...firstly, my apologies for the tardiness of my response...been kind of blue for the last few weeks, what with real life and all...just now getting back to some semblance of normalcy...

Back to MDs KOB...Is KOB pretentious, excessive, contrived or whatever?

I don't know, is it? Simply strikes me as a really good album with less than self-indulgence as it's root...don't really see any long winded, endless solos...everybody takes a shot, de rigeur for most jazz (pretty much in all periods) as I see it...I don't see it as particularly dated, No overt big-band sound...Birth Of The Cool borders on that...it's not Dixieland and it's not pop...usually lyrics will tend to do that...

OTOH the VU disk is of the moment IMHO...produced with lyrics aimed more for shock value back in the age of Aquarius...evabody's gettin' nekkid and high and gettin' it on...top it off with AWs jacket and it seems to be a poster child for contrivance...

Which one is "...of the streets..."?

KOB? He!!...I'm sure if one is of a mind to root around long enough, a case could be made to trace it's lineage to field hollers of the 18th century...Does it contain secret musical codes only black folks can relate to?...It may have a tale to tell, but without any story or mytholgy to accompany it, what do we have?...It's not like Peter And The Wolf where every instrument represents a character, a concept further buttressed by a narrative...no Wagnerian leitmotif to guide us along...Bassoons indicating the arrival of a basso profundo heavy, a la Mozart' are conspicuous by their absence...No Moody Blues tales...Perhaps MD had something in mind...is there info to support that hypothesis? I'd be eager to read it...Is Freddie Freeloader lookin' for a fix? Or has he more to do with the Red Skelton character with the middle name of the? I suppose we'll never really know...

VU is simply a paean to the underbelly of society; certainly it revels in it's street savvy...But without lyrics, where do we position it's music? With apologies to Elvis Costello: less than zero?

So how can I like and enjoy KOB and disparage VU with extreme prejudice?

jimHJJ(...seems obvious to me...)