AOTW Jan 23-30

[Guest youmustbe]

And if I had listened to all the jazz critics, I would have passed on Miles going electric, because, I mean, isn't he selling out by appealing to young people? And besides, isn't it just noise? Why doesn't he keep playing Stella in a quintet setting, wearing nice suits, for the rest of his life?

[SNWOLF]

- youmustbe ----You're right, the knee-jerk contrarian syndrome exists too, the Thou Shalt Debunk to Demonstrate Mojo. In academia they call deconstruction, although that has been getting less and less hip since it's been so brutally satirised in recent years, exposing its fundamental hollowness, irrationality and vanity.

I like Newk's Time too. Although for some reason The Freedom Suite bores me rigid. As to Miles going electric, well that malignant Peter Pan was definitely chasing money and celebrity, but he produced some extraordinary music in the process. In the darkly evocative, chills-down-your-spine department, that 70s material was non pariel. But I'm getting off-topic.

I didn't know Sonny played on a theme tune. This idea came into my head, when was in town just before, that Rollins appeared on Sesame Street. Is that just my mind bullshitting me or did he appear on Sesame Street? I reckon he could get a few choruses out of that manamana song.

[Cornelius]

His foot is cut. Makes it even goofier.

/

"[Jazz that's] a perpetual grim exercise in cathartic monumentalism [...]" [sNWolf]

Thanks god I've managed to steer clear of that stuff!

"[branford Marsalis] He doesn't have the sardonic, ironic, sarcastic, knowing hipness to pull off [playing like Sonny Rollins]."

Perhaps Marsalis failed in the performances you heard, but if there's anyone who has the qualities mentioned, then Marsalis is one.

"[...] the actual music, the basic melodies in what Sonny plays are frequently, even usually, trite, often idiotic. He has this unmatched ability to turn inconsequential fluff into salty, swinging, celebratory jazz."

You must mean the melodies in his own improvisations, since (during that time, at least) the tunes he usually played on were good ones, even the corny ones. So I'm having trouble recalling his improvised lines as being usually trite or idiotic, other than quotes of trite melodies.

/

"Shelly looked like a putz." [youmustbe]

Are you sure you mean 'putz'?

"One reason I don't like Way Out West is that it's one of the records you're 'supposed' to like."

I don't get that. If it sounds good to your own ears, why should your enjoyment be hampered by other people recommending its enjoyments? Anyway, I'm with you on Newk's Time!

Edited January 24, 2005 by Cornelius

[Cornelius]

"[...] the knee-jerk contrarian syndrome exists too, the Thou Shalt Debunk to Demonstrate Mojo. In academia they call deconstruction, although that has been getting less and less hip since it's been so brutally satirised in recent years, exposing its fundamental hollowness, irrationality and vanity." [sNWolf]

Yep. It really bugs me to hear people make glib putdowns of great shit just to be contrarian or to artificially individuate one's tastes.

Brutal satire. You're referring to the Sokal hoax, I guess. Oh, yeah, I love it! There's a small book out (I forgot the title and authors) that follows up on that. So trenchant.

Edited January 24, 2005 by Cornelius

[SNWOLF]

Cornelius - no the lines Sonny played were usually not idiotic. They were occasionally silly, funny, but with a broad, swinging, tensile creativity. That is, before the future cul de sacs and pregnant pauses that assailed his playing as he got older. There were quite a few melodies - Toot, Toot Tootsie, for one, There's no Business Like Show Business, and others; later: TV themes, ditties, stuff he used as heads, stuff he worked into his solos. I don't think any one else could get away with it, but he did it with such an imaginative, free-associating brilliance.

As for Branford. I've never seen him live. I've read interviews with him, listened to interviews, and he comes across as a no-bullshit, straight-talking guy. Seems generous-spirited, but no fool, with a strong sense of the slapstick absurd. I've always felt that his playing is brilliant, has considerably more heart and humanity than his brother's, but there's a lack of depth and gravity.

See, even when Rollins is being completely silly and surreal, there's this foundation of strength and seriousness. A powerful, hard-won individuality. Like all great comedians, he's a melancholic.

