Joe

All great music!

Thanks! Pretty sure everyone has IDed the tune on #1. #7 is going to be a big stretch for some listeners. Glad you dug it! #9 might be based on a standard. But, to the bet of my knowledge, it is an original/contrafact. #12, not Duke, but there's a conceptual connection (?). #13: I think some folks have IDed the other horn, but no one has drawn a bull's eye on the trumpet player. Let's just say those two soloists have a history together. Ha! Not the Grubbs Bros., but those Visitors records are great sources for BFT tracks. Ditto the Catalyst stuff, to keep things Philly-centric for a moment.

Nice! https://fromthestacks.bandcamp.com/album/garganos-garage-lavender-magenta-indigo-blue-fin-labels << As we began to transfer the reels and sift through the paper, the picture got fuzzier. Vic Gargano had multiple labels: Inferno, Indigo, Magenta, Lavender, Invicta, Condor, and Blue Fin, and an equal amount of silent partners. By nearly every account of the artists we spoke with, there was most certainly a criminal element in the background, but few were willing to go on record. “We were in the middle of a session and these guys showed up,” said an off-the-record source. “Vic went outside with them and came back ten minutes later with blood all over his face. He walked into the recording booth and said, ‘Back to work’ like nothing had happened at all.” >>

Reading through those comments, I kept thinking about Ellison's "battle in the bucket of crabs" (from INVISIBLE MAN). Ironic, given how much Crouch worshipped Ellison. But he could not see — more likely, IMO, chose to ignore/compartmentalize/rationalize — his own trollish tendencies.

Arranged by Gil Evans!

I mean, it all depends on who you are and where you come from. My formal jazz education, such as it was, was anything but Kenton-centric. This was in the early 90's. My teacher — a good one, IMO — was always conscientious about placing the music in a sociopolitical context and foregrounding the Black men and women who made lasting aesthetic contributions. I think the key word here is "institutional." As Everson points out early in his write-up, the living, breathing history of the music never really happened in institutions, at least not until the 70's. Crouch was a complicated man who leaves a complicated legacy. And I agree: had he continued to pursue the same rhetorical strategies that brought him fame/infamy in his heyday in the era of social media, his legacy might be even more complicated.

The pugilist is now at rest.

Thanks! Looking forward to reading your thoughts/impressions!

Yes, this is great stuff. Kind of a more energetic GNU HIGH.

I forgot about that one! Thanks!

Thank you for these comments! #4 I chose precisely because I have played this performance for friends before and they have also heard Corea and Jarrett in it. But it's not Chick or Keith. I don't believe 11 has ever made it to CD, FWIW. But maybe in Japan?

I don't disagree. But I also don't think WE INSIST is really talking about or focused on the music at all. Which, come to think of it, is pretty Crouch-ian/Albert Murray-esque/Wynton-y.

Well, I wasn't really thinking so much about the music industry (shudder) as I was about a broader context in which WE INSIST's "demands" exist. Reparations has become a pretty big tent — conceptually speaking — as this recent report by the Brookings Institution indicates. https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/bigideas/why-we-need-reparations-for-black-americans/ Also, I get it... the "create alternatives" argument can sound like a kindler, gentler rendition of the "bootstrapping" argument. Still patrician. But I think we need to have better conversations about agency, period.

https://weinsist.org/charter I get it. Reforms are necessary. I also believe in reparations. And these are all statements that need to be articulated for some individuals who are knew to the history WE INSIST so powerfully invokes. But its not like efforts haven't been made, time and again, to reform these institutions. Academia is perhaps more corporate than corporate America these days, which does not augur well for its capacity to mount the kind of change initiative being called for here. I'm not sure faculty, students, and external constituents even have the bargaining power – or coalition-building skills — they need to drive that change. Certainly not while the phenomenon of adjunct professorships persists... Also notable: the only mention of alternatives to institutions in the charter occurs here: "WE INSIST that every cultural and educational institution ensures their ABAR is done in partnership, both with BIPOC ABAR experts and grass-roots local community organizations; establishing ABAR alliances, collaborating with local activist groups and ensuring the work is inherently always open to and in consultation with those it seeks to uphold." What does partnership mean? Are we talking about money here? I mean, it's all/always about money, isn't it? There's a generational divide we have to acknowledge here as well, I think. Millennials and Gen Zers don't necessarily have the same expectations of art that older generations do. Are those differences irreconcilable? There's anecdotal evidence to that effect. Look at recent controversies in the visual arts and literature. Again, I'm not saying the efforts this article points to aren't worthy. I'd just like to see as much investment as possible in creating alternatives: economic, organizational, aesthetic. That, to me, is the AACM model, one that proved replicable and rather successful — on its own terms.

Thanks Thom! A couple of your guesses are spot-on. I will confess that there are some artists here whose jazz "credentials" might be considered questionable.

Thanks ya'll! #13: IDing the horn players might help with the IDing the tune.

Greetings all. BFT 198 (September 2020) is now available for your listening / sleuthing pleasure. 15 tracks. Thanks to Thom Keith, you can listen online at http://thomkeith.net/index.php/blindfold-tests/. Looking forward to the discussion to follow! Best, JM

Listening to the Hamilton-sponsored trio date now. Gambrell sometimes sounds like Tatum, via the same pathways as Andre Previn, sometimes like Herbie Nichols, and sometimes like Jaki Byard. Not what I expected! Also, apparently he played trumpet and recorded on that instrument under the name Federico Cervantes... https://federicocervantes.blogspot.com/2009/03/

Agree! I have not listened to that one in a while, but I have fond memories of it.