Big Beat Steve

Like I said, clash of cultures, puritan indeeed. Thoroughly puritan. Creating an icy atmosphere with nothing so much as a single word on a personal level, no matter how fleeting and harmless. I am beginning to realize things are worse in your part of the US than expats returning from the US have described them to be. The words or tone you insinuate I'd use are not ones I'd ever use (nor have ever used). I have always been fairly restrained in these matters and tended towards understatements (if you know what this is). Part of decency IMO too you know. In short, mentioning in passing "hey, you look really elegant tonight" (or "today" or this "morning" orf whenever) or "this is some great dress" (or slacks or hairdo or whatever) is nothing that conflicts with ANY sort of professional or productive cooperation and has of course always been limited to those I know well enough to be passably sure they would understand I am NOT trying to make passes at her or, worse still, would not retort wth a "WHAT? Are you saying I looked like a slob yesterday??". So if you feel you are unable to make well-worded, decent "standalone" (i.e. involving no ulterior motives at all) compliments to a deserving lady beyond the "bitch" level that you allude to then this is your problem, not mine. And not that of most of my fellow countrymen AND -women, luckily. But your loss. I did reply. Read again.

See (again) - you are getting closer to what I see as one of the underlying problems. You admit is is all about feeling offended and the right to feel offended. But how often is it actually a case of feeling "offended" because somebody was just stupid or horny enough to say something truly inappropriate and uncalled for and how often is it a case of somebody thinking and stating "I elect to feel offended now because I want to assert myself" even though the other either was just inept or did mean well and certainly no harm, like in the case of a small, innocent compliment stated in passing? As for allowing other people their right to feel offended - fine, if you prefer it that way but doesn't this equal the same right to protect oneself against causing offense? So no interaction anymore that might even REMOTELY lead to such a situation that could be held against you at whatever other moment. Which of course INVARIABLY reflects on professional interaction too. Take that lady entering the office building at the same time I enter it. Trying to be polite, of course I hold the door open and let her pass first. Now if this lady takes offense at this because by her own assertion she is perfectly capable of opening the door herself then so be it. Won't happen again. But if, in the course of the day, that same lady should see fit to play the "poor, weak woman" card (of sorts) and ask me to lift or move or carry this parcel or piece of furniture or whatever for her because it is oh so heavy"? Well ... "You know, I certainly would not want to doubt your abilities and am certain you can very well handle this yourself, competent as you are." Which basically amounts to what is not being said but thought: "Fuck you". "Reflexively being offended"? Maybe. But - again - one right is worth another, and if you want to be emancipated then GO THE WHOLE HOG and don't shift your parameters around just however it suits you best. You can't have your cake and eat it. Besides, who could have been sure she would not have held it against you at some other occasion that you tried to help her? Why am I expanding on this example? Because it has happened to a friend (not exactly the macho type, BTW) not long ago and he WAS offended by her behavior (as evident from the way he told it). The bottom line: This woman did not respect the right of the other person to be offended so it was her who did not defuse things in time.Face the consequences, then. Or step back, breathe deeply and think about what you do and whether whatever the other does is really full of such bad intentions that you have to slap him in the face. So ... "Today's climate". This is indeed what it boils down to and as the above example shows it happens even over here, feminist fundamentalism carried to its extremes being as it is sometimes. What have we come to? Wouldn't there have been better ways of getting these petty things settled by just interacting with each other in a normal and a bit more easy-going way so the real effort to solve problems can be dedicated to dealing with the REAL problems? Because even your "today's climate" apparently is exceedingly unable to cope with the Weinsteins of this world. (And yes .- I realize this is a clash of cultures between the US and Europe - for worse ...)

