Tenor Battle!!!

[JSngry]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cYH4WnP5EQ

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere...

[Chuck Nessa]

[Guy Berger]

"I thought Shorter was too outside.And that a lot of his playing was so much bullshit!!he wasn't in with the tune at all."

[sal]

Wow....good thing they let Scott Hamilton go first.

[DukeCity]

Notice, the clip ends just as Lew Tabackin is stepping into the fray...

[mikelz777]

I'm with Guy. Hamilton was playing with the groove and even seemed to be injecting a little more fire than I'm accustomed to hearing from him. When Shorter came on, the song seemed to take a drastic left turn. He was way too far outside the groove and it brought the number to a screeching halt for me. I couldn't even finish listening to his solo.

[Chuck Nessa]

I'm with Guy. Hamilton was playing with the groove and even seemed to be injecting a little more fire than I'm accustomed to hearing from him. When Shorter came on, the song seemed to take a drastic left turn. He was way too far outside the groove and it brought the number to a screeching halt for me. I couldn't even finish listening to his solo.

Guy didn't say that!

Notice the quotes.

[Guy Berger]

I'm with Guy. Hamilton was playing with the groove and even seemed to be injecting a little more fire than I'm accustomed to hearing from him. When Shorter came on, the song seemed to take a drastic left turn. He was way too far outside the groove and it brought the number to a screeching halt for me. I couldn't even finish listening to his solo.

Guy didn't say that!

Notice the quotes.

I was quoting one of the youtube comments.

Guy

[mikelz777]

I'm with Guy. Hamilton was playing with the groove and even seemed to be injecting a little more fire than I'm accustomed to hearing from him. When Shorter came on, the song seemed to take a drastic left turn. He was way too far outside the groove and it brought the number to a screeching halt for me. I couldn't even finish listening to his solo.

Guy didn't say that!

Notice the quotes.

I was quoting one of the youtube comments.

Guy

Sorry, my bad. I pretty much agree with the Youtube poster. I probably stand apart from the opinions of the listeners here from the sound of it.

[Jim Alfredson]

WTF. Recently some videos on Youtube will not load for me, including some I've posted myself!!! And I've used different computers in my house.

Wish I could see this one...

[JSngry]

Honestly, that's the only emotion I could muster.

[Chuck Nessa]

Honestly, that's the only emotion I could muster.

We be "the man".

[kh1958]

I saw Scott Hamilton playing with the George Wein All-Stars at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival years ago--and he was just as boring in person as on record.

[marcello]

Wayne Plugged Nickeled his ass.

[JSngry]

Wayne Plugged Nickeled his ass.

Well, yeah, but that's not what cracks me up about it. I mean, Scott Hamilton plays very well and speaks eloquently in his own voice (such as it is). There's really noithing "wrong" with his playing here at all. And frankly, yeah, Wayne "Plugged Nickled" him. But 30-40 years after the fact, big deal. Wayne's got that shit down to an "act" that he can pull out of his pocket, which is pretty much what I think he was doing here.

It's just that Wayne is coming from some place completely different. We all have our "preferences" and all that, but really, it's just freakin' hilarious to me to see Wayne follow Hamilton like this, and to compare where the tune ends with where it was when it began. Pretty much a seismic shift, eh?

The real bummer is that Tabackin got cut out. I'd love to see/hear how he came back in and moved it somewheres else, wherever that place might be. That would be entertainment!

[Brownian Motion]

I saw Scott Hamilton playing with the George Wein All-Stars at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival years ago--and he was just as boring in person as on record.

I've heard that Roy Eldridge, back in the mid-70s, encouraged Scott to leave New England for New York City.

[Chuck Nessa]

Wayne Plugged Nickeled his ass.

The real bummer is that Tabackin got cut out. I'd love to see/hear how he came back in and moved it somewheres else, wherever that place might be. That would be entertainment!

Indeed. That's the first thing I thought of when I spotted LT in the background.

Wayne is friggin' wonderful.

[gnhrtg]

Thanks for the link.

[Chuck Nessa]

I saw Scott Hamilton playing with the George Wein All-Stars at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival years ago--and he was just as boring in person as on record.

I've heard that Roy Eldridge, back in the mid-70s, encouraged Scott to leave New England for New York City.

Just like Roy to ask him to move.

[Guy Berger]

Well, yeah, but that's not what cracks me up about it. I mean, Scott Hamilton plays very well and speaks eloquently in his own voice (such as it is). There's really noithing "wrong" with his playing here at all. And frankly, yeah, Wayne "Plugged Nickled" him. But 30-40 years after the fact, big deal. Wayne's got that shit down to an "act" that he can pull out of his pocket, which is pretty much what I think he was doing here.

It's just that Wayne is coming from some place completely different. We all have our "preferences" and all that, but really, it's just freakin' hilarious to me to see Wayne follow Hamilton like this, and to compare where the tune ends with where it was when it began. Pretty much a seismic shift, eh?

The real bummer is that Tabackin got cut out. I'd love to see/hear how he came back in and moved it somewheres else, wherever that place might be. That would be entertainment!

This pretty much encapsulates my feelings. I'm a big Wayne partisan, and I can't fault Hamilton's performance for what it was, but this performance was great/hilarious simply because of the contrast between the two.

Guy

[Alexander]

I love Wayne. I mean, I LOVE Wayne. He's the greatest living tenor player (aside from maybe Sonny Rollins, but it's pretty much a dead-heat between those two anyway). And I've heard all the criticisms of Hamilton, but I gotta say, I've always liked the guy. He's got that Stan Getz/Zoot Sims thing down cold. Yeah, it's not original and he's really not in the league of somebody like Wayne Shorter, but it works for Scott and he's got a lovely tone. I was once talking about Hamilton with Brian Patneaude (who's become the big fish jazz musician in the small pond that is the Captial District), and Brian pretended to drop off to sleep. But even he acknowledged that Hamilton has a beautiful sound.

And anybody who thinks that Wayne is too "out" here needs to have his hearing checked...

[marcello]

Early in Scott Hamilton's career, just out of Providence, I saw him quite often and he can play the horn in that older style. At the time it was unique to hear a young man play that way without any evidence of post bebop influences. Some people said he played like Hawkins, but I never heard any of that it in his playing.

Wayne, of course, is playing in a older style now too. The difference is that it's his own style!

Only the Japanese would put together a concert like this and be serious about it, God love them.

Edited June 17, 2007 by marcello

[Kalo]

WTF. Recently some videos on Youtube will not load for me, including some I've posted myself!!! And I've used different computers in my house.

Wish I could see this one...

This clip won't load for me either.

While others on the same page play fine.

Annoying, to say the least.

[Tom Storer]

Wayne, of course, is playing in a older style now too. The difference is that it's his own style!

Exactly! I have nothing against Scott Hamilton, but for all his talent, his was a comfortable solo, and the pleasure one gets is the pleasure of relaxing with pipe and slippers as the family dog brings the newspaper in his mouth. Wayne's solo, even if he can do this stuff reflexively by now, is more about rearranging the furniture and training the dog to do weird shit.

[Brownian Motion]

Wayne, of course, is playing in a older style now too. The difference is that it's his own style!

Exactly! I have nothing against Scott Hamilton, but for all his talent, his was a comfortable solo, and the pleasure one gets is the pleasure of relaxing with pipe and slippers as the family dog brings the newspaper in his mouth. Wayne's solo, even if he can do this stuff reflexively by now, is more about rearranging the furniture and training the dog to do weird shit.

I take issue with the notion that Hamilton doesn't have his own style. He is as much a of sax stylist within the swing idiom as Shorter is within the post-bop idiom.