Tom Storer

Perhaps he was just projecting.

In an interview with one of the French jazz magazines a few years ago, an interviewer asked David Murray what had happened to Stanley Crouch, a Murray acolyte before becoming a Marsalis acolyte. "He turned into an asshole" was the succinct response.

Meredith d'Ambrosio writes her own vocalese lyrics. I think she does a good job, too, both writing and singing.

The Newport tracks (with Getz, LaFaro, Steve Kuhn and Roy Haynes) have been circulating "among collectors" for years. I've heard them and they're very good.

That's not "PC," it's charitable.

Ethan Iverson pays hommage on Do The Math.

By chance I was just listening to "Time Lines" earlier. What a great album.

In a slight blast from the past, there's a trio that will be playing in town in September that harks back to those early 80's days: Vernon Reid on guitar (played with Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society among others), Jamaaladeen Tacuma (played with Prime Time among others), and Cornell Rochester (played with James "Blood" Ulmer among others). I think I'll go see them.

Yeah, the sound was weird on that record. Sort of strangulated and nasal. But what playing! I don't see much similarity with Air Lore or other "updatings," to me it was just real swinging but spontaneous and of-its-moment straight-ahead jazz by musicians with strong personality. There really wasn't the slightest hint of "avant-garde" about it, unlike the Air record. One of the cool things about Blythe is how he is so much "of the tradition." Oh, I loved that one. One thing I loved was the contrast with all the other Monk tributes that were coming out! No risk of trying to copy-cat Monk with a unique instrumentation like that. Alto, guitar, cello, tuba, drums doing Monk tunes. I dearly wish it had made it to CD. Fuck Columbia. I saw that band a few times, once without the guitar, and they were fantastic live. Although Bobby Battle didn't really hold a candle to Steve McCall.

I loved Blythe's albums in the 80's, but I think a certain period of high creativity and solid accomplishment started in 1978 with "In the Tradition," an acoustic quartet with Stanley Cowell, Fred Hopkins, and Steve McCall (John Hicks soon replaced Cowell). Also in 1978 was "Lenox Avenue Breakdown," which at the time was a very fresh, hip, exciting new thing. "Illusions" in 1980 was half the acoustic quartet with Hicks, and half the "cello-guitar-tuba" band. "Blythe Spirit" in 1981 also a mix of groups, also including "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" with Amina Claudine Myers. "Elaborations" in 1982 featured the cello-guitar-tuba band, and so did the Monk tribute "Light Blue" in 1983. That series, from "In the Tradition" through "Light Blue," is well worth a Mosaic. Some of the best music of the 80's, IMHO. In 1984, Blythe inexplicably followed this sterling series of albums with the discoid, pseudo-funky "Put Sunshine In It," a collaboration with one Todd Cochran on personality-free synthesizers and beat boxes. I read an interview with Blythe in which he denied that he made this under pressure from Columbia. It was just something he felt like doing, he said. Despite the record's virtually total lack of compelling content--it really was awful--I actually enjoyed listening to Blythe's gleaming phrasing in this marshmallow mess (sort of like listening to some of Paul Whiteman's most ponderous recordings for the chance to hear a few bars of Bix). Blythe could make any tune sound catchy. Unfortunately, this just about squandered all the reputation he had been building since 1978 among the larger jazz audience at a time when "the tradition" was all the rage and Wynton M. was taking off into the stratosphere of institutional approval and major-label promotion. Blythe went on to continue to make excellent music, which he is still doing, but he was never again considered a leading figure, a chef de file. Up through 1984, all the jazz fans I knew were eager to buy anything new Arthur Blythe put out. After "Put Sunshine In It," all bets were off and he was viewed with some suspicion. A rotten shame. Promising things were happening in those years. Blythe, David Murray's Ming, Jack DeJohnette and Special Edition, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Prime Time, Metheny's 80/81... I'm sure others will come up with more for this list.

Awful news. A fine bassist who played in many different contexts. RIP.

But doesn't it seem that there was no greater chance that Victoria was being abused than that any other child in the class was being abused? If there had been any evidence that sparked the interest of the educational assistant or the teacher, definitely, err on the side of caution. But here there was no evidence. The "sexualized behavior" had not alarmed the adults--it was only after a voice from the spirits mentioned the letter V that it was reinterpreted. The rhetorical question was asked above, what if the psychic had said all the kids in the class were being abused, or, say, all the kids whose names began with A through L? Would it have been wise in that case to report all those cases to the authorities? And if would not be in that case, why would it be if only one letter were singled out?

I've just been reading this thread. In the story as recounted in the article, the "educational assistant" was told by a psychic that a little girl whose name begins with V was the victim of abuse by a man aged 23 to 26. It was only at this point that the school authorities considered her "sexualized behavior" and, bizarrely, suspected a bladder infection caused by the hypothetical attack. So, to answer Alexander's speculation, it seems they weren't even on the ball enough to pay any attention to the "sexualized behavior" at all until a voice from the spirits made them think about the letter V. Although I can well understand the take-no-chances attitude of school staff, given the draconian effects of the law, it does seem clear to me that the original allegation, that of the psychic, did not even concern a specific individual, let alone count as a "known instance of abuse." The educational assistant unjustifiably interpreted this vision, by someone who had presumably never set eyes on Victoria, as being a serious allegation. Surely it was up to the teacher and principal to say "this is not actually an allegation about Victoria at all, it is a psychic spouting off about an unidentified child. Therefore to hell with it." Again, I understand the atmosphere in which a teacher or principal would say, "The word abuse has been spoken, and that's all it takes. No way am I going to file this without action. It could conceivably come back to haunt me even though it is laughable to think for a minute that this psychic has any knowledge at all about Victoria. Let the higher-ups take any risks." But it's also kind of like saying, "Hey, we received an anonymous letter that Mr. So-and-so is actually an alien from another planet who takes children into another dimension and abuses them there, with no traces visible here in this dimension. We'd better fire him at once, then report him to the police and have him arrested. Better safe than sorry."

