Lazaro Vega

Yeah, baby.

p.s. There's a new program called "Media Guide" which can monitor a radio station's tower with software that recognizes music programmed into it. There are agencies hired by record companies to send out music to radio stations and now, with this new software, they can tell if it gets played from our tower and if it doesn't they call me up and threaten to not send anymore music or otherwise accuse me of not holding up my end of the "bargain." In any case, tonight's playlist continued with Anthony Brown's Orchestra, Tang; Omar Sosa, Nuevo Manto; Either Orchestra live in Addis, Muziqawi Silt; Diz's U.N. Orchetra, Kush; the Nia Quintet, Bellamy's Dance... Frequently modulated, your host, V

montg If you turned on Blue Lake once, heard Feather, and turned it off I'd understand. But if you've come to know our evening programming I would hope you stick around for the switch up. With 5 hours a night we're not exactly cramped for time, and various strains from the world of jazz flow freely. Unpredictablity sometimes happens. And if an idea comes to mind, or, Little Jazz. Yes, Roy Eldridge was here. Last night at 1:30 a.m. we got into Roy and stayed with him mostly as a sideman and mostly alongside Chu Berry or Coleman Hawkins, Teddy Wilson (with and without Billie), Krupa, Artie Shaw, FLETCHER HENDERSON, until 3 a.m. Everything that went on before 1:30 since 11:30 was newer, including an hour of "avant-garde" music, Out On Blue Lake, from midnight, including the recent release by The Respect Sextet, their version of Fred Anderson's composition, "3 on 2." Radio stations play new records because they are sent to them, and the radio is also, for good or bad, supposed to convey a sense of the time we live in according to the marketplace. And with the same kind of humor Braxton used in Downbeat when he said something to the effect of, I want to be around for Sinatra's senile stage, I want to be able to play Paul Anka's Verve recording and have "True" stuck in my head the next day while I'm pushing the lawn mower. It's like the aftertaste of a dinner mint, or the sticky residue of cotton candy. It's nothing. It was fun while it lasted, or not, but that's what last summer sounded like to many people (regardless of Blue Lake). To have to discuss ephemera like that, though, is like trying to recreate the reasons you used last year's tinsel. It's Pop. And it's popped. Why try and put air back in it? Which is why I'm officially taking Feather OFF my top ten list! If you heard Krall and switched us off you'd miss an hour such as this last one featuring Dizzy: Duke and Diz, U.M.M.G.; Diz with Machito's Orchestra conducted by Chico O'Farrill, Three Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods; Randy Weston with Diz, African Sunrise; The Seattle Repertory Jazz Ochestra, In the Beginning God, from a new CD of Ellington's Sacred Concert. Commercial intruders beware: Redemtion is nigh! At heart Blue Lake's jazz programming recognizes our non-commercial soul, but flirting with commercial music is just that -- the wind around the hem of a girl's skirt.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainmen...ent_music-photo JAZZ REVIEW Barber's sneak preview radically provocative By Howard Reich Tribune arts critic January 9, 2006 In an era when most female jazz vocalists still are cooing love songs drenched in nostalgia, a few are searching for something fresh to say. None may be probing more deeply into the meaning of life and humanity than Chicago singer-pianist Patricia Barber, who over the weekend offered a preview of an artistically ambitious, potentially revelatory song cycle. Playing before a standing-room-only crowd at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Barber on Saturday evening performed excerpts of her forthcoming "Mythologies," an extended work that has been three years in the making. Inspired by Ovid's "Metamorphoses" -- the same text that Chicago director Mary Zimmerman famously adapted for Lookingglass Theatre in 1998 -- Barber's suite similarly seeks to express ancient truths in contemporary idioms. But Barber's task may be more challenging than Zimmerman's, for a jazz composer does not have the benefit of working with actors and costumes, dialogue and scenic design. Instead, the musician who chooses to address the texts of a venerable Roman poet has at her disposal only melody and harmony, rhythm and rhyme. Barber has hit on an ingenious strategy, crafting a single song about each of 11 mythological characters who inhabit Ovid's "Metamorphoses." By creating musical vignettes that evoke the spirit of Orpheus and Narcissus, Oedipus and Persephone, Barber brilliantly has found the means to re-imagine a piece of literature for a jazz context. Better still, she radically changes the musical setting for each of her songs. Thus she sketches one character simply by singing alone at the piano, another by collaborating with a splendid chamber choir and yet another by bringing on a trio of young hip-hop singers. The expressive range of this music proves thrilling, even though all of it clearly derives from a single sensibility: the spare, sometimes austere jazz idiom that long has been Barber's forte. If listeners did not know that Barber's opus had been inspired by Ovid's work, they nonetheless could savor these excerpts for their skill in merging melodic elegance and literary wit. These songs, in other words, stand on their own as immensely attractive jazz pieces, apart from their source material. Listen to the sleek lyric phrases and quasi-rock backbeat of "The Moon," the clever pop hooks and wicked social commentary of "Hunger," the sumptuous choral voicings and rapturous poetic imagery of "The Hours," and it's clear that a first-rate songwriter is at work. The excerpts of "Mythologies" that Barber performed at the MCA, in a concert organized by the indispensable Chicago arts group Contempo, included several vividly effective performances. Among them, this listener will not soon forget the hip-hop artists of the Chicago Children's Choir firing off Barber's text, while the members of Choral Thunder cried out, "Who'll save us now? Who'll save us now?" Though a final appraisal of Barber's "Mythologies" will have to wait until a complete performance (the work will be released on Blue Note Records in August), this preview foreshadowed what could be one of the major jazz events of the year. ---------- hreich@tribune.com Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

