Larry Kart

"Never make the first out of an inning at third base." -- Joe Lonnet (former Chicago White Sox coach) "There is, after all, no pleasure like that given by a woman who really wants to see you." -- Anthony Powell, "A Dance To The Music of Time"

St Matthew Passion, Fritz Lehmann (Music & Arts) -- great 1949 live performance, a bargain at Berkshire Record Outlet: http://www2.broinc.com/search.php?row=0&brocode=&stocknum=&text=BACH+lehmann+matthew&filter=all&submit=Search St. John Passion, Eugen Jochum (Philips) Brandenburg Concertos, Phillip Pickett (L'Oiseau Lyre) Brandenburg Concertos, Rinaldo Alessandrini (Naive) Violincello Suites, Pierre Fournier (DGG) Organ Works, Helmut Walcha (Documents) Goldberg Variations, Maggie Cole (Virgin) Goldberg Variations, Charles Rosen (Sony) Sonata and Partitas for Violin, Gidon Kremer (ECM) Well-Tempered Clavier Book I, Pierre Hantai (Mirare) Well-Tempered Clavier Book I & II, Sergey Schepkin (Ongaku)

The whole piece struck me as dressed-up restatements of the obvious at best and circular and/or meaninglessly vague at worst: E.g. "Research is showing, for example, that our brains understand music not only as emotional diversion, but also as a form of motion and activity." Gee -- motion AND activity. "Dr. Levitan's results suggest that the more surprising moments in a piece, the more emotions listeners perceive -- if those moment seem logical in context." Right. And "reasonable people are those who think and reason intelligently."

Just found out that Mansfield's official nickname is "The Fun Center of Ohio."

I think he looks a bit like Catherine Deneuve, who did memorably play his mother in Arnaud Desplechin's "A Christmas Tale."

It's not Chopin, but here's Lambert's fantastic version of Grieg's "Anitra's Dance": Grieg's Lyric Pieces were big sheet music/parlor piano hits in the late 19th Century U.S. Also, their "folkish" strains naturally linked up to strains in the own musical backgrounds of "ticklers" like Eubie Blake et al., though the term "own" probably obscures the reality of real-life rampant curiosity/cross fertilization. And Lambert's takeoff on the Pilgrim's Chorus from "Tannhauser":

Stride and related guys did this a lot (and quite naturally and often effectively IMO): Tatum: Waltz In C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2 Bernd Lhotzsky: Butterfly Etude, Op. 25, No. 9 : There's also a YouTube video of Lhotzky doing his version of the same waltz Tatum did.

You're welcome. Saw that you were listening to it.

Here is a live performances of one of Brown's best pieces: http://www.youtube.com/user/anitabrownjazz?feature=mhum#p/a/u/2/XkSKgKvd-K0

Have I mentioned composer-arranger-bandleader Anita Brown (tenorman Ted Brown's daughter FWTW)? She's excellent IMO: http://www.anitabrownmusic.com/

Lars Gullin-bs, Carl-Henrik Norin-ts, Rolf Berg-g, Georg Riedel-b, Alan Dawson-d 11/53

Say hello to Glenn for me, if you can. Fine player, great guy.

In the 2nd video was that Tommy Flanagan on piano? Sounded like his touch on I Love Paris---but no 'signature' figures, runs or anything. And dig that still with all the hair! Flanagan is who is depicted and identified in the video.

Famously one of Lester's favorites, no? In a 1958 interview with none other than Chris Albertson, Young was asked if had ever heard Bessie Smith in person. When Young said that he had, Chris asked if he could think of any singer performing today who reminded him of Smith. "Yes," Young said. "Kay Starr." Chris suggested (this account from Dave Gelly's book "Being Prez") that, say, Dakota Staton might be a better choice. Young replied: "Listen to her [i.e Starr's ] voice, and play one of Bessie's records. See if you hear something." In the same interview, Young spoke with approval of Jo Stafford, Sinatra, and Dick Haymes. As for Starr, Smith certainly was one of her idols.

Checked out this YouTube clip (there are more): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o36wybpoElE Your description above seems apt. French dude, b. 1945. Studied with Phil Woods, Nathan Davis, George Russell.

We know what the common meaning of "corny" is. It was the qualifications you supplied in your initial post -- "pianists who pour forth emotions" ... Bill Evans and Bill Charlap" -- that led to confusion/lack of comprehension. For one thing, it's not the pouring forth of emotions per se that makes for corniness (of one common sort, though certainly not the only sort) but emotions that are felt to be applied in a cheesy, mechanical, un-genuine manner. Or to put it another way, "prefabricated sentiment." If you had just said something like "I'm looking for pianists who are often thought to be corny but in your opinion are not," there probably would have been no problem.

I don't understand why would anyone think Morton is corny. Because of the taxi horns on "Sidewalk Blues"? I know that Ellington said barbed things about Morton's piano playing, but I assume that was in part a response to Morton's braggadocio, in part a judgment based on East Coast Stride standards. As for Leonard Feather...

Bobby Enriquez should be corny and IMO is (or rather was):

What a swinger she was. She heard Charlie Christian with Alphonso Trent in North Dakota (she was from Minot) back in the 1930s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec2aTghDwec&feature=related

Picked up "The Eternal Hang" (rec. 1999) at the Skylark last night from Bryant but haven't listened to it yet. There are sound clips on Bryant's website. Marc Riordan tells me it's topnotch, and it has received some enthusiastic reviews (which can be found on the site). http://dbryantmusic.com/

Boston-area pianist Dave Bryant, formerly with Ornette's Prime Time, in for a Chicago visit. Caught him tonight at the Skylark with bassist Devin Hoff and drummer Marc Riordan (a former student of Bryant's). He played at the Hungry Brain the night before, with Riordan and Jason Roebke, but I couldn't make it. Probably in his 50s, this guy is something else -- kind of like Ornette on piano, with hints of Tristano, but not really like anything or anyone else. Tremendous two-handed technique, near unbelievable speed of execution at times, everything quite lucid no matter how wild it gets, lots of personal story-telling harmonic intensity. Mostly his own tunes, plus "Scrapple from the Apple." And does he ever swing! http://dbryantmusic.com/

Father of twenty-six children, Bach knew how to work more than one room.

Well, he tries very hard to escape to greener pastures in Dresden, where he would have been a court composer under royal patronage, but that doesn't come off. The conflict with the Leipzig city council, his bosses as cantor of St. Thomas Church, doesn't let up one bit insofar as we can tell, though it apparently keeps branching out into new forms and issues of dispute. Then Bach in a kind of knight's move also becomes director of the flexible/fluid instrumental ensemble the Collegium Musicum, which gives him a bit more room to maneuver. (One of Bach's fallback cards in this mess is that he was acknowledged to be perhaps the best organist in captivity, and that meant best in terms of both virtuosity and ability to improvise -- this at a time and place when hotshot improvising church organists had the broad social cachet of, say, hotshot rock guitarists in the 1960s-'70s.) In any case, it was never a picnic for Bach. To quote again from Geck, "The Bach of the last phase is no old man gathering his strength to bring in a last harvest. He is, however, increasingly weary of his post as cantor of St. Thomas's, and would perhaps have already resigned if such a step were feasible or customary in those days...."

Did it involve relish? No -- but it did involve her box.

You don't want to even know what Pandora took.