Jump to content

Muskrat Ramble

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    97

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Donations

    0.00 USD 

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Muskrat Ramble

  1. Greatest Blakey Trumpet Album

    in Artists

    Posted

    Bill Hardman does not seem to get much in the way of positive comments. A few days ago I listened to the Blakey/Jazz Messengers CD titled RITUAL . It was originally issued on Pacific Jazz and reissued on Blue Note.

    Bill Hardman sounds absolutely terrific on this CD. He plays in a Clifford Brown style. While he does not have the technical facility of Clifford and some other Messenger trumpet players, his solos are put together with great logic. Each one tells a story. Hardman is, in my view one of the most underrated trumpet players from the Hard Bop period. I recall seeing him live one night at a club in New York City playing in a quintet with Junior Cook, Walter Bishop,Jr., Paul Brown, and Leroy Williams. It was a marvelous musical experience. Every time Bill Hardman took a solo he knocked me out. This player is deserving of much greater recognition for the many fine recordings on which he played.

    If you want to hear some Hardman on a Blakey album, check out Hard Drive (the one in my avatar). That's an absolutely smoking hard bop album that's unjustly obscure.

  4. AAJ Bans Any Mention Of Organissimo

    in Forums Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Muskrat Ramble

    Well, I have never felt comfortable there since the "rude welcome" last year.

    I know Mike certainly bent over backwards to make everyone feel at home, to his credit. Btw, until you've moderated a big board (which I have), you might not realize how hard it is to keep abreast of all the threads and make fair decisions that the majority can live with. Don't jump all over some guy when he makes a mistake; try to offer some polite constructive criticism.

    As for Mike commenting about someone being a twerp, that wasn't very classy for a moderator to do since he should set an example, but judging by the childish, obscene posts from the person in question, can you blame him? Sounds like Mike was excercising great restraint by merely saying "twerp." OTOH, it wasn't classy for a bunch of folks to suddenly appear over at AAJ when they rarely post there, act like there's some big emergency when their beloved Organissimo is down for a day (get a grip!), and then take off again only to badmouth AAJ over here after this latest incident. All this behavior is so childish, clubby, and self-congratulatory that it's really a sad commentary on the online jazz community.

    I know I won't be posting much here or at AAJ (except to help answer newbies' questions--it's good to contribute to community instead of tear it down) for some time after all this crap.

    That said, everyone take it easy.

  5. AAJ Bans Any Mention Of Organissimo

    in Forums Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Muskrat Ramble

    I agree with Simon. What a lot of folks did by popping in at AAJ mainly/only to post in one thread about Organissimo being down temporarily (as if it's some big emergency when you can't log into a forum for a day!) and then leave again was quite rude.

    I can understand Mike being ticked off by that, though I doubt the way he's handled it is particularly helpful.

  6. Beethoven Piano Sonatas

    in Classical Discussion

    Posted

    this is the first time I've heard most of these pieces

    You're a lucky man! What wonderful music to discover. Beethoven never ceases to amaze me. I recently finished listening to all his symphonies again (Harnoncourt leading the COE on Teldec--brief review here) and once again found new things to appreciate, admire, and be moved by.

    Re: period instruments: in my experience, music up through the Classical/early Romantic periods almost always sounds better on period instruments and with period stylistic approaches. Modern instruments and performance practices too easily obscure the fine, crisp textures and rhythmic drive of those earlier musics. Baroque music in particular can sound too "clogged up" if played on modern instruments using heavy vibrato, etc. Leave the lush sonorities and romantic approach for Mahler and Zemlinsky :)

  8. AAJ Bans Any Mention Of Organissimo

    in Forums Discussion

    Posted

    The result is a chilling effect that has posters avoiding references to other boards be they notices about technical problems or "I saw a post at Organissimo or JC" type posts.

    Won't stop me. I'm not chilled--though maybe shaken and stirred ;) Some of you guys are getting too serious and melodramatic, methinks.

    Yeah, a perceived battle cry is hard to ignore.

