2018-19 Hot Stove League

[ghost of miles]

4 minutes ago, Brad said:

It is THE City and it is the GREATEST city.  You’d have to live there to know, and, yeah, I’ve been to the great cities of the world. 

As Frank said, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. 

 

Sonny Gray's issues stemmed from a number of factors--IMO the Yankees could use a better pitching coach, for starters (er, so to speak).  But after having visited New York four times in the past 12 months, I agree completely with you, Brad.  I've been to London and Berlin, which are both pretty mind-blowing in their own ways, but my love for NYC keeps growing with each trip.  I just wish it were more affordable to live there.  

[JSngry]

18 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

...my love for NYC keeps growing with each trip.  I just wish it were more affordable to live there.  

he says without irony...

when the city was on its way up, there were buttloads full of affordable housings. where is all that now?

Look, you want me to run the Jazz Government, the FIRST thing I'm going to do is move the capitol to someplace where creative people (both from inside and outside the margins) can afford to live together without having to depend on family wealth, so be careful what you ask for.

It's now a frozen monument to itself, imo.

 

25 minutes ago, Brad said:

It is THE City and it is the GREATEST city.  You’d have to live there to know, and, yeah, I’ve been to the great cities of the world. 

As Frank said, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. 

 

Yeah, well fuck Frank. I love him, but fuck him nonetheless.

And tell me again why I have to live someplace I don't want to live in order to understand why I would want to live there.

I'm old(er), I know what I want out of life, and I know where it is. Pi Records is in Brooklyn. Nessa Records is in upstate New York. My granddaughter is a few minutes away, and all kinds of shit is on the internet, all over the world.

You know what the greatest city in the world is? THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD, that's what.

This type of meta-urban uber-provinciality is not a good thing for the 21st Century.

[ghost of miles]

38 minutes ago, JSngry said:

he says without irony...

when the city was on its way up, there were buttloads full of affordable housings. where is all that now?

Look, you want me to run the Jazz Government, the FIRST thing I'm going to do is move the capitol to someplace where creative people (both from inside and outside the margins) can afford to live together without having to depend on family wealth, so be careful what you ask for.

It's now a frozen monument to itself, imo.

 

Affordable housing is probably THE issue in NYC right now, which is why I mentioned it.  I'm happy living where I do, even though it's starting to have its own issue--relatively speaking--with affordable housing.  But damn, man, when I was there two weeks ago I saw Fred Hersch's trio with Miguel Zenon at the Village Vanguard on a Sunday night, then zipped over to Birdland to catch a late set from the Maria Schneider Orchestra--which meant I had to skip my previously-planned trip uptown to see Larry Willis and Steve Turre at Smoke.  Monday night I went to Le Poisson Rouge in the Village to see Terri Lyne Carrington's new group Social Justice, Terence Blanchard's E-Collective, and the Bad Plus.  Tuesday night there was a five-hour tribute concert to Roy Hargrove that featured the RH Factor, an elders group with Gary Bartz, George Cables, Ray Drummond and Jimmy Cobb, a small group that included Jeremy Pelt and Larry Willis (so I did get to see him after all!), vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater and Roberta Gambarini, Jon Batiste, Norah Jones, on and on... which meant I had to blow off seeing Bill Charlap's solo piano gig at the Jazz Standard.  I'd wager there's no other city in the world where I could have seen all of those performers in three nights.  Now yeah, the Internet is great, Chewy and others watched that Hargrove tribute concert streaming online, and that's awesome... but streaming still can't match for me seeing musicians like that in person.  And I mean hell, Roy freakin' Haynes was sitting a few rows in front of me, wearing a cowboy hat!  I could go on and on--well, I guess I already have... but it doesn't feel like a "frozen monument" to me.  Every time I go there, it's magic.

55 minutes ago, Brad said:

It is THE City and it is the GREATEST city.  You’d have to live there to know, and, yeah, I’ve been to the great cities of the world. 

As Frank said, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. 

 

I'll see your Frank and raise you a George!

