Larry Kart

Wayne was not a weird choice for banjo but a logical one. His Wikipedia entry notes: "Wayne was born Charles Jagelka in New York City on 27 February 1923 to a Czechoslovakian family. In his youth, he became an expert on the banjo, mandolin, and balalaika." Apparently he kept up his chops. "Blame It On My Youth" http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=art+farmer+blame+it+on+my+youth

Two favorites are "Bearcat" and "The Adventurer." Won't ever forget buying "Cliffcraft" when it was brand new. Didn't yet know who Jordan was, but listening to one track in a record store listening booth (it was that long ago) was proof enough.

Last night at Elastic: Caroline Davis Quartet, with Mike Allemana, Matt Ferguson, Jeremy Cunningham Russ Johnson, Nick Mazzarella, Joshua Abrams, Damon Short Hadn't heard Davis in some time. She's worked a lot on her sound, or maybe it's just evolved -- beautifully round and kind of cool-warm, somewhat reminiscent of the late Hal McKusick's sound at times. OTOH -- and this may have been the result of fairly worked out compositions -- she didn't seem to give/immerse herself in the act of improvisation as much I might have thought she would, a certain reticence. Also, at times she seemed rather soft-edged rhythmically, which of course could be a choice because Davis is basically a lyrical player, but when I noticed this I wondered a bit. More listening on my part is called for. Was awfully tired by the second set, but it was a good one. Johnson's recent appearances have been a delight -- what a distinctive, mature player, with a fabulous but also more or less unobtrusive technique -- and the whole group, a new one, was fruitfully in tune with each other. Short is a fine partner for the horns and such a swinger; Mazzarella often gives me the feeling that his lines are almost literally in flames. That is, there's the slower moving basic melodic line, but the overtones/roughed-up timbres more or less add additional flickering/flaming, very "hot" melodic details to the core melodies. It's an effect we're all familiar with from Ayler and some periods of Trane, but it's not often heard on alto, except (in my experience) from that great Japanese player Sakata, and Nick's version of it is quite his own. I feel good that I felt that he was going to be something special when I first heard him maybe three or so years ago, when he was so drenched in Ornette that some thought that he was and would always be a mere imitator. But, no -- I knew right off that Nick was focused like a banshee and heading outwards. Had a similar experience about twelve years ago with Keefe Jackson, just knew right off that he would grow and grow, even in his case had a pretty good idea of HOW he would grow. Also had at least one experience the other way on this scene -- a player who shall be nameless who I and a lot of people were more or less knocked out by in the early and mid-2000s, and then IMO he began to run in place so to speak and lose a fair amount of his former creative intensity. Music can be a cruel mistress.

Does anyone know and have an opinion about Abbado's 1993 DGG Webern disc with the Vienna Philharmonic? (It also includes Schoenberg "A Survivor from Warsaw.") I picked it up after reading someone on rec.classical.recordings praise it, and so far (Six Pieces for Orchestra) I'm knocked out. It's as though I were hearing this music for the first time, in large part because Abbado lets it (if "lets it" is the right phrase) coalesce into music, if you know what I mean, instead of giving us a series of modernist X-rays. And there's great passion as well, e.g. in the second piece. Other recordings I have include Dohnanyi Decca, Craft Columbia, Craft Naxos, and Boulez Sony -- all of which except for Craft Columbia I've now compared to Abbado. Unfortunately, the Abbado disc does not include the Symphony or the Concerto for Nine Instruments; there would have been plenty of room for both. http://www.amazon.com/Schoenburg-Survivor-Warsaw-Webern-Orchestral/dp/B000001GF3

Think that was "Red Alert." Nice one.

Don't miss the stuff on page 5.

Paul Plummer was a terrific and quite individual player who grew a great deal from the already high level he had reached when he was young and with George Russell.. I have an album he did in the mid-1980s or earlier with an Indianapolis keyboardist Steve Corn that's a gem. And there were some fine CDs with Plummer later on, too. Latter-day Plummer was perhaps somewhat reminiscent in approach to JR Monterose in that however striking their work was harmonically, it seemed to be all melody and rhythm in inspiration. Here's that album, co-led by Plummer and drummer Ron Enyard: http://www.amazon.com/Detroit-Opium-Paul-Plummer-Enyard/dp/B007TNE980/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1364311852&sr=1-3&keywords=Paul+plummer Also, there's this, which came up once before here a good while ago: http://iufoundation.iu.edu/newsroom/archive/2012/plummer-jacobs-gift.html

A must-read if you know Bissinger's work as a journalist (he was briefly at the Chicago Tribune when I was there) or as the author "Friday Night Lights": http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201304/buzz-bissinger-shopaholic-gucci-addiction?currentPage=1

Ah, yes -- "Rollin' with Van Ohlen." That was a fine band, or rather a real band. It also gave birth to at least one nice recorded small-group offshoot, band member Tim Hagans' first album -- "From the Neck Down" (1984) an LP on a local label MoPro. I reviewed it enthusiastically way back when. Nice also to hear a lot with the Blue Wisp of the band's other chief trumpet voice, George Russell alumnus Al Kiger.