A new concert series of jazz and improvised music is now taking place on Monday evenings at Silvie's, a music venue at 1902 W. Irving Park in Chicago. The series is called Eight Million Heroes, and features both Chicago-based musicians and musicians from out of town. Music starts at 9:30 PM, there are generally two sets, and the cover charge is $5.00 (unless otherwise noted). Some evenings also feature a DJ spinning records before, between, and after the sets. The series is jointly curated by Chicago musicians Nate McBride (bass), Jason Stein (bass clarinet), and Jeb Bishop (trombone), with assistance from Michael Zerang (percussion). Information about concerts in the series can be found online at eightmillionheroes.blogspot.com Upcoming concerts currently booked include: January 16, 2006: Guillermo Gregorio Ensemble January 23: David Boykin Ensemble January 30: Herculaneum and QMRplus February 6: teizaiha (Josh Abrams/Tim Daisy/Nori Tanaka) and Go! (from North Carolina) February 13: Fred Lonberg-Holm/Paul Giallorenzo/Mike Reed Trio February 20: Nate McBride/Jason Stein/Jeb Bishop/Michael Zerang February 27: Jeb Bishop with Jeff Albert (trombonist from New Orleans) March 6: Shannon Morrow Project March 13: Nate McBride/Jason Stein/Jeb Bishop/Michael Zerang March 20: James Falzone Project March 27: Ways and Means Trio We hope to see you there.

John L, gotta line on that boot?

Sorry Christiern, didn't see it.

If you are in NY for IAJE and are loolking for something to do on Friday morning, January 13th I will be doing a one-on-one panel with jazz advocate Dan Morgenstern. It takes place at 10am in the New York East Room, 3rd floor, Sheraton Hotel I've solisited lots of interesting questions from jazz people around the world.I'd welcome yours too. Bring it with you and we'll see you there. Steve Schwartz WGBH, 89.7FM, Boston www.wgbh.org/jazz

