James Spaulding

[clifford_thornton]

Clifford, the Ambrose Jackson I knew (nice guy by the way) was a trumpet player!

I know, but the sentiment was based on how much they "elevated" a session by their presence. Hard to judge...

[Guest donald petersen]

who else was around in 1966 or 1967 or whenever that could have called in to be the alto but more importantly flute guy on "schizophrenia"?

[king ubu]

Interesting evolvement here... or evolution? (Jackie mac?)

I saw Lake w/Trio 3 and he was soooooo boring, really a letdown, total.

As for the Shank Mosaic, I agree with his clemness - very good one! A secret fave here, too!

Also Ward can be quite fine (not with Cecil but on some of those live Ibrahim Enja albums from the early eighties he's smokin' and of course he's the one soloist totally in charge of the classic "African Marketplace").

Also agree on earle Warren - much underrated on alto and hated because of his yucky yuck singing... but on alto he's mighty fine, on the few occasions he can actually stretch out a bit...

Hilton Jefferson, too!

[mikeweil]

On the other hand, he seems to have had a sideman's mentality (no blame there, just the way some players are), and I don't recall that any of the album's he's made under his own name (I think I have most of them) are up to the best work he's done with other people. Also, in terms of inspiration, there seems to have some leveling off over the years, but I'm not as spry as I used to be myself.

My thoughts exactly!

[Eloe Omoe]

Also Ward can be quite fine (not with Cecil but on some of those live Ibrahim Enja albums from the early eighties he's smokin' and of course he's the one soloist totally in charge of the classic "African Marketplace").

"Lito", Ward's CD on Leo with Woody Shaw, is quite interesting.

[Niko]

I just like him for who he is, nothing more and nothing less... not gonna belabor anybody else's disinterest in his work; I enjoy it as I do Carlos Ward, Dudu Pukwana, (some) Oliver Lake, Arthur Jones, Ronnie Beer, Claude Bernard, Claude Lawrence, Antonio Grippi, Frank Strozier, Byard Lancaster, Byron Allen, Tony Ortega, Gary Bartz... whom am I forgetting?

quiz:

which alto player (which is roughly as famous as the ones from the list) is hidden in this article:

http://homernews.com/stories/061903/ent_06...art001001.shtml

[king ubu]

I just like him for who he is, nothing more and nothing less... not gonna belabor anybody else's disinterest in his work; I enjoy it as I do Carlos Ward, Dudu Pukwana, (some) Oliver Lake, Arthur Jones, Ronnie Beer, Claude Bernard, Claude Lawrence, Antonio Grippi, Frank Strozier, Byard Lancaster, Byron Allen, Tony Ortega, Gary Bartz... whom am I forgetting?

quiz:

which alto player (which is roughly as famous as the ones from the list) is hidden in this article:

http://homernews.com/stories/061903/ent_06...art001001.shtml

I know... but I won't tell... 20 years, bah...

[king ubu]

Also Ward can be quite fine (not with Cecil but on some of those live Ibrahim Enja albums from the early eighties he's smokin' and of course he's the one soloist totally in charge of the classic "African Marketplace").

"Lito", Ward's CD on Leo with Woody Shaw, is quite interesting.

Woody Shaw on Leo?! Will take a note, thanks for the recommendation!

[Niko]

I just like him for who he is, nothing more and nothing less... not gonna belabor anybody else's disinterest in his work; I enjoy it as I do Carlos Ward, Dudu Pukwana, (some) Oliver Lake, Arthur Jones, Ronnie Beer, Claude Bernard, Claude Lawrence, Antonio Grippi, Frank Strozier, Byard Lancaster, Byron Allen, Tony Ortega, Gary Bartz... whom am I forgetting?

quiz:

which alto player (which is roughly as famous as the ones from the list) is hidden in this article:

http://homernews.com/stories/061903/ent_06...art001001.shtml

I know... but I won't tell... 20 years, bah...

at least he is introduced by "Susan Mumma of the Seldovia Arts Council said some of the lesser-known names on this year's schedule are also intriguing" - after artists like Phillips, Grier and Flinner, Mark Nelson, Hawkeye Herman, Mike Campbell and Robin Hopper have been discussed in more detail; admittedly it's a folk festival...

[king ubu]

Pam Grier?

[Niko]

Pam Grier?

David Grier has received the International Bluegrass Music Association's Guitar Player of the Year award three times hope "he" feels reasonably well within all this...

[Eloe Omoe]

Woody Shaw on Leo?! Will take a note, thanks for the recommendation!

Carlos Ward - Lito - LEO 166 (the CD has some bonus tracks)

Live at the North Sea Jazz Festival; July 9, 1988

Carlos Ward - as, fl; Woody Shaw - tp; Walter Schmocker - b; Alex Deutsch - dr.