Two offices or not or only a small office - life consists of more. You don't take note of what happens around you - you never find time to talk about professional/office/workplace life with your wife, family, friends, acquaintances? You never notice what others have to say? Are you just not interested enough to interact with others to absorb what they have to tell about how they spend their days in very, very different walks of life? There is PLENTY of input out there - and plenty to learn - if you are willing to listen. From both sides, if you have friends from BOTH "sides of the fence" and try to interact openly and honestly and just plain down-to-earth with them. Which in turn might well make them feel halfway comfortable enough to discuss things with you they might not be discussing with EVERYBODY else out there. And no - like I hinted at repeatedly in recent posts here today I am not in the slightest surprised about what you describe as the dominant culture in the US these days. But mind you - IMO overall this is no achievement at all to be proud of if taken to such puritan P.C. extremes. By and large and in the majority of situations common sense and decency still do prevail in everyday life in the Western World and are amply sufficient to get along fine, and the efforts required to deal with problems really need to be concentrated on those problems that REALLY and DESPERATELY need to be solved, such as actual cases of sexual harassament and abuse and bullying at the workplace or in opther areas of life in all their forms. I am not conding ANY of such misbehavior. But just trying to be nice and polite and a wee bit "gallant " in everyday situations without even the slightest "ulterior motive" hidden behind it MOST DEFINITELY is not one of these problems. Unless of course you feel comfortable being forced into a behavioral straitjacket. As for German men "having not evolved beyond the frat house mentality" (I can assure you the sorority mentality among a certain female office worker species is something that has made more than one man blush too), please note that the oft-caricatured US "frat house mentality" never existed here to that extent back then (for lack of frat houses or initiation rites among college students, by and large) and in recent decades has been the source of incessant bewilderment to many from Europe spending time at US colleges and has - apparently correctly so if I am to believe your insinuations - been explained upon their return as everybody taking the opportunity to cut loose once more before puritan post-college life catches up with them for good.

See, and men are offering women the opportunity to evolve too. The need is there too - not as much as for a certain species of men but certain species of women DESPERATELY need to evolve too - and fast. Just as fast as men. Fair and square. Because - to start at the top of the list of inacceptable behavior - women blaming men for sexual harassment or even violation that never happened have been proven to exist too. On a smaller scale than actual cases of such harassment but they DID happen. And though this is not to discredit any of all the Weinstein victims (or victims of similar actual assaults) one iota it still stands that women have their share of evolutionary effort to undertake too. I know I did mine. Used it and found it - see above, without even having to force myself - it was pleasant the way it happened and I wouldn't have had it any other way and though I certainly would not consider myself a "softie" I still feel it is nice to see that the women I associate with in my life do not see me as the typical male predator the way they see certain others and just put up with, rolling their eyes either in dismay or in an understandable "he don't know any better" attitude. And I am glad to see that whatever else my son sternly refuses of my advice, this fact of not feeling the need to run after every skirt is one detail I have never even had to force upon him.

Not being able to force evolution on others - duly noted, but by that yardstick, what makes the exponents of the current discussion think, then, that the female gender can force evolution on the male gender?? Again, this is a door that swings both way too. And as long as women are "guilty" of the same "offense" (i.e. in these low-level "office" settings alluded to above that all of a sudden are lumped into the actual and real problem), even though admittedly to a lower degree, there is work to be done on BOTH sides. You know, what galls me in these discussions is that below the level of Weinstein and his ilk hypocrisy becomes evident, and OTOH sometimes all this rather amuses me because there are moments when I almost feel like an outsider looking in, wondering about how worked-up you can get (on both sides) about petty things because trying to dig up bad intentions that alren't really there if your're being honest really are way too much effort. Maybe this is because I think my own evolution in this matter has taken place a good while ago and I have no problems treating persons of the "other sex" I know in either a correctly distanced or just buddy-like manner (or anything in between, depending on who she is and how close we are). You know, if you have spent four and a half years at a university where the students throughout the faculty were made up of about 85 to 90% women then you INVARIABLY get to see the other sex as some sort of NEUTRAL GENDER-LESS SOMEBODY or SOMETHING where the fact that "she" is from the "other sex" after a while just does not enter into the equation anymore and outside your very personal, private life you just interact with them like "human beings of indefinite - because irrelevant - sex" (and no, in case you're wondering - they weren't all that ugly that you'd not notice that they ARE attractive femmes, but still, you just couldn't care less going beyond a certain limit ... ) Wrong equation. The equivalent would be the women who make remarks to that effect towards a MALE co-worker. Happens everyday, everywhere. Hard-wiredness. On BOTH sides. As for me, this has been irrelevant for the past 28 years, being self-employed in a 2-person office (my colleague and office partner IS female, BTW, and even through these years such remarks happen every once in a blue moon, in both directions ...) But at the office I was employed at before that I did in fact made appreciative remarks every now and then (when appropriate and merited) and they were appreciated throughout (you know even a "wow" in appreciation sometimes is sufficient). And this never kept me from working together in a strictly professional manner. Maybe it is the TONE that sets the music, you know ... (see my reply to Jim Sangrey above), even in other situations in everyday life because interaction with other human beings (of BOTH sexes) involves much more than just work hours and if you are rash enough you can get into trouble even elsewhere (or particularly there).

