Larry Kart

You know what it is? -- more curved.

Some interesting thoughts from Dave Liebman about the fish horn: http://www.daveliebman.com/Feature_Articles/SopranoSaxophone.htm And use the soprano as the base for a lamp.

Have now watched much of the Joffrey version and am stunned -- especially the last five minutes or so! Sad that it seems not to be on DVD while the Mariinsky performance is.

Another, later Mariinsky Ballet attempt to re-create the Nijinsky original -- much inferior to the Joffrey version above says the person who posted that one, and so far I agree:

Heard this band in person in Chicago about six weeks ago and thought I was going to die of boredom. Turner and Cohen's solos sounded like (to borrow an old phrase from Bob Belden) second trumpet parts. I used to find Turner interesting at the time of "Dharma Days," but this stuff seemed to me like an alternate-world science fiction variant on the old "time but no changes" thing of the Miles-Shorter-Hancock-Carter-Williams quintet, but here it's more or less changes and time but with no resulting discernible (at least by me) sense of traction in either realm. At one point I thought that this lack of traction was the musical/rhetorical point, but if so, what was the point?

I could recognize Lovano right off (it's kind of like the sound of a vacuum cleaner running in reverse) and probably Brecker; Branford probably not or Joshua Redman either.

Contribution to be sent tomorrow.

Maybe the point I was trying to make in post #65 doesn't make that much sense, but let me try again. The work has to be made, then communicated/received, put out "where people can hear / see / feel it." I assume that your examples -- Cecil Taylor, Herbie Nichols, Emily Dickinson -- were chosen because they were strikingly themselves as artists in situations of significant indifference on the part of world at large and, in Dickinson's case, withdrawal from the world at large. What none of them withdrew from, though, were the demands of the art they were making/trying to make. How those examples mean that "any/all people ... should be our own damn artist" I have no idea.

Bassist Anton Hatwich and, at the second set, trumpeter Russ Johnson, probably many more.

While I agree with a lot of what Jim has said on this thread, I can't buy this one: "I would challenge any/all people, fans or otherwise -- be your own damn artist, first and foremost. Don't be dependent on somebody else to give it to you, because somebody else might not always give two shits what you want, at least not in all things at all times at any given moment. So handle that part of it yourself." Art is not just a trade off -- a matter of person X giving something of value to persons Y, who then receive it. It also has lot to do with the artist's encounter with the sometimes mysterious daunting thrilling stuff that he/she is actually making and with the long history of mysterious daunting thrilling made things and their various fates and meanings that stretches back down the corridors of time. To "be your own artist" in the sense that Jim seems to be talking about ("Don't be dependent on somebody else to give it to you, because somebody else might not always give two shits what you want, at least not in all things at all times at any given moment. So handle that part of it yourself") sounds kind of like a script for what used to be called "self-gratification."

Perhaps I need to get out more, but here are my choices in Frances Davis' poll (in alphabetical order). Some of these albums haven't been mentioned before, I think. The Kadleck is a real sleeper; he's one of NYC's top lead trumpeters and, as it turns out, a brilliant arranger. Gigi Di Gregiro is a quite individual veteran Italian tenor saxophonist, paired here with an Italian bass-drum team, and pianist Harold Danko. Best New Releases Bobby Bradford/Frode Gjersted Quartet, Silver Cornet (Nessa) Gigi Di Gregorio Quartet, Live at JCT (Jazz City) Mary Halvorson, Thumbscrew (Cuneiform) Tony Kadleck Big Band, Around the Horn (Tony Kadleck) Allen Lowe, Mulatto Field Recordings 1-4 (Constant Sorrow) Roscoe Mitchell/Mike Reed, In Pursuit of Magic (482 Music) Dick Oatts/Harold Danko, Sweet Nowhere (Steeplechase) Jason Roebke, High Red Center (Delmark) Wadada Leo Smith: The Great Lakes Suite ((TUM) Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Over Time: Music of Bob Brookmeyer (Planet Arts) Best Reissues/Historical albums Hal Russell, Generation (Nessa) Ira Sullivan, Circumstantial (Nessa) Lennie Tristano, Chicago April 1951 (Uptown)

Hey -- both Jim Sangrey and I are moderators, and I can turn anyone here into ashes if I feel like it.

OK, I guess -- but Bob Wilber was never that much of a Bob Wilber IMO.

Bob Wilber?

Don't know who arranged it, maybe Bernard Herrman himself? If anyone has the LP (a London Phase Four disc, "The Impressionists"), it probably would tell all:

That Before and After was lovely.

How so? Is it a reflection on Sonny's alertness, his listening habits, or what? Don't have the BF test in front of me, but when I looked at in the library, his comments seemed to be those of someone who was paying pretty close, careful attention to what was being played for him.

The Hungry Brain show was a blast. Packed house, joyous music -- at once balls out and lucid. Great to see Chuck, Ann, and their daughter Carla for the first time in a while.

"England's Carol" in the hands of John Lewis and strings (fine baritone solo by Ronnie Ross) and also done by the MJQ is very nice (the way Bags gets bluesy right off in his solo on the "Music Inn" version is something else).

By "spineless" I didn't mean anything about content but rather that the melodic shape/rhythmic profile of "O Holy Night" seems so limp to me. Not that I want it to "chug along" or anything like it, but compared to the no less gentle "Silent Night" it strike me as the musical equivalent of an undercooked omelette.

I viscerally dislike "O Holy Night" -- an utterly spineless piece. How about something with a bit of sinew to it?:

As I mentioned on this thread (I think), at one point I bought a lot of Scandinavian modern classical CDs from the Jazz Record Mart, where some guy in the community who received them as freebies was selling all or most of those he received. Much of what I encountered that way I found interesting, particularly up to the time (late-1960s, perhaps?) when most Scandinavian composers still had some regional (not international) inclinations and ambitions -- e.g. pre M. Lindberg, Saariahio, et al. In any case, everything on those labels was (I believe) subsidized in some form or another.

Yes. There's a lot of Tristano solo work there IIRC, and some it is sensational.