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PLONSEY_IN_THE_OCEAN

                                           December 13, 2002 
                                      Rev: August   10, 2004       

If you're the kind of person
who thinks that all that free
jazz stuff is boring, that it 
all just blends together into 
noodly wanking... 

Well, those are fighting words, 
but I've got to be nice to y'all
because I've been there.
                  
I used to be the kind of person                   
who sneered at improvised music                   NEWTHINGS
because "all sax solos sound the same".
                                                           

But they just don't.  
   
John Gilmore just doesn't sound    
that much like John Coltrane,           (In spite of the acknowledged  
and they in turn do not sound           influence Gilmore -- one of the
that much like Jack Wright, who         main sax players for the Sun Ra  
in turn does not sound much like        Arkestra -- had on Coltrane.)      
any of the folks from ROVA, who                                            
in turn, do not sound much                                            
like Dan Plonsey, and so on...                                      
                                                          
I was at a performance of a                                
John Cage piece over at                 
Berkeley a few years ago,                           
that involved literally          "Ocean", I think,
hundreds of musicians            with the Merce      
scattered around the tiers       Cunningham dance                 
of an indoor stadium,            ensemble.                     
playing different                                                
instruments largely as they                  
liked.                            (the score    
                                  specified only
                                  when a muscian
  It dawned on me after           should play,  
  awhile that I was               with given    
  listening to Dan                envelopes of  
  Plonsey honking away            duration for  
  off to my right,                each note).   
  nearly on the other      
  side of the stadium.          
                                     
   
  I could pick out a familiar       
  sax against a background of       
  a hundred musicians, at least
  a dozen of them sax players.   

                                  
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