BTF 40 - Disc One

[Stereojack]

BFT #40, Disc 1

1. A nice opener for this disc. The tune is reminiscent of the kind of Latin funk that Mongo Santamaria used to play, but the absence of any percussion other than the drummer tells me that this is probably not a Latin band. No idea who it is, although I like it!

2. “Body and Soul”. My first thought when the first tenor came in was Don Byas, but after hearing the whole record I decided this was a newer recording. The first time I heard it I liked the way one of the guys comes in with a direct quote from Coleman Hawkins’ original. But then the full ensemble plays a transcribed portion of Hawk’s classic, so everybody had Hawk on mind that day. Nice! Again, not a clue who’s playing here. A few years ago, Bob Wilber did a Hawkins tribute, which I will not pull out to check (that would be cheating!).

3. Again, I don’t know who this is, but in part I am reminded of some nice sessions that Zoot Sims did with guitarists Joe Pass & Bucky Pizzarelli.

4. “Au Privave”. This comes on very strident and brassy. Generally not impressed with this kind of bebop workout. Some musicians think if you play real fast, then that’s the spirit of bebop. I disagree – there’s way more to it than that. Thumbs down on the trombone player – lousy sound, no ideas.

5. Sun Ra? I’m gonna guess the usual suspects. That would be Marshall Allen on alto, Ra on piano, who’s on violin, what’s on bass clarinet, John Gilmore on tenor.

6. A nice 1930’s track, the vocalist reveals that this is a European band. The real star is the trumpet player – very nice playing! Might this an American, Bill Coleman maybe, sitting in with a local band? The accordion is a little stiff, to say the least. Overall I like it, especially the trumpet.

7. I know I’ve heard this, the tune is “Reuben, Reuben”, and old kid’s song. Nice relaxed (c. 1950’s-60’s) modern swing. For some reason I wanna say Gene Roland, or possibly Johnny Richards? Excellent soprano solo.

8. “San Antonio Rose” My guess is that this is a few old timers at a festival. The Bob Wills hit is a western swing warhorse, I’m sure these guys have played it a million times. The piano sounds like one of those electric gizmos. Let’s see – Cliff Bruner or J.R. Chatwell on fiddle? A perfunctory performance, yet the large audience eats it up!

9. This was going along OK until the electric monster showed up. Bye!

10. I think I know this tune, can’t name it. Can’t name any of the players here. Maybe the tenor is Jerry Jerome?

11. Of course one thinks of Eric Dolphy, and this guy has got Dolphy down pretty good on this rendition of “’Round Midnight”. At first I assumed this to be Dolphy, but there are a couple of sonorities that the bass clarinetist hits that I’ve never heard from Dolphy (the first one is at 1:28), so I think that this may be somebody else.

12. A nice organ groove, my first thought upon hearing the two saxes playing the head was Roland Kirk, but once the soloing began I abandoned that idea. Odell Brown & the Organizers, maybe? Very nice, whoever it is!

13. Well, it’s not Charlie Byrd, and I don’t think it’s Bill Harris, so who’s left who plays this kind of guitar? Pierre Bensusan?

14. This starts with a very strong Ornette caste. I’m thinking Sonny Simmons (alto) and Prince Lasha (clarinet), although I can’t recall any unaccompanied duos they recorded. I enjoyed this, and I especially like the clarinet.

15. This did nothing for me, aimless, the sound of the piano (perhaps it’s the recording) is unpleasant.

16. A Sonny Rollins tune, I think. The alto sounds like Phil Woods. Spirited playing!

17. Very clever – they replicate the sound of a skipping record. Fun the first time, but ultimately a gimmick. Hard to pull off, though. Carla Bley did this on one of her early records.

Overall, an enjoyable set, Luca. Bravo!

(Edited for typos)

Edited September 11, 2006 by Stereojack

[Nate Dorward]

OK here goes--

1) first time listening to this one in the bus station on headphones I got little out of it; this time round on a decent stereo I like it a lot more, especially that pianist (the tenor player on the other hand....).

2) Tribute to Hawk's "B&S" by four(?) tenors (pretty sure it's four, one for each 8-bar segment). No guesses to who it is. I know it's a bit gimmicky, & with all the horns working to include Hawkisms in the solos it's hard to figure out their "usual" style, but I liked this one a lot anyway.

