Hardbopjazz

I am looking forward to seeing Lou Donaldson again at the Village Vanugard at the end of November. This will be the eighth time I will have seen him live. Every time I've seen him, he varies very little from prior shows. It must get a bit tiresome for the musicians to play the same tunes day in and day out. I wonder if he thinks this is the first time the audience has seen him live. But still he plays at 100%. Anyone else planning to see him?

This has been discussed before here, but I want to bring it up again. For the past month or so I find I'm not able to listen to any jazz recordings and get myself inspired. In fact, I started to listen to other styles of music, hoping it will lead me back to my first love of music, jazz. But I still can find any inspiration to listen again. How do you kick start yourself to find the groove and start enjoying again?

It's a great clip. I have a copy of this film and I am amazed at his technique. Here’s a guy playing real clean and fast, and he only had 2 fingers and his thumb working on his right hand. He makes it look so easy.

You're kidding, right? I'm 100% serious. Her cousin who is 10 plays and she watched him, and picked up on how each piece moves. She asks me every night when I come from work to play chess.

My daughter just turned 5. She has started to learn the game of chess. Any chess players on this board? I am wondering if starting her at 5 is too early. She knows how each piece moves and that the king is key to the game. I've been playing with her every day for anout 8 days. I don't let her win. When she makes poor moves I try to explain to her why that wasn't a good move. I don't recall how old I was when I started playing.

Thanks

They played together in 1964. Did this ever get released on record?

This person with this session replied back to me stating he isn’t trading it. In fact he didn’t know he had it in his list. So it will remain a mystery to me. I had asked him how good were the musicians’ playing. His reply was the old weatherman’s answer, (50% chance of rain), “not the best or the worst he’s heard.

His list he sent shows 21 tracks. So it could be the whole session.

I haven't heard back since I emailed that I would trade a show that I have which he wanted. When I do, I'll let you know.

I received an email from someone that claims to have this session and wanted something that I have.

Does anyone here know if any of this session ever got released?

