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Everything posted by Shrdlu
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Not sure whether to place this under Artists or Discography, lol. Feel free to move it, Jim. Gary McFarland completists (and I mean that in a nice way), certainly including me, will be glad to see that his film score for the 1966 movie "13", originally scheduled for release as Verve V6-8674 in early 1967, has recently become available on a CD. The label is called FSM Silver Age Classics - it is a label that issues movie scores. The catalog number seems to be FSM Vol. 11, No. 1, whatever all that means. They seem to have escaped the clutches of Universal, which, of course, owns all of the issued Verve material. I spotted it during a routine eBay search a few weeks ago and now have the CD in my hot little hand. It will be available from the usual suspects as well. This music was recorded during a busy visit by Gary to London in 1966, during which the orchestral parts for his "Soft Samba Strings" LP, and Zoot Sims' "Waiting Game" album, were also recorded. So, in a way, it forms part of a trilogy. It does not include instrumental performances by Gary or any other jazz musicians, so you need to be warned that it is somewhat of a curiosity. But the main theme is a very haunting melody. It has appeared on several other albums, including the aforementioned "Soft Samba Strings" and "Waiting Game" LPs, as well as the Steve Kuhn album "October Suite" (which has been reissued on an Impulse mini LP CD), and Cal Tjader's "Solar Heat" album. So it is already quite well known. One thing is likely: the superb harpist heard playing the theme (and not identified in the notes for the new CD) is almost certainly David Snell, who is featured on the Zoot Sims album and identified there in the personnel listings. The CD notes include a nice pic of Gary with Creed Taylor and Jack Parnell, who conducted the orchestra on the three albums. On a side note, now that it has emerged that the tapes for this project still exist, it would be great if the tapes recorded in London for the "Soft Samba Strings" LP could be found. The orchestral parts were recorded in London and mixed with the performances by the jazz players (McFarland, with piano, bass and drums) which were presumably recorded back home in the States. Unfortunately, there was an error with the tape speed during the dubbing, and the intonation is painfully bad at times. The piano, especially, sounds way out of tune and sour. I am amazed that the album was issued with that obvious problem. The music is excellent, and it would be great if the small group parts and the orchestral parts still exist separately, so that an in-tune mix could be achieved. ( Shades of "Kind of Blue"!! I used to try to play along on my alto with that LP, and had a real time trying to tune up to it.)
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Hey, Thanks for posting the link to the two Youtube clips of Eric playing. I have never seen footage of him before. His bass clarinet solo is amazing. He adds so much to the Andrew Hill session on that horn, too!
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Thanks for all the comments guys. I think it is a timely topic too. I think this kind of music is very interesting, and it's given me a lot of pleasure over the last few months. And, as Jim said (I think it was Jim), it's not the stuff that you hear on the regular radio or in many clubs. Over the last few days, I've been playing a lot of Darin Epsilon's long mixes. Wonderful stuff! There are tons of them on the site I posted. Here are some more links: http://www.cardamar.com/mixes.html "Lucid Dreams" is a very good one on there, with an astonishing acoustic guitar solo right at the very end. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...iendID=29367179 "Fading Echoes" is excellent on that one, particularly the section where there is a girl singing a kind of chant. Normally, I'm not very keen on "drum and bass", partly because it's a bit too fast for me and ahead of the beat, but this is a very creative set. On the topic of dancing, I also love to dance to house etc. I just turned 60 but I will go to a club for teens and 20s and dance for hours to it, so you guys in your 30s sure can. The kids in the clubs love to have me there and often join in with me and take pics and stuff, and group together and hug me. That's cos I behave myself there, lol.
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Ronnie's wise cracks are so recognizable that you could tell that was him without it even being said. I still remember an evening at his club in 1974. Btw, Zoot was there that night, and mmmm he was good.
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Interesting, though I've spent a lot of my life on Blue Note already. What does "DRM-free" mean? Is that some sort of copy protection? By the way, my ears can't detect any difference between WAV and mp3 format on a CDr.
