Hi all -
Just recently came across this forum on a search for jazz newsgroups -
had subscribed to a few in the past but grew quickly tired of their
very conformist hero-worshipping tone and that almost everyone
involved in these groups missses the obvious point - the discussion
of music history for taking real action toward music innovation.
People get way too hung up on idol worship and being fixated on the
same records and basically going nowhere progressive. And also just
passively accepting whatever is spoon fed to them by record companies
instead of discerning what is good jazz - and does have a soul in it-
vs. so much that is disposable or at best technically competent but
lame and not compelling.

Anyhow...I was also more motivated to seek out this newsgroup after
recently discovering a Miles Davis soundtrack to a late 50s French
film which had somehow eluded me until now - Ascenseur pour l'echafaud
("Elevator to the Gallows")- I have been quite obsessed with this
record lately and it's got me looking to find out a lot more about
the late 50s-early 60s retro Paris jazz scene. I've been going through
the series Jazz in Paris listening to all the mp3s and ordering a few
that sound interesting and also have gotten into the early Art Blakey
and the Jazz Messengers, most especially Jazz in Paris - Jazz +Cinema
Vol. 2. And Miles Davis Live in Paris 1969 with Chick Corea, Wayne
Shorter, etc. And anything from Club Saint-Germain.
Previous to this I'd gotten into Miles first by finding
the unedited 4 cd Bitches Brew - and just going from there.

About me - My name is Monica, I'm currently in the US but very soon
to be relocating to Germany with a project I'm working on designing
electric guitars and basses. I started studying jazz guitar but was
diverted for awhile pursuing this project - designing and then
a lot of time and effort to find the builder and investor -
but now hope to get back more seriously to guitar. I also have a
Yahoo newsgroup that I'm the moderator for called MusicFlames
(you can find this by searching musicflames at yahoogroups.com
or emailing to musicflames-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)Misc. music
discussion and spontaneous creative discussions with the aim of
instigating an online scene conducive to music inspiration - and it's
international. I actually invited Chick Corea to this newsgroup -
and got back an email from his production assistant saying that he
appreciated the info on the newsgroup and may check it out - I had
suggested he do so anonymously - so we have no idea if this ever
actually occurred or not, lots of alias freemail boxes subscribed.
Everyone thought I was such an incredible wanker for doing this
but wow were they surprised when they saw the reply. We did have one
other major jazz figure subscribed for awhile until there were some
computer problems.

Ok that's it. Sorry to ramble so much. Will be interesting to
check it all out here.
Cheers,
Monica