Adam

I looked because I was hoping it would be a link to a good Onion story. It's a reasonable headline for such.

Here's the text of the LA Times obit, as the LA Times will take it down in a few days. http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...home-obituaries Pete Candoli, 84: jazz trumpeter Known for his high-register work, the musician played with such big names as Dorsey, Herman, Kenton and Beneke. By Jon Thurber, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 16, 2008 Pete Candoli, one of the top high-note lead trumpeters in jazz who performed with some of the leading figures of the big-band era, has died. He was 84. Candoli, whose brother Conte was also an acclaimed trumpeter, died Friday of prostate cancer at his home in Studio City, according to Sheryl Deauville, his life partner of 22 years. From a childhood in Mishawaka, Ind., Candoli forged a six-decade career and was featured in bands led by Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Tex Beneke and Les Brown. While with Herman's First Herd during World War II, Candoli became known for his high-register work and even wore a Superman costume while performing the specialty number "Superman With a Horn." He moved to the West Coast in the early 1950s and established himself as an excellent studio musician. He can be heard on two of Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn" albums and was sometimes seen playing in the background on the television show. According to his website, Pete Candoli also arranged and conducted for Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. Frank Sinatra would often fly him to Las Vegas for gigs. When they weren't working in the studio or with "The Tonight Show" band for Johnny Carson, the Candoli brothers were a popular attraction at Southern California clubs, concert halls and festivals, often leading their own band. A gifted showman, Pete Candoli perfected an impression of Louis Armstrong that became near-legendary. "The first time I did my version of Louis was when I was touring in Japan with Benny Carter and a bunch of all-stars," Candoli told jazz writer Don Heckman some years ago. "At that time the biggest thing in Japan other than the national anthem was [Armstrong's recording of] 'When You're Smiling.' So when somebody found out I could sing like Louis -- that was it, I had to do it at every concert." Candoli was born June 28, 1923. He and his brother, who was four years younger, were encouraged to take up music by their factory-worker father, who wanted a better life for his sons. Their father performed in an Italian marching band in Mishawaka, which is adjacent to South Bend, and the boys grew up in a house full of instruments, including the trombone and saxophone. A prodigy, Pete was mostly self-taught on the trumpet. He got his union card before he was a teenager and was playing gigs, including Polish weddings, around his hometown, Deauville said. He began playing with Sonny Dunham's orchestra in 1941 and went on to work with a long string of other name bands, including Herman's First Herd. While with that group, he recommended his brother Conte for a job, and Herman ended up hiring him. In the 1970s, Candoli established a nightclub act with his wife, singer Edie Adams. He sang, danced, played trumpet and directed the orchestra. His marriage to Adams and an earlier marriage to singer-actress Betty Hutton ended in divorce. Conte died in 2001 at the age of 74. In addition to Deauville, Candoli is survived by daughters Tara Clair and Carolyn, two grandchildren and a sister, Gloria Henke of Mishawaka. The funeral is scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, 6300 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles.

up - this coming weekend. I'm going Saturday, but I realized I also have tickets to the Monterey Jazz Festival tour at UCLA on Friday night the 18th. Just due to money, I'll probably end up there. That has Terence Blanchard, James Moody, and others. I think I might be more interested in Feldman & Couvoisier on Friday though. I'm sure they will play some Zorn compositions.

From: Werner X. Uehlinger Dear Friend, End of February 2008, "the piano": hatOLOGY 649: Paul Bley · (12 + 6) In A Row [reissue] Paul Bley –piano; Hans Koch –reeds (clarinets & saxophones); Franz Koglmann –flugelhorn Total Time DDD 59:08 Barcode 7 52156064923 As in any improvised music, there are challenges accepted, risks taken. Bley himself has suggested, as a measure of the success of free spontaneous music, asking “Is it eventful?” The next step, I propose, would be to ask oneself if each event is meaningful? (with the understanding that each listener will apply his/her own definition of that word to their personal response). For me, the music on this disc is beautiful, humorous, provocative, confusing, even at times elegiac. All of which makes it undeniably human, and worth sharing. – Art Lange Dans toute musique improvisée, il y a des défis à accepter, des risques à prendre. Pour évaluer la performance de l’improvisation libre, Bley a lui-même suggéré de se demander: «Est-elle riche en événements? » La question que je proposerais ensuite serait de se demander si chaque événement est significatif (Étant entenduque chaque auditeur appliquerait sa propre définition du mot à sa réponse personnelle). Pour moi, la musique de ce disque est belle, humoristique, provocatrice, déroutante et même, à certains moments, élégiaque. Pleine de tout ce qui la rend indéniablement humaine et digne d'être partagée. -- Art Lange hatOLOGY 651: Russ Lossing – John Hebert · Line Up (N E W) Russ Lossing –piano & John Hebert –double bass Total Time DDD 55:43 Barcode 7 52156065128 It's a rich and varied tradition in which Lossing and Hebert locate themselves, and their duets are both an incidental celebration of the tradition and a commemoration of their working partnership. John Hebert remarks of these duos, “This was a project that we put together as a document of years of playing together in various ensembles. I have known and played with Russ for just about 10 years now, and there aren't too many musicians that I have such a unique bond with.” Russ Lossing adds, “John and I have developed a very close musical kinship, and friendship too. So, finally we recorded the duo after years of talking about it.” The relationship is apparent in all the ways Lossing and Hebert find to both interact and prod one another here, and the special ways they find to contrast their instrumental voices, from the fleet evenness of Lossing’s piano to the gritty expressiveness of Hebert’s bass. – Stuart Broomer Lossing et Hebert se situent eux-mêmes dans une tradition riche et variée. Leurs duos sont à la fois une célébration incidentale de la tradition et une commémoration de leur partenariat musical. John Hebert explique à ce propos: « C’est un projet que nous avons élaboré afin de documenter les années passées à jouer ensemble dans différentes formations. J'ai rencontré Russ et commencé à jouer avec lui voilà près de 10 ans, et rares sont les musiciens avec lesquels j'ai pu établir un lien aussi exceptionnel. » Russ Lossing ajoute:« John et moi avons développé une grande affinité musicale, et également de vrais liens d’amitié. Alors, après en avoir parlé pendant des années, nous avons finalement décidé d’enregistrer ce duo. » Cette étroite relation est évidente dans toutes les manières trouvées par Lossing et Hebert pour interagir et s’encourager l’un l’autre, dans toutes les modalités spécifiques utilisées pour créer un contraste entre leurs voix instrumentales, de la régularité fluide du piano de Lossing jusqu’à l’expressivité rebondissante de la basse d’Hebert. - Stuart Broomer Best regards, Werner X. Uehlinger Hat Hut Records LTD. Box 521, 4020 Basel, Switzerland wxu.hathut.com@bluewin.ch Phone +41.61.373.0773 http://www.hathut.com The Journey Continues the 33rd Year too! Hat Hut Records Ltd. benefits from its partnership with the Fondation Nestlé pour l'Art, Lausanne.

