https://sites.google.com/view/electricfarm/home
A favorite tune of mine is Branislau Kaper's "Invitation" . I have been exploring the various renderings of this tune:
https://sites.google.com/view/electricfarm-music/various-artists
Each year for the last four years James and I have attended the Lake George Jazz Festival. I have videos of many of the performances posted.
Since December of 2005 our trading group has become an exclusive group all interested in quality instrumental music. Several members are computer programmers that have contributed source code and programs. Several musicians have contributed large volumes of their life works and some avid Jazz collectors have contributed their collections and time to help create MPprogs compliant files. The collection presently exceeds 60,000 files.
There have also been expenses to purchase various technologies for which various members have contributed financially. The goal has been to create a collection of software and media of very high quality for the personal use of our group. Since we all are creators of intellectual property we are cognizant of piracy issues and do not distribute beyond the group or over the Internet.
In the beginning we added collections of dubious quality to the collection and still to this day we are working to remove or at least update this material. In many cases it has proven to be too much work to resolve these incompatibilities and the materials have been removed. After all as members of our group know we can rip a disk and create the graphic in our compliant format in less than 10 minutes using MPripper.exe. Therefore we are now only accepting new materials from members of our group who own the software and use it to rip CD’s to .wav. This guarantees quality and adherence to our naming conventions, which are necessary for sorting algorithms and export facilities.
Our present format contains all the information available on a CD, between the file name and the associated graphic file there is no need for anything more. We have recording date, artist name, album name, track number, names of tunes and supporting artists, all without bloating the MP3’s with extraneous size.There is no information used in the directory name so an export of the file and associated graphic contains everything. We include an ID3 type #1 tag for players other than computers but this is not an important consideration as the primary use of our collection is for computers connected to a HI-FI system, which yields both a sound and graphic display of all the album information and cover art. WE have recently added retrieval of album data from freeDDB which formats to our standard file convention.
https://sites.google.com/view/electricfarm/computer/mpprogs-about
I have recently watched Ken Burn’s history of Jazz several times and I have noticed a black agenda in the script that I do not believe is a true representation of the history of Jazz that I recollect.The theme of the work seems to be the struggle of black musicians for recognition in a racists society.To extol the performances of Louis Armstrong as great Jazz is laughable.You might as well include Carol Channings“Hello Dolly” also.Any contributions that Armstrong made to Jazz was before I was born and by the time I was old enough to know who he was he was an entertainer not a Jazz musician.
In my life I have seen the struggle of musicians for recognition but it was not racists.On the contrary Jazz was the meeting place for people of a variety of races and ethnicity that was unifying rather than divisive.We always used to kid about the Afro-Sicilian upstate Jazz network as many of the upstate NY musicians were black but an equally large number were not. J.R. Monterose, Nick Brignola, Chuck Mangione, Whitey Alesia. Sammy and Deloros Mancuso,Renee Crane, Mike Flanagan to mention only a few that come to mind.
In the Burns piece there was only passing mention of Bill Evans even though he more than anyone else responsible for introducing complex European chord structure to Jazz piano improvisation.Stan Getz who created a new saxophone style that has become a standard is not mentioned. Jim Hall and Paul Desmond not even a footnote.Eddie Gomez and Carlos Jobim you would think would at least have been mentioned due to their Latin ethnicity. George Mraz, Stephan Grappelli, Michele Petrochiani, Mirislav Viteous,and Toots Thielemans would have given the piece the opportunity to at least mention the influence of Europeans upon the genre. Kenny Burrell was left out . All of these musicians made a greater contribution to Jazz than “Hello Dolly”.
I feel setting a black agenda to the history of Jazz is not only dishonest but it diminishes one of the most important aspects of its history. It brought people of diverse cultures and ethnicity together.
Mingus expresses his feelings.Charlie Mingus's hatred and bad attitudes are legendary. I was at the Village Vanguard one night when Mingus assaulted Toots Theilmans during the performance. Toots is a European gentleman I can not figure out to this day what caused the confrontation. Mingus despite, or maybe because of, his attitude was a driving creative force of the period.
