|
|
live_jazz
|
|
|
ever dumbening
|
context
as a child, did you ever run into one of your elementary school teachers in the grocery store? same clothes, same face, somehow totally different.
i'm sitting here listening to the new dave_holland cd. each one of these guys rips like you wouldn't believe. and the compositions are textured, layered, dense, chewy, visual.
but having seen this very assemblage last year at Yoshi's, i listen quite differently. my ears strain, seeking the interplay. some cats can find the vibe in the studio, but ultimately i hear their hearts, minds, souls pointed squarely at the mic, not at each other.
nothing compares.
i've seen so much live jazz and have yet to find a studio album that even scratches the surface. live recordings? nope, nothing there either. when a drummer and a bassist are locked in, and you can smell the fibers of the rope that is tied tightly around each one's core, you have arrived.
recorded music--it's often all we have. i have many recordings that you couldn't pry from my dead paws. and other live music: i have seen incredible arena shows, classical concerts, small venue folky funky whateverness. i have seen brilliant chamber music in europe, outdoor festivals, schroomy greatness in black rock city. all great, but they're only presenting a version of something you already know, even if you've never heard it before.
nothing compares.
the jazz form is the perfect unfolding, the perfect experiment. heisenberg was right. but this time, you are the photon observing, and who knows where the hell it's going next. when the greats are doing what they do great.
nothing compares.
|
011230
|
|
... |
|
|
birdmad
|
i miss my sax,
i'm not great at it, but every so often i can get a nice groove going
of all the things i lost to the burglary all those years ago, i miss the sax the most
|
011230
|
|
... |
|
|
Ant
|
Jazz is the best.. I love to just sit down at the piano and flow
|
011230
|
|
... |
|
|
ClairE
|
I miss you. Lately I feel like my feet are just stuck to the ground. I can't get anything done.
Parents tend to drain the life out of you. Maybe it's a trade_off or something.
|
011230
|
|
... |
|
|
(tin eared) cube
|
it_puzzles_me_still...
³
|
011231
|
|
... |
|
|
macintosh
|
jazz is off the streets now, into the musuems. it also seems that jazz has somehow become a constant wonderful celebration of the artist's long and joyous life.
|
030428
|
|
... |
|
|
unhinged
|
there is so much of it around here. i never realized how important pittsburgh was to the history of jazz, but being that youngstown is only a little over an hour away, it's migrated out here. i think that may be one of the only things that youngstown has over milwaukee: all the live_jazz.
|
030429
|
|
... |
|
|
wakinglife
|
first of all...what do elementary school teachers have to do with live jazz? just wondering...dont mean to be a stickler or anything...but yes! I know exactly what you mean about seeing them in the grocery store or somewhere and barely recognizing them because you realize they're like real people with real lives...even 3rd grade teachers have to go grocery shopping...
|
030429
|
|
... |
|
|
ever dumbening
|
read it again, carefully.
--j
|
030429
|
|
... |
|
|
thum
|
i saw michael brecker once. it was one of two times in my life that i was happy.
|
030502
|
|
... |
|
|
celestias shadow
|
oh yum. it's such a living, breathing creature. it's best when it's live.
|
030916
|
|
... |
|
|
oldephebe
|
always gives me a natural high
|
040116
|
|
... |
|
|
ever dumbening
|
McCoy Tyner, Billy Cobham, Stanley Clarke.
Just another great night of sonic washes, non-verbal locks and links. Fingers and minds dancing, and we follow.
Happy Days, indeed.
|
050126
|
|
... |
|
|
no reason
|
just so long as it isn't me
|
050127
|
|
... |
|
|
no reason
|
i am a mccoy tyner fan. yum.
|
050127
|
|
... |
|
|
oE
|
stanley clark - the bishop of the bass
i haven't heard his name in a while
mccoy tyner - you guys are serious.
...
|
050127
|
|
... |
|
|
no reason
|
if i go to the cedar walton workshop today i might make baby jesus cry
|
050128
|
|
... |
|
|
ever dumbening: manhattan stylie
|
tonight's installation comes from a joint in the upper west side of manhattan called cleopatra's needle.
i missed the main show from eight to midnight, but i caught the jam session that lasted until three in the morning. there was food too.
there were about 20 musicians there, all mixing it up in various combinations. there were a handful of inspired moments, of course, but this was all about the love. everyone was there just to rip, some maybe to get somewhere, some maybe who had been somewhere, but all were there just to rip.
old, young, black, white, men, women—all there for themselves, each other, and us. feeling it.
|
050218
|
|
... |
|
|
oldephebe
|
man, envy is not an emotion i often experience..but ah..man do i envy you being in that place at that magic hour at the congregation of muses..there's nothing like it...the air pregnant with possibility, all the riffs you've practised and all the classical exercises all of the slipping your soul in the amniotic soup of inspiration by listening to all the masters young and old and even a few esastern tradition type flows...i mean i never drank when i played..i was already too high, i would sip coke, just plain coke...and you know those emotions that are notoriously difficult to verbalize find there expression in the bell of your horn, the gentle, deft manipulations of the embrasure to shape the perfect ote to carry that wich was ineffable into the dimly lit, crowded room, the note spreading itself out upon air misted with sweat, perfume, several inebriates, a not too oppressive tendrilled cloud of ciggarette smoke..the ciggarrette smoke is almost a neccessity, a vital acoutrement to this world of nuance and suggestion and sophistication..booze and ciggarettes..no self respecting jazz club would open it's doors w/o the two. It's like the two the booze and the ciggarettes are this medium and metaphore representing the temporary, fleeting feeling of hope, of some romantic fruition of some quest, some shadow of the unthinking innocense of childhood plays across the entire room, the fingers reaching for the notes before the mind, before the emotion is crystallized and then the ciggarettes...and yeah this...god i've got this heart that is cut up by sorrow, i stole that cut up by sorrow..don't know where i read it but it sure ain't mine but it don't change a damn thing..i got this heart that is cut up by sorrow so the ciggarette's embered carcinogenic eye glowing in the misted melange of assorted scents and sights seems to convey that yeah amidst all of this, all of these dream spires that we are building out of notes out of the souls quiet ravage...even in this place where we've conjure true magic..death..the death of love the death of life..is ineluctable..
you open the case, clean your mouth piece, adjust your reed wet it, sometimes it's perfunctory...just something you do to get ready...but other times you place the reed upon your tongue between your lips and you moisten it slowly, you let it become infused with the love you have for the music for this time for what you feel hot and pregnant in your chest, you think about coltraine and his marathon bouts..how he would build harmonic effervescent highways and seed them with the pain of his body and soul... you take the reed out, you eye it adoringly, you think of the beautiful things that you and the horn and the reed will create tonight...this night..
man i miss it so much....
...
|
050219
|
|
... |
|
|
unhinged
|
me and eduardo tangoing to a ballad version of somewhere over the rainbow at cedars on a tuesday night after orchestra rehearsal...yeah i miss y_town 's live jazz scene.
|
050219
|
|
... |
|
|
unhinged
|
evan_christian at the jazz_estate wednesday nights
|
100702
|
|
|
what's it to you?
who
go
|
blather
from
|
|
