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Tom Storer

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Posts posted by Tom Storer

  1. -current plan is for me to self-publish the book (I've had quite a few turn-downs by publishers) along with a multi-cd set on the pre-history of rock and roll to be issued overseas. There is a new on-line service that makes it very easy to self-publish in a nice format, and which allows one to print only as many books as are sold. I am doing a final edit on the rock and roll history (1950-1970) and hope to get it out by next spring; of course, I'm not sure I'll be able to coordinate evcerything on time, but I just set up my mastering studio again, and hope to start plugging away soon at restoration of sources -

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

  2. 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.

  3. What kind of features are you talking about?

    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. :D

  4. I guarantee you - if Eskimo Folk Music became something that the world went crazy over and there were dollars to be made and cultural institutions to be built and White People really got into playing the stuff because they really liked it and felt it at at least some level, there would be a "Eskimo Folk Music, once the province of a handful of people, has now become A Universal Language that the whole world participates in" thing going on, and that there would be some white people who got confused, insulted, hurt, whatever if/when they went to hang/jam with some Eskimo Folk musicians and felt a funny vibe, just as there would be some 5th generation Eskimo Surfboarder in SoCal who decided to reclaim his roots simply by saying that he was reclaiming his roots.

    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."

  5. Who here loves Ella Fitzgerald? Lord knows I do. Every song she has ever done is a classic in my book. And the good thing is that there is going to be a tribute album to be released next week with a whole bunch of singers I love singing her old standards. It will be great to hear a new perspective on her great songs. LONG LIVE ELLA!! (www.myspace.com/ellafitzgerald)

    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

  6. 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.

  7. Louis Armstrong is pre-bop, post-bop: the past before bop and the future after bop. That doesn't mean that he is bop. :g

    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."

  8. 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!

  9. 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?

  10. 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.

  11. 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?

  12. 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!

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