Larry Kart

Yes, and Chris Anderson said he was influenced by the same guys -- this (their influencing Anderson) taking place when Hancock was still in maybe seventh or eighth grade, if that. Thus, while meaningful independent Hancock encounters with the music of Farnon and Riddle might have been possible, the likelihood is that Anderson was the filter. Well, it's not like Nelson Riddle was an unknown quantity in 1960 or thereabouts. Unavoidable would be more like it. Farnon, I don't know..I've had to look long and hard to find really good stuff by him from the 50s that's readily available, but I do remember one interview with Herbie where he cited a specific album, something Farnon had done for a singer, I forget who, well-known, though. Tony Bennett, maybe? Does that sound right? Of course, maybe Chris Anderson pulled his coattails to it all, but if the implication is that Herbie never really checked out Riddle and/or Farnon independently and/or analytically but instead just got it all from Chis Anderson, I don't think that's necessarily fair or accurate. This is a guy who's always been "naturally inquisitive" from Day One, or so it seems. Point is that Chris Anderson was an acknowledged early mentor of Hancock (were not talking 1960 but maybe 1953-5, when Herbie was age 13-15 and Anderson was house pianist at the Beehive) with a stated fondness for those guys that was quite evident in his own music. I'm not saying that the "naturally inquisitive" Herbie got it all by way of Anderson but that Anderson's example was a pretty likely stimulus/conduit for him.

Almost certainly they were worked out beforehand. Maybe pre-composed solos would be a good topic for a thread. Don't know if this has been discussed here before. If I'm right about Nelson's sometime approach as a soloist, I think it had to do with his basically compositional/orderly temperament rather than any lack of inspiration. Sounded to me like he'd grasped ahead of time how to make his part of the performance build to a more or less orchestral climax and just went ahead and forcefully realized that conception. It could sound a bit studied, as in fact it was, but there were compensations, particularly on his fine album "Afro-American Sketches."

The passage comes from an interview with Hancock conducted by a former Tristano student, Jon Easton.

Yes, and Chris Anderson said he was influenced by the same guys -- this (their influencing Anderson) taking place when Hancock was still in maybe seventh or eighth grade, if that. Thus, while meaningful independent Hancock encounters with the music of Farnon and Riddle might have been possible, the likelihood is that Anderson was the filter. Certainly Anderson's music circa 1955-6, when I first heard him, often had a sweeping cinematic flavor. One can hear that on the recent Fresh Sounds reissue of his first two albums, for Vee-Jay and Jazzland. The Vee-Jay was new to me and is terrific.

Plummer was a fine player. His later recorded work, what I've heard if it, was well beyond his thoughtful early recordings with George Russell. Who would have thought, as a regional jazz musician, he'd have an estate of that size? Maybe through his late wife in part.

Well, Herbie has acknowledged the influence of Chris Anderson.

Billy Strayhorn, the composer, didn't know the "secret"? All this talk above about Duke using something like this and that seems to suggest that many think that's the case and that Duke is the ultimate creator here. Or am I missing something ? In any case, a look at Walter van de Leur's excellent "Something To Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn" will reveal that even though we know that "A Train" was Strayhorn's, many other well known "Ellington" compositions and arrangements were wholly Strayhorn's work, not only in terms of provenance but stylistically as well, though of course the distinctive sound of the orchestra, which was Duke's doing, gives an Ellingtonian shading to most everything. BTW, I agree with Chuck's view that Ellington was the greater composer; it's just that Strayhorn was his own man, not an Ellington acolyte.

More Guarnieri; dig his "In a Mist":

Some prime Guarnieri: (with Prez)

Johnny Guarnieri was quite a chamelon and very gifted in his own right.

First jazz-like 78 probably was Sammy Davis Jr.s' "Something Gotta Give." I liked its rhythmic drive. A bit later I recall what may have been my first jazz 45, Basie and Joe Williams' "Smack Dab in the Middle." Rhythmic drive again, plus the amusing lyrics. Some pop stuff of the time, too -- George Gibbs' "Dance With Me, Henry," Guy Mitchell's "Learning the Blues," "Sh-Boom," "Moments To Remember," something by Something Smith and the Redheads, etc., Perry Como's "Kokomo," Lord knows what all, Interesting that there were no instrumentals early on, which bears out a general principle that many have noticed. I liked what might be thought of as "catchiness" or hooks -- "Learning the Blues" had a beaut. When I heard the Basie band live at a concert at the Chicago Opera House, my initial fondness for vocals dissipated almost overnight.

Almost certainly they were worked out beforehand.

Perfectly, natch. Actually, while I don't dislike much of anything that I liked back then, I do like some things now that I eventually turned my back on in the mid- to late-'50s -- e.g. a fair amount of things that bore (and probably deserved) the West Coast Jazz label and the roughly equivalent contemporary products of the East Coast studio scene, e.g. stuff that paired Hal McKusick and Art Farmer, charts by Manny Albam, etc., etc. All this, again, without giving up on the Blakey, Silver, Rollins et al. that led me to turn up my nose back then at the aforementionend more "polite" stuff. Further, I haven't given up on any of the Jelly Roll Morton-up-to-bop music that I loved backed then and have added a fondness for many of the popular Swing Era bands that I used to be a bit snotty about without much real knowledge or understanding e.g. Tommy Dorsey.

