Dan Gould

"So what this Jefferson dude was saying was, 'Hey! You know, we left this England place because it was bogus. So if we don't get some cool rules ourselves, pronto, we'll just be bogus too.' Yeah?" – Jeff Spicoli, Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Well, while you two were gazing deeply into one anothers eyes, I sure hope you reminded him to keep searching around in that closet of his for the Lee Morgan radio show tape that he stashed away----we're dying to hear it. Dan, keep slammin' when you feel the need! I can take it, but let's try to disagree in an adult manner... ....for the sake of the kids, of course. But since I prefer not to get weird looks from my co-workers when I do this or this I think I'll stick with this approach

Just saw this one online, is anyone familiar with it or is it on one of those Fantasy two-fers? I didn't know that Billy Higgins and Paul Chambers had done an album with Groove.

You know, the other choice has to be my main man Gene. After all, without the sale of all those Sounds records, there might not have been a "Blue Note House Sound" at all!

Because when I saw the bouncing boobs I found them quite amusing.

I don't see where "versatility" enters into it. Who epitimomized the Blue Note "house sound"? If Blue Note had a house sound, that sound was hard bop. Horace Silver is THE hardbop pianist, after all, he's the hardbop grandpop. QED

Even if their original name was Jazz Crusaders?

Oops, my bad, I knew I should have checked first but since it was 7 AM on the East Coast I figured I'd be the first to see the Grimes article in the Times, but Brownie beat me to it. That's one thing that would help the software is the ability to delete threads/posts if you were the one who wrote them

Silent 30 Years, a Jazzman Resurfaces By NEIL STRAUSS In avant-garde jazz circles in the mid-1960's, Henry Grimes was one of the most respected bassists working. Trained at Juilliard, he had already played with Anita O'Day, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins when he was in his 20's. He went on to play on some of the seminal albums of the free-jazz era, by such musicians as Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry and Pharoah Sanders. He was known for his ability to alternate from long Eastern-sounding bowing to hard pizzicato plucking, all of which generated tremendous calluses on his hands. But in the early 70's, after moving to California, Mr. Grimes disappeared. For three decades nobody in music circles heard from him. Several reference works listed him as dead. And that is how the story of Mr. Grimes might have ended if it were not for a determined fan from Athens, Ga., named Marshall Marrotte. Mr. Marrotte, a social worker, pored through court records and death certificates and interviewed family and friends of Mr. Grimes's before finding him earlier this year living in a one-room efficiency in downtown Los Angeles. According to Mr. Marrotte, Mr. Grimes no longer owned a musical instrument; he had never seen a CD, although his work is on them; and he was unaware that many of his colleagues had died, including Ayler, the tenor saxophonist, who was found drowned in the East River off Manhattan in 1970. Now, thanks to Mr. Marrotte and the bassist William Parker, who donated a bass that Mr. Grimes received two months ago, Mr. Grimes is back on the music scene and plans to stick around. "My calluses are in good shape, you know," he said last week, speaking from the lobby phone of the hotel efficiency where he still lives. Tonight, as part of the avant-garde jazz Vision Festival in New York, Mr. Grimes will perform with Mr. Parker and others as part of a memorial concert for the singer Jeanne Lee at Old St. Patrick's Youth Center (268 Mulberry Street, between Prince and Houston Streets). That performance will be his first in New York since he left in 1968. Mr. Parker, a founder of the Vision Festival, said Mr. Grimes's versatility was impressive ? he could play with a wide range of jazz musicians and innovators. He also coaxed a distinctive sound from his bass. "On the records he was on, he stood out," Mr. Parker said. "He had a big sound, and it really punched out whatever ensemble he was in." Mr. Grimes said that he knew the music he was making in the 60's and the musicians he was playing with were "fantastic." But one reason he went into "isolation," as he put it, was because his "perceptions" ? a word he uses when talking about making music ? were continually being clouded by his emotions. "Emotions can get you in a lot of trouble or hassle," he continued. "And you can either let them bother you or you can find a way to get something out of them." When he left the East Village decades ago, "economically I was in no shape at all," he said. "My money was down to nothing. So I came to California, where the sun shines. Mostly that was the idea. I didn't want to be subject to the cold." The last person he remembered playing with was with the pianist LaMont Johnson in the early 70's. Soon after, he sold his bass to a violin maker. "It wasn't enough," he said of the money he received. "But I still sold it anyway. I was feeling that was what I had to do, so I just did it." It seems strange that one of the in-demand jazz bassists of the 60's could just walk away from music, but to hear Mr. Grimes talk, it sounds as if 30 years was just a short vacation. During that California period, sometimes he was homeless, he said. He survived by working as a janitor at a Beverly Hills Hebrew school and at a bowling alley in Long Beach. "In between those jobs," said Mr. Grimes, now 65, "I did a little construction work. It keeps me in shape now." As for royalties from his recordings, Mr. Grimes said he received none and never even thought about it after leaving New York. (Now, he said, he may seek advice on how to pursue payments.) Though Mr. Grimes is vague about why he disappeared, in an interview with Mr. Marrotte, he said he said he took medication for manic depression, which he said cleared up in 1978. One of the first things that Mr. Marrotte did when he found Mr. Grimes was to reintroduce him to his music. "I was amazed," Mr. Grimes recalled, "because I listened to some CD's of some of the Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler things, and some of my music. At the time, I didn't pay that much attention to them. But when I listened to them again, it was amazing what I heard. There was more to it than I ever realized." Despite his lost years, Mr. Grimes said he had no regrets: "I'm working on straightening things out now. But I'm back for good."