3) Prez tune, I think "Blue Lester". Getzian tenor (not him though, surely? not interesting enough), I liked the guitarist. Good, not great.

4) Uh, is this a joke? There are some things best left on vinyl, of which this version of "Au Privave" is one. Nice harmolodic guitars -- Aha, did that guy say "Hey Bird" or "Hey Big Bird"?

5) Love that opening solo, Bird given some twists! -- Hm, the question I had was how many musicians were on this. I'm guessing just two, though they play more than one instrument, since the fiddling for instance doesn't sound like that's the person's main axe, & it's pretty clear the tenor player is the same as the alto at the start. I guess I would have liked more straightforward flow here, rather than the gamesplaying with alternate solos, but there are plenty of impressive things here nonetheless. I'll be curious to see who this is, as I haven't a clue.

6)

7) Boringly predictable chart, but the soprano has charm. Could be Lucky Thomson I suppose, judging by the little of his soprano I've heard. The chart is awful, though.

8) "San Antonio Rose"--nice to hear (I'm a big fan of Western Swing). Is this one of those BFT tracks where we've got to i.d. some jazz players in unfamiliar contexts? Truthfully I find the more homemade styles of country fiddle a bit hard to take, & this is no exception.... & the pianist is a little accident-prone too. It's an OK track.... hm, the final chord is definitely a "jazz chord"..!

9) A really nice Joe Lovano trio track drifting around the chords of "What Is This Thing" that's scuppered after 2 minutes by... what the hell IS it?? Guitar I guess. Did he ever record with Tisiji Munoz? Anyway, a really horrible waste of 3 excellent players--I wonder if this is a joke or something. Eventually it kind of drifts into "Speak Low" for some reason.

10) Uh, this is a little too peppy for me--can't stand to hear Prez turned into this kind of glib choo-choo train. Sorry.

11) "Round Midnight" referencing Dolphy's version with George Russell (though I believe Dolphy took that on alto actually). The obvious guy for this one is Rudi Mahall but I'm pretty sure it's not him--RM's carved out his own style that's further from Dolphy. So, no idea who it is. I'm left feeling the same thing here that I did about the Hawkins tribute earlier on this BFT: I mroe or less liked it but mostly because it reminded me of something I already liked. The guy's one addition to Dolphy's style is that little multiphonic growl, which is nice but pulled out a tad too often.

12) Sounds like something from about 1969 (in fact if I didn't already have the albums I'd assume this was from Larry Young's unreissued Blue Notes). Liked the sax a lot, not the wimpy guitar, the organ's fine. The feeling is nice & the tune's good. Yeah, this is a good track.

13) Pretty sure I know this tune from some novelty-guitar context or something, but can't place it--maybe if I pulled out my Eddie Lang stuff &c. Not exactly swinging during the solo, but I'm not sure that's what this guy was aiming for. S'OK, I liked the "composed" bits but not the improv really.

14) Well, from note one it's obvious it's Ornette, both the tune & the sax. But with clarinet? New one on me. No idea who the clarinettist is but he's good. Is there really an album of Ornnete + clarinet duets out there, or is this a one-off track? Anyway, lovely stuff, & the acoustic suggests it's fairly recent.

15) One of those I-am-stricken-to-the-heart piano things that I don't like much. Are there two bassists here, or more likely a fiddle or cello + bass. Basically, this is well done but leaves me cold.

16) "Pent Up House", Phil Woods obviously. It's OK but too short--aiming at jukeboxes or something? My favourite solo's actually the bass--whozzat?

17) This piece seems to be designed to suggest that Thelonious Monk got many of his signature riffs by listening to skipping record albums!

Edited September 12, 2006 by Nate Dorward

[king ubu]

Love this disc, Luca, many, many thank! One of the most enjoyable BFT discs for my ears!

As usual, I haven't read anything here, I listened once so far, on headphones while working (a bit... it was too good to continue working, really...), and I have only done a wee bit of googling and AMG searching (samples are blocked by now... probably I was using them too often...)

Anyway, huge thank you! Looking forward to disc two later today!

*****************************************************************

#1 Great tune! So soulful... this is a tune (and a disc) that really touches me, makes me feel differently...