Trader O's with boysenberries and milk, Splenda on top.

Mike Reed, Matt Bauder, Jeb Bishop, and Matt Schneider last night at The Hideout. Before, one of the bandmembers told me that they'd been in the studio for three days and still hadn't figured out what they were doing to his satisfaction -- free improv on a dance-tune base, it seemed, with Reed the leader providing sketches of the dance bases. Well, they sure got it together on the stand last night. Very coherent and sometimes explosive, Bauder in great form on tenor and clarinet, careful listening by everyone in what one has come to expect as the Chicago Scene manner. Kudos to all but especially, I would think, to Reed for assembling these four guys, whom I don't recall playing together much it at all before, other than Bishop and Reed. Of course Bauder isn't around to play with these days, unless he's here on a visit. He's always impressed me as a kind of latter-day Shorter -- at times in terms of sound but mostly in terms of spirit, the early Shorter, the Masked Marauder.

Now that I think of it, "That's All" is a nagging tune.

Closing the circle: Far from comprehensive Amazon search yields two other contemporary covers of "The Outlaw," neither of which I've heard. Joe Chambers: http://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-Joe-Chambers/dp/B000E40Q6K/ref=sr_1_9?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1333543717&sr=1-9 Danny D'Imperio: http://www.amazon.com/The-Outlaw-Danny-Group-DImperio/dp/B00000JFRP/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1333544183&sr=1-1 The Chambers is a Latin version -- sounds interesting but hard to compare with others. Deep's band, as one might expect, just nails it. Got to get that album.

"More importantly probably, the whole hard bop rhythmic language and feel of the '50s/'60s is just very, very difficult to reproduce..." Sure is. Just listen to the Davis Quintet play "Tadd's Delight" and imagine any group of players today getting that feel.

Lee can play anything. I once heard Roscoe Mitchell and Maurice McIntyre play the crap out of "Happy Birthday" and not at all in a joking manner. P.S. I see that Colin and I think alike.

There's a very nice version of Silver's "The Outlaw" on the SF album. Did anyone else ever cover that excellent composition? Two nice covers of "The Outlaw" come to mind: Trumpeter Brian Lynch recorded it on "Peer Pressure" (Criss Cross) in the mid' 80s with Ralph Moore, Jim Snidero (out on this track) Kirk Lightsey, Jay Anderson and Victor Lewis. http://www.amazon.com/Peer-Pressure-Brian-Lynch/dp/B000A1QMSI/ref=sr_1_23?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1333476135&sr=1-23 It's on youtube here: Then there's the Blue Note 7, a band formed in conjunction with Blue Note's 70th anniversary in 2009 (Ravi Coltrane, Steve Wilson, Nicholas Payton, Peter Bernstein, Bill Charlap, Peter Washington, Lewis Nash.) I thought the studio record they made was dull, but "The Outlaw" was one of the stronger tracks. More interesting: I heard the group live after touring for a while with the material and by then it was animiated, loose and a lot of fun. Here's a taste of their "The Outlaw" from youtube. Don't care for either of those versions. Like Dameron's "Tadd's Delight," with its similarly shifting accents, it's a hard tune to get right rhythmically, and Horace and Louis Hayes do both times -- on the original recording with Art Farmer and Clifford Jordan and at Newport in 1958 with Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook. Indeed, by comparison with Hayes, the normally fine Victor Lewis sounds quite "off" and jumpy to me with Lynch's group -- perhaps through lack of enough rehearsal time. Also, particularly on the original recording the horns get a lovely "glide" feel going; the accents are hit but also are somehow sort of slid into/rounded off. I think that's what the piece calls for. Horace was something else.

Handsome "Someone" by Brookmeyer here, followed by Zoot's lovely "My Old Flame": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M0adkRMFP0

A Child is Born It's like jazz's Send in the Clowns or even its Feelings

I agree, but I've heard at least two interestingly varied remakes by Shearing himself (a Latin interpretation on his live from San Francisco Capitol album, another on Telarc) -- he of course being quite aware of the need to shake up the recipe. That particular Capitol edition of the quintet was tasty BTW -- Dick Garcia, Warren Chaisson, Al McKibbon, and Vernel Fournier. Particularly nice to hear Fournier in a context other than Jamal, and Garcia could really play. There's a very nice version of Silver's "The Outlaw" on the SF album. Did anyone else ever cover that excellent composition? Oops. This is the correct personnel for Shearing's "San Francisco Scene" (Capitol ST-1715): Shearing (p), Warren Chiasson (vbs), Dick Garcia (g), Wyatt Ruther (b), Lawrence Marable (d), Armando Peraza -1 (congas). Recorded Live at the Masonic Temple, San Francisco, April 28, 1960 The Be-Bop Irishman I'll Be Around - Jumpin' With Symphony Sid - Cocktails For Two -1 - Lullaby Of Birdland -1 - The Outlaw - When April Comes Again - Monophraseology - This Nearly Was Mine (solo p) - My New Mambo -1 -

Don't forget Moe -- Roger Kellaway.

I really dig the Helen Merrill/Dick Katz version of Lonely Woman. Much to "arty" IMO.