Larry Kart

Speaking of late-in-the-day encounters with female singers of that era who were still in fine form, I caught Frances Wayne (of Woody Herman's sublime version of "Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe," Ralph Burns arrangement) with Harry James in maybe 1980, and she was ... in fine sultry form. Wayne was Mrs. Neal Hefti. Can't find a link to "Happiness," but on this 1944 novelty number, "It Must Be Jelly," with Herman (they share the vocal), her floating time is something else:

Not sure if I'd go into that place..... I was there several times to review things. A nice little lounge. Most memorable visit probably was to see comic Carol Leifer. Opening night was Passover; I was one of three people in the audience.

On the other hand, there's Lee Wiley with Condon, Hackett, Teagarden, Ernie Caceres et al: I don't have to choose.

Forrest's "The Man I Love" with Benny Goodman (Eddie Sauter arrangment) is f------- exquisite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVCqX0v6U6A...feature=related though Forrest was among the many who couldn't stand the "self-absorbed, rude, impossibly tightfisted" B.G. ("The twenty or so months I spent with Benny felt like twenty years"). She finally quit ("Find another singer, and find her fast") while the band was playing the Sherman Hotel in Chicago, this leading fortuitously to the hiring of Peggy Lee, who was singing at The Buttery at the Ambassador East, where Benny and his wife to be Alice Hammond were staying (it was she who saw Lee first and told Goodman he should check her out). In a typical B.G. move, he then required Forrest, whose contract still had a month to run, to sit alongside Lee on the bandstand every night for the duration, without singing a note. When asked why the popular Forrest wasn't performing, B.G. would say, "She's got laryngitis." But we still have "The Man I Love."

Sorry -- I'm a forgetful idiot sometimes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUwfzy9In8I

Dig Harry's bluesy variations and Helen's blend of reserve and intimacy. What musicians they both were.

Thanks -- I filled it out, FWIW.

Ane where might one take a look at this?

Don't need Pete, just June -- a cappella.

Here's that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHL-X85Ggao It strikes me as kitsch; in particular, as with a fair amount of Jarrett, the impulse to be melodic seems to precede the melodic impulse, if you know what I mean. The Home for Lost Arpeggios, located in Wistful Acres.

Al Cohn story that's been told here before, but why not again. Al is at Copenhagen's Cafe Montmarte, local acquaintance suggests that he try Denmark's famous Elephant Beer, Al says, "No, man, I drink to forget."

Al's solo on "What the World Needs Now" is pretty amazing, as is the way he and Zoot play the heads:

Here's some driving Duvivier, with Arnett Cobb and Lockjaw, from Cobb's "Blow, Arnett, Blow": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG5pNru4-5Y That should clear your sinuses.

Yes, but I wouldn't mind a woman who thinks that sex is like June Christy sings.

BTW, Joe Benjamin plays great on "New Orleans Suite" -- really orchestral thinking/understanding; he's like a section all by himself. And Rufus Jones is in fine form, too, not indulging in his "speediness."

His writing often has a random, off-the-top-of-my-head quality, and sometimes the top of his head randomly ends up where it ought not to be. Some people seem to think that writing about jazz means that you should "improvise."

This is the one that blew me away in its original Folkways LP form: http://weeniecampbell.com/mambo/index.php?...5&Itemid=42

Am enjoying the set, which arrived Tuesday, but reading through Friedwald's booklet, I came across this: "'I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me' provides a swinging opener.... Lee sings with such clarity that it amplifies the oddness of the opening lines, 'Your eyes are blue/Your kiss is too.' (What does that mean? What is a blue kiss? Punk lipstick?)" The answer of course is that the song's lyric begins: "Your eyes of blue/your kisses too/I can't believe/that you're in love with me." But then I once believed that paramedics were medics who arrived at isolated accident scenes by parachute.

From here: http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showpost.ph...p;postcount=288 Covering the recording sessions for Jazz Journal, Stanley Dance remarked that, "when he (Tubby) came to record for Columbia, he was even more impressive. It was midnight on October 3rd and the trio assembled in the studio to accompany him consisted of Horace Parlan, Dave Bailey and George Duvivier. Between sets at Birdland with Gigi Gryce, Eddie Costa came over and joined in on vibes. The next night, the same personnel was augmented by Clark Terry...."