[Late]

Whew! Quite the reading on this one. My mom actually gave me the vinyl record of this for my seventeenth birthday. Have loved the album ever since the first spin.

One thing to try — sequence the compact disc without the overtly "Western" tunes (or by placing them at the end), and you just might hear the saxophone playing, or the album's overall arc, in a different light. Much is made of Rollins' wit and sense of humor, but there is also, at least to my ears, a strong underlying sophistication to his lines (I'm thinking of the solo from "Solitude" here) that seems to make this wit and humor all the more credible. These three guys are having a good time, but they're also making music on an extraordinary level (— which I'm not saying that anyone is denying). I can't think of many albums (from this period or any other) that seem to bridge "horn playing" with "ideas" any closer. Whatever Sonny's thinking, it's there, there you have it — cleverly inflected, nuanced ... like someone with a nice voice, and you just like to hear them talk.

And, good God, what hour was this thing made? 2 a.m.? After they'd all gotten off night gigs? Stamina and commitment — played through almost as if they were just getting started. Seems like something like this wouldn't/couldn't happen today ...

Isn't the cover to Sonny Rollins & The Contemporary Leaders a sort of "response" to the cover of Way Out West? I love both covers, but have heard/read that Sonny wanted something more "serious" for his follow-up Contemporary record.

I love this album so much that I wish I could have been Lester Koenig that night (or whoever was there in the control room). Then, when the record was done, I could say: "Hey guys, how about we cut two more tunes? The record's done, but you're sounding good, and I'd like to capture it. How about 'I Hear a Rhapsody' and a blues ... I'll send someone out for subs, coffee, and a bit of Jack ... " Or something like that. Mainly, I just want to hear more.

I would also have loved to hear another "California Trio" record from Rollins of this period — say, with Red Mitchell and Frank Butler. Sonny Rollins in Los Angeles perhaps, with more originals by Newk, while still with the ample share of his pick of quirky standards.

[danasgoodstuff]

I love this album, for all the reasons mentioned above, and I think Grant Green loved it too, see Goin' West.

[SNWOLF]

Late - you expressed that very eloquently.

[Cornelius]

SNWolf,

I'm not getting in to some of Branford Marsalis's later stuff (maybe I will, though), but the Columbia albums don't lack depth for me. The only problem (if it's much of a problem) with them is that Marsalis is so virtuousically versed in players that came before him (e.g. Gordon, Coltrane, Rollins, Ornette Coleman) that he can't resist continuing to play his variations on them. So a whole new voice does not emerge (especially a voice that's as individual as he is masterful). How can you blame Marsalis? Those guys already played most of the good shit and he's deep and intelligent enough to recognize that (I sense that he does). What they played narrows what's left to invent. You'd like to think not; you'd like to think that they only opened realms of possible new inventions. But it doesn't seem, to me and at least a few other observers, to be turning out that way. P.S. I don't feel a lack of heart and humanity in Wynton Marsalis's music - quite the contrary.

Of course, we share enthusiasm for Rollins's brilliance, but I'm not struck by much melancholy in his playing (except, of course, on appropriate ballads). I know about his personal seriousness and discipline, but is he melancholic as a person? Though, you would seem to be on to something with the note that comics (or, I'd qualify, at least a great number of) comics do have a special sadness or are depressed.

/

By the way, on my LP copy (a Fantasy issue), his foot is not cut off so much. Also, the color is much better (not green-tinged and washed out) in the box set booklet insert reproduction than on my LP.

/

The poster Late mentioned Frank Butler. I'd much rather have had Butler on Way Out West than Shelly Manne (I was thinking that, in fact, while listening to Smack Up). Manne is great, but I don't feel that this album shows him in a strong light.

[SNWOLF]

With regard to Branford, I don't want to sound like I'm putting him down, because he seems like a good guy, and he's certainly an excellent player. But I don't buy into the hypothesis that, "It's already been done by the geniuses that once roamed the earth, nothing's left except homage". There's always new players coming up with new ideas. Sometimes they're virtuosos, often they're not. The generic, and derivative players are more likely to become virtuosos because when there's not much intellectual and creative energy being channelled into something fresh, they become practice room pedants obsessional about mastering the past.

