Larry Kart

"Sonny's Dream" is awesome. Good call, and I wish I had mentioned him. Way back when it came out, I reviewed "Sonny's Dream" for Down Beat, gave it ****1/2. Also, I came to know one of the sideman on the date, reedman David Sherr, who contradicts Tapscott's account of some of what happened there. Don't recall exactly what Tapscott's account was, but it involved him getting jobbed in some way on the date -- Sherr says that didn't happen. Great record, in any case.

Ornette, too, of course.

Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz, Art Pepper, Johnny Hodges, Roscoe Mitchell, Benny Carter and Lord knows how many more.

Here's the relevant info: http://www.jazzdisco.org/lennie-tristano/discography/ http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=lee+konitz+discography&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=CmqqQKlFbTJvcHouWMNfWvdoGAAAAqgQFT9A28JU http://www.warnemarsh.info/discography.htm To summarize, it seems fairly safe to assume that, at the least, Shorter and Hancock were aware in their formative years of the classic Tristano Capitol sides with Marsh and Konitz (1949); they were initially reissued on LP (10" IIRC) in the early or mid-1950s. Konitz, of course, was a featured soloist with Kenton in 1952-53, and one would have had to be constitutionally Kenton-averse not to have encountered some of Konitz's many recordings with that popular band, most of which were in print on various LP packages for (I believe) most of that decade. Prime Marsh (other than the Tristano Capitol material and the one date Marsh and Konitz did for New Jazz under Marsh's name) would have been harder for Shorter and Hancock to find, with one key exception -- the lovely Atlantic album Marsh and Konitz did in 1955, with Billy Bauer, Oscar Pettiford, and Kenny Clarke. As for Tristano, the prime post-Capitol Lennie both men would have been a good bet to hear in their formative years was the Atlantic album with "Line Up" et al. on one side and the live Confucius Room quartet material with Konitz on the other (1955). The Atlantic Marsh quartet album is from 1958, by which time Shorter probably was essentially himself. There was a great deal more Konitz available during those years; I'm mentioning only those recordings by Tristano, Marsh, and Konitz that seem to me most likely to have been heard by a reasonably curious jazz fan who lived in Chicago or Newark.

Eddie Fisher? He was notorious in that regard. And both he and Greco had curly hair.

Lord knows I don't want to do the research involved (wild horses, wouldn't...) but I have a feeling that the nascent Herbie H. might have dug Billy Taylor. I know -- another white guy.

Leaving aside the numerous cheap remarks that are flooding my brain, Ringwald sings, sort of: Her father is/was a jazz pianist, one Bob Ringwald: The Tristano influence is obvious.

Allen -- Let's leave Herbie out of the equation for the moment. Lennie, according to you, wasn't steeped in Bach, however personal his translation/extension of JSB's music was? The evidence, aural and verbal, that Lennie was an overt Bach-lover is considerable, no? ( I'd even go so as to say (doing an Allen imitation?), No Bach, no Lennie. Yes, Lennie was also undeniably himself and (we both agree) a major figure, but... You say, "So here's Herbie - playing a phrase that refers to one of Lennie Tristano's FAVORITE harmonic gestures etc." I'm saying that those gestures of Lennie's are possibly, even probably Bach-derived, etc. You hear no Bach in them? OK, you don't. But, quoting from Eunmi Shim's "Lennie Tristano: His Life and Music": "Tristano remarked later on [about] playing Bach with jazz feeling: 'Another thing we used to do in those days, 1949, Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz and Billy Bauer used to play Bach fugues. And it sounded beautiful; with a good strong jazz feeling.' With Tristano's background in classical music, Bach was probably the main source for his interest in linearity and counterpoint."

P.S. As we know, Bud Powell frequently played (and recorded for Blue Note) the Solfeggieto of Bach's son C.P.E. Bach, which of course falls under the fingers of hundreds of thousands of student pianists.

Allen -- I can't say for sure, but I suspect that Tristano and Hancock (in this passage) are drawing on a common source, a portion of a J.S. Bach piece that a whole lot of pianists are introduced to in their student days. If so, it's not impossible that Hancock encountered it as filtered through Tristano, but if it does come from a Bach piece, I think it's more likely that Hancock (who had classical training, I believe) got it from J. Sebastian and didn't need to pick it up from Tristano.

Hey -- we're saved. '"Breakfast Club" star Molly Ringwald has recorded a new jazz album...' http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2010/03/09/molly_ringwald_records_jazz_album

Somehow I'm reminded of an Emo Phillips line: "I got some new underwear the other day. Well, new to me."