Can't play AMG samples at work, but I think it's from this one:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...10:sjd4vw9ea9qk

Bernstein's "Diaspora Soul" was the first disc (after a live broadcast of Zorn's Masada) of this kind that I heard and I still love it. Led me to explore more similar music, like the Lounge Lizards, Michael Blake, Sex Mob... oh yes, and the Septeto Rodriguez!

#2 Two Hawky tenors and bass... nice! One has the Webster-like airy sound and vibrato, the other that slightly more vocal quality of Hawk's... ah, there comes the rest of the rhythm section. Wow! Oozing! Oh, what's this, a third tenor, or does the Websterish one sound so differently in the upper register (@ 2:40)?

The tune is "Body and Soul", of course... ah, I see, this is more than two tenors... could this be one of Bennie Wallace's projects? Don't think so...

#3 Lovely! I know this tune but can't pin it. Bass is great here (better sound or sound-capture than on #2).

That's some presidential tenor here... not Zoot? Jimmy Rainey? Don't know him that well... or Johnny Smith? Rather not him, I think...

#4 One of those Parker tunes I can't clearly tell apart. Ugly bass sound here, alas. Trombone sounds a bit harsh but has a vocal quality that is quite nice. Not Ray Anderson? He'd have a meatier sound, I think. Ah, it's "Au Privave"... great tune!

#5 Alto opening is stunning! Piano sounds monkish first, then almost classical... enters the violin... why don't they play together? Strange, but this series of solos reminds me somehow of the animal themes in "Peter & the Wolf"... ah well, after the bass clarinet there's a short duo of tenor and piano... tenor is a bit lacklustre, mainstream avant/loft tenor, if there is such a thing... the hollow sound is nice though, even more so after the piano interlude.

I'm not sure what to do with this... not that I dislike it, but I somehow just don't know how to handle this.

#6 Sweet music from the late twenties? Ouch! I call this lollypop!

Great one! You'd enjoy the Swinging Ballroom Berlin boxes, I assume (I only have the second one, alas). Trumpet is nice, and I guess that's the reason why you include it? I'm pretty clueless about this, though, but I like it.

#7 Suave... late 60s big band? The Count's laziness is there, but there's a groove to it that reminds me more of the Jones-Lewis gang. The drummer handles this great, lazy and laidback but still driving and swinging. That would then most likely be Jerome Richardson playing the nice soprano solo? Love the muted trumpet backgrounds... this kind of big band music, where you needn't be reminded about the power of the full band all the time is great. So much variation is possible, and such a tune is that much more thrilling than the shouting noisy loud big bands (of say, Buddy Rich... not that he didn't have a great band, but this one's different and I like it a *lot* better).

I'll stick with Jones-Lewis... got to take that Mosaic out of the shelf again soon! There's a great live disc on TCB with Joe Henderson doing some wild stuff - recommended!

#8 Ha! Retro stuff? Polkamericana? Tune sounds familiar once more, but I can't place it. Good harmless fun.

#9 What Is This Thing Called Love maybe? Bass is a bit too busy at the beginning... tenor is very nice! Hm, Lovano maybe? A bit too soft for him? But too harsh for Joe Hen... can't pin this down. Don't really get the guitar's couple of backing spots. Ah, now it's solo time... doesn't really sound like a guitar any longer, rather like some old fashioned analog keybord. Funny sound, but doesn't fit with the trio of ts/b/d, I think... hm, I start liking the sound, even though I don't know if it's a synth or a heavily processed guitar, but I tend to think the later is the case. Ah well, now they go into "Speak Low"... one more which I can't really "classify", but I do like it.

#10 Funny how you programmed this disc! This sounds like some bop-era not-quite-bop-yet tenor... Flip or Ventura or someone similar. Or maybe even Illinois? Guitar is nice. Corny changes... nice build of steam! Nice how the honking never quite gets near an eruption but still develops momentum. Piano backing almost sounds like some rhythm & blues player.

#11 Great, more bass clarinet... "'Round Midnight". What a beautiful tune - one of my all-time favourite ballads, for sure! Not sure I'd need all the Dolphy-effects in place, but it's a nice performance.

