JSngry

And see, that kind of shit matters to you. Me, looking at those names, not really. Not too much at all. If I felt good and had an evening to waste, I'd go see Gary Bartz with George Cables, But that's it. Sitting behind Roy Haynes must have been a real thrill, but, you know, my heart might now have been able to stand that much excitement. I'm looking forward to, hopefully next year, saving up for it, going to that Open Big Ear festival in Knoxville, hearing all that, and then coming back home and seeing what happens in terms of interests. So yeah, "greatness", in this sense, is being defined by you finding what you like. If it's not what I like, and if I can't find what I do like there (and be able to afford to live there!), then it's not great to me, nor will it be, nor should it be. As for "magic"...there's no such thing as magic. There's either illusion, ignorance of methodology, or some combination of both. Where I might like to be in that area is for the classical/new music things. Maybe. But that shit is pretty portable these days, again, the internet, fluid, not static. Other than that, I do subscribe to both New York and The New Yorker, so I do see what all is going on there (and not just musically). It's a lot. But if I lived there, how much of it would I go to? Little, if any. So what am I missing living here that I'm missing living here? Other than the expense and the attitude, not too damn much.

When is the CFL coming to NYC?

he says without irony... when the city was on its way up, there were buttloads full of affordable housings. where is all that now? Look, you want me to run the Jazz Government, the FIRST thing I'm going to do is move the capitol to someplace where creative people (both from inside and outside the margins) can afford to live together without having to depend on family wealth, so be careful what you ask for. It's now a frozen monument to itself, imo. Yeah, well fuck Frank. I love him, but fuck him nonetheless. And tell me again why I have to live someplace I don't want to live in order to understand why I would want to live there. I'm old(er), I know what I want out of life, and I know where it is. Pi Records is in Brooklyn. Nessa Records is in upstate New York. My granddaughter is a few minutes away, and all kinds of shit is on the internet, all over the world. You know what the greatest city in the world is? THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD, that's what. This type of meta-urban uber-provinciality is not a good thing for the 21st Century.

Yeah, this is some kind of ongoing YankeeFanThing (and/or NewYorkJazzFanThing, or...fill in the blanks), that if some players don't do well in New York that it's the player's fault for not being cut out for New York, like it's a defect or something. Bullshit. New York City is A city, it's not THE only city, nor is it the GREATST city. There is no such thing. It IS a major city, and a very important city, but what that has to do with playing baseball is....absolutely nothing. I know, media, blah/blah/blah, get over that, that's a loop of vain self-justification, especially moving forward into the 21st century. Now if that's not what you meant, sorry. But damn, a lifetime of experiencing smug spectators clucking about people "not being ready for the big time" or some shit when in reality, hey, maybe your city genuinely sucks in some ways for some people...enough of it!

Did they ever do "Baubles, Bangles, and Beads"?

Yeah, CORNY...make mine Doo-Wacka-Doo, or the Budweiser record by that St. Louis cat, shit like that, not bigass showily orchestrated hificorn Esquivel - make mine Esquivel, I'd down with that "Serious" - exactly, where is THAT comp? They probably sell me one of those. A LOT of musicians from the time loved that band. I think it's as much that they appreciated the challenge of the writing and the impeccable execution, as well as the economic/commercial struggles that surely were a part of being those guys with that band. But, you know, buddy DeFranco led the Miller ghost band for a pretty good stretch. So it's not like he was innately averse to working the marketing hook of a gig, nor should he have been. That is actually to his credit, imo. Just saying that if you I tell you that I don't really care for liver, and you tell me that Buddy DeFranco was a big fan of liver, that tells me nothing except that Buddy DeFranco was a big fan of liver

I knew a guy from Houston (4th Ward iirc), my age, who when he first heard Ike (that album) and saw the cover, had an immediate moment of recognition of Ike as "one of those pool hall guys". Still love that image, Ike as a pool hall guy, seems to me that there's no way in hell for that to be anything other than totally true!

