Joe

20 years ago I might have been willing to make that claim. But that's another thread altogether...

On the Riti label, and reviewed today at DUSTED by Marc Medwin [link]. Anyone heard this? I'm more interested in the Davidson (if you have not yet heard the ESP Davidson trio... get to listening) than the Morris angle (I admire the guitarist's work, but find it a bit dry), and am especially curious to know if any of the scores themselves are reproduced in / with the CD packaging. Thanks in advance.

I'd recommend picking up the Rob Blakeslee disc.

Jack Teagarden's ACCENT ON TROMBONE, originally on Urania... Jack Teagarden (tb), Ruby Braff (tp), Lucky Thompson (ts), Sol Yaged (cl), Sidney Gross (g), Kenny Kersey (p), Milt Hinton (b), Denzil Best (d) Great record, IMO.

Not very "jazzy" at all, but I feel honor-bound to issue a recommendation for the collaboration with Dagmar Krause, BABBLE. "Intense" is hardly the word...

CDs, especially "early" pressings, are already being treated as collectibles. As are MFSL discs, aluminum, gold, whatever. So I suspect all such audiophile issues (DGC Classics) will only appreciate in value.

Nice piece. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/arts/music/27fire.html

As Allen notes, somewhat overlooked in all those exchanges are A.J.'s gifts as a writer, which are considerable. One of the more memorable literary events I attended in LA featured Albany. She read from a pack of handwritten manuscript pages that otherwise were folded and stuffed into her back-pocket. I believe this was an early draft of a work-in-progress, something of a sequel to LOW DOWN. I wonder what the status of that project is...

I agree, and I should have put at least air quotes around <<savvy>> in my initial response... <<jaded>> being the more appropriate descriptor anyway. My main point being I was glad to be able to hear ADAM'S APPLE with fresh ears. I think some of that lack of appreciation represents a certain anti-BN-adulation sentiment. Silly, and has little to do with the music and everything to do with the mythology of marketing. There's nothing wrong and much, much right with dance music (and don't the original liner notes to this record reference the "contemporary dance"?) and if you leave our considerations of booty-moving -- to employ the parlance of a slightly later era -- you end up with an incomplete and distorted picture anyway.

IIRC, this has never been / will never be one of Cook-Morton's (PENGUIN GUIDE) favorites. But it was the album which "allowed me" to understand some pretty basic features of Wayne's music... the obliquity, tonal choices, the way he navigates the Coltrane influence... the title track being my main point of entry. These days, I'm more likely to turn to THE SOOTHSAYER or ETCETERA or Moncur's SOME OTHER STUFF when I want to hear Wayne from this period, but ADAM'S APPLE is the first point on the circle for me. I wonder how things might have turned out, however, had I been a more savvy listener back then. At the time, I'd not heard THE SIDEWINDER and knew nothing of the BN "formula" (if that is indeed what it was) of the day. Perhaps my not having a sense of that larger context was important to my initial appreciation. Finally, I've always thought Joe Chambers sounds wonderful on this record, and I actually prefer his work with Wayne to Elvin's. Any other thoughts on what Chambers is doing on this session?

'S'all good, what for being just a thang. No mention yet of Davis' INGIA! on Strata East. No masterpiece by any means, but an interesting incursion by the saxophonist into a more electric mode (Louis Davis on the gee-tar, Ronnie Mathews on occasional el-p). And its an "all baritone" date...

Fine date; Monk program; all tenor. My favorite date with Davis on baritone is the aforementioned Dorham JAZZ CONTEMPORARY... which also, IMO, has some of the finest KD on record. And there's a recent Japanese issue that adds bonus tracks.

