Larry Kart

There are several good Wess alto solos on ""Basie at the Crescendo" and at least one Marshal Royal solo.

About protocol, the booklet for the Mosaic NT Band has numerous photographs of the band from this period and earlier in the '50s and in every one both Wess and Foster are holding tenor saxophones. Also there is at least one piece, "Two Franks," on which both men play tenor, as the title specifies.

BTW, I identify Mitchell on the basis of his tendency to work certain rapid almost Bird-like flourishes into his solos. Neither Wess nor Foster does that. So that brings me back to "Plymouth Rock #1," where I'm fairly sure two different tenor soloists can be heard. One of them has to be Foster, and the other is either Mitchell being uncharacteristic or . . . maybe it's Sal Mystico?

The lineup on the box has Wess on alto, tenor, and flute. Clearly he solos on alto and flute and I think on tenor too. For instance, on "Plymouth Rock #`1" there are two tenor soloists, and one of them to my ears is definitely not Billy Mitchell. That leaves Wess and Foster with, again to my years, Wess soloing first.

Regarding the cultural coverage, the NYT had an article about composer John Adams yesterday that asserts that he went his americanish-minimalist way despite studying under the Darmstadt school composers Roger Sessions, Leon Kirchner, and David De Tredici. This is a disgraceful error. De Tredici is a flaming romantic, and while both Sessions and Kirchner are so-called "High Modernists," the music of those men was fully formed years before there was any Darmstadt School to react to, and their music owes nothing to that of Stockhausen et al. I blame the writer of. the article of course but also the copy desk. As a former copy editor, I would have caught that in minute.

The Times has no less than three regular right-wing columnists now -- Douthat, the other guy whose name escapes me right now, and the faux reasonable David Brooks, who pretends to be a centrist but is not when push comes to shove.

Yes, Wess is warmer, has more of a buzz to his sound than Foster, but on "Plymouth Rock #1," where they go back and forth, I got confused. I'll listen harder.

just arrived. That sax section! Anyone able to sort out the tenor soloists? I think I can detect Billy Mitchell, but otherwise I'm unsure.

I got mine from Ullmann too, at Elastic Arts. IIRC, Ullman played well that night (was he the only horn?), but I really like how he handles this album's deeply voiced multi-reed ensemble. Maybe Steve Swell was there?

I think I recall but can't find a thread that spoke of the alleged dearth of worthwhile interpretations of Mingus' music by others. Let me recommend then"Mingus!" (jazzwerkstatt 105), recorded in 2010, by Gebhard Ullmann's Ta Lam 11 -- an ensemble of ten reed players and an accordianist (judging by their names, all of the players, and Ullmann, seem to be German). It's superb IMO, though it may be hard to find.

Trombonist bandleader in the San Francisco Cro-Magnon Trad movement of the early '40s. Pretty lame IMO. Watters was better, in the same bag. The Fire House crew was a bunch of Disney studio guys (animators, IIRC) horsing around. They sold a lot of records.

Carter speaks of his appreciation of Cobham in the liner notes of the "Sunflower/Goodbye" coupling. He also talks positively there about Steve Gadd.

I also got a Turk Murphy, or was it Lu Watters album, very early on. My rookie batting average was not too good. At least I didn't go for a Firehouse Five album.

Basie at the Crescendo. Live tracks from the late '50s. Three or is it five discs worth for $15. Haven't heard it yet, but it's on its way.

Hell of an "I'll Remember April" here. And Jodie is in great form.

Ask Dzondria L'Isaac

Benny Goodman Trio Plays for the Fletcher Henderson Fund (bought a stationary store c. 1954 on the basis of the names; didn't like it then, never liked it later on, but I kept on the hunt). Second was a 10-inch collection of the Ellington '40-'42 band. Bingo!

I understand your "by then" now, Jim.

Maybe so. But "Idle Moments" was recorded in Nov. '63. What else do you mean by "by then"?

Blue Note was over by Nov. '63? Are you out of your mind? Take a look at the Blue Note discography and see how many memorable Blue Note albums came after "Idle Moments" (BN4154): e.g. "The Freedom Rider," "Out to Lunch"? Andrew Hill's "Judgment," Smokestack," and "Point of Departure," Turrentine's "Hustlin,'" "The Sidewinder," McLean's "Destination Out," "Search for the New Land," Moncur's "Some Other Stuff," Hubbard's "Breaking Point"? BTW, I'm not disputing the vast and long-lasting popularity of "Sunflower." I'm just saying that I find it to be rather soporific.

I'm not saying that Milt played a false note on "Sunflower," though his contributions to the album seem to me to be rather subdued and/or pushed over into a corner on several tracks, to the point where one might not have thought that it was his date unless one knew upfront that it was. (BTW that's not at all the case on "Goodbye," where Bags solos boldly and at length throughout.). But if I'm right in what I just said (and you no doubt feel otherwise), who would have been responsible for that? Creed perhaps, in search of a more "concept"-oriented final result -- and certainly it was within his rights to have that goal in mind. And, yes, he was right, in terms of sales and creating an album that pleased a great many listeners. But for me "Sunflower" is, as I said, musically and emotionally rather soporific. BTW, I suddenly thought of a potentially reasonable comparison, Grant Green's "Idle Moments." The title track is incredibly mellow -- and we all know the story, via composer Duke Pearson, of how that sublime groove quite haphazardly came about in the studio, when Green's opening solo went on twice as long as had been planned and the other soloists followed Green's example. And then the rest of album was either shaped or fell into place in a manner that harmonized with that track, this at the behest of Alfred Lion. Also, I'm not suggesting that Creed, to achieve what might have been his goal, forced Bags to do anything. All he needed to do was exert some control over solo length/solo order and mixing.

I didn't say they shouldn't have enjoyed doing it -- for reasons of professional satisfaction or because of their personal aesthetic pleasure at the results etc. But if all that were so, are you saying that should then alter my sense of "Sunflower"?

They almost certainly knew what the expected vibe was. Nobody said that Herbie, Freddie, et al were stupid.

I've written here before about the "Blues in Chicago" JATP performance. I was in the audience.

I have been for sure. But I prefer more organic mellowness (e.g. that "Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West" album with John Lewis and Bill Perkins) to what seems to me to be sleepy. To amplify a bit, the mellowness of "Sunflower" strikes me as willed, even enforced.