robertoart

After reading the link I have to say I enjoyed reading Joe Morris's writing about his experience and teaching of free music as much as I do his playing. It would be interesting to hear in the near future from musicians who work through some of the methodologies and personal idioms his book looks to grasp. It was also interesting to read him speak of the mystic/spiritual aspect of improvisation as sometimes being an impediment to inclusiveness and access to free music expression. An attempt to bridge the gap between the philosophy and something categorisable as procedural methodology seems like a worthy thing to do.

Yes Bergman, my bad. Then again... My link

Astor 3in1 TV, Stereo and Radio. In service to the family until 1980. 5 years after the advent of colour TV here. For my own private obsessive record listening, I made do with various little suitcase record players, and 'toy stereo's, until I got a 'real' hand me down Hi-Fi record player when I was about 15. Which I then proceeded to lumber around with me through every student crash-pad, glorified squat and makeshift abode I could find when I moved to the 'big city'.

Actually self-deprecating humour is an Australian characteristic too. Case in point - l remember hearing an interview with an Australian author living in the US - who was trying to make the point that Americans tend to take self-deprecation literally. She related how she told someone she was an author - and the person responded 'have you written anything I'd know", to which the author replied 'Oh I have a book out but nobody read it' - to which the other person replied 'Oh my, I'm really sorry no-one read your book". The book was, in actuality. well received, just not a mega-blockbuster seller. As far as the Allen-Fellini thing, I don't think that is actually self-deprecation - as much as Allen making humorous light of the distance between the great European Existential film tradition (and his youthful desire to emulate it), and the reality of his own humbler mundane origins. Kinda like, if Jackson Pollock had ambitions to emulate Velasquez's Las Meninas. In the end they both (Pollock and Allen) settled for the most honest, relevant 'form and content' they could. Although by the time Allen got to making his non-ironic takes on the European tradition, he had come a long way to narrowing the gap.

An interesting article. It reminds me of Blood Ulmer's comment about rap 'the whole worlds got the Blues, the rapper's got the Blues so bad he can't even sing anymore'.

How did ya do that? My usual trick of getting to the restricted article and copying and pasted directly into google didn't work? Actually this was the one I found. My link

I'd like to read the article but can't get past the moneywall. Here's an interesting article about Allen though. Unfortunately nothing about self-deprecating humour. But brings up an issue discussed here before. The ethics of separating the art from the artist. No moneywall - here is a link. My link

I'd like to find a copy of it. The sound on my Ted Dunbar Xanadu vinyl possibly put me off looking for more Xanadu vinyl, it was a harsh listen. Normally I care naught about things like that when it comes to my favourite music. I've got a warmer system now. And more time to listen. BTW was Eddie Diehl really an underdog as such. I mean he and Pat Martino were the only White guitarists that seemed to be a part of that scene in the sixties. Was that not seen as a privilege back in those days. Pat Martino seems to regard it that way.

For Miles Davis of East St. Louis ...Opportunity Knocks

At the next G7 meeting you can start negotiations with Italy & Japan! I'm sure anybody who took the trouble to start and maintain those labels won't be invited to the G7. Bloody radicals.

Lies, lies and damn statistics.

Well case in point the tapes of Wes Montgomery's Incredible Jazz Guitar apparently are no more. So either they got mixed up with the the trash and ended as land-fill, or some 'collector' has them in his closet. Either way an unacceptable fate for the masterpiece of the 20th century's greatest guitarist. Sure, it is true that a Pollock inhabited a different cultural space before the painting was begun, very true. Aesthetic battles in 'art' and classical music always had a tradition of importance that Blues and improvised music had to be elevated too. I suppose in my eyes, the actual primary documents of recorded music performance occupy the same importance as the Pollock original. And the Pollock original is seen as one part of the greater story of his art - and then the wider story of American Modernism. And I suspect no stone is left unturned in documenting and ensuring every aspect of his output is known catalogued and preserved. Whether in public or private hands. So I also wonder what kinds of archiving and access surrounds the history and future of 'the classical music' primary sources?

He's a bit of a formalist.

Fasstrack, I clearly remember you saying something like this in another thread, suffice to say I disagreed with it (at least from the angle you were coming from), and gave you a response arguing why I thought you were a bit myopic in the larger scheme of things. Your following posts gave me the impression you either didn't take any time to consider what l was suggesting (as a riposte), or your own self expression was the real motivator for what you were saying. It was a bit disappointing actually, because I know I made some good points worthy of your consideration. I wont bother rehashing what I said there, because I believe I said it well enough, whether you disagree with it or not.