Isn't it always cool to be living in Paris?

Apparently she's not actually the main Bond girl for the next film - Gemma has a smaller role. The main one is Olga something, from the Ukraine. I'll let one of you find a photo.

Sometimes I wish I lived in Seattle. Although I think Portland might even be better... Filmforum in LA is screening Ron Mann's IMAGINE THE SOUND on February 10, which features Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley, Bill Dixon. BUT it's coming to me from Northwest Film Center in Portland, where it is screening in late January (Jan 31 to be precise). Actually, the NW Film Center is having a great Music Film Series, of which it is part, as is ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA, and so is the film I co-produced, THE OLD WEIRD AMERICA: HARRY SMITH'S ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC. Several other films with jazz concerns as well, So for those in the Northwest, check this out! http://www.nwfilm.org/nowshowing/

Here are more details for January: http://www.silentmovietheatre.com/calendar/thursday.html These screenings are at the Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles, 611 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles 90036. There will be more in February. Jazz on Film: Capturing Creation / Music Thursdays in January at 8pm “When you hear music, after it’s over, it’s gone, in the air, you can never capture it again.”—Eric Dolphy Jazz and motion pictures are two of our youngest art forms. Both developed at the beginning of the 20th century, and have seen rapid innovation and evolution in their technological, stylistic and expressive potential. While jazz remains America’s most celebrated cultural product, film is our most popular medium. As long as people have been making music, filmmakers have sought to record the live experience—to prevent the music from vanishing into the ether, as Dolphy describes. The best jazz films, while not quite containing the music’s ephemeral power, can sharpen our senses, engaging our eyes and our ears. In a sense, all of these movies are documentaries, capturing sound at the moment of its birth. Our series takes a broad cross-section of the genre, from the 40s big band swing of Stormy Weather to the free jazz of Ornette Coleman. Come see and hear some of the best American artists of our recent past, bigger than life, and high on the act of creation. 1/3 @ 8pm / SERIES: Jazz on film Sun Ra: Space in the Place Based on Sun Ra’s free jazz masterpiece of the same name, Space is the Place is an appropriately chaotic brew of elements: social commentary, exploitation, science fiction, concert film, and, best of all, a journey to "true perception." Playing himself, Ra intergalactically travels back in time to the 1940s to compete in a card game with the pimpadelic Overseer to determine the fate of the Black race. From then on, Ra is dodging everyone from The Overseer to white secret service agents who have it out for him, all the while maintaining his signature calm. Luckily, Ra's band, The Arkestra, is in tow to back him up, and provide musical vibes all along the way. Truly bizarre and captivating at the same time, with colors that rival a Powell & Pressburger film, Space is the Place takes you on a cosmic journey into not only Sun Ra's mind, but maybe your own. Presented by Arthur Magazine. Dir: John Coney, 1974, 35mm, 85 min. Tickets - $10 1/10 @ 8pm / SERIES: Jazz on film Jazz on a Summer's Day Shot in time-defyingly, unfaded Kodachrome, Jazz on a Summer’s Day is one of the best examples of how documentaries can become time machines. Fashion photographer Bert Stern—who captured the justly iconographic image of the coquettishly sunglassed Sue Lyon that graces the poster for Kubrick’s Lolita—filmed at the Newport Jazz Festival for three glorious days, and chose not to limit his encompassing vision to the acts on stage. He sees everything that can conjure a sunny, happy day for cool cats. His camera-eye wanders blissfully over to the audience (intently listening with eyes closed behind Ray-Ban sunglasses, or bopping in place in popping polka dots), and even occasionally all the way out of the concert hall. Jazz infects all of Newport Beach: ships at sea, beer-fisted college girls dancing on rooftops, a skilled cellist practicing in his room while smoking a cigarette. And did I forget to mention the incredible performances inspiring all this joy? How about a sizzlingly hot Anita O’Day, peak-era Thelonious Monk, Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, Sonny Stitt, Chico Hamilton, Dinah Washington, and many, many more. Dirs: Bert Stern & Aram Avakian, 1960, 35mm, 85 min. Tickets - $10 1/17 @ 8pm / SERIES: Jazz on film Stormy Weather Due to racial segregation typical of the era, the 1940s featured very little in the way of starring vehicles for black performers, and 20th Century Fox's Stormy Weather is a rare major studio glimpse into jazz nightlife. The film, which takes its title from the song of the same name, is loosely based on the life of Bill "Bojangles" Johnson, the pioneering tap dancer who made the miracle crossover into entertaining white America in the 1930s. The plot is threadbare -- Johnson engages in a tempestuous romance with singer Lena Horne -- but gloriously taking up the bulk of the screen time are fourteen classic song-and-dance routines, including Fats Waller presenting "Ain't Misbehavin'," an on-fire Cab Calloway doing "The Jumpin' Jive," Lena Horne deftly crooning the title song, and the Nicholas Brothers tearing up the dance floor with an aerobatic routine guaranteed to leave you reeling. Dir: Andrew L. Stone, 1943, 35mm, 78 min. Tickets - $10 1/24 @ 8pm / SERIES: Jazz on film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser Hitting the “wrong” notes never felt more right than when Thelonious Monk hit them at his piano. This documentary, made over a twenty-year period, unearths reels of previously lost Monk footage that co-producer Bruce Ricker has called “the Dead Sea Scrolls of Jazz.” Off-the-cuff interviews with Monk’s inner circle give insight into the pianist’s closeted struggle with mental illness in the 1960s, but the film, under the directorial guidance of seasoned documentarian Charlotte Zwerin (Gimme Shelter), is careful to distinguish the “man who suffers from the mind which creates.” Straight, No Chaser gets at the heart of Monk’s distinctive style -- the "dissonant harmonies and angular twists" set against the backdrop of bebop -- and gives us Monk both in the studio and on tour, stabbing out the beautiful skewed melodies and sparse solos which made him the one of the celebrated founders of modern jazz. Dir: Charlotte Zwerin, 1988, 35mm, 90 min. Tickets - $10 1/31 @ 8pm / SERIES: Jazz on film Mingus In 1968, documentarian Thomas Reichman found legendary bass player Charlie Mingus at a key moment in the unraveling of his pride: his unfair eviction by the city of New York from the rat-hole studio where he planned to build a jazz school. What does this great musician do in his time of crisis? As if in the heat of the moment of a raging bass solo, he lays down the groove and riffs on it: he smokes his briar, says some pretty smart and original things to the camera about jazz, women, parenthood, politics, race, family and friendship. He shows us an example of the same cheap rifle that assassinated President Kennedy, and, with a smile, uses the gun to blow a hole in the wall of his now-ex-studio, an act motivated by a short temper almost as legendary as his bass playing. Reichman interweaves stunning live performances of "All The Things You Are" and "Take The 'A' Train" to give us a searing portrait of a turbulent artist in even more turbulent times. Dir: Thomas Reichman, 1968, 35mm, 58 min. shown with... The Universal Mind of Bill Evans In a 1966 television interview with the erudite Steve Allen, the normally shy and soft-spoken influential pianst Bill Evans sits at his instrument and, over the course of a candid conversation, unleashes a torrent of sharp and informative thoughts on the meaning of jazz, and the nature of music improvisation. Dir: Louis Carvell, 1966, 35mm, 45 min. Tickets - $10 In line for February: Feb. 7 - ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA by Shirley Clarke Co-presented by Los Angeles Filmforum

