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Posted

Lorraine, for Advocacy? Better Chuck Nessa. Or about 50 other people.

Lorraine most definitely deserves to be honored (as do others as well). she has kept our legendary jazz club going for all these decades at her advanced age. and she hires top talent all the time. and as someone pointed out on another thread, it's a way of honoring Max as well. well-deserved, IMHO.

Posted (edited)

she doesn not deserve a $25000 grant for making a living, Max is dead. The Vanguard is nice, but far from the leading source.

Chuck, my point was that there are some terrific people on the jazz world who have worked tirelessly for the music (myself and yourself among them); whereas Lorraine, who is fun, has a much narrower concern and track record. I consider you to be one, of course, and I could name others, like Chris Albertson, etc. It's a big world, so being in the top 50 is pretty good, I think (as long as Sunnenblick isn't number 51) -

Edited by AllenLowe
Posted

she doesn not deserve a $25000 grant for making a living, Max is dead. The Vanguard is nice, but far from the leading source.

Chuck, my point was that there are some terrific people on the jazz world who have worked tirelessly for the music (myself and yourself among them); whereas Lorraine, who is fun, has a much narrower concern and track record. I consider you to be one, of course, and I could name others, like Chris Albertson, etc. It's a big world, so being in the top 50 is pretty good, I think (as long as Sunnenblick isn't number 51) -

"sour grapes" as usual.

Posted

IMO, Mose Allison is a stretch. (Would like to have Baraka's take on that one.) Were she still alive, in that general bag I would have preferred Blossom Dearie, if one has to go there. On the other hand, looking a list of all the NEA Jazz Masters from 1982 until now, who among the still living is worthy? But then among those honored one year was jazz immortal Luther Henderson. Next up, Sammy Nestico. As for advocacy and the like, hasn't Jamey Abersold has had more of an impact on the music than Lorraine Gordon? And what of Cuscuna? Quite a track record there.

http://www.nea.gov/honors/jazz/jmCMS/JMalpha.php

Posted

IMO, Mose Allison is a stretch. (Would like to have Baraka's take on that one.) Were she still alive, in that general bag I would have preferred Blossom Dearie, if one has to go there. On the other hand, looking a list of all the NEA Jazz Masters from 1982 until now, who among the still living is worthy? But then among those honored one year was jazz immortal Luther Henderson. Next up, Sammy Nestico. As for advocacy and the like, hasn't Jamey Abersold has had more of an impact on the music than Lorraine Gordon? And what of Cuscuna? Quite a track record there.

http://www.nea.gov/honors/jazz/jmCMS/JMalpha.php

i think they generally like to honor "seniors". i'd love to see Cuscuna receive the award next year!

Posted

IMO, Mose Allison is a stretch. (Would like to have Baraka's take on that one.) Were she still alive, in that general bag I would have preferred Blossom Dearie, if one has to go there

Where the hell (in this world, anyway) is the "there" (or "general bag") to which one would go to get both Mose Allison and Blossom Dearie to show up at the same time? :g

Posted

IMO, Mose Allison is a stretch. (Would like to have Baraka's take on that one.) Were she still alive, in that general bag I would have preferred Blossom Dearie, if one has to go there

Where the hell (in this world, anyway) is the "there" (or "general bag") to which one would go to get both Mose Allison and Blossom Dearie to show up at the same time? :g

At one time in the past, the Playboy Club.

Posted

IMO, Mose Allison is a stretch. (Would like to have Baraka's take on that one.) Were she still alive, in that general bag I would have preferred Blossom Dearie, if one has to go there

Where the hell (in this world, anyway) is the "there" (or "general bag") to which one would go to get both Mose Allison and Blossom Dearie to show up at the same time? :g

The Land of the Arch and the Wink. And the Coy.

Posted

Well, ok, but that's kinda like thinking that if you're from Chicago that you would be both a Cubs fan and a White Sox fan.

I don't get what you just said.

In any case, I simply meant that the craft of both performers depended significantly on archness/would-be hip attitude. Further, I found Dearie at best to be arguably more hip than Allison and a good deal more musically interesting, though I can see where the East Side side of Dearie might be so off-putting to some that they couldn't dig her at all. OTOH, at times Allison's "down-homeness" struck me as at least as arch as Dearie singing "Peel Me a Grape" or "Surry With the Fringe on Top."

Posted

Mose often played (plays? I guess?) some really, really interesting piano and probably knew at least almost as much as he let on, if not as much (and slightly possibly more).

Blossom Dearie was...just Blossom Dearie. Ok if you like "that kind of thing", and I really, really don't.

And I give Mose props for still making gigs at local joints with a working band way past the point where he should have. I still remember a DB review of a Lee Konitz set from the early 70s where Lee was out of tune for the opening few tunes because Blossom Dearie wanted no background noise whatsoever before or during her set, meaning that Lee couldn't get warmed up. An out of tune Lee Konitz, however, trumps a perfectly finicky Blossom Dearie any time, and a decent-at-best Mose Allison piece speaks to me more seriously than anything Blossom Dearie ever did.. What IS all this talk about loving her? Hell if I know!

But yes, they both have the Arch Wink Coy thing happening, just as the Cubs and White Sox are both from Chicago.

Posted

Mose often played (plays? I guess?) some really, really interesting piano and probably knew at least almost as much as he let on, if not as much (and slightly possibly more).

Blossom Dearie was...just Blossom Dearie. Ok if you like "that kind of thing", and I really, really don't.

And I give Mose props for still making gigs at local joints with a working band way past the point where he should have. I still remember a DB review of a Lee Konitz set from the early 70s where Lee was out of tune for the opening few tunes because Blossom Dearie wanted no background noise whatsoever before or during her set, meaning that Lee couldn't get warmed up. An out of tune Lee Konitz, however, trumps a perfectly finicky Blossom Dearie any time, and a decent-at-best Mose Allison piece speaks to me more seriously than anything Blossom Dearie ever did.. What IS all this talk about loving her? Hell if I know!

But yes, they both have the Arch Wink Coy thing happening, just as the Cubs and White Sox are both from Chicago.

Oy -- I've heard some Blossom Dearie stories that would curl your hair. She could be finicky beyond the point of psychosis/starting World War III. And those stories come from hard-core Dearie admirers.

As for Mose's piano playing -- while he's nice accompanying himself/doing his own tunes, the recordings I've heard where he backs the likes of Getz or Al and Zoot make me wonder how he ever got work.

Posted

Really not that much onto his singing (more so than in the past, but I'll still take his lyrics over his delivery of them, his time makes up for that weirdass enunciation), but his piano playing...the early "conventional" stuff is nothing to get excited about but as time went on, he ended up here, which is at once kind of a limited thing, but otoh...how do you get here from there? I don't know that you or I or anybody else would, really. And that's what I dig about Mose Allison, that he got here from there and...I can't think of anybody else who would have, really. Not like this.

Go figure.

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