Assassins Get Paid REALLY Well These Days!

[king ubu]

under closer scrutiny - aren't we all assassins, with our luxury problems and fat cd collections....

sorry, but this thread title bothers me

and I have not one disc by Wynton, never cared for what he did, am of the opinion that the whole ideological thing he does isn't good in any way - but this thread is just as ideologically one-sided, I think.

[andybleaden]

Check this article out: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/ar...conductor_in_us

If these conductors, many of whom simply stand up there swinging a baton and don't play a note, can get paid as much as $3.5 million, why the hell shouldn't Marsalis, who actually writes music and plays an instrument, get $1 million?

I've seen the Boston Pops several times. I was always amazed at how Keith Lockhart's baton never seemed to be on the beat, nor did the band seem to follow any of his cues. His baton "swooosh" is flamboyantly wacky, often getting the crowd to laugh. And he gets $739,894 for that?

I'm sorry, but you guys are off base here. The "stars" of the top orchestras, and JALC is a top orchestra making plenty of money, get paid well. Why shouldn't Wynton Marsalis?

I am with Kevin on this one

'we' seem to like this sort of spokesperson stuff to box things off so why not him

I have never had the beef/hatred/jealousy people seem to have about him

or Keith Jarret

or even ( as I am going away for a few weeks and may miss the backlash) Norah JOnes

There you go. Said it now.

BYeee

[AllenLowe]

well the issue is bigger than Marsalis - someone is going to get the salary there, even if it is not him - the issue is the inflated salaries in the so-called non-profit world - and that's a REAL big can of worms -

[andybleaden]

We got a whole of guys loading there bank accounts through exploitation of millions across the world.....and I do not mean the private sector. That you take for granted.

I always think with this whole Wynton business if there ain't some nasty hidden agenda lurking around comments about him

[John L]

Why should shit of any nature get renumerated so extravagantly?

Jim: Weren't you born and raised in the USA? Shit in the USA usually gets renumerated extravagantly when it sells well.

From those numbers, it looks to me like the Lincoln Center is not doing too bad a job at selling itself. Wynton is still probably bringing in at least as much as he takes home. If Britney Spears and Michael Bolton can rake in money like that, why shouldn't Wynton?

[JSngry]

Institutionalizing of European Classical Music has made it healthier and more vital now than it's ever been in it's mutli-century history. No reason to think that jazz won't reap the same benefits for the same reasons. Something to look forward to, that is!

Yeah, "assassin" is probably the wrong term. Let's substitute "necrophilliac sodomizer" instead. Two words are better than one, especially if that's how you get paid, or get paid to project.

Y'all can have all of it y'all want. Me, if I'm gonna spend time with dead people, I wanna make sure that they're fully dead. I'll be there soon enough my ownself, so until then, give me the livliest life, the richest heritage, and don't nobody come 'round me who's confusing concerts with seances.

[MoGrubb]

Check this article out: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/ar...conductor_in_us

If these conductors, many of whom simply stand up there swinging a baton and don't play a note, can get paid as much as $3.5 million, why the hell shouldn't Marsalis, who actually writes music and plays an instrument, get $1 million?

I've seen the Boston Pops several times. I was always amazed at how Keith Lockhart's baton never seemed to be on the beat, nor did the band seem to follow any of his cues. His baton "swooosh" is flamboyantly wacky, often getting the crowd to laugh. And he gets $739,894 for that?

I'm sorry, but you guys are off base here. The "stars" of the top orchestras, and JALC is a top orchestra making plenty of money, get paid well. Why shouldn't Wynton Marsalis?

I'm not defending Lockhart, unless I'm missing something in your post, fwiw, the conductor's main function is to rehearse the orchestra/band. By the time the group gets on stage everything is supposedly so well prepared, the group is so together, that all he needs to do is give downbeats and cutoffs, maybe a few cues. It's common knowledge that he is mainly for show and emotional appeal at concerts.

