Larry Kart

Tampa folks -- please report when you are able to.

Good luck to all in the Tampa area.

Don't forget Raksin's The Bad and the Beautiful -- gorgeous. (BTW it is Raksin, not Raskin.) BTW, Re: "Laura: "The film's director, Otto Preminger, had originally wanted to use Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady" as the theme, but Raksin was not convinced that it was suitable. Angered, Preminger gave Raksin one weekend to compose an alternative melody. Raksin later said, and maintained for the rest of his days, that when, over that weekend, his wife sent him a "Dear John" letter, the haunting theme seemed to write itself.[1]

Rosenblatt is a Jewish name. In terms of ethnicity that's my "team,"so to speak. Gershowitz, likewise. Harold Arlen (Hyman Arluck), likewise too. Cole Porter, no. But Mel Brooks was originally Melvin Kaminsky. BTW, I just found the other day that Mel fought in the Battle of the Bulge, as did Henry Kissinger. Also BTW, Ronnell and Gershwin were a romantic item at one time, and some claim that he wrote "Williow Weep for Me" and gave it to her as a gift. I prefer to believe otherwise.

"Willow Weep For Me" (music and lyric) certainly qualifies Ronnell. Also, it's a gorgeous song. She also co-wrote "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" Her parents were Morris and Mollie Rosenblatt. Score one for our team. George Gershwin suggested that she change her last name. He ought to know.

Eddie Costa's "'Guys and Dolls' Like Vibes," with terrific first period Bill Evans

Who knew that Kaper and Bud Powell were connected.

Can't beat "The Love Theme from 'The Brothers Karamazov'"

Anyone here ever see "Green Dolphin Street"? Crazy movie with stunning special effects -- an earthquake in New Zealand IIRC.

Thanks for the heads up. My copy arrived today. I'd give Renee Rosnes an extra gold star here for her comping and solo work.

"Sunflower" ****RETRACTION**** A week or two ago I weighed in with mixed to negative remarks about this album. Today I discovered that my hearing aids were somewhat out of whack back then and for a while since -- not "paired," if that has any meaning to you. Having detected and corrected the problem, I can now hear "Sunflower" in all its glory and take back what I said before.

Anna Livia Plurabelle

Perhaps in part because the instrumentation -- particularly the rather insistent timbre of Charles' vibes -- isn't well suited to Gil's typically more evanescent sound world. Thus the sound of the Tenet per se tends to predominate on the tracks Gill arranged; though the opening of "You Go to My Head," with its echo of the opening of "Boplicity," certainly bears his fingerprint.

Indeed, very similar. All pretty serious too, not just mood music, though it can serve that purpose. George Russell's "Lydian M-1" is a high light.

Vinnegar

Hey, it's her party.

Have always loved that record, for Quincy's writing (then quite distinctive) and everybody else -- Lucky Thompson, Phil Woods, Art Farmer, Mingus, the trombone soloists on "Walkin'" etc. Dating back to most of his work for Mercury/EmArcy\up through "This Is How I Feel About Jazz" and probably a fair bit beyond, the voicings of virtually every Jones chart had (again) fairly distinctive moments of harmonic/rhythmic "crunch" to them that typically would virtually catapult things into the next solo or the next phrase of the chart. Examples of this abound.Then this pretty much went away -- either because the charts weren't Q's anymore or for other reasons; maybe Q thought it was becoming a mannerism, but I sure liked it. BTW, the roots of the "crunch" thing I've been talking about go back to Dameron I'm pretty sure. Me too. She was a very hip Jewish Princess.

I had no ideal that Fusco was felled by COVID. He was a favorite of mine, a really hot Inventive player, something like a latter day Gene Quill.

"He never gets in your way." Compared to, say, Jimmy Rowles?

Wow!

Again, there are several on "Basie at the Crescendo" -- not earthshaking but hot and inventive.

Kinda figured something like that, but all his Basie work was expert of its kind, as was the TV work you mentioned -- don't know his movie gigs -- and "Girl Talk," annoying though it may be, was expert of its kind too. But again his immediate post-Basie work under his own name, with one exception, struck me as quite lame, in concept and execution. Nice eventual gear shift then on Mr. Hefti's part.

Moving on through this set, I remain delighted by how good it is. The band sounds so fresh -- even familiar numbers like "Every Day" and "Shiny Stockings" have a newly minted feel. A question BTW -- What the heck happened to Neal Hefti? Virtually everything he wrote for Basie pretty much just kills, but his post-Basie work, with the exception IIRC of one Epic album under his own name --was it "Hefti, Hot, and Hearty"? -- is pretty dismal poppish stuff., some with vocal ensembles going "doo-wah."I can see Hefti going in a more poppish direction in an attempt to cash in somehow, but I'm not aware that this ever happened. What was he thinking? Oops, I'm forgetting "Batman."