Never heard of this guy, but could it be from the 2000 album here: http://www.till-martin.de/platten.html

Sounds nice! Stabenow it could be, soundwise, the others I don't know. Don't know the man himself, but if it's him, how's his sax playing? Should be interesting to explore, judging from this one tune!

#12 Hm, what's this again? Not bad at all, no sir! Maybe a bit simplistic (tenor solo, mainly), but I like it. I like the organ sound quite some, but I'm no good at all in recognizing organists' sounds... vinyl dub? Something pretty rare?

Hm, two saxes... this ain't from "Along Came John"?

#13 Hmmm... quite a change of styles, but there's something in here that I like a lot!

#14 Alto and clarinet? Lee Konitz and who? Clarinet solo is very nice, Lee I only recognized when he started his solo. Love him, what a master! Amazing how long he's been around! I cherish memories of the Three Guys (Konitz-Swallow-Motian) concert I saw in 1996!

A recent collaborator of Konitz' who plays clarinet (and tenor) is Ohad Talmor, but I don't know him well enough to hear if this is him.

#15 Now what's this? Piano again sounds nearly classical at some moments. I like the groove the drummer builds... could this be Bennink? Infectuous!

#16 "Pent-Up House" or what's this one called? Original version on Sonny Rollins +4 with Brownie and Roach... nice one here, right to the middle from the beginning. Obviously a live recording, but the music is great! Short and concise. Nice one!

#17 A weirdo version of Sunny Side of the Street to end things... ha, funny! Sounds like a skipping LP, but of course this is how it should sound... nice meaty sax sound.

[king ubu]

Ouch, that's Ornette... Ok, "Blue Lester"... the Savoy recording of this is one of those tunes that always sends chills down my spine... Also "San Antonio Rose" I should/could have known...

Glad to hear the guys on #2 are old (loved Sangrey going to puke... would have been puking along with him, I guess...)

Eskelin/Ducret/Chevillon/Humair makes sense for the tune with the weird guitar sound, though Eskelin sounds a bit straighter/flatter than often, no? He's got a more voluminous sound on other things, no? That would the be Daniel Humair's band, he's great! (Of course his sidemen are no slouches, but he's got a rather low profile for how good he is and for how long he's been around).

Jasper/Thomas... interesting, I quickly thought about Jaspar but then thought it wasn't him. Would be from the RCA album then with Italian musicians?

[Tom Storer]

Glad to hear the guys on #2 are old (loved Sangrey going to puke... would have been puking along with him, I guess...)

Actually, someone mentioned this CD and that looks to be it, all right. You and Jim had better reach for the air sickness bags.

Eskelin/Ducret/Chevillon/Humair makes sense for the tune with the weird guitar sound, though Eskelin sounds a bit straighter/flatter than often, no? He's got a more voluminous sound on other things, no? That would the be Daniel Humair's band, he's great! (Of course his sidemen are no slouches, but he's got a rather low profile for how good he is and for how long he's been around).

I was just guessing. The tenor player, like many others, is in the same general ball park as Lovano and Eskelin but I wouldn't swear to anything. However, the tenor-guitar-bass-drums combination makes that band Humair had an obvious guess.

[Eloe Omoe]

Actually, someone mentioned this CD and that looks to be it, all right. You and Jim had better reach for the air sickness bags.

Well, let's say it's a case of mixed bags

I was just guessing. The tenor player, like many others, is in the same general ball park as Lovano and Eskelin but I wouldn't swear to anything. However, the tenor-guitar-bass-drums combination makes that band Humair had an obvious guess.

It's not Humair. The bandleader is much older...

luca

Edited September 13, 2006 by Eloe Omoe

[JSngry]

Man, I'll go ahead and puke anyway. That shit was just too weird. I mean, 1994, and you got cats going into a recording studio to mimic Hawk. Why? What's the aim? To let everybody know how great Hawk was? Well, in the first place, who's going to hear a side like this besides people who already know that? And in the second place, it don't make a damn how well you can mimic Hawk - he was a motherfucker if you ape him perfectly, and he was a motehrfucker if you can't play shit. The greatness of Coleman Hawkins is dependent solely on the greatness of Coleman Hawkins, if you know what I mean.