I feel online MP3 stores give access to those that may never listen to any of this music, but the history as the music as the story states may not be there. The digital threat to jazz Online songs come with no context, which is how the music grows BY WAYNE BREMSER Wayne Bremser produces www.harlem.org, a Web site on the history of jazz based on Art Kane's famous 1958 portrait of dozens of jazz musicians in Harlem. September 26, 2004 Jazz is one of the most complex forms of modern art, yet remains accessible to millions of listeners. Fans don't need university courses to dissect the magic of jazz; we've been educated by our own music collections. The older among us remember that wonderful dinosaur, the long-playing record, which came with a trove of information to help a listener better understand the music. In the days before MTV, record labels made the album an immersive experience with striking graphic design, moody photographs and informative liner notes written by prominent critics such as Stanley Crouch, Amiri Baraka, Dan Morgenstern and Ralph J. Gleason. In the age of the CD, the large graphics and photos have shrunk considerably, but we have gained better sound quality and exhaustive box sets that still include essays and detailed performance notes as well as alternative takes of favorite tracks that were cut from the original LPs. With all of this written and recorded information accessible in one package, it is easier than ever to track a jazz musician's ideas and techniques evolving day by day, session by session, which is how the art form advances. Appreciating this, our ears are not so startled when the smooth Miles Davis of "Kind of Blue" produces the menacing "Bitches Brew" of 10 years later. Understanding this progression, we can make some sense of Ornette Coleman's listener-unfriendly "Free Jazz" the first time we hear it. For the players, this same information has been the doorway to the past - the primary source for studying who played what, when and with whom. How long this tradition of jazz education will continue is in serious doubt, however, with the growing popularity of digital music online. Young people are no longer tethered to albums or discs. They are downloading a large portion of their music illegally and purchasing the rest of it from digital music stores like Apple Computer's popular iTunes Music Store, which has sold more than 100 million songs. Online music has great potential for musicians and students of jazz. Imagine typing "Night and Day" into your computer and listening to dozens of versions of the song. Or accessing Duke Ellington's entire catalog with a few mouse clicks, rather than driving around town searching record stores. That's the good news for jazz. The bad news is almost everything else. Millions of young listeners are buying music that is sold without liner notes, correct recording dates and session information. Even the musicians' names are often removed from their performances. That's the state of the art at iTunes. Search for one of my favorite albums, "Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster." You'll see that iTunes lists the release date of this 1957 session as 1997 (the date the CD was released). Curious about who plays bass? Good luck, iTunes won't tell you. (It was Ray Brown.) In the liner notes, Ben Webster is interviewed by legendary critic Nat Hentoff. Webster explains the influence of his cohort Coleman Hawkins: "I dug his big tone and that drive, to me he was saying more than anybody else on his horn . . . There are times when he'll play what's in vogue for three or four choruses and then, on top of that, he'll play something he's been doing for a long time." The CD version includes further reminiscences by Hentoff, written four decades after the original notes. You won't find any of this information on iTunes or the other online music stores. Another drawback is that the typical digital music file is but a fraction of CD sound quality. It's like comparing a jug wine that you might drink at a beach party to a glass of good merlot that you want to smell, taste and savor. If this seems like the audiophile snobbery of a jazz fan, download Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" from Walmart.com. To me, his guitar solo sounds as if it was recorded underwater in a swimming pool. Which is a reminder that thousands of songs scattered out of context with virtually no identifying information are a threat to the growth of all forms of music, from folk to rock to pop to bluegrass to classical. There's no way to find out the names of the conductor or orchestra on certain classical compilations sold online, let alone the names of the soloists. A new fan might be curious about who sings and plays guitar with Eric Clapton on his most famous album, "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs." It's impossible to learn this through iTunes. The less that contemporary players in all genres know about the past, the less likely they will be to advance the music. But jazz is perhaps at the greatest risk for two reasons: Listeners require at least a small level of explanation to approach it, and improvisation is at the core of its DNA. Composition in jazz occurs session by session, club by club, date by date, player by player. In turn, the players need an educated audience that will encourage them to keep pushing the limits. Knowledgeable fans who are enthusiastic about jazz's possibilities can support a musician's ability to innovate. Already there is a growing audience for jazz that's accessible rather than challenging. We have seen the popularity in recent years of cookie-cutter "smooth" and "quiet storm" jazz radio stations offering a soothing background tapestry to daily activities with a program of music that doesn't engage the audience in any kind of dialogue. Will a listener schooled on this music, whose source for more diverse jazz recordings is an online music store, be receptive to the intensity of a performance by Ornette Coleman or Sonny Rollins that might touch a much wider range of emotions? Or by someone new who is inspired by these players? A great work of art can be enjoyed without explanation or context, but nobody would claim to truly understand Cubism by glancing at a few paintings or try to explain Fellini by watching just one film. Appreciating jazz means listening to the work of a large network of players who developed a musical language together across decades of recording sessions. It's impossible to study the great mid-1950s recordings of Miles Davis without knowing who John Coltrane is. And it's hard to appreciate the accomplishments of Coltrane without understanding the influence of Charlie Parker, who fashioned be-bop along with Dizzy Gillespie, who was influenced by Roy Eldridge, who followed in Louis Armstrong's footsteps by playing with the Fletcher Henderson band in the mid-1930s. It's the proverbial great chain. Just as you can be a baseball fan without memorizing statistics, it's not essential that listeners or players learn every detail of jazz's great genealogy of influences and ideas. But to become a fan and certainly to pass the most basic stage as a musician, you need at least some familiarity with the lineage. The best hope for the future of jazz is that the online music stores will add features in the next generation of software. The information that has been removed from jazz albums can still be replaced. But consumers probably will have to demand it first. We live in a time when many listeners don't care who plays bass on a Jay-Z track or which 1970s funk band was sampled on a Beyoncé single. The culture of music videos leaves a large number of musicians unseen and anonymous. While the market might not demand more information about music right now, companies such as Apple Computer, Sony, Wal-Mart and Napster, which have worked closely with the music industry to build their online stores, need to remember that tastes will change, people grow up and someday listeners and musicians might want to know more about what exactly they are listening to. In the case of jazz, the future of improvisation really depends on it. Leaving this information out for a generation is the first step toward losing it forever.

I was able to catch them in August of this year. They were very tight. Worth seeing a master still in top form.

I always believe in free speech. If you don't like what is being written, don't read.

Have a great one.

Wes Montgomey's ultra rare american club performance. Anyone have any knowledge of this CD? I saw it for sale at jazzrecordmart. It doesn't list any track selection or where the club performances are from.

Well, NYC has too many to list here. You may want to go here. Hot House Every jazz club in the New York City area is listed here. These are just some of the bigger names. I would love to see you guys live in NYC. I would try Smoke and 55 Bar and the Zinc Bar. They are more Liberal and tend to try new acts. (not to say you guys are new). 55 BAR BIRDLAND THE BLUE NOTE CAJUN FAT CAT IRIDIUM THE JAZZ STANDARD JAZZ GALLERY LENOX LOUNGE JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER SHELLY'S SMOKE SUGAR BAR SUGAR HILL BISTRO SWEET RHYTHM SWING 46 THE TRIAD THE VILLAGE VANGUARD ZINC BAR

Well, the Lou Donaldson Quartet is back at the Village Vanguard November 23rd - the 28th. I will make it a point to see them.

