JSngry Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 Sonny/McCoy Duet Freddie "Straight Life" Quote
Shawn Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 Sonny/McCoy Duet Freddie "Straight Life" Thanks Jim, you've made my Saturday morning! Pedal Up = HOLY SHIT!!! Quote
JSngry Posted March 22, 2008 Author Report Posted March 22, 2008 Dude, I distinctly remember watching this show in my college dorm when it was first aired, and then again at home as a summer rerun. A lot might have "gone wrong" in the 70s (but maybe not as much as some people want to claim), but ain't none of it here ... Funny memory - I was living in the "musician's dorm", and of course, plenty of people were gathered around the community TV for this show. Hardly any of them had heard any Sonny past 1959 or so, and when they saw the duet w/McCoy, they were....CONFUSED! Finally, one guy said, "Sounds like he's been listening to Archie Shepp..." and not in a complimentary way. Quote
Alexander Hawkins Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 Great - thank you! Sonny's opening phrase on Work Song...statement of intent/individuality or what! Wonderful trading at the end there. Rahsaan's articulation sometimes seems to have a lot in common with Braxton...don't know if there's any direct influence there - more likely just correlation, I suppose... Quote
rockefeller center Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 WR at that show w/Alphonso J., Alex A. and Chester T. http://youtube.com/watch?v=kN_TTlJlcC8 Quote
Alexander Hawkins Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 The duo is fairly extraordinary! Rollins is rhythmically totally treacherous...and his tone is VAST!!! Beautiful. Quote
Larry Kart Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 Finally, one guy said, "Sounds like he's been listening to Archie Shepp..." and not in a complimentary way. I would have agreed -- still do. Quote
JSngry Posted March 22, 2008 Author Report Posted March 22, 2008 WR at that show w/Alphonso J., Alex A. and Chester T. http://youtube.com/watch?v=kN_TTlJlcC8 NICE!!! Got me to remembering how NEW so much of this music (not just WR, but all the "new directions" the people were going in, as well as all the older ones that people were still finding fresh, surprising, invigorating things in) seemed then...what a rush, what a feeling of pure, unfettered JOY at being alive in a world where all this greatness was being created seemingly every day. Yeah, I was still young, but still... Some folks wanna know why you always looking for something new? For the same reason I get out of bed every day, that's why. Beginning to ramble. Forgive me. Quote
JSngry Posted March 22, 2008 Author Report Posted March 22, 2008 FACT: '70-'79 was, for all its troubles & dead-end alley exploration, was a more fun jazz decade than any since & probably the last ever... I don't want to sound like (and definitely don't want to be) an old fart trapped in his 50 and/or anything else like that, but... yeah. I think so. Say what we will about "commercialism", it expands the playing field overall, which means that everybody is more likely to have at least some room to run and play instead of getting squeezed into some janitor's closet and then out into nowhere. If that - having room to run and play - don't make for fun, I don't know what does... Quote
JSngry Posted March 22, 2008 Author Report Posted March 22, 2008 whatever was "wrong" with the time, Sonny's shirt more than makes up for it. The shirt is indeed nice, but the hat... the hat is forever. Quote
AllenLowe Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 I see this as the beginning of the end for Sonny - Kirk outplays him so much it's a little sad - Quote
Larry Kart Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 I see this as the beginning of the end for Sonny - Kirk outplays him so much it's a little sad - That was among my reactions. Quote
JSngry Posted March 22, 2008 Author Report Posted March 22, 2008 :g :g :g :g :g Y'all just don't get it. Which is cool and all, don't get me wrong, and there's really no point "arguing" what are obviously irretrievably fixed positions, but... y'all just don't get it. Somebody let me know when evolution is supposed to stop, ok? Lest I face it in my own life and decide to keep going instead of just....stopping... Quote
JSngry Posted March 22, 2008 Author Report Posted March 22, 2008 The duo is fairly extraordinary! Rollins is rhythmically totally treacherous...and his tone is VAST!!! Beautiful. Not bad for the beginning of the end... Quote
Parkertown Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 After watching that first clip, they showed a link to this clip: Looks like a similar show...but with a lot more chaos. Rahsaan even pulls a Pete Townshend at the end of the song...smashin' shit up! Quote
Parkertown Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 If this is what I missed in the seventies...dang! Quote