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Thanks, Jim. I haven't heard those people you mention. Must check them out. The better examples of this kind of music don't lack heart and soul at all. Many of the creators and mixers are very sincere about it. Read what GarthIvan has to say on his page, and his travel blogs (link provided on his page), for example. I don't like blatant pop a great deal, but with all my music experience, I would not listen to this type of music if it was just junk. There's some good stuff going on. I am cursed with a good memory for music, and bad music bores me quickly - hate going into most supermarkets for that reason, lol.
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Lawrence Welk: "And a now we're a going a to play a that famous a Duke Ellington tune Take A Train".
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After decades of listening to jazz, I recently got into the music in the "house" family. This is partly because that's what they play in a lot of clubs. (Been going out dancing, lol.) By "house family", I mean the 4/4 music at about 145 bpm, including house, electro/house and trance. (There don't seem to be sharp dividing lines between the various genres, and I don't care what category each set is in anyway.) It all consists of 4 and 8 measure segments and is pretty simple theoretically. A lot of this really grooves and swings, and, of course, it's perfect for dancing. I've always loved creative repetition and bass pedal points. It's been a blast hearing it all. I don't find this kind of repetition boring at all. And it is slowly progressing along all the time. You need to stay with it for long periods to appreciate the progression. Even though a lot of it is electronic, some of it entirely so, a lot of it has a lot of soul and feel. There are a lot of very imaginative and creative writers and mixers out there. (Mixing, with several different mixes of some tunes, is something you don't get in classic jazz, and it is fascinating to hear what a mixer can do, and how different the various mixes of songs are.) I'd recommend guys like GarthIvan, Darin Epsilon, Zachary J. Brooks if you want some samples. Try "Live at the Spybar, Chicago" on http://www.darinepsilon.com/music.html Try "Edinburgh" on http://www.garthivan.com/ Try "Endless Sunset" (very funky, with a real guitar, bass and electric keyboard) on http://www.xtcradio.com/mixes2.html There are many other very talented guys doing this. XTC Radio London, available online (only) with Winamp, has all these guys and plays some great sets. In spite of the station's name, it's run by Zachary Brooks, who lives in Sacramento, CA. Some of my favorite mixers are England's Seamus Haji (he's The Man!), Paul Emanuel, and Sweden's Eric Prydz, who did a famous remix of Pink Floyd's "Brick on the Wall" song. Eric has a fantastic mix called "Armed" - minimalist electro. If you have not tried this stuff, you might like it. Hey, it's a change from all the fuss over the various remasterings of Blue Note sessions, lol.
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Oooh, I enjoy all his recordings! I agree with you, Lon, "Crescent" is a superb set. I even use "Bessie's Blues" as my cellphone ringtone - it gets going straight away, so it's perfect for that. (Some ppl pay huge amounts for ringtones - why do that when you can upload your own for nothing?) Gotta be the hippest ringtone, and you ought to see ppl's faces when it goes off. JS, I love that solo on the George Russell album! Didn't get to hear that until about a year ago. What a marvelous album, with so many top guys on it.
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Completely agree, Jim! It was pig-headed to omit the 1957 tracks when those RVGs were done. I'm glad I have the older CDs. Also for the Mobley stuff (No Room For Squares, Str8 No Filter etc.)
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It must be awkward for a guy accustomed to a bass fiddle to switch to a bass guitar - playing sideways instead of upright. I feel this way cos I recently got a bass guitar myself. (!) Considering how wonderful Ron's bass fiddle sound is, it is a waste to have him on an electric. Ironically, he didn't like it when Miles made him switch to electric (for the Kilimanjaro album), and that was one reason why he left Miles's group. So what does Miles do? He hires Dave Holland, and Dave plays acoustic!
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Moaning during sex is cool, but applause during a performance is a pest.
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Right, it's locked.
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I love this guy! I have Japanese CDs of the Blue Notes. My favorite is "Preach Brother", because of the presence of the classic rhythm team of Sonny Clark, Butch Warren and Billy Higgins, They are called upon to do something a little different here, and they do it so well. The last track, with the vamp, is great, and the album really grows on you with each listening. The JRVG of this album sounds real good.