Yes yøu did.

From the early 60's till his death, and anywhere.

Would anyone have a good idea just how many there are? I have managed to come up with 17 of them, but my list stands at about 35. I am starting from 1960 through 1989.

The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service Semen acts as an anti-depressant 19:00 26 June 02 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. Semen makes you happy. That's the remarkable conclusion of a study comparing women whose partners wear condoms with those whose partners don't. (Photo: Getty Images) The study, which is bound to provoke controversy, showed that the women who were directly exposed to semen were less depressed. The researchers think this is because mood-altering hormones in semen are absorbed through the vagina. They say they have ruled out other explanations. "I want to make it clear that we are not advocating that people abstain from using condoms," says Gordon Gallup, the psychologist at the State University of New York who led the team. "Clearly an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease would more than offset any advantageous psychological effects of semen." Suicide attempts His team divided 293 female students into groups depending on how often their partners wore condoms, and assessed their happiness using the Beck Depression Inventory, a standard questionnaire for assessing mood. People who score over 17 are considered moderately depressed. The team found that women whose partners never used condoms scored 8 on average, those who sometimes used them scored 10.5, those who usually used them scored 15 and those who always used them scored 11.3. Women who weren't having sex at all scored 13.5. What's more, the longer the interval since they last had sex, the more depressed the women who never or sometimes used condoms got. But the time since the last sexual encounter made no difference to the mood of women who usually or always used condoms. The team also found that depressive symptoms and suicide attempts were more common among women who used condoms regularly compared with those who didn't. The results will appear in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. And Gallup told New Scientist that his team already has unpublished data from a larger group of 700 women confirming these findings. In this study, the always-use-condoms group were more depressed than the usually-use-condoms group, suggesting the discrepancy in the smaller study was a sampling error, he says. Alternative explanations But is it really the semen that affects women's mood? The researchers say they looked at alternative explanations such as whether women who seldom use condoms took oral contraceptives, how often they had sex, the strength of relationships, and the possibility that having a certain type of personality influenced the decision to use condoms. But none of these factors can explain their findings, they say. Subscribe to New Scientist for more news and features Related Stories Depression genes differ in men and women 28 March 2002 Brain scans reveal placebo effect in depressed patients 2 January 2002 Brain "pacemaker" has long-term effects on depression For more related stories search the print edition Archive Weblinks Gordon Gallup, State University of New York Archives of Sexual Behavior Indiana University of Pennsylvania In fact, the results aren't a complete surprise because semen does contain several mood-altering hormones, including testosterone, oestrogen, follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinising hormone, prolactin and several different prostaglandins. Some of these have been detected in a women's blood within hours of exposure to semen. The question many people will ask is whether oral sex could have the same mood-enhancing effects. "Since the steroids in birth control pills survive the digestion process, I would assume that the same holds true for at least some of the chemicals in semen," Gallup says. "I understand that among some gay males who have anal intercourse, it is not uncommon to attempt to retain the semen for extended periods of time," he adds. "Suggesting, of course, that there may be psychological effects." But further research will be needed to confirm whether exposure to semen through oral or anal sex really does affect mood in heterosexual or homosexual partners. But why should semen have such an effect? "It makes no sense to me for this phenomenon to have evolved," says Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. But Gallup counters that men whose semen promotes long-term mood enhancement might have more chances to indulge in sexual activity. Raj Persaud