 

Edited January 25, 2019 by ghost of miles

[JSngry]

24 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

Affordable housing is probably THE issue in NYC right now, which is why I mentioned it.  I'm happy living where I do, even though it's starting to have its own issue--relatively speaking--with affordable housing.  But damn, man, when I was there two weeks ago I saw Fred Hersch's trio with Miguel Zenon at the Village Vanguard on a Sunday night, then zipped over to Birdland to catch a late set from the Maria Schneider Orchestra--which meant I had to skip my previously-planned trip uptown to see Larry Willis and Steve Turre at Smoke.  Monday night I went to Le Poisson Rouge in the Village to see Terri Lyne Carrington's new group Social Justice, Terence Blanchard's E-Collective, and the Bad Plus.  Tuesday night there was a five-hour tribute concert to Roy Hargrove that featured the RH Factor, an elders group with Gary Bartz, George Cables, Ray Drummond and Jimmy Cobb, a small group that included Jeremy Pelt and Larry Willis (so I did get to see him after all!), vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater and Roberta Gambarini, Jon Batiste, Norah Jones, on and on... which meant I had to blow off seeing Bill Charlap's solo piano gig at the Jazz Standard.  I'd wager there's no other city in the world where I could have seen all of those performers in three nights.  Now yeah, the Internet is great, Chewy and others watched that Hargrove tribute concert streaming online, and that's awesome... but streaming still can't match for me seeing musicians like that in person.  And I mean hell, Roy freakin' Haynes was sitting a few rows in front of me, wearing a cowboy hat!  I could go on and on--well, I guess I already have... but it doesn't feel like a "frozen monument" to me.  Every time I go there, it's magic.

And see, that kind of shit matters to you. Me, looking at those names, not really. Not too much at all. If I felt good and had an evening to waste, I'd go see Gary Bartz with George Cables, But that's it. Sitting behind Roy Haynes must have been a real thrill, but, you know, my heart might now have been able to stand that much excitement.

I'm looking forward to, hopefully next year, saving up for it, going to that Open Big Ear festival in Knoxville, hearing all that, and then coming back home and seeing what happens in terms of interests.

So yeah, "greatness", in this sense, is being defined by you finding what you like. If it's not what I like, and if I can't find what I do like there (and be able to afford to live there!), then it's not great to me, nor will it be, nor should it be.

As for "magic"...there's no such thing as magic. There's either illusion, ignorance of methodology, or some combination of both.

Where I might like to be in that area is for the classical/new music things. Maybe. But that shit is pretty portable these days, again, the internet, fluid, not static.

Other than that, I do subscribe to both New York and The New Yorker, so I do see what all is going on there (and not just musically). It's a lot. But if I lived there, how much of it would I go to? Little, if any. So what am I missing living here that I'm missing living here?

Other than the expense and the attitude, not too damn much.

[HutchFan]

3 minutes ago, JSngry said:

As for "magic"...there's no such thing as magic. There's either illusion, ignorance of methodology, or some combination of both.

Oh, come on Jim.  You know what ghost means by "magic."  You love music, just like all of us here.  The styles that send us may vary.  But we're all looking for that thing.  The chariot ride to heaven. The hair standing up on the back of your neck. A glimpse of the beyond -- or the inner world. Call it whatever you want; they're ALL metaphors. But that's why we keep listening. It's NOTHING to do with "methodology."

As for New York, you can dislike it. Fine. Whatever. 

But music "magic"  -- don't tell me you don't know what he's talking about.

 

[JSngry]

4 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Oh, come on Jim.  You know what ghost means by "magic."  You love music, just like all of us here.  The styles that send us may vary.  But we're all looking for that thing.  The chariot ride to heaven. The hair standing up on the back of your neck. A glimpse of the beyond -- or the inner world. Call it whatever you want; they're ALL metaphors. But that's why we keep listening. It's NOTHING to do with "methodology."

As for New York, you can dislike it. Fine. Whatever. 

But music "magic"  -- don't tell me you don't know what he's talking about.