As to Wynton. I don't deny his virtuosity. I respect his technical accomplishments. As a man, hustler, politician, publicist, enthusiast, demagogue, rhetorician - I actually admire his (frequently risible) bluster, and the depth of his committment, his achievements, his obvious deep feeling for the music.

His playing leaves me cold. He just sounds like a mimic. He impresses me most on fast hardbop numbers where his sharp, fast mind, and extraordinary chops, can dazzle. Everything else sounds like morbid, sepia-toned pastiche and mannered self-importance -"I'm such a humble servant of my higher power jazz I don't need to SHOUT HOW HUMBLE I AM ABOUT AMERICA'S ONLY ART FORM. DID ANYONE HEAR HOW HUMBLE I AM?"

In terms of emotional depth, there isn't a great deal in Wynton. It's surface effects and cheap emotional mugging.

In terms of discerning Sonny Rollin's underlying sadness. Well, that's often the problem with people that have got the wit and intelligence to appreciate jazz - there's a kind of emotional dyslexia that goes with it. Sonny isn't just "sad" on the ballads, there's a pervasive melancholy that accompanies his every move. Even in interviews he's moaning about the state of the planet. Like a lot of deep-thinking, deep-feeling creative people, there's a distinct shade of blue that lends weight and pungency to his playing.

Wynton will play a "blues" effect; Sonny will PLAY THE BLUES. It's the difference between acting a role, and living a life.

[Late]

How can you blame Marsalis? Those guys already played most of the good shit and he's deep and intelligent enough to recognize that (I sense that he does). What they played narrows what's left to invent. You'd like to think not; you'd like to think that they only opened realms of possible new inventions.

Don't want to derail the good words on Sonny Rollins and Way Out West, but this comment of Cornelius' is interesting to me. I guess I have to respectfully disagree with the idea that "[w]hat they [e.g. Gordon, Coltrane, Rollins, Ornette Coleman] played narrows what's left to invent."

My problem with this idea has nothing to do with the relative mastery of saxophonists such as Gordon, Coltrane, Rollins, or Ornette Coleman. These guys certainly put a lot out there that is worthy of re-playing, and playing variations upon. But I think one of the inherent limitations in Marsalis' playing (and thinking, for that matter) is that his scope of appreciation appears to be strictly truncated. (We all remember what he had to say about Cecil Taylor and fly balls on Ken Burns "Jazz.") If he could perhaps find a way out of the comfort zone of American tradition and influence — why not try on some Evan Parker for starters? — maybe he could see, and let the rest of us see, that "what's left to invent" is really limitless after all. I had more hope after The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, but since then have unfortunately not heard much to get excited about.

Edited January 24, 2005 by Late

[Cornelius]

I have no reason to believe that Branford Marsalis thinks of the possibilities as narrowed. I'd not put those words in his mouth. Rather, it is my own fear (more than a conviction) that jazz may have already burned up most of its rocket fuel (a generality, since there continue to be innovations today). This is not outlandish; Don't we see that art forms (or at least styles) have their arcs? I love montage film. And there may be some good work being done today. But I'd be silly to insist that, dammit, montage flourishes today no less than it did in the days of Kuleshov, Pudovkin, and Eisenstein, and dammit, if you want to see montage as great as Storm Over Asia, then there's plenty of it out there today.