Sure, but where do you draw the line between what is "seduction" as you describe it (others might call it gallantry, even thought that's a term - and way of acting - apparently terribly old-fashioned now ) or outright sexual abuse or harassment? Some women seem to be all too touchy about what you correctly refer to as "hard-wired mind games" (while on the other hand they are not IN THE LEAST above trying to use their own hard-wiredness when it is to their ADVANTAGE, starting with soliciting little favors that - if they were being stringent with themselves - were a strict no-no to any self-respecting emancipated female able to take care of herself throughout!). Evolution has to take place on BOTH sides. BTW, referring to where you live: How is this problem handled with those parts of the population with a Hispanic background, I wonder? Don't tell me their own culturally conditioned "hard-wiredness" has all gone down the drain by now throughout. Or is this harassment thing starting from such a low level maybe more of a WASP problem?

A point that's often been made in those forums and to quote one long-gone noted comedian from here, "Everything's been said on it, except that it's not yet been said by everybody." And I am only half-surprised that this has come up straight away from the USA now as a first reply to my post as no doubt the example I quoted would have been found exceeeeeedingly non-P.C.-ish in many quarters (expats have story or two to tell at times, no matter how restrained they acted in their office work, having been cautioned before in a way that at times made them shake their heads in disbelief), even if it definitely was only meant in an appreciative way (and no, DEFINITELY no phone numbers asked ...) Of course each case depends on the actual situation and demands to be handled accordingly, and usually things like this ARE handled individually and decently, depending on what kind of relationship and interaction colleagues have at the office (which can be icy cold or just cordial without going overboard or into the closet - or anything in between). But as long as there are women out there who keep winking at the "good looking new office guy next door" and comment on the way HE dresses (which DOES happen not much less often than to women, by all accounts) there is no fundamental difference in which gender is allegedly worse than the other. In short, don't blow things out of all proportion unless you insist on slighting those who REALLY have reason to complain about true sexual harassment or even abuse (because the more of these non-incidents you lump in the more you downplay the really problematic cases that NEED to be addressed).

Good points. As for this ... (quote) I think of it all as a shop, where Wynton and his disciples are specializing in painting very good copies of old masters paintings, for some weird reason thinking that's exactly what humanity needs. Anything beyond impressionists is anathema to them. They started emulating Renoir and Monet, but eventually that appeared too modern for them, so they went back in time and started making (almost) perfect copies of Dutch Masters and now trying at Caravaggio and Raphael. If market is right, they may even adjust their philosophy and start making copies of Picasso- (almost) perfect- but copies nevertheless. That is not what jazz is about though. So, his (arguably) impressive technical chops aside, he's always been just an imitator and very likely will remain as such. (unquote) These pseudo-discussions about what's new are getting to be a bit wearisome. They have been led as long ago as at the time of the moldy figs discussions (remember how Ruby Braff was disparaged in the 50s by some self-professed progressists - or musicians like Scott Hamilton a bit later?) Of course if someone touts a specific style or period of jazz as the ONLY valid form of jazz then this is highly debatable and unjustified. Just as it is highly debatable to tout what's come as the latest fad that tried to sail under the flag of jazz (even if it was lumped in only there by marketing whiz kids because it did not fit in anywhere else either) as the highest, best, ultimate, unsurpassable expression of today's jazz. It isn't either. It's just different. Besides, if it was only about what's totally and absolutely new that "it's about, though", then what's been said about rock might also be said about jazz by now: "Everything that can possibly be played in the style of xxx (insert your pet love or hate style of music) has already been played somewhere, sometime out there." So what would remain? Burps? Grunts? But if you prefer to play in a specific idiom or style within the field of jazz that you like best and add new shadings, accents and nuances to that idiom (which I am certain Marsalis does - he is not one to do another series of Time-Life series recreations, after all ) then there is nothing wrong with it at all. Jazz takes many facets but it has a specific lineage that makes jazz music recognizable as belonging to that family (and therefore tradition) of jazz. IMO, yes ...