[Larry Kart]

Excerpt from a 2005 interview with knowledgeble good guy Marty Khan, about his book “Straight Ahead: A Comprehensive Guide to the Business of Jazz (Without Sacrificing Dignity or Artistic Integrity).” Comments on the pernicious somewhat sub rosa economic effects of Jazz@LC on other jazz artists are particularly noteworthy. I have heard similar detailed accounts from musicians-bandleaders on how the marketing of Jazz@LC ensembles and the very large fees those ensembles command have knocked the crap out of the touring scene for other artists/bands who used to be able to play the sort of college and art center venues that Khan refers to at one point. Complete text here (SR is Steve Rowland):

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=16904

SR: That's a pretty bleak picture you're painting, man.

MK: Look around. The economic environment and the music itself are in complete turmoil. No touring, no record sales, no vibrant scene, no new leadership, no innovative directions, no public visibility, no new audiences. And schools are spewing out legions of new musicians into the mix with little opportunity to express their art and get paid. It's a mess, man.

SR: But there are groups touring—and getting really well paid. How does that factor in?

MK: Sure. All-star aggregations doing tributes. The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and some Marsalises—don't get me started—a few other big names sucking down enormous fees. Look at the Great Depression. The general illusion is that everybody went broke. But the reality is that all that happened was a major shift in the distribution of wealth. All the money that was lost by the multitudes went into the hands of the few.

Let's just look at Tucson, for example. In the 2003/4 season, our monolith facility, The University of Arizona presented three jazz artists on their series. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Branford Marsalis and Wynton Marsalis—and that guy for the 7th time in the 10 years we've been here. Don't get me started! (laughter) The lowest paid of them was Branford at $17,000. The next jazz gig in town pays around $1000—if you can get it . Mostly they're door gigs or under $100 per man. No economy can thrive in such a polarized environment.

This situation is being replicated all over the country, and actually being fortified by the various funding initiatives that are primarily benefiting presenters and leaving musicians out in the cold. It's tragic.

SR: There seems to be a feeling among many of its critics that everything wrong with jazz today is Lincoln Center's fault. Is that your view?

MK: This may surprise a lot of people, but no, I don't. It's a symptom of the problem. Just like Bush isn't the problem in politics. He's a symptom of the problem. A malaise of ignorance, indifference, greed and whatnot that poisons the atmosphere and allows these damaging organisms to thrive.

When Lincoln Center was first conceiving its jazz program nearly 20 years ago, everybody was saying to me “Isn't it great? This is going to put jazz in a great position.” Yeah, bent over and spread wide. I told anyone who would listen that it would polarize funding, undermine touring and zombie-fy jazz. I said they'd find some mediocre technician to ordain as visionary and we'd all be paying for it for decades to come. And no, I don't own a crystal ball (laughter).

SR: But you don't blame them for polarizing funding, touring or making the music a museum piece?

MK: Look, I blame Bush and his cronies for destroying our economy and environment, disenfranchising most of America with their “starve the beast” philosophy of government, and making us all complicit by our tolerance of “pre-emptive” war, while making us all more vulnerable to terrorism. But I blame us for letting them do it. That's how I feel about Lincoln Center.

Musicians have allowed a man who's never gained the true respect of his fellow musicians to be sold to the public as an Ellingtonian visionary. Funders have poured millions of dollars into a boondoggle that only delivers a tiny fraction of the booty in meaningful returns. Fine Arts sponsors pay its stodgy orchestra one-night sums that could underwrite a great jazz artist's entire tour, and then force that tripe down the throats of audiences unfamiliar with the art form, who would be infinitely more enriched by listening to any Duke Ellington album than hearing the LCJO. Worst of all, jazz “advocates” point to it as some great model that proves the acceptance of the art form and an economic ideal to which other musicians and facilities should aspire.

SR: Let's examine that last statement. Couldn't an argument be made that Lincoln Center is an example of the potential for jazz?