How is it? Thought about getting used on Amazon once or twice, but it seem too pricey for my mood at those time.

By all accounts, it's genuine: http://www.vulture.com/2011/09/see_mia_farrow_respond_amazing.html

I too like McCaslin and Shim -- ran across the former in a Berklee classroom some 25 years ago and was impressed, told Gary Burton (then in some administrative position at the school) that he should check him out, and mirabile dictu McCaslin showed up a year or two later in Burton's band; have enjoyed the latter on record but was really knocked out when I heard him at the Jazz Gallery in NYC about 8 or 10 years ago in band led by Mark Helias with Herb Robertson and IIRC Craig Taborn, and Eric McPherson. That was some night. Anyone know what has Shim been up to? Another very good one is Jason Rigby.

Last night at the Hungry Brain: Jaimie Branch (tpt), Jarrett Gilgore (alto), Anton Hatwich (bs), Frank Rosaly (dms) Branch, who has been in living Baltimore recently, studying under Dave Ballou at Towson State, was excellent; Gilgore, age 21 from Baltimore, was scary good.

Grant Stewart, for one

Probably not a strict precursor (though she may have been planning/meditating on this and similar later pieces for some time) but how about Mary Lou Williams' "St. Martin de Porres/Black Christ of the Andes" (rec. 1963)? And "The Devil":

Sorry, but this moderator knows nada about the new quote system, except that he too doesn't know how to use it properly, if indeed there is a proper way to use it. Have you tried contacting Jim A. directly?

BTW, Jim Self was the Voice of the Mothership in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." More or less a "mainstream modern" player, as one might expect from a West Coast studio guy, but what a fine player of the instrument (he also plays the fluba, a tuba-flugelhorn cross of his own invention that is held like a trumpet but placed on a stand). He's no slouch as an improviser either.

Jim Self: http://www.bassethoundmusic.com/ I have and like the album "Inner Play."

By and large, I would say that Wynton in particular didn't "re-explore the past" but instead came up with an alternate world version of it and tried to make that into a new starting place, a la those science fiction novels like Philip K. Dick's "The Man in The High Castle," where the Axis powers won World War II, or Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee," where the Confederacy prevailed in the Civil War, and thus everything in "our" world is subtly or grossly transformed. Yes, it was a shame they had to phase out the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band in favor of the LCJO. The CHJB was doing programs like "The music of Manny Albam" and the like, bringing back great music that will always be relevant, regardless of what the hipsters and reverse racists say. When I first heard Wynton, I couldn't believe it. He was trying to play some modern shit, and it just sounded terrible. The nightmare that results in an unholy marriage of business and the arts, as described in a novel such as "JR" by William Gaddis, was being turned into reality by the ghouls in the recording industry, and then taken up by the power structure of NYC and Lincoln Center. Wynton once spoke at a conference I was forced to attend, and what he was saying was so full of shit, I started muttering curses aloud in disbelief. As the author Anthony Heilbut once said to me, when I was describing the situation in NYC and jazz, "What can you expect from a consumer society?"The people of NYC have traded the arts and education system for "stop and frisk", and a tourist economy, resulting in things like a kind of Bizarro World Minstrel Show, starring WM. Something got messed up here. The only part in the above screed that I wrote is the paragraph that begins "By and large, I would say that Wynton..." The rest are the thoughts of someone else, maybe sgcim, not me.

By and large, I would say that Wynton in particular didn't "re-explore the past" but instead came up with an alternate world version of it and tried to make that into a new starting place, a la those science fiction novels like Philip K. Dick's "The Man in The High Castle," where the Axis powers won World War II, or Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee," where the Confederacy prevailed in the Civil War, and thus everything in "our" world is subtly or grossly transformed.

Got a couple of Concord LPs with Tompkins, one as a leader with Al Cohn, the other as a sideman with Red Norvo. Nice player. And, yes, I'd bet he was a pretty hip guy, too.

It's Ross Tompkins, and hey, I just thought the McLaughlin segment was unexpected fun when it popped up on my TV screen back in 1985. It's not like I thought he was the Second Coming!

Well, it was fun to run across it on network TV. Or so I thought at the time.

Why is the "You crack me up" face not available these days?

I recall a 1985 McLaughlin performance with the Tonight Show orchestra (i.e. Doc Severinsen's TS Orch., with Carson the host, though I don't see Doc there) that left the members of the band fairly well dazzled: