DrJ

Long live the King! Time to fire up some of his greatest stuff on the new listening rig tonite, have yet to play any Louis on that set-up.

I've been on a Jobim and Baden Powell kick lately; reviewing this thread makes me realize I have a WHOLE lot of learning to do about this music! Meantime, I've been absolutely loving the Baden Powell compliation that Sunnyside/Universal put out a couple years ago, O UNIVERSO MUSICAL DE BADEN POWELL. Prior to this I'd heard only some isolated tracks as well as the album he did with Grappelli on Festival, LE GRANDE REUNION which is a doozy. I've been bitten big time. What an amazing guitarist, with a really unique vision and all-encompassing, eclectic style. I really like the edge to Powell's stuff - is this what people mean when they speak of "Hard Bossa?" Given my limited scope of exposure to this great Brazilian music, where would I go next to hear less widely-known stuff in the Powell ilk?

I really like this set. The sound quality is a treat - just outstanding - but the music is star. I'm partial to June Christy so that's my favorite part, but it's early Christy rather than her later more mature style - so just something to keep in mind. She wasn't quite as individual a voice then although most of the major elements in her style are in place. I'd compare her work here to the material released on the CD DAY DREAMS (at least the 40's stuff, not the add-on stuff with Kenton from '55) more than to slightly later classics like SOMETHING COOL. This box was my first extended exposure to Peggy Lee's material and I really dig it. I like the intimacy of the settings here with Barbour on guitar. Made me a convert, I need to pick up more of her recordings. Another great Mosaic set.

In the car on the way to work at 0430 AM (baby delivering time!): COMPLETE PACIFIC JAZZ RECORDINGS OF GERALD WILSON AND HIS ORCHESTRA, Disc 2

Thanks for this additional info, folks - I will be picking up that Bill Barron date soon.

There's a dot out of place on that second graph, Jim - BOGUS DATA, BOGUS DATA, BOGUS DATA! OK, OK, I'll let it go - you don't have to hit me over the head!

Well, I WOULD try to convince you otherwise, Mike...Monk was not born or raised in Africa, and while I'm not 100% sure I doubt his parents were either. I honestly believe that it's an irrelevant point in this case. While I'm sure that some of the musical devices Monk employed were in fact passed down from ancestral Africa, that's neither here nor there as the stuff I'm talking about don't fit in that category. Jim - your analogy with Campanella makes no sense at all. An acute, unexpected, traumatic injury in a car accident is one thing, while a medical condition that is known to typically become manifest in early adulthood (and this statement is not based on "20/20 hindsight" but rather data involving 1000s of people in prospective, longitudinal studies) rather than springing from out of nowhere in middle age or later is totally another. Comparing them is an utter nonsense. Also, as I stated before, the drug use/mental illness thing inevitably gets into chicken and egg debates, but it's pretty well established from longitudinal research that usually the mental illness precedes the drug use, seldom does drug use "cause" mental illness - medically, that just don't happen but once in a blue moon, despite popular folklore and family stories designed to hide the stigma of mental illness - except in the case of very specific drugs that Monk never took (e.g. some of the synthetics developed later that can cause Parkinsonism) OR in the case of tremendously heavy, chronic use of other drugs - which I guess is possible, but I doubt it (it would be hard to account for that type of drug use in the face of Monk's early productivity as well as his longevity - Bird held it together for a while but died real young) and even then it would still be a far less likely scenario. Drug use in the context of mental illness is, then, generally a form of escape or self-treatment FROM the mental illness, OR (as some recent work has teased out) is a totally independent disorder (e.g. there's no cause/effect relationship between drug use and mental illness in EITHER direction in many populations, but rather there could be an underlying psychoneurologic deficit that puts the person at risk for both conditions). Also, even if I give you the possibility that drug use caused some type of acute mental illness or "breaks," they usually clear up once the drug use is stopped. So that doesn't easily explain the long-term decline. Anyway, while I don't agree with squelching the discussion as Chuck has seemed to ask us to do, I am pretty much over it myself. I'm really kind of surprised at the resistance to this idea of mental illness being a largely life-long struggle, why it "matters" so much to people. Jim, you asked: It's not to any end, dude, I'm just trying to bring in a different viewpoint, one that is certainly not based on any personal knowledge of Monk but one that IS quite well informed in regard to the causes and nature of mental illness. Also, your quote misses the point again - I'm not trying to assert a link between mental illness and creativity, I said that before. That would be stupid. I'm saying that I think you can hear in this one man's music evidence (at times) of mental illness, primarily in the later years. Period. Don't read so much into it. Since nobody here knew Monk, I think my views are at least as valid as any other viewpoint - and as I said several times up front, I could be wrong. There's no goal or end, except maybe (as I mentioned already) to elevate Monk's genius and achievement even just a bit higher than they already were.

