Tony Malaby

[uli]

I saw Malaby Friday nite with Roebke and Rosaly. He looked just fine.

[JSngry]

You want a dress code, try Wynton and his crowd. All shirt.

AFAIC, Roscoe Mitchell sets the bar for today's performer.

[MomsMobley]

98.7% of jazz fans, no hyphens, could see Malaby live and come away believing he's a competent-to-hokey striver... which is fine, even with a decade plus of some fans (Jim Macnie in the old, not entirely decrepit, Voice comes to mind) drastically overstating the guy's historical abilities & achievement... as if Malaby's on an amazing "quest" (apologies to Mal Waldron, Eric Dolphy, Booker Ervin et al) & anyone interested in American music-- all types-- should follow, indulge its longuers... which is far from the case. (And yes, I've seen him numerous times, which is why I don't anymore.)

... as for professional attire, maybe at the Lighthouse he'd have worn flip-flops too?

imagine if we had any/more film of Gene Ammons, Chu Berry or Don Byas (I can't choose!), Arnett Cobb, Eric Dolphy always dressed for the gig (I wonder why?), Lockjaw Davis (to keep the tenor of this post), Teddy Edwards, Jimmy Forrest, Paul Gonsalves, Jimmy Heath... I'd go on but...

Now if we wanna talk about Lee Morgan's hair, especially with The Autobiography of Malcolm X imminent, even if it's-- maybe?-- a young black man's misplaced tribute to Lee Marvin's hair... like Tony's untucked shirt, that's fair game.

Edited April 6, 2014 by MomsMobley

[Leeway]

You want a dress code, try Wynton and his crowd. All shirt.

AFAIC, Roscoe Mitchell sets the bar for today's performer.

No, I think he sets the bar for himself. Which is the way it should be.

And the AEC's adoption of "costume" for its stage performances was designed to both break down conventions while also confronting audiences provocatively with a range of different meanings.

I don't care if someone doesn't like Malaby's playing, based on the playing. But on looks? That's stupid.

[MomsMobley]

Leeway, with due respect for (Booby H.-like) dialogue etc, re-read Mr. Sngry's posts... it's show business, like it or not.

And if Malaby & others don't like it, again that's fine but his ardent fans shouldn't cry foul when x, y & z point out what parts of the total package are lacking.

How you carry yourself is how you (will likely) be...

I'm not saying you have to wear big (or any) collars but... Don't look bummy and big folks can-- and in show biz, should-- be stylish too.

Edited April 6, 2014 by MomsMobley

[JSngry]

His looks have nothing to do with his playing, duh. That was not the conversation.

And hello, Roscoe.

Although the jacket and the tie are as neat as hell, they are not the point, the point is that the man looks sharp as hell wearing them, and that is not accidental. Even the neck strap looks sharp.

People, players in particular, think that it's enough to show up and play well, and if you're playing for blind people and/or for people who themselves don't understand (even/especially subliminally) the impact of the visual (theatrical or instinctive), ok, but that is not most people, including smart ones, especially really smart ones.

And consider this - in "show business", the business is "show", which is only partially (and depending on realm inhabited, potentially minimally) about "the show" as it is how and what you show. And as big a fan as I am of all things syne(s)thesiacal, showing is still a primarily visual sensation. It's already been noted, Malaby's flapping arms, right? Visual trademark, like it or not, to hear it told here. So people do look, and people do see. Therefore it behooves those who are providing that which is being looked at and seen to work that to their advantage, if they want a return from showing up to be anything other than showing up before going home. It's simply another sign of not being phobic about having a willingness to engage your audience.

You gonna be somebody, wear it, and wear it well. How is you business, but if should not even be a consideration for any reality-based adult.

[Steve Reynolds]

Next Time I'm gonna see if Evan Parker's shoes are shined.

Style?!?!?

Catch Mat & Tony sitting across from each other leaning in to each other if you want to see or hear style.

Leaning into the music. Should have seen and heard that band. Best SHOW of the year?? Maybe save for Brotzmann sounding like god at 15 to midnight.

Ever see the old man get up off the stool with the tenor or alto or that beautiful clarinet in his hand??? A show? No - reality, LOVE - could not NOT watch and listen with no clue why he was great except the sound of surprise - so many forget that it isn't the past - his regrets that the Big Man heard him and called him in 65 or 66 but nothing - go teach, write, play teach and never get the gig even where you teach. He became himself when he realized now at 71 there were almost a hundred here in front of him I when he could still get up his stool. Thank Jah a few of us witnessed it.

Yes - the Round one / never once did I even think about how he was carrying himself. Sure his first gigs of any note were after 65 but STYLE or class or all of that - been never seen any musician that I seen touch lo' Papa Joe.

"Duke Ellington just called and asked me to play Sentimental Lady "

Or sitting on the little couch downstairs at the knit and here he comes downstairs and the door is closed and we know he is there but the door doesn't so he tells the kid "I'm in the BAND"

He was the band. Fat, short, old, then can't get up from the stool, couldn't get many gigs, but he still thought that "It's gonna be HUGE" and when he yelled to Mat when I first said hello in 1998, "This guy buys OUR records" he knew it was just the beginning. Maybe the world's one day will open up. Most jazz ears hated him - but at least back then a few tried to listen. Today most are all closed off - no hard swinging here. Beyond the groove, maybe I suppose.

