What vinyl are you spinning right now??

[Rabshakeh]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Remember - "history" has the luxury of having already happened. And of being written by the winners 

Harmolodic funk needs it's own Wikipedia page...

[JSngry]

2 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Agreed.

Preceding both Miles and Ornette, however, was James Brown.   From my point of view, Brown's late-60s and early-70s "new" Funk is the wellspring of all these Avant-Funk experiments -- whether it's Ornette or Miles in the 70s, M-Base, or Rap.  To me, that's the connection.

Not sure whether Coleman ever said that.  I'm just using my ears.  

 

Oh please - as much as I love, seriously love, James Brown, his spirit was not anything that had not already existed. Highly concentrated and distilled with a laser-like vengeance, yes. But Ornette playing roadhouses for all those years...I don't know what James Brown had to offer him that he didn't already have. Screw "records", I'm talking about sightsandsoundsandsmellsandoverallBLACKNUSS.

Also - seriously recommend reading the Fred Wesley autobiography. Jaundiced as it sometimes is, it only strengthens the underlying hunch that, although James Brown could never be anything other than James Brown, James Brown's classic records were at least as much Pee Wee Ellis, the Collins brothers, and Fred Wesley as they were James Brown. Go ahead and listen to all those later Polydor JB records, all of them A varied lot, to put it mildly. When they hit, they HIT. But they very often don't.

Besides, talking about "funk" and not going to New Orleans (yes, per-JB) is only taking half the trip.

Blacknuss.

[HutchFan]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Oh please - as much as I love, seriously love, James Brown, his spirit was not anything that had not already existed. Highly concentrated and distilled with a laser-like vengeance, yes. But Ornette playing roadhouses for all those years...I don't know what James Brown had to offer him that he didn't already have. Screw "records", I'm talking about sightsandsoundsandsmellsandoverallBLACKNUSS.

Also - seriously recommend reading the Fred Wesley autobiography. Jaundiced as it sometimes is, it only strengthens the underlying hunch that, although James Brown could never be anything other than James Brown, James Brown's classic records were at least as much Pee Wee Ellis, the Collins brothers, and Fred Wesley as they were James Brown. Go ahead and listen to all those later Polydor JB records, all of them A varied lot, to put it mildly. When they hit, they HIT. But they very often don't.

Besides, talking about "funk" and not going to New Orleans (yes, per-JB) is only taking half the trip.

Blacknuss.

Maybe so.  I'm just going on what Miles had to say about JB's influence on him.  He openly admitted that Brown had a huge impact on his music in the 1970s. 

I don't know as much about Ornette, how he got from point A (Free Jazz) to point B (electric Avant-Funk). 

Of course Ornette preceded JB with his dispensing of conventional "Western Harmony."  There's that.

But I would still argue that Brown's music is a sort of -- to use your word -- distillation, no?  If Ornette stripped away the convention of harmony but left conventional melodies, then JB stripped away the melody too, leaving rhythm as the music's central element -- the "new" Funk. (This is post-Pee Wee, post-Fred Wesley.) 

But maybe that's an over-simplification.  I'm certainly not a musicologist or music historian. ... And god knows that I can't speak to this stuff from life experience.  As much as I love this music -- and I do -- I'm a white dude who grew up in the suburbs.

**********

As far as JB's band members getting credit... Sure, they deserve some of it.  I won't begrudge them that.  But isn't their relationship comparable to Ellington's relationship with his band?  I'm thinking of Juan Tizol and "Caravan."  Tizol got his "half" songwriting credit.  That said: no Duke, no "Caravan" -- songwriter's credit or not.  Duke was the catalyst. 

Likewise, it's hard to imagine someone doing what James Brown did without James Brown.

And of course there were precedents for what JB did, Ornette did.  There are always precedents. Nothing happens in a vacuum.  Didn't mean to imply otherwise.

**********

Thanks for the tip on the Fred Wesley bio.  I'll read it. 

 

[JSngry]

5 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Maybe so.  I'm just going on what Miles had to say about JB's influence on him.  He openly admitted that Brown had a huge impact on his music in the 1970s.

Miles was not above dropping names and/or being openily influenced by who was propualr at any given time. As well as paying attention to Betty Mabry, who opened him up to aLL kinds of things. Include in that mix Hendrix, and to my ears more immediately than JB, Sly.

