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Larry Kart

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Everything posted by Larry Kart

  1. Absolutely. At times Philly Joe and Buddy sound like they're marching and swinging at the same time.
  2. Enjoying this thread and this particular post... Funny, when I saw that clip, the first thing I thought of was how much he sounded like Philly Joe at times. The explosive attack.
  3. I second the recommendation of Tatro's "Jazz For Moderns." Don't miss what for me is the most West Coast album there is, the Shorty Rogers-Andre Previn "Collaboration." Yes, it may be bit too clever for its own good, but it is damn clever. And the playing! I don't think there's an ensemble around today that could execute these pieces as well -- a whole different sensibility is at work here, plus these charts are tough.
  4. I caught Harry and his band in the late '70s, on a bill with Frances Wayne. He still sounded great.
  5. There's at least one Moody tenor solo with Dizzy from the late '40s , maybe from the Pasadena concert, that I felt pretty sure had some influence on Ornette. It's like Moody shifts an entire slab of the changes free from its moorings in pursuit of a momentarily compelling melodic and/or rhythmic impulse.
  6. That's some demonic drumming. And the band is pretty demonic too.
  7. Probably these guys at The Hungry Brain: http://www.myspace.com/ballrogg If anyone else will be there, say hello.
  8. I spent some time with Dan (my boss then at Down Beat) and Ira in the late '60s (though not with Schlitten and Himmelstein). Ira in the right social setting is one of the great joy-spreaders, and he certainly had that effect on Dan (and me). Also, I had the feeling that by that time the connection between them and Schlitten and Himmelstein was a bit frayed, though I'm not sure why.
  9. Harry James at his best was a very creative player and a helluva player of the instrument too. Interesting in this later period how he's assimilated some Navarro and Clifford Brown, though no doubt he had some influence on Navarro initially. Last night I was listening to a Doris Day collection that includes two ballads with her and James and a small group from 1950 in conjunction with "Young Man With a Horn" -- "The Very Thought of You" and "Too Marvelous For Words." Lovely playing and singing; Day was so good. From that same era, her performances of ""It's Magic" and "That Old Feeling" are remarkably sexy and IMO as subtle time-wise and timbre-wise as, say, Stan Getz on "Early Autumn."
  10. The Hi-Los' insane, immortal "April in Fairbanks": http://www.box.net/shared/xyuh7yoobt
  11. That is an amazing piece of writing. Working backwards from it alone, you could reconstruct an entire ruined civilization. I particularly like "cutting musical works that straddle the line between art song and stand-up comedy." Makes your knees spontaneously lock together. Also, wasn't it Rose Marie who straddled that line most effectively?
  12. Johnny Mandel is a fine composer, but I'd be a happy man if I knew I'd never hear "The Shadow of Your Smile" or "Emily" again -- the latter especially because you don't hear the former as much as you used to, and also not often from people who can play, while the latter does crop in the repertoire of reasonable people. What a nagging melody.
  13. Miles at the Blackhawk set, a terrific 3-CD set of great-sounding '46-'47 Ellington transcriptions on Hindsight (I love that edition of the band), and Boulez conducts Varese on CBS-Sony. Took two stores to come up with those; don't think I saw another jazz or classical disc in either place that I would have wanted if it had been 70 per cent off. Oh, maybe Nonesuch's Steve Reich box (at one of the stores) but just for documentation.
  14. Amusing response to this YouTube TV performance of "Goody Goody" by The Hi-Los: "this is a perfect example of a race record. white people were afraid of what would happen if their children were exposed to black music and as a result a perfectly good song was murdered." Apparently "white people were afraid of..." is a reference to Frankie Lymon's popular recording of "Goody Goody."
  15. The band toured, mostly playing concerts IIRC. This would be a Mosaic possibility, but I believe Cuscuna balks at the more novelty-like SF material. I find all of it that I've heard to be at the least amusing/clever, while the best of it is quite remarkable. Also, if original masters could be obtained, these were the best-recorded big band albums of their time, maybe ever. Webster Hall, I believe. In fact, the cachet of the SF Band was inseparable from the early days of "hi-fi" mania; thus some of the band's cuter material was designed to test/show off your sound system. Also, IIRC the band traveled with its own sound engineer, in an attempt to make sure that it sounded just as good live as it did on records. Some marvelous players in that band.
