Re: Swing in the line

On Jan 31, 12:39 am, Gerry <somewh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2008-01-30 17:47:39 -0800, unknownguitarplayer
<unknownguitarpla...@xxxxxxxxxxx> said:

"When Ira Gitler coined the phrase "Sheets of Sound", he was looking
for a way to describe the monumental and historic breakthroughs of
John Coltrane. Your appropriation of this term for commercial purposes
is odious and without originality. Neither does your work profit from
such a comparison because Coltrane's achievements are to a book of
guitar licks what a formula one Ferrari is to a little girl's bike
with training wheels."

...m'kay, but I'm thinking that that the theoretical physics community
might be less than flattered to learn that Finn borrowed "String
Theory" as the title for a CD of tepid, uninspired noodling.

You guys seem to be getting viscious as matter of average communication
now. Jeez.
--
///---

(You've got a distracting typo that teeters between "viscous" (thick
and syrupy) and "vicious" (nasty), but either could probably apply to
this situation.)

I'm not trying to lower the civility bar, Gerry. But as Mark, Jack
and others have suggested, there are some unwritten "gentleman's
rules" that usually prevail here, and they serve to make this a
relatively pleasant and informative place, and may have something to
do with the long affiliation that many posters have with this group.

It's a given that most of us don't love every sound clip or video that
gets posted. I'd wager that most of us privately evaluate other
players like the old guy in the joke who's muttering while reading the
obituaries..."older than me, younger than me...hey, that's ME!". Yet
despite the fact that many of us are almost pathologically self-
focused (it's almost a requirement for playing jazz), overall, we
manage to be gracious, supportive and even helpful to other players.
There's an informal food chain of sorts, where more experienced
players pass things on to younger players, and of course, this is done
gratis, against the backdrop of people making a living by teaching,
gigging or selling CD's, books or videos.

It seems to me that over the years Jack has been quite mindful and
respectful of what goes on here. Yes, he has things to sell, but he
has also been quite generous in providing free material that goes way
beyond "teasers". One may not agree with his approach (or approaches,
cause he does a lot of things, which seems to disturb Joe Finn) or
care for his playing, but it should be clear to anyone who has
observed him on this NG over the years, he's a serious guy who has put
a lot of thought and effort into what he's doing. That could probably
be said of most of us, but Jack has managed to actually follow through
and not only encapsulate his approach in his books, but reach some
level of mastery of a style that falls in between several established
categories.

There are many valid questions about Jack's approach that merit
discussion. However, when someone is outraged by the very name of his
books, or that he posts links to free educational videos (on youtube,
not on his website), or that he buys and sells gear here, it seems
pretty clear that there are deeper personal issues in play.

I don't want to rehash the knocks on Finn, but will simply say that he
is not in a position to condescend to Jack (as most of us know, the
kind of heavy cats that are in that position are far too gracious to
do so).



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