Nice "Lady Bird."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&sn=001&sc=1000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PHIL ELWOOD: 1926-2006 Beloved Bay Area jazz and blues critic - Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic Wednesday, January 11, 2006 Phil Elwood, one of the best friends jazz and blues ever had, died Tuesday of heart failure, only four weeks after the death of his beloved wife, Audrey. He was 79. As a critic for half a century, Elwood pursued a lifelong love affair with the music that began in the living room of the Berkeley home of Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange, when he first heard a record by Louis Armstrong as a high school student. "I wish I could go back and stand in that living room again," he said two years ago. "I'd remember exactly how it felt." Elwood covered jazz, rock, blues and comedy, the entire panorama of nightlife, for the San Francisco Examiner beginning in 1965. He continued his career at The Chronicle after the two papers merged in 2000 and retired in 2002. He was an endless fount of jazz lore, an unflagging enthusiast of the music and a world-class raconteur blessed with an extraordinary memory. He was also one of the first people to broadcast jazz on the FM dial. His weekly radio program, "Jazz Archive," began in 1952, when very few people even owned FM radios. His show continued on Berkeley's KPFA until 1996. "Talk about old school," said rock musician Huey Lewis, "he was a music lover. Imagine that. He actually loved the music. They don't make 'em like that anymore." "Phil was the quintessential jazz critic,'' said jazz great Jon Hendricks, who lived in the Bay Area for many years and rubbed shoulders with Elwood at clubs and festivals around the country and the world. "Most jazz critics love the music, but Phil knew the music as well as loved it. He and Ralph Gleason hung in the clubs, hung with the cats. They were part of the scene just like the musicians. Phil loved it all, from Bunk Johnson to Louis to Bird, up through Coltrane and into the avant-garde. He was the complete critic.'' George Shearing, the great jazz pianist who knew Elwood for half a century, said: "We lost a very capable and musically savvy writer in Phil Elwood. He knew his craft and he knew his music. But beyond that, he was my friend, whose wit, loyalty and kindness knew no bounds.'' "Phil was an awfully good man," said rock musician Boz Scaggs. "It was always nice running into him at shows, mostly jazz and blues for us. I could always count on him for the historical perspective and some funny stories." Elwood was born March 19, 1926, and raised in Berkeley, where his father was an agriculture professor at the University of California. He first saw Count Basie in 1939 from the balcony of Sweet's Ballroom in Oakland while he was still attending Berkeley High School. He used to ride his bicycle around to Oakland thrift stores and spend his paper route money buying old jazz 78s by King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and others. Those discs were the beginnings of a legendary jazz record collection, which he stored in a serpentine basement in his North Berkeley home. He also had an entirely separate career teaching American history to high school and college students throughout the East Bay, rising early to go to class after meeting post-midnight Examiner deadlines covering some nightclub show or rock concert. He also taught a famous history of jazz class at Laney College in Oakland that, over the years, was attended by many aspiring musicians and critics. "I remember him coming into his Monday night jazz history class at Laney College in the mid-'70s," said Chronicle jazz writer Jesse Hamlin, "with a funky old record player and a old briefcase stuffed with scratchy albums, most without their jackets. He'd just start riffing and reminiscing and playing records, never referring to notes, for 90 minutes at a stretch. That music was in his veins." "Phil was always there," said jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, "He was the person on the scene. He didn't call somebody to ask what happened; he was right there to watch and hear for himself. Everything he wrote was his own personal experience. Even if he didn't write about it, he'd be there. He liked a lot of different musicians, and he was very proud to be part of the music world and proud of the people around him, and he made you feel proud to be part of it. It didn't matter whether he gave you a good review or a bad review, what mattered was Phil was there." Over the course of his distinguished career, Elwood covered anything that moved on stage. In his 2002 farewell column for The Chronicle, he noted the breadth of acts he covered in just his first weeks on the job. "I reviewed Stan Kenton one night and Lena Horne the next," Elwood wrote. "I heard Charlie Byrd at El Matador, and Tom Lehrer at the hungry i; also Art Blakey, Chico Hamilton, Denny Zeitlin. Kay Starr, the Mills Brothers, Cannonball Adderley, Joe Bushkin and bassist Vernon Alley, and Duke Ellington at Basin Street West. My first seven weeks (21 reviews or features in print) ended Aug. 31 with a Beatles show at the Cow Palace that afternoon and Judy Garland at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos that night." One of his most famous reviews came when he caught an unknown opening act at a long defunct San Francisco nightclub called the Matrix and gave the young Bruce Springsteen -- appearing with his rock group Steel Mill -- his first major review. After his retirement from The Chronicle, Elwood continued to write a column for the Web site Jazz West. In 2002, he received the Beacon Award from the San Francisco Jazz Festival and was the subject of a tribute concert, underwritten by See's Candies. He is survived by his sons, Peter and Josh, both of Berkeley, and Benjamin of St. Paul, Minn.; his daughter Lis of Sierra City; and six grandchildren. No services are planned. Chronicle staff writer Jesse Hamlin contributed to this report. Page A - 2 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file...MNG5LGLEN01.DTL -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

Ornette Coleman - Rock The Clock (Fruit Tree 857) Scheduled for re-issue Jan 17 — Berlin radio broadcast from Nov. 5, 1971 — with Charlie Haden (bass), Dewey Redman (tenor), and Ed Blackwell (drums) Read in the Peter Niklas Wilson "Ornette Coleman, His Life and Music" book that previous issues were not the broadcast tape but an amature recording of the broadcast, though he does say it is an interesting document for including much material from the "Crisis"lp, the only known recording of "Who Do You Work For?" and a great version of Charlie Haden's "Song For Che." Haven't heard it. Comments, suggestions? Wish Ornette would bring out a disc of his current working band. The only other document of his double bass band was from way back, a live recording in Italy when the band had Charlie Haden and David Izenzon which, again according to Wilson and not my own listening, is not well balanced between the parts. The current version of the two bass band, which played a marvellous concert in Ann Arbor, was well balanced in that regard. Man is Ornette profound in that Dan Morganstern interview from 1965. "It has gotten so that in your relationships to every system that has some sort of power, you have to pay to become part of that power, just in order to do what you want to do," he continued. "This doesn't build a better world, but it does build more security for the power. Power makes purpose secondary..." He goes on to explain how he seeks to put the human being in the dominant role.