 

Oh, I know what he's talking about. But I don't believe in it now. I once did, but now I know that it's not magic, it's not illusion. It's the result of hard work and mental/spiritual openness. If everybody can't do it (and they can't), that doesn't make it magic.

You know what you get when you believe in magic? You get endless metaphorical spam calls to get you to buy tickets to the magic show,

There are a handful of times when I've felt "magic", in music or anywhere else. But that's just a first impression, and how the magician gets you to fall for the trick is to accept your first impression as the final reality. They count on you being a willing, gullible, sucker, because then they know what you'll buy and then they're happy to sell it. MAGIC!

You have a good time in NYC, hey, that's not magic, that's doing the work to look at the schedules and doing the further work to get there. That it's there at all is not magic, it's business, knowing that people are looking for that.

No, I don't believe in magic, of any kind. although, sitting behind Roy Haynes' cowboy hat, that, I might call that magic.

[Brad]

28 minutes ago, JSngry said:

So what am I missing living here that I'm missing living here?

Other than the expense and the attitude, not too damn much.

I don’t live in the City anymore — out in the burbs, an hour away by train — and I subscribe to New Yorker, etc., and it’s a pain to get to and all that and when I go in it’s crowded but it’s got a certain vibe, feeling, whatever that I can’t explain. 

When I used to work in NY and we’d have to do the occasional all nighter, you’d walk out at 6am or some ridiculous hour when the City was just coming alive, there was a crispness that I just can’t describe.  Just not the same working or living anywhere else. 

[HutchFan]

23 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Oh, I know what he's talking about. But I don't believe in it now. I once did, but now I know that it's not magic, it's not illusion. It's the result of hard work and mental/spiritual openness. If everybody can't do it (and they can't), that doesn't make it magic.

You know what you get when you believe in magic? You get endless metaphorical spam calls to get you to buy tickets to the magic show,

There are a handful of times when I've felt "magic", in music or anywhere else. But that's just a first impression, and how the magician gets you to fall for the trick is to accept your first impression as the final reality. They count on you being a willing, gullible, sucker, because then they know what you'll buy and then they're happy to sell it. MAGIC!

You have a good time in NYC, hey, that's not magic, that's doing the work to look at the schedules and doing the further work to get there. That it's there at all is not magic, it's business, knowing that people are looking for that.

No, I don't believe in magic, of any kind. although, sitting behind Roy Haynes' cowboy hat, that, I might call that magic.

Oh boo!!! 

Sure, I buy "hard work and openness."  But if I were to follow your rationalist line of thinking to its logical conclusion, you could say that music is physics.  Vibrating reeds and drum heads and hammers striking strings producing sound waves. So one could argue that music is actually physics even more than it's hard work and openness and methodology.  But again WHY we listen to music has nothing to do with physics -- even though physics provides the most purely rational description of what's happening in the world when we listen.

I still think we listen to music because of the way that it makes us feel -- whether we'd like to think of our experience of music in rational terms or otherwise. If music didn't get under our skin or grab us or transport us or captivate us (metaphors all!), we'd be doing something else!  Instead, we spend hours each day on this board, reading & writing about music!  Not music methodologies or physics or openness. MUSIC.

 

... And that poke at ghost for digging Roy Haynes and his cowboy hat is a rabbit punch, a low-blow. I freely admit that I'd be thrilled to be in the same room as Roy Haynes.  Any day of the week.  

Roy freakin' Haynes. He's immortal!  Of course, he isn't.  But he is.

 

Edited January 25, 2019 by HutchFan

[sgcim]

What happened to NYC

https://www.amazon.com/Bloombergs-New-York-Geographies-Transformation/dp/0820336815

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Oh boo!!! 

Sure, I buy "hard work and openness."  But if I were to follow your rationalist line of thinking to its logical conclusion, you could say that music is physics.  Vibrating reeds and drum heads and hammers striking strings producing sound waves. So one could argue that music is actually physics even more than it's hard work and openness and methodology.  But again WHY we listen to music has nothing to do with physics -- even though physics provides the most purely rational description of what's happening in the world when we listen.

