mjzee

This is from an article/interview with Ornette. (The full article can be found here: Organissimo forum) "Standard Western notation and harmony is a big problem for him, particularly for the fact that the notation for many instruments (including his three instruments — alto saxophone, trumpet and violin) must be transposed to fit the “concert key” of C in Western music. "Mr. Coleman talks about “music” with care and accuracy, but about “sound” with love. He doesn’t understand, he says, how listeners will ever properly understand the power of notes when they are bossed around by the common Western system of harmony and tuning. "He’s not endorsing cacophony: he says making music is a matter of finding euphonious resolutions between different players. (And much of his music keeps referring to, if not actually staying in, a major key.)" I do think I know what it is (actually, the many things) I don't like about Ornette's music. The article above describes the many ways his music is different than most Western music (= most jazz). I don't particularly care for the results. I'm happy that you enjoy it.

I think it's apparent. It's kinda like that famous definition of pornography: I may not be able to describe it, but I know it when I hear it. The frustrating thing for me is when people deny what is so apparent: I hear a lack of joy and warmth, but people say "Oh, his compositions are so joyful." I hear a sameness and repetition, but people say "Oh, his music is so new and fresh." I hear a grating, kvetchy quality to his sax tone, but people say "Oh, his sax tone is so pure, like a voice." My guess is you need to accept a lack of a tonal center as fine, and then you can enjoy following the improvisation. But I think a lot of the joy in listening to jazz is listening to the chord progression (especially when it's a great chord progression), and then to hear the soloist comment on/through that. I can accept that others hear great music in Ornette that I don't. But I couldn't imagine putting on an Ornette album for pure pleasure.

I recently downloaded the 3 Dex albums recorded at the Montmartre in 1967, that were released by Black Lion ("Body And Soul," "Both Sides of Midnight," and "Take The A Train"). This is some of my favorite Dex. The man was on fire back then.

After listening to this music on and off for a few decades now, I still don't enjoy it. I like a tonal center - it makes music appealing to me. I've also approached Ornette from the "he's a genius - he's more evolved than we are - we must study him as a disciple approaches a master, mulling over the product until a eureka moment occurs," but it still hasn't happened. I mostly find his approach annoying. There have been moments I've liked - some things with Izenson, Prime Time (who I saw live once), but the appeal doesn't last very long, as it doesn't seem the scenery changes. I'll probably keep trying, on and off. I concede that YMMV. Was the second photo taken a few years later?

February 27: Mildred Bailey, singer, 1907 Dexter Gordon, tenor sax, 1923

I notice they now have the Savoy label, including the former 32Jazz material. Beginning to look tempting...

February 26: Teddy Edwards, tenor sax, 1924

February 25: Ida Cox, singer, 1896 Sandy Brown, clarinet, 1929

February 24: Michel Legrand, composer, 1932 David Fathead Newman, alto and tenor sax, 1933

February 23: Money Johnson, trumpet, 1918 Hall Overton, piano, arranger, 1920

February 22: Buddy Tate, tenor sax, 1915 Joe Wilder, trumpet, 1922

February 21: Tadd Dameron, composer, arranger, piano, 1917 Warren Vache, cornet, 1951

I don't think that works. I think it only works if you don't have artwork already there. If you do, I don't think the new artwork will overwrite the old artwork.

Also, has anyone had experience with the B&O Form 2 headphones? Was wondering how they compare to the A8's.

Oh, that'll happen all the time. iTunes tries to match the album with the correct artwork, but frequently gets it wrong. Here's what you have to do if an album shows the wrong artwork: 1) Try to find the correct artwork. I like Amazon (especially Amazon mp3, which seems to have newer cover scans than the CD music area). Once you find it, copy the image (not the image address). 2) In iTunes, navigate to the album with the wrong artwork. Double-click on the album to show the list of songs on the album (remember that iTunes associates artwork with the individual song, not the album. So if the album has 8 tracks, there are 8 different wrong images you'll need to replace). 3) Highlight the first track, and hit ctrl-i (or right-click the track and choose Get Info). 4) When the info window opens, click on the Artwork tab. You should see the wrong artwork. 5) Click on the artwork to select it, and hit Delete. Then click in the blank artwork box and paste the artwork you copied from Amazon. 6) When you see the correct artwork there, click on the Next button. Then do step 5 again, and again, and again, until you've done it for all the tracks on the album. You should now see the correct artwork associated with each track.

