well now. it has been years of watching blogland. silently. something about it didn’t click with me before (a treatise on this will follow later), could be simply that for a long time I was paid to write. giving away insights and ideas, however half-baked they might be, has seemed somehow less than fulfilling, if not an exercise in futility.
the hope is that this little corner will be different. if not useful exactly, at least quirky. interesting. mildly eyebrow-raising.
ojala.
moonjawn 
Well as someone that has followed the Philly jazz scene for a really long time I think that perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects was the revered elder angle that was a profound part of the Germantown jazz scene. With jams at places like the old Blue Note on Washington Lane very young people played with much older folks and the exchange was I believe mutually beneficial. I hope that at the new Milkboy sessions that this inter generational dialogue can be continued and that we can pass along the many lessons that only age and wisdom can impart to those who are young and talented but may not have learned the lessons of economy and simplicity and as my dead friend and musical giant, Jef Lee Johnson so aptly put it, “leaving a burn”. I am a product of jazz when it lived comfortably in the corner bar and I will always bemoan the fact that it left that local hang and migrated to fancier digs. Let’s make sure we do everything we can to make jazz vernacular music once again and not the exclusive province of Wynton and a bunch of jiveass rich people…One man’s opinion.
so so true what you say about the intergenerational exchange of ideas, information, inspiration.
this is a goal for that session, for sure. I’m reaching out to folks who don’t play clubs often, and reading this I was reminded about a bunch of folks who would have been comrades if they were still around. Everybody mentions Sid Simmons and rightly, because he was such a quiet and steady force. What about the late great Billy James, incredible drummer who put up with lots of us at Ortleib’s and kept swinging through all the muscle-flexing and the yammering. Playing with him you couldn’t miss the clear, firm rhythm that powered so many great organ groups, particularly Groove Holmes.
I accidentally wrote “dead” instead of “dear” and that is because I am a terrible typist. Jef Lee Johnson is very much alive and in fact gigging with Esperanza Spalding. So there you have it!