Dr. Rat

I thought she's saying something. It's in morse code. --eric

Well that just crosses a line for me! I'm offended by that level of invisibility! --eric As a cat, I'm offended with your rat! Man talk about blaming the victim! I gotta live in constant fear around this place! --eric

Well that just crosses a line for me! I'm offended by that level of invisibility! --eric

Look for The Gatherers "Words of Your Mouth." Beautiful. --eric

Offensive to whom exactly? Why? How? I used to joke about the "offense industry." They seem to have made another leap forward! --eric

I was doing something else, I just left the window open (and out goes the piano), I swear to God! (or to carnality, take your pick). A bit of time on the couch with ourselves is only healthy, besides, so long as we use protection. --eric

I voted yes (and tipped the scales!--don't know if I'd have voted knowing I had that responsibility, I was just expressing my opinion) I voted yes because I'm a prude and hate to be reminded of the existence of sex. Actually, I think it's because I'm a sort of romantic. Your avatar, I think, plays on sex in a way that enhances rather than trashes its power, pleasure and mystery (Yes, I mystify sex, a man's gotta mystify something, for me it's sex). In it's way, it's subtle. The kicking gal is a travesty by comparison. It just reminds me of how cheap carnality can be made. It is to sex what pushing a piano out a window is to music. I think it tramples on something I hold in deep reverence. I don't think you ought to be made to not use kicking lady. I just wish you didn't. Gotta get right with sex! --eric

B- I'm a scholar of early print media, and a lot of the problems people identify with relatively informal internet fora like this one were also pretty prevelent in the 1600s when the periodical press got rolling. I've also checked out some of the other jazz-centric fora, and this is really the only one that attracted me--because it's lively, because people here can be funny, becasue folks seem willing to take you at face value, because someone will usually pick up a challenge and bat the ball back at you, sometimes with some pretty good English on it. The slippery slope I think we're all on is one of self-indulgence: we shouldn't overindulge in it. But it's a balance issue, and people's judgements will differ on it, that's where the lively comes from. A couple of things about the political forum: 1) It does get boring sometimes. It does involve just replaying the same arguments over and over again. And I do think some of the posters there (myself included) ought to be a little more aware of just how utterly predictable some of the posts are. I've seen folks have become more aware of this criticism since Dan laid aside politics for post-Lent, but essentially all it has meant is that articles get cut & pasted with some sort of intro like "this article [which once again rehashes the same old shit] is interesting because [insert utterly transparent fallacious reasoning here]." I think turning the self-criticism dial up a little bit and turning down the self-indulgence dial will result in a far less noisy but just as active line stage. 2) Some people are going to be turned off by political discussion no matter what, because they don't beleive in it (they know what's right, and the thought of people arguing over it is an absurdity) or they figure music is an escape from things like poilitics. And here, I think the JSngry's comment goes right to the heart of the matter: --eric

The board absolutely welcomes female participation. Just some folks seem to prefer it in the form of bumping, grinding, and showing off hooties and extraordinarily limited wardrobes. I can only speak for myself, of course, (as a 30-something, workin-class-rooted, urban, overeducated, underpaid, mongrel American usually identified as white (though I'm Native American enough for some scholarships, I hear) and self-identified as essentially Irish-American, though I don't look it) anyhow, speaking from that very complicated position, I really do lament the cavemanesque unsubtlety of some of the sexual stuff here. But I don't think it should be interpreted as hostility to women so much as lack of taste and discernment, and, let me assure you, it's not just women who cringe sometimes. --eric

I always bring along a cd with lots of bass content, just to see how the speakers I am buying mishandle it (I am not rich enough to buy speakers that can actually reproduce loude deep bass accurately). Salesmen get kind of pissed off when I launch a serious Bach organ record on their system "Of course these $500 speakers can't handle this!" But that's the point, I want to know how they don't handle it. Do they just pass over in silence? Do they overempahsive the mid-bass? Do they go blaaaat? A Monty Alexander or Earnest Ranglin cd might give you the needed challenging bass, but I prefer the Bach. --eric

