Never had a problem with the Purim/Airto RTF – in fact it was the quartet after that led me back to those records. There has been some exhumation of the fusion stuff. Five years ago I was visiting a friend at his office in a Sony Records imprint. He slipped me a remastered cd re-issue of “Romantic Warrior”. I loved that record when it came out and saw RTF and Clark and Dimeola solo whenever I could.

I was thrilled to have the cd (hadn’t had a turntable for awhile), ran home, put it on, and asked myself “What the hell was I thinking”? I may as well been listening to a Rick Wakeman solo record. Please Tom, continue to do your part to keep Jewlicious informed. And I’ll continue to insult Coldplay and the rest of the no-talent grifters out there.

And as far as your beloved Red Stockings: “Objects in rearview mirror are larger than they appear.”

I have a feeling some of the 70s stuff will be exhumed and we’ll think, ‘well, most of it was crap, but there was the occasional album that holds up well.’ The odd Return To Forever album (some of the stuff with Flora Purim was OK), early Weather Report, the odd Lonnie Liston Smith effort. Looks like late Miles is getting a re-think these days.

Of course, today the pendulum has swung to such a degree that we’re beset with an avalanche of unadventurous ‘mainstream’ music, ‘My Funny Valentine’ for the upteenth millionth time. But as you note, jazz is vital enough to keep moving forward, and we won’t be stuck here forever.

Contrast that with the Whitney Houstons, Coldplays et al. I don’t think Coldplay’s gonna morph back into Radiohead.

I wanted to stay out of this discussion but… But the above comment is, after all, the jumping off point for most music discussions. Why were Benson and Mangione going soft any different than Miles going Heavy Metal? Maybe Jazz Fusion was the ruin of Jazz – but it served a purpose – all the young bucks who toiled for years as Be Bop sidemen were trying to do something relevant and also finally put some money in their pockets. Tom – remember how huge Return To Forever were in post-Airto heyday. I bought into it – and in retrospect, yes, the stuff was/is crap. Almost no difference between Prog Rock and Jazz Fusion. And “Breezing” was bad commercial music. (But, btw, a guitar part that was to every beginning Jazz guitarist what “Stairway To Heaven was to aspiring Rock guitarists).

Maybe Jazz was ruined by the Coreas, Hancocks, Weather Reports, Passports, etc., who were toiling as Be-Bop sidemen. But it’s a natural evolution for something meaningful and soulful to turn into something pablum – like Radiohead begetting Coldplay. People bought the crap. It didn’t last and doesn’t hold up. But it’s just a little bit of the timeline.

Jazz of the 70s was either soggy cereal or loud and boring. (Although Lenny White was not boring and if Hendrix lived he would’ve been something like James Blood Ulmer.) So let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Jazz is Goodman and Krupa on the Rockin’ side and Monk, Rollins, Coltrane, Mingus and even Miles’ take on “Porgy And Bess” on the Soul side. (Because after all, Monk was Soul music minus the words).

Jazz is awesome and Jazz is lame. Whitney Houston voice exercises are considered R&B. And then you have Duffy. And Coldplay.

Funny thing is, Tom, that guys like Dolphy and Doldinger, after going through their rock star days, went back to doing something meaningful, if not still overproduced (I blame that on modern recording techniques rather than the artists).

So there. Did I mention how lame Coldplay is?

Fats Waller.

I dare you to listen to his versions of “Lulu’s Back In Town” or “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and tell me jazz is lame. Nobody could play piano like that man.

I do prefer the blues, though. Muddy Waters, essentially.

(Not to get all Christian on you or anything, but your jazz epiphany will come.)

*I might be an enfant terrible for wearing the coolest knickers of all Jewlicious bloggers though.

froylein tests and at times exceeds the limits of what’s doable in this blogalicious setting. But she makes a major contribution and shouldn’t get discouraged.

All bona fide rootless cosmopolitans love jazz. Dude, think jazz and blues and soul and r&b can be neatly separated? These are permeable categories, originating in marketing agendas. (Jerry Wexler in fact invented the phrase r&b– that wasn’t the musicians’ doing.) Is Goodman jazz or swing? George Benson pop or jazz?…. Anyway, there’s something for everyone out there.

Don’t flatter yourself, Chutzpah. You’re not the first person who thinks that simply being a mensch automatically makes one a Jew. Believe it or not, I think goyim are perfectly capable of being wonderful human beings and that Jews can be as low as anyone. This whole idea that one is a Jew so long as one is a nice person is pretty damn condescending to gentiles, since it is based, unconsciously perhaps, on the idea that good middos are what makes Jews Jewish. The flip side of that, of course, is the assumption that having good middos is not a goyish thing.

This is nonsense, of course. Nobody has a monopoly on morality. And just saying you’re Jewish doesn’t make you so.

soul music is not.

RIP Jerry.

Even today, Eric flummoxes a well-meaning but uncomprehending listener in Europe. Keep listening and you’ll get it eventually, froylein. As a prominent Jewish artist of the last century once said. the tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow.

Jazzmen don’t do blues, eh?

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All I was trying to do is to honour the late Mr Wexler, not to justify why I personally don’t feel dead enough to listen like listening to certain kinds of music.

Lack of melancholy? This is music of the blues, after all. Perhaps froylein is as yet unacquainted with weltschmerz, but any of the aforementioned Evans’ albums (especially the ones for Riverside) convey that as powerfully as any music I know (this side of late Schubert, anyway). Try Explorations and Portrait in Jazz to start.

Jazz even froylein will like:
Dexter Gordon, Go
Miles Davis, In A Silent Way
Keith Jarrett, Facing You
Wayne Shorter, Adams Apple
Tord Gustavsen, The Ground
Joao Gilberto, Amoroso/Brazil

And jazz vocals. Check out Sarah Vaughn, or Billie Holiday from the 30s, or the late, great Shirley Horn….

Wexler, btw, made a great contribution to jazz via Atlantic Records, recording Mingus and Ornette Coleman, among others, at their peak.