In 1963 Mingus declined to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival as that was the year that the featured group at the festival was the Kingston Trio. Mingus's good judgment was born out because the influx of college kids was overwhelming and they destroyed the town of Newport. Mingus in contempt booked a gig at a place called"Cliff Walk" on the other side of the town from the festival. It was a beautiful venue for Jazz. I sat on the front veranda overlooking Narraganset bay for about an hour after having reserved a front row seat. An older man was also there and we had casual conversation about growing vegetables and Chinese food. It was only after the performance started that I realized the man I had been talking to was Booker Ervin ( Tenor Sax ).
Before the performance started Mingus delivered a diatribe about the "rules" of the performance. No talking, No rattling of ice in glasses, no service at the tables during performance, no cash register ringing, and No applause. I would have felt really uncomfortable in my front row seat if it hadn't been for a friendly wink from Booker. Soon after that I helped arrange a gig for Booker in Schenectady at Roth's Restaurant. When the group arrived it was like the who's who of Jazz. Larry Ridley, Roy Haynes, Gildo Mahonas, and the legendary Ben Webster all came with Booker. At various times Booker stayed at my place while performing in Schenectady and on one occasion he brought his friend Coleman Hawkins with him on the proviso that Music not be discussed
During February of 1988 Zappa toured the East Coast of the US with his band and before the group self destructed it played the Palace theater in Albany, NY. Friends James, Chris and I had advance tickets to the performance. As luck would have it the night of the performance I was very sick, running a fever, and in a near hallucinatory state. Despite this they convinced me to go. Prior to the performance we went to a bar across the street from the Palace where they fortified me with copious quantities of Jack Daniels on the premise it was medicinal. By the time I entered the theater I was already in a surreal state of mind. Upon entering we were first greeted with voter registration booths. It seems that Zappa was using his unconventional celebrity to promote voter registration. It’s no wonder that Bush Sr. was elected. The performance was an over the top political satire of gigantic proportion. The music however was an instrumental masterpiece with uninterrupted segways from one selection to the next. The horn section was as monumental as Wilson Pickett's and the flow of ideas cascaded from the profound to the ridiculous without missing a beat. There were no overdubs or taped effects. It was just twelve musicians performing live. There were quotes from familiar selections such as Purple Haze, Sunshine Of Your Love, Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Godfather Theme, Bonanza, Stairway To Heaven and who knows what else. I have often wondered if the performance was really as great as my delirious recollections recorded. Recently I acquired a CD of that band and I can assure you that the performance was superb. The CD had been un-masterfully chopped into selections with 4 second silences inserted between selections which deprived the performance of its brilliant segways I have re-edited to replicate the effect of the original performance.
Well the NAPSTER case was decided and musicians everywhere can celebrate that their rights are being protected. Bull Shit! This was an attempt to enforce the code of mediocrity that sells trash to the public more often than talent. The record business now thinks that music is a non-singing, non-instrument playing, gyrating belly button. Oh yeah, they keep telling us about the royalties they are paying to artists. To those that are not familiar with the intricacies of record contracts this sure sounds good but royalties are paid on less than 10% of all albums recorded. Usually there are cost up front clauses that say, there is no royalties are paid, until these costs are covered. Producers frequently have more money than artistic ability and the public has been taught to love trash.
Why do musicians put up with this! There is one fact that all musicians understand and that is success is based upon public recognition. For this reason most musicians are willing to virtually give their artistic materials to the record companies in the hopes of gaining public recognition.
I have an alternative and offer this in the hopes that all might profit.
As a near do well computer programmer I am always looking to sell my work. Computer programming is a lot like being a Musician as it is a creative effort that can be easily pirated. I am always amused when I see some musician’s computer and see all the pirated software they are using to write letters protesting piracy of music. I have now come to realize that copying of my software is very flattering and now I am disappointed when people don't try. In fact I even include the source code used to develop my software and I figure if your that interested go for it all 250,000 lines of code! Why do I do this. In effect I am giving away my creative work. The reason is the same as why musicians enter into contracts that give away their materials. The more the public is aware of the talent and complexity of my art the more likely they are to hire me. There is one major difference though. When I give away my work I control the process. When musicians give away their work the record companies profit not the musicians.