MK: Empirical evidence says otherwise. The music is being marginalized in every walk of life. Not just in major media, but even in the industry realm. Virtually non-existent on television, even cable and satellite—Yeah, I know BET; don't get me started (laughter)—disappearing on radio, where even the few NPR stations that have been playing it are dropping or cutting programming. Invisible in mainstream magazines and sharply trivialized in music magazines. Even jazz rags are turning their focus to artists who are only marginally valid as jazz artists. The same can be said for many festivals that claim to be jazz, and are increasingly bringing more and more artists of other popular genres into their programming. The Ken Burns extravaganza didn't even cause a blip on the radar screen—except for his own CD marketing. Don't get me started here either!—and in the eyes of Public Broadcasting, Wynton is virtually portrayed as the last living jazz musician.

SR: But he draws audiences wherever he plays. The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra sells out all over the country. Why is that?

MK: Marketing, man. They thrive on the strangling of the scene, and that's what's happening all over. Facilities draw audiences, not necessarily the artists who perform at them. In Tucson, Wynton and the various big names and all-star aggregations that almost exclusively make up today's touring jazz artists can draw 1500-2500 people at the University of Arizona, our arts monolith, at ticket prices of $24-50. Other internationally-acclaimed jazz artists playing here at $12-20 a ticket will draw as little as 60 people, at best 300-400.

This isn't just true of jazz, but all of the performing arts. The Buena Vista Social Club has played here every year for the past four or five years, selling out two or three shows each time. 5000-7500 people at $25-$60 a head. Another excellent and reputable Cuban group comes to town and draws 75 people at $10. We saw the Blind Boys of Alabama at the U of A with 2200 people in 2000. In 2002, we saw them at a beautiful, intimate hall with about 80 other audience members in a 500 seat facility.

This situation is being replicated all over the country. We recently traveled to Albuquerque to see Randy Weston in a wonderful theater. There were less than 100 people there. Two weeks later Wynton sold out 1400 seats at the same theater in two shows—and another 1400 in two shows in Santa Fe, about 60 miles away. Of those 2800 people in that single market who attended Marsalis' gig, not even 100 were interested in one of the true jazz greats? Doesn't make sense.

Funders perpetuate this situation through facility-based funding. People like Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg and Willie Nelson contribute their efforts to fundraising events for Lincoln Center. These are concerned and generous individuals who think they're contributing their efforts to a worthy cause. If there was an entity in country music or society in general that was doing the equivalent damage that Lincoln Center is really doing to jazz, Willie Nelson would be in the front line of protestors.

SR: It sound like you do blame Lincoln Center.

MK: Yes, as I'd blame any predator. Any beast that must consume to feed its out-of-control imperative. But again, it's the syndrome that's really at fault not the symptom that thrives on it. Let's look at their recent fundraising campaign to build three halls in that big Columbus Circle boondoggle. $150 million dollars was raised—all to build a club in a city filled with clubs and concert facilities. Do you have any idea what $150 million dollars could do for jazz? Health care, pension funds, product distribution and marketing, establishment of artist-driven c3s and the professional training programs needed to make them work, and so forth? Even a fraction of that money could go a long way in addressing those issues.

And what does Lincoln Center do with that scratch? Real estate! I hear they're nice facilities. I mean, how nice can they be? And all these concerned funders, fans, celebrities and so forth plunk down their money to contribute to this, when there's so much need on the jazz scene? Then there's the collateral damage as other facilities try to replicate Lincoln Center, but aren't doing all that well. Just as other festival promoters emulate George Wein, but nobody has ever been able to replicate his empire. Just as no jazz musicians are going to be able to replicate Wynton's empire—as “BeatDown” Magazine recently referred to it.

But lots of mini-versions of all of the above are springing up. Little fiefdoms of exploitation, with their various spins that offer a distorted whiff of actual progress and systemic improvement.

SR: Is this only occurring in the area of live performance?

