Larry Kart

What Maria Schneider says no doubt is true, though it's hardly news, but the story of what happened to the IAJE is essentially an old-fashioned one of self-important, in some cases crooked, would-be fat cats robbing the till: http://www.openskyjazz.com/blog/?p=71_

So you were there for that week? Unfortunately it wasn't so much a two-tenor gig as it was two quartets with the same rhythm section (only paid for one, of course), but playing (the Joe Henderson Songbook) with Joe was great. We did a week at Yoshi's after Chicago. I'm pretty sure I reviewed that gig, though I can't find a copy in the Tribune's archives. If I didn't review it, I know I was there because I recall how soft JH sounded next to JG when they shared the stand. And it was much more that JH was soft than that JG was loud.

This is the Allen album (with Roney) I was thinking of, "The Gathering" (1998): http://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Geri-Allen/dp/B000009QU2

By and large, when I hear Roney, I hear one exercise/substitution pattern after another strung together. While he's certainly recognizable as himself, doesn't every Roney solo sound a good deal like every other Roney solo? Also, the patterns that he favors are by their nature virtually climax-less, especially harmonically -- that is, each step seems to exist primarily as a step to a step to a step to a step. On the other hand, there's a Verve Geri Allen album from the late '90s I think where her intense presence kind of breaks through Roney's glass dome.

IMO, Leo Smith on "Yo! Miles" is a big step up from Wallace Roney. In fact, I'd rather hear Smith play this music than Miles himself, all things being equal, which I guess they're not.

Yes: Frances also met Lana Cantrell down under thru Peter Allen. They helped arrange some of her first US bookings and hosted her when she first arrived. "That kid couldn't even make a cup of coffee," Frances fondly joked. In 1964 they were there when the Beatles hit and Frances shared drummer Jimmy Nicol with the Fab Four when Ringo took ill.

Lengthy, very interesting on-line bio of Frances Faye: http://www.tyleralpern.com/Faye.html Her younger brother Marty Faye was a fixture of my youth as an acerbic, lizard-like Chicago DJ (he played a fair amount of jazz) and (later) TV pitchman. Marty (giving a snapshot of his own style) once said in an interview that Frances wasn't his sister but his father.

Wow... That should set the cause of getting past White Guilt back several millennia. Or more. Just as I always envisioned it -- a narcissistic/masochistic heterosexual singing to a lesbian. You mean EVERYBODY doesn't envision it that way?! Damn! There's another of my illusions shot to hell! Though, come to think of it, it may be a *little* unfair to refer to Mel as a lesbian. Greg M.

A soulful farewell, musical itself.

Young, like Red Garland, had the ability to play a good many fairly "set" figures and make them feel fresh every time. Maybe it had something to do with the "sly sense of humor" that John Litweiler mentions. It was like he was he taking us into his confidence when he went into his "Spartacus" thing, for example -- as though he were saying "You know this and I know that you do, but I enjoyed coming up with it in the first place and I still like it, plus it's paid for a lot of my bills, so let's enjoy it again, together."

Wow... That should set the cause of getting past White Guilt back several millennia. Or more. Just as I always envisioned it -- a narcissistic/masochistic heterosexual singing to a lesbian.

One of the best religious holidays imaginable; almost the whole story wrapped up in one story. I suggest Shelly Manne's "My Son the Jazz Drummer" (Contemporary), reissued on OJC under another title ("Desert Sands"?)

I can't take much McRae after her Decca days, too much self-regarding spin on the ball. Maybe the dividing line for me is her Columbia Billie Holiday tribute album from 1961, a fine date in many ways (Lockjaw!) but McRae's singing is beginning to verge on the studied and near-rigid, though one could understand why a Holiday tribute album might put any singer of standing and ego on edge. Based on seeing her in clubs a few times, I felt that one of McRae's problems was that she basically hated standing at the mike -- the female-object aspect of that, perhaps. When she sat down at the piano and accompanied herself (the way she'd started out, and she was a good pianist), she seemed to be an entirely different and much happier person. Ella, by contrast, could be said to put too little spin on the ball in terms of interpretation and personality, but once recognized (and it took me a while) the basic interior musical qualities of her singing -- tone, time, and timbre -- are marvelous. As for story-telling, late in her career, when her chops began to falter a bit, she could break your heart. (There are few Pablo albums that capture that.) Can't stand her scat singing. About Mr. Bennett, we've heard that song before, but I ask you or anyone else to track down the reissued stuff he did (originally on his own label in the 1970s) with Ruby Braff and George Barnes. Listen to "Lover" in particular; it's a great performance -- the execution of course but also the conception. TB sings it sotto voce as though, a la the lyric, the words literally were being addressed to a woman with whom he's dancing. TB after his MTV "return," not so much.

