Larry Kart

And why can't you understand the well-attested-to fact from which all this stems -- that many of Q's peers, who certainly were far from ignorant of the ins and out of the music business, regarded the particular behavior we were talking abut originally with special disgust ... and did so at the time Q was engaging in it. Yes, perhaps it all seems rather quaint in the light of later developments in the business, but that was the Original Historical Context.

Jim -- When in this groove, it would seem that you could convince yourself of anything. In particular, a nothing vanity project like that Q album with Sarah, Ray Charles, et al. on it would not have been much (if at all) "an opportunity ([for them] to get their name out there a little more." Ray Charles, seriously? Their attitude toward this non-project project would most likely been one of rueful semi-indifference, a la (to up the ante a bit) "suck one cock and you're a cocksucker, so here it goes." The be-all and end-all of it business-wise was to submit to flattering Q's ego versus the consequences that failing to flatter his engorged ego might bring down upon you. Again, a not unfamiliar aspect of the business, but not the one you keep harping on. P.S. Posted this before I saw your most recent post, which grants much of what I've been saying for some time here. And, yes, I think that Q's disfavor could hurt people of considerable stature and longevity. Would you yourself, if you were Sarah at that point in her career, have taken the risk to find out?

By that point in Q's career, given his power in the industry, I would think that the primary motive for those artists who participated was not money but fear -- that is, they feared that if they failed to stroke Q's ego, his likely resulting disfavor could hurt them. Eat a shit sandwich today or eat a really big shit sandwich down the road. Business as it should be?

All I recall was that I bought it when it came out and have always enjoyed it for what it is -- the two saxophone dates in particular.

Touted as such where? It's not a big band album but three dates with a rhythm section and IIRC 1) four altos 2) three tenors and a bari, and 3) four trumpets.

If that's the Ben Neuman I know, he's a hell of a good jazz pianist.

I meant to the music, though the cover does have its own geeky charm.

But your ironic point was the one I was making -- i.e. that the specific bad ethical behavior that Q engaged in and that we were talking about was irrelevant to his getting, in this case, the job as Gore's producer. Also -- BTW and IIRC -- getting that Gore gig was no picnic and/or big plum. It only became so after "It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)," and, again IIRC, Q and Gore were at loggerheads over whether to even record the tune, though I don't recall who was on which side.

But isn't that exactly the point I made above?

Uh, yeah, to be known as a "manager who can deliver product". A very corporate thing to be, and what you do if you want to climb that ladder. The more of a "high level" view you can take and still deliver, the bigger role you get "rewarded" with. That's how an industry works! Pathology? Unless you call a pathology (and if you did, I don't know if you'd be wholly wrong...), then...are you serious? First of all, two words - Greg Phillinganes. Second of all - if Quincy Jones had been a Well-Behaved Ethical Musical Citizen like so many other of his peers, how the fuck do you think he would ever have been in the position to produce Michael Jackson in the first place? Would not have happened. He'd have been another Lalo Schiffrin or Oliver Nelson of Pat Williams or on and on and on, some guy who was well-respected and well employed, but never somebody who was in the boardroom making decisions about how the next album by The Hottest Thing Ever was going to sound. He'd be a guy getting the calls, not the guy making them. Quincy figured early on that he wanted to be one of those guys in that room at that time, and he became one. I don't call that pathology, I call it The Real American Way Of Doing Business. It's not what I want, it's not what most of us here want, but it's something that Quincy Jones wanted, and he figured out how to get it. The American Dream baby, the American Fucking Dream. Q's behavior, as described in my previous post, had little or nothing to do with "good, old-fashioned 'me first' American corporate ambition/careerism." Q still would have gotten the bigger and better industry gigs he was going to get if the charts that weren't his that he put his name on had been credited to Billy Byers, Melba Liston, et al. Why would anyone who had the power to give Q a seat at the big-boys' table have cared one bit whether he or Byers wrote a particular chart on a damn jazz album? As you say, he still would have been "known as a 'manager who can deliver product.' A very corporate thing to be, and what you do if you want to climb that ladder. The more of a 'high level' view you can take and still deliver, the bigger role you get 'rewarded' with. That's how an industry works!" The point, though, as I said before, is that Q wanted/needed to do what he did here not in order to advance in the industry -- which again couldn't have cared less if Q actually wrote those charts he put his name on as long as the product was delivered -- but rather (so it would seem) for personal ego reasons. The American Dream had nada to do with it, unless I suppose one needs to prove to oneself that one can be a---hole when it isn't necessary to be one before one can be a--hole when it is necessary to be one.