But of course, Papa Joe Maneri didn't play ANY tunes, played between the notes and the sounds and never got the gigs, but he did do something, he had a SOUND like no other, a jazz sound that could be mistaken for no other, and in his time and after, like the other off kilter greats, the dogs are always barking.

And of course it was HUGE - the imprint on my heart of seeing and hearing is most replicated in intensity and surprise and improvisation daredevil brilliance by his son and when it comes to the tenor saxophone, Tony Malaby. No show, just him whoever that might be although always playing with the band. See him, hear him, hear technique and sound and heart, like I told him, a little like Evan Parker with a groove almost:

April 12

April 19

May 3

May 9 & 10

Going to Church

Joe Maneri 1927-2009

RIP

Long live the spirit and love of true improvising

Edited April 6, 2014 by Steve Reynolds

[JSngry]

Yes, we do have an attraction to character(s), don't we. I know I do. It's basic human nature.

[Steve Reynolds]

Yes, we do have an attraction to character(s), don't we. I know I do. It's basic human nature.

Yes the ones who are most real to us. No masks, No games, No show

If there are theatrics with some of them, it's only because it is part of them. Nothing manufactured.

And the stories and the music are very real, very imperfect - especially with the great improvisors.

[MomsMobley]

Joe Maneri, and yes Steve, he was infirmed late in life but he was always stylish, clothes & grooming... Need we review Ornette also?

You think Joe went to all those Greek, Turkish and Jewish wedding gigs in... sweatpants?

[JSngry]

Yes, we do have an attraction to character(s), don't we. I know I do. It's basic human nature.

Yes the ones who are most real to us. No masks, No games, No show

If there are theatrics with some of them, it's only because it is part of them. Nothing manufactured.

And the stories and the music are very real, very imperfect - especially with the great improvisors.

True.

Still, those jeans in the Malaby video look like he just rolled out of bed after sleeping in them, as does the shirt, really. Attention to personal appearance and "theatrics" are the same only in the sense that walking and being a drum major are the same.

Also true.

So, let's not attempt to deflect the multiple truths by changing the single subjects!

[Chuck Nessa]

His looks have nothing to do with his playing, duh. That was not the conversation.

And hello, Roscoe.

Although the jacket and the tie are as neat as hell, they are not the point, the point is that the man looks sharp as hell wearing them, and that is not accidental. Even the neck strap looks sharp.

People, players in particular, think that it's enough to show up and play well, and if you're playing for blind people and/or for people who themselves don't understand (even/especially subliminally) the impact of the visual (theatrical or instinctive), ok, but that is not most people, including smart ones, especially really smart ones.

And consider this - in "show business", the business is "show", which is only partially (and depending on realm inhabited, potentially minimally) about "the show" as it is how and what you show. And as big a fan as I am of all things syne(s)thesiacal, showing is still a primarily visual sensation. It's already been noted, Malaby's flapping arms, right? Visual trademark, like it or not, to hear it told here. So people do look, and people do see. Therefore it behooves those who are providing that which is being looked at and seen to work that to their advantage, if they want a return from showing up to be anything other than showing up before going home. It's simply another sign of not being phobic about having a willingness to engage your audience.

You gonna be somebody, wear it, and wear it well. How is you business, but if should not even be a consideration for any reality-based adult.

and he even bows to the audience after a performance.

[MomsMobley]

[JSngry]

Dude - I have been on "jazz gigs" where the only way - the only way - you could tell who was the band and who wasn't was that the band was the people standing in the corner making all the noise that was pissing everybody else off.

At some point, earlier on with some than with others, that becomes the band's fault for letting their "place" be established by their own indifference to establishing one. And yeah, at some point, it becomes that the audience is a bunch of boorish dumbasses. But hey, handle your own business first, and you handle yours better than they handle theirs, and funny how often that will work out to a draw or better. Never let them get the jump on you, ya' know? Because there's always going to be more of them than there are of you, and at some point, you gonna fuck around and lose to the inevitability of critical mass or some shit like that. That's not me, that's The Physics Of Life, On Display Regularly at a World Near You.

[Tom in RI]

I like Tony Malaby's playing; pretty much as a sideman, his own dates haven't really done it for me. If I see his name on a date I am likely to give it more consideration. I am surprised at the amount of comment directed to his appearance here. This is not popular music and I am pretty sure the overwhelming percent of people who choose to go see Tony Malaby do not give a hoot about his wardrobe.

[7/4]

I don't care if someone doesn't like Malaby's playing, based on the playing. But on looks? That's stupid.

Fer sure.

[Hoppy T. Frog]

I guess germane to this conversation, when Anthony Braxton took off his Cardigan partway through Act I of Trillium, I realized I don't think I've ever seen him without it, and I've seen a bunch of gigs over the years, including totally accidentally being seated next to him and his band having dinner in a brewpub in Philadelphia.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Hoppy T. Frog