His handle was "lawrence olds." His contributions begin here: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=26278&hl=heim&st=60

Strange thread. I don't know who Chris Heim is, nor do I know who Margaret is. My "loss" I guess. "Margaret" is Margaret Ray, a disturbed woman who, in the late '80s, stalked Dave to the point of stealing his car and dropping by his home in the middle of the night. She later committed suicide by lying down in front of an approaching train. Very sad. O.K. Who's Chris Heim?? Google "Chris Heim WBEZ." Also, check out the thread here from several years back on the end of jazz programming at that station (NPR's Chicago outlet) and about Heim's role in eviscerating jazz programming there before it was ended entirely. Finally -- and this is what I really had in mind -- you'll see on that thread that a previously unknown pseudonymous poster arrived to aggressively defend the evisceration of jazz programming at WBEZ by Heim in terms that seem to me amusingly reminiscent of donz5's behavior here since his arrival. The WBEZ thread (it's a long one, but you'll no doubt detect donz5's predecessor): http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=26278&hl=heim&st=0

Sources that request anonymity have revealed that donz5 is Chris Heim.

I had the pleasure of asking Davenport to do at least one book review (of a biography of Ben Jonson) when I was the editor of the Chicago Tribune books section. I believe it was included in one of his books. I also asked Harvey Pekar to do some reviews (and/or responded to his requests that I ask him to/let him review something) -- at least once with unfortunate/near-infuriating results.

Great criticism is great stuff, but I don't like the term "co-equal" because it sounds like the start of an argument and/or puts people's backs up. I like to look at it (in part) like this: The link between the right critic and the right piece of art is like a marriage that works; both parties were no doubt cool before they met, but when they did meet, a third very good thing began to happen. Also, though people on the making art side tend not to want to credit this, a whole lot of art (especially from the semi-distant and/or oblique past or from "what the heck is this?" present) can benefit quite a lot from (even flat out need) the right kind of understanding/interpretation. See, for example, Leo Steinberg's book on Da Vinci's "Last Supper." Mind-blowing/utterly convincing/enriching, and quite unlike (with one almost forgotten exception, a Polish critic at the turn of the century) anything that anyone has said about the work before. More names for Allen's list: Terry Martin Jack Cooke Michael James That would be Steinberg's "Leonardo's Incessant Last Supper": http://www.amazon.com/Leonardos-Incessant-Last-Supper-Steinberg/dp/1890951188

Thread on rec.music.classical.recordings about this reviewer, who at the time of this thread (2009) apparently had just been dropped for committing egregious errors: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.classical.recordings/browse_thread/thread/7daa197e2f6e34c2/40ef6072bde2eed0 But she's back! One poster also alludes to the longstanding general corruption at Fanfare that Allen was just treated to.

Used copies of Dvorak's "Russalka," cond. by Neumann; Paray/Detroit Symphony doing Sibelius 2nd and Dvorak "New World"; Martinon CSO Ravel program; Martinon CSO Bartok Miraculous Mandarin, Varese Arcana, Hindemith Nobelissima Visione.So far I've listened to the Paray/Sibelus, which is terrific (but so is Hannikainen's) and some of the Martinon Rapsodie Espagnole -- its first movement astonishingly brisk (3:58) compared to Reiner's great CSO recording from twelve years before ((5:47), though I suppose one could say that that Reiner's is astonishingly languid. Sounds like two different pieces of music -- could both conductors be "right"? Why not?

When our son was about four, he asked at dinnertime, "Why is chicken on a bird's bone?"

I agree with Jim's account above and would add that Jimmy Cobb, fine as he is for other players and in himself, is not the right drummer for Mobley, who needed much less glassy, laid-back drummers with whom he could interact and vice versa (Blakey, Philly Joe, Higgins, etc.) BTW, if you're in Miles' band and Miles doesn't like the way you're playing, I can't imagine how crushing to the spirit that might be. The man was a master at messing with other people's minds. And Hank, by all accounts, was a very sensitive guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IRgTgz6b1A&feature=player_embedded

You made some lovely music, and each of you will make much more (Joe, if he wants to, if he's going to do something else now). I'll never forget the first time I heard you all live, at Martyrs. What a good night that was.

I owe a lot to him.

"For Basie" was recorded Oct. 18. 1957; Page died on Dec. 20, 1957.