Here's On The Corner, right here:

The only JB record that really "sounds like" Miles is this one, and it's later than Miles already being there. Yeah, he copped the Say It Loud bassriff, but, uh...to what end? A "funky" end? Not like that. People who think that the post-On The Corner music is rooted in JB, really need to relisten to JB, it's not the same thing at all, the rhythmic impetus is totally different, JB is constantly in motion, Miles is about very condensed rhythmic movement in a static space.

That kind of on the one, the minimal/static bass line, is not really typical JB at all (except on the bridge, where it is, but there it's not static at all). And it's not like the later stuff where Fred Wesley (with permission!)  really DID do it to death. Again, listen to ALL the records, you can hear things devolve as they go along. Except when they don't, which is, unfortunately, not nearly as often as once was.

Bass line is everything. One thing Miles did say, although not crediting anybody in particular, is that his music, and Black Music in general is built from the bottom up. Him saying that (I think it was in the 1974? BB cover interview), was a life-changing thought for me, because...yeah, it is. From Wellman Braud on to Paul Chambers to Larry Graham to Bootsy Collins on and on and on, before, during and after.

And once you hear it in Black Music...it becomes ALL music. Bottom. Bass. Foundation.

28 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

I don't know as much about Ornette, how he got from point A (Free Jazz) to point B (electric Avant-Funk).

I don't think they were different points at all. More like one continuous line. From Free Jazz to Dancing In Your Head is a helluva like more of a single piece than is, say, getting from Blackhawk to On The Corner. That Ornette was still Ornette was as obvious as Miles still being Miles was unobvious (if you believe "popular opinion" of the time...)

But I do think (and think is all it is, Dancing In Your Head seemed to come out of literally nowhere, so who knows how it got there. But we do know that Ornette and the Prince Street loft were pretty much open for business 24/7, that Ornette had already been exposed to/preformed with John & Yoko, so electricity was not anathema to him (and Haden played wah-wah on Science Fiction)...but somehow that band got together (almost another Double Quartet) and developed this remarkable telepathy (as does any Ornette group worth a damn, which was pretty much all of them).

Jamaladeen Tacuma and Shannon Jackson were every bit the equal of Haden and Blackwell as Ornette bass/drum teams. I mean that.

Oh yeah, Decoding Society. Shannon Jackson was another one who did not "need" James Brown to do what they did.

[JSngry]

42 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

If Ornette stripped away the convention of harmony but left conventional melodies, then JB stripped away the melody too, leaving rhythm as the music's central element -- the "new" Funk. (This is post-Pee Wee, post-Fred Wesley.)

poet-Pee Wee/post Fred JB gets to be a really dicey proposition.

For everyone of these:

There's a whole lot more of these:

Running on fumes, and like fumes, intoxicating until you realize that you're out of air and dying.

I got lucky and bought all these in the early 80s when the used and cutout bins were full of them at a few bucks each. And of course I bought therm all, becuase, you know, there would usually be a gem or two along the way. But not that many. There's a reason that those Polydor anthologies were 2-CD set until they covered 1975-1983, and they had to stretch to get a full disc there.

Brown would blame the record companies for trying to push him into disco, but...there were very few concessions to disco on these records.

I mean, c;mon...this is not the record company's fault:

 

[HutchFan]

O.K.  My thinking about the timing of their departure was incorrect.  

 

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

 If Ornette stripped away the convention of harmony but left conventional melodies, then JB stripped away the melody too, leaving rhythm as the music's central element --

Except that "conventional melody" never really existed in "jazz", especially once some of it became evolved into R&B. All that honking and shouting and screaming and wailing was mo9st assuredly NOT in the service of "conventional melody"!

And then there's Gospel. Oh my, there is Gospel.

All of this began long before there was either Ornette Coleman OR James Brown.

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

As much as I love this music -- and I do -- I'm a white dude who grew up in the suburbs.

Sorry, in 2022, that's no longer a valid excuse!!!!!!!

Just kidding (sorta). You have history and the internet at your disposal. It's an endless pursuit, but in my experience, the deeper you dig, the more you realize that it's, what did Baraka call it...The Changing Same. Only even moreso than that.