With musicians the ball is now in your court. With the new technology the production process is yours. Very high quality recording is possible by virtually anybody that has a computer. The Internet allows you to distribute your work to millions of people. NAPSTER is in a political vise and you and your, talent for the first time have some real leverage on the record industry. Think about it. A release on NAPSTER reaches 50 million people overnight. What is this sort of advertising worth? You can have a note of your WEB SITE, attached to the .MP3 file so that your creation doubles as advertising for YOU not the record company. With my software I offer incentives to copy it so that I can get maximum distribution. As a musician you also could have a .ZIP file for download which would contain the music and also some of your promotional materials, photos, concert dates, and links to fellow musicians web sites.
All the tools are available all you have to do is use them. I think NAPSTER would receptive to any offers from musicians at this point. I believe that musicians and the listening public would both benefit from a reorganization of the music business which gives more power to the musicians and puts some pressure on an industry that sells an over priced product. If the price of a CD was $5 instead of $15 they would sell a lot more and there would be very little incentive to copy. Notice that the magic price for selling movies has become $9.95 not 29.95 and people don’t bother to copy anymore they just buy the original.
During the mid 1980’s Nick Brignola played at a club on Central Avenue, Albany, NY called the “Uptown Club”. During this time Nick had started experimenting with electronics. Don York his pianist at the time was playing Fender Rhodes at the gigs but he was also a Julliard graduate and a fine classical Steinway player. Eddie Annanias was a rock oriented bassist playing a fender. George Leary was Albany’s Tony William he was an exciting young talent. Bill White was the vocalist who had an instrument of good range and capability. They played the “Uptown Club” Thurs – Sat nights for some time. I was a regular as Don was a high school friend, Eddie and George were also close friends. Nick I had known since my high school days from the “Gayiety”. I liked the output of this group and often wish I had some of this music. There was a recording made at a studio I think on 57th st.. in New York that I was present at. Most of the material on the album were written and arranged by Don who was a forward-looking talent.
My favorite memory of this group is they played the “Uptown” on Thursdays and it was very slow for business on that night. I had heard about how Miles Davis’ had done the score for “Elevator To A Scaffold” by improvising while watching the movie. I suggested to Nick that I would bring in an old 16mm B&H projector and show films for them to improvise to. We did this often but the cartoons became a favorite. There was a regular audience for this event
During the early 1970's I was good friends with Oregon.Glen Moore the bass player had played with local sax man Nick Brignola and I came to know Glen at that time. In 1969 Ralph Towner, Colin Wallcott, Paul McCandles, and Glen separated from the Paul Winter Consort to become Oregon. Shortly there after they entered into a recording contract with Vanguard records to do their "FIRST ALBUM". This album recorded in 1970 was never released until 10 or so years later.I don't know what the problem was but I know it involved court cases that went on for years. Glen had given me a studio copy of this recording to use for my radio program on WRPI.
I recently acquired a CD of the original Oregon - Vanguard Session from 1969-70.This is the same as the studio tape that I had which we played on WRPI and resulted in a lot of local popularity for the group.That tape was 15ips and I could not play it at home but I had dubbed it to a cassette.The tape disappeared from the station and now some thirty years later it has resurfaced in Italy.This Oregon is even better than I remembered.At that time there was an emphasis on material that was more coherent melodically. This was lost to the "free" compositions of the later years.I had found a cassette that I thought was this recording but now that I have a copy of the original I know that it was from a different session. The Vanguard release that I have is not the same as this "Our First Record" album. This recording is to my mind the best recording that Oregon made perhaps due to the freshness and immaturity of that group at the time. They were commencing separation from the Paul Winter Group, Glen's girl friend had been killed in an auto accident, money was short and Glen had stayed with me while doing gigs with Nick Brignola. To say that it was an emotional time for these people is an under statement. Perhaps these factors were in some part the ingredients that led to this historic performance.