http://redcat.org/season/0708/mus/creative.php January 18-19, 2008 Alpert Artist CalArts Creative Music Festival Featuring the Art Ensemble of Chicago—Great Black Music— "Ancient to the Future" Revered for unbounded musical daring, radical innovation, and a sustained exploration of black music forms, the fabled Art Ensemble of Chicago makes its first Los Angeles projection since 1990 in this year's edition of the Creative Music Festival. The festival opens with performances by Alpert Award-winning violinist Mark Feldman with pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, and Dwight Trible's Sacred Urban Echoes featuring vocalist and poet Kamau Daaood. Jubilant music and poetry that spans spiritual expression, jazz and the avant-garde. Fri Jan 18 | 8:30 pm Mark Feldman and Sylvie Courvoisier Dwight Trible's Sacred Urban Echoes with T.I.M.E. "Feldman's delivery has the brio of the concert violinist, the verve of the jazz improviser and a tone to die for." Financial Times Sat Jan 19 | 8:30 pm Art Ensemble of Chicago "A band without viable competition, the AEoC can clearly go on forever." The Evening Standard (London) Curated by Wadada Leo Smith. Funded in part by generous grants from The Herb Alpert Foundation and The Phaedrus Foundation.

I think we'll be getting this sometime tonight, but still just a drizzle in LA.

So why don't all the manufacturers & producers simply stop making music and move on? If a year or two went by with no new CDs, I think consumers would start to get the idea that they need to pay something for the music. Live music clubs would still be around.

Aren't there a slew of Randy Weston titles related to Morocco?

Thank you.

