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hi deb,

we are going to have to call a draw and here is why.

i said you never commented on the pof and nodes.. you commented on the nodes but not the pof, so technically i think i am write, lol........

as for me commenting on the charts with more modern techniques - not until someone shows an interest in the first 2 i offered in the last post!!!

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hi tom,

about brubeck and your musical comments.. apparently he couldn't really read, but maybe they meant - sight read.. the same was said of ellington if i recall correctly.. it is all relative.. sight reading is not the same as being able to read.. being able to sight read means someone puts a piece of music in front of you and you proceed to read it by playing it as written.. this is a difficult skill to acquire mostly left in the hands of classical musicians, with some jazzers falling into this category too, especially if they have been classically trained..

as for brubecks music, the racial divisions were still happening when brubeck hit the scene. he was white in a white record industry world and given opportunities that people like max roach who made a special focus on odd time signatures were not given in the same way.. it could be argued joe morello - brubecks drummer - was very much responsible for the take 5 song, but in song writing the credit goes to the one who writes the melody and harmony, not to the person who writes the rhythm. i can't remember if paul desmond - sax player with brubeck) wrote take 5 - brubecks best known piece or not, but it might have been him and not brubeck.. the fact is others were overshadowed by brubeck given some of the reasons i cite and probably more i am unaware of... while jazz comes up out of the blues, a good part of the reason for brubecks popularity was more to do with brubecks bringing classical elements into the music, rather then blues.. btw - call and response is african which is the root to the blues.. brubecks song blue rondo a la turk would be a good example of the classical elements combined with odd time signature - 9/8.. i think brubeck himself said he was influenced by folk music of eurasia which would include all of this - odd time signatures and classical elements. i guess that is why the use of the word 'turk' in the song title above.

kudos for brubeck and all he has done regardless of the historical background that helped pave the way for him to succeed.. i seem to recall him saying something to the effect when being put on the cover of time magazine for jazz star that he felt embarrassed that it was him when it should have been ellington, or something like that... thanks again for the fun astro exercise.. looking forward to the next one..

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The articles I read said he could not read sheet music. Whether they meant sight read or not, I couldn't say. More often than not the people writing the articles are not expert in the subjects they write about.

I read that story abut Brubeck and Time magazine, but although I'm sure Brubeck was sincere in his remarks he seems to be a bit naive about publicity. By the 1950s Ellington had been around for 30 years. By the 1950s big bands were out except for Ellington, Basie, and a few others. Small groups like Brubeck's were "in." Finally, Brubeck was news. Ellington was kind of passe (until the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, but that's another story). Ellington's influence was everywhere, but his band was old hat. Timing brings fame and glory.

Desmond gets the credit for Take Five, but if you want a more outrageous story along those lines listen to this: If you look at Duke Ellington's discography almost everything we say he wrote is credited this way Ellington-Mills. Irving Mills was a producer. His name is on virtually every major Ellington tune from the 30s through the early 50s and maybe later. Mills was a publisher and no one was going to publish and credit Duke Ellington, a black man, by himself. So Mills, a white man, gets credit for the tunes and some money that otherwise would have gone to Ellington, a great American innovator and composer. Otherwise Duke Ellington is quickly forgotten. It was a rotten system, but there was little Duke or anyone else could do about it until much later.

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tom,

'can't read sheet music' means - can't read.. sheet music is just a term for a piece of music on a sheet, which is usually the way it comes.. i don't know how true that is, but i have never read a bio on brubeck but had heard this before..

i did however read a bio on billy strayhorn a year or 2 ago... he was the main arranger and musical muse for ellington who created a number of his own songs - like 'take the a train' which are often associated with ellington... after reading the staryhorn book i came away with the impression ellington took some credit for material that really belonged to strayhorn. .. since strays was on ellington's paid staffs, ellington might have figured he would get it back via the royalties on what was really co-written material what he had paid to strays in wages... mills on the other hand was a publisher who had nothing to do with writing the music and yes, his name is on a lot of the ellington tunes giving us another fine example of the way things were done in the musical world back in the day...

i think if you talk to a jazz musician and ask them which jazz figure was the most significant in jazz in the 20th century, many along with brubeck would put ellington, or louis armstrong up high on the list... brubeck would be a ways down the list.. if you asked the general public would get a higher rating.. recognition back then seemed to hinge on what colour a person was more then the content of the music/composition.. i think brubeck would acknowledge this too.. the big band era was long over being gradually replaced by bebop and early rock and roll by the time brubeck made it to the cover of time.. last o/t musical commentary from me!

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Atlantean wrote:Hello Nixx,

May I ask if you are a musician? (not because I think you are, just for my own curiosity)

Re: Not seeing Jazz music as Neptunian,....specifically Take Five by Dave Brubek.
I wouldn?t describe myself as a Musician, However Music is my main passion/interest in life, I once said to the wife if there was fire I would save my Vinyl collection before her and I wasn?t joking either. (Easier and less expensive to replace!!)About 10yrs ago I started researching a book on the Astrology of Musical genius but gave it up after a year or so due to a lack of timings data, one day I may revisit it. One thing I did find, or didn?t find, was any obvious Planetary Sign emphasis in folks who get the 'great' musicians label thrust upon them.

