Herbie on acoustic piano in the 70's and 80's

[Mark Stryker]

EDC:

I apologize if you find my reasonableness intimidating, but we all resort to our strengths in the heat of battle, and, besides, I'm hoping to hone my skills enough to become a member of the board's elite. This is one of those disagreements in which I think much of your position can be best characterized by paraphrasing Ben Franklin's epithet for John Adams: You mean well for your country, are always an honest man, often a wise man, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of your senses.

I won't dive back into the fray at this point, but I will note that, leaving aside the recorded evidence, I've seen Herbie live several times in various contexts the last seven or eight years and only once was it out-and-out disappointing (a meandering night with Hargrove, Brecker, et. al.), and a trio concert with Kenny Davis and Gene Jackson contained some of the most daredevil piano playing I've ever heard (speaking of color and texture ...) I'm not saying that one great night absolves all, but if you heard what I heard, you would have dug it.

Jim: I see what you're driving at re: harmony/texture, though I'm not sure the line is always clear. When Herbie is inspired I think that what often happens is that he starts abstracting the harmony in a functional way and then "breaks free" into purely textural ideas that extend and/or mask form.

Edited January 11, 2008 by Mark Stryker

[John L]

If you're going to comapre everybody to MAx Roach, damn near almost everybody's gonna fall short. And there it is.

This is not something I take lightly, having suffered (and still prone to suffering) massive bouts of inferiority complexes for exactly this same reason. I'm a tenor player. So was Coleman Hawkins, so was LEster Young, so was Sonny Rollins, so was John Coltrane. Ooops, don't need me then, do you now...

Even making room under the highest bar, so was Joe Henderson, so was Harold Land, so was Chu Berry, so were ahelluva lot of people. Ooops, still don't need me then, do you now...

I think that jazz would be much less interesting and rewarding if all we had were a handful of "greatest" musicians. Thank God for all of the variety, the hundreds of distinctive voices.

Edited January 11, 2008 by John L