You mean to say there is a WIDESPREAD opinion around HERE that all those women ought to have spoken up that much, much earlier, come what may and that it discredits them speaking up only now? Well, not on my part, for example. And from what I have read in this topic I cannot see very many others who think that way. So what's the bone of contention, really? But - again - the range of possible options of how to deal with it is not all black-and-white in the way you react. Because all in all I still feel Pitt's reaction was better and gutsier than that of Affleck (cf. what Rose McGowan accused Affleck of). Because at least it was a START of a reaction (even though I of course would not expect everyone affected to have someone on hand to stand up for her. But if someone did, then what's wrong with it?).

Disregarding the fact for a moment that "offensive" is one of those terms used in such an inflationary manner these days (particularly in AMERICAN English) that its essence and content are getting lost more and more through "one-accusation-fits-all" overuse, I am not even sure there is such a huge difference of opinion on this. I totaly agree that it IS difficult to talk about these things in public and that those who decided not to cannot be blamed (particularly if the perpetrator is one who had some sort of control about their professional lives and careers - which is bad enough anyway). But I still feel that below the threshold of public accusations there are steps that can be taken in that direction - like Paltrow and Pitt did when Pitt stepped up and told the perpetrator in no uncertain terms (which is way more than apparently can be said of other male actors who now all of a sudden feel soooooo shocked). And apparently it did have some effect on the addressee (if the stories accessible on the web are to be believed). So the perpetrator knew the word was out and he'd better watch his step there. A bit like the case of that old "If ya don't clean up yer act we're gonna hafta send da boys round". One FIRST step of taking action. But of course it takes friends with guts to help in such cases. On a side note: This is creating splashes everywhere over here too and again it seems like this is getting out of focus and out of hand. Sexual harassment is a strict no-go and should never be tolerated, but this "metoo" business is turning more and more hysterical. Where do you ACTUALLY draw the line betwen what sexual harassment is and what is just an attempt at trying to be nice and showing an minimum of politeness in everyday life? Forums over here are full of complaints about workplace situations where simple, innocent-enough remarks like "Good morning - oh, you look great today" invariably elicit fits of hysteria about "I feel INSULTED! He is reducing me to my outward appearance and is ignoring my professional competence and his remark turns me into a sex object!" whine ... whine .... Similar case if you hold the door open for a woman to pass through when you enter a building "Hey, I can do that myself!" nag, nag .... How ridiculous can you get and isn't THIS the TRUE insult of those ACTUALLY suffering from sexual harassment? (BTW, I'd probably set the threshold of what might be considered making an unwanted sexual pass at someone lower than others would - but not THAT low!) Yes I know it will be difficult to get points like this across to those living in the more puritan parts of the US of A but this IS a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater! So focus on where the REAL problems are and tackle THEM, but don't go overboard in fits of hysteria in those cases that can and should be solved easily by sheer common sense. Remember this is a door that swings BOTH ways!

Along the lines of some recommendations from the last few days, here is one that I find is rather overlooked:

No, I don't think he is. She told someone and apparently there was someone who then took action (regardless of whether he would have followed through or not if that unshaven character had carried on ... this we don't know ...). So there WAS a way to get the word out and make it understood that this is not glossed over everywhere and by everyone. So IMO this is ONE aspect that does relate.

Oh come on .... Google is your friend too (and answers the question for anybody half-curious enough to do a search ... ) https://www.riverfronttimes.com/artsblog/2017/10/11/brad-pitt-once-threatened-a-missouri-whooping-on-harvey-weinstein