Marsalis's albums were not just hommages. Yes, he incorporated a lot of the players before him, just as virtually all jazz musicians have done, but there is originality in Marsalis too. Nevertheless, are there really an unlimited number of ways to play the tenor saxophone? Perhaps there are. But after a while doesn't it get harder to find a sound as original as the ones that have already been claimed? After Coleman Hawkins, Bud Freeman, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Don Byas, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Johnny Griffin, Lockjaw Davis, Paul Gonsalves, Warne Marsh, Hank Mobley, John Coltrane, Harold Land, Tina Brooks, Benny Golson, and so many more styles (I'm not even including all the individual avant-garde voices) have been taken, how many more really groovy ways to play tenor saxophone are left? I'm not saying that there aren't any at all, nor that musicians shouldn't keep trying, only that perhaps, just perhaps, it gets more and more difficult to come up with one. So, since Marsalis has such a deep and intelligent respect and love for the music, he gets caught in the quandary: Coltrane and Rollins will always be in you; you can't just throw them out of your sound and music; but how do you create your own voice and be authentic - without resort to gimmickry or "projects" (you know, albums that may be good, but are not groundbreaking, just for including a chorus of accordions) - while still playing "straight ahead" (for lack of a better term) jazz. Again, I'm not claiming that Marsalis thinks about it this way; only that I see him between that rock and hard place. And I give him all the credit. He's made a bunch of great albums.

"If [branford Marsalis] could perhaps find a way out of the comfort zone of American tradition and influence [...]" [Late]

I don't know that he's clinging in a comfort zone. As a musician, he hears sounds that appeal more to him than others. I don't think he's necessarily any less interested in progress if he doesn't hear the sounds coming from most of the avant-garde as ones he wants to express.

"We all remember what Branford Marsalis had to say about Cecil Taylor [...]"

Actually, many (most?) people misremember what Marsalis said. Marsalis did not say that Cecil Taylor's music is bullshit. Rather, what Marsalis said is bullshit is Taylor's position that audiences must be diligent to study his music in preparation for listening to it.

/

SNWolf, there are some Wynton Marsalis albums I don't care for, but he's made some great albums, and I don't hear him the way you do. Cheap and lacking emotional depth? Quite the contrary, for me. I also suspect that he's a target of the kind of contrarian response we were talking about. That is, the head strategy: "All the media are saying what a prince Wynton Marsalis is and that he's the saviour of jazz. Well, I'm not buying into that. I'll show 'em who's got independent tastes! Yeah, that's right: Wynton Marsalis sucks!" (I'm not implying that this reflects your own source of disenchantment with Marsalis.)

Edited January 25, 2005 by Cornelius

[SNWOLF]

With regard to Wynton and Branford, I went to a lot of trouble to listen to their albums, and be open about their music. It annoyed me that people put them down in a reactive, ideological fashion because of where their own aesthetic and political sensibility positioned their preferences.

I will admit, occasionally, a sneaking like for Live at Blues Alley. And my favourite Branford solo - this might seem a bit left field, but there's a track on Decoy, an otherwise cheesy fusion offering by Miles Davis, that has Branford Marsalis doing this particular solo that is utterly bizarre, strange, serpentine notes often at odds with the harmony, but it's so poised and perfect, while generating real momentum.

In terms of the Major Period, the Golden Years, of jazz - yeah, they're gone. But you have to realise that jazz then was more stylistically coherent, it was still relatively new and so that sense of freshness and development was more obvious and linear. Now it's a highly marginal art form, and very diverse - in an at times disputatious and ghettoistic manner. Most of the links to popular culture are gone. Even Glen Miller, and Paul Whiteman had more going for them in their day than today's Smooth Jazz offerings.

One of the major features that has changed is that young rebels are not as likely to graviate towards jazz. They're more likely to sample it, or ignore it altogether, in Hip Hop, Electronica, Ilbient and so on. Within jazz, the rebels these days a more likely to be contrarian nerds than axe-wielding Young Turks.

There's certainly plenty of exceptions to this, but generally that's been my observation. A young rebel in search of a visceral musical kick, a sense of deviance and otherness, is likely to find mainstream, conventional jazz too whitebread. The irony of course, is that when that music was originally played it was out on the edge. Warmed over leftovers just don't pack the same punch - the young and hungry go elsewhere.

[Leeway]

Good discussion folks

I'm curious to know if the alternate takes of "I'm an Old Cowhand" and "Come Gone" were recorded before the master takes or afterwards? The alternates are longer, and in the case of "Cowhand," much longer. (The alternate take of "Way Out West" is only 9 seconds longer than the master take).

