Chrome

Anyone familiar with this tenor player? I just picked up his "Airegin," and, based on my first listen, I'm looking for other recommendations. He really seems to play with some fire, although the liner notes indicate he had pretty up-and-down career, with mental probs, etc.

JS: You know, not having heard any of the first (or second) of her discs, I was a little non-plussed at that comment in the review, too. Does she really have a song about the big O?

Didn't Richard Lloyd also play on some Matthew Sweet discs?

The French horn = zzzzzzzzzzzzz

From Slate ... The Faux Life With Norah Jones Debunking the pop star's "word-of-mouth success." By Seth Mnookin Posted Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2004, at 3:46 PM PT The carefully crafted down-home Jones Unless you're housebound, you've heard Come Away With Me, Norah Jones' first album—for the last two years, it's served as an unofficial boho soundtrack for coffee houses and bookstores around the country. But unlike other semiesoteric java joint mainstays, Come Away With Me is a record-selling tsunami: It's moved 18 million copies and won eight Grammys last year. (By comparison, Britney Spears' most recent album has sold about 2 million copies.) The release on Feb. 10 of Jones' sophomore effort, Feels Like Home—a slightly more upbeat album than her first one—presents a complicated challenge for Jones' savvy handlers. The conventional take on Jones is that she's a homegrown success who prevailed in an era of pre-manufactured and overmarketed pop stars. The truth is a little more complicated. Beginning about six months before Come Away With Me was released in February 2002, Blue Note Records sent out advance copies bearing breathless testimonials. The label also set up a series of press-only showcases at places like New York's now-defunct Bottom Line, a club notable for having showcased "legit" artists like Bruce Springsteen and Miles Davis. These efforts resulted in so much attention that Jones was featured in Rolling Stone as an "Artist To Watch" weeks before her album even hit the streets. (I reviewed the album for the New York Observer almost two months before it came out; my editor and I agreed that Jones was being pushed so hard it was silly to wait until the actual release date.) But as soon as Blue Note's PR campaign started to pay off, an interesting thing occurred: There was a paradoxical effort to promote Jones as an artist whose success wasn't the result of promotion. She was, we were told, a word-of-mouth phenomenon, someone you could feel good about listening to while you wrote in your journal. This type of promotion worked well among a crucial part of her fan base: college students, aging baby boomers, and sensitive writer types—people who think of themselves as independent and open-minded. Jones' continuing success will depend at least in part on getting these fans to be as evangelical about Feels Like Home as they were about Come Away With Me. So how do you market one of the best-selling artists of the past decade without making her willful fans feel as if they're being spoon-fed a star? By continuing to pretend you're not marketing her at all. This time around Jones and her handlers don't need to ask for coverage; instead, she's being carefully parceled out. Advance copies for Feels Like Home weren't sent to reviewers until a couple of weeks before the album's release date, and only one reporter, Rob Hoerburger, was allowed access to Jones and her new album as it was being made. The result was a perfectly positioned—and highly uncritical—feature called "The Anti-Diva," which ran in the Jan. 25 issue of the New York Times Magazine. In addition to amply praising the product, Hoerburger bought into the now overdetermined story line about Jones' career trajectory: The success [of Come Away With Me] happened without the usual promotional tools, a Top 10 pop radio hit or a high-concept video, on a boutique jazz label, Blue Note, whose executives usually listen for talent first and chart positions later, if at all. Julian Fleisher, a New York nightclub singer who released his own album of smart, genre-busting pop in 2002, said: "It was like Howard Dean. It was a grass-roots success that people heard about in their living rooms. That's where I heard it first—in someone's living room." It's a nice story, but it's not exactly true. Jones didn't have a high-concept video because watching Jones strut around on a strobe-lit set would have turned off her fans. But she did have a pair of low-concept videos, one of which featured Jones wandering barefoot on a beach, flip-flops in hand. Jones didn't have a pop radio hit, but that was just because her fans don't listen to pop radio—they read the New York Times, and they buy CDs instead of downloading songs off the Internet. And while it used to be true that Blue Note was a boutique jazz label, it's now owned by Capitol Records (home to Radiohead and Snoop Dogg). These days, Blue Note focuses on both jazz and boomer artists like Van Morrison and Al Green. Jones conveyed to Hoerburger that she wants to be seen as part of a tradition that views art as antithetical to commercial success, and on Feels Like Home, she has tried to cement her status as a legitimate artiste. One persistent criticism of Come Away With Me is that Jones didn't write enough of the songs herself—which is seemingly fine for Madonna (or Billie Holiday, for that matter) but apparently a no-no for an "authentic" singer-songwriter. She's more active on that count here, but the results are less than stellar. "What Am I to You?," the only song Jones wrote by herself, is a train wreck of clichés and platitudes, with line after line of deep blue seas, falling skies, and butterflies. "Toes," which Jones co-wrote, features an odd kind of attenuated solipsism—the entire song is an internal debate as to whether the singer should go swimming. (She doesn't.) There are also requisite homages to her brethren in all those coffee shop CD players: Feels Like Home includes covers of both Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt compositions, as well as a nod to the night watchman of Bob Dylan's "Visions of Johanna." It's also a more countrified album than Come Away With Me, with two pinches more twang and slightly less torch. Everything from the album's title to its trajectory (it starts with Jones in bed on "Sunrise" and ends with her watching the snow out her window on "Don't Miss You at All," a Jones composition set to Duke Ellington's "Melancholia") is designed to make the listener feel comfortable. If one of the strengths of Come Away With Me was the unexpected and unobtrusive beauty of Jones' voice, Feels Like Home is actually too unobtrusive—about right for background music while you're trying to decide whether to order that second cup of cappuccino, but not the type of thing you'd force a bunch of friends to listen to all the way through. The surprising sexuality of her first album, where the 22-year-old Jones didn't know why she didn't come and was waiting for her lover to turn her on, has been replaced by rusty nails and long ways home and handfuls of rain. At its best, Come Away With Me was like a revelation—there are young, sexy singers that sound this intelligent and artful? It was distinctive and fresh. Feels Like Home is too tepid and bland to serve as a fully deserving follow-up. But when you've sold 18 million records with your first release, you can afford to not do quite as well the second time around. Plus, it sets up a nice story line for next time: scrappy Norah Jones, fighting to prove she still has the right stuff.

