Larry Kart

Picked up this 1998 Impulse collection of live performances from Smalls, vividly recorded by David Baker, and found it to be more successful and less studied (and/or quirky to no particular end that I can see) than any of the later albums I have on the Smalls label by various members of the club's inner circle -- e.g. Ari Roland, Chris Byars, Omar Avital. Perhaps things were fresher with those players and other Smalls regulars at this earlier stage? In any case, I was particularly struck by tenorman Charles Owens who seems to have ended up Charlottesville, Virginia. He had something personal and interesting going IMO. http://www.allmusic.com/album/jazz-underground-live-at-smalls-mw0000032219 http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=43486#.UmGadijFUYg

Bud Shank with a water pistol (I thought it was the real thing). Also, Bob Enevoldson was standing nearby with an angry Alaskan Husky.

Maybe I'm taking "shook your world" a bit too literally, but there are lots of recordings I love that didn't shake my world because they didn't radically alter (i.e. shake) my expectations of how music was and could be (either, or both, in terms of how it went about its business language-wise or in what it expressed) but more or less confirmed and fulfilled a somewhat pre-existing sense of what in those realms might be possible. Ones that did shake me in the sense I've mentioned, in addition to Roscoe Mitchell's "Sound" (a new language, new forms of order), were Serge Chaloff's "Boston Blow Up" for Chaloff's nakedly intimate performance of "Body and Soul," and, for the same reason, Pee Wee Russell's muttered out, then virtually screamed solo on "Stuyvesant Blues" from a Max Kaminsky album on the Jazztone label. Also, Ornette's "The Shape of Jazz To Come" (the sense of a new language was overwhelming), Jackie McLean's "New Soil" (the transformation into an almost incredibly planed-down fierce austerity of McLean's style and voice on "Hip Strut" was startling, in part because I already had so much invested emotionally in prior McLean, and this change seemed such a breakthrough), Wilbur Harden's "Mainstream '58" (my first encounter with "sheets of sound" Coltrane, here at its most astounding). No doubt there are more, but those are the ones that come to mind. Why, I wonder, didn't Monk ever hit me that way -- say, his great and arguably quite radical solo on "Bag's Groove" with Miles? I think because, once you climb on board, the logic of Monk's thinking always explains itself as it goes along, at once creates and satisfies expectations. By contrast, McLean's "Hip Strut" solo is like having a bandage ripped off your chest in slow motion -- you feel what's happening but while it's going on you pretty much can't believe that it's going to continue this way.

Rick Atkinson's "The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944" I thought I knew a fair bit about the Italian campaign, but it was far worse than I'd thought -- one screw up after another, with Anzio and Monte Cassino topping the list so far. Allied generalship was largely execrable, with Churchill doing some unconscionable wishful meddling, German forces were formidable and often brilliantly led, and the whole idea of fighting our way up narrow mountainous Italy virtually squandered the Allied advantage of material superiority -- poor terrain for tanks, etc. Atkinson's previous volume "An Army At Dawn," about the North African campaign was also harrowing.

Now that I think of it, that's probably why I rank Etcetera and All Seeing Eye at the very top of the bunch, specifically because of Herbie's involvement in both. I absolutely LOVE his (Herbie's) playing on both, especially All Seeing Eye. I'm trying to think of other free-leaning dates with Herbie on acoustic piano, and other than these two (plus TW's Trainwreck), none are immediately coming to mind. Herbie's rhythmic approach on these free-ish acoustic dates is nothing short of fantastic, at least in my book. Maybe not as "free" as the ones you mentioned, but Herbie takes a striking free-ish solo on "My Joy" on Bobby Hutcherson's "Oblique." That track also includes a jaw-dropping bass solo from the late Albert Stinson.

Yes.

The only thing the least bit West Coast about "Blue Serge" was that it was recorded in Hollywood and that the bassist was L. Vinnegar. Serge, Sonny Clark, and Phllly Joe Jones could hardly be more East Coast, through Clark did spend some time as house pianist with the Lighthouse All-Stars. Obviously I should have added an ironic emoticon before posting my answer. Thought it was plain enough that I was aware of the non-West Coast implications of the various musicians involved! Sorry -- I should have known you were being ironic.

Impressionism and Fashion show at the Art Institute a few weeks ago. Excellent, very thoughtfully put together, untypically (these days) clear and informative words on the wall, no b.s. theorizing.

Roscoe Mitchell, "Sound"

Voted for "The All Seeing Eye," but I prefer "Introducing Wayne Shorter" (VeeJay) to any of the Blue Notes. Early Wayne was really "out there."