LA Times obit. http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...home-obituaries This has links to a photo gallery and audio samples. Pianist dazzled jazz world with technique, creativity By Don Heckman, Special to The Times December 25, 2007 Oscar Peterson, whose technical virtuosity, imaginative improvising and ineffable sense of swing made him one of the jazz world's most influential and honored pianists, died Sunday. He was 82. In failing health in recent months, Peterson died from kidney failure at his home in Mississauga, Canada, near Toronto, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Co. From the time he came on the scene in the United States, beginning his six-decade career with a Carnegie Hall concert in 1949, Peterson was universally admired. His awards are almost countless. Among the most significant were eight Grammys, as well as a Recording Academy lifetime achievement honor in 1997. His home country -- where he continued to live for most of his life -- made him a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honor, and he was the first living Canadian to be depicted on a postage stamp. "I consider him to be the dominant piano player that established my foundation," pianist Herbie Hancock said Monday. "I had started off as a classical pianist, and I was dazzled by the precision of his playing. But it was primarily the groove that moved me about Oscar. The groove and the blues, but with the sophistication that I was used to from classical music." Singer and pianist Diana Krall, like Peterson a Canadian, was similarly affected, generations later, by Peterson. "He was the reason I became a jazz pianist," she told The Times. "In my high school yearbook it says that my goal is to become a jazz pianist like Oscar Peterson. I didn't know then we'd become such close friends over the years. We were together at his house in October, playing and singing songs together. Now it's almost impossible for me to think of him in the past tense." At a time when the piano players of the fertile post-World War II jazz era were establishing their own beachheads on the scene -- Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, George Shearing, Dave Brubeck, Erroll Garner, among many others -- Peterson's command of the instrument gave him a unique status, one that hadn't been seen since the prewar virtuosity of the legendary Art Tatum. Exhibiting a technique that dazzled even the classical pianists who heard him play, Tatum created hard-swinging, instantaneous compositions with content and structure that rivaled the complexities of a Chopin etude. Peterson performed with some of jazz's most iconic figures, from Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong to Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald -- revealing the capacity to adjust to a diverse array of styles without losing contact with his own essential musical qualities. "We came up about the same time," Brubeck told The Times some years ago. "And Oscar had everything going for him when he was still very young, maybe before he was 20. He had already encompassed what a jazz pianist should be." That, in Peterson's case, meant a mastery reaching from stride piano through the swing era and into bebop. At several points in his career, he added singing to his arsenal of skills, producing a few recordings in which both his piano and his voice are remarkably reminiscent of Nat "King" Cole. "Oscar's playing was magnificent and always wonderfully swinging," said Marian McPartland after hearing of Peterson's death. "He was the finest technician that I have seen." Both his versatility and his fast-fingered brilliance provoked criticism from some observers who found it difficult to look past Peterson's technical prowess into the heart of his improvisational inventiveness. But Peterson always shrugged off the comments. Bassist Ray Brown, one of the key members of Peterson's classic 1950s trio that also included guitarist Herb Ellis, felt the criticism missed what he believed was the real significance of Peterson's playing. "I don't think very many people actually contribute to the music itself," Brown once told The Times. "That's left to a very few, like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. When they came up with that stuff they did, they brought a change in music. More often, I think that contributions are made to the instrument. Take Lester Young, for example. He brought something new to the saxophone, something different from Coleman Hawkins. The music was there; he just did it a different way. What I would say is that Oscar has made an enormous contribution to the piano. It hasn't been the same since he came on the scene." Brubeck, agreeing, put it all in context. "You do what you have to do with whatever means you have at hand," he said, adding, more pointedly, "But if you've got all that technique, it would be terrible not to use it." Peterson was quick, however, to acknowledge that he stood on the shoulders of giants. Hancock recalled a dinner at Quincy Jones' home a few years ago, at which he gathered the courage to ask a question of Peterson that had long troubled him. "I'd always been afraid to ask," said Hancock. "But, knowing my own feelings about Art Tatum, I was curious about how Oscar felt about him. So I asked, and he said, 'Lemme tell you, sir. . . .' "And he went on to tell me how, when he was a kid, he was a pretty good piano player, and he'd always hold his own in the cutting contests that young players had. And he said he got really cocky about it. "So one day his father, who would take him to places to hear other piano players, said there was a guy coming in town that he might want to listen to. And Oscar said he thought, 'Well, who could this be? I can beat the best of them.' "It was Art Tatum, of course. And he said that after he heard Tatum play, he went home, went up to the second floor of his house and immediately tried to push his piano out the window. He said he was never cocky again. And I said, 'You too, Oscar?' And he said, 'Me too. Tatum scared me to death.' " Along the way, Peterson scared plenty of other players "to death." And despite his justified reverence for Tatum, he fashioned a career that easily stood on its own, in weight of accomplishment as well as creative longevity. That longevity seemed to hit a roadblock in 1993 when the 68-year-old Peterson suffered a stroke, first experiencing its impact while he was performing at New York's Blue Note club. "It was strange," he later told The Times. "I don't remember any pain or any particular discomfort other than the way the fingers on my left hand reacted." Afterward, he was told that the stroke had been caused by high blood pressure rather than arterial