I think it's out of print now, but it shouldn't be too difficult to find.

[Larry Kart]

post-Hemphill WSQ = schlock, jobbin' (& even then a diff era when such was possible), not worth our time now & weren't all that then (tho' we tried to hear it otherwise).

edc saw Sunny Murray, Baikida Carroll, Oliver Lake & a bass player he's forgotten in... 1994? they were all on fire & in general, the weirder Lake is better. that he often operates-- by choice-- outside even experimental "jass" parameters leads people to take him for granted, i think. (see also Wadada, tho' his core audience is more fanatic.)

Captain Spaulding < Earl Warren (to say the least)

i can understand, if ya'll are baseball fans (say), it doesn't make much sense to talk 'hoops but... A LOT of folk take it to the hole w/more aggression AND more elan Spaulding. (not that ya'll are arguing that...)

FINALLY: he should apologize for the inference that the sometimes terrific Duke Pearson wanted to "dumb" him down or whatever... again, where's he soaring too w/o the other dead Duke's "interference"?

ya'll want paint remover (& a lot more)? two words: Dudu Pukwana.

Carlos Ward > Spalding too

If you keep going on like this, you're going to forfit both your "E" and your "D." As before, when you brought up Russell Procope, Earl Warren and Spaulding are no more comparable that are Arthur Whetsol and, say, Louis Smith. James Spaulding>Larry Elgart?

[Larry Kart]

LK-- (almost) anyone can merely compare like <---> like; a (sissy) noble task but if that's all we wanted after so many years in the game, it'd be a better use of time to be taking soil samples out west for the Department of Agriculture... however, edc will expound upon seeing Rudy Powell con Fats in '34; Len Goldstein avec Red Norvo in '42; Earl Bostic with himself in '54. alto madness!

I saw Fud Livingston with the Charleston Chasers.

[Larry Kart]

I also saw Pinetop spit blood.

[paul secor]

73 - now 74 - posts on James Spaulding. Does this say something about his music or about us? Or both?

[JSngry]

I also saw Pinetop spit blood.

And die?

75.

[Larry Kart]

I also saw Pinetop spit blood.

And die?

75.

The Pinetop Smith legend, disproved by Down Beat’s bizarre 1939 story, I Saw Pine Top Spit Blood and Fall, appeared last November in Sigman Byrd’s column in the Houston Press. Byrd, who goes under the title of “The Stroller,” got his story from a Buster Cartwright who runs a gin mill and plays blues piano in Houston.

The legendary tale revolves around how the boogie finally killed Pinetop. Cartwright knowingly told Byrd how Pinetop was born in New Orleans (he was born in Troy, Ala.) and wondered if Duke Ellington would play Smith’s boogie at a forthcoming Houston concert.

Cartwright’s story goes as follows: Pinetop had a gal named Bessie Rose who lived in Galveston. The Boogie Woogie was dedicated to her and she was “the little gal with the red dress on” in Pinetop’s famous lyrics. Fact is, Buster averred Pinetop had only two numbers in his repertoire but could play them all night. One of these was Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie and the other Jump Study. The latter was incorrectly titled Jump Steady.

It seems that one hot summer night in 1929 Pinetop was playing at the Naked club in Galveston. Bessie Rose hadn’t shown as yet. Pinetop usually reserved the Boogie for her as she insisted he sing it just for her. On this particular night another gal who had been picked up by Smith’s roving eye inspired him to go into his Boogie. The new chick, a fancy light-brown gal, followed up and stood by Smith’s piano bending close to his ear whispering, “Play it for me Pinetop.” He was averring that was what he was doing when in walked Bessie Rose.

When Bessie surveyed the situation she right then and there drew her West Dallas Special out of her purse and opened the blade. She walked straight towards the piano where Pinetop’s back was turned to her and buried the blade in the Boogie King’s back. He fell over on the piano and every white key turned crimson with his blood. That’s the legend.

For those who didn’t see or don’t remember Down Beat’s 1939 story, we’ll repeat the death facts uncovered by Sharon Pease. Pease obtained a copy of Smith’s death certificate bearing out the truth that Pinetop Smith was killed by a pistol bullet, quite by accident, in a Chicago west side dance hall. Two men whom Smith hardly knew got into a scuffle and a third ran towards them with a pistol. Somehow or other Pinetop was pushed in the line of the third man’s fire. This happened in March 1929.

[JSngry]

[Hot Ptah]

This thread is very interesting to me. I started listening to both rock and jazz with the "Great Man" mentality very much in mind. If a rock group did not compose songs as memorable as the Beatles, they were not worth my time. If a jazz saxophonist could not play as well as John Coltrane, he was no good.