First of all, isn't a three star rating pretty good? It seems to be the default rating they use, and I often suspect that it is indeed a default and not an actually rated record. But three stars is nothing to sneeze at, so I guess the point of this exercise is that these LPs are *that* much better than 3 stars? I generally don't agree, though, amongst these, I would probably agree that Street of Dreams is a bit better than 3 stars. But I think a better poll would select two star recordings since those are plainly "fair" ratings. As to the Big John Patton reviews, did you pull these from the online reviews or perhaps an earlier print edition? I ask because I went into this with "Jazzypaul" at AAJ and pointed out that early editions of AAJ had Yanow reviewing darn near everything and its fairly clear that he's not a big fan of most late 1960s-1970 era organ dates. However, since then, they have seemingly tried to reassign these records to reviewers who have a far greater appreciation for that era's groove music.

Sorry, Black Codes isn't one I own so it didn't come to mind as being all that significant. I honestly thought of J Mood as the most likely to be approved.

Funny, but I was listening to the Midnight Blues Cd this morning before I posted these polls. As I recall I got it because at the time I was courtin' my wife and was more open to the potential value of "mood-setting" albums. When I popped it in I thought, well if this doesn't grab me this will go in the "to sell" pile but I actually found it solidly on the "not bad" side. Yes, there's a sameness and it didn't need to be 70 minutes long, but I still enjoyed it, and that was sitting alone in an office blazing with flourescent lights, not alone with my sweetie in a darkened living room

Had't been aware of this. But I do know that Jamal was so successful that there is a constant flow of his Argos on ebay and I doubt that they fetch very high prices. I also see them all over in local stores. So, a dedicated vinyl junkie could make up for the legal wranglings pretty easy ...

Sorry Lon, Blood on the Fields was on the list but got dropped when the software reminded me that the list could only have a max of 10.

OK, here's the companion poll. Which CD is Wynton's biggest faux pax, his biggest embarrasment?

Amongst all of the Wynton Battles, there seems to be at least some agreement that one or two of his LPs are pretty good. I am betting that J Mood will get the most votes but personally I am voting for "Levee Low Moan" whose songs I have always dug a great deal. Obviously I can't list them all ...

If I may hijack the thread in another direction, I saw a reissue LP at Dusty Groove that got me thinking of a great Mosaic Select title: The Complete Epic Recordings of Dave Bailey. Great bluesy jam albums with Clark Terry, Horace Parlan, Charlie Rouse and others, and maybe there are unreleased tunes to add on to the original three, One Foot In The Gutter, Two Feet In The Gutter and Gettin Into Something.

Doncha all remember the tv commercials for the frozen fish? Click to learn more! "... From Gorton's of Gloucester"

Mnytime, I took the "as of now" to mean "he used to have power but I just canned his sorry ass" Does anyone else find the italicized statemet a bit curious? Its as if he's saying, after the fact, that whatever Musicboy did or said, he wasn't doing it on behalf of norahjones.info, I guess to protect the site from any "blowback". And Mny, the lined formed, or is that forms, behind me in the Class-Action I Dare You To Start Something Lawsuit! Though, since you have lawyers on retainer, I probably would agree to let you have the privilege of being "Lead Plaintiff" And finally a message to Neon, thanks for stepping up and handling this so well. If you ever feel like chatting about jazz or politics or just sending out a lot of blue-tinged pixels, come on back sometime!

Sorry, John, but the current bruhaha has the little dweeb on my mind, so the combination of almost remembering Waller's line and his mention of God made me think he would find it objectionable, since he finds "anti-christian bigotry" to run rampant on this BB.

Well, it was said (was it by Jelly Roll or Fats Waller?) when he entered a club, "God is in the house." But I hesitate to mention this because presumably the Christian Fascist may see this and I will be accused of anti-Christian bigotry for asserting that a mere mortal piano player might in any way qualify as "God". But Tatum came closest, IMO.

That's correct, Rooster. Their Christian Fascist Police State software is so good, that it freezes all of the links so that the only page that will load is the one that declares you an Enemy of the State, er, I mean, Persona Non Grata, I mean, er, um, no longer welcome at the site.

Neon, I appeal to you to end this by talking some sense into Musicboy.

IDENTIFY the laws. CITE their precise terminology. Or else shut the fuck up. LAST TIME I checked this was AMERICA, you Christian FASCIST piece of trash. And let me say for the record that I damn well hope that is an example of the type of statement that's going to make you cry cry cry to the DOJ because after the legalities are dismissed with prejudice I guaran-damn-tee I'll come after your ass for malicous prosecution and you will be working a whole lot of music/IT gigs to pay off the judgement against you. Now go crawl back to your Christian FASCIST hellhole.

I went with Buck but I really wanted to see Sweets on the list.