Hank Jones will have his trio at the Firefly in Ann Arbor, Mich., for two shows this Thursday!

Saturday, right before I went to bed, I put on something kind of groovy and relaxing to help me wind down ... Grant Green's "Idle Moments." Then, on Sunday, I wanted to get bagels, but the only bagel place I can stand is 20 minutes away, so I took a disc in my car ... something more challenging, because I was going alone and would be able to concentrate on the music ... Andrew Hill's "Point of Departure." You can probably see where I'm going with this ... was there anyone else who was so versatile on the same instrument as Joe Henderson? I mean, others have different, distinctive voices for different horns they play, but Henderson is able to excel in different settings with the same instrument.

Whether it's 4:20 or you have a fear of large, six-legged vermin, it's hard to top Max Roach.

Seeing Peter's will reminded me of something ... not to be morbid, but has anyone else already picked out the music they'd like played at their funeral? I made my wife promise to play the Charlie Musselwhite version of Christo Redentor at mine.

www.molecularexpressions.com This is a "photograph of recrystallized beer taken with an optical microscope" ... in fact, it's McEwan's Export IPA! This is a pretty cool site ...

Andre Kertesz

Pointless or not, my, uh, point was that the reaction would be MUCH more explosive if it were 50 Cent/Duff because of the way people view Duff. If it were 50 Cent/Spears, which I think is a much better comparison, there would be much less negative, racist reaction because of the way most people view Spears. On the other hand, despite being exposed to just about every "-ism" imaginable through my work, I am probably a little naive ... I still do have trouble believing/understanding that grown adults can be so hung up on race.

I totally agree with what you're saying ... but as the situation stands now, the original writer's choice of Duff to make a point smacks of someone trying to play the "race card" for ulterior purposes. Regarding young-adult pop-sluts, I've got an 11-year-old daughter and watching the shows she watches has been quite an eye-opener, so to speak. I can't believe what some of these girls wear ... or don't. Has anyone seen "The Amanda Show" on Nick? A regular feature is Amanda and a guest spending some time together in her hot tub!?!?

Excises 'ER' Breast Scene Thu February 5, 2004 02:26 AM ET By Nellie Andreeva LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Days after Janet Jackson shocked the nation by baring her breast during the Super Bowl, NBC has agreed to edit out a brief shot of an 80-year-old woman's breast from Thursday night's episode of medical drama "ER" -- to the chagrin of the show's executive producer. In the scene, the breast is visible for less than two seconds in the background of a scene where doctors are giving the woman emergency care. The network's decision to adjust the scene to obscure the bare breast drew a strong rebuke from "ER" executive producer John Wells, who said it sent a bad message. NBC's decision was finalized late Tuesday, two days after the Super Bowl halftime stunner in which Jackson bared her breast during a performance with Justin Timberlake. The incident has spurred a national debate about indecency on television and triggered an investigation by the FCC. "In consultation with our affiliate board we have asked 'ER' to remove a shot of an exposed breast of an 80-year-old woman receiving emergency care," NBC said. "Though we continue to believe the shot is appropriate and in context, and would have aired after 10:30 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time, we have unfortunately concluded that the atmosphere created by this week's events has made it too difficult for many of our affiliates to air this shot." While the final decision on the "ER" shot came a few days after the Jackson incident, Roger Ogden, general manager of NBC affiliate KUSA-TV in Denver and chairman of the NBC affiliate board, said that affiliates had been concerned about the propriety of the scene for several weeks. NBC executives first showed the scene in question to the affiliate board during a meeting at NATPE in Las Vegas last month. "In looking at it myself, it wasn't something that ... felt totally out of context. It was very brief and it wasn't something that would've shocked you if you're watching the show as a normal person," Ogden said. Nevertheless, after a number of affiliates raised serious concerns, Ogden said the affiliate board notified NBC early this week that "we thought it wasn't in the best interest of the network or the affiliates to include the shot," Ogden said. "ER" executive producer Wells said his objection to editing the breast out of the shot came out of concern about artistic freedom rather than the specifics of that particular scene. "It's really not about this," Wells said. "We could've easily cut the small piece of the breast and it does no damage to the show whatsoever. But the chilling effect of having this one incident now affect programming content across all the networks, that's what I'm concerned about." Wells added that he felt a certain obligation as the steward of a hit network show to take a stand on the matter. "It makes you ask those questions about other things that might be perceived to be controversial," Wells said. "Should you talk about sexually transmitted disease among teenagers? Should you be dealing with certain types of violence and the effects of that violence? And while on a show like 'ER,' where we have the success to not bow to too much of that pressure, (for) pilots and newer shows that don't feel as confident in their future, it will be very difficult for them to stand up to questions from the studio or their network about them."