I like it very much. Would like to say whole lot more, but I'm kind of hung up on figuring out why Denny sounds a good deal less like Bill Evans to me now than I thought he did at the time. Actually, I think I know why, but I lack the technical vocabulary to go into detail with anywhere near the security I would wish. In part, though, it's that in Denny's music the relationship between bass lines and right-hand lines is always so clean and clear, and things are so clearly (again, that term "clearly" -- sorry if it doesn't help) parcelled out among registers (in this, and at times in his touch, he reminds some of Horace Silver, odd though that may seem), while in post-Village Vanguard Bill Evans there is IMO a tendency for things to get rather uncomfortably (even, I would say, almost unfunctionally at times) "scrunched" or "stacked up" in the middle register and also "scrunched" in terms of placing several layers of somewhat askew harmonic sweetness on top of another and rubbing those semi-askew sweetnesses against each other to create further levels of what I think of as the musical equivalent of bitter chocolate. The effect is close to fingernails on a blackboard for me, but I'm in a tiny minority here. In any case, Denny doesn't do any of that, and aside from certain Evans-inspired rhythmic ideas and the overall concept of how a piano trio should/could operate, he seems to be mostly his own man. Probably not a set to listened to in one swallow, as I pretty much did, but already I'm going back to pieces and hearing things I missed the first time. On the other hand, the aforementioned clarity does come a bit close to neatness/cleverness at times; one of the young Zeitlin's models was Billy Taylor. Also, as I think I may have mentioned in a prior post, I heard Denny a good deal at local sessions beginning in 1957, and he was amazing back then.

What a lovely midi realization..... Doh! Because it's midi, it's not actually from "Dumbo" but "as heard" in "Dumbo." Wonder if anyone ever asked Mulligan why he thought it was amusing to wrap up so many tunes this way (at least it seemed to be so many but might have been just "Bernie's Tune"), especially in the days of the Mulligan Sextet. I found myself dreading those codas.

"Entrance of the Gladiators" or "March of the Gladiators" or "Entry of the Gladiators" (originally titled "Grande Marche Chromatique") is a military march composed in 1897 by the Czech composer Julius Fucík. http://themes.mididb.com/disney/ The above, almost incredibly manic clip (it may be dangerous to your health) is from Disney's "Dumbo."

Two that come to mind are All The Things You Are But Not For Me The former for musical reasons, the latter for the Ira Gershwin lyrics as well (capitalization, punctuation and line breaks are his): Old Man Sunshine -- listen, you! Never tell me Dreams Come True! Just try it -- And I'll start a riot. Beatrice Fairfax -- don't you dare Ever tell me he will care; I'm certain It's the Final Curtain. I never want to hear From any cheer- Ful Pollyannas, Who tell you Fate Supplies a Mate -- It's all bananas!

Whence cometh the prancing-on-tiptoes intro to "Shaw Nuff"? Sounds kind of mock-Spanish, like a bullfight-associated thing that ought to be from "Carmen" or something else by Bizet, but I've never been able to pin it down. Probably it's from another 19th Century piece that used to be played on a lot of parlor pianos but is now obscure. Any ideas? Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp4BpN-YMck

My sense is - and feel free to correct me, anyone - that most of the "with strings" jazz albums were created with the goal of trying to quickly broaden the audience for jazz artists. Maybe that is why more thought didn't go into choosing the arrangers or aiming for more adventurous approaches. Still, some of these albums are better than others. I like Ralph Burns's arrangements for Lester Young. Also like the arrangements on the Sonny Still album (can't remember who did them). If you mean the Stitt album with strings of Ellington-associated material on Catalyst, the arranger was Bill Finegan (of Sauter-Finegan Orchestra fame). There were, I believe, at least two other dates with Stitt and strings, one for Granz with Ralph Burns charts, another for Prestige with charts by Billy Ver Planck.