The regular catalogue issue of this Benny Goodman-Make Believe Ballroom Tribute to Fletcher Henderson concert: http://ml.islandnet.com/pipermail/dixielandjazz/2007-March/044757.html Don't recall that it knocked me out. Probably bought it because it looked like something special.

"Tiger Rag," with Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band (1942): I lived to fight another day.

So-so "Otello" at Lyric Opera yesterday afternoon. Bland production, conducting, and singing except for the radiant Desdemona, Ana Maria Martinez. OTOH, thanks in large part to her, they pretty much brought home the bacon in Act Four. Except for the excellent chorus and Martinez, the singers all seemed rather mushy rhythmically, a bit behind the orchestra. But then the conducting seemed rather mushy, too, so....

The only thing the least bit West Coast about "Blue Serge" was that it was recorded in Hollywood and that the bassist was L. Vinnegar. Serge, Sonny Clark, and Phllly Joe Jones could hardly be more East Coast, through Clark did spend some time as house pianist with the Lighthouse All-Stars.

The musician I feel closest to in the sense that if played the alto and were a f---ing genius, I might sound something like Lee.

The simple fact that it was there and very popular when I got into jazz per se, in 1955.At first I don't recall making that much of an East Coast-West Coast distinction in terms of value, though I was aware that the musics sounded different and I had my favorites. Also, complicating the picture at that point was that I was listening eagerly to a lot of Swing Era and earlier jazz, which sounded different from most circa 1955 jazz from either coast. Then, when Hard Bop coalesced in the world at large and in my teenaged mind, I turned my back on a lot (but not all) West Coast jazz on the grounds that compared to Silver, Blakey, Rollins, et al. it sounded precious and effete (a claim that Silver himself made at the time). Eventually that way of listening and looking at things faded away for me, and while still recognizing that the music of, say, Shorty Rogers and His Giants came from one set of sensibilities and that of the Jazz Messengers from another, I found myself enjoying both.

Not "too sheepish" but somewhere, or so it seemed to me, between taking a pass and log-rolling. As Allen said, "New York is a small city."

Crouch's intent is one thing, and Garner's "The ideal way to ingest Stanley Crouch's new book is probably on audio, late at night, while driving between the major cities of the Midwest, your headlights pushing past truck stops and dying cornfields" nicely (and perhaps a bit mockingly?) captures it. But Crouch's actual writing, which Garner's passage may be attempting to mirror, is often full of would-be poetic "dying cornfields" b.s., examples of which I quoted in a longish post somewhere above on this thread. In any case, given the other things that Garner's review said, his final largely positive response struck me as a discreet dive.

I'm sure that there are some players I've gotten a bit worn out on, but mostly for me it's the other way around -- finding out that some players I once tended to dismiss (e.g. a fair number of West Coast guys from the 1950s) now strike me as interesting. One change of opinion of that sort for me was Bob Brookmeyer -- not a West Coast guy. For a long while I thought of his phrasing and time feel as kind of foursquare, even a bit corny (agreeing with a judgment of Andre Hodeir, though I felt that way before I read Hodeir's remarks). Then, so it seemed to me, Brookmeyer himself changed in those respects -- certainly by the time of the double album he did with Jack Wilkins et al. and his "Through a Glass Darkly" -- and hearing that I found myself enjoying a good deal (but not all) of earlier Brookmeyer, too.

In addition to the crankiness, he makes some specific musical points. OTOH, having listened to a snippet of that Willie Jones III "I Get a Kick Out of You" Max Roach tribute track on Amazon (all I could find), it sounded pretty good to me -- in fact, the sheer speed burned away a lot of the posing in front of a mirror quality I tend to get from such retro projects. And that Warren Wolf track that Tootie liked I found to be a snooze. He sure was right about that flashy-empty Wynton solo though, IMO.

Interesting. Thanks for your honest report -- and no irony intended.

Re: Make Me Rainbows Lenny Bruce -- Djinni in the candy store ("Make me a malted"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyjpStYJ0ZU

He's still only one croon away. But I for one don't feel that Rat Pack style performing and behavior had that much to do with crooning/romantic balladeering per se. Rather, it was, a matter of ring-a-ding-dingness, i.e. bad-boy horsing around or worse, and thus in effect was at the opposite emotional pole from the Sinatra who so sublimely sang, say, "Willow Weep For Me" on "Only the Lonely" or "I'm a Fool To Want You" on "Where Are You?" And I hear no Rat Packness in Bennett's "Lover"; rather I hear, for want of a better term, intensely dramatized sincerity. Nor am I aware that Bennett himself out there in the world ever indulged in any Rat Pack-like behavior.

You've got a point there.