Larry Kart

I was at that 4/88 Jazz Showcase show and reviewed it for the Chicago Tribune. The review can be found through the Trib website's archives feature, but you have to pay to read it. Screw that. I'll try to get a Trib mole to e-mail it to me.

I hear he was going to pay Billy Byers to celebrate it for him.

As I said somewhere on this thread, Tal evolved like crazy in the '80s, though I don't think this was reflected on record. In particular, he heightened the fluidity of his playing (that is, lessened the sense of "attack" on most notes),and thus became, like, a third faster. More important (and this probably was the motive for the change), he was thinking a third faster too. At the level of Tatum at his best, almost beyond the ability of the mind to take it in.

EDC -- You will admit that, to some extent, music is about what musicians play. If so, have you actually heard anything by any of the people I've mentioned, excluding things they may have done with KVM, who pretty much weighs down all that he touches. I'm not saying you haven't, but you've given no sign, O Great Pontificator, that you have, and if you haven't, you don't know anything about this "scene," except that you don't like Peter Margasak. Also, what does David Grubbs have to do with any of this? P.S. I said on that Scott Hamilton thread that I've never been interviewed about my "views" on jazz. When my book came out, I was interviewed by Margasak for the Chicago Reader. I forget about that because at the time I was recovering from the worst case of the respiratory flu I've ever had and was borderline incoherent.

I'd be happy to comment on her music, but all my examples or her work are temporarily inacecssible (all packed away) because of a basement flood.

What is this "white boys with chops crowd" thing? There is IMO no such crowd in Chicago;or at least none of the musicians I've mentioned could be characterized in that way. In fact, as I've tried to emphasize, one hallmark of this scene is an unwillingess to flaunt whatever chops one has, unless and until that's what the musical situation requires. And on this scene, few such situations arise; that's just not what people are interested in doing. The analogy isn't perfect, but was Morton Feldman a "white boy with chops"? Drop this nonsense, please -- the "boys" part, especially. I didn't mention Von, Fred Anderson, Ari Brown, Willie Pickens et al. because as fine or as great (Von and Lee Konitz might well be the two greatest living jazz musicians), they've been around for years -- are except for Brown, as old, older, or much much older than I am (age 65). Willie's pianist daughter Bethany Pickens is a fine player.

Also, extending the net a bit in terms of age, in some cases: Jim Baker, Mars Williams, Brian Sandstrom, Steve Hunt, Jeff Kimmel, Damon Short, Chuck Burdelik, Geoff Bradfield, Paul Hartsaw, Ryan Schultz, Ted Sirota, Rich Corpolongo, Paul Giallorenzo, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Michael Zerang, Patrick Newbery, Kevin Davis.

EDC -- We're talking players here, right, not people who write about the music? So let me say, Josh Berman, Keefe Jackson, Anton Hatwich, Toby Summerfield, Matt Schneider, Jeff Parker, Josh Abrams, Frank Rosaly, Tim Daisy, Dave Rempis, Jaimie Branch, Jason Roebke, Jason Ajemian, Mike Reed, Greg Ward, Tim Haldeman, Jeb Bishop, Nick Broste, Aram Shelton (now in Oakland), Nori Tanaka (now back in Japan), Jason Adasiewicz, Marc Riordan, David Boykin, John Herndon, James Falzone, Nate McBride, Tim Mulveena, Dylan Ryan, etc. -- the list easily could be twice as long. And, to repeat, as talented and as individual as these people are, they function as a scene as I outlined in a prior post; while everyone can play, there's not a "chops"-oriented player among them. The goal, met time and again, is to make some good music collectively. Haven't seen anything like this with my own eyes since the first wave of the AACM.

