Classic Vanguard Small Group Swing Sessions Limited Edition Box Set (#280 – 7 CDs)

[Niko]

I guess stompin' uses a fairly technical definition of forgettable as the opposite of unforgettable... it boils down to the question whether "a forgettable album" and "an album I had forgotten about" are (almost) synonyms or not... I would say not at all, but then again I'm not a native speaker... 

btw, I had actually been curious about that album due to the contribution of Bobby Henderson whom I've liked a lot in other contexts... does one get to hear much of him? 

[Stompin at the Savoy]

2 minutes ago, JSngry said:

So Harlem was wrong?

Do you really expect an answer to this question-begging nonsense?

[JSngry]

Yes.

[Stompin at the Savoy]

It doesn't make sense, Jim.  You say he was once popular in Harlem.  Sounds like hearsay to me.  A performer can be popular, ie attract customers to a venue, without actually being popular among the entire  local population.  So that's bs. After that Columbia album he pretty much disappears.

11 minutes ago, Niko said:

I guess stompin' uses a fairly technical definition of forgettable as the opposite of unforgettable... it boils down to the question whether "a forgettable album" and "an album I had forgotten about" are (almost) synonyms or not... I would say not at all, but then again I'm not a native speaker... 

btw, I had actually been curious about that album due to the contribution of Bobby Henderson whom I've liked a lot in other contexts... does one get to hear much of him? 

You have a point there and I cannot really solve it.  I was using forgettable as the opposite of memorable.  If you forget you bought an album that seems the opposite of memorable to me, therefore forgettable.

[JSngry]

No, he was popular in Harlem. Lots of things were. It was a world that only sometimes was exposed to the rest of the world 

[Stompin at the Savoy]

3 minutes ago, JSngry said:

No, he was popular in Harlem. Lots of things were. It was a world that only sometimes was exposed to the rest of the world 

How do you know he was popular?  Wait a minute this is stupid.  You are equating popularity with quality?  That makes Taylor Swift into a genius musician.  No, your Harlem was wrong? gambit is silly.  I'm not going to dignify that with any further replies.

Edited Thursday at 07:47 PM by Stompin at the Savoy

[JSngry]

I read.

Conversely, why are you so sure he wasn't? Because you don't like him?

[Niko]

23 minutes ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

It doesn't make sense, Jim.  You say he was once popular in Harlem.  Sounds like hearsay to me.  A performer can be popular, ie attract customers to a venue, without actually being popular among the entire  local population.  So that's bs. After that Columbia album he pretty much disappears.

You have a point there and I cannot really solve it.  I was using forgettable as the opposite of memorable.  If you forget you bought an album that seems the opposite of memorable to me, therefore forgettable.

I would guess that forgettable means something like "if you could pick something to forget, this might be it", so indeed, the opposite of memorable - even though most things are neither memorable nor forgettable but fairly neutral... Moreover, we forget many memorable things and remember many forgettable ones... I guess that Steve's forgetting about his ownership of the record was a case of forgetting about a record that is neither memorable nor forgettable... [and, of course, a record may well be memorable even though the fact that one owns it is not memorable, especially for records one sees all the time in the bins...]

regarding Morris, I recently bought a record by Thomas Morris and his Seven Hot Babies and was surprised to learn that not only was Thomas the uncle of Marlowe but somehow they both managed to record quite a bit while carrying a somewhat dubious reputation (quoting from the link: "probably because of lack of technical facilities owing to a non-existent formal instrumental education and training, his musical life occurred in a relative background of theatre shows, blues accompaniment and small gutbucket combo engagements. His was never a top name in Harlem and it is not astounding that he ceased his musical activities in the late twenties"). 

Edited Thursday at 07:56 PM by Niko

[Stompin at the Savoy]

7 minutes ago, Niko said:

I would guess that forgettable means something like "if you could pick something to forget, this might be it", so indeed, the opposite of memorable... but in practice we forget many memorable things and remember many forgettable ones... 

regarding Morris, I recently bought a record by Thomas Morris and his Seven Hot Babies and was surprised to learn that not only was Thomas the uncle of Marlowe but somehow they both managed to record quite a bit while carrying a somewhat dubious reputation (quoting from the link: "probably because of lack of technical facilities owing to a non-existent formal instrumental education and training, his musical life occurred in a relative background of theatre shows, blues accompaniment and small gutbucket combo engagements. His was never a top name in Harlem and it is not astounding that he ceased his musical activities in the late twenties"). 

I suppose forgettable came up in the context of albums you don't really hate but listen to once only.   I probably should have said 1 listen albums or something rather than forgettable. I've been thinking about this recently because a lot of the albums I own qualify as one listen albums.  I don't know if there is anything to be learned from that other than stream the album if poss before buying?

Edited Thursday at 08:01 PM by Stompin at the Savoy