The last time bassist Todd Nicholson and drummer Tatsuya Nakatani played in West Michigan it was with the Billy Bang Quintet featuring Frank Lowe in April of 2003 at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids. That performance was recorded for broadcast on Blue Lake and will, hopefully, be issued on Justin Time records this year.

I think those were done in Denmark.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- January 9, 2006 Critics' Choice New CD's By THE NEW YORK TIMES John McNeil "East Coast Cool" (OmniTone) Some jazz groups can't escape their instrumentation. A quartet with piano, vibraphone, bass and drums must deal with the fact that it uses the same instruments as the Modern Jazz Quartet; it will have to define itself in relation to the band that got there first. The same goes for a band with trumpet, baritone saxophone, bass and drums: it has to orient itself either toward or away from Gerry Mulligan's original pianoless quartet, which he formed with Chet Baker in Los Angeles in 1952. The trumpeter John McNeil has kept a fairly low profile as a bandleader over the last 30 years, but recently he has been making a highly likable series of let's-try-anything records with OmniTone. He uses his new album to imagine a possibility: What if a band with the same instruments as the Mulligan-Baker group played themes with boiled down, contrapuntal lines, in honor of the ones Mulligan wrote, but engaged the bass and drums much more? (Mulligan's quartet records were beautiful but rhythmically dry.) To put it another way, what if that general sound, with the same blend of timbres and the same respect for concise melody, was generally brought up to date, made more flexible, with a more interactive group? What would it sound like? Any attempt to answer that depends on who the musicians are. Because the musicians with Mr. McNeil on "East Coast Cool" are Allan Chase on baritone saxophone, John Hebert on bass and Matt Wilson on drums, the music can remind you as much of Ornette Coleman's early-60's quartet - another important pianoless band - as Gerry Mulligan's early-50's one. Mr. McNeil wants to unlock the neat, airy, compressed feeling of the Mulligan quartet; he wants to open it up to modern possibilities. And he wants the music at least half planted on the ground. (A full-on free-jazz homage to Gerry Mulligan, who really liked his structure and swing, would make no sense.) So the pieces on the album, all originals but two - one of which is "Bernie's Tune," which the Mulligan band made famous - tend to have either a proscribed tonal center or a strong, swinging rhythm. Where there is actual free jazz, it's just an interlude, put in for variety: "Wanwood," a good, original ballad, has a few of these circumscribed sections. All the composing and arranging devices Mr. McNeil uses to discipline these pieces - the sudden dropping out of one or more musicians, the changes in rhythm, the use of a 12-tone row - give the music its character, but the wonder of the record is its breezy transparency. Mr. Wilson has a light, bouncing touch, which sounds like a result of a lot of listening to Billy Higgins; Mr. McNeil sprawls through long, Don Cherry-style improvisations - weaving in and out of tonal harmony - using a clear, dry, clarion upper register. And Mr. Chase, filling Mulligan's role, does the most to seal the record's connection to what inspired it: he plays with balance and authority, and keeps the temperature of his improvisations low. Mulligan fans shouldn't come to this wanting to hear what he would have done; it's a record that borrows its starting point, but comes to its own conclusions. BEN RATLIFF Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

Alan, You might check out: http://www.wnur.org/

From the Catching Up With Segment of All About Jazz.com, Gregg Osby replies to a query about Chris Potter: "I have heard Chris Potter. I'd much rather listen to Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas, Lester Young, Eddie Harris, Ben Webster, Von Freeman, Stan Getz, Shorter, Rollins, Coltrane, etc. play tenor. Dig? There are legions of other bad young cats out there whom I feel are saying just as much or more in their playing and music in general. Different Strokes...."