Now hey - I owe Bob Wilber a personal debt. His Music Minus One side For Saxes Only (w/him, Hilton Jefferson, Jerome Richardson, Seldon Powell, Danny Bank, Dick Wellstood, George Duvivier, & Panama Francis) was something that I got hold of when I was 14 years old, and it turned me on to a lot of shit. So I owe him for that one. But this is just too weird, and like I said, insular to the point of not being what I would consider healthy. As a one-off, yeah, ok. But if the whole album's like this....whoa.

It's geeky, that's what it is. Geekiness has it's place in the training stage of becoming a player (and that's a stage that you never finish, truth be told), but to put it on a record and make it kinda your raison d'etre? No, man, no. Life's too precious and too short.

Edited September 13, 2006 by JSngry

[Tom Storer]

I don't know, I suspect that as a player you're a lot more invested in this than those of us who aren't. Not knowing what the hell it was, I enjoyed it a lot. Now I can go back and say they've missed the point, but if they have, that's their problem, except they apparently don't feel it is one. Some people spend their lifetimes playing as if they were in Chicago in the 30's, others do Hawk or Stan Getz, others pretend they're Coltrane, and so on. It's what the French call an exercise de style, a harmless demonstration that one has thoroughly understood the mechanics of a particular style. It's academic, literally. No one is going to be fooled into thinking these guys are offering anything other than that.

[JSngry]

It's what the French call an exercise de style, a harmless demonstration that one has thoroughly understood the mechanics of a particular style. It's academic, literally. No one is going to be fooled into thinking these guys are offering anything other than that.

So - I'm going to offer up a harmeless demonstration of mechanical proficiency that nobody's going to be fooled by.

The point being?

[Tom Storer]

That some people like it?

[JSngry]

Fair enough.

Then again, I can't think of anything that nobody's going to like. It just creeps me out, that's all I'm saying. It's kinda like, you know, I loved my old man, but I wouldn't want to dress up like him and talk like him and walk down the street "paying tribute" to him. That's just too weird. What would be the point - to meet my mother so I could marry her and father myself?

Even weirder still would be if I did that with my grandfather. I so don't want to marry my grandmother and father my father. Number one - my grandmother's already dead, my father's already dead, and I'm not dead, last time I checked. Number two - I'd rather have kids of my own than to have kids that have already born, lived, and died.

I guess it makes for good "entertainment" at some level, and lord knows I can be entertained by some pretty twisted shit, but necrophilliac incest ain't one of them. Then again, I can't think of anything that nobody's going to like.

All I'm saying is that the less you think about this kind of thing, the less twisted it's liable to appear. But if you can think about in a serious way that doesn't eventually become twisted in some form or fashion at some point, hey, more power to you. I'm not able.

Wilber's a known "re-creationist", but he's done some things that are at least slightly different. Allen's been the subject of a similar discussion here a while back. Suffice it to say that if I ever see him coming my way down the sidewalk, I'm crossing the street just to be safe. The other two guys here I know nothing about, and there's nothing here to induce me to change that. It's all "good" and "clever" and "fun" and all that, but I got creeped out from the git-go, and there's a reason for that. I've explained that reason, have said my piece, and will let it drop now. Just my personal opinion, strong though it may be, nothing more.

[Eloe Omoe]

The other two guys here I know nothing about.

For what it's worth, Tommy Whittle was born in 1926, so he's older than Wilber.

luca

[JSngry]

And younger than Bird.

Not that that's relevant.

[Eloe Omoe]

And younger than Bird.

I know what you mean

Edited September 13, 2006 by Eloe Omoe

[Tom Storer]

It's not Humair. The bandleader is much older...

Much older? Damn. Humair is 68 years old!

[Eloe Omoe]

Much older? Damn. Humair is 68 years old!

The bandleader is the guitar player. He was 72 then . Now he's dead.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Eloe Omoe

[Stereojack]

Much older? Damn. Humair is 68 years old!

The bandleader is the guitar player. He was 72 then . Now he's dead.

Oh, now I know. It's Bill DeArango! I'd always heard that this record sucks, now I know.

[Tom Storer]

The bandleader is the guitar player. He was 72 then . Now he's dead.

You mean the guitarist born on Jan. 29, 1930 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England??