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

As far as JB's band members getting credit... Sure, they deserve some of it.  I won't begrudge them that.  But isn't their relationship comparable to Ellington's relationship with his band?  I'm thinking of Juan Tizol and "Caravan."  Tizol got his "half" songwriting credit.  That said: no Duke, no "Caravan" -- songwriter's credit or not.  Duke was the catalyst. 

Likewise, it's hard to imagine someone doing what James Brown did without James Brown.

Ok, I will push back here - in this regard, James Brown was a LOT closer to Captain Beefhear than to Duke Ellington. Duke could have done it all by himself just fine. But his ambitions went far beyond just being a distinctive comper/arranger/songwriter. Duke wanted an "empire", (int he good way) and for that, yeah, he needed to bring others into the fold, and not just Strayhorn. Strayhorn actually added another dimension. But plenty of others added product, some of it very tasty, and some, like Jimmy Jones more than very.

Beefheart, as it now becomes more apparent, was an impulse, an energy, who had some amazing starting points, but really did seem to be totally unable to bring it home into a fainal performative form. For that, he needed the talents and understanding (and indulgences) of people ho could do that.

Similarly, Brown, if you believe Fred wesley's accounts, was even more a force than Beefheart, and a lot more involved in getting his collaborators in the specifics, but not in any literal sense. Wesley tells the story of Pee wee being in the room with him while he would grunt and dance and repeat a phrase and Pee Wee would get it, translate to a workable arrangement for the band, later rinse repeat, and oh my, amazing.

Trust me, I take a back seat to nobody in my love of James Brown. But it's an adult love, and that means realizing that although it couldn't have happened without him, it would not have happened with only him. This is the story of American Popular Music, and the truth of the matter is that the number of people who can really do it all, even most of it, by themselves are really not but a few.

And if you don't believe me, disregard the anthology products and go dig up the OG LPs from the 70s.

Now, you may ask yourself, would James Brown need to do something in the style of Tower Of Power? And the answer would be, apparently so, and it doesn't suck, except the horns are nowhere near as tight, but that's kinda the right way for it to be.

BTW - I was blessed to catch the James Brown Show in a club (yes, club!) in Dallas in spring of 1981. The hits had long ago stopped coming, he was either without or about to be without a label, young Black people laughed at his old processed hair ass, it was surely a very dark time for The Godfather, probably the nadir of his career. The crowd was at most 300 people, and mostly white Boomers (of which I was definitely one). But it was still THE JAMES BROWN SHOW - SHOW, just like the old days, full service presentation, JUST like the old days, no intermission per se, just band instrumentals/JB teaser, female singer set, band feature set and then...IT'S STARTIME, and good god, yes, it was James Brown, still The Hardest Working Man In Show Business, STILL Mr. Dyneemite, still in there 1000%, still throwing up that hand for EVERY flub, no matter how irrelevant, It was amazing, cementing my truth that James Brown was indeed a force of nature, records be damned, popularity be damned, HERE was the reality of the truth. "Living In America" and all the samples and other deifications were yet to come. I saw the man at damn near the bottom and he was STILL James Brown. Not just anybody can do that.

But that was a gig. The broader reality was a LOT more complicated. But I know what I saw, heard, and felt, so let it be complicated.

 

 

[jazzcorner]

 

[Brad]

1 hour ago, jazzcorner said:

 

How does this sound? I’m tempted to purchase it but I can only find it outside of the US and when I looked up on All Music the US version that was published in the late 70s, the reviewer said the sound was so terrible as to make it unlistenable. 

[JSngry]

For Hi-Fi Buffs...can't relate that mindset to this music, sorry.

It's a homemade recording of a club date. The music is incredible, and is very "listenable" as such. For my money, it's a no-brainer addition to any collection of great music.

For collectors of Hi-Fi Wizardry, go buy an Esquivel record or something. They're fun!

 

 

[Brad]

26 minutes ago, JSngry said:

For Hi-Fi Buffs...can't relate that mindset to this music, sorry.

It's a homemade recording of a club date. The music is incredible, and is very "listenable" as such. For my money, it's a no-brainer addition to any collection of great music.

For collectors of Hi-Fi Wizardry, go buy an Esquivel record or something. They're fun!

 

 

Thanks for the input but what’s an Esquivel record.

I listened to a couple of minutes on YouTube where I probably should have gone to begin with. It sounded fine to me and in line with other club dates I’ve heard. Not pristine but not everything is. I will look for it. 
 