Yukijurushi The Bronx Bossa Nova Band Live on Blue Lake Public Radio Tuesday, January 10th from 10 to 11 p.m. est. WBLV FM 90.3/WBLU FM 88.9 in West Michigan and www.bluelake.org Yukijurushi is: Eiji Obata - Guitar Todd Nicholson - Bass Tatsuya Nakatani - Drums/Vocals http://home.earthlink.net/~supertao/Yukijurushi/ Yukijurushi US Tour Dates in January Check our website for full schedule details: http://home.earthlink.net/~supertao/Yukiju...i/schedule.html January 7 - Easton, PA January 8 - Ohm Lounge, Syracuse www.ohmlounge.com January 9 - Nighttown, Cleveland http://www.nighttowncleveland.com/ January 10 - Blue Lake Public Radio appearance, Grand Rapids, MI Listen live over WBLV FM 90.3 in West Michigan, WBLU FM 88.9 in Grand Rapids, or on the Internet from www.bluelake.org January 11 - Hot House, Chicago www.hothouse.net January 12 - ACME Art Company, Columbus, OH http://www.iceboxshows.com/

Taborn's hook up with Tom Rainey on Drew Gress's album "7 Black Butterfies" is solid. He's also on the Roscoe Mitchell recording in the original top 10 list at the head of the thread. The job of jazz radio is to, as a friend once explained to me, engage the audience. That's it. Speaking of living musicians, we'll have the Bronx Bossa Nova Trio playing live in our studio tomorrow night, and Cuong Vu in February.

Again, 10 is not enough. Yes, the Diz and Bird/Monk and Trane were the best releases of the last year. The music is ageless. Imagine if the Bird and Diz would have been available in it's time, or the Monk and Trane. They would have come down as classics of their time. Both releases give a clearer picture of the time period from an aesthetic, musical point of view. And so did the Sonny Rollins disc from last year. That Rollins allowed a "bootleg" to be issued thereby giving us one of his incredible live performances is big news. Fred Hersh's "Leaves of Grass" would have been my other pick for "vocal" album (the Sutton record is pretty and listenable and the band swings but her delivery is so dominated by classical perfection that there are reservations on my part). The list included the Feather because I was trying to find a swing album. And though what Jim and Ness are saying is true, Feather's is just a record I liked on it's own terms. Face it, Abby Lincoln and Cassandra Wilson didn't make records this year and Shirley Horn's 'best of' included some performances that were, you know, she forgot the words. It was touching the way the crowd let her off the hook. When people start talking about how music is better because it's new I'm reminded of the dixieland crowd who forego the classic recordings of Johnny Dodds, for instance, in favor of recreations because the new players, they say, play "better" and the sound quality it better. That's just bunk. The Bird and Diz, Monk and Trane are aesthetically, historically and musically head and shoulders above this past year's new releases. Those recordings will be studied for years, probably by the same people who made new records this year. As far as radio goes, we program a jazz retrospective every night to feature an historic artist (about 20 minutes an hour) and then get into new releases. Our Saturday morning program from 7 to 10 is primarily new records (the Arno Marsh over the weekend used historical music to set up his newest stuff). If the promotional wing of the record industry today has its way jazz radio would ONLY play new music.

This week we've featured retrospective programs on Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter and tonight Von Freeman. Playing right now (12 a.m.) at www.bluelake.org is "Have No Fear" and coming up will be a 1993 concert by Von Freeman, John Young, Eddie Calhoun and Phil Thomas from Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. Please join us tomorrow morning from 7 to 10 a.m. for the music of Arno Marsh with Woody Herman's 1953 Thundering Herd as well as live on Blue Lake Public Radio last summer with Organissimo (Blue Lou in both cases).

Listening to the Von Freeman/Ed Peterson record on Delmark and there's a strong Dexter sound influence coming out of Von on "Lover Man," sounds almost an hommage.

Jim: "I don't need to take "Rockin' In Rhythm" and recast it as White Hat & Tails & all that crap." Ahahahaha. Yeah, O.k. Soft shoe and shuckin, razzle dazzle. I get what you mean...Her song is about a summer resort having a dance which, sure, is manufactured nostalgia. It is. And yet, Duke WAS all about that high society dicty life, to which Bubber replied, famously, "It's don't mean at thing if it ain't got that swing." Jim, you're Bubber! The Cotton Club and Ellington's image there was Top Hat, Tails AND theater. Looking at that scene and it's amazing Duke did was his own thing -- it's amazing that the conventions of musical theater didn't corrupt his music with limitations but inspired a radical approach to voicings and functionality. He played the social card right into the bank, too. There's an aspect of that which is all People Magazine and celebrity based attention, two dimenstional, like an advertisement, but by now that's, hopefully, faded away. Then again, uptil the day he died Cab Calloway's press agents advised when setting up a phone interview with him to NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ask him about his first night M.C.ing at the Cotton Club. That's pretty shallow to even ask Cab about, you know, when you could talk about running from an angry mob in Memphis (or whatever that story was he told on Milt Hinton's Chairoscuro CD) or Ike Quebec or Cozy Cole or Chu Berry or where DID he buy his pot, anyway, was it Mezz?

