And we'll try and post more information about tonight's show right on this page. Break off the knob.
5:56:46 PM    comment []  Google It!  

I was lucky enough to see Mr. Waldron play with Steve Lacy in Carlsbad, California sometime in '86-'87, when I was just getting into mainstream jazz. I remember the show as one of the defining moments in my growth as a lover of improvised music. Mal's playing was so spare and meditative in his use of repetitive note patterns, it drew you in as you listened. And these two men communicated on a level that was understandable to even a rookie like myself while at the same time it was just amazing that they were so together yet improvising so individually. We were playing "Sempre Amore", the Waldron-Lacy duet album, on Jazz 88 at the time and the step in progression for me when to lots of places from there. It was the first time I had heard "Johnny Come Lately" (a Strayhorn tune, I believe), which led me to other Strayhorn-Ellington directions. It also led to Waldron's early years as a leader and to one of my favorite albums of all time, "The Quest". "Fire Waltz" from that disc is an unbelievably sweet and delicious tune and the rest of the disc, with Eric Dolphy and Booker Ervin fronting, led me to further explorations of Dolphy. I will try and play music from both of these albums tonight, althought "Sempre Amore" is a vinyl one that I might not be able to pull from the archives.

Mal and Steve were on Jazz from Lincoln Center and you can hear a RealAudio archive of the show. The transcript has some great quotes, like this one about duo playing as a conversation (and words that I can only attempt to strive for)...

"I try to respond. It’s always a question of trying and reaching out and searching. You don’t always know if you succeed until it’s over [laughs] But I’m always trying every minute and he’s always trying every minute, too. So that’s what really counts. You don’t always succeed but you try all the time."

"It’s a conversation, that’s what it is. Music is really a language, you know. As long as you have the same vocabulary you can communicate, and the vocabulary consists of all the musical experiences that have gone before. If you’re both aware with everything Duke Ellington did and you’re both aware with everything Monk did, and you’re both aware of everything everybody else did, then you can communicate more easily // The vocabulary is very important – the language."

And on Monk, who for me is totally related to Mal in the way of spare, but fully emotional playing, along with the use of repeated note figures...

"For me he was perfection, because he didn’t say with ten words what he could say with one word. Very economical and his music was very basic and very subtle at the same time, and I like that, so he was my perfect musician. // I learned from him that silence is important, too. If there’s no silence, then the sound doesn’t mean anything."

Other bio, his discography, and some recent pictures with Oliver Lake round out my remembrance. That and some tunes on the show tonight. A piece of my own personal Jazz history moves on.
2:01:24 PM    comment []  Google It!  

Give me a break. Or at least something more interesting to read about.

Who knows why I clicked on that link, but I'm bound and determined to link to and say something about everything I read on the web.
10:48:10 AM    comment []  Google It!  

""I regret the way it has been interpreted," he said."

I have to admit this is an interesting story to follow and I'm not sorry to see Lott on the hot seat. I've never seen him as even close to a 'compationate' conservative, but rather a devisive, politics for power, kind of leader. We don't need people leading us in the directions he seems to favor.

I've been thinking a lot about what kind of postings are appropriate to share on the radio show. Probably not ones like this, but it sure would be fun to get into conversations about things like this with other folks who had a common bond of jazz music and an improvised lifestyle. I digress.
10:33:31 AM    comment []  Google It!  

And it's getting fixed right now.
9:19:42 AM    comment []  Google It!