Larry Kart

More brilliant Pepper and Marsh, from Ted Brown's "Freewheeling" (Ted doesn't solo on this track): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMhsHhDtsxY Bill Perkins and Pepper (the balance of Art's solo):

From "Smack Up": Staggering Pepper and Warne Marsh from 1956 (their exchanges at the end!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU2tDmTM8M0&feature=related

Simply because there aren't that many people on Organissimo who are old enough to have heard that band? Stereojack perhaps. As for early and late Pepper -- several things. First, truly mature Pepper doesn't arrive until the mid-1950s, by which time he'd been a figure of some note for a good while with Kenton. Second, IMO the perilous equilibrium that Pepper reached from then until his incarceration in San Quentin (on the Tampa Quartet album and "Smack Up" on Contemporary, to name two favorites he recorded as a leader) is enough to make him a jazz immortal. Finally, moved though I am by some of the more overtly expressionistic post-return Pepper, and as much as I understand the necessity for him of what he was trying to do during those years, no way that compares to what he achieved on the Tampa "Besame Mucho" and "I Surrender Dear" (both of which can be found on You Tube). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9INTajBBis8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV8-h8HhvQM

Saw him many times. Standard Stitt mostly, but as I mentioned earlier on this thread, I caught him once with Mal Waldron in the rhythm section and Stitt paying attention to Mal's motivic comping, and that was something else. I had a nice between-sets conversation with Mal, too.

Messiaen

Have quite a bit. Particularly like the DVD of "Anti-Krist."

Love that clip.

Caught that band live in Chicago some 56 years ago.

"Heute Deutschland, morgen die Welt!"

Going to hear the rock band A Tundra (my son is a member, on keyboards) at The Hideout tonight. It's a record release gig for them. New A Tundra video: http://www.atundra.com/home.php

Recently picked up a whole bunch of those Bluebird big-band two-fers LPs, filling in some gaps I had there with Goodman, T. Dorsey, Shaw, and Barnet. Working through things, I'm pleasantly reminded of how fine the Dorsey band was -- not always as jazz-oriented as one might wish but the quality of the playing and the (frequent) subtlety/sophistication of the arranging (Weston, Stordahl, et al.) was quite something, in general and even more so in the context of the time.

FWIW, a fair number of the players I know on the current Chicago north side scene admire Mars' playing a great deal -- and of course Steve Hunt, Brian Sandstrom, and Kent Kessler as well. Mars, Steve, Brian, and keyboardist Jim Baker play together every Monday at: Beat Kitchen, 2100 W Belmont, 773.281.4444 Extraordinary Popular Delusions : Jim Baker, Mars Williams, Brian Sandstrom, Steve Hunt

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

Read "Forum Rules" up top, No. 7.

Just because Amazon or any other site sells something doesn't mean it isn't a bootleg. Every other Just Jazz album I can find looks like a boot. For example: http://www.cdunivers...z%2FBlack+Label To be specific, not a bootleg in the sense that it's an unauthorized copy of a previously issued recording but a bootleg in that it was recorded in "live" performance and issued without the knowledge of the performers and without them or their heirs being recompensed.

Probably isn't what you want to hear, but while I love Hal, I've always been impervious to Mars.

Yes. Will listen.

Jazztropic -- Is this a bootleg? If so, we don't traffic in bootlegs here, according to forum rules.

Barnet was a fine bandleader and a fascinating guy, and his "Cherokee" is good gutty fun and he plays nice on it, but compared to, say, Chu Berry's "Shufflin' at the Hollywood" (from the same year) with Lionel Hampton? As a player Barnet was not in that league, as he himself would have been willing to admit. So what's the great cultural signifier thing about Barnet's "Cherokee"? That it was a white band that sounded kinda like a black band and had a hit while doing so? About Chuck's "alcohol" (which I think is the answer to the Zoot conundrum), I'm reminded of the time Al Cohn was playing the Cafe Montmarte in Copenhagen and someone asked him if he'd like to try that venerable Danish brew Elephant Beer. "No, man," said Al, "I drink to forget."

Why would you have been disappointed by 1959 Basie or Ellington if you could have gone back in time? Or do I misunderstand what you're saying? Seems like from what you said before that your likely reaction to 1959 Basie or Ellington would have been the opposite. Hi Larry, Sorry for the confusion. Hopefully, my likely reaction would have been quite the opposite. You know how they say, "anticipation's half the fun"? Well, maybe all of my listening, reading and research on these bands have made them better or bigger than they were during their day. I guess what I was trying to convey (in this instance), was, for a long time, I have regarded Ellington's and Basie's band from the late 50s as pure perfection based on the recordings. If I were to go back in time and actually HEAR them live, perhaps my perception might have changed. In short, maybe I would have been dissapointed by the bands...my expectations of what they could do might have been too high. Does that make sense? I mean I'm 27, I didn't get to hear all of the Giants of Jazz. I've heard Eric Alexander several time live and he is a great saxophonist, but I would still prefer to listen to Dexter or Coltrane. So with that said, if I took this time machine to see the Ellington band of the late 50s, I might say, "Oh, well this band is good, but man, that Blanton-Webster band was much better!" Gotcha.

But then there's the career of his running buddy Al Cohn, who was very good in the '50s and '60s and then just got better and better and stronger and stronger, at times almost amazingly so (especially rhythmically), right up until the very end and without undergoing any profound stylistic change or absorbing any "advanced" influences. Thus it's not like I'm holding Zoot up to some imaginary or elitist standard.

Charlie Barnet?!!

I'm thinking that the change I hear had to do with him becoming a NYC studio regular in '58-9 (a very demanding life that not everyone can handle) BTW, I've found over the years (Jim excepted no doubt) that firm defenders of latter-day Zoot tend not to be that familiar with earlier Zoot. A good test case would be to place his playing on the Mulligan Sextet's "California Concerts" album alongside his work three or so years later with the Mulligan Concert Jazz Band. To me, the former sounds gorgeously fresh and fluid (as does a whole lot of Zoot from that period and before), while the latter sounds rather forced and pre-packaged, as though he were thumbing through a book of Zoot-like phrases. The continuity factor is ebbing away, and Zoot without continuity...

OK -- I will. Something happened to/changed in Zoot in 1957-8 IMO, and (with occasional exceptions) he was never quite the same. The lovely freshness/zest/continuity of Zoot on, say, that fine Dawn album with Brookmeyer and and Gus Johnson or his quartet album on Argo was not to be heard again. I still listen to later Zoot but can't help but notice the difference. I would like to run across someone who knew Zoot well and who agrees with me on this who could speculate about the "why" of what I believe happened. Drinking a whole lot probably didn't help, but that alone -- probably not.

Why would you have been disappointed by 1959 Basie or Ellington if you could have gone back in time? Or do I misunderstand what you're saying? Seems like from what you said before that your likely reaction to 1959 Basie or Ellington would have been the opposite.