Tom Storer

I have no idea what a surrey is. Some sort of a carriage with a fringe on the top, I assume. What sort of fringe does one put on top of a carriage? I can't imagine. Why does a horse-drawn carriage have a dashboard and two bright sidelights winkin' and blinkin'? Again, I can't really picture it. And what on earth is "isinglass"? Despite the obscurity of these now dated lyrics, it's obvious that the song is about a guy looking forward to taking his girl out in his ride, and the fantasy is told with considerable warmth and affection. Nice lyrics, now that I think about it, and not so dependent on context. It's not context I lack, it's knowledge about surreys!

No, not by how many people covered it, but by who covered it! I'm just a layman. I don't think I have any particular insight into whether a song is good or bad in some Platonic sense. It's particular styles and performances that grab me. I just don't have the rock sensibility that the Bad Plus and, I assume, much of their audience do. I vastly prefer Tin Pan Alley to rock, probably because so much great jazz is built on Tin Pan Alley material. I'd rather listen to Miles, Rollins or Betty Carter play an otherwise forgettable composition than listen to David Bowie sing anything. But I'm more than willing to let the Bad Plus attack my prejudices with their rock covers, and will do so when they play my town on October 11.

" Even apart from the lyrics...." A pretty ironic comment from a group of instrumentalists , though one consistent with a pop sensibility with its over-emphasis on lyrical relevance reflecting a callow presumption of the uniqueness of its own psychological/affective mindscape . Well said, Chas. I generally admire the thoughtfulness and insight of this blog, but I was a bit non-plussed by a non-ironic reference to David Bowie's "profound lyrics." The lyrics of "Surrey" are perfectly silly but don't pretend to be anything else. The song is a vehicle for music-making and nothing else. Blossom Dearie and Betty Carter sang it memorably. Sonny Rollins played it, so did Miles Davis. Who did "Life on Mars"? David Bowie. I mean, come on. You can appreciate David Bowie (I don't, but I accept the possibility in the abstract) but look at the competition from the interpreters of "Surrey." (In other words: JAZZ RULES OK)

That's only when you become consciously aware of it. I suggest, as a possibility, that that baggage is in fact what attracts you to them in the first place. When we have repeated, similar patterns in relationships, it's not accidental. Think hard about your emotional history, early childhood, relationship with your parents, all that stuff. I know it sounds like a cliché... but it's not!

Actually, they're only turned off if they themselves are not focused on establishing something long-term. If that weren't the case, online dating services would go nowhere, but in fact they're very active.

I went to Paris for a year of studies abroad in the fall of 1979. My wife moved to Paris from Ireland at the same time and was working as an assistant English teacher in a Paris lycée. It so happened that part of my study program involved spending a few hours a week at a lycée providing assistance to an English teacher. And so we met. This was a public school but somewhat posh, and the teacher's dining room was just that--not a cafeteria but a room where you sat at a table with place settings, chose from among two main dish possibilities, were served at table, and were allowed to drink wine with your meal. She and I began to have great conversations over lunch at the school, getting slightly sauced. I'd been given a card that allowed me to eat in the teacher's dining room all week long, even though I only came in usually two days a week, so I would frequently go around there for lunch just to talk to her. We soon discovered that she was staying in a place just two metro stops from where I was, and before long we had started courtin'; the school dining room remained a regular meeting place, but now we also worked the bistros on the boulevard de Ménilmontant. Decades later, eating a nice meal with nice wine while engaged in deep conversation is still probably our favorite activity together (well, second-favorite). I had to go back to the States at the end of that year to finish a semester in college, and then I went straight back to Paris and have been here ever since. After living together for a couple of years, we got married in 1983. Our son is twenty. If I were single today, I'd definitely take advantage of online dating services. I've known several couples who met that way with happy results. One friend put her profile up on a dating service, met Mr. Right, and we were attending their wedding ten months later. When you're in your late teens and early twenties, the combination of raging hormones and intense socializing, hence plentiful possibilities, often result in spontaneous ignition of True Love. When you're a grown-up I think there's a lot to be said for giving yourself more possibilities in a methodical way.

Mine arrived on Saturday, too. Listening to it now--plenty to say!

No European leg of this tour, alas. If you do bittorrent, hurry over to Dimeadozen where there's currently an audience recording of his California show from Sept. 4. I've just listened to a little bit so far, but it sounded great! Here's the set list to give an idea of the show. Lots of greatest hits, he has so many... cd1- 70:00 01. Stevie Welcome 02. Love's in Need of Love Today 03. Too High 04. Visions 05. Living for the City 06. Master Blaster (Jammin') 07. Higher Ground 08. Golden Lady 09. Ribbon in the Sky 10. Overyjoyed cd2- 68:38 01. Don't You Worry 'bout A Thing 02. Signed Sealed Delivered (I'm Yours) 03. Memphis (Chuck Berry) 04. Boogie On Reggae Woman 05. story about a girl... 06. My Cherie Amour 07. Sir Duke 08. I Wish 09. Isn't She Lovely 10. You Are the Sunshine of My Life 11. Superstition > You Haven't Done Nothin' > jam > 12. band introductions > jam > 13. I Just Called to Say I Love You 14. Another Star

Come on, can you blame him for avoiding that painful comparison?

