Tom Storer

Won't do any good in the women's showers. They'll all be showering under invisibility cloaks. Although, what with all the invisibility, you might end up bumping into each other. Could be interesting.

I mean, really, we cut music education funding in schools for a couple decades while at the same time creating technology which makes it possible for anybody to make music out of any combination of 1s & 0s they can get their hands on, and then when people start feeling the creative urge and use the tools they have at hand, the old guard freaks out. Well DUH, bitches, what the hell did you think was going to happen? That motherfuckers were going to save up and pay to play with those 1s & 0s? That they would forevermore suck your dicks instead of finding some nice, friendly place to put their own? These are people, remember, and people gonna do what people gonna do. Eventually. When they get able. And now, it seems, they are able. You'd think that a society built on/by centuries of superimposing itself over preexisting cultures on their land, with no particular regard for established ownerships and customs (and no, this is not a dis or anything, it's just a recognition of How The West Was Won, and I've been getting through 100 + degree days not all that upset about any of that, thank you), would recognize the inevitability of what is happening rather than being outraged at having its own essential impetus held up to itself as a sign of its self-created changing of the guard. Guess not. - JSngry, post #5 in Music Discussion > Miscellaneous Music > Stealing Is Believing, D.J. uses "fair use" concept to break the law, Aug-7th-2008, 04:03 PM GMT+1.

I met a guy once who, when he found out I was a jazz fan, told me had once seen an old pianist play in new York in the early 70's and got to talking to him. The pianist invited him to his hotel room with some other hangers-on and they hung around smoking pot and carrying on into the wee hours. "You must know this guy! He was amazing! His name was... Father something." "Uh... could it have been Earl 'Fatha' Hines?" "Yes! That's it! Father Hines! He was amazing!"

It's a bit of empty commercial pap, but I still enjoy hearing Hartman sing it (and if the audio quality wasn't so painful I'd like it even more). The corniness of it is very dated, but hell, they were just trying to make a buck. This is no worse than some of the funky commercial pap produced by jazz musicians trying to make a buck in the 70's, for example.

I guess you mean this one?

Oh, man, that's terrible news. The JAMFs are always with us, but Johnny Griffin is gone. R.I.P., Mr. Griffin. A friend and I were just reminiscing last night about seeing Griffin in concert with Ronnie Matthews. I saw him a lot with that quartet, with Kenny Washington on drums, and also a couple of times when he was touring as second tenor with Dexter's quartet. What a player he was, and what a personality!

Check out Stafford and Ella Fitzgerald together: Part 1 and Part 2.

Wish I was there!

I'm too far away to go myself, but who's he playing with?

You think??? And I thought I detected some Coltrane influence in the tenor solos!

Just got "Pendulum" a few days ago and I'm loving it. They were young, bristling with chops and energy, and just jamming, full speed ahead. They're cooking. Great stuff. The only reservation I might have is with the bass solos--they really massacred bass amplification in those days, sounds awful. The photographs are hilarious. God, the seventies. Bell bottoms, aviator glasses, tight shirts showing hairy chests, medallions. Can't tell if anyone was wearing platform shoes but I wouldn't be surprised.

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.