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Bit late in the thread, but I'd like to support you, Jazz Cat, on the Three Sounds. Thanks to the Japanese, I have all of their BN items that have been released, and I love listening to all of it. I can't really come up with a list of bad BN albums, but I have avoided the Sabu album and I don't listen to those half-dozen Blakey percussion albums much (but I wouldn't call them bad).
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Wayne Shorter is easily the best sax player with the Messengers (and there is a lot of competition) and "Free For All" is probably the Messengers' most intense album - very hard to beat. "Mosaic" would be another contender. [Just got to hear some more Wayne with Blakey, on dailymotion.com - do a search on Blakey. That alone would back up my claim. There was also some serious Lee on that site. Check it out or be square!]
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Hans, the Feb 67 session is not soft jazz. I have it on LP and really enjoy it. Stanley digs in quite a lot, and you can even hear the drummer urging him on at one point. The Jobim tracks are wonderful, and "Night Song" is a stunning performance and arrangement - the highlight of the session for me. I'm looking forward to hearing the unissued session, too.
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Seeing this thread led me to stick "Soul Sauce" on again. That's my favorite Cal, but I have a lot of his albums. I have the 1994 CD, which sounds very good. It adds a new item, Mamblues, to the main session, and I think the original LP would have been better if that had replaced Afro Blue, which is an odd track from a different session. The other tracks on the LP are by Cal's regular working group and are very well locked in. A good Latino performance, when the percussion and bass locks into a groove, is hard to beat!
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Pharoah's "Message From Home" album is fantastic, and it always reminds me of the Impulse days - the vibe and the studio sound. You should check that one out. There are some fabulous grooves and some very catchy melodies. It makes you want to join in. My kids like it a lot, and we used to grab some home-made percussion and play along with some of it. There is a lot of Trane there, too. Pharoah has sounded more like Trane in recent years than he did when he played with him, and we now get to hear the lyrical side of him as well as the fiery screeches.
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The same principle applies to any air column or a string. You have the fundamental note, where the whole thing is vibrating and the two ends are still, then the first harmonic, where the two ends are still and so is the center, this being an octave higher. Then, still higher notes (or overtones) with still patches at various intervals along the pipe or string. The "still patches" are called nodes. The second harmonic is a 12th (= 12 notes) above the fundamental, not two octaves. This has nodes 1/3 and 2/3 of the way along. As the harmonics get higher, they get closer together, not as far apart as a whole octave. With the trumpet, where the three valves give you three different pipe lengths, the fundamental notes are seldom played. It's mainly the higher harmonics, which are more close togther. So this, plus the operation of the valves, gives you a way of playing all the 12 notes in the chromatic scale. As was said, you can do this on a saxophone. For example, you can finger the bottom Bb and by altering the embouchure, you can get Bb an octave higher, then the F above that, and so on, including the top F and beyond. But with all the keys on the horn, you don't need to do that.
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Art Blakey's Impulse album "A Jazz Message" has some fine Stitt. (It's a quartet album, with McCoy Tyner and Art Davis.) And the "Stitt Plays Bird" album has been a favorite for many years. John Lewis adds a lot to that. I am another who only listens to a bit of Stitt at a time, because he does play a lot of the same riffs over and over. But Sonny sure was a master alto and tenor man.
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Benny has always been my favorite clarinet. I don't care about the fact that the innovation was over by the early 40s at the latest. He had a perfectly developed style, and he just sounds good! Why change? I didn't like Artie Shaw criticizing his style (Artie didn't think Benny was sufficiently adventurous harmonically). Benny was fabulous and I always enjoy hearing him. Plus, he sure knew how to set up a great big band! His original four sax section, led by Hymie Schertzer, is my all-time favorite (above Ellington and Basie). What a sound!
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You can't go wrong with Stanley! With players of that high quality, you can listen countless times and never get tired of them. I have all of his Blue Note sessions, and regularly keep coming back to them. This particular session sure is a great one. The Three Sounds are also a favorite of mine! Once again, I always enjoy hearing them.