MK: No, it permeates everything. It's the American way, which until around 20-25 years ago was not prevalent in the world of fine arts and non-profit dedication.

Now the fine arts and funding world have bought in completely. Let's look at the Ken Burns mess. A filmmaker of dubious quality—pretty much exclusively a product of Public Broadcasting—and with no previous knowledge or even interest in jazz, gets millions of dollars to create the biggest film extravaganza on the history of jazz. A great opportunity for the art form, right? True recognition across the land in untapped areas, right? Huge new audiences of consumers who will buy concert tickets, fill clubs and make those CDs fly off the shelves, right?

You know what sold? Videos and DVDs of the series. Copies of the book connected with the series. CDs compiled to be marketed with the series. That's it. Not a blip on the chart for the artists portrayed, not even for Wynton, who was lionized by it while almost everybody but Pops and Duke were smeared.

Those Ken Burns Jazz—think Sherman and Atlanta when you hear that—CDs dominated the jazz charts. I contacted over 30 record stores in 15 cities to ask if people were buying any of the artists' own CDs along with the Burns compilations. The answer was always a resounding no.

Marketing, my man. Mass marketing. That's what made Burns. That's what's made Wynton. That's what we're up against. It's an empty promise of potential success to which not one in 10,000 will actually have access.

Edited August 17, 2007 by Larry Kart

[king ubu]

Yeah, "assassin" is probably the wrong term. Let's substitute "necrophilliac sodomizer" instead. Two words are better than one, especially if that's how you get paid, or get paid to project.

I like *that*, now!

[Alexander Hawkins]

$1,069,366. The vast majority of jazz musicians the world over would LOVE to earn as much as the last 5 numbers, never mind all 7. They'll likely never make that much in their entire careers...

If we're talking money from gigs, rather than teaching/workshops/session work etc. - I'll bet you most of the players in the UK (don't know how it is in the US!) would jump all over even the last four figures. Sad!

[Van Basten II]

Is Marsalis being blamed or accused for making money, having a philosophy that you despise or for making music that does not appeal to your ears ?

In terms of moneymaking, they are a lot of worse culprits than him. If he can make money doing his stuff, good for him.

Philosophy wise i try to separate myself from my appreciation or non-appreciation of the music and the artist's opinion about it. If an artist dislikes another one for artistic reasons, am i supposed to choose between them.

Finally, if you don't care for his music, ther's plenty to listen somewhere else instead of hating the guy.

I can understand the annoyance at the guy and i share it for nominating himself, prime minister of jazz or whatever you can call it. But quite frankly, i don't care much about the opinion of the masses regarding the cultural industries. As long as he does not put his weight to forbid music he does not care for, he can do whatever the hell he wants.

[Van Basten II]

I did not know that that being called an assasin was a pet name

[clifford_thornton]

It's not at all surprising that Wynton is a millionaire.

Maybe I run in a small, small piece of the music public - but I don't think Wynton is viewed anymore as "saving" jazz; rather, he's a commercial musical institution like the Stones and gets paid for it.

[Kalo]

Hey, he's gotta make some kinda living since his records don't sell....

Maybe I run in a small, small piece of the music public - but I don't think Wynton is viewed anymore as "saving" jazz; rather, he's a commercial musical institution like the Stones and gets paid for it.

That's actually a very perceptive observation.

[andybleaden]

yup

thats the truth

[John L]

Personally, I don't care for the LCJO. But I find it hard to be convinced that it is responsible for the decline of jazz in America, the lack of gigs for jazz musicians, etc. All of those symptoms were clearly visible long before the LCJO.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Personally, I don't care for the LCJO. But I find it hard to be convinced that it is responsible for the decline of jazz in America, the lack of gigs for jazz musicians, etc. All of those symptoms were clearly visible long before the LCJO.

The Marty Kahn interview Larry posted says precisely that.