I still think we listen to music because of the way that it makes us feel -- whether we'd like to think of our experience of music in rational terms or otherwise. If music didn't get under our skin or grab us or transport us or captivate us (metaphors all!), we'd be doing something else!  Instead, we spend hours each day on this board, reading & writing about music!  Not music methodologies or physics or openness. MUSIC.

Feelings are physics too. Physics and chemistry.

Let's not be dismissive of science in favor of emotion. There is no magic. There is science. Nothing happens independent of science. If the science is unknown to us at this time, well, ok. Up to and especially after some point, that's probably for the best. But if I follow your logic to it's logical conclusion, there are things that happen with no real or metaphorical "connective tissue" to the process. How can that be? How can that possibly be?

There is no magic. There is only unvisible science. I don't think that being sober about diminishes the importance of the results even slightly. But I do believe that a lack of sobriety in the matter invites all sorts of corruptions, personal and systemic, that eventually result in replacement of truth with fraud. Magic? Not in this person, no. You can go with what works for you.

In Braxton I (more or less) trust. Often dismissed, never rebutted. Science, not magic. Mystic, yeah, but note, that mystic is NOT magic.

2 hours ago, HutchFan said:

... And that poke at ghost for digging Roy Haynes and his cowboy hat is a rabbit punch, a low-blow. I freely admit that I'd be thrilled to be in the same room as Roy Haynes.  Any day of the week. 

Ok, you're in the room with Roy Haynes. You're happy, because he is a truly great musical presence and your heart and mind is filled with love gratitude (for the work, not for the person, becuase you've never met this motherfucker in your life. You don't know what kind of a person he is, nor do you need to). That part I get. And he's looking sharp rockin' the stetson or whatever type it is. The rumors are true, Roy Haynes really DOES dress sharp. THAT part I get.

But then what? You've been in the room with Roy Haynes wearing a cowboy hat and it made you happy. Is that magic? Why? For how long?

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, Brad said:

I don’t live in the City anymore — out in the burbs, an hour away by train — and I subscribe to New Yorker, etc., and it’s a pain to get to and all that and when I go in it’s crowded but it’s got a certain vibe, feeling, whatever that I can’t explain. 

When I used to work in NY and we’d have to do the occasional all nighter, you’d walk out at 6am or some ridiculous hour when the City was just coming alive, there was a crispness that I just can’t describe.  Just not the same working or living anywhere else. 

I get the energy of a crowded bustling city, but, you know, that's what crowded cities do, they bustle. But explain to me the methodology used to equate "bustle" with "great".

As for 6AM crispness, I have had similar feelings of uniqueness with 7 AM non-winter sunshine in East Texas, the sun above but not yet over the pine trees, the pigmentation of that sunlight hitting the greens of the trees and grasses and weeds just so, and then that light refracting to color the air and the shape of all things around it,. It only lasts for 15 minutes, 30 at most, but it's unlike any 7 AM sunshine I've seen anywhere else in the world. So yeah, it's special. But dammed if I want to live there, duh, right?

Just saying, "greatest" anything, it's either quantifiable or it isn't. And even when quantifying, there are preferences/prejudices implicit in the search criteria. This ain't the 20th century no more, we know more about data now than we did then!

[HutchFan]

O.K. Fair enough. We are who we are.

I guess I'm a (non-dogmatic) enthusiast at heart. 

 

From the Online Etymology Dictionary: 
enthusiasm (n.)
c. 1600, from Middle French enthousiasme (16c.) and directly from Late Latin enthusiasmus, from Greek enthousiasmos "divine inspiration, enthusiasm (produced by certain kinds of music, etc.)," from enthousiazein "be inspired or possessed by a god, be rapt, be in ecstasy," from entheos "divinely inspired, possessed by a god," from en "in" (see en- (2)) + theos "god" (from PIE root *dhes-, forming words for religious concepts). It acquired a derogatory sense of "excessive religious emotion through the conceit of special revelation from God" (1650s) under the Puritans; generalized meaning "fervor, zeal" (the main modern sense) is first recorded 1716.