blockage. Depressed, Peterson returned to his home but didn't stay inactive for long. He underwent hours of therapy in an effort to regain control and flexibility as well as work through the psychological trauma of having to deal with his instrument in a completely new fashion. But complete facility never returned to his left hand. "I still can't do some of the things I used to be able to do," he said before a Hollywood Bowl appearance in 2001. "But I've learned to do more things with my right hand. And I've also moved in a direction that has always been important to me, toward concentrating on sound, toward making sure that each note counts." What was remarkable about the performance was the musical effectiveness of Peterson's reformulation of the way he approached the piano. Although his left hand was primarily used for accents and single notes, his right hand, sometimes playing simultaneous melodies and counterlines, more then filled the gap. As pianist and Peterson acolyte Benny Green once noted, "Oscar can do more with one hand than many pianists can do with two." Born Aug. 15, 1925, in Montreal, Peterson began to study piano at the age of 5, first with his father, Daniel, a West Indian immigrant, then with his older sister, Daisy. Despite being hospitalized with lung-damaging tuberculosis at the age of 6, he continued to study both piano and trumpet, urged on by his father, who insisted that all his five children have musical educations. "Daisy was a real taskmaster when I was a kid," Peterson recalled. "I used to call her 'Attila.' Sometimes my father, who was a train conductor and an avid music fan, used to be away for two weeks at a time, and he always insisted that we practice while he was gone, and gave us the same exercises to do." But Peterson, who had perfect pitch and the ability to quickly grasp and reproduce music as he heard it, spent most of the time playing on the street instead of practicing at the piano. "Daisy always used to practice the lesson hard the day before my father returned," he said. "So I would sit on the stoop and hear what she played, and get it down that way, by listening without practicing. That worked fine until Dad found out what I was up to and began giving different lessons to each of us." At 14, Peterson was studying with Paul de Marky, a Hungarian pianist who loved the classics and jazz and introduced him to Tatum. "I was already drawn to improvisation," Peterson said. "I studied classical music, of course, but I liked the idea of creating something new each time I sat down at the keyboard. I still do." In 1940, he won an amateur music competition and debuted on the "Fifteen Minutes of Piano Rambling" radio program in Montreal. With his father's permission, he dropped out of high school to focus on his music and was soon working with the Johnny Holmes big band. By the mid-1940s, he had formed his own trio and was being scouted by concert impresario Norman Granz for his "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concerts. Quincy Jones, recalling his long friendship with Peterson on Monday, remembered the first time he heard him. "Back in the day," he said, "those 'Jazz at the Philharmonic' shows were like the big stadium shows we have today. In fact, that's what got them started. And one year we heard a rumor that Norman Granz had a piano player that he was getting ready to expose . . . to the audience. Well, the joke from people who had heard him was that Oscar used to drink jet fuel and eat gunpowder every morning, because when he came up, he had everybody listening. He was a genius." Peterson's first performance in a "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concert at Carnegie Hall underscored that fact. On stage with Parker, Young and Hawkins, he held his own, jet-starting a career that would remain in high gear into the next century. "I came up in a great era," Peterson recalled of his early days with "Jazz at the Philharmonic." "The spirit we had! I remember one night the saxophonist Sonny Stitt locked horns with someone and played unbelievably well," he told The Times in 1986. "That night we were all sitting in the band bus waiting to leave; Stitt was the last to get on, and as he walked down the aisle of the bus to a man, everybody stood up and applauded. That's how it was when you threw the giants in with the other giants." The connection with Granz continued for more than 30 years, resulting in countless performances around the world and dozens of albums. Many featured his classic partnership with Ellis and Brown, a group in which each of the players' strengths -- Peterson's virtuosity, Ellis' blues-drenched phrasing and Brown's rock-steady rhythms -- came together so perfectly that the trio was as influential with other musicians as it was popular with the jazz-listening audience. Granz also teamed Peterson with other artists in the '70s -- Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Joe Pass among them. Recordings continued to be released at a prolific pace into the '80s, sometimes as many as six in a single year for the Verve and Pablo labels. Peterson's recordings of the music of George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen and Cole Porter set a standard for jazz interpretations of the Great American Songbook. Although he was troubled for years by arthritic knees, Peterson continued to supplement his performances and recordings with other activities. His compositions include the atmospheric "Canadian Suite," the musical portrait "Trail of Dreams" and the "Music Box Suite" (also known as "Daisy's Dream," for his sister). Peterson was articulate and informative on a variety of subjects including astronomy, photography, painting and politics. As communicative in his observations about jazz as he was in his musical performances, he may have provided the most insightful view of the forces that drove his lifetime pursuit of improvisational expressiveness. The " 'will to perfection,' as I have termed it," he wrote in his autobiography, "A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson," "seems especially prevalent in jazz musicians. Creating an uninhibited, off-the-cuff musical composition in front of a large audience is a daredevil enterprise. . . . It requires you to collect all your sense, emotions, physical strength and mental power, and focus them totally onto the performance -- utter dedication, every time you play. And if that is scary, it is also uniquely exciting: Once it's bitten you, you never get rid of it." Peterson was married four times, divorced three. He is survived by his fourth wife, Kelly, and their daughter, Celine. His survivors also include six children from his previous marriages and several grandchildren. Services are pending.