I'd like a good comp that contained only the serious (or whatever) writings from that band. For the other boopdonghonkpingyBAM stuff, make mine Esquivel, who sounded like he really no choice in music but to do that. And when he tried to not do that, it pretty much sucked. Sort of a Bizarro S-F, maybe?

I stand by "regressive" in that they sound - to me - like the originals being simply being tricked out instead of being organically grown/developed. That "Science Fiction" 45 (supposedly only on 45, does that still hold true?), that to me sounds like organic music, no tricks, no gimmicks, great writing and great playing. Creative, crafty, but NOT clever. That's what I myself like. Can somebody who knows the oeuvre direct me to more like that, please? That's the type of thing that "buzz" had me expecting when I first dipped into S-F. It's the lack of that that flipped the switch off.

Oh shit, I be broke like folk.

Yeah, ok, but..if this record was from 1958, that's an easy 15 year (or larger) spread between "then" and "now"...anybody know what the S-F fanbase was, was it old "swing era" diehards. or was it people who might have been 13 in '43 and were now 28, and oh wow, here's stuff I heard when I was a kid, and wow, it sounds MODERN now, I mean, how reliable an indicator is that. And to complicate things even further, yeah the Miller stuff was big hits, but was Sauter's hardercore Goodman stuff really POPULAR? That I don't know, but if not, how familiar with the originals of those would "most people" truly be? I can honestly say that I'm a lot more familiar with these in there original form than these 1958 remakes. Whatever reference point that gives me, I don't know, but it's one that doesn't hear this a progressing in terms of substance, not at all. Did you mean "block chords" or clarinet lead? This band has always made me feel like they had one thing in mind when they were putting it together, but then it became something totally different once it got real. I've heard more than a few fan-remeberances that use the word "progressive" as applied to this band, and honestly, most all what I've heard of them is actually regressive. Anyway...where is there more like THIS? That's more (or less) like it.

email sent.

Ok, never mind what drove the S-F band, what is driving THIS?????

Is it me, or does it look like Harper is more Pippen than Jordan? I mean, one incomplete w/o the other, but still, who would Harper's Jordan be, where is that guy, where is that team?

How emo does that one get?

Have they funded the Jazz Government yet, or is that whole thing still happening?

There ya' go. Don't think I'd have gotten Roy, my views of him (all photos) are either younger or, if older, more close-up. Same with Bishop, even more so. Doesn't look like any of his album covers, and that would be almost all I would know.

Not an artist, perhaps, but is that Phil Schapp? Both of those other guys look very familiar, but not at this age.

Where is THIS society? Yeah, THIS is the society I live in. Oh lord, it's the other way around...the things that so many people think that they themselves can't understand....it's frustrating beyond words too many times. It's reverse-snobbery. The assumption that I cannot possibly understand X because it's not my profession, C'mon people... No, not everybody can hear everything, individuals ultimately have ceilings, but if you can't hear the difference - in context, between a C chord and an A min chord, or to hear the difference between Phil Woods and Marshall Royal playing lead in a section, sorry, I doubt that it's because you've hit your ceiling yet.