Used in fact, for about 6 bucks. Nice CD from 1996 with Ben Riley leading (for the first time on record) a trio with Buster Williams on bass and Ralph Moore playing exclusively tenor. Well recorded, on the tiny Joken label (produced by Kenny Barron, who unfortunately doesn't play at all on any of the tracks) - he and a woman named Joanne (thus the Jo-Ken name?) Klein produced it. Riley is his usual stellar self, and Moore is great (nice to hear him stay with tenor for a change), but actually Buster Williams steals the show. He plays a drop-dead gorgeous and totally musical solo on his own "Toku-Do". Get it if you see it.

I know you were kind of funnin' me here (and a well deserved swat on the nose it was, sorry for the tone of my first message, was more than a little, shall we say, HAUGHTY) , but I also have to say that the notion I've posed is not simplistic at all. I simply meant that with aging the brain and body lose all kinds of reserve...in the most tangible example, that's why when you were 20 and you went out and drank all night, you could jump out of bed without much of a hangover the next day, while now you feel like you want to die. Ditto for heavy exercise, you could be totally out of shape at 20 and go out and play soccer all day and have nary a sore muscle, but most people at 40 can't, and at 60 you'd need a body cast. Pneumonia in an 80 year old is a WAY big deal; sure it can be too in a younger person but if they are otherwise healthy, it seldom is. Same thing happens with mental reserve...all kinds of studies show that normal older people do have more trouble with "mental stress" types of tests like repeating long strings of digits from memory than younger people. This is associated with all kinds of tangible, real problems, like the tendency of otherwise normal older people to become disoriented or even frankly psychotic (it's called "sundowning" and is extremely common) when admitted to the hospital with an illness (even a relatively minor one) - they lose their normal cues and all their defenses/reserves are fighting off the illness, and they go ga ga temporatily. Same thing can happen in younger people who have medical problems that make them physiologically "older." So we lose reserve and when we do, medical problems that were present in youth but more or less compensated for can become more of an issue. Now I ask you, why should mental illness - a misnomer in the era of molecular biology and genetics, since these disorders are every bit as "medical" as heart failure - be any different? It's an important point, not really a very technical one. I think it explains why a lot of artists who contended with mental illnesses were able to be quite productive and keep it together early in their lives, while later on their productivity went to hell and they became withdrawn or reclusive.

Thanks for the turntable tips, Wolff. Right now I am still waiting for my Samson rack, scheduled to arrive on Wednesday or so of this week. So the turntable is on the floor, although it's a hard wood floor and very level. But I'm sure there are some transmitted vibrations, it's sitting (by virtue of not having anywhere else to put it) right next to the base of the left speaker right now. I will definitely give it another hearing after it's on the rack. My suspicion though is that it will turn out to be garden variety surface noise at play...some of my LPs I've had for a long time, they're not in pristine condition. They still sound fantastic though, and as you put it the emotion shines through. When I play the ones that I have that are in great condition, the noise disappears, so I'm pretty much sure that's it. The 8 watts drive the Zingalis without any problem at all, power to spare. A really nice full, rich sound. Playing some modern recordings like Bjork's VESPERTINE, where there is a lot of (intentional) rumbling on the low end, the floor was appropriately shaking - hey, who needs a subwoofer? Still, as good as the bass reproduction of this rig is to me, it would probably fall a bit short for people who really love the boom. I don't see it ever being an issue for someone who listens primarily to classical and jazz - in fact the sound repro for double bass is breathtaking, I listened to a Buster Williams solo last night on Ben Riley's WEAVER OF DREAMS transfixed and literally had to remind myself to close my mouth and stop drooling. But for people reared on rock played through solid state home theater type setups, it's a whole different sound and they may not warm to it. Bass is great then for me, but the real strength of this set up is in the amazing imaging and depth of soundstage, and the fantastically natural - translucent is the word I keep coming up with - midrange and high end. Simply put, you are there!