Here's the full NY Times obituary. Could someone add an obit from a Canadian paper? It would be interesting. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/arts/25p...;pagewanted=all Oscar Peterson, Virtuoso of Jazz, Dies at 82 By RICHARD SEVERO Published: December 24, 2007 Oscar Peterson, whose dazzling piano playing made him one of the most popular jazz artists in history, died Sunday night at his home in Mississauga, Ontario, outside Toronto. He was 82. The cause was kidney failure, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Mr. Peterson had performed publicly for a time even after a stroke he suffered in 1993 had compromised movement in his left hand. Mr. Peterson was one of the greatest virtuosos in jazz, with a technique that was always meticulous and ornate and sometimes overwhelming. But rather than expand the boundaries of jazz, he used his gifts in the service of moderation and reliability and in gratifying his devoted audiences, whether playing in a trio or solo. His technical accomplishments were always evident, almost transparently so. Even at his peak, there was very little tension in his playing. One of the most prolific major stars in jazz history, he amassed an enormous discography. From the 1950s until his death, he released sometimes four or five albums a year, toured Europe and Japan frequently, and became a big draw at jazz festivals. Norman Granz, his influential manager and producer, helped Mr. Peterson realize that success, setting loose a flow of records on his own Verve and Pablo labels and establishing him as a favorite in the touring “Jazz at the Philharmonic” concerts in the 1940s and ’50s. Mr. Peterson won eight Grammy awards, as well as almost every possible honor in the jazz world. He played alongside giants of jazz like Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge, Nat King Cole, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. Ellington referred to him as “Maharajah of the keyboard.” Count Basie said, “Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I’ve ever heard." The pianist and conductor Andre Previn called Mr. Peterson “the best” there was among jazz pianists. In a review of a performance in 1987, Stephen Holden, writing in The New York Times, said, “Mr. Peterson’s rock-solid sense of swing, grounded in Count Basie, is balanced by a delicacy of tone and fleetness of touch that make his extended runs seem to almost disappear into the sky.” He added, “His amazing speed was matched by an equally amazing sense of thematic invention.” But many critics found Mr. Peterson more derivative than original, especially early in his career. Some even suggested that his fantastic technique lacked coherence and was almost too much for some listeners to comprehend. Billy Taylor, a fellow pianist and jazz historian, said he thought that while Mr. Peterson was a “remarkable musician,” his “phenomenal facility sometimes gets in the way of people’s listening.” Whitney Balliett, the jazz critic of The New Yorker, wrote in 1966 that Mr. Peterson’s playing “continues to be a pudding made of the leavings of Art Tatum, Nat Cole and Teddy Wilson.” The critical ambivalence was typified in 1973 by a review of a Peterson performance by John S. Wilson of The Times. Mr. Wilson wrote: “For the last 20 years, Oscar Peterson has been one of the most dazzling exponents of the flying fingers school of piano playing. His performances have tended to be beautifully executed displays of technique but woefully weak on emotional projection.” The complaints evoked those heard in the 1940s about the great concert violinist Jascha Heifetz, who was occasionally accused of being so technically brilliant that one could not find his or the composer’s heart and soul in the music he played. Gene Lees, Mr. Peterson’s biographer, defended Mr. Peterson as “a summational artist.” “So was Mozart. So was Bach,” Mr. Lees wrote in his biography, “The Will to Swing (1990). “Bach and Mozart were both dealing with known vocabularies and an accepted body of aesthetic principles.” He noted that just as Bach used material that he first heard in Vivaldi. “Oscar uses a curious spinning figure that he got from Dizzy Gillespie,” Mr. Lees wrote. Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born in the poor St. Antoine district of Montreal on Aug. 15, 1925, one of five children of Daniel Peterson, a West Indian immigrant, and the former Olivia John, whom Daniel had met in Montreal. Daniel Peterson worked as a sleeping car porter on the Canadian Pacific Railway and had taught himself how to play the organ before he landed in Halifax in 1917. Mr. Peterson’s mother, who also had roots in the Caribbean, encouraged Oscar to study music. As a boy, Oscar began to learn the trumpet as well as the piano. At age 7, he contracted tuberculosis and was hospitalized for 13 months. Fearing the strain the trumpet might have on his son’s lungs, Daniel Peterson persuaded Oscar to concentrate on piano. He studied first with Lou Hopper, then with Paul Alexander de Marsky, a Hungarian who had also given lessons to Oscar’s older sister, Daisy. By his own account, Oscar believed he had become quite accomplished by age 14. Then heard a recording by Art Tatum. “I gave up the piano for two solid months,” Mr. Peterson later recalled, and had “crying fits at night” because, he thought, that nobody else could ever be as good as Tatum. The same year, however, he won an amateur competition sponsored by the CBC, prompting him to drop out of Montreal High School so that he could spend all his time playing the piano. By 1942, Oscar Peterson was known in Canada as the “Brown Bomber of Boogie-Woogie,” an allusion to the nickname of the boxer Joe Louis and also to Mr. Peterson’s physical stature — 6 foot 3 and 25o pounds. Mr. Peterson became the only black member of the Johnny Holmes Orchestra, which toured both Canada and the United States. In parts of the United States, he discovered that he, like other blacks, would not be served in the same hotels and restaurants as the white musicians. Many times they would bring food out to him as he sat in the band’s bus, he recalled. For a time, Mr. Peterson was so identified with boogie-woogie, a popular dance music, that he was denied wider recognition as a serious jazz musician. In 1947, the jazz impresario Norman Granz was on his way to Montreal’s airport in a taxi when he heard a live broadcast of Peterson playing at a Montreal lounge. He ordered the driver to turn the taxi around and take him to the lounge. There he persuaded Mr. Peterson to move away from boogie-woogie. Mr. Peterson eventually became a mainstay of the “Jazz at the Philharmonic” series, which Mr. Granz created in the 1940s. In 1949, Mr. Peterson made his debut at Carnegie Hall and became a sensation. And a year later, he won Down Beat magazine’s reader’s poll for the first time; he would go on to win it 13 more times, the last time in 1972. Over the years, his albums sold well, and he sometimes sang, recording numbers with Billy Holiday, Fred Astaire, Benny Carter, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Roy Eldridge, Lester Young, Stan Getz, Buddy DeFranco and many others. Among his more notable long-playing recordings were the Song Books of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Harry Warren, Harold Arlen and Jimmy McHugh. Perhaps his most famous threesome — from 1953 to 1958 — was with the guitarist Herb Ellis and the bassist Ray Brown. In 1964, he recorded “The Canadiana Suite,” an extended work written for his home country; later, he wrote “African Suite” and then “A Royal Wedding Suite,” for the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer. Verve and Pablo released most of Mr. Peterson’s work, but he also recorded for the MPS and Telarc labels, among others. Mr. Peterson was frequently invited to perform for heads of state, including Queen Elizabeth II and President Richard M. Nixon. In 2005 he became the first living person other than a reigning monarch to obtain a commemorative stamp in Canada, where streets, squares, concert halls and schools are named after him. According to the CBC, Mr. Peterson was married four times and had six children from his first and third marriages: Lyn, Sharon, Gay, Oscar Jr., Norman and Joel. He also had a daughter, Celine, with his fourth wife, Kelly. Mr. Peterson continued playing after his stroke in 1993 because, as he told The Chicago Tribune, “I think I have a closeness with the instrument that I’ve treasured over the years.” Before long he was back on tour and recording “Side By Side” with Itzhak Perlman, having learned to do more playing with his right hand. As he told Down Beat in 1997: “When I sit down to the piano, I don’t want any scuffling. I want it to be a love affair.” Ben Ratliff contributed reporting.