MG

[JSngry]

Personally, I don't care for the LCJO. But I find it hard to be convinced that it is responsible for the decline of jazz in America, the lack of gigs for jazz musicians, etc. All of those symptoms were clearly visible long before the LCJO.

The Marty Kahn interview Larry posted says precisely that.

MG

Did we read the same article?

I read it like JALC found a set of circumstances that could have been resolved any # of ways and created their own resolution, and not without some acquiesence from those harmed by it.

A big, big problem behind all this - and one that is clearly deliniated in that article - is that the "money people" (who are quite often clueless dillitantes in the first place) now have "a place", if not "the place" to put their money if/when they wnat to do something "culturally hip".

Some of y'all might think that that's really not that big a deal, that the real music never has gotten the money in the first place, that the best shit has always been undergrond and still is, blahetcblah, and you're right - up to a point. But what you're overlooking (and whether or not you can be blamed for this no doubt varies on a case by case basis) is that macroeconomically, the "underground" is being/has been pushed so far undergorund that it's at the point of truly being buried. I mean, you can only claw your way so far towards the surface on your own.

Think about it like this - in the 60s, the "face of jazz" for people looking to be "hip" was John Coltrane. Now, directly or indirectly, Trane used his "vibe" to make things more "open" for a lot of peole who otherwise would not have gotten to the front sidewalk, never mind in the front door. Look at all those Impulse! sides - does anybody here think that Bob Thiele would have done all that shit completely on his own? Hell no. Or that the whole October Revolution/New Thing scene (and all that evolved from it) would even been considered at the level it was without the explicit/implicit (as the individual cases may be) support of Trane? If Trane would have made an effort to institutionalize his vision the way that Wynton has (and if he would have had the gift of BS that Wynton has to convince people - including himself - that doing so would be a good thing), would "Wynton" have even existed?

Let's take this a little farther (and significantly hypothetically) - if Trane had done what/how Wynton has done, and on the scale he's done it, things like AACM. BAG, Euro-jazz, ECM, fusion (especially in it's early, raw, "radical" form", would have faced an entirely different cultural and economic landscape to go up into/against. Any "fringe" music begins entirely underground, and how far it goes from there depends on how much non-undereground "backing" (either financially or otherwise) it gets, up to and including, at a level of importance that is usually inversely proportional to it's actually "knowingness". the various levels of "institutionalized" backing. And once that backing is comitted to an ongoing proposition, it takes a helluva lot - usually a "moral" scandal of the basest and vilest level of unjustifiability - to pull it away. Other than that, hey, it's good for the duration.

Ok, y'all are smart people, so extrapolate that out- if Trane had what Wynton has done, and as Wynton has done it, a lot of stuff that we've come to take for granted might well have not gotten too far off the ground. And the reality is that A) Trane was not like Wynton in any way & B) Trane died in 1967. So that's not the reality. But the reality is that Wynton has done what he has done, and he has done it as he has done it. Anybody who's been actively involved in the music at any level beyiond "casual fan" since the late 1970s knows that when the "Young Lions" thing hit, that there was a "Big Chill" effect that was not at all dissimialr to the effects of Reaganism on the rest of society. All sorts of things, some good, some not so good, and some not yet determined, found their marketplace/potential marketplace all but gone as the "money people" found what for them seemed a "sure thing" - "real jazz" that NOBODY had to "think about", so clear was the image and content. Hey, if I'm a clueless motherfucker looking for self-validation as a "progressive supporter of American Arts" and this shit comes along, well HELL YEAH I'm throwing down with it, because it's playing to every clueless cliche that my clueless ass has about anythng and everything involving what it is that I think I'm wanting to be all about.

And 25 years later, those clueless simps have got to feel very good about putting their money where they did. Hell, they've built a fucking EMPIRE in the old-school Euro mold, with one cat as the frontman for a rigid, unyielding, narrow definition of what "is" is, and by god, so shall it e. The money is there for it/them, and everybody else, hey, get your own if you can find it, and if you can't, oh well, too bad, you must not be worthy then. Find yourself some little people with some little money and play your little games with them.

