clifford_thornton

I like people devout in their esoteric tastes, with an offbeat sense of humor. I like intelligent, well-read people. I like honest, loyal people that won't second guess and that always have time for others. I like people who have a lot to share, not just things, but knowledge and ideas. I like seriously hardcore motherfuckers.

I believe the old McMaster version also had another take of "(With) Exit." I too love this record, especially side one (or track one, depending on your brew). Now if someone would just conveniently remaster and condense the Shandars into a 2CD set, that would be something else... beautiful music, but I need something to listen to on the bus!

All those Fontanas are sweet... thankfully someone in Japan is reissuing some of the rarer titles. "Mexican Green" is Tubbs' "Inner Urge," and should not be missed.

There's nothing wrong with grunting or wailing as the spirit moves you; I think it adds a lot to the music of Sunny Murray, Al Silva, and Tristan Honsinger. Wailers unite!

Word UP! I used to race road, a little cross. Now I just tool around on my fixie and hope to regain some of my riding chops this year. Won't be catting up or anything, though (too many beers and french fries over the past two years)!

I'll quote art critic Clement Greenberg's definition of modernism: "[it] is the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it, but to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence." In other words, using paint and canvas to get at the nature of the practice in order to eventually paint better paintings. It is a progressivist, idealist notion of reality. Pollock and Noland were necessary for painting. Cecil Taylor and Andrew Hill were/are necessary for jazz. Modernism was avant-garde, because avant-garde is 'high art' (cf. Greenberg's "Avant-garde and Kitsch," 1939). Post-modern, or post-structural, thought seeks to decentralize the arguments of modernism, in that the structures of society and art (paint and canvas, for example) must be undermined. Meaning varies, there is no objective reality, and we must be able to make sense of the world through breaking down these false relationships. Boundaries are nothing if not fluid. The integration of other time-arts into jazz, such as theatre (cf. Instant Composers' Pool), would be an example of post-structuralism in the music. The irony of it is that post-structural or anti-modern art and thought replaced progressivist modernism as the avant-garde. Therefore, Wynton is arch-formalist but not avant-garde. That's over-simplified, but pretty much how I would consider the argument. Andrew Hill and ICP are both avant-garde, dig? Wynton would've been in 1943.

"No Room..." or "Roll Call," a tough choice. I love the opener on the latter, but the former is more strongly consistent, IMO. Haven't got "Dippin'" yet, but I now aim to do so.

"Nailed" is a GREAT record!

Yup, there are, unfortunately or fortunately (depending on your point of view). It is a fine magazine, though it does have a 'conservative' streak.

Ah, the Weekly World News. Please tell me you didn't buy the Batboy t-shirt!

Just to clarify, I do enjoy the early, early Byrd sides. Just not the stuff of the 60s. His playing doesn't stand out much for me. Horace: well, again, I like a few early sides (mainly in the 1500 series) but I found his music got repetitive after a while. The compositions got less and less engaging for me. But throw on "Byrd's Eye View" or "Further Explorations" and it's a different story...

Yup. Brandon, you're the librarian -- can't you think of anything better?!? Hey man, you're welcome to look up all of those LC call numbers. Don't let me stop ya. Meanwhile, I'll be kicking back, enjoying our fine weather, and listening to "Five Spot After Dark". Lemme know when you're done........ B)

Yup. Brandon, you're the librarian -- can't you think of anything better?!?

Grachan Moncur III I've heard "Gray-shun" is correct, but there are still a lot of "Grah-shun" and "Grah-shaan" around. The "III" part, I believe, is undisputed.

Now label completism I can go for... I have very few stones left unturned in the ESP catalog and only a few BYG Actuels left, and I think maybe a couple of Marte Roling Fontanas I still need (really, anything on Fontana is cool). Got all but one of the Center of the World records (#7), but that was pretty easy. A run on the BN 4000 series would be hardcore, too, but I'll never meet that -- mainly because I can't bring myself to buy Horace Silver records or most Donald Byrd records. OK, ya got me started...

My God, that last Sangrey quote is pure genius. I'm copying it to my hard drive right now.

"Patterns" is not my favorite Noah Howard record. It's good, but the stuff that highlights his compositions -- say, "The Black Ark" on Polydor or "Live at the Village Vanguard" on Intercord -- is the stuff to get. "Judson Hall" (ESP) is also really good. He was a regular foil for Frank Wright and the quartet (with Bobby Few and Muhammad Ali) cut a number of records in France during 1969-71 before Howard split to form his own quartet, usually with Takashi Kako on piano and Oliver Johnson on drums. His compositional style is earthy and bluesy; the uptempo tunes usually have somewhat repetitious but often memorable heads, while the ballads have a late-Coltrane vibe to them, and are usually quite blissed-out. I saw him a few years ago. His chops are good and he still looks like a kid.

Monk, Lacy, Dolphy, and to quote AMG, "Traditional."

I am an Alan Shorter completist, but that was pretty easy since he doesn't make that many appearances. Ditto Ric Colbeck and Giuseppi Logan. Easy... I was on that Shepp-completist track until I realized that so many of his albums sound so very similar, and that he lost a bit of momentum in the early 70s. I mean, I'd rather hear someone new than someone familiar... but it really, really never ends.

I like hardbopjazz' definition, actually. They're all just words that really have nothing to do with the feeling generated by whatever aesthetic experience one is having. Whether language has any business in aesthetics is an age-old debate. I, personally, can make better sense of terms like "creative music" for jazz and "specific objects" for non-representational painting and sculpture, but that's just me.

Couldn'tve said it better myself...

Where's the Terra Museum? Man Ray is an interesting character. I'm going to try to avoid the record stores this time... I got sick of DG and JRM while living there.

Nothing wrong with pigeon-holein'; I probably do that a fair amount. For example: Moncur's "Evolution" is with the Jackie Mc LPs; "Some other Stuff" is with the Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams and Sam Rivers LPs, and the BYGs and JCOA LP are with the Shepps et al. Most of my Coltrane Impulses are together, but maybe they should be broken up too... but the evolutionary perspective is OK, too; I just have a problem with having, say, "Soultrane" anywhere near "Interstellar Space." Too complicated!

OK, how do y'all organize your collections? Alphabetical? By label? Chronological? I do historical context and some 'instrument' with the jazz, style/historical with the rock (i.e., UK folk-psych, Canterbury, US progressive), and haven't decided how to organize the 'classical' yet (it's all weird shit, so...).