Tom Storer

Posting this under "Miscellaneous Music" is very funny. Guess you'll have to move!

Exactly! I have nothing against Scott Hamilton, but for all his talent, his was a comfortable solo, and the pleasure one gets is the pleasure of relaxing with pipe and slippers as the family dog brings the newspaper in his mouth. Wayne's solo, even if he can do this stuff reflexively by now, is more about rearranging the furniture and training the dog to do weird shit.

If you can find any of his 80's albums with his alto-guitar-cello-tuba-drums quintet, those are killers, too.

Today I broke my piggy bank and ordered volumes 2, 3 and 4 of Allen Lowe's "That Devilin' Tune" anthology. I had previously ordered volume 1. Soon enough I will have a lot of listening to do.

So you're working on a rock and roll history, and planning a rock and roll pre-history?

Since I don't know the first thing about instrumental technique, I feel eminently qualified to contribute to this discussion. My mind is not clouded by actual experience. Jim said the same things that go into the sound of your speaking voice also make up your instrumental sound. But what are those things? Obviously they could be analyzed in purely mechanical terms. The length of your vocal cords, the size and shape of your instrument and embouchure; the size of your lungs; your musculature and state of relaxation or tension; your characteristic posture and rhythms of motion; the temperature of the air, maybe. All kinds of physical parameters like that. Allen and DukeCity talked about the importance of "thinking it"--hearing in your head what you're looking for so you can recognize when you've got it. In other words, there's a great deal of trial and error, at first, and then instinctive or reflexive choices, that go into being able to reproduce "your" sound or someone else's. What that means is that all the objective physical factors, which could theoretically, at great cost and effort, be controlled by a computer to reproduce any characteristic tone and approach, are analyzed and manipulated by seasoned musicians in a very fast and intuitive way--which is why there's no easy and reliable way to define just how to do it. Everyone just has to develop that attentiveness, control and intuition on their own. I guess it's kind of like doing imitations. If you're good at it, you can sound close enough to someone else's speaking voice and mannerisms that you can delight others and make them laugh. But could you define how you do it? No. It just happens right when you're in the right mood and can make it flow. Surely that's a similar situation.

But as Larry pointed out, he's not a New Yorker! They need a good jazz writer covering New York and are already giving work to Giddins, so I'm all for them making it a regular thing.

I guess he means more sophisticated formatting by the poster of the way messages display, including text and images. Personally, I'm a text-based life form. Pictures are nice but what I actually like about BBSs is that they depend virtually entirely on linear, written communication. Now excuse me while I blow the dust off myself.

Your expectations are high, 7/4.

Maybe their fact checkers stick to the articles and don't check the ads...

He has been for awhile--the past several years, I believe. Funny, I don't remember earlier articles. He doesn't write for them very often, in any case. It would be great if he took over the Balliett chair.

I ordered it from their website for 58 dollars, including postage to France. I'll let you know my reactions when I get it!

Forgive my lack of sophistication, but what the hell is a chav?

First I've heard, but the reviews the page links to are all glowing. I might give it a try. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Mike!

Just to get back to post #87, and a fine post it was, I feel duty-bound to issue a political correctness report concerning how to reference the circumpolar aboriginal peoples: according to Wikipedia, "The term Eskimo has fallen out of favour in Canada and Greenland, where it is considered pejorative and the term Inuit has become more common. However, Eskimo is still considered acceptable among Alaska Natives of Yupik and Inupiaq (Inuit) heritage, and is preferred over Inuit as a collective reference. To date, no replacement term for Eskimo inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people has achieved acceptance across the geographical area inhabited by the Inuit and Yupik peoples."

Forgot the tribute and buy some Ella records! My favorites include: - The duos with Ellis Larkins. Reissued as "Pure Ella," I think. - "The Intimate Ella," with Paul Smith on piano. - "Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie" - Ella with a trio doing "Night in Tunisia," "Cry Me A River," "Round Midnight," "Stella by Starlight," "Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most" and many more. - The duos with Joe Pass--pick one. - The songbooks - Ella with Chick Webb - Ella and Louis - Ella and Duke - oh hell, get them all

When a minority making up roughly 15% of the national population creates a style of music so brilliantly expressive that it crosses over not only to the rest of the national population but to the rest of the entire world, the percentage of the originating minority among practitioners and most certainly among audience members can only drop. The more successful the music is, the steeper the drop. It's mathematical. And, unavoidably, the music will change. It already has and it's not about to stop.

That's right, at a now-defunct club... Where are the snows of yesteryear?

That's a nice companion piece to the quip Tommy Flanagan liked to make: "Bebop is the music from before the Beatles... and after the Beatles."

I think he meant recordings made chronologically before the bebop era, not recordings that are stylistically pre-bebop, since that's all Louis ever made. Jazz Kat, I hope you haven't overlooked the collaborations with Ella Fitzgerald and with Duke Ellington, which are gems and belong in every jazz fan's collection!

All you guys are just jealous 'cause you didn't kill the world's biggest known hog.

All standards and jazz tunes, Matthew, so if you're looking for the cutting edge of audacious innovation, you'll be disappointed. But as mainstream piano trios playing standards go, this is way up there. I hear Charlap's model as the Tommy Flanagan trio--those crisp arrangements, and the basic distribution of roles. None of that Scott Lafaro stuff for Peter Washington, he's one of the great contemporary walking bassists (and his rare solos with this trio are very impressive). And Kenny Washington is extraordinary. This trio is all about swing and melody, elegant lines and cohesion whether at a snail's pace or a gallop. It's nothing groundbreaking but their joyful exercise of their craft is pure pleasure for me. Digressing a little, I recently learned that Reggie Washington, whom I've usually heard playing bass guitar with Steve Coleman, is Kenny's brother. Who'd have guessed?

Check out Jimmy Ponder at http://www.jazzdepot.com/. Only one of the albums listed, "Thumbs Up," is a guitar-bass-drums trio, but try the guitar-piano-bass-drums quartet and the guitar-organ-drums trio. Ponder is a fantastic and underappreciated guitarist. Also check out Peter Leitch and Joshua Breakstone, both estimable mainstream players who are known to work in trio format.

Chuck, I hate to have to break it to you, but you've been banned. Unlike some other forums, though, here when you're banned you can still post. But offline only. MG--what's this email notification business? I keep my Organissimo cookie intact so I don't have to enter my login every time I drop in. I just click View New Posts and see what's happened in my absence. Do you really restrict your posting to threads you subscribe to?

Blue Trane, if you've tried repeatedly over a lifetime of listening to jazz and it hasn't grabbed you yet, what makes you think there's a magic entry point that will change the way you hear it? If I were you, I'd just accept that it's not my cup of tea and live happily ever after!