Edited September 17, 2006 by Tom Storer

[Larry Kart]

Whittle, who's English, made his name with Ted Heath in the 1950s. I know him from a Johnny Keating record on Dot (Keating was a Heath arranger, the band is mostly Heath's) from about 1957. Whittle IIRC struck me as pleasant but rather faceless; I preferred the album's other tenorman, Duncan Lamont, woud sounded like "Long Island Sound" vintage Getz might have if he were sucking a lemon. Ot to put it another way, not unlike Gil Melle on tenor. Attractively weird.

[mikeweil]

Luca, this is one of the most interesting of all BFTs so far, IMHO. It is the first time I cannot identify a single track, only very few tunes, and rarely a player. Fantastic! Some of the tracks are so fascinating I plan to get the discs once the answers are revealed.

Here are my comments with the usual disclaimers in place.

# 1: I have been delaying my answers partly because I hoped I could identify this tune, but I gave up. I know it, I am sure it is of Cuban origin, at least in style. One rarely finds a jazz group that hits the characteristics of Cuban music that well: The drummer uses his bass drum correctly in sync with the bassist and does not play the darned samba pattern, and uses the cross stick and hihat nicely (but he could have imitated guiro or cowbell patters some more), the pianists knows his guajeos without losing his jazzy freedom and plays a nice solo, the horns phrase the theme properly ... I can't ask for more. I wonder what else they play.

# 2: Now this one has me stumped all the way: Three obviously Hawk-inspired tenorists, but the recording sounds so recent there isn't any reason to assume it is any of the old masters. But some of Hawk's phrases are so firmly in place here .... when they suddenly hit the transcribed last part of Hawk's original solo I shouted out in approval. This is great. I have no idea who they are, but they know their history, and more so, they live it. My compliments! How's the other music on that CD?

# 3: Some swing tune I know but cannot name - the version I have from the olden days is more to my taste. They didn't rehearse enough, guitar and tenor are not well together. Some rather average mainstream performance, to these ears. Doesn't keep my attention, although all are are competent players, but there is nothing special like in the two preceding pieces. The tempo is a little too fast to make the most out of the tune. Bass player reminds me of NHÖP. Some Pablo record?

# 4: Some fast and furiously played Bird tune. For my taste, a little too wild - and I don't like the electric bass, although he has it down pretty well. The spirit here reminds me a little of the Salerno Liberty City Band - the Deidda brothers, but they play more accurately, and Dario plays bass a little more like Jaco and a little better ;-) ..... well .... still curious who this is.

# 5: I would have liked the sax alone better - I dislike this style of piano playing. Violin? Why didn't they all play together, and a little more sparingly? I always suspect some of what I hear is random in these bands, and the unspoken rule to avoid conevntional beauty and harmony. It doesn't lead me anywhere. It gets more interesting when the interaction starts, but I have heard many of these "free"-style mannerism too often. And where are the violin and bass clarinet in the second part - or do they double - or is this even one player switching?

# 6: Hehee - there are some very nice contrasts on this disc. This sounds to me like a native speaker of German singing in English - don't know this style well enough to make a guess, but it's a nice dance band not much worse than US bands of the time. Hey - that accordion is the icing on the cake!

# 7: A big band track? Why not. Nice arrangement - like the way the trombones are scored. That a soprano plays the first solo after the bones is a good idea. The soprano player has that coy tone I like a lot with that horn. No idea who they are. Again, very nice.

# 8: Again, a striking change of mood. Must be a recent recording. The violinist has listened to his bit of Stuff Smith. Pianist sounds a little stiff. Could take more musical substance for its length.

# 9: Do I hear the chord changes of "I want to be happy" here? I like the way he uses his electronic sax attachment, but on the whole I find the track too long and meandering.

# 10: Swing it, Sam! No idea, but this is to the point and well played, although this is not the most of innovative of tenor saxists. It delivers, yeah! (Remarkable I like the more conservative material better on this disc, so far ...)

# 11: Solo rendition of "'Round Midnight" on bass clarinet. He knows his Eric Dolphy. Or is this Dolphy? Some phrases don't sound like him, though, and the rhythm section sounds too recent. I'd say not Dolphy. Interesting. There isn't enough bass clarinet in jazz!