  16. Sorry for the shorthand. I meant that Ross's fervent endorsement of the music of those particular contemporary composers means that he thinks that their "answers" to what is really the "Please, God -- is there some kind of modern concert music that good-sized audiences will like, this side of Lowell Leiberman or a string arrangement of Radiohead, 'cause if there isn't, I'm out of a f---ing job here" question are the right answers. God, how naively I read the original passage. Ross counts on that.
  17. So what's the answer?? Nobody seemed to know! Not to put too fine a point on it, but Ross is selling us a piece of bullshit here. On the one hand, unless a poll were taken of everyone in who happened to be in that railway carriage and overheard Mahler's question, the only somebodies literally present who could have replied were Alma, and Rosegger, assuming that Mahler's question was sincere. That they didn't have an answer means ... what?? On the other hand, that last sentence really exists to create the expectation that Ross himself has or will eventually come up with the answer. To the degree that he does, it seems to be Thomas Ades, John Adams, and Osvaldo Golijov. Hold on. Ross's answer to the question 'Does the poet mean the voice of the people at the present time or over time?' is 'Thomas Ades, John Adams, and Osvaldo Golijov'? Can you give me a semantic bridge to cross here? Well, there was that one guy on Amazon whose one-star reviews of Schoenberg (early or late) likened the whole equality-of-the-tones thing to communism. Sorry for the shorthand. I meant that Ross's fervent endorsement of the music of those particular contemporary composers means that he thinks that their "answers" to what is really the "Please, God -- is there some kind of modern concert music that good-sized audiences will like, this side of Lowell Leiberman or a string arrangement of Radiohead, 'cause if there isn't, I'm out of a f---ing job here" question are the right answers.
  18. So what's the answer?? Nobody seemed to know! Not to put too fine a point on it, but Ross is selling us a piece of bullshit here. On the one hand, unless a poll were taken of everyone in who happened to be in that railway carriage and overheard Mahler's question, the only somebodies literally present who could have replied were Alma, and Rosegger, assuming that Mahler's question was sincere. That they didn't have an answer means ... what?? On the other hand, that last sentence really exists to create the expectation that Ross himself has or will eventually come up with the answer. To the degree that he does, it seems to be Thomas Ades, John Adams, and Osvaldo Golijov. Another Ross gem (p. 371): "In truth, there had always been an element of arbitrariness, of automatism, in atonal and twelve-tone music. When Schoenberg wrote 'Erwartung' in seventeen days, he could hardly have known in advance exactly what each of his nine- and ten-note orchestral chords would sound like; he, too, was throwing paint on canvas." What possible grounds could Ross have for saying that? If he thinks 'Erwartung' sound arbitrary, he's deaf. And the "seventeen days" thing! That S. wrote certain pieces, especially this one, at a white heat, is well known, but to assume that he must then have been "throwing paint on canvas"? And that "In truth..."! Finally, from p. 197, about S's "invention" of twelve-tone music in 1923: "In that mad year of hyperinflation, Schoenberg offered a kind of stabilization -- the conversion of a chaotic musical marketplace to a planned economy."
  19. Why "Shame on us all"?
  20. Thanks, Pristine. Fine work.
  21. Can't add much to what Jim said, but ... the train engineer outfits! Also, that they probably play "Four Brothers" much better than, say, the LCJO sax section could. On the one hand, it's all so Madame Tussaud; on the other, these are real human beings. And when I look in the mirror, the guy I see there sure isn't the image of me that's in my head.
  22. I've ignored this thread for a while 'cause I don't want to offend some friends but checking the current page to get the tenor of the arguement, clementine's above statement caught my attention and prompted a response. UNFORTUNATELY, all scenes suck more than they don't. Never forget to wade thru the ephemera to get to the real deal. Part of the journey and the results are worthwhile. I meant to ignore "the Chicago school" aside, but I do still want to ask Clem: Have you heard one darn thing from Chicago in recent years that wasn't from KVM directly or KVM-associated? If you haven't (and I've named a bunch of names elsewhere) you don't know what you're talking about here.
  23. That's some foxy organ playing.
  24. I'm all for the Starbucks where you can get a latte and a psychiatric profile to go. These days they seem to give me one even if I don't order it.
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