Larry Kart

That would be Copland-like.

Excellent movie. Saw it at a pre-release screening with no hint of what was going to be going on and was blown away. Perfectly cast throughout. Jonathan Demme at his best.

Wouldn't have thought Perlemuter, at an advanced age, would have the facility or the power to handle the daunting Scherzo No. 3. He take things more deliberately than most pianists -- 8:20 versus the ferocious Martha Argerich's 7:01, but in the descending waterfall cascades that dominate much of the piece, with Perlemuter every drop, so to speak, is also a note of clearly discernible pitch, which is not the case in most performances I know. I assume a case can be made either way, and Argerich's wash of sheer sound approach is certainly thrilling, but Perlemuter fascinates.

My liking for Woods, at one point intense, ceases about 1959-60. This Woods solo exemplifies what I think of as his latter-day penchant for be-bop pole dancing. Compare that snort-honk-chortle performance with the relaxed lucid elegance of Woods' solo here from 1959: And the earlier you go with Phil, the better it. tends to get. Witness this from 1954: The way his lines hang together here -- in latter-days they're more or less just gestures.

Bought that one when it came out (so many years ago -- I was in high school?) and have enjoyed it ever since. The first track is so damn catchy.

I'll never forget listening to this brand-new with Russell and Shelly Littt and and Hal and his wife in Hal's apartment. I don't think Joe was there.

Charles Wourinen -- mostly blech! With rare exceptions, the man has no ear. And, again with rare exceptions (the Ursula Oppens recording of Wourinen's "The Grand Bamboiula") so turgid rhythmically. Ursula Mamlok -- a fine antidote to Wourinen. Now she has an ear,

Anyone here hip to this Cuban singer-bandleader? P.S. accent grave on the final "e" -- thus probably pronounced "Mo-ray."

Mal Waldron's "Help" from "Jackie McLean and Co."

Jackie McLean's "Hip Strut," Jackie's solo in particular.

Armstrong "Struttin' with Some Barbecue" (Decca, 1938) Max Kaminsky "Stuyvesant Blues" (for Pee Wee Russell's stop-time solo)

John Hicks/Ray Drummond "Two of a Kind" (Evidence)

Not a frightening gig at all but odd in one respect, at least in my experience. A wedding anniversary celebration IIRC for which a topnotch band had been hired -- Don Patterson, Von Freeman (first time I heard him; I was bowled over; Von had recently returned to Chicago after a long sojourn in Las Vegas with the Treniers), guitarist Bebop Sam Thomas, and Wilbur Campbell. The strange part, at least to me, was that Patterson played several solos using not his fingers but his tongue to actuate the keys while he made dramatized slurping sounds in a clear attempt to evoke cunnilingus.

Oops -- it should have been "in vain."

Against Koester, I would think.

From what I know of Charters, that sounds plausible.

My cousin, about ten or fifteen year older, left behind a train set from the 1930s that was at least twice that size. Might have been worth a fortune to some collector, but it never got set up and eventually was tossed.

The Craft-Webern set has never left my shelves. Likewise the Craft-Berg 2-LP set with the Chamber Concerto, and the LP with the Craft-Beardslee recording of Berg's Altenberg Lieder. Those were the days. P.S. Many years later I reviewed Marni Nixon's cabaret act. She was excellent. No Webern though, just the songs, and others like them, she had dubbed for the movies. I also did an interview with the redoubtable pianist Pearl Kaufman, who played the piano part on the Berg Chamber Concerto recording with Craft and dubbed the piano part for Jack Nicholson on "Five Easy Pieces." She was a good friend of the Stravinskys and had some great stories about them and Craft.

Chris's negative attitude toward the Bergmans may have stemmed from Alan's appropriation of the credit for Lew Spence's "That Face" -- Spence wrote both the music and lyrics for "That Face" in one afternoon after meeting and falling for the woman whose face inspired the song, actress Phyllis Kirk. There was a big fuss about this on the now defunct Songbirds site after Alan claimed that it was he who wrote the song as an ode to the alleged beauty of Marilyn's punim. More than a few members of the L.A. song-writing community knew better. Spence wrote many songs, including the Sinatra anthem "Nice and Easy." I miss him too. A truth-teller Chris was, witness his view of John Hammond. (See the posts linked to below from Chris' blog "Stomp Off.") MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2010 Demythifying John Hammond Writer and record-producer Chris Albertson has been at work demythifying John Hammond: "[M]any of John Hammond’s accomplishments were genuine and important enough to earn him the place he occupies in jazz history, which is why I found it so puzzling that he was making things up. Discovering John Hammond: A Closer Look: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five (Stomp Off in C) "Other people too make things up: a 2005 PBS American Masters episode about John Hammond credits him with “discovering,” among others, Bessie Smith, Pete Seeger, and Robert Johnson. Oy. Hammond produced Smith’s final recordings in 1933. He signed Seeger to Columbia Records (first Columbia Seeger LP: 1961). And Robert Johnson was already dead when Hammond tried to find him for the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert “From Spirituals to Swing."

I'm flattered to have a place in your dreams.

Little or no fusion, based on distaste/indifference. By composer; two or more composers, I use my version of common sense, i.e. which composer is the more notable one in my reckoning.

Classical -- chronological at first, then, as time marches on, by country of origin (French, German, English,American etc.) then for each country an eventual modern wing. Jazz -- traditional, Swing, modern, avant grade (alphabetical within categories).

Zoot on Argo and Zoot on Chess are much the same album. Argo was its LP configuration; it was Chess on CD with added tracks from one of Zoot's ABC-Paramount albums. The Argo album was recorded in 1956, not '57 as I erroneously said above; the bassist was Knobby Totah.

Zoot Sims Quartet (Argo) 1957 -- Maybe my favorite album of his, with John Williams and Gus Johnson, both whom add a good deal. Also in this incarnation --Zoot Sims Quartet That Old Feeling (Chess 807)