The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service Masturbating may protect against prostate cancer 19:00 16 July 03 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. It will make you go blind. It will make your palms grow hairy. Such myths about masturbation are largely a thing of the past. But the latest research has even better news for young men: frequent self-pleasuring could protect against the most common kind of cancer. A team in Australia led by Graham Giles of The Cancer Council Victoria in Melbourne asked 1079 men with prostate cancer to fill in a questionnaire detailing their sexual habits, and compared their responses with those of 1259 healthy men of the same age. The team concludes that the more men ejaculate between the ages of 20 and 50, the less likely they are to develop prostate cancer. The protective effect is greatest while men are in their twenties: those who had ejaculated more than five times per week in their twenties, for instance, were one-third less likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer later in life (BJU International, vol 92, p 211). The results contradict those of previous studies, which have suggested that having had many sexual partners, or a high frequency of sexual activity, increases the risk of prostate cancer by up to 40 per cent. The key difference is that these earlier studies defined sexual activity as sexual intercourse, whereas the latest study focused on the number of ejaculations, whether or not intercourse was involved. The prostate produces part of the fluid that makes up semen The team speculates that infections caused by intercourse may increase the risk of prostate cancer. "Had we been able to remove ejaculations associated with sexual intercourse, there should have been an even stronger protective effect of other ejaculations," they suggest. "Men have many ways of using their prostate which do not involve women or other men," Giles adds. Macho exaggeration Giles accepts the possibility that the men who completed the questionnaires could have lied about their habits. But he doubts this skewed the results, since questions about masturbation are unlikely to evoke the same macho exaggeration as questions about, say, number of sexual partners. But why should ejaculating more often cut the risk of prostate cancer? The team speculates that ejaculation prevents carcinogens building up in the gland. The prostate, together with the seminal vesicles, secretes the bulk of the fluid in semen, which is rich in substances such as potassium, zinc, fructose and citric acid. Generating the fluid involves concentrating these components from the bloodstream up to 600-fold - and this could be where the trouble starts. Studies in dogs show that carcinogens such as 3-methylcholanthrene, found in cigarette smoke, are also concentrated in prostate fluid. "It's a prostatic stagnation hypothesis," says Giles. "The more you flush the ducts out, the less there is to hang around and damage the cells that line them." Sexual repertoire Subscribe to New Scientist for more news and features Related Stories Tissue engineers grow penis - with feeling 29 April 2003 Bigger is better when it comes to the G spot 3 July 2002 Prostate cancer "over-diagnosed" by screening 3 July 2002 For more related stories search the print edition Archive Weblinks Cancer Council Victoria Cancer of the prostate, Cancer Bacup UK Masturbation, University of Iowa Health Care BJU International His findings suggest an intriguing parallel between prostate cancer and breast cancer, as recent studies indicate that lactating reduces a woman's risk of breast cancer, perhaps because this also flushes out carcinogens. Alternatively, ejaculation might induce prostate cells to mature fully, making them less susceptible to carcinogens. "All these mechanisms are totally speculative," cautions breast cancer expert Loren Lipworth of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Maryland. But if the finding is confirmed, future health advice from doctors may no longer be restricted to diet and exercise. "Masturbation is part of people's sexual repertoire," says Anthony Smith, deputy director of the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University in Melbourne. "If these findings hold up, then it's perfectly reasonable that men should be encouraged to masturbate," he says. Douglas Fox, Adelaide story