February 18: Frank Butler, drums, 1928 February 19: also Stan Kenton, piano, composer, bandleader, 1912 February 20: also Lew Soloff, trumpet, 1944

It could also be either the Grace Building (W. 42 St between 5th & 6th Ave) or a similar building on W. 57 St., also between 5th & 6th Ave. I don't think it's the same as the "For Lady" shot since that seems to be a straight vertical wall, while the Page One wall seems slightly angled. Also, the texture is different.

February 17: Buddy DeFranco, clarinet, 1923

February 16: Machito, bandleader, 1912 Jeff Clayton, alto sax, 1955

Also: Kirk Lightsey, piano, 1937

If you are using an external hard drive for the location of your database files (as I do), then I highly recommend making sure the drive is "awake" before opening iTunes. Just open Windows Explorer (or Finder) and browse to the drive real quick and access it, that will wake it up...then open iTunes. I've had a problem a couple times where I opened iTunes while the external hard drive was still asleep and it caused iTunes to freak out because it couldn't find the database files fast enough...so it thought the library was corrupt and tried to repair it. iTunes isn't patient enough for my particular hard drive to spin up. But since I discovered that, accessing the drive prior to opening iTunes has kept any problems from occurring. I'd recommend something different: keep the iTunes folder (the one that contains the sub-folder "Album Artwork", but here I'm talking about the entire iTunes folder) on your computer's internal drive. This will give you better, more reliable performance. You can still keep all of the music folders on the external drive. As long as you regularly backup, you should have no problems. Oh, one other thing: I keep another backup set "offline": an EHD that I backup to once a month, then disconnect and keep in a closet. That way, my music investment is safe in the event a power surge fries both my computer and backup EHD at the same time.

I've had this weird issue with artwork. Suddenly Quasimoto came up with the artwork for a Horace Silver album. I was like, wtf? There are two places for artwork to display, at least when using Cover Flow: in cover flow itself and in the lower left of the iTunes window ("Now Playing"). "Now Playing" will display the cover associated with that particular track (so it's on a per-track basis). Cover Flow will display the cover associated with the first track of the album (so, while it's also on a per-track basis, the track may not be what is playing). So for Quasimoto, 1) look at the cover displayed under "Now Playing," and 2) look at what album it came from, then look at the first track on that album. These should give you some clues. This has to do with compilations. If you choose a track from one of those artists who are not listed under artists, and open the information for that track, you'll probably see "Part of a compilation" checked. This means that this track is filed by iTunes under the album name, rather than the artist. iTunes does this so that, when you play a "Various Artists" album, it will play the album as it was originally presented. But iTunes will also list that track if you search by the artist. I have noticed when ripping albums to iTunes, there are times that it indicates "Compilation: yes" when it shouldn't. I try to look for that and correct it before the rip occurs. But you can also correct it afterwards.

I keep all the iTunes database(s) on an external drive. Using Windows Explorer, I see that the Album Artwork folder is there and seems to be populated, but I can't figure out how to make the individual art covers show up in the iTunes program. What's more is that when I click on "Get Info", I get a message for each song/title that "the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it?". More confusing is that when I then click on "Edit", "Preferences", "Advanced", the location of the iTunes music directory on the external drive does show up, so why can't each individual selection be found? It just sounds like, for whatever reason, iTunes isn't "seeing" the external drive. At first, I thought the EHD might just be powered off, but you say you can see it through Windows. Try rebooting?

Do you keep your iTunes/Album Artwork folder on your computer's internal hard drive or on an external drive?

February 14: Jack Lesberg, bass, 1920 Rob McConnell, trombone, bandleader, 1935