I'd second the rec on MZ-R, but treat it kindly and be careful of your connections, etc (i.e. monitor prior to recording and at the start of recording). I've done some fabulous recordings with this machine and a relatively cheap stereo mic, but I've also gotten and hour of ground hum and I've been through three of them in four years (they get hard use). --eric

I'll second that. I had to check the cd at one point to make sure I hadn't actually stuck a Frisell album in there. Though, I don't think he saves it quite. --eric

1993 was the last time I really got revved up by baseball (Phillies run at the title). But what really changed things for me was the McGuire/Sosa run at 61, which I just knew, at one level or another was fake. It wasn't even good fake, it was a travesty. It was baseball by Disney. I've never been able to come back and care. I think baseball ought to put the last few years aside and just start over again with a clean slate. --eric

Yes I like Nels Cline, as well. But he isn't doing anything remotely like Frisell that I can hear. The Buck Owens I haven't really checked into (though I've got some Merle Travis!). I've also heard that if you have some Coleman Hawkins records and a few M80s, you can sell your entire collection of Coltrane with a clean conscience. There's some sort of dogshit anti-PC trend which valorizes abusive closemindedness I'm sure you've fallen victim to. It doesn't become you! --eric

I've talked to a trumpet player who solos both in classical and jazz about this, and from what I've gathered it isn't so much a ruining issue as it is a retraining issue. He talked about extensive and exclusive dedication to either way of playing prior to "big gigs." --eric

Well, it could be. I see Frissel today as having another go at the sort of "folk jazz" that Jimmy Giuffre used to talk about. It's not a direction many people have taken jazz in, so we may wonder at first whether to shut the door on it, but I think it has as much legitimacy as any other fusion (soul jazz, etc.) music we've seen ocer the last 40 years or so. --eric

It's about the dispute in evolutionary biology between Richard Dawkins and EO Wilson (and their supporters) and SJ Gould, Ricahrd Lewontin (and their supporters). It's pretty good, though she's rather slanted toward Dawkins/Wilson. --eric

What am I missing with BJM and Adaption? I wasn't really very impressed with either film. What am I supposed to be seeing? Antbody want to have a go at explpaining what's good about them? --eric

When I had to read him in college, I hated Hammet. He seemed like such a tough guy poser. Mean while, I liked Hemingway, who seemed to at least realize that his tough guy pose was a bit juvenile. Last year I read all the Hammet in the Library of America straight through and loved it. Tried to re-read In Our Time and came away feeling that I had outgrown Hemingway. Go figure. --eric

I'm very much with DrJ here as well. When Zorn's Naked City started up he struck me as the ultimate geetar god. I started buying his work when 'Look Out For Hope' came about... a fine album there. Then all the fx and tronix started with Horvitz and wound it's way into this Americana thing that everyone was all over. Just don't see that Ive's and Sousa march music doing anything for me especially with Don Byron holding his highest of all intellect and rights to swing (?) over it all. (Thank goodness for Joey Baron keeping all this stuff remotely interesting.) Frisell now leaves me very cold despite the utter beauty in most of his playing. I culled through much of his musics a ways back and took the lot to the second hand store leaving me with one hellova cdr of this guys works. (I'll now put Ribot up 'gainst him any day and even handicap Bill by adding Cooder to the bill. More "rhump" shaking in the Cubanos Postisos than the singular Buena Vista Club.) The clincher for me was hearing the out and out chop job they did to Patton's "The Way I Feel" on the recently released Naked City 'Live at the Knit '89'. Frisell's headlong solo might best be used in an endless loop to drive extremist clerics out from under their mosques. Having said that I will say the best and most interesting work of his must be found by all on the "News For LuLu" sets. Crown worthy stuff that transcends all he's ever done IMO. Funny how people can disagree about a thing like music! I doubt Frissell is following a trend with his Americana kick, he's been on it in one form or another for a while: it's one of his touchstones, I figure. And I think his last couple have been quite interesting: he's actually adopting more of an acoustic texture and some groove into his "large lanscape paintings." I love most of Ribot's stuff, too, but he does seem to have a tendency toward being a little precious, as if he thinks he's slumming by playing material with rhythm and melody. (Which accounts for why it's been pretty unhesitatingly embraced by downtown fans: he does seem to be winking. I remember the scandalized reactions some people gave to Byron's Mickey Katz project! A leer is not as good as a wink to a self-consciously hip downtown fan.) --eric