It might be interesting to know if the group was cutting longer takes as the session went on, or if the master takes were a shortening, and /or distillation, of what had already been committed to tape.

It also occurs to me that it might be kind of fun to listen to Copland's "Billy the Kid" or "Rodeo" in conjunction with "WOW." In both cases, traditional American folk themes are naturalized into another genre, in once case classical, in the other, jazz. There's really a lot going on in "WOW," perhaps one more reason why it is a sort of "touchstone" work.

[Jazz Kat]

Great session. The 'minus piano' gets to me a little bit. Real raunchy stuff. None-the-less, great album!!!

[JSngry]

The net benefit of my aforementioned cannabis-clouded encounter with this album was an appreciation for the programming of it. This is lost on the CD, where the alternate takes disrupth the original flow of the album (programmable out, out course), and not having to flip the record over.

But listening to the album as a record reveals many aspects of what else makes a great record a great record besides great music and great recording. Programming matters immensely!

Look at the symmetry of the record - on both sides, you start out with a cowboy song (with Shelly setting up a "western" ambiance both times), then a ballad, and then a "jazz original". In a sense, the same record on both sides. EXCEPT - the second side moves slower, tempo-wise, and even though not all the songs are longer, they seem longer because of the slower tempos. This creates a nice effect of the first side setting the ambiance, and the second side really drawing you into it and exploring it in greater detail.

Note also how the endings of each song set up a perfect seque into the beginnings of the next, and how both sides end with an air of inevitable finality (the first side virtually screams "We'll be right back!" & the second is a nice quiet "Thanks for listening, see you next time, good night"). There's an arc from the beginning of each side to its conclusion, and not too many jazz albums provide that as pefectly as this one does. I don't know how much, if any, of the sequencing was Sonny's idea or how much was Koenig's, but it works, and it works magnificently.

The notion of hearing/seeing this album as a series of visual "skits" no doubt seemed laughable to some of you (if you even thought that I was serious, and not just goofing), but I tell you - the brilliant (and MUSICAL) symmetrical sequencing, the sparse instrumental texture, and the superb recording of it (the more I listen to those Contemporary dates, the more I get into Roy DuNann''s recording style) add up to more than just a "record". What you get is a "program", in the fullest sense of the word, a program that is structured sublimely and effectively to create and explore a specific series of events in a way that provides context, contrast, continuity, and detail into each event individually and provides a collective, unified, singular sense of same for the album as a whole. A two-act show with three scenes per act, and an intermission in the middle.

Given that, I think that this album plays to Sonny's oft-noted sense of "drama" in a way that very few albums of his have done - it actually creates a conscientiously dramatic setting, a "show", if you will, for his internal drama, and plays with and off of that in an equally conscious way. Pot-induced vision or not, there is definitely an element of "setting" to this album that offers a strong parallel to TV variety specials/dramas and their ilk. I'm a TV Baby, so TV is how I saw it at the time, but you can use any traditional "presentation" medium as a parallel, I suppose.

And this as well plays to another element of Sonny's character - not only did he love Western movies, he also loved Western movies. So he went to California and made one, or something much like it. The cast and crew were all at the top of their game, the script was tight and well-crafted, the cinematography and editing seamless, and the result is as much a treat for the "eyes" as it is the ears. if you are so inclined to slip into that frame of mind by whatever means you choose.

Of course, in the interest of promoting Family Values and such, I feel compelled to offer the caveat that it was undertaken by a trained professional, and in a galaxy long, long ago and far, far away, and that you should NOT try this at home. Especially with a CD!

But if you got the LP, and some quiet time alone...

Edited January 25, 2005 by JSngry

[SNWOLF]

I thought your stoned alternative take was pretty hilarious, it reminded me of many such THC experiments I've done myself, with fairly nebulous conclusions, but it was fun at the time.