I went the other direction at some point, thinking that every artist has something to contribute, (every artist above a certain minimum threshold of ability that is), and that I could take something from every musician--some could be enjoyed for their overall genius vision, others for being merely interesting craftsmen, some for just a few memorable performances, some for an individualized sound or style, but all had some merit on some level, which differed for each musician.

This thread has made me think that a bit more rigor in my judgments might be a good thing. I have always realized that Duke Ellington's 1940--41 recordings were "better" than the Ben Pollock Orchestra, for example, but I have listened to Ben Pollock thinking, well there's a well turned phrase by the trumpet player, even if the arrangement is pedestrian and the tune dire. At some point it may be a good idea to just say, this stuff really stinks, let's move on.

[catesta]

***

By the time we got into Tulsa town,

We had eighty-five trucks in all.

But there's a roadblock up on the cloverleaf,

And them bears was wall-to-wall.

Yeah, them smokies is thick as bugs on a bumper,

They even had a bear in the air!

I says, callin' all trucks, this here's the duck.

We about to go a-huntin bear!

Cause we gotta great big convoy, rockin' through the night

Yeah we gotta great big convoy, ain't she a beautiful sight?

Come on an' join our convoy, ain't nothin' gonna git in our way

We're gonna roll this truckin' convoy, cross the USA

Convoy... Convoy...

[JSngry]

I have always realized that Duke Ellington's 1940--41 recordings were "better" than the Ben Pollock Orchestra, for example, but I have listened to Ben Pollock thinking, well there's a well turned phrase by the trumpet player, even if the arrangement is pedestrian and the tune dire. At some point it may be a good idea to just say, this stuff really stinks, let's move on.

I think that ideally, one whould be able to do both unhesitatingly and without self-consciousness. Because both, really, are "true".

Knowing that something "really stinks" w/o knowing that there well may be some little nuggets of truth/beauty/whatever in there anyway is really just a cheap way out, a way to feign "awareness" without really having it.

And knowing that there may well indeed be some little nuggets of truth/beauty/whatever in something that still "really stinks" is to realize that life is too often cruel and/or unfair, but that one can indeed get over it and proceed accordingly without having one's day, or even life, ruined because of it.

You're alos positioning yourself to make better choices when you're alone, as well as how to be a friend to others when you're at the mercy of their decisions, some of which would most decidedly not be yours.

And when those rare moments of true (or even relative) perfection do come along, hey. So much the more better.

[Peter Friedman]

I can't speak to the more "out" players discussed in this thread as that is not my thing.

However, I have heard a lot of music by James Spaulding, Sonny Fortune, Bunky Green, Frank Strozier, Ernie Henry, John Jenkins, C. Sharpe,Bennie Maupin, and Tyrone Washington, Gary Bartz and Bud Shank.

To my ears only Shank, Bartz and Henry have impressed me as having something particularly interesting to say on their horns. The others are at best mediocre and often dull.

Ernie Henry died much too young, so it is more difficult to compare him with those players who have had lengthy careers. But on the few recordings he left behind, I hear a deep, intense, and interesting emotional richness not found in the playing of most of those listed above.

As Clem said, the evolution of Bud Shank's playing has been quite fascinating to observe.

At present, I find Shank to be among my favorite living alto players.

My views of Gary Bartz have gone through some serious changes over time. When he first came on the scene I found his playing quite enjoyable. Either Bartz moved into a different direction, or my taste changed a bit, or both took place, but for a number of years I didn't care much for the playing of Bartz. However in recent years I have rediscovered just how good a player Bartz is, or has become. It was when he joined the group Sphere and played with such fine musicians as Kenny Barron, Buster Williams, and Ben Riley that (for my taste) Bartz playing reached it's highest levels.

[Bluerein]

I don't think recordings do him justice (Spee's that is). I saw him live with the Tolliver BB 2 years ago and this year with a Freddie Hubbard all star band and on both occasions he was awasome. When with the Tolliver BB he sat bext to the much appreciated Gary Bartz but to my ears he played with more fire and spirit than Gary on those gig's. Indeed a nice person (maybe too nice for the business). I also heard his wife handles the financial side of things and is a little picky (to say the least). Tolliver couldn't affort him for the CD recordings and tours anymore because of this.

[AllenLowe]

not sure where all this is going - I just had surgery, out of it for a few days and I come back to the land of alto legends - but let me add:

1) Earl Warren was one of the greatest alto players I ever heard in person, and 'tis a pity he never recorded in a solo context to any good effect - those several nights I saw him at the West End Cafe in the late 1970s showed he would have blown Benny Carter off any stand -

2) Pete Brown is another of my favorites along with Boyce Brown - no relation -

3) don't forget Hilton Jefferson and George Johnson -

4) I recently heard a STUNNING Horsecollar Williams alto solo on an old Etta Jones record -

5) sorry to hear there are so many alto players - I gave up tenor for alto because I thought there were too many damn tenorists -