010-04-20 06:22 AM, Irving wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/21/books/20100321-JAZZLOFT-AUDIOSS/index.html?hp

Clayton Wrote:

Fuck.

Irving wrote:

Fuck good, or fuck bad?

Clayton wrote:

Incredible. Sometimes I wish . . .

C

(Just as well, I would have ended up dead in an alley of an overdose back then, but the music, the scene).

Irving wrote:

Yeah, I'm not sure my quasi-addictive personality would have let me survive something like that. Ah hell, I probably would have been living in the suburbs, cutting the lawn and bbqing, oblivious to all that was happening....

Clayton Wrote:
LOL!
Naw, I believe all the 'burbs and bbq shit but you could not have been oblivious, not you--too curious George.
My guess is you would have flipped on a faintly seditious Chet Baker or Gerry Mulligan record on the weekend to wow the neighbours when you were all a little squiffy. Maybe none of that negro music just yet, but definitely something with a little attitude on the backburner (betcher grinning).
The only reason you would not have had any of those Julie London torch song records around would be out of deference to your fine wife's sensibilities.
Prolly would have picked up on it all when you breezed through the post highschool experience somewhere in the upper third though maybe not one of the heavy hitters (i.e. not yer Yale, Duke, Harvard lawyer, doctor stuff), which would be where you met S etc etc etc. You were not members of the Communist Club but as socially conscious as it was possible for am emerging white middle-class couple to be in those times.
You would have missed Newport by a few years, already into growing a family, but you would have been aware of its existence.
:-P
C

Irving wrote:
ROTFLM-FUCKING-AO!
Jesus - you got me pegged, don't you?
You just made my day - thank you, my friend!
You know, Baker/Mulligan always put me to sleep after about the third track, but Mulligan's big bands - tasty, tasty, tasty!
Clayton Wrote:
Oh good. That's terrific. I rather thought it was pretty good, but I would. Glad it made you laugh. Heh heh.
I have to be honest, I still struggle with Baker. Good mood music if you were of an age and looking to get laid I suppose. Pretty background music and his bio is a genuine tragedy. No one would believe it if were written etc.
I always assumed he would not have garnered much critical acclaim at all were it not for the need of the mainstream music industry to produce a 'great white hope' in response to Miles. That may be a little harsh but who knows?
As far as Mulligan goes, don't forget he was as responsible as Gil Evans or John Lewis, maybe more so, for the nonet arrangements on Birth of the Cool.I expect Miles and Gil made a large band/orchestral living on those classic 50s titles (Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spanish) out of what they learned on BotC.
C

Clayton Wrote:
From another spot on the Jazz Loft site:
http://www.jazzloftproject.org/blog/general/anecdotal-musings-on-the-economics-of-jazzWhen Joel went to Japan last year he went with two big name fusion guys to fill the clubs I am sure. The Japanese know their music and would love the fusion-blues band, but they really love the big names, past or present.
When home these guys really only play an occasional show at a local club called The Baked Potato in LA. It's where all 'the boys' on the LA scene gig when they want to run some new material past a live audience or just to get in some live time. I have some really good fusion bootlegs from that place.
All of this stuff fits nicely into the article above I think.
Then there's this short one out of that article:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780375708442-0

Fascinating. American culture and couth, or lack thereof, is absolutely fascinating for me.

C

Irving wrote: I'll have to check these links out tomorrow - just online for a brief moment in time....