robertoart

They define the genre. I don't think I agree. They're great recordings, indeed, but Baby Face was MUCH better served in his recordings for the Chess Bros. Those two albums are effin' incredible! But GG's not on 'em; it's Ben White on guitar. MG Behind The Eight Ball?

Sounds very 'vanilla' to me. Maybe you had to be there.

They define the genre.

I was always waiting for Blood to record his great 'latter day' Organ session album in a Jazz vein. When I saw Amina Claudine Myers name involved in a project I thought it might be happening. But they focussed on the R&B Gospel aspect of the culture. Which they obviously also share. There was a live session with Arthur Blythe, Blood and Lonnie Smith recorded a few years ago, but from what I read it might not have been an organ/guitar/sax focussed session. Then there was the James Carter Organ band that had Blood involved, but he was using his more current tinny processed guitar tone, so it nullified the true power and beauty of the Hammond and Guitar blend.

But Lou was never a user. He told us all that! Lou Donaldson did say the best live band he ever had was Lou Jack McDuff Grant Green and Joe Dukes and a big yes to the Kynard Soul Brotherhood album. Just waiting for my near mint vangelder Blue Label Prestige to turn up in the mail. So I'll finally get to hear it as 'nature intended'!

Live At The Lighthouse with Shelton Laster on organ, and the amazing drummer Greg Williams.

You've got Blue Blood MG! There's a good Grace Jones rip-off on that album. And another one from one of those hipster UK bands of the time. But I just see that as Blood and the crew re-appropriating back the chord progression from those young whippersnapers.

It does? Yes it does from my perspective which includes personal experience with drug addiction and recovery. Most addicts never escape active addiction even today when there are avenues and opportunities to recover and get clean.In Parker's time the understanding regarding the disease of addiction did not exist. It was looked at as a moral deficiency and personal weakness which it certainly is not. . No one had any clue about any of it - who the hell knew what they were getting into when they figured they were just fooling around with another drug...when did start using heroin? Late 30's or early 40's? On the other hand many people who have used drugs including heroin did NOT and do NOT become addicts because they were or are NOT addicts. Some people are simply prone to addiction and at some point, once they are using they are unable to stop using through their own will. Parker was one of those people. Coltrane was also but through his process and in his case a God he found, he was able to stop using in 1957 - although as we know the after effects from his active addiction which was probably liver cancer from untreated hepatitis C killed him 10 years later. Well that's a lot more insightful than Crouch's response! Then again, didn't Parker say Heroin addiction was like rolling over all your problems into ONE big problem. And what about the connection between being a Black man in America at the time and addiction? the reality is that as long as what are refered to or thought of as 'hard drugs' have been available or used in this country - they have been distrubuted through and from more blighted areas which have been predominately populated by black/monorities. I think this says as much and then and now about the connection/relationship between African Americans and addiction as anything. My experience is that the disease of addiction does NOT discriminate base don color/age/religion/background/family background, upbringing or whatever. addicts are addicts - that's really as deep as it gets. I know Doctors/Lawyers/homeless/homeowner/nice guys/scumbags - I know all sorts. Sure addiction occurs across all types of socio-economic divide. But to dismiss the reasons some people fall into addiction and some people not, as purely to do with some kind of physical or genetic predisposition - as you seem to be implying - seems a rather quaint and old fashioned perspective. And out of synch with contemporary evidence based drug and alcohol knowledge. But if that's the story you want to tell yourself then well and good. It's actually one of my favorite subjects. I appreciate you engaging me on this topic. I actually do not believe it has anything to do with genetics or a physical pre-disposition. No one including myself knows for sure if some of us are born as an addict although some do believe that this is the case. I tend to see this as a bit much. My experience and belief is that with some of us, our drug addiction is based on an emotional or even a spiritual void if you will (although to this day, I'm wary of confusing people by using that misunderstood word) and subsequent ongoing pain that can only be filled with whatever brand of drug that works for us - works for us to temporarily eliminate that pain and fill that void. At some point, the solution becomes the problem but by that point, no matter what the substance is, we cannot stop as we are now physically, emotionally and mentally in the grips of drug addiction and we cannot stop using, We use against our will, and we see no way out. It doesn't matter what the substance is - however at the latter stages of addiction a great many addicts end up using substances like heroin, crack, methamphetimine - drugs that are widely considered highly addictive, dangerous and destructive - all of which is true - or a combination of those drugs supplemented and complemented with pain pills, alcohol, marijuana. The reality is that many people try pot, ecstasy (or molly), K, cocaine or even crack and heroin - and despite the fact that these drugs are all addictive to varying degrees - many of those people do not turn into drug addicts - therefore there is something different about some of us who do become addicts with the same background as friends or brothers or sisters who started out doing some of the same things - who did NOT become drug addicts. Recovery replaces active addiction with a solution that varies in kind from one recovering addict to another. The relaity is that in the 1940's and 1950's there was very little hop for an addict to recover - and today it is different although from a standpoint of how many people recover from the disease of addiction, it is still very, very low - as still most addicts are destined to die a using addict death - and befopre that will suffer via degradation, institutions, depravity, desparation and sometime insanity. I'm not engaging you so much per se, although your post does give a worthy insight on drug use from the individual perspective. I'm more thinking of using as it relates to Parker and the Jazz community of the day, and how much Heroin use in the Black jazz community reflected Heroin use in the Black non-Jazz community. And how much this determined the choices and the circumstances that were presented or forced upon Parker. For instance, 9 out of 10 Black musicians were using/addicts, so how particular was that to the wider Black community of the time? Obviously most White Jazz players of the time were users too, but using was an anomaly in non-Jazz White America. So with all the ragging on Crouch, I would expect him to have a greater understanding of how Heroin was a part of Black Jazz life - in the particular, and how this related to Black life in more general circumstances, because of his own connection to the Black American past as well as the access this gives to a more intimate oral history. People on this board can pick scabs at the supposed over dramatisation or weakness in Crouch as a writer, but in seeing Crouch as a Social Historian of the music, I would rather read his research than a White person attempting something similar. I think the 'anti-Marsalisism card' gives many on here a so called ideological higher ground when it comes to receiving books like this.