    Sure it is. This stuff all looks so petty and funny if you step back from it for a minute: everyone staking out their tiny corner of Internet turf and worrying what's being implied or said or not said about "their" board at another and so on. If you don't like a forum, just say, "Screw it" and quit visiting. Easy as pie. If enough people on the Net want to talk about jazz somewhere, they'll find a way. Witness the birth of this forum after the demise of the BNBB. This all smacks of kids arguing in the sandbox.

  9. AAJ Bans Any Mention Of Organissimo

    in Forums Discussion

    Posted

    I just read about this tempest in a teapot. For clarification, Mike wrote in one of the relevant posts

    Addendum | 9-Feb-2004 | We reserve the right to remove links or references made to other jazz-related bulletin boards.

    That strikes me as a questionable policy, to say the least, but in fairness it doesn't equal

    The AAJ Board now BANS any mention of Organissimo or any other Jazz Site in its forums.

  15. Favorite new BN release from the last 5 years???

    in Recommendations

    Posted

    Back to the topic at hand: one I really dig is Ron Carter's So What, with Kenny Barron and Lewis Nash. Technically it came out six years ago, but that's close enough. This one is hardly ground-breaking, but it's a fine example of straightforward, straight-ahead, urbane and elegant jazz. Plenty of fine musicianship, of course, and some neat little twists and surprises to keep things interesting. The engineer really captured Carter's bass beautifully, too, so you can really appreciate the details.

  17. NEW!!! Blue Note Europe Bulletin Board

    in Miscellaneous - Non-Political

    Posted

    As far as how or why the original BNBB ceased to exist, I'm a bit shocked that anyone is still hung up on that...

    Ditto. Why live in the past? It (both the past and the BNBB) doesn't exist anymore. The here-and-now does. The BNBB wasn't any Shangri-la anyway; like every Internet forum, it had its share of childish, annoying, or just plain stupid posts and posters. No great loss.

  20. Bobby Timmons

    in Artists

    Posted

    So ZYX is just the distributor of Fantasy discs in Germany and the sound quality would be equivalent to US discs? I notice that Amazon.de, for example, has two versions of the Live Trane box set: one listed as "Fan/Presti (ZYX)" and another as a US import from Pablo, which is rather more expensive (and more in line with the US prices for the set).

  21. Favorite new BN release from the last 5 years???

    in Recommendations

    Posted

    AMG's reliability depends on the reviewers. If it's an entry by Scott Yanow, Brian Olewnick, Dan Warburton, &c then it's fine....but if it's Thom Jurek, for instance, run for the hills.

    For me, despite its omissions and errors, AMG is more useful as a database than as a source of reviews. The latter, regardless of writer, often seem rather dry and perfunctory (in fact a lot of them just have a star rating and no text). Whatever you think of the reviewers' opinions in Penguin--and I tend to agree with them--their reviews generally seem more thoughtful and insightful, as if they've really spent some time with the recordings in question. Their reviews are certainly better written on the whole and more fun to read.

  22. NEW!!! Blue Note Europe Bulletin Board

    in Miscellaneous - Non-Political

    Posted

    If people had cut the crap that was going on there prior to the shutdown, we'd all still be there.

    I'm not sure you mean it this way, but that sounds almost like saying, "If we had all been good boys and girls, Mommy and Daddy wouldn't have sent us to our room." Ideally, the online jazz community will have forums, such as this one, AAJ, etc., that cater to community needs and not vice versa. I for one won't be kowtowing to Blue Note any time soon. The customer is always right, after all :) (That said, if you're referring to CD-R trading on the BNBB, I don't engage in or support that myself.)

    As for BN the corporate entity, I feel neither love or hate towards them and certainly no sense of loyalty at all. They're just a company. I buy jazz albums I like, whoever releases them. Of late, it looks like BN has putting out a bunch of uninteresting crossover stuff, so they don't get my buck, at least where those albums are concerned.

  24. Favorite new BN release from the last 5 years???

    in Recommendations

    Posted

    Speaking of AMG reviews, as an alternative or complement to AMG I strongly recommend the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. It's not as comprehensive since it focuses on in-print releases, but it is huge nonetheless, and the writing tends to be more intelligent, elegant, insightful, witty, and provocative. Great fun to just browse and discover new artists and discs, too.

×
×
  • Create New...