I have no desire to impugn Lorraine Geller's memory, if in fact noting that her death might well have been drug-related would do so, but take a look at the crowd that she and her husband were running with at the time -- Joe Maini, Lenny Bruce, Jack Sheldon, et al., a so-called "bust out" group of people if there ever was one. Add to that that many deaths that are in some sense drug-related are not actual overdoses -- witness most famously the death of trumpeter Sonny Berman, who was shooting up when an air bubble got into the syringe and traveled to and stopped his heart. If Geller did have underlying asthma and heart problems, it takes much less trouble in that vein, so to speak, to do you in. Berman, for example, who was very heavy set at a young age, was engaging in risky behavior every time he got high. I can't prove that Geller didn't die "naturally," in a non-drug-related manner, but it doesn't seem at all unlikely to me that there would have been a "cover-up" at work here for many decades, given the behavior of the people she was hanging out with at the time on the one hand and, on the other, the apparent middle-class respectability of her social background and the fact that she was a young mother. Lord knows those would be motives, and how many people are going to be poking around to say "nay." For example, for many years, most reference sources said that Sonny Berman died of a either a heart attack or a stroke. Technically true, up to a point, but Ira Gitler finally explained what really happened (see above). Sonny not only was a great young plyer but also a very nice guy who had family, so the protective impulses that prevailed for a qood while in his case are not surprising; and they did prevail for many years.

Whoa -- your work or Ann's? Great stuff, particularly the bird footprint.

One variant that sticks in my head is the Cy Touff-Richie Kamuca "Prez-ence," which begins with the horns playing Prez's solo on "You're Driving Me Crazy" changes and, I believe, goes out with "Moten Swing." Lovely relaxed-airy feel to that track.

Does it say anywhere how much she weighed? I'm guessing that she couldn't get up.

Could be failing memory, but I don't recall ever being "interviewed on [my] thoughts and feelings about the state of the art of jazz." About supporting my opinions in this case, I think I've gone about as far as I can go. I mean, I'm beginning to bore myself.

I'm up to my neck in the mid-30s-and-below Chicago scene (a picture I didn't mean to draw there) -- admire and know a lot of the players and have posted about the scene here and there on the board. Would love to write more and probably will have to some day, somewhere, but feel constrainted by my indifference to Vandermark, who certainly played a big role in this scene coalescing at all, in terms of getting things working in the first place and spreading that work around with a generous hand. Musically, though, there are so many fine young players here and a real scene feeling -- places to play, people pairing up with the right people for them to play with and getting better and better.

Well, sometimes we are talking about a specific artist. People who are interested in jazz tend to do that, no? And everyone in the history of an art in some sense stacks up against the history of that art -- in some sense. How can that not be the case, when all players flow in some sense from their predecessors and some others, like SH, make such manuevers a virtual hallmark of what they like to do? Also, my point in comparing SH with the surprisingly (to me, when I looked it up) youngish Ammons, Wess, and Foster, was that these are players who are not I think that far apart stylistically. It's not like I was comparing Johnny Dodds and Anthony Braxton. Loosen up, people.

Furthermore, I've more or less enjoyed disagreeing with Dan. He's smart, experienced, and fair-minded --except when it comes to Roger Clemens, but then I agree with him there.

I think Larry made that clear when he said "our ability" and "our desire." We all make aesthetic estimates. I look to critics to stimulate my thinking, to help me interpret not just music but my own reactions to music. A good critic doesn't sit in judgment, he honestly assesses and explores for the benefit of the larger community of listeners. And that's who "judges the judges," too. Music criticism necessarily entails value judgments--that's the point, or one of the points in any case. I'd rather read a critic with strong opinions say what he or she finds lacking in a musician I like than a critic who never leaves the realm of feel-good compliments because anything else would be "tearing the music apart." Larry isn't making personal attacks on anyone's character, he's talking about art. I have no reason to think Kenny G isn't a hell of a nice guy, but that doesn't mean I won't say what I think about the kind of music he makes. Exactly what I meant, Tom. Thanks. All I'm doing, I used to tell myself (particularly when I was a working journalist filing over-night reviews) is starting one-half of an honest conversation about matters that are likely to be of mutual interest in the right circles, even if I don't always get to hear an actual response (though I often did get them and certainly do now, which is one reason why this place is so addictive). It's not about laying down the law; it's about saying to a friend after you've both experienced something -- "Here's what I thought; what do you think?" Don't see how that's unnnatural or unfair or whatever.

