Stop Making Fun of My Accent

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Midland
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

In reality, I was born in Washington, DC and have lived all my life here except the last 6 years of my life, when I've been living in Pittsburgh and now Philadelphia since June.

Dr. Jazz Ph.D. weighs in on DTM's Questionnaire

Recently, The Bad Plus started asking their fellow musicians the following set of questions. Following TBP's drummer (Dave King) and pianist's (Ethan Iverson) answers, TBP's bassist Reid Anderson and composer/pianist Guillermo Klein responded, enigmatic pianists Brad Mehldau and Jason Moran replied, Rosenwinkelian sidemen Jeff Ballard (drums) and Ben Street (bass) gave their two cents, followed by pianists Fred Hersch and Christopher O'Riley, fellow Brooklyn residents bassist Joe Martin and reedist Ted Reichman, Halloween Alaska bandmates James Diers and Ev Olcott and downtown squonkers Django Bates (piano & E-flat horn) and Tim Berne (alto sax and various other reeds),

All the while as is their wont, jazz and "new music" bloggers started listing and emailing their own lists to Ethan @ Do the Math. The lists became so voluminous that Ethan have to compile all the answers into Volume 1 and Volume 2.

Now that I finally have a moment to breathe and truly procrastinate (to the point where composing and formatting this entry have taken me over an hour), Dr. Jazz Ph.D. will add his remarks to the fray:

GIVE US AN EXAMPLE OR TWO OF AN ESPECIALLY GOOD OR INTERESTING:

1. Movie score. "Laura" (David Raskin); "Inside Man" (Terence Blanchard)
2. TV theme. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (Dennis Brown & Chuck Lorre)
3. Melody. "Lotus Blossom" (Billy Strayhorn); "East of the Sun" (Brooks Bowman)
4. Harmonic language. Coltrane on Atlantic and Impulse!; Bill Evans on Conversations With Myself; Paul Gonsalves
5. Rhythmic feel. Chris Potter; Max Roach
6. Hip-hop track. "All for U" (Aceyalone & RJD2); "I've Been Thinking" (Handsome Boy Modeling School feat. Cat Power)
7. Classical piece. Clarinet Concerto in A Major K.622 - Adagio (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart); Quartet for the End of Time (Olivier Messiaen)
8. Smash hit. "We Are the Champions" (Queen); "Gonna Make U Sweat" (aka Everybody Dance Now) (C&C Music Factory)
9. Jazz album. Stan Getz - The Dolphin; Charles Mingus - Mingus Plays Piano
10. Non-American folkloric group. Sexteto Electronico Moderno; Amadou et Mariam; Boubacar Traore; Ana Moura
11. Book on music. "Raise Up Off Me: The Autobiography of Hampton Hawes"

BONUS QUESTIONS:

A) Name a surprising album (or albums) you loved when you were developing as a musician: something that really informs your sound but that we would never guess in a million years: Woody Herman - Woody & Friends: Live at the 1979 Monterey Jazz Festival; Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Returns to Berlin; Duke Ellington with Count Basie's Orchestra - First Time: The Count Meets the Duke

B) Name a practitioner (or a few) who play your instrument that you think is underrated: Rich Perry, Billy Pierce, Eric Kloss, Sonny Red

C) Name a rock or pop album that you wish had been a smash commercial hit (but wasn’t, not really): (no answer)

D) Name a favorite drummer, and an album to hear why you love that drummer: Billy Hart on This is Buck Hill; Lewis Nash on Renee Rosnes' debut album, Renee Rosnes

DJA makes the NYTimes. Dr. Jazz Ph.D makes new friends.

Ratliff finally smells the coffee. Wish I coulda been there. I heard KADS was drumming.

I wish I could have made the Secret Society gig, but I was at the Mingus Orchestra @ Merkin Hall show. Some nice tunes. Michael Rabinowitz, Seamus Blake and Freddie Bryant stole the show. However Mingus' music is continually refreshing. Check out my more detailed entry here.

After the show, NY Times scribe Nate Chinen (who was there reviewing) introduced me to Simon Rentner, a musical genius with impeccable taste who is partially responsible for booking the 2006-2007 season at Merkin (the other cat is Brice Rosenbloom who used to run MAKOR when it was still around). Nate was escorting his good buddy GW who is looking pretty darn good for his age.

If I ever get around to figuring out how to use GarageBand, I may even start a Jazz Clinic podcast. Simon would make an excellent subject for an episode.