[JSngry]

2 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

I guess I'm a (non-dogmatic) enthusiast at heart. 

 

From the Online Etymology Dictionary: 
enthusiasm (n.)
c. 1600, from Middle French enthousiasme (16c.) and directly from Late Latin enthusiasmus, from Greek enthousiasmos "divine inspiration, enthusiasm (produced by certain kinds of music, etc.)," from enthousiazein "be inspired or possessed by a god, be rapt, be in ecstasy," from entheos "divinely inspired, possessed by a god," from en "in" (see en- (2)) + theos "god" (from PIE root *dhes-, forming words for religious concepts). It acquired a derogatory sense of "excessive religious emotion through the conceit of special revelation from God" (1650s) under the Puritans; generalized meaning "fervor, zeal" (the main modern sense) is first recorded 1716.

Yeah, I get that. But that type of ecstasy can survive scrutiny, and might well become even more meaningful after it does. "God" means a lot of differnt thiungs to a lot of different people, and as people evolve so does "God".

Just sayin'.

[HutchFan]

1 minute ago, JSngry said:

Yeah, I get that. But that type of ecstasy can survive scrutiny, and might well become even more meaningful after it does. "God" means a lot of differnt thiungs to a lot of different people, and as people evolve so does "God".

Just sayin'.

You'll get no disagreement from me on that point.  

[ghost of miles]

I meant "magic" in the sense of transcendental (to me) experiences.  No Harry-Potter-hocus-pocus stuff, just the intensity of a certain kind of experience.  Sitting in the Village Vanguard, for instance, feels "magical" to me because I've loved and listened to so many albums that were recorded there.  To stand in the same space where Cafe Society was and talk to an audience about Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit" there felt magical to me.  A sense of psychic levitation, brought on by a sense of history, passion, reverence for artistic personalities, etc.  Whatever I might call "magic" is still connected to work, effort, day-to-day humanity; but the resulting feeling is extraordinary, and does feel "magical" to me.  And all four trips to NYC in the past 12 months have produced such feelings.  "Magic" to me can also be anything you never thought possible that then becomes a reality--seeing the Stone Roses in Manchester, UK two summers ago, for instance.  "Magic" didn't fly me there on the plane, and it was BillF's hospitality, rather than magic, that gave me a place to stay while I was in the city--but by God, seeing a band I'd loved for so many years taking the stage in front of 70,000 people in their hometown sure felt like "magic" to me--an elevation of everyday life.

[JSngry]

Elation, then?

[JSngry]

 

[felser]

I've experienced it at Bethel Woods (where Woodstock was held - mourning and celebrating the lost pipe dreams of my sub-generation), and in Nashville, at Ryman Auditorium and at RCA Studio B there.  Subjectively moving experiences beyond objective reason.  Also felt it some the first time I ever went to Camden Yards, which I much prefer to our stadium here in Philly.  Strangely, felt just the opposite at Yankee Stadium, was creeped out by the experience.

[Matthew]

It's a great day to be alive! Way more important that any NYC stuff!

Edited January 26, 2019 by Matthew

[Dave James]

YANKS SIGN HARPER !!!  

Just kidding.  I was trying to get the conversation back on track.  

[paul secor]

The first thing I saw was your headline in caps, and I cringed.

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Matthew said:

It's a great day to be alive! Way more important that any NYC stuff!

That's a bold move 

[Dave James]

34 minutes ago, JSngry said:

That's a bold move 

Let's play two.

1 hour ago, paul secor said:

The first thing I saw was your headline in caps, and I cringed.

My work here is through.

[Dave James]

Neither Roy Halladay nor Mike Mussina will have cap logos on their HOF plaques.  If it was up to me, I'd have a player who was torn between two teams put both in a hat and pick one or the other.  That way, no one could accuse them of deliberately dissing the home town of one of their teams.  FWIW, the first player to choose to go logo-less was Catfish Hunter.  

[Brad]

With the way players change teams nowadays, the teamless cap may become a trend.