Mark Stryker Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 At the risk of pushing this thread further down the rabbit hole of a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on Sonny's post-second sabbatical career, I think his playing on these performances is not inspired at all and, as someone who generally thinks Sonny has made a ton of great music since 1970 and who has heard him play like a God on more than one occassion in this period (and also heard some truly awful sets too -- pays your money; takes your chances) -- the period this show encapsulates is my least favorite of Sonny's, starting with the incessantly cloudy-buzz of his sound. I also don't hear rhythmic treachery here; I hear stuck-in-the-mud spinning, though, again, I've heard treachery in plenty of other performances. Having said all that, the Down Beat show performances en masse are great fun and it's interesting that even as late as 75 we still had jazz on TV in this way. Now, in the spirit of can't we all at least agree on something. Here's Sonny in 1965 with NHOP and Alan Dawson playing rhythm changes. Holy shit -- this makes a lot of other very good musicians sound like children. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=59...h&plindex=0 Quote
JSngry Posted March 22, 2008 Author Report Posted March 22, 2008 I love that tone, and I love the pocket he's in. It's like "Alfie's Them" taken at face value by somebody who knows both what its face and other values are/could be. He'd already (brilliantly) looked at the others, and now here's the face. As for the duet, time constraints are constraining him somewhat, but good god, what he gets out is so much....more than...just something. Quote
flat5 Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 (edited) Concerning So some critics thought Kirk he was a circus act. Can't imagine why :-) Edited March 22, 2008 by flat5 Quote
Parkertown Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 That's the same link I posted at top of page. Hmmm...I think that's cool as hell! You don't dig it? Quote
CJ Shearn Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 I find it odd Jim your dorm mates didn't get the duet performance. Was it b/c at that time both Sonny and McCoy had expanded beyond what they were in the 60's (McCoy) and the 50's and 60's? (Sonny) Quote
rockefeller center Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 After watching that first clip, they showed a link to this clip: Looks like a similar show...but with a lot more chaos. Rahsaan even pulls a Pete Townshend at the end of the song...smashin' shit up! Montreux '72. Cool show which is probably still available commercially. Quote
Mark Stryker Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 I love that tone, and I love the pocket he's in. It's like "Alfie's Them" taken at face value by somebody who knows both what its face and other values are/could be. He'd already (brilliantly) looked at the others, and now here's the face. As for the duet, time constraints are constraining him somewhat, but good god, what he gets out is so much....more than...just something. I hear what you're saying re: Work Song -- put another way, he's stripping back to the core values of the soul-jazz minor blues groove. I dig "Work Song" more than the duet and do not think RRK outplays him, especially on a conceptual level, though I can understand that point of view. (Or maybe, Kirk, in the top hat and tux is so far beyond everybody in the layers of irony and role playing that it qualitifes as conceptual art -- swinging conceptual art. How many masks can one man wear and symbolize? But I digress.) Quote
JSngry Posted March 22, 2008 Author Report Posted March 22, 2008 Now, in the spirit of can't we all at least agree on something. Here's Sonny in 1965 with NHOP and Alan Dawson playing rhythm changes. Holy shit -- this makes a lot of other very good musicians sound like children. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=59...h&plindex=0 No shit... It's like I said about Wayne in another thread, there's certain players that I get "friendly" with, and for them, I dig checking out wherever they decide to go, because that's what most people I dig do - they move around, always curious, not in a "I Can't Decide Who I Am" type way, but in an "Let Me See What THIS Is All About, It Might Appeal To Me In Some Form Or Fashion, Some Of It". And sometimes where they go ends up being a dead end, sometimes they end up looking but not touching, and sometimes they actually find somethings that open them up a little more to be somebody a little different than they were before. As that pertains to Sonny, well, I remember Larry saying in one of our periodic Sonny Spats a few years ago that he didn't hear any joy in any of Sonny's later work (that's a paraphrase, iirc). And sorry, but that's just....not plausible in my mind. But ok, what can I say other than I hear it, he doesn't. It's just that I find the notion that something like this marks "the beginning of the end" for Rollins is something that I find nothing short of absurd, true only if it's your definition of what "the end" is, and true only if that definition is formed entirely from what you think the world is. Otherwise, there's been a lot of good-to-great music made by the man, and the end is nowhere in sight. Even if it ain't "like it was", it's still good-to-great (and yeah, some duds, too, like you say , you pays your money...) in the "like it is" world, and can't nobody do what Sonny Rollins does in that world but Sonny Rollins. Quote
flat5 Posted March 22, 2008 Report Posted March 22, 2008 Concerning Sonny in 1965 with NHOP and Alan Dawson playing rhythm changes By 1965 Sonny had mined this vein almost empty. I also find Dawson annoying till about 2/3 into the piece. Then he starts to relate to what Sonny is doing. The most brilliant Oleo is found on Our Man In Jazz (RCA, 1962 live), IMO. Quote
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