Post a controversial music opinion

to me, Laswell is like half-assed Zorn

Baker is great on that Fela record but he shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as those other drummers

Jordan / ums, fair point! Bonham did seventy times as much timekeeping as the sloppy tomwankers. He is in a category of his own.

Still, Mitchell and Bonham are in a premier tier of all-fuckin-time musicians.

Moon was a lovable goofball. Never claimed to be a genius or a drum god. I am not a fan of his playing but I don't hate him.

Baker's playing is often incoherent sloppy tomwankery. Yet he thought he was a genius and a drum God. Hence he gets some opprobrium.

I love Moon but as people have said there's exactly one band he would have worked in, and he was in it, but it's thrilling to me to hear him and the Ox going apeshit

I wish there was film of the Ginger Baker / Elvin Jones drum battle. (Elvin wins this one)

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

It's not that no one wanted to play with Mitchell. He retired after Jimi.

do u guys love music or what? that baker jones recording is wonderful!

enjoy the trash talk but tbh ginger baker is sounding great atm

It's not that no one wanted to play with Mitchell. He retired after Jimi.

I got to see Mitchell play once in 1986 - with junked-out Stevie Ray Vaughn on a "Voodoo Child" cover, but Albert Collins and Hank Ballard were also there so it was pretty mind-blowing.

Mitchell is almost my favorite drummer from that period, close to Bonham.

My anti-Baker feelings are well documented. I don't love Moon's playing but he didn't take himself half as seriously as Baker so he gets more likeage from me purely because of that. Yeah I'm shallow, deal with it.

That's so siq Elvis!

Here's the video of Baker getting smoked by Art Blakey if you haven't seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y32V6klRurY

While the Baker documentary is a little spotty, it made me realize I hadn't spent nearly enough time with Art Blakey/The Jazz Messengers. I bought one of those cheapo CD boxes (21 albums on 10 CDs) and listened to very little else for the next six months or so.

they are so good.

i did a partial jazz messengers discog run when i was doing that exhaustive wayne shorter listening project and yeah it is pretty much the greatest music ever played

ok fine lol, I still haven't dived in but clearly I need to

I did the same Brad, and once again came to the same conclusion. Those Lee Morgan/Wayne Shorter era Art Blakey albums through the Shorter '60s records, whew, what else do you need.

A Night in Tunisia was one of the first jazz cds I bought (because it was on sale) and the opening of the title track struck me like the hammer of the gods.

When I finally heard the Parker/Gillespie and other versions later, they just felt so wimpy to me. How's that for a controversial opinion?!

Yeah, that track and the album Free For All are some of the most sweep-you-away-like-a-tidal-wave jazz records of all time.

i picked up Hard Bop by the Messengers a while back, not one of the more famous lineups but really great:

Art Blakey - drums
Bill Hardman - trumpet
Jackie McLean - alto saxophone
Sam Dockery - piano
Spanky DeBrest - bass

bit Jackie McLean fan in general and idk who he is but "Sparky DeBrest" is a hell of a name and he plays great

Drummers who drum like that (Loosely, I mean the Mitchell, Moon, Bonham, Baker type) could only get away with it because they were in solid bands that didn't need a centered drummer keeping things rock-steady. They were skilled enough to have a drummer who just played whatever-the-fuck because they didn't need the drummer to be a metronome.

― coolgnoscenti (Ye Mad Puffin)

for me it's more than that, mitchell was a key driving force in hendrix's music. i do think hendrix is sort of overlooked these days... i like a lot of rock guitar stuff, but hendrix's playing, to me that's in a whole different league. i've heard him play stuff...

look, check out this live version of "spanish castle magic" from the fillmore east, may 1969.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZBUJtK5H0k

it's a mediocre audience recording but halfway through his solo it's like... what _is_ this? what the fuck even _is_ this? i don't mean on, like, a technical level. i just mean that i get the same feeling from it that i get from listening to someone like josef hassid. that's the best i can come up with.

and i feel like as a drummer mitchell really drove a lot of that, gave hendrix the freedom and creativity to just go way the fuck out there.

oh spanish castle magic starts at 31:10, i forget that the linking here doesn't do timestamps

i like a lot of rock guitar stuff, but hendrix's playing, to me that's in a whole different league. i've heard him play stuff...

lol @ posting this in the controp thread <3

Drummers who drum like that (Loosely, I mean the Mitchell, Moon, Bonham, Baker type) could only get away with it because they were in solid bands that didn't need a centered drummer keeping things rock-steady. They were skilled enough to have a drummer who just played whatever-the-fuck because they didn't need the drummer to be a metronome.

