Larry Kart

In addition to the people Chuck saw at the Plugged Nickel, though I think I missed out on Jimmy Smith, I saw the MJQ and the Art Farmer Quartet (with Steve Kuhn, Steve Swallow, and Pete La Roca). The MJQ engagement was fun because the place was packed and the only seat I could find was virtually at John Lewis' right elbow. This meant that Lewis' characteristic contrapuntal backing for Bags was a good deal louder to my ears than the vibes were, which gave me a nice education into what Lewis was doing. I'm sure I'm forgetting others too. Red Garland at the Prelude

I see one copy of the LP available for $7, 999. I hope others can provide more information.

„(…) A new company, Paramount Records, set up a date with Dizzy and string section to record some Jerome Kern music for a memorial album dedicated to the recently deceased composer. … after the records are made, Kern´s publishers refuse to grant a license for their release on the grounds that Dizzy has departed from the orthodox Kern melodies.“ And here are the liner notes by mark gardner (OFFICIAL Lp 3032): „…date from Dizzy´s trailblazing trip to california in 1945/ 1946. His presence on the coast promoted the Paramount Label to set up a date with some of the Hollywood session musicians – strings, woodwinds, brass and even a harp. Dizzy brought along his own pianist Al Haig, bassist Ray Brown and a drummer who was probably Roy Porter and not Roy Haynes (despite what the discographies say). The idea was to perform some of Jerome Kern´s most attractive melodies which were already in favour with the boppers and allow the trumpeter to improvise over a lush backing. It was a bold experiment in 1946. Although the recording sound was not great, the pioneering session turned out very well with magical moments supplied by Dizzy who did a wonderful job of elaborating on the Kern tunes. The four tracks were duly issued by Paramount but were rapidly withdrawn in the face of vehement objections by the Kern estate. They felt the performances were disrespectful to the original music! … the Paramount titles became among the rarest in Dizzy´s discography until their eventual reissue in the 1970s.“ (on PHOENIX Lp 4). —>Blog owner’s note: They’ve issued them tracks unfortunately in totally wrong pitches which made ’em sound like Mickey-Mouse music! „… had the Kern estate realized it, Dizzy and Bird had already recorded All The Things You Are *) (Click on it!) for Guild the previous year in a far more daring version than this cut with strings which is done with great melodic feeling and respect. So much for cloth-eared executors!“ *) Dizzy Gillespie (tp) Charlie Parker (as) Clyde Hart (p) Remo Palmieri (g) Slam Stewart (b) Cozy Cole (d) — NYC, February 28, 1945 The date giving by Jepsen is obviously wrong (April 1946). — Dizzy and the rest of the band, excluding Charlie parker, fly back to New York City on Saturday 9, February 1946. So it must be between December 1945 and February 1946. —BTW: The arrangements are by Johnny Richards!”

I grew up on Horenstein with the New Philharmonia, a while ago acquired the Michael Tilson Thomas, which I recall liking quite a bit, and just the other day got the Boulez, which so far has swept me away. Without going back to check and compare, it seems to me to have one of Horenstein's crucial virtues in Mahler, the ability to settle on central tempos as much as the score permits and not yield to the temptation, especially strong in the 7th I would think, to overstress the, so to speak, episodic episodes. As for the appeal of the symphony to me, I begin with tenor horn theme, which never ceases to thrill, and continue with the sense that there's just so much terrific STUFF in the work -- one thing after another -- and in the hands of the right interpreters it all flows and fits. It's also that the flowing and the fitting together of all this is in itself almost a separate and magical act of prophesy. One can imagine Schoenberg and Webern listening to the first performance and saying to themselves, "Yes, we feel the air of other planets."

It was, and so vivid that I woke up thinking for a short while or so that that record must exist.

Yes, but pick a symphony too while we're at it.

Years and years ago I dreamt that I was in Rose Records on S. Wabash St. in Chicago, and I found an album that featured Jack Teagarden and Paul Desmond. They played "Stars Fell on Alabama,"a Teagarden favorite, with Desmond embellishing the melody around and above Big T. Dream on, dream on.

an opinon -- what is your favorite Mahler symphony? Mine is No. 7.

Mobley with Morgan Kelly vs. Evans with Miles, apples and oranges. Miles' choice of Kelly on "Freddie Freeloader" exemplifies this. Likewise, Kelly on the rest of "Kind of Blue" wouldn't have worked.