What Q did was somewhat or notably different in kind than what Irving Mills, Goodman, Kenton, you name it, did. Their motives were largely a matter of money -- if their names were on the songs, they got royalties, often a whole lot of money if the song was a hit. Also, for someone like Kenton, who assiduously shaped the style of his bands, a chart in the Kenton style that was not actually his or all his but was credited to him was in effect a Kenton chart. See Ellington in this respect, of course, not in terms of arranging per se but in assembling compositions from strains and licks that came from band members. Now, Q, as I mentioned above, had a quite distinctive arranging style, yet after a certain point (and I'm confining myself only to the period when he was writing for big bands, not his later "pop" period) very few if any charts that were said to be Q's were written by him or even SOUNDED one bit like they were written by him. This, I submit, is a different sort of thing than the ones mentioned above and implies that his motive was not primarily (or even at all) money per se (because no, or no significant, royalty income probably would be involved) but was instead some manifestation of Q's ego. That is, it was important to him that he continue to be KNOWN for doing something that he no longer was willing or chose to do, and that his way of accomplishing that goal was take away the "ego income" of his colleagues in the business. Was this merely a matter of convenience on Q's part or something a fair bit stranger, even pathological? I don't know. But I do know that his peers regarded his behavior as strange and (depending on their own temperaments and degree of involvement) more than a fair bit ugly. Also, again, they found it different than the old Mills, Goodman, etc., type of thing, where the bandleader or manager put his name on a tune to garner a share of the royalties. P.S. FWIW, when Q was doing things like M. Jackson's "Thriller," it probably was the case the was the "author" of those albums as much as Jackson was.

Though I'll say (contra Sangrey) that Q's methods of appropriation were both notorious and close to unique (in part that's because his victims were his present and former colleagues in terms of age and mileu, to whom his relationship was not that of a Kenton, a Basie, et al. -- indeed many of them were older figures, and Q's behavior was regarded as something of a scandal by his peers at that time, not as a variation on SOP), coming at the Q question from a somewhat different perspective, who has thoughts about what was the last distinctive Q chart or composition -- this because his style as an arranger in particular was quite distinctive and (if one is in that mood) also clever and charming. Certainly the charts on "This Is How I Feel About Jazz" are his work and probably his best. Otherwise, I'd say that a while down the road "For Lena and Lennie" definitely was his. What of note am I missing?

Chewy -- Assuming your topic title ("What's so great about this?") is a question about the quality of the album and not about Jones' right to put his name on it, the answer is that there's some very good music there, especially on the date with the sax section. I particularly enjoy the opportunity to hear Pepper alongside Carter, his early boss and one of his models.

Caught that band live at the London House in Chicago. Wow. The leader is on fire too, but the two Johnny Griffin Riverside albums with Kenny Drew, Wilbur Ware, and Philly Joe Jones. What a rhythm section that was! And Ware's solos!

This latter-day Amy album is quite nice: http://www.freshsoundrecords.com/peace_for_love-cd-1864.html

And we're proud of it! Signed, John Altwerger

Haven't seen anything in print or on-line about why the Ravens were so disorganized and hurried getting off that final field goal attempt (I yelled about this as it was happening, not after the fact) -- didn't everyone on the sideline know that's what they were going to do? -- and further, on that late Ravens drive that ended with a failed half-assed third-down running play call on (I think) third-and-three after a time out (half-assed because it was a play that relied on cutsily faking out the Patriots, not on skill or power) why did John Harbaugh angrily push away offensive co-ordinator Cam Cameron before he called that time out. Seems like the Ravens' sideline was aleady f----- up.

Georgie Auld

Leo Parker.

All things being equal, John Gilmore.

Just an odd thought, but Benny Golson?

peterintoronto -- See this Forum rule: 8) We do not allow commenting on the price of wares in the "Offering/Looking for" forum. If you feel a post is extortionate or otherwise problematic, please report the post to the moderators.

"WWII had its impact, Vietnam had its, and lord only knows what impact our various desert storms are having (I think I can tell, but it's too damn ugly and too damn current to be objective about it...). Wars fuck with people, no way around it." Yes, but all different cases and not merely a matter of f------ with people. In the view of a lot of people back then (pro and con and you name it), WWII violently propelled America into the 20th Century, from which much of the country had been shrinking until then. That Graettinger piece wasn't titled "This Modern World" for nothing. Sure, lots of fantasies involved there, but I'm old enough to recall reading articles in Look and Colliers c. 1947-8 about how ten years down the road people would be commuting to work via individual mini-helicopters they would wear on their backs. Laugh if you will, but such fantasies, with in this case their blend of "individualism" and new technologies, were potent and part of a perhaps forgotten brew that has in part led to what we are. Consider, for one, the fairly broad belief that the Internet et al. has fundamentally altered our world(s). Not saying that's not true (I'm in no position to judge), but I think that the belief that it's so is in part a matter of belief/desire that seems to me to be peculiarly American and not unconnected with one strain of Kentonian-ism.

Based on "neurotic insecure grandiosity"? Geez -- sounds like something I might have written. Certainly a point worth entertaining, but it should extend almost unbroken from Kenton to his onetime audience of young true believers. I recall, in particular, some things that one member of that audience, Mort Sahl, said about what he and others took (in that postwar social context) as the primal rebelliousness of the Kenton sound -- something overtly "modern" shoving aside all that was "old" and in the way of "progress." One should never forget the impact that WWII had socially on much of America.