Larry Kart

A friend just hipped me to her: Is the pianist in the second clip Willie Pickens?

Good news. That could stir interest quite a bit. Kevin Whitehead?

IIRC, he's in fine form on Basie's "Fiesta in Blue."

Eddie's informal teacher when he was in his early teens was talented altoist Joe (Doc) Poston, his uncle and member of Jimmy Noone's Apex Club orchestra.

Probably Keefe Jackson's large ensemble Project Project at the Hungry Brain tonight. I saw the band last week and was impressed. They might play the same pieces, though.

I did an interview with Zappa and the Mothers for Down Beat at about that time (they were playing the Ravina Festival). Not only was he an asshole, but it also was clear that some members of the band (Don Preston, for one) thought he was an asshole.

The first live jazz performance I heard was a Sunday afternoon Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at the Chicago Opera House on October 2, 1955, with a lineup that included Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Flip Phillips, Illinois Jacquet, Lester Young, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich. [Probably Ella Fitzgerald and her trio, too, but I don't recall that part.] I know the date because that concert was recorded and much of it eventually was released (I have it on a mid-1970s reissue titled "Blues in Chicago 1955"). Pretty standard JATP fare of the time, most interesting in hindsight for Pres' IMO moving attempts to cope at what was a physical and emotional low point for him. He would be hospitalized a month or so later for alcoholism and depression and then would recover to make "Jazz Giants '56" and "Pres and Teddy" in January 1956. What I remember most about the concert was waiting for the curtain to go up. It was like we were going to see Zeus, Moses, and Apollo.

Bought his "Pub Crawling" when it came out over here on Contemporary in maybe 1957 (thanks heavens for record stores with listening booths). Liked it a lot then and have never wavered. Interesting how much those Scottish-English players were into Dameron-like writing back then, more so than most boppish American players were in '57 (or maybe ever). I would assume that Deuchar, individual as he was, greatly admired Navarro.

Plissken?

Did I say that he should be "badgered for time immemorial"? No -- I said that now "we can see [some dramatic difference between one side of the actual Tiger Woods and the widely marketed image of Woods as a human paragon as well as a great athlete], and there's ... static. How much there should be, I don't know because I myself don't much care, but 'leave the man alone' hardly seems fitting." As for "what his sponsors foisted upon us," this was foisted upon Woods, too?

At Half-Price Books -- the Django Reinhardt Proper Box (for $8.98), hoping to fill in some gaps, and the late John McGlinn's restoration of the original score of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" (EMI), which I think is OOP. In my experience, McGlinn had a great touch with such material. No -- McGlinn's "Anything Goes" is still available: http://www.amazon.com/Anything-Goes-1988-Studio-Cast/dp/B000002RRA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1269208039&sr=1-1 Very worthwhile, if you like this sort of thing.

Dental care in the former U.S.S.R. (where I think this came from) was a bitch. Also hair-piece technology. The eyes speak of a deep innate happiness, no?

The problem with your argument is that Woods has -- for a financial return far greater I believe than anything he has earned from playing golf per se -- marketed himself as an all-round good guy role model. That's not to say that he hasn't done some remarkable things when it comes to guts and will as well as skill -- e.g. his almost one-legged win over Rocco Mediate in the U.S. Open -- but such genuine human-athletic feats essentially flow into and further Wood's carefully marketed image. No, he's not second in line to the Pope, but he's certainly a key part in the machinery that was designed to foster the belief (so lucrative to him and to the corporations to which he was linked) that he was something of a paragon as a person as well as an athlete. In effect, Tiger Woods has been in part an actor playing the role of Tiger Woods, and part of his job there was to make sure that we could not see the difference. Now we can, and there's ... static. How much there should be, I don't know because I myself don't much care, but "leave the man alone" hardly seems fitting. Did the assiduous marketing of Woods over all these years leave us alone? As for Ty Cobb, the actual man was not too far removed from the image of Cobb the surly S.O.B. that prevailed at the time. A better analogy might be another great golfer Bobby Jones, who always has been presented to the public as something of a paragon. If Jones instead were (you fill in the blank), might that not be of some significance? P.S. As for the Pope, recent news stories, if true...

Jim Sangrey didn't tout his own playing, but it's not likely I would have known of it if I didn't know of him from here.

I knew of and admired Dave Schildkraut but learned of his more "out" later work from Allen Lowe.

Also Chuck's doing, I'm pretty sure -- Jascha Horenstein. Another from Chuck -- Vlado Perlemuter.

Thank you -- I might not have got there otherwise.

