Robin D. G. Kelly's Thelonious Monk: The Life & Times of an American Original---to me one of the truly stellar jazz biogs.
Anything by David Hajdu; especially Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life and his biog on Nat Cole. (I've also corresponded w/him and he seems truly nice).
Frank Buchman-Moller's You Just Fight for Your Life---the Story of Lester Young. (All the Pres biogs are worth reading).
Art Pepper's autobiog (written with Laurie Pepper); and Miles (written with Quincy Troupe) are self-gratifying and hampered by loads of BS, but I've read them both numerous times. Pepper is a spellbinding raconteur, and his insight into other musicians' work is interesting to read (if his comments about his own 'genius' are slightly delusional). Miles talking about music has been great food for thought.
The Benson book was mentioned. One thing that cracked me up: some poetic justice. I knew Eddie Diehl for years, and he had a bug up his ass about Kenny Burrell. It had to do with a record date where he was sent home and replaced by Kenny b/c the company wanted a 'name'. He neither ever forgot nor stopped bad-mouthing Kenny's playing til it came out of your ears. I guess it's SOMEWHAT understandable. Eddie WAS one of the best, and a truly good-hearted guy underneath it all. We're all sensitive, and rejection---perceived or real---can really hurt.
Anyway, in George's book when he got the call to go with McDuff he was to replace Eddie. His comments---and they were respectful---were (paraphrasing): '(Eddie) was a formidable musician----not on the level of Kenny Burrell...., but he definitely could play'. Eddie was still alive when that came out. I hope he read it---it MAY have shut his mouth. I doubt it though---shutting Eddie's mouth about ANYTHING, especially guitar players he was jealous of (their stature in the biz, not their playing), was a tall order. But I had quite a chuckle over that one...
Thanks for all the thoughts. On the recording, I don’t think it sounded bad, just not what I was expecting, as PaulN pointed out.
What I gather from your comments and thinking about it some more...
The Fishman is my go-to gigging amp because it is light, loud, has decent reverb and chorus, has a sweepable midrange filter to tame feedback/wolf tones, and rather flat frequency profile. Oh, and it...
I have built my lo-power Tweed Twin from a kit with upgraded Heyboer transformers. I run it with the 12AY preamp tubes as per Leo's original design and add a touch of reverb through either a Strymon...
That's the problem right there. Never mind Real book charts, how many versions have you listened to? And how many have the additional line? If hardly any, that's your answer. Because nobody uses it.
thanks. That contrast is one of my favorite things. When discussing stain and finish with Tom R, there was an option to go with something reddish that would minimize the different wood tones or the...
More like a debate. While with an acoustic instrument you might still get some sort of consensus how it sounds best, how could you possibly hope for that with an electric instrument that doesn't...
JM touching perfection..and great amp/effects..
The sheet music for this tune is a great study in slash chords and harmonic movement.
To me this is magical/mystical music. Its in the...
The technical term for what's going on with "genre" is called lexical ambiguity or polysemy--multiple senses for a single word. Singer-songwriter (or singer-songwriter-guitarist, SSG) is a "genre" in...
If your looking at the D'Ang B you might want to consider the Guild T50. I just got a Dynasonic model, quite happy. allusedguitars on ebay (yeah i know...) still has a couple open box for $750. Not...
anyone selling an ibanez pm120?
Today, 01:33 PM in For Sale