R.I.P My mom will be upset - she really loved his playing. The short AP announcement, via the NY Times site http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Ob...amp;oref=slogin Oscar Peterson, Jazz Pianist, Is Dead at 82 Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times TORONTO (AP) -- Oscar Peterson, whose early talent and speedy fingers made him one of the world's best known jazz pianists, died at age 82. His death was confirmed by Hazel McCallion, mayor of Mississauga, Ontario, the Toronto suburb where Peterson lived. McCallion told The Associated Press that he died of kidney failure. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said he died Sunday. "He's been going downhill in the last few months, slowing up," McCallion said, calling Peterson a "very close friend." During an illustrious career spanning seven decades, Peterson played with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. He is also remembered for touring in a trio with Ray Brown on bass and Herb Ellis on guitar in the 1950s. Peterson's impressive collection of awards include all of Canada's highest honors, such as the Order of Canada, as well as a Lifetime Grammy (1997) and a spot in the International Jazz Hall of Fame. His growing stature was reflected in the admiration of his peers. Duke Ellington referred to him as "Maharajah of the keyboard," while Count Basie once said "Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I've ever heard." "The world has lost an important jazz player," said McCallion. "It isn't just a loss for Canada, he was world famous."

LA Times story on the funeral service, with an edited version of Spector's comments. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/...1,1029323.story Ike Turner remembered with music, a little controversy His legacy and musicianship are extolled. Spector decries the performer's public persona as an abuser. By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer December 22, 2007 The memorial service Friday for R&B stalwart and rock 'n' roll pioneer Ike Turner was much like the life of the troubled star himself -- rich in music and applause, reflexively defensive about the nature of his legacy and, for good or bad, most memorable for its moments of controversy. Phil Spector, the fabled record producer and recent celebrity defendant, for instance, gave a long speech decrying Turner's defining public persona as the abusive former husband of Tina Turner, a reputation largely shaped by the 1993 film "What's Love Got to Do With It," which Spector called "that piece-of-trash movie that made up things about him." Spector also singled out Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Tina Turner, all of whom he said contributed to demonizing Turner, who died Dec. 12 at his home in San Diego County at 76 after a long battle with emphysema. Other speakers at the service included Little Richard, soul singer Solomon Burke and members of the Turner family. Ike Turner Jr., fighting back tears, carried to the dais with him the two Grammy trophies that his father won late in life. The awards were an honor that gave the elder Turner a sense of redemption after his 1980s and '90s slide into a drug haze and obscurity. "My father was happy. I could see it," said his son. Many speakers pointed out that the calculation of Turner's legacy is a tricky matter. He was the key person behind "Rocket 88," the rollicking 1951 hit that many music historians cite as the first rock 'n' roll record. But that single was credited to Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, a group that didn't exist (Brenston was a horn player for Turner and did the vocals on the song). The opportunity missed could have made Turner as famous as Ray Charles, said Jerry Wexler, the former Atlantic Records producer, who sent a letter that was read to the crowd at the cavernous City of Refuge and Greater Bethany Memorial Church in Gardena. "A terrible wrong . . . disastrous," Wexler said of the misplaced credit for the landmark recording. Perhaps, but Turner went on to fame anyway after he spotted a talented, leggy teenager named Anna Mae Bullock, whom he gave the stage name Tina Turner. The pair became a scintillating sensation with a string of hits starting in 1960 and a stage revue that many observers say set a new standard for R&B and pop music as a whole. Little Richard brought laughter to the service by playfully pointing out that he shamelessly cribbed part of "Rocket 88" and "turned it into 'Good Golly Miss Molly,' a big hit song." He described the epiphany of hearing Ike Turner for the first time in Georgia and marveling at his band, the Kings of Rhythm. "I felt it all over; it touched me down in my soul," the 75-year-old rock icon said. "I had never heard a band like this band. And I will tell you I have never heard one like this band to this day." Spector added that Turner had been one of the best guitar players alive -- "Ike Turner could play circles around Eric Clapton, and Eric knows that" -- and that B.B. King once confided that Ike Turner was the only person he would not play guitar in front of. Spector tried to take Ike and Tina into a wider pop field with the ambitious 1966 "River Deep-Mountain High," which the producer has in the past cited as his best personal work. That song was a commercial disappointment, and Spector said Friday that he believed Ike and Tina Turner should have been "the biggest thing in America," but that race issues tamped down their opportunities beyond R&B. He added that their great potential was "because of Ike Turner, not Tina Turner." That statement drew applause in the room, but it doesn't match the general public impression of Ike and Tina, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. Tina's autobiography, "I, Tina," and the subsequent film "What's Love Got to Do With It" portrayed her as an exploited captive of her domineering husband. Ike Turner's name became shorthand for abusive backstage husbands. Tina Turner has not commented publicly on Ike's death, and her publicist issued a terse statement that she had no plans to talk about someone she had not seen in 35 years. On Friday, her name was read off in a list of notable people who were unable to attend the memorial but had sent their condolences. The couple split up in the late 1970s, and their life trajectories were markedly different in the '80s. Tina became a solo star of the first order; Ike submerged his career regrets with drugs and had several run-ins with the law. Exaggerated or fair, his public persona was impossible to ignore. Many of his old friends pointed out how different it was from the man they knew, one who once insisted on paying the rent for Little Richard's mother during lean times and who always opened his studios to young unknown musicians for the simple reason that he loved to work with talented newcomers. Burke praised Turner as "a teacher who taught everyone something different" and said the man who first put rock 'n' roll on vinyl was no longer worried about his reputation in the world of men. "Ike's got a better gig, and he took it," Burke bellowed in his smooth baritone. With a bit of wink, he nodded toward the musicians still playing: "And he didn't take his band. Say, 'Thank God.' "