When I was "wee", was a big fan of the works of D. Manus or Daniel Pinkwater... THE BIG ORANGE SPLOT FAT MEN FROM SPACE LIZARD MUSIC

A) A lovely reminder that there was a time in this nation's history when one could claim "soul singer" as one's occupation. (See http://classicshowbiz.blogspot.com/2009/03...t-stevie.html... just one year later and "rock star" has supplanted all other descriptors for "popular musician", and shifted the emphasis from the music itself to the levels of success and renown achieved by the individual. These clips don't show how that change occurred [maybe in part because Stevie toured with the Stones around this time], but it fascinating to see that twinge passing through the vocabulary.) B) Four Caucasians, blindfolded, sitting and trying to guess at the identity of a black man... did audiences of 1972 get what a heavy metaphor the whole set-up is? C) Of course Soupy Sales was hip, but its nice to have further confirmation.

Brilliant. Are there more recordings out there like this? http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/Weekend/FK06Jp05.html

Xhosa?

The more you watch, the more Dada it becomes...

I wonder if it has ever been played. As these albums are in sleeves containing the Presidential seal, imagine what they would bring if they suddenly starting popping up on ebay. Carter loved his be-bop, Clinton his greazze. But I could see both or either being invested enough in jazz to give AIR TIME a spin.

I've always prized this record because of what it reveals about Wayne's tenor playing post-SUPERNOVA, post-Miles, pre-Weather report (though isn't there some dispute on the actual recording date for both this and the session released as MOTO GROSSO FEIO?)... though I think of it more as a "tone poem" -- maybe I'm unduly influenced by the titles he gave the pieces -- but a tone poem with a strong narrative, one explicitly concerned with birth, becoming, being embodied.

I used to have IN THE TOWNSHIPS on disc; exact details escape me, but I believe the issue I owned was on Earthworks (a Virgin subsidiary?). You've heard Pukwana's work on Johnny Dyani's run of Steeplechase sessions? If not. by all means, track down copies of WITCHDOCTOR'S SON and SONG FOR BIKO.

Interested parties may care to track down THEREMIN NOIR, a collaborative venture between Rob Schwimmer, Uri Caine and Mark Feldman. A track-by-track review of this album may be found here. In a more purely experimental, "non-idiomatic improvisation" idiom, there's also James Coleman's ZUIHITSU on Sedimental. For more info... http://www.sedimental.com/catalog/james_coleman_zuihitsu/

Eric -- just a guess, but you might look into the work of Bob Kaufman. And even if these lines don't belong to Bob, I think you'll dig his work (assuming you don't know it already. CRANIAL GUITAR: SELECTED POEMS

Some fine Joe Venuti from this era, including... Venuti / Hines, HOT SONATAS Venuti with Zoot Sims 4 Giants Of Swing, S'WONDERFUL -- probably my favorite of the bunch, simply because of the unusual instrumentation (violin, mandolin, steel guitar, guitar + rhythm) Also highly recommended are all 3 of the ROOSEVELT GRILL albums recorded by the Bobby Hackett / Vic Dickenson group.

It seems to me that the distinctive rhythm of Newhart's comedy is key to how that show operates. The "jokes", especially in those early episodes, are all about Bob's reactions to what's swirling around him (the sit in the com), so that the audience is often put in the odd position of observing Bob observing, and find his inability to engage or successfully negotiate the non-straight world itself absurd. So that there are all these constantly shifting distances in any given Newhart performance, let alone show. He definitely learned things from Jack Benny -- silence as punchline, e.g. -- but certainly contributed his own sense of quietly outraged-but-too-polite-to-show-it (as opposed to the Benny blow-up) Midwestern decency. And that characteristic Newhart hesitation, that stammer. To make that stammer work in this context, I think, you have to give it space, and time to roll out. Certainly in those early episodes where Bob is the center of attention. I think later episodes of the old Newhart show become less and less about Bob and more and more about the ensemble itself, and those episodes feel more like the MTM show in that the latter was always about the ensemble -- something that the series finale plays up brilliantly. It occurs to me that it just took the BN show a bit longer to hit its ensemble stride, as "the ensemble" was not the original premise of the program. To use a hard bop analogy... So maybe those early BN episodes are more like the old Prestige "blowing dates", in which soloists dominate the proceedings and a particular form emerges, one that reflects the aptitudes and attitudes of one particularly strong personality. And those later BN episodes are more carefully arranged in the manner of a Alfred Lion-produced affair.