The most annoying thing about alternative takes on albums is they put them after the original track. It might make sense sequentially, but aesthetically it ruins the feel, the ebb and flow of the music. Sometimes alternatives takes are wonderful, even superior to the main track, due to previous time constraints on the original LP, but in general they're inferior. So as a listener, you hear one creatively inspired track followed by a b-grade successor.

I think it would make a lot more sense to put the alternative tracks at the end of the CD, as an added extra, a jazz treasure trove.

JSngry - I hadn't put a great deal of thought into the sequencing of the music on opposite sides, and how that was commensurate with the overall imagery, but as an overall aesthetic product, with or without neurochemical aberration, and cinematographical vistas, that sounds as good and affectionate summation of Sonny Rollin's impish impulses as I've heard in a while.

Edited January 25, 2005 by SNWOLF

[JohnS]

I was a teenager when this first appeared. I was already a Rollins fan but with this cover Way Out West was absolutely irrestistable. The music is top notch - just a shade below the best of his Prestige output - and it gets a regular play. I've moved from early UK vinyl which I pretty much wore out, through the Japanese alternate takes lp (with the great alterate cover art) to the cd issue for the convenience of having all the music togther.

Hard to select a favourite track as they all work well, Sonny sounding at home with the the easy swing of Brown and Manne. Nice clear sound too.

[JSngry]

Not to belabor the "show" aspect of this album, but I suppose it's worth noting that Lester Koenig was a Hollywood screenwriter before he got blacklisted and started Contemporary. If nothing else, I think it could fairly be said that he brought a sensibility to recorded music that reflects a certain similarity with his previous craft, namely an awareness of scripted drama as opposed to spontaneous emoting, attention the the finer points of sensual detail, and the importance of gesture and nuance.

Don't want to dwell too much on it, because I don't think that the "cinematic" aspect of WAY OUT WEST was in the forefront of everybody's/everybody's mind when they made it (if it was there at all...), but hey - the elements were there. And they didn't have to be captured like they were, nor put out like they were. Sometime things happen that you're not aware of while they're happening, and this might be one of them.

Certainly the circumstances of the recording had a built-in drama - the man who at that moment was THE "man of the hour" in jazz was in L.A. at the peak of the "East Coast vs West Coast" controversy. This man, an admitted movie junkie as a kid, was probably getting a kick out the whole Hollywood thing. So three guys, to a man with East Coast roots, come into a studio after their gigs and make a classic record that's the epitome of cool, composed, and confident wit and intellegence (has Sonny ever played cooler and more composed on a record?), seemingly oblivious/indifferent to the "controversy" that the results would stir - tell me that's not the stuff of drama, a drama that is only heightened by its participants refusal to overtly submit to it. To stretch the point to or beyond the breaking point, but if Cary Grant had been a cutting-edge African-American jazz tenorist, he might have been Sonny Rollins on WAY OUT WEST. A stupid conjecture, to be sure, but think about it...

I get a lot more out of this album than this analogy, but this is an angle that is really fun to explore, at least for me. Another way to look at it - only Sonny Rollins could have made this record, but only Lester Koenig could have made THIS Sonny Rollins record.

I'll let it go now.

[Cornelius]

I like the goofiness of the cover, and I got a good laugh from JSngry's description of his stoned visions, but I'm not too impressed with the programmatic aspects of the album. First, to be fair, I have to say that I'm not usually interested in programmatics. There are exceptions, but usually I relate to an album just as a collection of tracks. I may want to re-program them myself, and, usually, I care more about discographical unity than about "album statements."

"I'm An Old Cowhand" and "Wagon Wheels" aren't really even cowboy songs, are they? Aren't they mid-20th century (I've not double checked the dates of composition) members of the extended American standards book? Nor is Rollins's "Way Out West" much of a cowboy song, as far as I can tell. Then "Solitude" might suggest the loneliness out on the prairie, or, as I read, Rollins's own geographic displacement. Okay, whatever. "Come Gone" is a blowing tune; no head really (Rollins made a comment that suggests he hadn't played those changes since. Are they based on something else?). And "There Is No Greater Love" is another standard. So, as a special program, this is pretty much a wash for me.