I don't think upgrading is the issue here, Stefan. Rather, I notice that with a truly high end set-up you just hear the recording, warts and all. It's not distracting to me at all, just different and kind of remarkable to think all this information was there but hidden by lousy electronics. I think this exposure of detail is great, personally, because it really does separate the great recordings from the merely good ones. It's the same phenomenon that allows me to hear differences in, say, the 4 tenor players' styles on VERY SAXY - with the ability to bring out detail, you do also hear more of the recording flaws. I guess it might bother some out there - if so, it's probably good, you'll save yourself some serious dough! One thing I will reiterate is that my turntable is by far the "weakest link" in the chain, so it's possible the noise is eminating from inferior electronics. So your point may be salient there. I'm not in any great hurry to upgrade since I listen to CDs over vinyl about 20:1, and it sure sounds like surface noise to me, but eventually (several years from now maybe) I will look into this and do some listening to compare and see if an upgrade would be worthwhile.

I will second Jim R's nomination of Jobim...I've been on a major Brazilian music kick and I have to say what he accomplished seems more and more staggering over time. Sticking to jazz oriented stuff, I'd definitely also include Wayne Shorter. And hey, what about Ornette Coleman?

Great comments - sorry for my absence over the weekend, things were hectic. I don't disagree with anything anyone's said, really. But I do hold to my interpretation. Much of the discussion has veered into the cultural definition of mental illness - and that's an interesting but somewhat different topic. Sure, mental illness is ultimately culturally defined. There's a whole burgeoning area of study of what are called "culture bound" syndromes, which are mental conditions that are only found/diagnosed in specific cultures. We create as a society what the psychiatrists call "normal" and "abnormal" for sure. But as I alluded to above, all of that really misses the point. The points as I see them were: 1) Monk was born and raised in Western culture, not Africa, so I think it's totally reasonable to discuss his condition and behavior relative to Western cultural norms. 2) Eccentricity is not mental illness. No argument there, and never had any (as I mentioned at the start of my reply to Jim, there are plenty of iconoclasts and eccentrics without mental illness - most of them, in fact. 3) I believe that I can see in clips of Monk and also hear in some of his recorded music more than just genius and eccentricity - I see and hear instances where he seems to have veered over the line into what most people in Western culture would deem as behavior consistent with mental illness. Again, it's not really salient to the discussion whether he would have been considered mentally ill in another geographic region - that goes without saying, but the fact is he lived in the U.S. 4) I respectfully disagree with the overly simplistic notion that Monk's early years were any freer of mental illness than his later years. Rather, I 'd say that it's likely his reserves ran shorter in the later years and he wasn't able to channel and keep at bay the demons as successfully any longer. His music showed these differences in reserve. Nearly all mental illnesses begin in early adulthood, and it's not unusual for severity to worsen later in life. Few develop past middle age. I've seen this whole thing played out in one of my own relatives - youth is a time of amazing energy and psychological and physical reserve, but the signs are always there if anyone cares to look (or, as is often the case, look back for them). 5) NONE OF THIS IS A JUDGEMENT, and NONE OF THIS IS MEANT TO SUGGEST THAT MONK WAS ANYTHING LESS THAN A FULL ON GENIUS - that's the part that kind of bothers me about what many have posted in reply. The automatic assumption is that by calling something a mental illness, I have somehow automatically stigmatized the person and have taken away credit for what they achieved. While it's true that such stigma does exist in some quarters in our society, that was way far from my intent. People jumping in frantically trying to "defend" Monk's genius and his personhood strikes me as a manifestation of a society that still has a long way to go in its acceptance of mental illness as a commonplace state that NEEDS, no DEMANDS to be acknowledged and considered in the full light of day. 6) To reiterate, I submit that what Monk achieved is actually if anything ELEVATED when one acknowledges the demons he had to confront and content with. That he did so in a highly public manner for so long is nothing short of astonishing. No wonder he was ultimately exhausted, emotionally, creatively, and physically.

The Meishu has taken the system a huge notch up...remarkable, remarkable sound. After waffling quite a bit, I ended up going for the model with the phono stage (got a great deal on this), and I'm really glad because vinyl sounds fantastic even with my workmanlike, distinctly non-audiophile Technics MK-1200 turntable and Ortofon MM cartridge. I do notice that vinyl that I once thought was in good condition has quite a bit of surface noise - the Meishu is so damn sensitive it brings everything out. But CDs also sound amazing with the AN Signature DAC 2.1/Meishu combo, it's a real coin toss which I prefer - the CDs just have so much separation and pinpoint imaging, but the vinyl sure sounds warm and rich. I've never heard a truer reproduction of the source material - great recordings sound other-worldy, and the faults are faithfully reproduced in the less great ones. I notice tape hiss on sessions I never heard before (e.g. the Ella Gershwin songbooks last night). But none of this is a "negative," I like the idea of hearing what's there to hear. One interesting thing I didn't expect - when I had the whole rig except the Meishu and was running the Denon amp, the bass was on the boomy side and I had to move the speakers way far in to the room, away from the walls, to reduce this. With the Meishu, there is plenty of bass, but I can also move the speakers back quite close to the walls without inducing boom until they're basically right on top of the wall (I ended up with the back and sides of the speakers only about 12-18 inches from the walls). I assume this has something to do with the high quality of the low-end signal from the Meishu, but I'm not sure. Regardless, it's a real boon in a small listening room. Man, do those tubes run hot! That's about the only downside I can find so far with this set up; in a small listening room it can really raise the temperature quite a bit; in the Central Valley in California in the summer, where temps routinely hit the century mark, this is not great. Should be nice for those cold winter months, though! Anyway, I LOVE this rig and my listening room. Anyone contemplating any of this gear, I can highly endorse it.