My hearts go out to the families of the innocent adults and children killed. By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press Writer BESLAN, Russia - Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding 1,200 hostages, as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled through explosions and gunfire. An official said the death toll could be significantly higher than 150. Commandos Battle Militants At Besieged School (AP Video) Hours after the midday assault, three of the separatist rebels were reportedly still blockaded in a school basement, trading fire with security forces. A Federal Security Service official said militants were still holding hostages — children among them. The school was largely secured late Friday afternoon, but a large explosion erupted from inside toward nightfall, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. A member of an elite security unit died saving two young girls, the agency reported. Valery Andreyev, the top Federal Security Service official in the region, said 20 militants were killed, including 10 Arabs. The Arab presence among the attackers would support President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites)'s contention that al-Qaida terrorists were involved in the Chechen conflict, where Muslim fighters have been fighting Russian forces in a brutal a war of independence for most of the past decade. A hostage who escaped told Associated Press Television News that the militants numbered 28, including women wearing camouflage uniforms. The hostage, who identified himself only as Teimuraz, said the militants began wiring the school with explosives as soon as they took control. The chaotic climax to the hostage standoff began when explosions collapsed part of the school roof and gunfire erupted from inside the building where the militants, some with explosives strapped to their bodies, stormed the school Wednesday morning. The militants — demanding independence for nearby Chechnya (news - web sites) — kept the hostages, mostly women and children, in the sweltering gymnasium, refusing to let in food or water. "They didn't let me go to the toilet for three days, not once. They never let me drink or go to the toilet," Teimuraz, the escaped hostage told APTN. After the hostage-takers fled, more than 100 bodies were found in the gymnasium, some apparently killed when part of the school's roof collapsed in the explosion that prompted the Russian security forces to move in. A Putin aide said the total death toll could be significantly more than 150 people. An estimated 520 people were wounded, health officials said. The regional health minister earlier reported that at least 218 children were wounded. Aslanbek Aslakhanov, Putin's top aide on Chechnya, said security forces did not plan to storm the building, but were prompted to move when the hostage-takers set off explosions early Friday afternoon. Witnesses said the militants opened fire on fleeing hostages and then began to escape themselves. Gunfire rang out for hours as security forces chased hostage-takers, who split into small groups as they fled. Interfax and the ITAR-Tass news agency reported the three militants holed up in the basement may include the head of the group. Another group took refuge in a nearby house where tanks moved in. Huge columns of smoke rose from the school. Windows were shattered, part of roof was gone and another part was charred. Commandos, residents and journalists scurried around the building and soldiers climbed inside through a lower floor window, all the glass missing. People ran through the streets, and the wounded were carried off on stretchers. An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances speeding by, the windows streaked with blood. Four armed men in civilian clothes ran by, shouting, "A militant ran this way." Soldiers and men in civilian clothes carried children — some naked, some clad only in underpants, some covered in blood — to a temporary hospital set up behind an armored personnel carrier. One child had a bandage on her head, others had bandaged limbs. Some women, newly freed from the school, fainted. The children drank eagerly from bottles of water given to them once they reached safety. Many of the children were naked or only partly clothed because of the stifling heat in the gymnasium. "I am helping you," a man dressed in camouflage told a crying girl. Women gathered around, trying to soothe her, saying "It's all right. It's all right." A cameraman for the British network ITN reported seeing around 100 bodies in the gym. The correspondent for Russia's Interfax news agency reported that there were dozens of bodies in the school, including about 100 in the gym, and that some were killed when the building's roof collapsed from an explosion before the main assault began. Sixty of the bodies in the gymnasium have been identified, said Andreyev, the chief of the Federal Security Service in North Ossetia said. A nurse spread clean sheets on stretchers, and told AP that Russian officials expected "very many" wounded. The White House branded the hostage-taking "barbaric" and "despicable" and said responsibility for dozens of lost lives rests with the terrorists. "The United States stands side-by-side with Russia in our global fight against terrorism," spokesman Scott McClellan said. President Bush (news - web sites) was briefed on developments in Russia Friday morning before a re-election rally in Pennsylvania. He did not talk about the Russian terrorism during his speech. The chaos erupted on the third day of the hostage standoff in Beslan, a town of 30,000 in North Ossetia, a republic near the wartorn region of Chechnya. North Ossetia's president, Alexander Dzasokhov, said Friday the militants had demanded independence for Chechnya — the first official word connecting the hostage-taking to the conflict that has fueled Russia's worst terror attacks. The violence began after militants had agreed to let Russia retrieve the bodies of people killed early in the raid. Explosions went off as the emergency personnel went to get the bodies at around 1 p.m., collapsing part of the roof of the building, and hostages took the noise as a signal to flee, officials said. Militants opened fire on fleeing hostages and security forces returned fire. Once the hostage-takers sought to escape, Russian officials apparently made the decision to storm the building. The militants had reportedly threatened to blow up the building if authorities tried to storm it, but all indications suggested the explosions began before the assault. Russian officials repeatedly said they were not planning to invade and had earlier won the release of 26 hostages through negotiations. The hostage-takers' identities were murky. Lev Dzugayev, a North Ossetian official, said the attackers might be from Chechnya or Ingushetia. Law enforcement sources in North Ossetia and Ingushetia, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attackers were believed to include Chechens, Ingush, Russians and a North Ossetian suspected of participating in the Ingushetia violence. Insurgents fought an earlier war for Chechen independence, a conflict that ended in stalemate. In the years since, the rebels and their sympathizers have increasingly taken to assaults and attacks outside the tiny republic. Negotiators said the hostage-takers had repeatedly refused offers of food and water throughout the standoff. "They are very cruel people, we are facing a ruthless enemy," said Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician involved in the negotiations. "I talked with them many times on my cell phone, but every time I ask to give food, water and medicine to the hostages they refuse my request." The school seizure came a day after a suspected Chechen suicide bomber blew herself up outside a Moscow subway station, killing nine people, and just over a week after 90 people died in two plane crashes that are suspected to have been blown up by bombers also linked to Chechnya. In a 2002 theater raid in Moscow, Chechen rebels took about 800 hostages during a performance, a standoff that ended after a knockout gas was pumped into the building, debilitating the captors but causing almost all of the 129 hostage deaths. On Thursday, the militants had freed about 26 hostages, all women and children.