Uncle Skid

Be careful what you wish for! I suppose I'd be in *real* trouble if I found a masturbating certified public accountant! I was wondering why my tax returns were kind of sticky this year...

Here's one of my personal favorites: Topic: Lee Morgan -- "Charisma", ...just how charismatic? ... To this day, whenever I'm browsing the Lee Morgan section in a music store, I'm always hoping to find "The Certified Public Accountant" and "The Masturbator". B)

Saturday - wait by the mailbox to see if my order from Jazzmatazz arrives (some Art Farmer and Tina Brooks "True Blue" on the way...) Sunday - go see Organissimo LIVE! (they are playing at a restaurant that's only about 5 miles from my house).

I've had good luck with ICDSoft. I think they are primary a web hosting company, but they can also handle domain name registration. It's $60/year for hosting, plus $5 for the domain name.

I've been using CDEx for a long time, and it has always worked well: CDEx It's free, and it uses the LAME encoder. Lately, I've been encoding everything with VBR (variable bit rate) instead of 128k or 160k bps. Slightly larger file sizes, but noticeably better sound quality.

Welcome to the board, zizala! Happy to have another guitar player on board. Slightly off-topic, but I'm intrigued by a former sax player that is now a guitarist. Quite a bit of the jazz that I listen to doesn't include guitar, and I find myself really listening to and enjoying the saxes, trumpets, and comping on the piano. At times I get frustrated by the guitar, as it seems to be quite easy to fall into "guitarisms" (for lack of a better term). One of my long term goals is to try to avoid those cliches, and approach the instrument from a (hopefully) more well-rounded perspective. Any advice? Has your background as a sax player affected the way you approach the guitar?

Thanks for the correction, Pete. In addition to being a great bass player, John seems to be an all-around genuinely nice guy. Upright Bill got to “talk shop” with John after the show in Grand Rapids. I'll always remember Tom Rainey for his “bag of sticks” thing. Very interesting and effective percussive technique.

Incidentally, Tom Rainey was the drummer at the Brad Shepik Trio show that Joe G, Upright Bill, and I caught in Grand Rapids at the UICA. The bass player was Tom Hebert, who I believe is now off playing with Andrew Hill somewhere in Europe. Phil Woods was recently in Grand Rapids, and James Moody/Cedar Walton and the Newport All-Stars came to little ole Muskegon. Also caught Marcus Belgrave at GVSU in Allendale a few months ago. Bill and I saw Rudy Linka and Miles Evans, in Fremont(!), Michigan. Chuck's home town is a bustling metropolis in comparison. While we certainly don't have jazz every night (or even every weekend) around here, there have been some great shows recently. It's nice having Lazaro on board here to alert us in case we miss anything!

Joe -- sho' nuff, that Hofner is a beauty. I just love the simplicity -- just one pickup; no frills, clean design. It's funny how the most expensive hollow-body guitars are usually the ones without all the extra gagdets and gimmicks. I got my Heritage in your "neck of the woods" -- at Elderly in Lansing. Here's a picture: This isn't mine, but it looks identical. Heritage fans might notice that the tail piece doesn't have the fancy "H" like the newer models.

I've got it on right now, and I'm listening for the things you mentioned. I really appreciate advice like this -- there's a bunch of songs on the Moncur set that I just don't "get" yet, but on an almost subconscious level, I feel like I'm just beginning to understand them better. It's one of those "I know this is good stuff, but I don't know why" kind of things. Observations like yours are one of the things I really love about this board. Thanks!

I picked up a '93 Heritage H-575 used a few years back. I was just starting to get in to this jazz thing, and it just didn't sound or feel right on a Strat. Before I bought it, I had read that it is one of the more popular jazz guitar models, but after had I tried at least 20 others, it was a pretty easy decision. It just "felt" right, and I loved the nice, mellow tone. I liked it even more when I replaced the strings with some flat wounds. I also liked that fact that it was made in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the old Gibson factory.

Yes - the metronome stuff was particularly frustrating. I found it very difficult to play *anything* at 40 bpm, and the exercises where the only tick is on beat 2, 3, or 4 were also a good challenge. I think you probably shouldn't let it slide too long -- maybe casually bringing it up every three or four weeks would be appropriate. It's such an important part of music that it really can't be ignored for too long. The really great instructors/professors that I had in college all had one thing in common: they were *tough*. But, sucking all the fun out of a subject and being a tough, demanding instructor are not mutually exclusive.

That's funny, Bill -- when I first read this thread, I immediately thought about your metronome exercises, and I was wondering if you had tried that with him. You've already received a lot of good advice here, but I'd suggest that the fact that he favors working on the next piece as opposed to the metronome exercises is telling -- it may just be that he's not quite ready to really absorb or tackle such a daunting task. I remember getting quite frustrated with some of those exercises. I recall some other material that you presented to me, and even though you may have felt I was ready for it, I didn't feel that way at that time. A year later, it started making more sense to me, and I was able to go back to it, and only then fully appreciate what you were trying to teach me. If he's having a great time, don't sweat it. He's already come a long way in his musical education, and maybe he'll get to the point where he's "ready" to address his timing issues. And if not, that's OK, too.