Naw, but it's a good point to discuss. My point with Monk and some other artists who suffered from mental illness is that in their peak years, they did seem able to tap into their (for lack of a better term) visions and even more importantly express them in a way that resonated with others. I don't think one HAS to have a mental illness to have an iconoclastic viewpoint, definitely not. And of course many people with mental illness aren't able to transform their experience into art - that gets to your plumber comment, Monk was just so creative that he was going to be a genius at whatever he did - probably would have transformed plumbing. All I'm saying is that when I hear Monk's music, I could be reading in way too much, but I believe I can hear him channelling both the highs and lows of his condition into art. It's worth emphasizing the highs - to me, one thing that is seldom discussed is the tremendous joy and humor in much of his Monk's music. "Childlike" has been used as an adjective for some of these moments, but I'm not sure I agree. Instead I hear some of his use of repeated simple phrases as expression of the moments of great clarity that people suffering from mental illness sometimes experience - e.g. in manic states, where the world first seems in fast forward and then almost seems to fall away and only a divine feeling remains (often expressed as a feeling of invincibility and even Christ-like state). Likewise, his use of repeated, micro-varied phrases, often played forcefully on the keyboard, sounds to me like an aural expression of being obsessed with or unable to part with an idea and literally "hammering it out." Finally, consider his mastery of tempo, and particularly his ability to hold together pieces full of long pauses at incredibly slow pace...best evidenced in some of his solo piano work. This is frankly astonishing, I don't believe I've ever heard anyone else who could do this type of levitation so well. This I hear as an altered sense of time, slowed down perhaps by depression - literally, he seems to be moving and playing slower than time itself, yet it holds together because it must have felt right to him. Again, I want to emphasize I could be all wet. But I think this is an interesting line of inquiry in considering Monk's music. He could have done all the above things simply because he was a genius, and it may have had nothing to do with his mental illness. But something about what I'm hearing tells me otherwise. Probably the biggest support for this thought is that to my ears his playing had more and more of the above qualities as he got older and his mental condition became more severe.

I like the plumber analogy, that is totally on point. To take it a step further: Monk was a genius with mental illness, not a genius BECAUSE he was mentally ill. The distinction makes all the difference in the world in terms of why it's important to celebrate his accomplishments, which are all the more remarkable for what he had to contend with. He even took it a step further and turned his suffering into expression that touched a deep chord in so many of us. Perhaps Monk did use drugs heavily, thanks for the info on the Gourse material, but again my guess is that there was some heavy duty mental illness self-medication going on. In my experience, that's the usual case.

Wow, hadn't heard about his passing. Damn, another great one falls. To me, although I'm sure he'll mostly be heralded for his R&B-influenced honking, his greatest jazz legacy was his otherwordly artistry on ballads. One of the very greatest to ever sing them.

Tony was Tony and was entitled to do whatever the hell he wanted. But I much prefer his earlier style, pre-mid-seventies. At that point in time, he was perhaps the greatest ever. One thing I found recently though is that even much later, he was quite capable of still playing in that manner. I came across a copy of George Cables' PHANTOM OF THE CITY (Contemporary) LP, which by the way is fabulous all around and seems WAY, WAY overdue for a CD reissue. Williams sounds very much like his Miles era self on that LP, yet it was recorded in the mid-80's. So that tells you his "louder" (I like the phrase "over the top") playing on stuff like his own BN leader dates from around there was by design (and also his being WAY too up front in the mix on those dates was I'm sure his call too). I don't prefer it, but he did it that way. Check out the Cables LP if you want proof he was still the greatest right up through the later years.