Just received this; From: Werner X. Uehlinger [mailto:wxu.hathut.com@bluewin.ch] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 12:53 AM Subject: Available now hatOLOGY 641 & 646 Dear Friend, The following two CDs are available: Steve Lantner Trio What You Can Throw Performed by Steve Lantner –piano; Joe Morris –double bass; Luther Gray –drums. hatOLOGY 641 Total Time DDD 55:18 Barcode 752156064121 More informations on Steve Lantner: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/review_print.php?id=27334 I’m still surprised when I hear new jazz, and Steve Lantner plays it, reconstituting and reinventing the tradition. First hearing this trio, you’ll be struck by its sheer kinetic joy, its ability to swing and to drive in ways that are central to jazz, without simply repeating some specific events in that tradition. The opening of Joe Morris’s “Routine Three” has a collective lope rarely achieved, an off-hand and off-kilter movement that is immediate and reaches across time. –Stuart Broomer Je suis toujours étonné lorsque j’écoute du nouveau jazz, et Steve Lantner en joue, reconstituant et réinventant la tradition. En entendant ce trio pour la première fois, vous serez surpris par sa joie cinétique, sa capacité à jouer en rythme et à entraîner sur des voies qui sont essentielles au jazz, sans simplement répéter certaines spécificités propres à cette tradition. L'introduction du « Routine Three » de Joe Morris propose un rythme collectif rarement atteint, un mouvement brusque et décalé qui est immédiat et se diffuse dans le temps. – Stuart Broomer Es versetzt mich nach wie vor in Erstaunen, wenn ich neuen Jazz höre, Jazz in der Form, wie ihn auch Steve Lantner spielt, der die Tradition ins Heute überträgt und neu definiert. Hört man dieses Trio zum ersten Mal, wird man von der schieren Freude an der Bewegung, von seinem Drive und seiner Art zu swingen, kurz: von dem, was Jazz im Grunde ausmacht, beeindruckt sein, da sich die Spielweise der drei Musiker nicht darin erschöpft, bestimmte Phänomene lediglich einer Tradition entsprechend zu reproduzieren. Bei „New Routine“ von Joe Morris verfällt das Ensemble gleich in eine schnelle musikalische Gangart, der man so nicht oft begegnet: eine lockere und freie Rhythmik, die unmittelbar und intuitiv ist und dabei die Zeit transzendiert. – Stuart Broomer Theo Jorgensmann & Oles Brothers Alchemia hatOLOGY 646 Total Time DDD 57:58 Barcode 752156064626 Perhaps surprisingly for a conceptualist like Jorgensmann, “straightahead” jazzers Tony Scott and Buddy De Franco now seem even more relevant to our updated perception of Alchemia. Both were powerful clarinetists who brought idiosyncratic phrasing and a harmonic bite to solos that balanced on the cusp of freedom. The most impressive aspect of Alchemia, to my ears, is the trio’s ecstatic, elastic freedom of line and design. Fluid internal tempo changes create spontaneous shapes and intensify momentum, as the three push up against and out of alignment with each other. In moments of nearly transparent texture, their lines hover and revolve like figures in a Calder mobile, but as energy levels rise they thicken and tumble in responsive friction. In the manner of Scott and De Franco, Jorgensmann employs remarkable speed, facility, and inventiveness to escape the suggestion of bar lines as indications of time, while avoiding bop clichés attached to the implied harmonies. Alchemia is aptly titled—the process of transforming something common into something precious is audible in every choice, every gesture, every move the trio makes. –Art Lange Peut-être surprenant pour un conceptualiste comme Jörgensmann, mais Tony Scott et Buddy De Franco, jazzmen « purs et durs », paraissent aujourd’hui plus significatifs encore en regard de notre perception actualisée d’Alchemia. Tous deux ont été des clarinettistes marquants qui ont apporté aux solos un phrasé idiosyncrasique et un mordant harmonique s’approchant très près de la liberté. L’aspect le plus impressionnant d’Alchemia, à mon sens, est la liberté extatique, élastique de la ligne et de la composition du trio. Les fluides changements internes de tempo créent des formes spontanées et intensifient l'élan lorsque chacun des trois pousse contre et hors de son alignement avec les autres. Dans des moments de texture presque transparente, leurs lignes oscillent et tournent comme les éléments d’un mobile de Calder, mais lorsque les niveaux d’énergie augmentent, elles s’épaississent et tombent en une friction réactive. A la manière de Scott et De Franco, Jörgensmann utilise vitesse, aisance et inventivité afin d’échapper aux indications de temps suggérées par les barres de mesure, ce, en évitant les clichés bop liés aux harmonies tacites. Alchemia porte bien son titre : Le processus de transformation de quelque chose de commun en quelque chose de précieux est audible dans chaque choix, chaque geste, chaque mouvement du trio. – Art Lange Bei einem Konzeptualisten wie Jörgensmann mag es überraschen, dass im Zusammenhang mit unserer Rezeption von Musik, wie sie auf Alchemia zu hören ist, den „straight ahead“ Jazzern Tony Scott und Buddy De Franco nunmehr besondere Bedeutung zuzukommen scheint. Beide waren kraftvolle Klarinettisten, die mit ihrer individuellen Phrasierung und ihren harmonischen Finessen neue Akzente in Solos einbrachten, die an der Schwelle zur Freiheit balancierten. Alchemia besticht meiner Meinung nach vor allem dadurch, dass das Trio die Freiheiten der melodischen Kontur und musikalischen Struktur so ekstatisch und elastisch handhabt. Einem fließenden Tempowechsel entspringen jedesmal spontan Figuren, wie sich auch die Intensität steigert, wenn sich das Spiel der drei Musiker rhythmisch und melodisch aneinander reibt und gegeneinander verschiebt. In Momenten, in denen das musikalische Geflecht fast transparent erscheint, schweben und winden sich die einzelnen Linien wie Elemente in einem Mobile von Calder, sobald jedoch Glut und Energie entfesselt werden, verdichten sie sich, bis sie sich in der Reibung entladen und überschlagen. Wie Scott und De Franco verbindet auch Jörgensmann enorme Rasanz mit größter Leichtigkeit und schöpferischer Phantasie, um aus dem Ordnungssystem der Taktstriche als Maßeinheit für die Strukturierung in der Zeit auszubrechen, während seine Harmoniefolgen die üblichen Bop-Klischees vermeiden. Der Titel Alchemia ist gewählt – der Prozess, etwas Gewöhnliches in etwas Kostbares umzuwandeln, wird in jeder Wahl, in jeder Geste, in jeder Bewegung dieses Trios hörbar. – Art Lange Best regards, Werner X. Uehlinger Hat Hut Records LTD. Box 521, 4020 Basel, Switzerland wxu.hathut.com@bluewin.ch Phone +41.61.373.0773 http://www.hathut.com The Journey Continues the 33rd Year too! Hat Hut Records Ltd. benefits from its partnership with the Fondation Nestlé pour l'Art, Lausanne.

I don't know, but I worked with them in putting out The Harry Smith Project. I'll try to ask.

A very fun show, rather sparsely attended, alas. I liked all 3 bands actually, and Reptet did put on a great show. Good to meet you Johnnie! I look forward to listening to the CD as well. Isaak seems pretty crazy...

Looking forward to tonight at Safari Sam's!

On the first point, that is what I meant; sorry for erring on the chronology. It took the steroid era for fans to forgive the strike. In other words, the steroid era made everyone happy again - fans, owners (with more fans = more $), players (more fans = more $), press, etc. On teh second point, sure, fans can reject the accomplishments, but what does that really matter? The seasons are done, we know the stats.

What are people going to do when they decide to acknowledge that virtually every pro football player is on some sort of steroid or other drug? Oh, wait, I think people don't really care. So why do they care about baseball? I think most sports fans don't care if some athletes are using steroids. I think most fans aren't too concerned about the long-term health of athletes either. They see the trade-off as being the massive wealth and sexual access that athletes get. End of story. What baseball should do is legalize steroids but regulate. Each team is allowed 5 juiced players, for example, to even the field across teams, but still allow for big exciting superstars. What do you all think? That would make everyone happy.

Strictly speaking, if we are concerned about the future health of our athletes, we should ban football completely. It seems like all pro football players have incredible physical ailments for the rest of their lives. The simple fact is that baseball players get paid so much in order to be tools for public pleasure, the objects of our desire and disdain, not to live healthy happy lives for the rest of their days. I think professional sports are so completely bastardized now that it doesn't matter if people take steroids. People love watching pumped up players with extreme statistics. People who thrilled to the Sosa-McGwire chase, Clemens incredible later years, Gagne's great years, etc are hypocritical if they are now shocked (Shocked!) over hearing that they were using. The simple fact is, people enjoyed the sport more because the players were using drugs. Heck, they very quickly forgave the strike and attended in larger numbers than ever. Why would anyone (baseball, owners, fans, players) have had any reason to oppose steroids in the late 90s and early 00s? Guess I'm cynical today.

Is there a good compilation (I don't need completion)(and it's probably on Ace) of these British r 'n r acts before they got tamed?