And he has certainly provided a good source for anyone wanting to strengthen their own arguments about Chick Corea's last thirty years

I've got this.'Live In Tokyo'. Just checked. It's Don Schlitten (he wrote the liner notes) who says "the man I personally consider to be the world's greatest Jazz Guitarist". And later in the liner notes Bob Rusch (Cadence) is quoted as saying "listening to Raney is much like going back and listening to Bird; one is struck by the freshness and the lack of embroidered bullshit". Although you could be remembering a direct quote from a different Raney/Xanadu perhaps.

Get outta here!! (Big push to the chest like an Elaine WTF moment from Seinfeld). This is the show that aired the Kessell/Burrell/Green performance! November 2 1969! Followed by M. Davis...first television performance Do you remember this MG?

What exactly did Barry say about Grant? And BTW I know Barry respects Jimmy highly, and we've spoke about him many times. I've heard his public comments too. He was saying Jimmy sounds like he hung out with Bird and learned something. He said that many times, not that Jimmy was in the same league as Bird. Barry has a thing about musicians that hung out or played with Bird, how enlarging an experience it was. He says he always can hear it, like with Chet baker. It's from the book that dare not speak it's name Page 93. Barry Harris talks about Grant's melodicism, compares him stylistically to Blue Mitchell, then says "Grant was a good guitarist, one of the best, one of the greatest - if not the greatest. And I have played with Kenny and I played and recorded with Wes".

Yes I accept this is unfortunately the reality. I suppose my thinking is along the lines of other art mediums like visual art or cultural artefacts that museums collect and preserve. In the sense that what once started out in the domain of a consumer culture (say a Jackson Pollock painting, or a Rembrant painting) eventually transcends - and makes a transition to something deemed necessary to be culturally sanctioned (for want of a better term), into something outside of a commercial framework. The issue clouding cultural music I guess, is that master tapes are seen as a generative thing - not so much as an 'object in itself'. Yes there are also all kinds of issues this thinking raises in terms of popular culture verses art -but I think the demarcation lines are clear enough. Also I wasn't totally trying to blanket it into an Afro-American music thing - but probably thinking of it with regard to the kinds of movements like the Lincoln Centre (and yes I am aware of the contempt many hold for the Marsarlis/Crouch approach to this) or other more grass-roots places - whereby the moves to preserve and develop the music from a performance base perspective could also be transferred to a similar institutional setting - with regard to the research and preservation of primary musical artifacts like the tapes. So I guess the question is - will the 'primary artifacts' 'ever' be considered 'too' important to be left to the mercy and realm of 'business' - and 'eventually' become objects demanded to be properly preserved, archived and accessible as cultural treasures. And yes, I know the answer is probably a big 'no', but it shouldn't be that way.

As an aside to the 'Death Of EMI' thread - and with regard to the countless threads about lost, damaged, missing or languishing in the vaults master tapes - does anyone foresee a day when there could be a 'keeping place' for the original session tapes (or even original vinyl, if tapes are gone), that form the Jazz and Blues part of the great Black American musical experience. I mean something like a "National Endowment For" or some kind of 'Homogenous Institution' that would research -find-purchase-collate and lovingly archive those tapes that now seem to be wallowing at the bottom of the multi-national food chain, in terms of importance and cultural (and financial) significance. In the digital age (and the age of boutique vinyl re-issue labels), the tapes could be assigned out - or licenced to - perspective commercial interests, much in the way the multi-nationals use the original tapes anyway I know the politics and money issues surrounding something like this would be enormous - but the benefits are potentially great. For instance, the original masters from catalogues like Blue Note, Verve, Chess, Argo, 'Nessa' Cadet Dial ESP Muse, maybe even Black Saint and DIW , all the pre 1960's Blues recordings etc, etc, etc could be part of a National archive - with the proper scholarship and respect this entails. If the only 'mainstream' interest left in this cultural legacy is reserved for the 'perennial' 'lifestyle addendum' sellers, like Blue Train, Kind Of Blue, Chet Baker, Bill Evans etc..., and with the spectre of 'public domain' lurking to reduce the 'financial potency' of most of these catalogues, is it not better to begin a process to treat this history (and the first historical primary sources ie., the tapes) with a bit of a collective/historical consciousness. I think collectively - as a cultural legacy - the tradition of the music can in many ways be seen wholistically - as opposed to say 'just' rescuing 'the rejected B-sides of The Troggs 1960's Vanguard sessions (if indeed there ever was a 1960's Troggs Vanguard session).