What do you have?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
What do you have?
The 50 Greatest Local TV Commercials of All Time, and since they’re not included there, Philadelphia’s Krass Brothers.
Phil Collins wrestling against The Ultimate Warrior
The Solid Gold Dancers counting down the top 10 songs some week in November 1985
I’m excited -I’m going to see this guy perform tomorrow, and hear him talk with our small audienc re his songwriting process:
In this snippet, he’s performing alone and that drum you hear is him stomping his feet, or so I’m told! I didn’t make this clip, and it ends abruptly. But you get the idea.
Jason Robert Brown. The next big thing on Broadway. Won a Tony award for his musical “Parade” about the lynching of a Jewish man in the South. Talk about a tough sell on Broadway! This clip won’t allow you to hear enough of his brilliant lyrics, but you’ll get a sense of the energy in his music.
Some people can’t get success with their art
Some people never feel love in their heart
Some people can’t tell the two things apart
But I keep moving on….
from the ’91 Ragged Glory Tour: Cortez the Killer
one of his most interesting periods, imo.
march on the pentagon: 3.17.07
Draft Al Gore: 2008
Loved this music! Way cooler to read blogs to jazz like that! Thanks.
to bring you this bombshell!
Rove was asked to fire New Mexico U.S. attorney
So much for the DOJ and WH claims that this firing (if not the others) wasn’t politically inspired. Weh insists that paritsan puolitics had nothing to do with it. Yeah, right.
Karl Rove, I smell a subpoena in your near future. When this scandal unravels Bush will have to spend his entire last month in office signing pardons — including his own.
Pax
How about a trip to Argentina?
This song is surprisingly current:
And the video is excellent.
Great video. Just came back from hearing Jimmy Cavallo. Who, you say? (The bar is Who’s)
Well, here’s a hint. He hung around with Alan Freed! And he’s still going so strong after all these years his sax is a thing of beauty, never the same show twice, music in his pores.
Saw Perlman this morning. Both were an inspiration. Who cares about politics!
old song/but really not so old
Don’t worry about us dialup folks. We’ll just hum along.
here’s another offering from Maná – Oye Mi Amor. This was from an MTV Unplugged performance way back when
What do you HAVE!!!???
What do YOU have?
YES BOOMAN!!!
You have Miles with his greatest quintet. The one that we (Almost all serious jazz musicians) all are STILL trying to match.
But it is matchless.
Literally.
The furthest blend of rigorous harmonic, melodic and rhythmic precision with almost total freedom that anyone has ever seen or heard, anywhere. Bet on it. (First you learn the rules, then when you REALLY know them, you forget the damned things and just flat out play. And ONLY Miles managed to walk that line with working groups. On this level, anyway.)
Do y’all know what you are listening to, here?
An almost totally abstracted version of Thelonious Monk’s “‘Round Midnight”. Know the tune? Go look for it as Monk or Dizzy Gillespie played it and begin to understand the line of development of this thing that you are hearing.
And who was Monk.?
He was the one…more that Dizzy Gillespie, more than Charlie Parker, pretty much more than anyone…who invented, defined and codified the harmonic basis of the music generally called “jazz” as it has been approached since about 1942.
That’s 70 years, folks.
70 years.
70 years later, here I am today trying to teach 125 musicians from every continent on the globe how to understand this construct. (I am presently in Holland doing my once every eight weeks teaching stint at a fine conservatory.)
Had the out-there few who hung in the Harlem basement club called Minton’s in the been studying the music of their American predecessors 70 years before 1942…why hell, they wouldn’t even have gotten to Stephen Foster and Scott Joplin.
Think on it.
The idea of a “Greatest Generation”? The ones who fought their way out of the Depression and W.W.II? (An idea with which I heartily agree.)
Well…these men you see in this video are the culmination of an alternative greatest generation. 30 years or so later. One that existed parallel to the white one so recently celebrated in our national media.
A parallel, segregated universe, an expression of the real beginnings of the civil rights movement.
The SOUL beginnings. The PHYSICAL beginnings. And the MENTAL beginnings.
The whole package.
Before Jackie Robinson, before Rosa Parks, before just about ANY damned body.
Here they were, these brave and gifted few, standing up in front of the entire world and saying “No, Ain’t NONE of you know where it’s at OR where it’s going. WE got it, now!!!”
And by God…they were right!!!
Only thing is…and here is where the politics comes in as well as the following little missive from the New testament..ALMOST NO ONE FUCKING KNOWS ABOUT THIS NEARLY 70 YEARS LATER!!!
It is STILL news to about 98% of the American people.
And we are often STILL working in jiveass basements, many of us.
Some would argue, the best of us,
Bet on it.
Nice work, Scamerica.
Nice work.
Oh yes…the Jesus thing.
Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples.
When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue,
and many who heard him were astonished.
They said, “Where did this man get all this?
What kind of wisdom has been given him?
What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!
Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary,
and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon?
And are not his sisters here with us?”
And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them,
“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and among his own kin and in his own house.”
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there,
apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
He was amazed at their lack of faith.
“He was amazed at their lack of faith.”
Lack of brains, too,
Go figure.
I got yer American Gothic, right here!!!
What is WRONG with us!!!???
70 YEARS later?
Top o’ the pops, baby. Top o’ the pops.
Unbelievable.
Maybe the devolutionists are right.
Unbelievable.
Later…
Gotta go practice.
AG
love it. Thanks for the background on this performance.
You are welcome, Booman.
I am living this thing.
70 years later.
And IT is alive.
All over the world.
Even in Scamerica.
Bet on it.
BushReaganNixonCo will not rule here forever.
The tide is already rising.
AG
P.S. For those who might be interested in some real shit:
Any Sunday night that I am appearing at Birdland in NYC with the Chico O’Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra (Which is about 48 Sundays per year…going on 11 years now.)…or any night that I am anywhere else interestig (A partial list follows here), I will get you and at least a few guests in at either greatly reduced prices of for free. (Free if there are comps available.)
Check it out.
Besides the regular Sunday nights at Birdland:
4/12-University of Michigan. Concert.
4/13-Hope College in Holland, MI. Concert.
4/14-University of Toledo. Clinics and concert.
For more info on this piece, go here.
Wed, Apr. 25 Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York
Fri, Apr. 27 Tri-C Jazz Festival Cleveland, OH
Wed, May. 16 Walt Disney Concert Hall Los Angeles CA (Mingus and Disney. A match made in…oh, I’m not really sure just WHERE that match was made. Any piece with a movement titled “The Chill Of Death” that is going to be played in a hall named after the always-happy-and-now-cryogenically preserved Walt Disney is going to be quite…interesting at the very least. Bet on it.)
Fri, May. 18 Symphony Center Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chicago, IL
Come one, come all. Get in line early, though,…comps are limited, especially on the Epitaph concerts
And you’re in Holland. (((sigh))) I’m jealous. But of course, you have to go where people appreciate your work. It’s a shame that not enough of us live in this country, IMO.