You see this is ONE point that had gotten me thinking only yesterday. As it happens, my current bedside reading matter is the 1945 Esquire Jazz Book (have had the magazine-sized edition for many years but bought an incredibly cheap hardback book copy last Saturday and found it is about time for a re-read). This book includes a recap of the situation of the jazz scene and its major exponents in 1944 - written by Feather himself. In that chapter he also mentions the Eddie Condon jam sessions and Town Hall concerts and dwells (almost at length so, given the length of the total chapter) on how many of these concerts and get-togethers turned into a musical near-shambles, how many of the musicians present resented being limited to a Dixieland repertoire, how Joe Marsala hated playing this or that tune, how Edmond Hall found himself ill at ease and him and others felt they were never able to give their best in these settings, how George Wettling hated being pigeonholed as a Dixieland drummer and so on ... This has set me thinking ... What's really to this? Pretty sharp contrast with how these concerts and jam sessions are seen in the history of that facet of jazz everywhere else (except by stern anti-moldy figs, of course ... ) and how often all those involved were present at those Condon concerts and sessions for years and years in the 40s and beyond, etc. (Was it all about the money, was there that much money to be made, were they strong-armed into participating?) Feather did not mention any of this in his "The Jazz Years" book when talking about his Esquire days - so ... What was to this story in 1944? Have these feelings by the musicians been reported elsewhere? And if so, why would Feather have omitted pointing out all this gleefully in his Jazz Years book? As he did in other cases ... Or did he inflate all this because he had a bone to pick with Condon in 1944 and rubbed it in on that occasion but made his peace with Condon later on? Or ....?

Thanks - the second Discogs link is the LP listed in the catalog, and I may in fact have seen it in the jazz section of our #1 local used record store (but may have been frightened away by the "Zen" tag on the cover as this has quite didfferent connotations for me). Am listening to "Pluck it" now on that Discogs site and think I can see what my mother heard in it. Though to me it sounds less like typical Third Stream than like some of the more ethereal WCJ recordings of the time. Other tracks on the LP have more classical music-like overtones.

I agree with your point of view. Someone who was present when the events took place is a better source than someone who either is an outsider looking in or someone who came along much later. IMO in order to understand the historical developments it still is preferable to consult CONTEMPORARY documents (to the extent possible) from when the events actually took place, i.e. PRIMARY sources. We are in the comfortable position today to be able to obtain information from a lot of documents written at various points in history and can therefore judge things in a better way as it is easier to obtain an overview of contrasting statements and opinions and descriptions of events. And as we hopefully are relatively well aware of blind spots or one-sided views that some authors and scribes of the past (such as Feather) may have had we wil be able to make our own judgments in a better way (particularly since it is far from sure that today's writers are that much more objective - many of them have their OWN agendas too). I for one know that in most cases I am gaining more insight about the history of the music by reading contemporary sources from, say, the 40s or 50s than from books of latter-day self-proclaimed fans or experts of the music written much, much later that all too often amount to rehashing the "accepted wisdom" as seen TODAY. Those "tertiary" sources have their place in writing about history but compared to original source documents they have to be very, very good, in-depth and comprehensive (and fact-based instead of being all about personal opinions) if we latter-borns are to REALLY understand today how history happened and not how we are SUPPOSED to see today that history happened. P.S. I also agree about your assessment of the typical Verve liner notes too. They all too often are just laughable. It is amazing how even a label not usually touted as a prime jazz label such as Decca often came up with better and more informative liner notes that tell you something about the contents that you would be able to use as source material for historical essays today, for example.

Interesting ... May I solicit your expert opinion for a moment? I have a German jazz catalog of 1960/61 here that I was given by my mother in my early jazz collecting days in the mid-70s. In this catalog she had pencil-marked the World Pacific PJ1231 LP by Fred Katz and underlined the "Pluck It" track with a fat pencil stroke some time long ago. However, she never bought that LP (or else I would have usurped it long ago ... ) I never saw this LP nor heard it anywhere. Now ... can you tell me what a casual jazz listener inclined toward "Third Stream" (my mother's record buying in those 50s/60s never extended beyond the MJQ, George Gruntz and Jacques Loussier, except for 2 or 3 "party jazz" EPs) would find in Fred Katz and that particular LP? I understand Katz was classically trained but I have no idea how his works compare with the others named above so I am just curious ... (BTW, the Goldmine Jazz album price guide did not find this album worthy of inclusion ...)