Nope.

To add to the mystery, a second tenor player can be seen lurking behind the drummer shortly after the 6:30 mark. The bassist is clearly Jean-Paul Sartre.

I wish I'd been there. I like Do the Math, Iverson's Bad-Plus blog, and his appearance on that relatively recent Billy Hart quartet CD. We've had rave reviews of his duo with Charlie Haden, and now with Hersch. He talks on his blog about collaborations with Tim Berne. I wish he'd do some more recording outside of the Bad Plus! New York Times jazz writing cracks me up. It's as if they put on evening clothes and puff a professorial pipe as they write. For example, lines like:

Wait a minute, wait a minute. What did you drive Sam Yahel in if you had just hit a deer and totaled your van? The narrative isn't clear here.

I don't buy many records anymore, but I'm hooked on Dimeadozen. I don't know how many shows I have digitally stored that I haven't listened to. Far too many. From any rational viewpoint, I should stop. But you know what? It ain't rational.

No, that would be the jingle.

I don't think that's unfortunate - I think it's grand. We're all just people here and we have our foibles and our irritating hobby horses, which we never fail to mention at least once a month - it's instead of PMT and sometimes our tone leaves much to be desired. And so what? If we were in a bar, blows might occur. Here they don't and that's a damn sight better. I agree entirely. That was just a rhetorical "unfortunately," meaning "unfortunately for your purposes." Living the message board life can teach us a lot of lessons about picking one's battles, the sin of pride, and many other useful things like that. Hey, maybe I should write a self-help book: "Building Character Through Message Boards"...

The only way people are "held accountable" on a bulletin board is for other people to reply with their arguments or reproaches. That's what you do to clem, so in that sense you are "holding him responsible." I think you want more people to do the same--but unfortunately, none of us can control how anyone else posts. You want others to back you up against clem and do it publicly. If they don't, what are you going to do? What can you do? Again, my advice is--drop it. Ignore him. Let it go.

I just saw René Urtreger last week. He's still swinging!

Oh, I think he'll acknowledge that you're entitled to your opinions--he'll just also insist that he is entitled to sneer at them. And he is, actually. You can't legislate tone of voice on the Internet. Just ignore him. It's the only way you'll avoid ulcers. The worst thing would be to stalk him from thread to thread trying to get his goat. That would make you at fault.

Neither you nor clem are trolls. It's just that clem has a posting style--cocksure, provocative, joyfully aggressive--that gets up your nose, especially if it's aimed in your direction. Since he rarely if ever agrees to let bygones be bygones, he exasperates you so much you have to resort to lots of sarcasm. But there's no point. It bounces off him. You can only "win" your issues with clem by withdrawing from the field of battle. No one gets the last word on the Internet but anyone can end an argument.

By sheer coincidence I just ordered his whisky book.

Here's a great site to help kids learn the location of continents, countries, states, oceans, rivers, etc. etc.: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm

Naturally they don't mention who plays on the damn album. I hate that. Don't they know we jazz geeks NEED that information??

At last! One of the ones I though was Dutch really was Dutch! OK, that makes sense. This was a very handsome performance. I'll look for this CD. I'm going to see Malaby play next week in a Steve Coleman group--a reed sextet. My first time seeing him. Ought to be interesting! Ouch. I have a lot of respect for Roscoe, but I have to stand by my harsh blindfolded judgment ("God, what a bore"). Huh. Usually Solal has a sense of humor... I've seen Léandre live several times, and always loved it. But I guess something in a live performance can be lost when it's listened to after the fact. Doesn't mean it wasn't there, though! Thanks for the test, gnhrtg! You obviously put a lot of care into selecting and sequencing. Although much of it fell outside my usual taste and comfort zone, or actually because of that, several items were thought-provoking (especially when given the answers), and there are some things I plan to chase down.

Gosh darn it, it seems that it won't accept my entire response because I "have posted more than the allowed number of quoted blocks of text." But it doesn't tell me what the allowed number is. So I'll just split my reply in two and hope for the best... Now that's embarassing--I have this record! This is a call for me to listen to it again. A new name for me. Thanks! Ditto! I've always read lots of good things about the Fringe, Garzone in particular, but haven't listened to them much. Unfortunately, this piece didn't do it for me at all... Bojan Z, on the other hand, is someone whom for some reason I've had a prejudice against, based on a few things I've heard that I didn't like (Uri Caine is in the same category for me). And I liked this one, so I'll have to revise my prejudice. Thanks again! Wow, this surprises me. I've always much admired Bynum's playing, but because I've only heard him with Braxton, I had him pigeon-holed in that kind of approach. This is very different. One can learn a lot from these BFTs.