I can see some common ground with your ideas about Neptune, or whose ideas you are representing, but also areas of difference. To give a brief example, as this isn?t the place to get into it at length, is musicians who 'step outside of the rules' I would more readily link this idea to Uranus not Neptune. In fact I think you?ll find you are departing quite radically from more mainstream dogma here.

I don?t see Brubeck?s music as radical (or escapist), quite the opposite, regardless as to the playing about with timings. This isn?t an Evan or William Parker figure or even a Charlie but someone whose tunes are twiddly, background, 'melodic', lounge, easy listening, 'light', mainstream, Radio 2, etc. Tom's YouTube links bear this out. Having said that I?ve probably only heard a handful of Brubeck LP?s back to front and a few other doodlings of his over the years . Through a Psych Astro lens Brubeck has the chart of someone who might struggle to ?grow up?, a bit of a prima donna who needs a strong Saturn to be able to produce something out of the subjectivity. Similar to Picasso, also Sun and Moon 2nd quadrant , Scorpio/Sag dynamic as well.

To the extent to which Brubeck?s relationship with Ivories was a paradigm shifter I?d be a lot more inclined to tie this into the Uranus/Pluto/Moon, a quirky, tense but comforted by this trine. His philanthropy sounds more Neptunian. Gets me thinking had Tom posed the question which of these 3 is the philanthropist where would we/they have looked for this without the Outers. Jupiter, Venus, or perhaps the Sun?

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Hello

I've enjoyed the thread evern though I couldn't participate but I for one come here to learn about traditional tequniques and traditional astrology and if people want to use and discuss modern techniques such as midpoints and the outer planets then they can do so in the Nativity forum but hopefully not here (just my personal feelings).
The charts without outer planets served well even without of the purpose of obscuring data. It was refreshing because I could focus on the key planets without being distracted by additional factors such as the node and POF.

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Gem, your personal feelings are duly noted. If you are referring to me in your comments, thats fine. I realise now that it was not appropriate for me to post my non-traditional thoughts but I still maintain the outers absolutely did bring Brubecks chart to life, way too much to ignore for fear of posting in the wrong section. Also, the midpoint of sun = moon/venus is telling as moon is the asc ruler and venus rules 11 (vocation). To my mind, the ancients did use midpoints of a kind: antiscia and contrascia, another absolute favourite concept of mine showing the hidden qualities not always visible in the natal chart. Anyway, just for the record, I use both traditional and more modern techniques, specifically davison and event davison charts and midpoints of all sorts (am midpoint mad) but also I use whole sign houses and traditional rulers whilst observing the outers give the most profound turning points and character basis (imo). I studied horary with John Frawley and have read Lily and whilst see essential value in it all, find traditonal so maddeningly convoluted (the stuff used here is just the tip of the iceberg!) I have found an approach that keep things relatively simple. Respect to everyone who posts here though, all interesting stuff.

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Tom wrote:I don't mind the odd modern technique used in these exercises. I would put the outers in the chart if it wouldn't give anything away. I don't want the modern techniques to be the main thrust or used for competition. But let's limit it to what we can do with the three outer planets and maybe midpoints. No asteroids, hypotheticals or other esoteric techniques. I do find it interesting that modern astrologers are so uncomfortable with the idea of delineating without reference to the three outer planets.
I think using the outers is completely compatible with traditional astrology excepting using them for rulership. They neednt interfere with the elegant traditonal model of rulerships that way and it isnt a discomfort for me to not use them, just a jigsaw with lots of pieces missing or a drama without the supporting cast. If the ancients had been able to see them with the naked eye (uranus the exception there when opposing the sun), they would surely have used them.

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Jill wrote
I think using the outers is completely compatible with traditional astrology excepting using them for rulership.
Most people agree with that. My pet peeve is not that they are used, but rather that they are the default "go to" points in every chart. The vast majority of traditionalists came to astrology via the modern route. Old habits die hard. If they aren't there, then we're forced to use the 7 and in fact everyone here did that very well. But again, that isn't the reason I didn't put them in. I was trying to keep from putting temptation in the readers' minds.

@James: Armstrong and Ellington rate way above Brubeck for innovation. Strayhorn's contribution to Ellington's work is stylistically indistinguishable from Ellington's. They even sounded alike when they played the piano. I have an old recoding of a duet they played and it would take one fine ear to tell which is which.

And Ellington was not above a little poaching. Listen to the first few notes of "In A Sentimental Mood," then listen to the first few notes of Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me." Then try and tell me the difference.

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Yes, maybe the outers are exaggerated as useful beyond the others but all 10 when personalised (especially on the asc imo) are pivotal and the chart is harder to read without them. What I find interesting is akin to homoeopathy regards the outers, the further away they are and in the case of pluto, the smaller they are, the more profound their influence is although more subtle and noticeable over time.