actually!

Herbie Steward & George Handy, via Alvino Rey

That is some of the greatest music of the 20th Century. Seriously.

Prince Lawsha ‎– Firebirds Live At Berkeley Jazz Festival Vol II https://www.discogs.com/Prince-Lawsha-Firebirds-Live-At-Berkeley-Jazz-Festival-Vol-II/release/8114181 KILLER!

Maybe. But the point is just that people sometimes give off a vibe. Not saying that was the case with Haig, but it could have been. "Race" is certainly an issue (still!), but it's also any easy blanket-blame that can be used to deflect closer scrutiny of an individual. Besides, where/with whom did Haig want to work that he couldn't because he was white? Did he want a gig with King Curtis or Miles or who, exactly? The Club Baby Grand? House gig at the Apollo? "Crow Jim...." a construct created by Stan Kenton and Leonard Feather. Proceed accordingly.

otoh, the guy had a really dark side that has only recently been brought forth to the general public. but I'd be shocked if nobody knew about it, or at least suspected. People have a way of "keeping their distance" from people with "issues" that are outside the normal community practices, and that can certainly affect employability.

I don't get any of that from him (other than his excellence on his instrument), but if that's what works for you, enjoy it! I don't at all care to lsiten to him, but I have the highest respect for his ability. Just...comparisons to Dexter Gordon in any fashion seem patently absurd to me, insulting, actually. Gordon was a real giant of the instrument and the music in general. Alexander is a highly qualified placeholder. No Dexter Gordon, no jazz quite as we know it. No Eric Alexander, no records with Eric Alexander on them. Period. Nothing wrong with that, but Eric Alexander is in no way "the Dexter Gordon of our time". Let Eric Alexander be the Eric Alexander of our time, that's enough, no? That seems to be what he wants, it's not at all a bad thing to want, let him have it.

and not in the good way. oh well...on a more pleasant bunch of notes:

Sorry, meant that it came out just in Japan. I think.

I dunno either. If I could figure it out, I could at least appreciate her, and that's something I have no interest in.. But let me try - no low notes, no sense of the lyrics maybe once in a while actually being real, rather than melodrama, notes bent the wrong way/for the wrong reasons...you name it. And a vibrato that makes me want to...do something not good. Exactly what, I can't say. She's got good pitch, though, if that counts for anything other than having good pitch. that second one, that's not at all a bad song, but....gag. Gagging is a reflex, just sayin'.

I still do not get Morgana King, not even sortakinda a little, not even appreciate-if-not-actually-like. Not ever. That's gonna have to be somebody else. But this record has really great soft-MOR-psych charts by Jimmy Haskell. I just wish he had done them for another record for another singer. Like, if Joni Mitchell was on a career path in 1968 to make this/this kind of record, that would have been SO good. But...life does not work like that, then or now.

I think it just came out in Japan, the CD.

Modern mainstream with a kick.

Either that and/or if you make it past 4-5 notes, it's your own damn fault. The way I tell them apart is simple - if it's a record that George Coleman's not on but it still sounds like George Coleman, it's Eric Alexander. And if I don't know if George made that record and it still sounds like a younger George Coleman, it's Eric Alexander. I save a lot of time that way, and in this modern era, that's important! It's kinda like David Frye and Richard Nixon. Kinda.

Yeah, you can always tell anybody with their own voice in 4-5 notes. That's, uh...kinda what is meant by having your own voice.

I can very much tell the difference between 70s-80s Dex and 60s Dex. The tone broadened, the time got further and further behind the beat, and the harmonic choices evolved. If we're going to use Trane and/or Miles as benchmarks for "journeys", there's not going to be very many journeyers. Those guys were on odysseys!

Yeah, I picked up the Japanese CD reissue a few years ago and was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the playing. Pretty good stuff! The piano is a drag, but hell, if I threw out all my jazz records with bad pianos....shudder!

Maybe it's just me, but those two statements seem to need reconciling? Dexter had one hell of a journey, musically and personally!

It's an LP that used to turn up regularly in Half-Prices around here, a few decades ago. Yes, there is mono: