The place for jazz videos

[Ian Thumwood]

An even longer interview with Big Black:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdtBrM3YmUc

Thans for posting these interviews, Bruce.

I have been listening to the Big Black interview whilst working this afternoon. I must admit that I had never heard of him before but the pedigree of musicians he has worked with is particularly high. However, I think that the interview really demonstrated the need for a good interviewer to reign in the superfluous stuff. There is a touch of the Lomax JLR Library of Congress interview about this insofar that it is pretty rambling and you are effectively left with a spralling collection of anecdotes about musicians he fell out with or encountered with no indication when these incidents seemed to happen. There is also a problem with the interviewer not challenging him when things seem unsure. I would be inclined to cut Big Black some slack given his advanced years and the fact that some of the stories are amusing even if many simply underscore that musicians like Miles and Max Roach were unpleasant. I was a bit surprised about the story of Dizzy refusing to shake Big Black's hand as I had always imagined him as one of jazz's good guys and also someone with a great sense of fun. Disappointing when you hear a story which is negative like that.

The interviewer seems like he is an amateur and his unflinching enthusiasm for everything he was told and tendency to take the stories verbatum reminded me a lot of the "bored's" youngest contributor and resident with an enthusiasm for Allan Holdsworth. This interview was crying out for more discipline and I wish Big Black had not been allowed to ramble during the rare moments when he mentioned something that was of interest. All in all, what I heard of the interview left a bit of a sour taste in the mouth with it being used by the pecussionist to settle old scores with people who have largely passed on. Big Black is a likeable chap yet I felt that there was so much more that could have been gleaned. The interviewer struck me as being a bit gullible - although I have not listened to more than an hour.

I think the Frisell interview will be more interesting. Thanks for posting, all the same.

Cheers

Ian

[Serial_Apologist]

Thans for posting these interviews, Bruce.

I have been listening to the Big Black interview whilst working this afternoon. I must admit that I had never heard of him before but the pedigree of musicians he has worked with is particularly high. However, I think that the interview really demonstrated the need for a good interviewer to reign in the superfluous stuff. There is a touch of the Lomax JLR Library of Congress interview about this insofar that it is pretty rambling and you are effectively left with a spralling collection of anecdotes about musicians he fell out with or encountered with no indication when these incidents seemed to happen. There is also a problem with the interviewer not challenging him when things seem unsure. I would be inclined to cut Big Black some slack given his advanced years and the fact that some of the stories are amusing even if many simply underscore that musicians like Miles and Max Roach were unpleasant. I was a bit surprised about the story of Dizzy refusing to shake Big Black's hand as I had always imagined him as one of jazz's good guys and also someone with a great sense of fun. Disappointing when you hear a story which is negative like that.

The interviewer seems like he is an amateur and his unflinching enthusiasm for everything he was told and tendency to take the stories verbatum reminded me a lot of the "bored's" youngest contributor and resident with an enthusiasm for Allan Holdsworth. This interview was crying out for more discipline and I wish Big Black had not been allowed to ramble during the rare moments when he mentioned something that was of interest. All in all, what I heard of the interview left a bit of a sour taste in the mouth with it being used by the pecussionist to settle old scores with people who have largely passed on. Big Black is a likeable chap yet I felt that there was so much more that could have been gleaned. The interviewer struck me as being a bit gullible - although I have not listened to more than an hour.

I think the Frisell interview will be more interesting. Thanks for posting, all the same.

Cheers

Ian

I would have been prepared to let the sentence I've highlighted ride were it not for the fact that the person you refer to was one of those who were recently thrown off the forum for undisclosed political reasons, and who thus has no right of reply here on the forum. While you may not have agreed with him on that score, I would hope you would take account of this injustice and be in favour of his and other's right to freely raise political matters, as we do from time to time on the jazz bored?

[Ian Thumwood]

I would have been prepared to let the sentence I've highlighted ride were it not for the fact that the person you refer to was one of those who were recently thrown off the forum for undisclosed political reasons, and who thus has no right of reply here on the forum. While you may not have agreed with him on that score, I would hope you would take account of this injustice and be in favour of his and other's right to freely raise political matters, as we do from time to time on the jazz bored?

SA

No idea what you mean but I would agree that, by and large, most of the contrubutors in this bored are tolerant of other's opinion.

Just commenting that the interviewer was uncritical like the colleague you mention. A fair comment, I think.

[Tenor Freak]

One for Bluesnik here as I have found a long interview with Jackie McLean reminiscing about his early days with an old mate, Gil Noble. Fascinating stuff, and essential viewing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En-ogT-UbwY

[Tenor Freak]

FOUR SOLID HOURS OF JACKIE MAC from his mid-60s golden era. What's not to like?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWW0-jLrjRU

[Jazzrook]

An astonishing performance by the Cecil Taylor Unit with Jimmy Lyons, Sam Rivers & Andrew Cyrillic in Berlin, 1969:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=gWtasHgh2zM

JR

[CGR]

Blue Monk - Danny Thompson

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Lenny Breau, "I'll remember April". Only because I've just watched a documentary about this guy and had heard loads about him as some kind of musical genius guitarist, praised by everyone from Chet Atkins to Tal Farlow to George Benson etc.

I don't get it.

http://youtu.be/dRNI9-YKytY?feature=shared

apparently strangled by his wife and drowned in their pool. Maybe the "romanticism" of heroin helps the legend.

[Serial_Apologist]

One for Bluesnik here as I have found a long interview with Jackie McLean reminiscing about his early days with an old mate, Gil Noble. Fascinating stuff, and essential viewing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En-ogT-UbwY

Wasn't that lovely? I remember Jackie being interviewed on Radio 3 - probably one of Alyn's series - and thinking what a really nice guy he was. I once asked Norma Winstone about this: what was it about so many jazz musicians that made them such nice people? Norma had said how supportive the musicians had been when she was coming up - likewise Barbara Thompson in her time. Was it the music that helped make them good people, or were nicer folks the kind more inclined to be attracted to playing the music? Norma didn't know - and she reminded me of jazz people we'd been talking about who maybe weren't so nice!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

It is great, Jackie was all for the music. I watched "The Connection" movie (1960) again over Christmas and he's incredibly charismatic. Interesting that when the stage show toured London he roomed with Phil Seaman and Ginger Baker. Which must have been "volatile"!

The long interviews he did with Alyn are also great. His relationship with Donald Byrd - he got DB his first NY gig with George Wallington's quintet. Once Donald was established and got his doctorate "he used to treat me like I had just arrived from the country!" The stories!

* And not to forget his wife Dolly who kept him afloat during the very lean years when he didn't have a cabaret card. Remarkable woman.

[Tenor Freak]

Wasn't that lovely? I remember Jackie being interviewed on Radio 3 - probably one of Alyn's series - and thinking what a really nice guy he was. I once asked Norma Winstone about this: what was it about so many jazz musicians that made them such nice people? Norma had said how supportive the musicians had been when she was coming up - likewise Barbara Thompson in her time. Was it the music that helped make them good people, or were nicer folks the kind more inclined to be attracted to playing the music? Norma didn't know - and she reminded me of jazz people we'd been talking about who maybe weren't so nice!

I think it's the camaraderie of a like-minded group of people, trying to achieve the same goal, and having to overcome the same BS and obstacles. And that artists tend to be more sensitive to those problems, and have more empathy.

[Tenor Freak]

It is great, Jackie was all for the music. I watched "The Connection" movie (1960) again over Christmas and he's incredibly charismatic. Interesting that when the stage show toured London he roomed with Phil Seaman and Ginger Baker. Which must have been "volatile"!

The long interviews he did with Alyn are also great. His relationship with Donald Byrd - he got DB his first NY gig with George Wallington's quintet. Once Donald was established and got his doctorate "he used to treat me like I had just arrived from the country!" The stories!

* And not to forget his wife Dolly who kept him afloat during the very lean years when he didn't have a cabaret card. Remarkable woman.

Dolly raised something like $8,000,000 to get the Artists Collective building in Hartford built. That is some achievement in its own right, never mind trying to look after a wayward spirit like Jackie when he couldn't work. She deserves a medal for that alone. I hope she got one. At least Al and Frank could get him in the studio every so often so he could earn some bread.

[Tenor Freak]

https://www.facebook.com/theartistscollectivehartford/posts/pfbid0dmpu1c4TSbNeUS4WQu42qd82zZtQYqivp4y8vMjDUX7To8uZvpz4V58XURCHFy8Xl?locale=en_GB

[Serial_Apologist]

https://www.facebook.com/theartistsc...l?locale=en_GB

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Very clever little piece of editing, video and otherwise...

The Dave Brubeck Qrt play "Golden Brown" (Stranglers)

Catchy!

http://youtu.be/2Qs1J612nZs?feature=shared