From schwartz.adan@epa.gov Mon Dec 10 10:01:24 2001
Subject:Joey D. and takin' the B for a walk "outside"

Joey D can get outside as well or better than any organist I've heard.
I've sometimes wondered why playing the organ and getting outside
don't go together more often. It seems to me that usually when you
hear organ you're hearing it in a more "inside" context -- that is --
grooving within the key or the chord structure. Is this a function of
the instrument, is it a self-perpetuating historical artifact, or is
it a matter of perception by the listener? I don't have answers, only
questions. I've noticed in my own playing a greater tendency to get
outside when playing rhodes or piano rather than B-3.

One of my favorite albums ever is John Mglauphlin (sp?), Joey D., and
Elvin Jones: After the Rain. Coltrane covers and coltrane-inspired
originals. Joey's playing on that album just amazes me every time I
listen to it -- the sensitivity and expression he gets out of the
instrument. Moreso than anything else I've heard of his. I also have
an album with Joey and John where Joey plays an XB-3, and despite
repeated listenings, it wasn't until I read the liner notes that I was
clued in to the XB-3 bit.

As to his comment about clones, is he telling us anything we don't
know? If you were a player in this 60's or early 70's (and I'm
guessing some of us were, though not me), you did whatever was
necessary to have a real B-3, because there were no tolerable
alternatives. Now we have choices, some of them very good, and along
with that the burden of being responsible for choosing. What clone
player doesn't feel at all times just the slightest bit embarrassed to
be playing a copy of the real thing? And isn't this list, among other
things, a sort of support group for people needing psychological means
of dealing with that embarrassment? I've never conquered the feeling
that I'm "selling out" just a little bit by playing a clone. Yet I do
it anyway, because I've determined beyond a doubt that I'll never fit
a B-3 and leslie into my Toyota Celica.