Prometheus 6

It's hard to drop a comment on a thread that opens with the late, great Wes Montgomery and his band playing "Milestones." (The title track of Miles Davis's album "Milestones".) The pianist Harold Mabern is, as usual, superb. (Jazz trivia note: Mabern is the pianist on Lee Morgan's last album, which was originally released as "Lee Morgan" on vinyl but was retitled on cd as "The Last Session." It is a wonderful recording.)

Whoever did the titles for Montgomery's television appearance screwed up on the last tune. It is "Here's That Rainy Day" not "There's That Rainy Day." A great song by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke.

Maybe I should have saved
Those leftover dreams
Funny
But here's that rainy day
Here's that rainy day
They told me about
And I laughed at the thought
That it might turn out this way
Where is that worn out wish
That I threw aside
After it brought my love so near
Funny how love becomes
A cold rainy day
Funny
That rainy day is here
It's funny
How love becomes
A cold rainy day
Funny
That rainy day is here

I'm waiting for Julian Priester, the great jazz trombonist, and his wife, Nashira, a poet and old, old friend, to come by and take me to a barbecue. I'll tell them about this clip. Wonderful!

Thanks, P6!

Legend says Wes never played a wrong note. I believe it.

...Maybe I missed it, but I thought it a strange omission that there was absolutely nothing noted about Wes Montgomery over the course of the entire Ken Burn's 'Jazz' series.

I honestly think Burns ran into a time problem so when it came to the influence of the electric guitar in jazz, Charlie Christian got the nod instead of Wes Montgomery.

I just ran the whole Funkadelic Let's Take It To The Stage album.

George Clinton is an evil genius.

"...George Clinton is an evil genius."

I would say you’re correct, but without Eddie Hazel and Bernie Worrell around to full the madness, it’s not the same.
(I would include Bootsy, but there was a whole lot of Funkin’ goin’ on long before he hit the scene!)

I love George, but it’s ALWAYS the musicianship that pulls of his vision!

(…Case in point, Game, Dames and guitar things has nary a word from George beyond production credits, but, to me, still stands as the ultimate P-Funk production!)

But, at the end of the day, you give George his props for being head ‘Ringleader!’

Back in the day, around certain parts of D.C. it didn’t matter if it was Parliament, Funkadelic, whomever! It was always, “The new George Clinton album is out!” It wasn’t until you heard the name of it that you knew which band it was!

(I can still recall hearing 'Atmosphere cranking out of people's homes at 3 AM!)

Here we are in the year 2008 And I STILL keep waiting for SOMEBODY to provide a viable outlet on some cable or radio outlet that truthfully taps into a lot of the genuine music that has gone largely unnoticed throughout the years by any number of the following folk:

Brooklyn Funk Essentials / Massive Attack / Chocolate Genius / Morley / Chocolate Genius Inc. / Alana Davis / Lenny Kravitz / Ben Harper / Living Colour / Big Hate / Macy Gray / Bronx Style Bob / Maggie’s Dream / Nikka Costa / Cree Summer / Plantlife / Dakota Moon / Sandra St. Victor / David Ryan Harris / Seal / Defunkt / Stew / The Negro Problem / Dionne Farris / Super 8 / Eye & I / The Soul of John Black / Family Stand / Sweetback / Fishbone / Toshi Reagon / Imani Coppala / Tricky / Joi / Vannesa Daou / King’s X / Weapon of Choice

And of course, there’s tons more, but these are folks, with the exception of a select handful, that I love to hear, but I KNOW never make it on to ANYONE’S radio playlists.

Is there a reverse discrimination a foot to deny anything that remotely reminds us of our roots because we don’t know our roots?

(Okay! 30 second psychology at best! I know it goes much deeper!)

There was a point, P6, when I thought you were going to go there in the ‘Niggeratti’ site, (…Sorry!) but I didn’t have enough free time to stay focused t to see where it went, but I do remember seeing ‘Fishbone’ and ‘’Brooklyn ’ mentioned in the same link!)

I thought the following was one of the wildest theories for advocating the virtues of ‘Black Rock’ I’ve seen to date:

In order for the vast majority of black youth to envision better lives for themselves, we need to bring musicality back into their lives. By this I mean, get them playing instruments. Since we can’t count on the school system to get them excited about playing instruments, the impetus must come from popular culture. Black musicians have to make it seem cool again. And the only ones who are in a position to do that are black rock musicians.

...What about a sense of wonder or of magic?

http://www.boldaslove.us/2007/02/can_black_rock_.html

AND... for as much as Miles Davis tried and DI help bring Jazz into the Funk / Fusion age, I still thought two of his lesser know disciples, James Mtume and Reggie Lucas (better known, I’m sure, for their commercial work with folk like Stephanie Mills and stuff like ‘Juicy Fruit’ )radically took it places he would have loved to have gone with ‘Survival Themes’ and ‘Kiss This World Goodbye.’

(…I’m not sure who this guy is who owns this blog, but he has both for download on it. Mtume’s ‘Theme for the People’ is still priceless….)

Mtume – Kiss This World Goodbye

http://ileoxumare.blogspot.com/2008/02/mtume-kiss-this-world-goodbye-1978.html

Reggie Lucas’s “Survival Themes”:

http://ileoxumare.blogspot.com/2008/02/reggie-lucas-survival-themes-19751978.html

…Both give Eddie Hazel and the ‘Funk Mob’ a run for their money!

Brooklyn Funk Essentials / Massive Attack / Alana Davis / Lenny Kravitz / Macy Gray / Dakota Moon / Vannesa Daou

I got some of these guys laying around. Brooklyn Funk Essentials gave me the classic Black Conservative line: "This ain't selling out, this is buying in." The only Vannesa Daou I got is Two to Tango, and Dakota Moon has one of those heartbreaker memory songs, Black Moon Day.

I got a bag of weird, eclectic stuff, ambient, drum and bass, techno (don't hate me), chanting...I could put together a play list that would weird you out on me real quick.

"Here we are in the year 2008 And I STILL keep waiting for SOMEBODY to provide a viable outlet on some cable or radio outlet that truthfully taps into a lot of the genuine music..."

A community-based low power radio station is one way to go or an internet station (if ASCAP doesn't bleed you to death) now that there are radios available that you can use to wirelessly tune in stations on the web.

http://www.pandora.com/

You will be pleasantly surprised.

Put in Funkadelic, get Super Bad, parts 1 and 2.

I heard of the Music Genome Project. Interesting.

I have the "Bop/Combo" station, and a "custom" station supposedly based on artists similar to Keith Jarrett on my Pandora list. The same tunes are repeated just a bit too often on both of them. Jazz Excursion Radio plays a good variety, and doesn't repeat nearly as much.

http://www.jazzexcursion.com/