Larry Kart

"Back on Indiana Avenue: The Carroll DeCamp Recordings" (Resonance) Some terrific Wes on these recordings from his Indianapolis days.

The first three trio albums on Contemporary, and I have a soft spot for two later ones on Contemporary, "The Green Leaves of Summer" and "Here and Now." I would avoid the three "All Night Session" albums -- the personnel looks appealing (Hawes, Jim Hall, Red Mitchell, and Bruz Freeman) but IMO they never get off the ground. From "Here and Now" (less Bud now, a personal take on Bill Evans begins to creep in)

Got that earmarked for Jim and the board. Apparently so. Some years ago I bought a carton of 30 or so remaindered copies from the Jazz Record Mart, which at the time was stocking up on remaindered jazz books from some clearing house. Over the years I gave all but two of them away to interested parties. BTW I love the image on the cover. It's a circa 1957 photo of Ira Sullivan (on tenor), Johnny Griffin, and bassist Nevin Wilson. Don't think it's from a Monday night session at the Gate of Horn, but the vantage point is from that of a front row seat there.

$68.05. Not bad for a book that was published in 2004. And I think that may be more than it earned in many previous years. My thanks to Yale for keeping it in print.

The Sky Is Crying -- The History of Elmore James (Rhino)

I enthusiastically reviewed "The 8th of July 1969" for Downbeat back in the day. Years later I got a nice note of thanks plus a DVD of Willem Breuker in action from bassist Arjen Gortner.

Thanks be it was so well-recorded by David B. Hancock. Unless I'm mistaken, not too many pianists of this style and vintage had the good fortune to be captured with such fidelity when they were still in their prime, as Luckey seems to me to be here at age 65. And what a composer as well as player he was! Check out the very modern "Inner Space," for one -- there's a forecast of Monk in there -- (unfortunately "Inner Space" doesn't seem to be on You Tube), "Railroad Blues," and the dazzling "Nothin'"

Life-changing album for me. I knew about The Lion but not about Luckey.

That should be Don Newcombe.

McCuen brought us the Joe Daley Trio, probably at no little cost to his sanity.

Thinking of possible exceptions, I've got a sort of test coming up. Having recently become fond of the late John Hicks in trio format (his "Beyond Exceptions" in particular) and enjoying especially his IMO quite individual fullness of keyboard textures, I ordered three more Hicks albums which should arrive today --- two trio albums and his solo Maybeck recital. We'll see if the Maybeck album retains that fullness of keyboard textures I know from his trio work. I should add that what also and especially intrigues me about Hicks is how often he ends a semi-climactic phrase or episode with rich, almost cocktail-lounge-like, or maybe Garner-like, multi-noted upper-register flourishes that typically sort of splinter to form new lines. There's a possible kinship to Tyner here, but Hicks' approach is IMO less formulaic harmonically -- e.g. the occasional rich "sweetness" in Hicks that I typed as almost cocktail-lounge-like, though in no way do those gestures sound the least bit trashy; rather they come across as tokens of ecstatic release. In any case, what a player he was.

Forewarned is forearmed?

No doubt many of you are familiar with the jaunty quasi-Spanish phrases that so perfectly introduce the theme of “Shaw Nuff” — https://youtu.be/DGrZpTWSkh4 and that recur at the end of the piece. Does anyone know where they come from? Those phrases sound so tip-of--my-tongue familiar to me that I'm sure that I first heard them long before I heard "Shaw Nuff" and that they're quoted from elsewhere and are not an invention of Parker and Gillespie. I’ve always thought that the source was “Carmen” or some other popular work by Bizet -- say “ L’ Arlesienne” — but after scouting around in both of those places I’ve turned up nothing, Any ideas?

'Beyond Expectations" is excellent.

I saw Jimmy Ford with Maynard's big band on a Birdland All Stars tour in the late 1950e. He got up to take a solo --a good one, too, very fiery -- and in the midst of it he had a violent spasm, one hand came off the horn and flapped up into the air above his head. I wondered about that, and even at the tender age of 13 or so, I had an idea.

Why not?

Ira told me in an interview that Red told him to play tenor on the "Modern Music from Chicago" date and then when they got to the last tune, an uptempo number, Red insisted that Ira switch from tenor to trumpet -- this because, Ira said, "he knew that by then my [trumpet] chops would be down." Summing things up, Ira said: "He whipped game on me."

Thanks, but $89.95 is a little rich for my blood.

Does anyone here have a copy of the seemingly OOP Mosca/Marsh album “How Deep?How High”? It can be found on You Tube under Mosca’s name and is stunning. LK

That was shorthand for what I meant -- i.e. gestures of extremity that seemed more or less pasted on to a more conventional discourse.. And I'm not talking about this polnt but some point or points rather early on in JH's career. In any case -- here we are now in 2022, not the early 1960s. Who cares?

I'm no JH scholar but I seem to recall some squawkly, squally stuff early on that sounded rather pasted on or "willed" to me. But as this point, who cares?

Also, going back a good ways, I was never particularly convinced by JH's "outside" episodes, which often coincided with him getting heated.

Maybe so. Based on my response to "So Near, So Far," it may be that I like the cooler, more puzzle-making/puzzle-solving side of JH -- what I alluded to above as "heady." The more heated side of JH I've seldom found particularly convincing.

Listened to whole album today, which I don't think I'd done before, and it struck me as a mellow and (especially on JH's part) quite heady date. Sco didn't bother me (sometimes he does), and Al Foster was in fine form. Nicely engineered by Jim Anderson.

Didn't mean to blow my own horn, but I liked that piece.