Yeah, and I've had friendly discussions at listening sessions where the differences - obvious differences - in sax section voicings between Oliver Nelson, Gerald Wilson, and whoever the arranger is on any particular Basie record are met with shrugs and uhs. Never mind voicings, just blend in general I've had similar conversations about chord progressions - original changes vs substitute, the different types of polychords used in arranging, inner layering, motions that overlap and/or go contrary, all that stuff that is a real thing, it doesn't happen by accident, quite the opposite, and "most people really do not grasp what is happening past the point of "I like it" or "it sounds different, but that's all I can tell", and again, that's not a problem, it's not a required skill set for general listening and enjoyment. And some general listeners do in fact have very good ears (and the supportive perceptual maths) to go with them. But most people...most people do not. Point that out and you get a lot of the "well, you're a musician, of course YOU can hear it", and I'm like, no that's not it. There are people who are a lot more aware of the visual than I am, not all of them artists/photographers/designers/etc , and if they tell me that such-and-such is there and THAT'S why it looks like it does and that, no, it does NOT like "just like" something else, hey, if that person is demonstrating a real skill and not just pompousizing, that's real, and I will listen. I may not get it, probably won't!, but I will happily acknowledge that I don't get it and not presume to have an equally informed opinion. They're dealing with facts, I'm dealing with impressions, not even a little the same thing. I mean, everybody's got a right to an opinion and to like what they like, but a meaningful discussion between widely divergent skill sets, democratic as hell, but useful in any other way than feeling good about having an opinion that counts as much as anybody's...not so much. I can discuss emotional reactions and, when I can, I can try to discuss facts. I can do both at the same time, but that can get weird, especially when you say I dig "A" because "A1", but still, it's more than a little sketchy because "A2". It's the contradictions that don't demand resolution that can drive people crazy. You're supposed to know one way or the other, and/but good luck on that.

Sure, there are those who can do that, especially with older musics from which time has removed the "new" factor. I just remain skeptical that "most people" can. It's not a skill-set that is needed to be a general audience. But if a conversation is had about actual events rather than the emotional reaction to them, hey. That discussion needs to be as specific in content as it does intent.

See, I'm not so sure about that. I've not seen a convincing body of evidence that specific arrangers had fans of their own at more than a cult level (at best). Not even Fletcher Henderson, to whom Goodman always gave the props. So maybe these two guys were "introduced" to a general public in such a way that it was like, hey, these are the guys that did XYZ, and Mr./Mrs. "Music Fan" said, oh, I know Glenn Miller, I know Benny Goodman, I guess I know these guys too! Hardly the basis for an informed contextualization dynamic, I should think. Seems like there were some other attempts to groom the next-gen of "big band leaders" from the ranks of esteemed arrangers, Billy May, Jerry Gray, Sauter-Finegan, who else? In each case, the hook was that they had done this and now they're going to new that same thing, only in a more current manner, but not TOO current, we'll leave that to Gil Evans if he ever gets off his ass. Or something like that. I can tell you this - to this day, "most people" do not know how to listen to ensemble music. They here the cumulative sound but are oblivious to all the specifics going into it. Not that they should, because they don't have to play it, and they really don't have to listen to it at any other level than "this sounds good, I like it!". But if you're saying that any general audience at any given time had a natural ear for contrasting and comparing in any way other than superficially....I remain skeptical.

Could have been more adventurous? How, and more importantly, why? The originals were - ARE - perfect within themselves. and more than "adventurous" enough, then and now! What we have here is not something like Masterpieces by Ellington, where originals are totally repurposed/reimagined/whatever. No, this is not that. This is taking the original arrangements and doing nothing more than tweaking them with some pings boops, bops, and hi-fi swirlishness. I get that some people like this sort of thing, and ok, good for them. If it's all about the space-age reverbpinginess, ok, that makes sense. But if the angle is that these are actually new/different/better do-ings of the original charts, sorry, I can't go there with that. I've yet to see a Bill Finegan/Glenn Miller set (or any attempt to collate Miller by arranger - and that's a huge wasted opportunity; between Finegan, Jerry Gray, and Billy May...attention could/should be paid at that level, please!), but there are some dedicated Sauter-Goodman discs that deliver a focused/dedicated look at (most) all that. That's where the steak of this S-F sizzle is going to be found. Listening to big bands as "swing era" is predicated on nostalgia. When applicable, I suggest listening to those bands separately from just "entertainment" and/or "period" conceits. There's some very serious composing/arranging/playing/interpretation going on, actual orchestral mentalities going on a the most serious of levels. That's what works for me, not clever reverbpinginess diluting the genius of the original writings.