It's always been that way to a certain extent. But never in my lifetime has the "big money" been so tied up in one place, and never has that big money been so uniformly tied up in so rigidly myopic a perspective. Do I blame/fault Wytnon for taking the money? Of course not. Get it while the gettin' is good I've always said, and always will say. But do I blame him for what he's done with the money/power/influence.whatever he accumulated/been granted as a resutlt? Of course I do. How do you not? Even if he is a puppet, he's a puppet of his own making and of his own choosing, and look what his puppet strings have done. They've created a slow strangulation of the rest of the music, that's what they've done, and if that's not assassination, then fuck the Enblish language as a means of effective communication.

Did we read the same article?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Did we read the same article?

Did we read the same article?

Yes, but clearly from different points of view.

There is Art, which serves the interests of the ruling classes - that's Wynton.

And there is art, which doesn't - perhaps that's Gator Tail, as a personal example.

The ruling classes can afford to support Art with big money. That's what they've done.

The rest of us HAVE to support art with our little bits of money. Because, if we don't, it dies. And that's what happened. It's all our fault, audience and musicians - but particularly musicians, who should lead the audience, but who were themselves led by the vision of Art (promulgated by who?) to the big money.

MG

[JSngry]

Did we read the same article?

Did we read the same article?

Yes, but clearly from different points of view.

There is Art, which serves the interests of the ruling classes - that's Wynton.

And there is art, which doesn't - perhaps that's Gator Tail, as a personal example.

The ruling classes can afford to support Art with big money. That's what they've done.

The rest of us HAVE to support art with our little bits of money. Because, if we don't, it dies. And that's what happened. It's all our fault, audience and musicians - but particularly musicians, who should lead the audience, but who were themselves led by the vision of Art (promulgated by who?) to the big money.

MG

Well yeah, ok, I got that part of it. But I do think that there was another part of it that pretty much unambiguously implies that until these bloated pigfucks get shrunk back down to size (or eradicated altogether, which is probably the same thing) that there's no end in sight. Other than The End, which I'm more than ready to allow is here past the point of no return. I am ready to move on, and am doing so. But I still got my roots in this old game, and not all roots pull up as easily a others, if indeed they ever do.

Now, what I'm hearing some people saying is that this all would have happened anyways, that the music had evolved/devolved to a point where all that was left was either an ongoing set of sub-sub-genres and/or the picking of the various corpses' bones into a run it up the flagpole good ol' AMERICAN JAZZ version of the walking dead, and that where we are now is where we had no choice but to be, given the inevitability of historical forces and all that.

I'll not argue too vehemnetly against that, but I can't support it either. Too many variables as to what could have happened along the way, too many possible/potential intersections between "real jazz" and popular culture that didn't happen because "real jazz" don't go there no more except on its own necrophilliac terms, too many possibly "genius" types - real or faux - that might have gotten over some hump in at least terms of public exposure to at least be a part of the overall dialogue but didn't because the seed captial was going elsewhere, too many local gigs that could have turned some corners dried up as people started wanting their "jazz" to sound, and just as importantly, look a certain way, just too many things in genreal that didn't happen that may or may not have actually happened for me to conceed "inevitability".

Good news - Internet & digital DIY makes/is making "institutions" obsolete (literally or relatively) in terms of "finding" an audience.

Bad news - After you find it, what do you do with it other than provide it w/more digital content w/o that macroinfrastructure of old skool promotion, venue, and captial infusion that you still got to have to get to that "next level"? And into whose hands has the lion's share of this power gone?

Yep. And that's what I read.

Edited August 18, 2007 by JSngry

[JSngry]

And GTW/FWIW - I am firmly of the belief that anybody doing any kind of "new" jazz should look for their audience/business model/preofessional handling outside of and away from the established "jazz" ones.