# 12: An organ combo! Too rarely heard on these BFTs, as though we all had complete collections of every Hammond player of regard. This here is nice, but the way the horns are out of tune with each other and the rest of the band annoys me. Well, they didn't play "Tune Up", but they should ;-). Nothing earth shattering.

# 13: Acoustic solo guitar, and he can improvise with a classical technique! Does not sound like Charlie Byrd - the chops of this player here are much better! Who is this? Excellent choice!

# 14: Definitely inspired by Ornette! I can't say much about this - emotionally, it doesn't reach me, but I find this "quartet without rhythm" interesting, in some way.

# 15: This has the stark quality of some Mal Waldron pieces, but this is not Mal at the piano. Only thing I dislike here is one string player bowing along in the treble range - just those low notes anchoring the piece (with a little more presence in the mix) would have made it to a favourite on this disc. Sounds like one player plucking and bowing (partly below the bridge) at the same time. The piano could have been tuned better - could be an upright, but it is mixed up front so much to emulate the volume of a grand piano, it seems. Pianist has some Bleyish influences, too, but hits a little hard. Drummer could be more original - most snare drums sound not so good when the snares are turned off - it is hard to make a snare drum sound good and in tune with plastic heads.

# 16: Another familiar tune I can't name at this moment! Phil Woods with a local European rhythm section? Sounds like some unofficial release. Nothing particularly striking, but nice.

# 17: Now this had me smiling all the way. At first I thought of a defective record, but these guys actually play all those hiccups! Verrry nice idea - I have a soft spot for humorous endeavours of this type.

To sum things up, some very nice stuff, and again a rather eductaional disc, as I expect a number of unfamiliar names here (to me, at least). Thanks a lot for compiling, and excuse that I'm so late, but some unforeseen appointments and the preparations involved keep me busy most of the day. Now off to the others' guesses before I get back to my pile of old paperwork I have to sort out .....

p.s. edited to paste in a half-sentence accidentally cut out.

Edited September 18, 2006 by mikeweil

[mikeweil]

Allen's been the subject of a similar discussion here a while back. Suffice it to say that if I ever see him coming my way down the sidewalk, I'm crossing the street just to be safe. The other two guys here I know nothing about, and there's nothing here to induce me to change that. It's all "good" and "clever" and "fun" and all that, but I got creeped out from the git-go, and there's a reason for that. I've explained that reason, have said my piece, and will let it drop now. Just my personal opinion, strong though it may be, nothing more.

I vividly remember that discussion about Harry Allen's Getz tribute - I'm still looking for that record .... and will put this Wilber on my wish list. I liked it, I think it is too competent and heartfelt to dismiss it (which I know you didn't!) - this one is on a higher level than normal tributes and I reckon it's their natural language like Pres' was Quinichette's .....

I wonder why you have such strong feeling involved in this kind of thing Jim, and suggest you ask Harry Allen some questions when you met him, pehaps with your hands on the back in handcuffs?

[JSngry]

I wonder why you have such strong feeling involved in this kind of thing Jim...

A fair question, and one to which I'm not certain I have a wholly explainable answer. The closest I can come is that I have real strong feelings about identity - musical, personal, and otherwise. The reasons for that are too complicated and personal (and truthfully, not fully known/understood by me) to go into here. Let's just say that I understand study, respect, admiration (love, even to the point of "channelling") and all that. What I don't understand, and find creepy to the point of perversity (literally) is whatever it is that drives an individual to seemingly want to literally become somebody else, not in "spirit" but in exact detail.

Maybe it's a "sign of the times" that I've grown up in. I started getting into music (and jazz in particular) when "having your own sound" (i.e. voice, i.e. identity) wasn't just a catchphrase, but a damn near religious imperative. Didn't matter how good you "played", if you didn't sound like you, then you weren't really valid. No doubt, that attitude sprang from an environment where identity, musical or otherwise, was at a premium due to none-too-subtle societal/cultural pressure to not just supress, but to deny same. But whatever the driving force(s), I came to realize that, yeah, it's all too easy to become somebody else's idea of what you should be, and then who are you? If you're not you, then who are you?