Sorry for chiming in kind of late in this debate, but aren't you putting a bit too much emphasis on (actual or imaginary) artistic jugdments about a superiority that allegedly "mainstream" jazz set out to establish? If you reread period articles about what became to be known as "mainstream" jazz you will very often find the term "middle jazz". This term may have fallen into disuse since but isnt' this what "mainstream" (or "middle jazz", for that matter) is all about? A stream of jazz that is somewhere in the middle between 50s/early 60s modern jazz and Dixielandish revivalist jazz (THIS is where true revivalism was and is)? I.e. nothing more than updated swing music. It is true that the British jazz publicists who coined the term felt that many Swing-era masters were unfairly overlooked by the mid-50s (small wonder ...) but yours is just about the first major statement that I see where the protagonists of "mainstream" are accused of denigrating Modern Jazz (and its outgrowths) as being a "wrong path". So is or was there ever really this confrontation in mainstream jazz that actually existed in the "Moldy figs" debate of a decade before? After all, there have always been "mainstream" artists who have been more on the "Modern Jazz" end of "mainstream" and those who have been on the "swing" end of "mainstream. Read the period articles that such often estimable in many ways figures as Stanley Dance, Raymond Horricks, Albert McCarthy et al. wrote, and I think that you'll find that denigration of modern jazz was implicit, sometimes quite explicit, in their work. BTW, it's not so much the superiority per se of the music they loved (and that I love) to modern jazz that they were trying to establish; rather, it was their belief that certain key aspects of "modern" (guess that needs to be in quotes) jazz were effete, ugly, lacking in warmth and direct human feeling, unduly angry, prone to hysteria, you name it, in comparison to the golden sounds of the golden age. Which is not at all to say that there wasn't a genuine age of gold.

When someone has made a lot of records over the course of almost 30 years now and has been on the receiving end of a lot of praise during that time, as is the case with SH, what I want is not to have to be told in effect that it is perfectly OK that he's never going to be much more than OK -- this when there are lots of players who are, I think, stylistically quite comparable to SH who were playing their socks off when they were a whole lot younger than SH is today. I don't begrudge SH's ability, or anyone's ability, to make a decent living playing OK music, and I like some of the music that SH makes. What I am saying is that what's at stake here at a certain point in all this is our ability to make (or even our desire to make) accurate, meaningful aesthetic estimates.

I think I've been rational and, if you will, "polite" about this whole Scott Hamilton thing, but I heard (or rather re-heard) something yesterday that made me feel just how much is being (and has been incrementally over the years) conceded here. What I heard was a reissue of a old favorite 1958 VeeJay Bennie Green-Gene Ammons album "The Swingin'est," with those two plus Frank Wess, Frank Foster, Nat Adderly, Tommy Flanagan, Eddie Jones, and Albert Heath. It's a great date overall, and all three tenormen are in superb form -- all of them arguably (at least at that time in their careers; Foster later would get rather Trane-ish) in much the same swing to bop vein that Scott Hamilton has mined since he made his recording debut. Now you'll say that it's unfair to compare Ammons (or Wess or Foster) to SH; Ammons is a master, and the other two (both of whom, especially Foster, more than hold there here) are.... But, then I thought, wait a minute! At the time of this recording, Ammons was, believe or not, only 33, Foster was 30, and old man Wess was 36. So at what point does does SH, or anyone like him (SH having turned 33 back in f------ 1987!), stop getting a pass for being the kind of player he is and be listened to instead alongside otherwise quite comparable, or so it seems to me, figures. I'm not saying that music is a competitive sport, but let's get real.