Don't mind the rats! --eric

That's a legitimate approach to the classical repertoire, though. The idea that one ought to be "historically oriented" in presentation is relatively recent (as it is in jazz!) --eric

Here's Mark Stryker's take. I haven't had it for long, but i'm largely in agreement, though I am not as enthused with Carter's soprano work on Tricotism which just seems empty self-indulgence to me. The Byas piece is quite nice Live from Detroit: Long-awaited recording from sax man James Carter is solid but not all it could have been BY MARK STRYKER FREE PRESS MUSIC CRITIC April 4, 2004 Well, it's not what it was supposed to be -- it's one CD rather than two and there's no Queen of Soul. But 2 1/2 years after James Carter's "Live at Baker's Keyboard Lounge" was scheduled to arrive in stores, the document to be released Tuesday will have to do. The good news is that it's still a swinging party. Here's the back story: Carter, the Detroit-born saxophone virtuoso, returned home in June 2001 with a crew from Atlantic Records and legendary producer Ahmet Ertegun to tape three nights at the city's historic jazz club at Livernois and 8 Mile. Carter was united with a gaggle of top hometown players and a slew of guests, including fellow tenor saxophonists David Murray, Johnny Griffin and Franz Jackson. Also in the house was Aretha Franklin, who showed off her affinity for jazz and Dinah Washington roots. A two-CD set was planned for fall release until fate turned against the project. WEA Records killed the jazz division of Atlantic Records, Carter's longtime company, and he was shuffled to Warner Bros., another WEA-owned label. Carter balked, signing a new deal with Columbia, and "Live at Baker's" landed in purgatory, awaiting touch-up sessions with Franklin and other issues -- enough of which have been sorted out to make possible this release on Warner Bros. (Franklin's tracks remain unissued.) The atmosphere at Baker's was electric, but a blowing session this loose can sound like a mess when you freeze-dry it on tape. Yes, the ensembles are ragged, some solos lack focus, an edit is audible after the melody on "Soul Street," and "Foot Pattin' " ends at a much faster tempo than it began. Still, the spirit never flags, and there's some dynamite playing. Carter shines on Oscar Pettiford's "Tricotism," where his exuberant soprano sails over a second-line beat laid down by drummer Leonard King, rock-solid bassist Ralphe Armstrong and sly pianist Kenn Cox. Carter plays like a volcano erupting, but on Don Byas' bouncy "Free and Easy," he scores with a relaxing ride full of melodic grace, furry warmth and a savvy repeated riff that carries him through 40 bars in the middle of his solo. I wish he'd play this way more often. Other highlights: Detroit alto saxophonist Larry Smith's bittersweet bebop nearly runs away with the record on the slow blues "Low Flame" and Gary McFarland's ballad "Sack Full of Dreams." Organist Gerard Gibbs lays down some serious grooves. Cox's piano solos are invariably models of concentrated integrity. Carter and Murray, whose roots are in the avant-garde, do some inside-outside sparring on "Freedom Jazz Dance," and all four tenors do battle on "'Foot Pattin.' " Squeezing the extended performances into a single CD has caused a few disappointments. Most notably, Johnny Griffin's scampering bebop is heard only on the final blues, while 88-year-old Chicagoan Franz Jackson gets too much space, including an idiosyncratic vocal on "I Can't Get Started" that played better in person than it does on CD. Carter has always gone out of his way to give props to the city and jazz elders that nurtured him, and at its best, "Live at Baker's" plays as a valentine to Detroit's jazz legacy. It may not be the record Carter had in mind, but it's good for him, good for jazz and good for Detroit. Copyright © 2004 Detroit Free Press Inc. http://www.freep.com

It's out as a single CD, 8 tunes on WB, no Arethas. --eric

I think there's a legality problem because some web material (NYT articles, for instance) have a limited lifespan on the web before they go into a pay web archive. The danger is that people might find these articles here via google when it is otherwise unavailabe for free. Right now, reposting by cutting & pasting is a common practice online, but eventually copyright holders might get a bit more serious about protecting their assets in this regard. There probably would be ample warning. --eric