Early on, c. 1955, for some reason I can no longer recall, I refused to buy any album that featured an electric guitar player as soloist. That went away when I ran across a nice Barney Kessel album, "To Swing or Not To Swing" (Contemporary), and it never came back.

That one.

You can find it in Discogs under Gillespiana Suite

I didn't know that after Gillespie recorded Lalo Schifrin's Gillespiana Suite for Dizzy and large ensemble for Verve on 11/14-15 1960, Gillespie and his regular quintet (Leo Wright, Schifrin, Art Davis, and Chuck Lampkin) began to play the piece regularly (minus the large ensemble) in concerts and clubs. At least one of these concerts --at the Salle Pleyel in Paris on 11/20 1960, with Candido added on two tracks --was recorded by Europe 1. Issued by Malaco Jazz Records in 1998, it's sensational. Sound quality is excellent, and Dizzy --indeed the whole band -- is inspired. Have to admit that having heard a great deal of Dizzy in my earlier years, recently I'd sort of gone to sleep on him to some degree, thinking that I knew his work so well that he couldn't surprise me much any more. Was I wrong! There are any number of passages here for which -- again -- sensational, even shocking, are the only words.

Could be the most West Coast album ever -- outrageously clever, cute-precious-complex, impeccably played. On one side of the LP (six tunes per side) Shorty arranges three standards and Andre contributes three originals based on those standards; on the other side their roles are reversed. Back in the later '50s when in a fit of rectitude I was purging my collection of much West Coast stuff in the name of my newfound passions -- Blakey, Rollins, Horace Silver, et al. -- I kept this one and I'm glad I did. It really is something else.

The third is Fats, no? Some will speak up for Freddie Webster.

Contemporary Deuchar (close one there -- I like Wheeler, and they're both individual, but fond as I am of Fats Navarro, Duechar's Navarro-tinged approach as a player and his Dameron-ish writing get to me.

Jacquet Lawrence Brown Willie Dennis or Urbie Green Speaking of Dennis, Morgana King's choice of spouses was something else -- first Tony Fruscella, then Dennis (killed in a car wreck in Central Park).

Stuff Bickert by a country mile Kessel Ashby

About "keep getting better," it was characteristic of Von that he would begin by soloing at length, and then toward the end of the piece, after others had soloed, return for a long "summing up" solo in which he would build upon on every motif that he had stated in his first solo. This not only would have bordered on the incredible merely as a feat of memory, but it also was, so it seemed, wholly spontaneous.

Agreed on that Bunky album. As it happens, I think that the first piece I wrote for Down Beat back in 1967 was about the tape of a Chicago TV show that featured Bunky and Stu Katz (on vibes), "Tale of a TV Taping."

Got that on a Nelson compilation. Will listen.

Who has their albums classified by year of release? Given the number of CDs I have, I'd go nuts if I tried to sort things out that way.

Joe Lovano Trio Tapestry (ECM), "Garden of Expression" with Marilyn Crispell and drummer Carmen Castaldi Have never liked much if any ECM music, both the style(s) of the music(s) and Eicher's needlepoint spacey sonics; nor have I liked much if any Lovano. But this one, which I picked for $2 at Half Price Books the other day, has surprised me. Lovano is at his most airy/breathy and laid back for the most part, Crispell is crystalline and meditative, at times almost Morton Feldman-like, and Castaldi is reserved/delicate/cymbal oriented. Best of all, the overall meditative flavor of what they're doing not only seems genuine but also fits Eicher's sonic habits like a glove or rather vice versa -- the sonics don't seem like clothing but a realization of what this particular music was conceived to be. Engineer is Stefano Amerio, album was recorded in an auditorium in Lugano. BTW, when I listened to this in the car on the way home, I wanted to throw it out the window. Only when I played it at home did my mind begin to change. If you think an intervention is called for, intervene before it's too late.

Think again of the music written by the composers sgcim cited above and ask yourself what if what any current tunes from movies or musicals might be similarly memorable, even to the audiences of today. This is not necessarily to advocate the music of those older composers as material that today's improvisers should favor; rather it points to my suspicion that "current tunes from movies or musicals" don't offer much material that makes for meaningful memorable variations.