― coolgnoscenti (Ye Mad Puffin)

Does Robert Wyatt sit with this group wrt Soft Machine, would you say?

or Hamish Kilgour

Hamish always sounds rock steady and solid to me and doesn't do a lot of fills

The bass is the rhythmic backbone to most of those early Soft Machine songs, giving Wyatt the ability to play around.
In interviews, he was dismissive of the drum kit as an instrument, said it was difficult to get music out of it...and it was partly the other members' unhappiness with his drumming that caused his dismissal from the group.

xp, he's a "busy" drummer with an idiosyncratic groove, admittedly not of the Mitchell/Moon/Bonham/Baker type so nm i guess

They were skilled enough to have a drummer who just played whatever-the-fuck because they didn't need the drummer to be a metronome.

The irony is that Moon was alone among his contemporaries in playing along to sequencers and other backing tapes. For all the talk of Moon’s supposedly shaky timekeeping, there isn’t a single recorded example of him getting out of tempo with the backing tapes. He was a metronome; he just didn’t sound like one. (Also, fun fact: John Bonham hung around with them during the session for “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” sitting on the floor next to Keith’s kit.)

Wyatt had much more of a jazz background for his drumming, his first solo LP is essentially free jazz, as are the early pre-wilde flowers demos.

Thanks, Kate, for the high-quality Mitch content. I love him and always will.

And to Tardumes, yes, it is sort of interesting that Moon was a solid timekeeper despite everything else going on with him.

Sorry, I haven't really formulated an opinion on Wyatt

*Tarfumes, sorry

imo wyatt was kinda the inverse of tony williams: consistent drummer, got even jazzier/more nuanced as he went, and a terrific band leader

Here's the video of Baker getting smoked by Art Blakey if you haven't seen it

wow that's brutal

wonder what blakey thought of baker's style

I love how casual Art Blakey is.

At first he isn't even breaking a sweat. Baker gives it his best shot, looking labored. Then Blakey says "okay, fuck it," and throws DOWN.

It is a master class. Blakey was all time.

that baker/blakey video is incredible lol. baker's tom work is so boring and it just goes on and on and on, and then he's like, "maybe it'll be interesting if i do it faster???"

and then blakey's sticks are like a river rushing through his hands

i'm not a baker hater by any means but he is not flattered by the comparison lol

My favourite Keith Moon drumming is on Quadrophenia, which is an era where a lot of people seem to think he was getting tired; but I think the songs are the strongest that Townshend ever wrote and so they stand up to the drumming.

I actually struggled a bit with his playing on that record for a time, finally realizing that much of what I heard as slightly-reduced-energy was down to how his kit was miked. The snare doesn't crack and the bass drums don't pop like on songs recorded by Glyn Johns (two of which are on Quadrophenia), and the cymbals are far too prominent. On the 1973 shows I've heard -- particularly Philadelphia, 12/4/73 -- his playing is absolutely as great as it ever was, superior to what's on the record.

huh i never thought that he was falling off on quadro at all

though i feel like that is the ultimate entwistle album for the who, he's just beasting out on that record

Entwistle had one gear and that gear is called awesome. There are exactly zero times when I have wanted the Ox to do anything other than what he did .

If there is such a thing as "lead bass" the definition would be simply "See John Entwistle."

Thought this was pretty cool:

“The Real Me” was the first take. I was joking when I did that bass part. The band said, “Wow, that’s great, that’s great!” And I was just messing around. They just loved the song. I was sitting on top of my speaker cabinet playing a silly bass part and that’s the one they liked.

though i feel like that is the ultimate entwistle album for the who, he's just beasting out on that record

Which is why I never understood why Entwistle remixed most of it for the Quadrophenia movie soundtrack. There's indeed more bass, but it's not better bass.

ll cool j's performance in the movie toys is better than any of his music.

(also the song performed by robin williams and joan cusack in the movie is f'kn rad and had trevor horn involvement iirc)

god cardi b has only gotten even more terrible over time.

Live MCMXCIII is an absolute dreadful listen, except for "Coyote" (the one new song).

Mr. Rain is pretty good on it. But yeah, latter day Reed doing those classics just doesn’t work for me.

same... I feel like this is the consensus opinion?

“coyote” does totally rule