[JSngry]

Esquivel is why Hi-Fi was born!

If you've watched Ernie Kovacs, you've probably heard Esquivel.

 

[hopkins]

Listened to this last night. Don't know why it never came out on CD.

You can listen to it here: https://archive.org/details/lp_swings-our-thing_johnny-hodges-earl-hines

 

Edited February 20, 2021 by hopkins

[Rabshakeh]

19 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Esquivel is why Hi-Fi was born!

He went through a funny comeback about a decade and a half ago. It faded as fast as it came. 

Always plumped for Martin Denny meself. 

[jazzcorner]

3 hours ago, Brad said:

How does this sound? I’m tempted to purchase it but I can only find it outside of the US and when I looked up on All Music the US version that was published in the late 70s, the reviewer said the sound was so terrible as to make it unlistenable. 

Thats correct. The sound is very inferior. If you can get them cheap and just for the music  it may be a deal.

Its from private tapes of Max and not professionally recorded. But it has some historic value.

Edited February 20, 2021 by jazzcorner
more text

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, Brad said:

It sounded fine to me and in line with other club dates I’ve heard. Not pristine but not everything is. I will look for it.

Bingo!

OG Columbia LPs on Discogs are not at all pricey, at least not for starters: https://www.discogs.com/Clifford-Brown-Max-Roach-Live-At-The-Bee-Hive/release/2791282

[sidewinder]

Hidden in the sleeve - my programme for Kenny’s 75th Birthday tour. In addition to Konitz, I’d forgotten that Dave Holland was in the lineup that night.

Edited February 21, 2021 by sidewinder

[HutchFan]

On 2/20/2021 at 9:22 PM, JSngry said:

BTW - I was blessed to catch the James Brown Show in a club (yes, club!) in Dallas in spring of 1981. The hits had long ago stopped coming, he was either without or about to be without a label, young Black people laughed at his old processed hair ass, it was surely a very dark time for The Godfather, probably the nadir of his career. The crowd was at most 300 people, and mostly white Boomers (of which I was definitely one). But it was still THE JAMES BROWN SHOW - SHOW, just like the old days, full service presentation, JUST like the old days, no intermission per se, just band instrumentals/JB teaser, female singer set, band feature set and then...IT'S STARTIME, and good god, yes, it was James Brown, still The Hardest Working Man In Show Business, STILL Mr. Dyneemite, still in there 1000%, still throwing up that hand for EVERY flub, no matter how irrelevant, It was amazing, cementing my truth that James Brown was indeed a force of nature, records be damned, popularity be damned, HERE was the reality of the truth. "Living In America" and all the samples and other deifications were yet to come. I saw the man at damn near the bottom and he was STILL James Brown. Not just anybody can do that.

But that was a gig. The broader reality was a LOT more complicated. But I know what I saw, heard, and felt, so let it be complicated.

Jim,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and recollections on James Brown -- and all else too.  Today, I spent about ten hours on the road traveling home from an unexpected trip, but I was mulling our conversation for much of the day.  I appreciate your knowledge... and your love of the music!  THAT is the thing, right there!  That's what carries the day.

 

The USPS delivered a package with this LP in it while I was out of town:

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by HutchFan

[Rabshakeh]

4 hours ago, HutchFan said:

The USPS delivered a package with this LP in it while I was out of town:

 

How is this one? I can always use Oliver Lake recommendations.

[HutchFan]

7 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

How is this one? I can always use Oliver Lake recommendations.

Impala is excellent.  The band includes Geri Allen, Santi Debriano, and Pheeroan Aklaff.   It's available on YT here.

I also ordered Lake's LP Gallery from the same discogs seller.  Planning on listening to it later today.   

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by HutchFan

[Chuck Nessa]

 

[Chuck Nessa]

And now

[clifford_thornton]

10 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

How is this one? I can always use Oliver Lake recommendations.

that's one I've never had, either, though the band is pretty awesome on it. 

[HutchFan]

First listen to the other Oliver Lake LP that I ordered:

Oliver Lake - Gallery (Gramavision, 1986)
with Geri Allen, Fred Hopkins, Pheeroan AkLaff, and (on one cut) Rasul Sidduk

Just as good as Impala.  Maybe even better.  Too soon to tell.