Very sad to hear about this. Hank played every day during lunch at the Aebersold camp last summer, and he always had this big happy grin on his face the whole time. I loved watching how much he really enjoyed playing with everyone, and how people responded to his creative playing. The camp won't be the same without him.

Mobley #4217, Tristano/Konitz/Marsh #4203.

After weeks of indecision, I finally caved and bought both the T/K/M and Mobley sets at the same time. They arrived Monday. I'm really enjoying both of them -- for me, the Mobley was by far the "safer" of the two, as I already have 4-5 of his recordings from the 60's. The T/K/M was much more of an unknown since I only had one Konitz CD before ordering the Mosaic. I'm currently listening to disc IV, and I'm loving it! Some real nice, tasteful guitar comping by Billy Bauer, and of course, great playing by Konitz. Real nice, laid back swinging tunes. Sound quality also seems to be very good; most of disc IV was recorded at Van Gelder's Studio in 1956. So, here's another big for the Tristano/Konitz/Marsh! What are you waiting for?? B)

My meager collection... (only about 1/3 is jazz, but that's growing rapidly...) Brandon -- is that a Pioneer SX-680 receiver? I have one of those gathering dust in the basement, and I haven't thought about it in years!

That prayer sounds familiar... Oh yes, brother... we're all praying for you... (mine was answered -- my big box from Mosaic (Tristano/Konitz/Marsh,Mobley,Jones Select) showed up yesterday, about an hour before she got home!) Looking forward to hearing "All Music"!

"Air Raid" is not one of my favorites, either. It's kind of hard to say how much of the set resembles that tune, but there are a few other tunes that also have that free-form, dark, haunting quality. "Evolution", "Gnostic", and "Nomadic" come to mind. For what it's worth, the three songs available on the Mosaic website seem to be representative of the set in general. I also came across a review at All About Jazz that might be helpful. Thanks for the advice regarding the Tristano vs. Mobley -- I still haven't pulled the trigger yet. Since I really want both, I'm tempted to just order both right now, along with the Jones Select: $231.00!! Ouch!!!

Edward -- don't let my review discourage you from ordering the Moncur Select. Labelling it "avant-garde" or "free jazz" is a gross over-simplification. There's a whole bunch of great straight-ahead, accessible jazz on this set as well. Vibes is right, the "Hipnosis" session is a real treat. I think my initial impression of this set would have been much more positive if I had listened to them in reverse order: CD #3, #2, and finally #1. As I mentioned earlier, I keep discovering new things every time I listen to these discs. Thanks for your summary of the Carmell Jones Select. I've got my finger on the "Add to Shopping Cart" button! I just can't make up my mind between the Mobley and Tristano/Konitz/Marsh boxes....

I've been curious about these reissues as well. I almost ordered Blue Mitchell's Boss Horn from Jazzmatazz, but ended up getting the Mosaic set instead. There's a whole bunch of useful information on this thread: Spanish Blue Note Series

Along with the Blue Mitchell set, I also recently purchased the Grachan Moncur III Select. I didn't really know what to expect - but quite a few people on this board whose opinions I respect gave it high recommendations. I didn't like it at all at first; I found parts of it very dark and tortured. This is certainly not your typical production-line Blue Note hard bop. AMG accurately classifies it as "volatile, sophisticated, cerebral" free/avant-garde jazz. After repeated listenings, I'm finding that it's really growing on me. While I really love all of CD's by Mobley/Morgan/Mitchell et al., this one is expanding my musical horizons much like Roscoe Mitchell's Snurdy McGurdy. I think Carmell Jones may be the next purchase. Any reviews on that one? Edward?

Happy Birthday, Organissimo Forum!! Love that cake, Couw. All the beer looks good, too!

Hi Scott, I'm also at that “intermediate” level, and I know how frustrating this can be. One of the things that has helped me with comping is a two-page chord chart written by Mike DiLiddo, who I believe teaches at a college somewhere in Florida. He is also one of the guitar instructors I had last summer at the Aebersold camp. His “60 Contemporary Voicings for the Jazz Combo Guitarist” chart can be found at the end of Aebersold Vol 54, “Maiden Voyage”. These are all four-string voicings, and usually do not have the root of the chord on the fourth string. Numerous extensions are included – for example, there are six voicings for the C major 7 chord, including C 6/9, Cma9, and Cma13. These are all “movable” forms that can be used anywhere on the fretboard. The biggest benefit of this chart is that it FORCED me to think about where the different chord tones are in each chord form. Once you have that knowledge, it becomes easier to make alterations to the basic forms on the fly, rather than memorizing hundreds of chord forms. Another book I've found valuable is Chords and Progressions for Jazz and Popular Guitar , by Arnie Berle.