Just got a phone call out of the blue from Roscoe, who asked if I could send him copies of some things I wrote about him back then for a talk he was going to give in a few days about that period to a class at Mills College, where he teaches now. I mentioned the story I told earlier in this thread, about hearing him for the first time at that mid-1960s session with Elvin (half-afraid that I might have half-made it up or just distorted it), and Roscoe remembered it as though it had happened yesterday, including the name of the tenor player (Bob Poulian) whom he joined onstage and the fact that he himself left the club right afterwards -- figuring, he explained, that things seemed to have gone pretty well, and he'd better leave it at that.

I'm pretty sure Chuck Nessa has some thoughts about this. I recall a post of his about how Clark Terry's "In Orbit," with Monk, didn't have the impact it could have, as fine as it is, because the track order was not what it should have been. On the other hand, the track order on Warne Marsh's "All Music" (Nessa) is perfect IMO.

IIRC, Concord doesn't own that Kamuca material; it was material that they leased, and the rights probably reverted to Kamuca and thence to his estate.

Mark -- If you've got some or most of your stuff of on your computer at home or on an archive at work you can leaf through, why not post a few things you like here?

I see that none of those pieces is a review per se, but Mark did send me some of his things about six months ago, and they were very good.

typic Nate Chinen bullshit & nonsense-- typin' loud & saying NOTHING. tickets were way too expensive for edc-- at least Marty gives us freebies, too bad it was for the Stones. (better than Nate Chinen but what the fuck ain't?) Chinen has caught Ratliff's Disease, which leads me to think that it's probably generic to jazz writers at the Times. The problem, if I'm right, is simple -- you've got to come up with a way of talking about jazz that is addressed to no one (certainly not anyone who knows anything about the music) but sounds kinda lofty/writerly, with a side order at times of fake hip. Thus, bullshit and nonsense. In fact, one of the basic challenges in journalistic criticism of any art is to begin by not excluding anyone and then -- almost immediately and semi-invisibly -- get to the point; and that would be the same damn point one would make if one were locked in a room with, say, EDC, C. Nessa, and Sangry. You can't have one set of thoughts for the paper and another for your friends. Mark Stryker is a good current example of how to do it. Where are Mark's pieces published, Larry? I'm hoping that I can build up my immunity to the dreaded Ratliff's Disease. Detroit Free Press: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=COL17

typic Nate Chinen bullshit & nonsense-- typin' loud & saying NOTHING. tickets were way too expensive for edc-- at least Marty gives us freebies, too bad it was for the Stones. (better than Nate Chinen but what the fuck ain't?) Chinen has caught Ratliff's Disease, which leads me to think that it's probably generic to jazz writers at the Times. The problem, if I'm right, is simple -- you've got to come up with a way of talking about jazz that is addressed to no one (certainly not anyone who knows anything about the music) but sounds kinda lofty/writerly, with a side order at times of fake hip. Thus, bullshit and nonsense. In fact, one of the basic challenges in journalistic criticism of any art is to begin by not excluding anyone and then -- almost immediately and semi-invisibly -- get to the point; and that would be the same damn point one would make if one were locked in a room with, say, EDC, C. Nessa, and Sangry. You can't have one set of thoughts for the paper and another for your friends. Mark Stryker is a good current example of how to do it.

Yes, on April 15 I put the Bourse before the art.

Would like to be there but am afraid I'll be hung up picking up and mailing tax returns before the deadline.

I like the album. Zoot is in very fresh, lively form, and while I could see where some people might find Hipp a bit stolid rhythmically, I'd prefer to call her sober. Also, there's a Tristano-ish melodic connectedness to her thinking that I find appealing and individual.

Very cool. The way he indicates the rhythms toward the end with that sideways shoulder-arm move!

Would that be the 'Cat Meets Chick' session for MGM recorded in 1954 that is included on Clark Terry's Emarcy session Verve Elite CD? In this case the 'chicks', according to the cover art, are Terry Pollard (vibes), Norma Carson (tpt), Corey Hecht (harp), Mary Osborne (gtr), Elaine Leighton (dms) and Bonnie Wetzel (bass). Yes.