My ridiculously glib review: I'm not keen on the "let's let it all just hang" feel on the tune "Way Out West". Rollins is like he's just playing with his food. In certain places on the album Ray Brown sounds not too inspiring in the notes choice department, as well as range: Hey, Ray, would it kill you just to once in a while lean over that thing to play a few of the higher notes; you know, get out of the mid-range occasionally? Okay, so I exaggerate, but he is mid-rangey on this album. Nevermind. He's a beautiful player so there's still plenty of good stuff by him on the album. I mentioned that Manne has done much better albums. Rollins is, as far as I can recall, never unbrilliant on this one. I won't even bother trying to add to what's been said about him for over fifty years. How can you not be in a thrall listening to this man? "Solitude" is my favorite track. "Come, Gone" too.

/

"Even Glen[n] Miller, and Paul Whiteman had more going for them in their day than today's Smooth Jazz offerings." [sNWolf]

Not only that, but I wouldn't even analogize Whiteman and Miller with smooth jazz.

"A young rebel in search of a visceral musical kick, a sense of deviance and otherness, is likely to find mainstream, conventional jazz too whitebread. The irony of course, is that when that music was originally played it was out on the edge."

Thanks for putting that so well. I'm struck by the need people have for music to jolt them, and to be, by nature, jolting. The need for music never to let its guard down as anything less than full-on action-ready anti-conventionalism. So rockers list their jazz faves as Mingus ('cause he was bad, man), Charlie Parker ('cause he was a true revolutionary, man), and Sun Ra ('cause, well, why do you even have to ask, or are you a cocktail party jazzbo?). Lip service to jazz, really. It's not fair for me to say this, but I will anyway: I have a certain mistrust of people who came to jazz through rock. I just don't trust them not to import that need for shock and difference for its own sake. I don't trust people who've been expecting ever greater and bigger blasts and ever more convoluted effusions to take jazz on its own terms. Those terms do include originality and innovation, but it's a much different sense than in rock. Originality, innovation. Overrated in my book anyway. Just to make variations and make something different 'cause you won't be a serious artist if you don't, seemingly no matter how stupid the result. Yeah, rock on, but you must excuse me while I go put on some good music.

Edited January 26, 2005 by Cornelius

[mikeweil]

Here's a bigger cover.

This was probably the one that hipped me to Sonny's very personal sense of musical humor.

I LOVE that cover - the folks in New York probably thought they were pretty cool when they dissed it, but IMO this was proof of the exact opposite: being dedicated to coolness sometimes led to overcritical hipness, which, of course, is plain square.

[mikeweil]

Just a thought: Did Johnny Griffin ever comment on this "fastest horn in the west" cover?

[Alexander Hawkins]

I have to say, I had never really registered the 'fastest horn in the west' meaning in the cover. Obvious, now you mention it, and pretty cool!

[Late]

The most annoying thing about alternative takes on albums is they put them after the original track. It might make sense sequentially, but aesthetically it ruins the feel, the ebb and flow of the music. Sometimes alternatives takes are wonderful, even superior to the main track, due to previous time constraints on the original LP, but in general they're inferior. So as a listener, you hear one creatively inspired track followed by a b-grade successor.

Wolf,

You might want to search out the latest Japanese edition of this disc (remastered in 2000). The alternate takes are all placed at the end of the disc, and the sound is a lot better than on the standard OJC edition. It really does make for an altogether different listening experience.

[Guy Berger]

The most annoying thing about alternative takes on albums is they put them after the original track. It might make sense sequentially, but aesthetically it ruins the feel, the ebb and flow of the music. Sometimes alternatives takes are wonderful, even superior to the main track, due to previous time constraints on the original LP, but in general they're inferior. So as a listener, you hear one creatively inspired track followed by a b-grade successor.

Wolf,

You might want to search out the latest Japanese edition of this disc (remastered in 2000). The alternate takes are all placed at the end of the disc, and the sound is a lot better than on the standard OJC edition. It really does make for an altogether different listening experience.

The K2 remaster also places the alternates at the end of the disc.

Guy