Like I said, there's no defense for choosing Lorraine Feather as a top ten, but those were some thoughts on why. So, pick a swing/big band/or vocal record from last year. Perhaps a worthy effort was Jack Sheldon's big band date of Tom Kubis charts on Butterfly Records, especially for Sheldon's tribute to Louis. But I went with the Feather instead. Regarding the past verses the present -- you know, English departments need to have this discussion, too: to hell with Shakesphere's work, we have W.S. Merwin and Robert Bly to celebrate. Write your bookstore! Clear the shelves! Let's help feed some real poets. What a ridiculous arguement to make. Today's jazz players aren't merely compeating with some past artists, they're compeating with the BEST past musicians, people who rose through the competition of Cass Tech High School in Detroit, for example, or the amazing musical education system in Philly, for instance, then went through a period of seasoning in the minor leagues (where their personhood evolved hand in hand with their music), maybe got on the bus with a major big band and then emerged as recording artists and touring musicians (often constant touring, not just "project" or occasional run-outs) with powerful musical conceptions as bandleaders and instrumentalists. Today's system has levels of accomplishment, but they are not the same criteria as in the past, and, like it or not, it shows. And the public can tell. Musicians are projecting differently now. The undiscovered music of Bird and Trane deserves our fullest attention and surprise, surprise it received it this year. That may be sour grapes to some but to me that's fine wine. What's being missed here, too, is the public. The public went for Coltrane this year, and even without the giant marketing machine the Bird and Diz, too. What new artist connected with the public with such daring music on that level this year? You can't "blame" that on marketing, really, because there wasn't much for the Bird and Diz. Buzz is more organic than mere marketing. Same thing happened in classical music this year with the discovery of an unknown manuscript. Gregg Osby's trio record is very creative. The bassist Matt Brewer is the son of Paul Brewer who teaches at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids and Interlochen, so there's plenty of political reasons for someone from here to pick that as a "best of" (and Tain certainly had a day on that Osby date "Channel Three.") However, it pales in comparison to Bird and Diz at Town Hall. Or, it just doesn't offer the same level projection of ideas. The impact of Bird and Diz's music is still being felt, jazz wouldn't be the same without it. Gregg is developing on a different level. An excellent musician, a broad mind (his appearance on the Yo Miles date Upriver was a treat) yet that Blue Note recording will never have the impact of Monk's Quartet with Coltrane. If it did when that trio plays New York there'd be the same hullabaloo that greeted Monk at the Five Spot. You have to, ultimately, credit Monk's music for making that happen.

Isn't it strange that when Dexter tosses in "The Mexican Hat Dance," "Off to the Races" or any of a number of melodic quotes from other tunes he's judged as coasting yet when Sonny Rollins does it it's viewed as a window into the deep well of his musical knowledge and understanding?

Well, I'm married to one and it appears the additives to my brain food are having their desired effect. Yeah I can't defend that. The Drew Gress recording 7 Black Butterflies where drummer Tom Raney plays out of his mind great, or anything by Braxton from this last year, the String Trio of New York with Oliver Lake...Weak choice on my part. Feather's vocal versions of Ellington's music made me listen to the originals, Doin' the Voom Voom, Dooji Wooji, Harlem Airshaft, and that was something. One of Dick Hyman's arrangements is there so you know it is listenable professonalism. Feather's record is hipper than a pretty girl holding a red balloon. How can a record make your day for an hour and still be on the "best of list"? Sentimentality recovering associations of summer 2005. That's the sad truth. I went to her "Calistoga Bay" like a toddler to M and M's because I thought it would remind people of The Fruitport Pavillion. Feather's disc is what some people would call "kicky." The propensity of singers with a theater background who picked jazz as a vehicle for their CDs in 2005 is a thread, but, granted, not a "best of" 2005, more like something that is grinding away like a mechanical tennis ball launcher. The way some of these people project emotions in jazz sounds like a clumsey Ethel Merman, or lieder rhythm sung laser pitch perfect, or cafinatted faux riff singers who couldn't throw out an honest feeling with a gun to their heads. Feather put her theater into the lyrics, and backed the showbiz into the words which allowed the music to, as Ellington's music always has, swing.