What crap. Here's a big difference ... Hillary Duff is, I believe, still under 18 and she's famous for making kid-friendly fare like "Lizzie McGuire" on one of the kid cable channels. Janet Jackson is an adult, well-known for her provocative approach to entertainment, who has sung in the past about enjoying S&M. A better comparison would have been 50 Cent tearing off, say, Britney Spears' top ... and does anyone really thing THAT would have raised any kind of racist "hue and cry"? Of course not!

Prestige Trio Sessions ...

Crosstown Traffic All Along the Watchtower Red House

An article by Brad Mehldau that WNMC (eric) posted in Jazz in Print has gotten me thinking ... does the fact that a given player writes his/her own stuff, as opposed to just playing someone else's, affect how you view a musician's ability to play? Does that make sense? Originally, I would have thought that being comfortable composing would have to make someone a better soloist, because soloing is kind of like composing on the fly. But the Mehldau piece added a curve I hadn't thought about: does thinking about a solo in "compositional" terms take away some of the instinctual, "hit you in the gut" feeling? I suppose, like everything else, it's subjective ... but I'm curious to read what others have to say/write. Thanks again for posting the original story, eric; I hope I didn't offend any kind of board etiquette by "borrowing" the topic.

I've not read that before ... fascinating. eric: I'm going to "borrow" the composer vs. blower thing for a misc. music post. It's something I've often thought on, and I think it would get more "play" in Misc. Music. Thanks in advance!

I think reading "White Noise" when it first came out made some of the difference for me ... a lot of it is, obviously, very subjective and I was really into what I call the "Vintage Contemporary" mode back then. In case it was before your time, Vintage was putting out trade paperbacks with edgy graphics, etc., and all having a kind of similar "feel" ... kind of like the BN "sound" ... I can remember Denis Johnson's "Angels," Steve Erickson stuff, the Barthelmes, Raymond Carver, etc. Anyway, I don't think Vintage published Delillo, but I always considered him part of that wave of at-the-time new writers I was reading in my early years out of college. I read Dellilo's more recent "Cosmopolis," and I have to admit it was a loser.

Actually, no ... not that there's anything wrong with that!

Actually, in many places this is still controversial. I'm not going to hunt things down on Google, but I'm sure we've all seen/heard stories about people being offended when mother's have the nerve to breastfeed in public. It's amazing how much focus is given to women's breasts in America, yet how frightened everyone seems to be when they actually see one! Does anyone know how this country is able to constitutionally ban showing a woman's breast on tv but not a man's?

JohnJ: Wasn't it Murakami who wrote "The Wind-up Bird Chronicles"? That was a pretty incredible book, I highly recommend it. If you're interested in Japanese authors/books, I can also point you toward Kenzaburo Oe's "Nip the Buds, Shoot the Children" about a group of kids trying to survive in post-WWII rural Japan, although it's not really a "war" book.

eric: so the "Reader's Manifesto" rears its ugly head ... Try as I might, I've never been able to get all the way through that. To be honest, that might have to do with the fact that I loved reading Delillo when I was younger and still consider "White Noise" to be fantastic. On the other hand, after being on this board for a couple of months, it was fascinating to revisit the manifesto because it parallels some of the discussions we have here regarding the value/quality of different types of jazz. Can you imagine posting a similar "Jazz Listener's Manifesto" here?!?!

Thanks for the replies, guys ... I had kind of thought it was as you've explained, but I also thought there may have been something more, I don't know, objective to it. I mean, has anyone ever thought "Hey, I love the way Player X resolves that solo" and then met someone else who thought -- about the exact same piece -- "Oh no, here's Player X again, that damn guy just can't resolve his solos"? Also, is there anyone who purposely doesn't resolve things just to add disonance for aesthetic reasons? I haven't listened to too much "out" music, but is that what's going on there? (Again, I appreciate the music lessons!)