JSngry

I've heard more than enough of both of them to know that they don't matter to me except as a damned nuisance every damned time they open their damned mouths.

Yep - that's a roadblock right there. Nobody would expect all that many people to sell that many more records. But just in terms of cock-blocking the flow of possible interaction with an audience - any audience - past extreme "in-group" buzz, and all the money that follows (not much, ever, but still, it's what there is to get) from that flow...it was not in the interest of advancing music, it was in the service of one rigid, narrow, and in some cases, vendetta-laden (cf Albert Murray) vision attempting to vanquish all others. Today's audiences show the ultimate futility of that attempt, but it didn't fail until a lot of money got gobbled up, and the jazz business has not been the same since. Do the math - if only 1% of people who get exposed to new musics (really new musics, not new versions of familiar musics) are going to take to it (and 1% is optimistic), what's a better outcome towards achieving a chance at a sustainable endeavor , to have 100 people exposed to it, or 10? Extrapolate that out over several decades, even just one decade.

This record took me back to a lab band rehearsal, 1975-76, Bob Belden had brought in a chart to be read. Bob was still finding his voice then, but already had all the attitude he was ever going no need, ever. This meant, of course, that he was viewed as a poser by some, so of course, when the band faltered at reading the intricate rhythms and clustered dissonances, it was perceived to be Bob's fault. But the rules were that anybody who brought in a chart got to have it played and rehearsed through to at least once complete run-through, ragged or not. Well, after the third breakdown, people started questioning if these notes in their part were correct, pretty sure they're not, you know all that shit. After the fifth breakdown, one of the tenor players (not me!) jeered, JESUS BELDEN, DON'T YOU EVER CUM????? This record made me think about that night.

Well, Miles and Gil, but oh well about that! Miles ALWAYS had people working for him and with him, Bird, Trane, Wayne, Marcus Miller, hey, but in the end, it was his music, and they all contributed to it. In the business world, people who do this this well for that long are revered. In jazz, they have suspicion cast upon them (cf Ellington, Mingus, etc.). Who's creating this narrative, and who do we have to send off into what kind of exile to make it stop once and for all? PS - also consider that it was in the post-On The Corner "electric jungle" music that seems to have been the music that Miles was most fully involved in creating from the ground up. Teo made the records, but Miles made the music. But that's the music that all the Reactionary Good Boys find it easiest to dismiss. Tehy don't get it becuase, I think, they CAN'T get it.

sigh and seriously - how would it be that a bandleader who was "struggling to keep up" with one band replaced the pianist and bassist with people who were even further out on the edge? We've mostly all got that Lost Quintet tree, one of the great documents in bootleg history. Where on there does Miles sound like he's scuffling and/or trying to keep up? Branford listens to records, hears gaps of the moment, and automatically defaults to a deduction of flaws and then ends his consideration. That's the difference between a craftsman and a creator.

Jake Hess cannot be denied!

For somebody who was scrambling to keep up, Filles De Kilimanjaro is one helluva strong record. And OMG, Branford - he plays the fucking changes all over that record without getting lost of otherwise faking it!!!!!!!! That's some stupid shit for Down Beat to be printing. Leonard Feather must have been sent back to Earth by Satan.

I don't think she needs anybody's sympathy. She lived to 70 and had a helluva good career and apparently a happy life. Plenty of people do none of that.

Scott, how old were you in, say, 1984? How many gigs were you trying to book? How many records were you trying to sell? How many deals were you trying to make? What kind of records were you buying? What was on your radio? Tell us what was going on in Dolan World in 1984 (more or less) that gives you credibility on this matter.

It wasn't just the record companies. There's also the capital that was available for concert bookings, festival circuits, in some cases, promotional capital needed for club work (ah., the 20th Century...)

If you want to find out about the Marsalis roadblocks, you have to go into the business, the financials, the way they appropriated so much of the available capital and then used it in furtherance of their own agenda. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's Old Fashioned All-American Capitalism. But make no mistake, they sucked up a LOT of available capital from all sides of the business, and diversion of capital is certainly a roadblock, if not in intent, then in effect. It's been discussed to death here on the board, btw. btw - I read Branford's quote, and it's even more ignorant in its totality than it was in the one isolation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/obituaries/georgia-engel-dead.html

I've heard more than a few anecdotes about Ellis having the highest disregard for Miles of any era, not unlike Lou Donaldson has with Wayne Shorter. I can allow it for the old fuckers who had to breathe the same (more or less) air, but when I heard Wynton's bullshit, and now Branford's, it sounds lo me like the sons are still fighting the father's battles, and sure, that's The New American Way, but fuck that, really, fuck that. My mom was a whiz at taking yesterday's meal and turning it into today's, but she ALWAYS made it different and meaningful, and she didn't try to bullshit about that it was leftovers. These motherfuckers think those of us who ate it yesterday don't know the difference. They're wrong. My mom knew, so there's no battle to fight about that. Apparent these sons either never had to eat leftovers or else they got some big lies told to them that they still believe. Here's Branford as a effectively functional placeholder, allowing later Sonny to be on the same record as earlier Sonny. But where is Branford? Is there such a thing, really? Really? Because when real Sonny comes back in, Branford just...goes away. He was only there for the one scene and he executed his lines really well. Pay the man! If your best work is "pretty good" (and it is that)...wow!

Eh...so much hype, so little delivery. Yeah, the guy was facile, but in the words of more than one older guy of the time, "let me hear him play a ballad". and when they did....

It's like this, only double:

It was fun at the time, but it made promises that were never delivered. So...maybe I was a fool to even think they WERE promises instead of a set of well-crafted head fakes.

As clem's math would say...one Rusty Bryant record >>>>>>> relevance to the body of jazzmusic than the entirety of Branford's entire family's past/present/future musical existences, recorded and otherwise. And TWO, well, that would just not be fair!

A more than fair point! I think a lot of the indifference I have towards Costa is that he seems to show up on mostly the most mundane Sinatra selections of the late 60s/post-retirement period. He brings not a whole lot to the arrangements of some not-so-great songs, but he did have this nice transparency to his orchestration that gave Sinatra plenty of room, especially in the area of pitch, which around this time was becoming a not-insignificant consideration. Not a lot to bump in to in Costa's charts, and perhaps that's why they were so favored.

This. Anybody know?

Of course he's a stellar musician. The world is full of stellar musicians. But Branford ain't no giant. He's just tall, that's all.