John L

Interesting. One of the reasons why I never tried that route (other than the fact that I love the taste of lightly-cooked and seasoned fresh animals) is that, once you give up meat and dairy, you have to pay a lot of attention to what you eat in order to ensure consumption of the proper complex proteins. Too much trouble. Yes, most fast food tastes like junk. But I hear that down there in Texas you can even breathe the smoke from those slow-cooking baby back ribs. Mmmmmmmmm

Alexander: So maybe there is hope for me yet? I have never really been able to "get" Chet Baker. It is not that I hate him. I can more or less enjoy listening to him, especially with Russ Freeman, who I do like quite a bit. But I don't hear the magic. Maybe it is just not my cup of tea.

Yes. I think that a lot of the "impostor" sentiment among established jazz artists had more to do with technique than substance. After all, they had paid their dues, spending years woodshedding to master the difficult language of Bird and Diz. Now these "new thing" people think that they can just pick up an instrument and get up on the same stage. The reaction was natural, and in some cases it was undoubtedly justified. But it could also be argued that, by the late 1950s, too much emphasis was being placed on mastery of accumulated jazz technique relative to substance. Somebody who isn't a virtuoso may still be able to pick up an instrument and express some interesting musical ideas. Conversely, a virtuoso who plays Bird solos note-for-note may have a lot of entertainment value, but is making a questionable contribution as an artist. If we go by the opinions of established musicians of the time, everyone from Ornette Coleman to Albert Ayler to Cecil Taylor to Sun Ra was repeatedly called a "Charlatan." But that label has little to do with the value of their art. Speaking of Sun Ra, by all reports, he ran an extremely interesting ship. On the one hand, he placed a lot of emphasis on hard work and discipline, continual rehearsals, little life outside of the band. On the other hand, he could pick up somebody off the street who is not yet a musican and feature him in the band in a few days. A lack of virtuosity was not the overriding concern.

Speaking of gospel organ players, I recall that we were having a related discussion a while back on the BNBB. Jim S was trying to identify a certain gospel organist who he used to hear in Texas. It struck me then that the information archive on gospel organ players seems to be pretty thin, at least in the public domain. Where does one go to get information in this area? In the "Golden Age of Gospel," Horace Clarence Boyer lists (in a box) who he believes to be the most significant gospel organ players, although he doesn't discuss them in the text. We have all heard of at least one of them (Billy Preston) and some of us have heard of several. But can anybody here identify everyone in this list? I can't. Alfred Bolden James "Blind" Francis Ralph Jones Alfred Miller Kenneth Morris Billy Preston "Little" Lucy Smith Gerald Spraggins Herman Stevens Louise Overall Weaver Willie Webb Maceo Woods Kenneth Morris is the Godfather here, having first introduced the Hammond organ into gospel music in 1939.

Three of my favorites haven't been mentioned yet: Hank Jones, Randy Weston, and Misha Mengelberg. I would add maybe Andrew Hill or Ray Bryant or Ahmad Jamal or Cecil Taylor or Cedar Walton or McCoy Tyner or...