Time to replicate this long-standing thread on Jazz Corner to Organissimo... Sometimes people say things in their posts that are just great, and I always wish I could remember them all. Let this thread be the place to store quotes from posts. Please, don't post frivolous stuff of your own, just other people's pithy words, with full attribution! I'll start with this one: Byas could play the telephone book as long as he played it real slow. - randyhersom, post #1 in Music Discussion > Miscellaneous Music > Amalia Rodriguez and Don Byas - Encontro, Mommy, what's a Fado?, June-20th-2008, 10:29 PM GMT+1.

Thanks for the tip. This is on my list for next month's emusic allowance. I've also created a thread like the one over at Jazz Corner: "Memorable quotes from posters," on which to list, uh, memorable quotes from posters. I was inspired to do this by Randy's "Byas could play the phone book if he played it real slow."

You don't know TBA? A fabulous bassist/drummer. You see him at all kinds of gigs.

I don't think excuses can be made for killing one's own children, but why do they have to be? Appreciating Rosolino's music is not the same thing as making excuses for his criminal acts. It just isn't. You can love the music and hate the musician's crimes. I don't understand why anyone would feel that one's condemnation of a criminal or other bad person must include condemnation, or at least refusal to accept, anything at all the person has ever done. I mean, Martin Luther King apparently plagiarized on some important thesis. What are we supposed to do, say, "Oh, that civil rights stuff, I don't know if I can get behind that now that I know he was a plagiarist. I can't make excuses for him"?

If a person writes a great fugue or plays a wonderful saxophone solo and murders his grandmother, how can you tell which act is "honest"? Perhaps both are: when he wrote the fugue he was honestly expressing some beautiful emotion, when he murdered his grandmother he was honestly expressing his violent rage. How can you tell where the honesty is in such acts? Also: why do you assume that nastiness and sublime art are contradictory? Perhaps someone could play a saxophone solo that expresses murderous rage and that impresses fans with its authenticity of feeling and beauty of form.

that I don't agree with. It seems to treat all these things as being of equal weight. I think we place far too much emphasis on artistic beauty - much more than it's really worth in society. The social benefits that musicians are supposed to provide for society are important but, it seems to me, only in terms of supporting other, more vital, facets of society, such as community unity of purpose, catharsis etc. All this stuff like aesthetics has, I feel, been made up as a result of the dominance of societies almost everywhere in the world by ruling classes, in order to bolster their sense of self-importance and their superiority over those ruled. So I feel that people who are violent or criminal provide social disbenefits that are entirely disproportionate to any benefits their music might provide. But I'm not talking about what art is "worth in society." That emphasis, and the implication of the phrase "the social benefits that musicians are supposed to provide for society" (supposed by whom?) is what leads, at its logical conclusion, to government-enforced "socialist realism," etc. Are artists motivated by "providing social benefits"? Not always, that's for sure. I'm not sure how to reconcile the notion that "stuff like aesthetics" is a ruling-class plot with the superb aesthetic mastery of so many artists who are not members of the ruling class--or rather, whose membership or non-membership in the ruling class does not determine their talent.

I can understand that knowledge of a musician's sins might make it impossible for you to listen to the music without thinking of the badness of the musician, or alternatively, that you might want to personally boycott a musician on account of the musician's badness, even if the music still moved you, in order to side with Good against Evil. But I don't feel that way myself. People are capable of good things and bad. In the case of a musician who makes beautiful music but is a hateful person, should the bad cancel out the good? I don't think so. The good--artistic beauty in this case--is what we need and should value in this world, and it seems paradoxical to negate the good in the name of condemning the bad. They both exist, each to be judged for itself. All of us have done things we're not proud of, things to be ashamed of. Does that mean the good things we do don't count? (That viewpoint doesn't really encourage evildoers to have a change of heart! You've been bad, so forget it, no point creating beauty for others--you're barred.) Nobody's all good or all bad. That works both ways--you don't have to forgive the hate or the compromise in order to love the good, just as you don't have to reject the beauty in order to condemn the ugliness, when all are part of the same person's life.

It does. And that Guillermo Klein is something else.

Thanks, Marla!

Do you know if WBGO makes archives available? There don't seem to be any on their site, or else I missed them. Live jazz radio from the States usually takes place at 3 or 4 AM for me, alas. EDIT - I found 'em. You have to click on the Blog link. But oops... when I click on "Listen to the show" for the Guillermo Klein concert from last night, I get a 45-second clip of the introduction, then nothing more. Oh well.

This gives me pause. I'll be interested to hear it. I'm predicting I'll prefer "Blue Skies," but we'll see.

Hiring freeze; travelling freeze.