Thanks for this info. Wish they had done this when VSOP was still all about vinyl. This would have made a gem along with their other facsimile reissues of West Coast Jazz. I have some of these tunes on reissues on various Tampa and AJ compilation LPs. Those Skylark Lighthouse All Stars recordings have always been a bit of a puzzle to me - e.g. was the honkin' sax "M.B.B." aka "More Big Boy" one tune under two names or two different recordings? Etc. Discographies seem to be contradictory at times

Thanks for elaborating on this but I think I did get you right about the distinction between "despite" and "because" (and agree with your correction that he should have said "because" from the start) . I am not even that surprised that he wrote what he wrote because all this "tastelessness" angle was what very often was held against Philips, Jacquet, Ventura and their brothers by the self-professed cognoscenti covering the music in writing. Regardless of how the audiences felt about it. It just was the common approach to how this form of musical immediacy of these artists was seen at the time by many who wrote about it. I just felt that when assessments like this are (understandably) singled out from TODAY's point of view then perhaps criticism of these assessments might want to dwell just as much on whether the "tasteless" tag was all that appropriate in the first place, considering at what time the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (1st ed.) came along. The author really was a bit late to the game in regurgitating such labels that used to be applied to more extrovert forms of the music in the 40s or 50s. We all know what came afterwards and how soon these criteria became obsolete or at least extremely subjective.

As for Mercury itself and its jazz releases, don't overlook their WING subsidiary totally. (Yes this usually was a "budget" label where previous Mercury releases were given a second lease of life but one that allowed many artists to gain wider exposure) BTW, have you checked out the sublinks leading to the EmArcy series on this site? https://microgroove.jp/mercury/

If you (or whoever repeated this statement ad nauseam through the times) think Flip Phillips (or buy this story unchecked) was honking that extremely then you ain't heard many out-and-out honkers. And when it comes to "taste", all those honkers were just forerunners of the screechers and squeakers like Brötzmann et al. to come on in later decades anyway. YMMV (or one man's meat being another man's poison) indeed and off-tone phrasing can be interpreted in a number of ways as you can see, even if such analogies are anathema to some out there (yes I know ... )

Which bio-encyclopedia in this field would you two say this ISN'T applicable to in the days of the web, then?

Wait until others (who have actually used the 60s and 70s books in depth) provide their comments and opinions. They will be able to give a much more detailed assessment. I can only give general impressions, having browsed through the 60s volume here and there.

It depends on what (and what approach to the subject) you are looking for. The way I see it, Feather did acknowledge the new developments but approached them from the foundations of previous styles of jazz. In my PERSONAL opinion Berendt is one those others who went all overboard (way too much in my opinion) in embracing whatever was new-fangled and "current", often dismissing what had been going on before (and STILL went on by those from earlier decades who still were around and stuck to their guns) because by then whatever was the "latest thing" (I am not saying "New Thing" because the connotations are different as you know) in jazz seemed to merit all the attention, and it seems to me he only found these latest developments to be fully valid. Everything else was passé. And I must admit I never got to grips with his later writings when he even went so far as to say about the further development of jazz that "no, jazz doesn't have to swing. Swing is not needed for it to be jazz", and other utter nonsense. And this even before he went all esoteric ("out in left field", as Terry Gibbs would have described it) ... So in a way he was one of those "antipodes" of Leonard Feathers' approach. Though I would not say Feather was as conventional or traditional-minded as Stanley Dance, John Chilton or others in that vein.

All in all I agree with this assessment too. I've had his "Encyclopedia Yearbook of Jazz" published in 1956 as well as his "New Yearbook of Jazz" published in 1958 (both reprinted in the early 90s in one volume) as well as his standard opus "Encyclopedia of Jazz" copyrighted in 1960 (subheaded "The New Edition of the Encyclopedia of Jazz") and found this latter one a very useful reference work (and an interesting "period piece" when referring to the other feature articles included). Long before I was able to buy thiese books, I often browsed through the Encyclopedia published in 1960 in the library of our local Amerika Haus (still in existence at the time). They also had the Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties which I found less interesting or essential to my interests at the time (I might think differently about it today but would not invest huge sums for a copy), much like his subsequent colume of the 70s. Gheorghe, from what i have seen these are not books focusing primarily on free or funk or fusion or whatever but "updates" of his 1960 encyclopedia, i.e. with updates of the biographies of the musicians included in the earlier book. New developments are featured too, including the folk blues revival. Like others have said before, his preferences become more obvious there but I would not hold this all that much against him. You just have to take these limitations into account. Others, when covering jazz of that period, dwelled exclusively on the latest fads that were all the rage and gave all those short shrift who had been around before (and STILL carried on), so overall the printed matter out there balances things ...