Wonder if he remembers, but Chuck Nessa (back in maybe 1967) turned me on to Timi Yuro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvbXJk9VF94&feature=related

But that's mainly because the orthodox jazz education system barely existed at the time Hamilton was coming up (there was the North Texas program around that time, but not much else was in anything more than nascent stages). I wasn't saying that Hamilton and Alexander are themselves products of this system (though Alexander definitely is), but that the system actively encourages people in this style (more similar to Alexander's, less so to Hamilton's). I mainly included Hamilton because I think the system's orthodoxies are heavily biased toward inside playing at the expense of teaching more adventurous ways of approaching the music. Not so -- Berklee (for one) was going like gangbusters back then; though you're right that Hamilton was not a product of the orthodox jazz educational system. Also, when I was at Downbeat magazine back in 1968-9, the jazz education movement was something we regularly took account of editorially because the so-called "stage band" thing was getting big in high schools and colleges -- U. of Indiana under David Baker, U. of Illinois under John Garvey (not that those two were "stage bands" per se), etc., etc. -- and that movement meant big sales for the musical instrument companies that advertised in DB. I forgot about Berklee - I was mainly thinking about the elite programs today that didn't exist back then AFAIK (Manhattan, Mannes (began in 1986), NEC, Miami, Juilliard (which had no jazz until around 2000), William Paterson etc.). How long had Baker been at Indiana in 1968? My point is that though the movement existed, it didn't really have anywhere near the monolithic influence that it does today. Even by the 1970s, going to college for jazz was pretty much optional in terms of having a successful career, whereas these days it's considered a fixture of how young players learn to play. Baker began to teach at Indiana in 1966. I do know that the jazz program there was up and running and regarded as special by 1969, when I heard the IU band led by Baker at the Notre Dame Jazz Festival (which itself was a fairly big deal of its kind and featured only high school and college ensembles) and at another such fest that year or the following year at the U. of Illinois. There or at Notre Dame I also recall hearing, among many others, ensembles from Ohio State and Memphis State, and several players who went on to make names for themselves and who are now inactive or even deceased!

But that's mainly because the orthodox jazz education system barely existed at the time Hamilton was coming up (there was the North Texas program around that time, but not much else was in anything more than nascent stages). I wasn't saying that Hamilton and Alexander are themselves products of this system (though Alexander definitely is), but that the system actively encourages people in this style (more similar to Alexander's, less so to Hamilton's). I mainly included Hamilton because I think the system's orthodoxies are heavily biased toward inside playing at the expense of teaching more adventurous ways of approaching the music. Not so -- Berklee (for one) was going like gangbusters back then; though you're right that Hamilton was not a product of the orthodox jazz educational system. Also, when I was at Downbeat magazine back in 1968-9, the jazz education movement was something we regularly took account of editorially because the so-called "stage band" thing was getting big in high schools and colleges -- U. of Indiana under David Baker, U. of Illinois under John Garvey (not that those two were "stage bands" per se), etc., etc. -- and that movement meant big sales for the musical instrument companies that advertised in DB.

Most worthwhile invention IMO would be anesthetics.

Those Showcase Joe Turner engagements were something else. Must be a collective curse on us, though. I know I reviewed at least one of them, and that review should be in my book (writing about fine vocalists was always a challenge and usually great fun), but it's not there, and I can't find a copy of it.

Think I was there both times, certainly for the Mingus encounter. The corresponding moment there to the presence of the wrong Joe Turner albums was that all of the LPs the collector wanted Mingus to sign were still shrink-wrapped.

For my taste, Stewart's Rollins resemblance comes and goes. There are times when I hear very specific Rollins-esque "chortles" and the like, and this turns me off because those gestures seem to me not only to be unique to Rollins but also effusions into the music of Rollins' personality, in-passing dramatizations of his particular quirks (if that's the right word) as a human being. And to my mind that's two somewhat different things. An analogy might be Rex Stewart's half-valve techniques. That he popularized that way of playing and put his own personal, expressive stamp on it doesn't mean that he's the only one who can use half-valve effects, but if you do play that way in the coy, impish, waggish manner that Stewart did, it sounds like the musical equivalent of Frank Gorshin doing a Jimmy Cagney impression. Otherwise, though, when I hear Stewart I mostly hear a Rollins-inspired player who is making real, high-level, in-the-moment contact with the material, not someone who is dipping into an anthology of Rollins licks. I'm not saying that my judgment here is infallible, but I am wary of overt emulators in general and think I am alert to the differences. Stewart seems to me to be his own man in much the same way that the late Barney Wilen (surely Rollins-inspired to a considerable degree) finally was Barney Wilen.

Assuming that Jim has not lost it entirely (which seems unlikely), is there a passing point of resemblance between the two tunes? I think there is. Bohemia After Dark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0mDBT4kRNc Johnny: "Bo-DOO ... bo-DEE-dah-dah. Bohemia (roughly): Bo-doo-DOO-doo-dah-dah-DEE-dah. Pardon my musical illiteracy, but it's the "DEE-dah" interval and the way it's accented, no?