Because like it or not, the Lincoln Center "game" has all but become THE "jazz game" in terms of business, and with the resources it has, what remains that runs counter to that is facing an uphill stuggle with questionable chances of success. It's Wal-Mart.

It's all about access. And if you don't fit "their" mold (or can't be made to fit for their own ends - as witnessed by Wynton's sudden "recognition" of Ornette's true brilliance), then I say you're better off not even trying. Look elsewhere, forget about labels and see what's out there for you outside the cave.

Case in point - Quartet Out's two best received gigs (and I'm talking madcrazycrazymad love being shown) were at an alternative rock club and a St. Louis inner city elementary school where all the kids had heard was rap/hip-hop. We'd play "jazz" rooms and people would get nervous and shit. :g :g

Point is - the LC-type "jazz people" and their power structure only want one type of music and musician, and they will not let anything other than that one type into their circles. So if you ain't about 100% or more of their thing, abandon hope, all ye who attempt to enter there.

A lot of alternative rock & rap/hip-hop people are into jazz the way that a lot of older, back in the day, potential "business partners" were - they like it/love it far more than they understand it, and they will throw some money at some of it. My advice is to go there for what you need in terms of money/business support, just don't let it sway your music in a non-organic manner (easier said than done, although at this point in time, if you're not at least a little influenced just through cultural osmosis then LC might be just the place for you! ) But anyody expecting to find a jazz business model from within the jazz world that is able to successfully evade the LC machine - either directly or in copycat form - is, I'm afraid, hopelssly deluded.

Look - what "we've" always been about is improvisation, sometimes for grins, sometimes because our life depends on it, sometimes at any # of points in-between. What "they're" about is stabiltiy and a lack of discomforting change, of setting it up and raking it in into perpetuity. "Improvisation" as selling-point rather than lifestyle. Can't have it both ways, so once you choose, know who your friends are and where you might be able to get some assistance along the way.

Edited August 18, 2007 by JSngry

[MoGrubb]

...... in the end, Coltrane's first hit album was "Expression" not "My favorite things". Maybe that was because he was dead already, but...

MG

Statistics can be strange. Anyhow, that's not how I remember it, the My Favorite Things recording was his first "hit." A Love Supreme was his next biggie in the global market.

[Brad]

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?...&orgid=3922

No, I don't begrudge anybody a successful/financially rewarding career, even this clown.

But DAMN.

There you have it, right there, the whole thing. This is what it's now all about.

It's over people, it's fucking over.

So he's successful, so what. Nothing to do with his musical abilities or lack therof, however you fall on this spectrum.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well yeah, ok, I got that part of it. But I do think that there was another part of it that pretty much unambiguously implies that until these bloated pigfucks get shrunk back down to size (or eradicated altogether, which is probably the same thing) that there's no end in sight. Other than The End, which I'm more than ready to allow is here past the point of no return. I am ready to move on, and am doing so. But I still got my roots in this old game, and not all roots pull up as easily a others, if indeed they ever do.

Well, Jesus said "the poor are always with you". A little-noticed corrollary is that the rich are always with us.

All we can do is fight the power, not think of winning.

MG

[Eloe Omoe]

Obviously, Trane was not the kind of person/intellect/soul to perp on that (although, the proposed intent of the Olantunji school shows potential tendencies in the direction of "institutionalizing" which must be non-judgementally acknowledged, I think)

Well, wasn't the "Kulu Sé MaMa" whole operation supposed to raise funds for Juno Lewis' "Afro-American Art Center"? In that album's liner notes, Nat Hentoff writes just that. And Juno Lewis says in his "poem" that "Coltrane moves in that direction... A man who knows (that) directions for the future depend on how we artists of today cut the road".

I mean that someone had been toying with the "institutional" idea of a jazz art center for quite a long time, and that Coltrane had already been spotted as the right man to convey such institutionalizing energies.

Just my two cents.