It seems that if you're not you, or in the process of becoming you, that you end up being somebody else's bitch in some form or fashion. And that's just not something that appeals to me, not even slightly. Comfort at too steep a price is no comfort at all, is it? Now maybe my definition of "too steep" is a little more severe than most folks, but there it is. You asked me about my feelings, and these are them.

I mentioned the time in which I first got into music. Well, those times are all but gone. Between Clonetranes, Elvis impersonators, Marsaillian neo-cons, American Idles, and the general-if-subliminal sneaking suspicion of more people than we might realize that music/culture/life as we knew it really is "over" (or is in the process of becoming that), the comfort factor of hearing such detailed impersonations has left the premium placed on individual identity in the dust. Yeah, we all say that we want to hear "individuality", but the world's so different now than what it was 25 years ago that is that what we really want? Is that what "the public" wants to hear? And is it what musicians really want to deliver? Or does everybody involved want to keep some things alive, by any means necessary, that have passed peacefully and honorably into the night? Then was then, now is now, and being "different" than now is pretty easy - just don't relate to it, treat it like it's evil, and hey, you're home free. The means to having an identity has evolved into more a matter of identifying with a certain esthetic than with actually developing an individual voice.

Yeah, I know, the number of true individuals has always been relatively minimal (and getting at least a superficial identity by identifying with a "group" is a trait that has always been with us). But the goal has at least had lip service paid to it in degrees ranging from cheap to sincere, and I've known up close and personal more than a minimal number of people who have taken that ideal very, very seriously. Taken as a group, they might have been a lot of things, not all of them "good", but one thing that none of them were was somebody else's bitch. And to me, that matters. A lot.

Now, what does this have to do with this particular BFT selection? Maybe nothing, maybe everything, maybe something. Mileages no doubt vary, and wildly. I was going to just let it ride. But you asked me a question, Mike, and this is my answer.

[Tom Storer]

I wonder why you have such strong feeling involved in this kind of thing Jim...

What I don't understand, and find creepy to the point of perversity (literally) is whatever it is that drives an individual to seemingly want to literally become somebody else, not in "spirit" but in exact detail.

Maybe this is a semantic quibble, but regarding your reluctance to be on the same side of the street as Harry Allen: his apparent desire is not to "become somebody else" but to "sound like somebody else sounds." Is your musical identity the sum total of your identity? Allen might be able to sound just like Stan Getz in exact detail, but that ability/ambition/desire is only one aspect of himself, as indeed Stan Getz's sound--something he could do--was one aspect of Stan Getz the man.

[JSngry]

Is your musical identity the sum total of your identity?

It is the core of it, yes. Everything else builds upon that, including how I appraoch non-musical situations (of which lately there have been quite a few). It's affected who I fell in love with & married (and why), and I can't see that there's anything more "fundamental" than that. It's at the core of everything I believe morally, politically, you name it.

Or I guess you could say that those other considerations affect my musical identity. But at this point it's probably a "chicken vs egg" thing. And every musician I've know who's worth a damn in my book is the same way. Not that they always act on their best impulses (Getz would probably be a prime example, as would Mingus, Max, and a gazillion others), but then again, I believe that when there's a "conflict" like that, it's almost always a result of somebody using the music as "therapy", of it being the one place where they can be who they truly want to be, and would be if only they could.

In the beginning was The Word, Sound. Logos. Vibration, You name it. You betcha "sound" matters, and anybody who would treat it so cavalierly as to blatanly steal somebody else's and think it's "cool" is not somebody I want to get too close to, whether it's meeting them on the street or just listening to their records. That's some seriously weird shit right there, and I don't want any part of it. They may think it's perfectly innocent fun, but if an innocent child kills its parents because they think it's "fun", does that result in any less damage? Evil works in all kinds of ways and through all kinds of people.

That's just me, though. We really probably don't want to pursue this too much further, because I don't want to give the impression that I think that anybody who enjoys this kind of thing is an accomplice to evil, or any shit like that. I don't think that at all. We take our fun where we find it, and lord knows I enjoy some pretty suspect crap myself. But I do think that anybody who regularly plays in a manner such as that is treading on very, very dangerous ground.

[Tom Storer]

Fair enough, it's clear this is something you've thought deeply about. But regardless, Jim, it's time to sign up for BFT 41. If you don't, I'll find your address and send it to you anyway, so you may as well just surrender now.