Hades.

It does? Yes it does from my perspective which includes personal experience with drug addiction and recovery. Most addicts never escape active addiction even today when there are avenues and opportunities to recover and get clean.In Parker's time the understanding regarding the disease of addiction did not exist. It was looked at as a moral deficiency and personal weakness which it certainly is not. . No one had any clue about any of it - who the hell knew what they were getting into when they figured they were just fooling around with another drug...when did start using heroin? Late 30's or early 40's? On the other hand many people who have used drugs including heroin did NOT and do NOT become addicts because they were or are NOT addicts. Some people are simply prone to addiction and at some point, once they are using they are unable to stop using through their own will. Parker was one of those people. Coltrane was also but through his process and in his case a God he found, he was able to stop using in 1957 - although as we know the after effects from his active addiction which was probably liver cancer from untreated hepatitis C killed him 10 years later. Well that's a lot more insightful than Crouch's response! Then again, didn't Parker say Heroin addiction was like rolling over all your problems into ONE big problem. And what about the connection between being a Black man in America at the time and addiction? the reality is that as long as what are refered to or thought of as 'hard drugs' have been available or used in this country - they have been distrubuted through and from more blighted areas which have been predominately populated by black/monorities. I think this says as much and then and now about the connection/relationship between African Americans and addiction as anything. My experience is that the disease of addiction does NOT discriminate base don color/age/religion/background/family background, upbringing or whatever. addicts are addicts - that's really as deep as it gets. I know Doctors/Lawyers/homeless/homeowner/nice guys/scumbags - I know all sorts. Sure addiction occurs across all types of socio-economic divide. But to dismiss the reasons some people fall into addiction and some people not, as purely to do with some kind of physical or genetic predisposition - as you seem to be implying - seems a rather quaint and old fashioned perspective. And out of synch with contemporary evidence based drug and alcohol knowledge. But if that's the story you want to tell yourself then well and good.

They were good in those days. All things considered. The Lord Woodbine/Calypso club connection is interesting. Anyone know it?

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yx0hY2NJNVA

Don't like their Rockabilly covers then MG? Their Arthur Alexander covers are good too. Soldier Of Love. They did great takes on the Motown girl groups too. Please Mr Postman etc. I had the originals of all that stuff (well, not the Rockabilly), which I greatly preferred. To me, for example, no one needs to ask whether Barrett Strong's version of 'Money' is better than the Beatles or not; it self-evidently is. They never bettered that stuff for sure. How could they.

Don't like their Rockabilly covers then MG? Their Arthur Alexander covers are good too. Soldier Of Love. They did great takes on the Motown girl groups too. Please Mr Postman etc.

It does? Yes it does from my perspective which includes personal experience with drug addiction and recovery. Most addicts never escape active addiction even today when there are avenues and opportunities to recover and get clean.In Parker's time the understanding regarding the disease of addiction did not exist. It was looked at as a moral deficiency and personal weakness which it certainly is not. . No one had any clue about any of it - who the hell knew what they were getting into when they figured they were just fooling around with another drug...when did start using heroin? Late 30's or early 40's? On the other hand many people who have used drugs including heroin did NOT and do NOT become addicts because they were or are NOT addicts. Some people are simply prone to addiction and at some point, once they are using they are unable to stop using through their own will. Parker was one of those people. Coltrane was also but through his process and in his case a God he found, he was able to stop using in 1957 - although as we know the after effects from his active addiction which was probably liver cancer from untreated hepatitis C killed him 10 years later. Well that's a lot more insightful than Crouch's response! Then again, didn't Parker say Heroin addiction was like rolling over all your problems into ONE big problem. And what about the connection between being a Black man in America at the time and addiction?

It does?

Your team has made it to the Grand FInal once more GA. You sure picked a good team to support from such a distance. Should be a cracker of a game again this year. Fremantle are playing in their first Grand Final ever. They joined the AFL about twenty years ago I think? Really looking forward to this years game. I will probably go for the Hawks. Hope you can get to see it or listen again this year.

Playing with foppish wankers like Grabowsky would bring out the worst mannerisms in anybody.

Grant Green's version is better.

An ironic empty gesture for pseudo deviants? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKCX92i-pwI

I thought Jimmy's response to Prismac was very positive actually. Must just be me who thought that way

Oh, is that the point.

His strange liner notes for the His Majesty King Funk re-release suggest it would most likely be an interesting read Sounds like he also had a jazz life indeed.

Sensational!