Larry Kart

We've all heard this song before, but If this is copyrighted material, posting a link to it is against forum rules. If it is copyrighted material, please delete your post, BT.

Winslow Homer show at the Clark Museum in Williamstown, Ma., the incredible Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston. Also the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, with the great Copley painting of Paul Revere staring you right in the face, plus lots of other stuff. But don't miss the Gardner.

My translation, from some years back, of Eugenio Montale's famous "L' anguilla" (The Eel): The Eel The eel, siren of ice-bound seas, who leaves the Baltic to reach our seas, our rivers, our estuaries, who traces their depths against the current, from thinning streams, to fingerling rills, ever deeper, deep in the heart of stone, filtering through veins of mud until one day light darts from the chestnuts to catch its quiver in a stagnant pool, in ravines that descend the Appenine peaks to Romagna; eel, torch, whip, arrow of Eros on earth, which only our gullies or the dried-up creeks of the Pyrennees again guide to paradises of fecundity; green spirit seeking life where there is only parched ground; scintilla that says everything begins when all seems ashes, a buried stump; eel, tiny rainbow-iris, twin to those your lashes frame, that you send shining, intact, to the center of the sons of man, immersed in your slime, can you not call her sister?

Who is he? Can't find any references via Google. Sorry, this was an inside joke. John was the husband of Lynne Ludy, a coworker at JRM/Delmark back in the day. John was an introvert and seemed to spend all his time composing. He had stacks of his work next to the piano in their apartment. On rare occasions he would play some of them for close friends. I'm sure John Litweiler heard a few. They moved home to central Michigan in the '70s and divorced. John passed away a few years ago. Sorry for the derailment. Oh, yes, now I remember -- vaguely, but I remember.

Who is he? Can't find any references via Google.

Martinu's surrealist opera "Julietta" is something else: http://www.opera.co.uk/view-review.php?reviewID=32 Feel very fortunate that I have the 1965 Suprahon set (cond. by Krombholc) on LPs

Egon Wellesz Rued Langgaard (talk about your madmen!)

Karl Weigl Eduard Erdmann http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FskQW0PMYI

That's the same chart, and a damn good one it is, but not the same performance. The one I have is one of the three Raeburn versions of "How Deep Is the Ocean?" that can be found on Spotify. It's the one from "Rhythms By Raeburn" that lasts 4:14, which leaves room for three soloists -- a warm-toned trumpeter (probably Ray Linn) who states and handsomely embellishes the theme, the trombonist, and a tenor saxophonist (perhaps Emmet Carls).

Listening to a recently acquired album of 1945 Boyd Raeburn airchecks, "Rhythms By Raeburn," on the aptly named Aircheck label -- these taken from broadcasts from the Rose Room of San Francisco's Palace Hotel in June, July, and August 1945, I was struck by a number of things, including the sheer madness of the setting that arranger George Handy provided for vocalist David Allyn on "Out of This World." But I was really surprised by the trombone solo on "How Deep Is the Ocean?" from Aug. 7, 1945. At once very smooth-toned and lyrical and quite modern in its harmonic flow, but without any boppish rhythmic touches, it didn't sound like the work of any trombonist of the era I've heard, with the possible exception of Jimmy Knepper, who was not with the Raeburn band, and besides it doesn't really sound like Knepper -- maybe like an improbable cross between Jack Jenney and Lester Young. No personnel is given, but poking through the fluctuating personnel given elsewhere for the Raeburn band of that vintage, my best guess is either Jack Carmen or Ollie Wilson. Johnny Mandel was also in the section around that time, and the melodic and harmonic traits I heard could be Mandel-ian, but I don't recall anyone saying that Mandel was more than a marginal player technically, and this is superb playing in terms of both concept and execution. Any ideas who it might be?

Computer left behind, yes, not phone, but no one here has ever contacted me by phone.

I'm leaving town and my computer behind tomorrow for a vacation and will return on 8/14.

Jazz Swings Broadway (Pacific Jazz) -- Bud Shank/Bob Cooper Quintet, Stu Williamson Quartet, Chico Hamilton Quintet, Russ Freeman Trio, all tracks not issued elsewhere AFAIK. Boyd Raeburn, Rhythms by Raeburn (1945 airchecks from San Francisco) Peter Pears/Julian Bream, Music for Voice and Guitar (RCA), works by Britten, Walton, Seiber, and Fricker Mozart Clarinet Concerto, Bram de Wilde, Van Beinum, Concertgebouw (Epic) All LPs, total price $2.50

Not THAT blind, at least at that time -- or are you saying that McPartland wasn't that attractive and Joe wouldn't have known it? But, hey, she was good enough for Jimmy, who seems like a man who would have had many options.

Why? or is this an npr thing? Well, it's only by riffling through the book that I discovered that McPartland and Joe Morello were an item when he was her drummer. Vital information.

Last night, caught this band in Chicago in the back of an antique store on Lincoln Ave.: Aakash Mittal (alto), with Andrew Trim (gtr.), Russ Johnson (tpt.) , Kurt Schweitz (bs.), Devin Drobka (dr.) You heard it here first, unless you've heard it before -- Mittal is someone to reckon with. From Boulder, Colo., of Indian (i.e. subcontinent) descent, he's a friend of (or acquainted with) Rudresh Mahanthappa and Vijay Iyer, but even though he's not yet as powerful or fully formed as Rudresh, he does something with his somewhat similar Indian-related compositional frameworks (lots of complex and/or additive time signatures/patterns) that I, based on arguably limited experience, prefer. Where Rudresh and Iyer seem to place those frameworks in the foreground and keep them there for the most part, Mittal plays off and around them in a push me/pull you manner that I think of as jazz-like. That is, he accents within and where the pattern does and also away from it -- meaningfully. Russ Johnson, as usual played like a f---ing angel, and drummer Devin Drobka nailed all of those unusual time signatures and roiling patterns -- this even though the band had only seen Mittal's music that day.

Based on the way they handle other things and the quality of their house brands, if I had to chose between Sam's Club and Costco, I'd go with Costco. OTOH, if you have a rather complicated prescription, as I do, I'd go with an individual opthomologist and optometrist whom you know and trust. Dealing with a prescription and a pair of glasses that's not right for you is a big pain in the eyeballs. I got f----- up once by an opthomologist who fiddled with/jumped up my prescription so much that what he prescribed had the effect of overriding my dominant eye, which left me dazed and confused. Fortunately my veteran optometrist caught the problem, though not until he'd made my new glasses and I'd complained about their effects. When I went back to the optholomogist for redress, because I'd now had to pay for another pair of glasses to replace the ones with the too aggressive prescription, he said tough ---t. And he was no bargain- basement opthomologist either, just a jerk.

I haven't been knocked out by her own leader dates, but a few years ago at the Chicago Jazz Festival, as a member of the medium-large ensemble that Mike Reed assembled to play some rediscovered/reassembled music by Sun Ra, Halvorson was on fire.

Larry, can you tell me how you managed to imbed this youtube video please. I'm going nuts trying to work it out. I just copied the URL into my message and posted it.

Yes, indeed.

Maybe "Skylark" -- both the main strain and the bridge (supposedly Bix inspired) and how they fit together.

Christophe Schweizer:

Tim Hagans