I agree that a post mortem to the degree of searching medical records is twisted. However, one thing that bugs the crap out of ME is that our society refuses to discuss mental health issues openly. Yeah, there's a lot ot talk about Prozac or whatever the latest "me too" drug is, but when you start really talking about the impact on people's lives, everyone gets all hush hush. I will say that after seeing STRAIGHT, NO CHASER and other archival film, and drawing on my own experience as a doc, it seems pretty clear to me that Monk suffered from mental illness that seemed to wax in severity as he got older. All accounts I've read indicate he didn't use drugs much or at all, so I doubt that was a factor, and if it was, my guess is it was secondary (self-medication) - that's the usual case, it's an escape route from the terrible anguish people with psychiatric conditions experience. Is all this relevant to Monk's music? Actually, this is one case where I think it is - primarily because what he did was so different, so individual, and at times, really does sound like the work of someone who was not only a true genius but also had an altered emotional landscape and viewpoint. This isn't a "tortured genius" thing at all - that's a tired nonsense, and often voyeuristic. Rather, I think Monk's mental illness, while devastating in so many ways, was for many years also a kind of wellspring for his music - or maybe the music was his therapy, his way of exorcising the demons. I have no proof about any of this and freely admit I could be wrong, but I think I can hear this. Many great artists suffered from mental illness and had the same type of insights colored by their suffering and altered sensorium - Van Gogh being perhaps the best example. Monk certainly belongs in that exhalted company. In this light, we ought to be celebrating Monk not only for the usual reasons, but for his tremendous courage in letting the world in on the pain and joy of his psychic roller coaster ride for so many years. Once he grew tired of sharing, or wasn't able to do it any more, he simply drew inward and left the scene. Rest in peace, Thelonious.

Naw, it's on Fresh Sound - they're puttin' out everything else. I ain't seen a dime yet either...though in fairness, they're probably scouring phone books across the country for people with the last name "Congeniality"!

Get it or regret it. While I personally prefer later (mid-70's) Criss by a large margin - he was more of an individual voice then - these older recordings feature an awful lot of exciting playing.

I think it's kind of amusing how some have "sacred cows" in terms of material they feel shouldn't be covered. It's just music, folks - the key is, do they say something worth hearing? If so, then I think these types of projects are perfectly valid and in fact highly valuable. Sure there's a marketing angle (can't begrudge them that given the sorry state of jazz sales - you gotta pay the band and eat, all that). But well-executed projects like this not only bring in some great new music, they enhance our viewpoint of the originals. If they on the other hand turn out to have nothing new to say, well then clearly they should have left well enough alone. The point is that it should be all about judging the execution, not immediately nay-saying the idea. If anything, such projects set an even higher bar for themselves because of the inevitable cries of "sacrilege" and close-minded approach to the music. Remember, non-jazz fans of "standards" cringe when they hear jazz artists "ruining" the melody and integrity of the tunes - they'd rather hear them played straight. I think pretty much everyone here would think that's ridiculous. So why should jazz artists revisiting jazz classics be any different?

This changes periodically depending on my mood. Lately, I have been totally engrossed by the Eric Dolphy Prestige box. The remastering job on this one is really good, and it lets the fantastic music shine. The variety of sounds, and the array of supporting musicians, is remarkable. Dolphy lives! In the category of "latest non-Mosaic box I'm loving," goes BLUES, BOOGIE, and BOP: THE MERCURY 1940's SESSIONS. Absolutely LOVE that material, my first earnest exploration of many of those represented (Meade Lux and Jay McShann especially). Other perennial favorites: BEAUTY IS A RARE THING MONK RIVERSIDE BILL EVANS VERVE PASSIONS OF A MAN - MINGUS DUKE CENTENNIAL RAHSAAN EMARCY BROWNIE EMARCY Finally, if this were a thread about "top of the purchase list," then I'd list: ROLLINS PRESTIGE MILES PRESTIGE BUD POWELL ON VERVE I have single discs overlapping with lots of the materal in all three of these boxes but it's only a matter of time before I spring for "the big'uns"

Another vote for "Alone, Alone, Alone," a fantastic tune that should be covered a lot more. Also have always loved the Corea tunes, "Straight Up and Down," "Tones for Joan's Bones," and "Chick's Tune." He was on fire back then. "The Folks Who Live on the Hill" is a real beauty too.

Sorry for the late response, it's been crazy lately... Well, I am finally going to be able to pick up the Meishu amp this weekend. I have been using the rest of the set up with my Denon home theater amp and even with that suboptimal set up, it's sounding fantastic. This has transformed my listening experience, I feel I'm hearing a lot of the music for the first time. The jump up from this already stellar sound when the Meishu is in the chain should be almost too much to take! I can't wait to fire up the "complete" system this weekend (still not quite actually complete as my Mapleshade Samson rack and floor amp stand are both not arrived yet, but should be soon).