Yes: http://www.clotcare.com/clotcare/dvtstorymelaniebloom.aspx

I've sent a check: Dear Friends of Bill Kirchner and Judy Kahn: Your friends need your help. All of you know about Bill’s longstanding health problems. Some of you know that for the best part of this past year, things have been especially difficult. First, Bill endured a summer of radiation to address the re-growth of his spinal cord tumor. The radiation caused disintegration of protective sheaths around his spinal cord, which sent him to the ER in October. Then came increasingly debilitating pain and stiffness, followed by severely swollen legs and feet. When his good leg buckled under him two weeks ago, he was rushed to the ER and admitted to the hospital for four days. The problem was Deep Venous Thrombosis (DVT), serious blood clots deep in the veins in both legs that might break off and travel, causing dangerous risks to major organs; even with blood thinner medication, these could take months to dissolve. Now Bill and Judy are in the exhausting process of sorting contradictory medical opinions on why all this happened and what to do next, including the possibility of another spinal surgery. Bill has been told to keep moving, but on a very limited basis. Bill is having so much trouble getting around that he's using a cane all the time now, and walking only with great effort and poor balance. Since he’s lost his ability to travel on his own, it’s now necessary for him to be “delivered” door to door for his medical appointments and teaching duties at three universities. As a freelancer, Judy must take work when it comes or risk losing jobs, contacts, health insurance, and her share of their income. It is impossible for her to be "on call" to chauffeur Bill. So far, they have been blessed with generous friends pitching in, but this situation may go on for months. The only reasonable solution is to hire transportation to fill in the gaps. Our first thought was to organize a benefit concert, but that takes time, and Bill needs help immediately. So we’ve decided to approach Bill’s friends, colleagues, and admirers directly. That’s what this e-mail is about. We urge you to send a check to help defray these expenses—and to forward this e-mail to anyone whom you think would be willing to do the same. Our goal is to raise enough money to see our dear friends through the worst of the weeks and months to come, in the hope that Bill’s health will improve to the point where he can once again take public transportation and get around on his own. If you’re one of the many people who’s listened to Bill’s music, tuned in one of his broadcasts, or read a set of his liner notes, you’ve gotten a sense of what a compassionate guy he is. Bill and Judy have been generous to many of us through the years. Now it’s our turn to help them. Please make your checks out to Judy Kahn, and send them directly to this address: Bill Kirchner and Judy Kahn 269 Audley Street South Orange, NJ 07079 Then pass the word. You can make a big difference in your friends’ lives—but please don’t wait. They need you now. Many thanks for any help you can give. Sincerely, TERRY TEACHOUT JUDITH SCHLESINGER JIM FERGUSON P.S. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at: Terry Teachout, TerryTeachout@earthlink.net Judith Schlesinger, shrinktunes@optonline.net Jim Ferguson, JimFerguson1@comcast.net

France is in fine form on this one: http://www.towncrierrecordings.com/catalog/hayward.htm I have this in cassette form, plus another cassette from the same label with the same personnel plus IIRC Buddy Tate. Hayward is rather cocktailish, a la Eddie Heywood, but on the whole that's no problem. One of the cassettes, I think the one with the two tenors, was recorded live at Eddie Condon's. Also, the same label has a fine, stunningly recorded solo set from Roland Hanna.

I heard Tal live in a Chicago club in the early or mid-1980s, and, though it seems hard to believe, he was playing at a level that was beyond anything I'd heard from him on record -- and I've heard most of what there is. It was like Tatum on guitar, and not just in terms of speed -- the flow of consequential thought was almost beyond my ability to take it in.

Ed Sherman-George Crater's stuff never struck me as funny either, in part because its premises were so often reactionary/defensive, as though Charlie's Tavern was and for all time ought to be the center of the universe. Lord knows there were are some great jokes/true funny stories that are associated with that and similar scenes -- a fair number of them about trombonists -- but they work in part because they are genuinely from the inside; Sherman-Crater never seems to be IMO.