Larry Kart

Don't know for sure, but I would guess some form of cancer. Anita said in an email to me last night that it (whatever "it" is) was discovered as the result of bouts of severe back pain, but her tone indicated that the back pain was a symptom and what was causing it was not in that league at all. I get the feeling that time is of the essence, which suggests an expensive surgical option, If so, I suppose that's goodish news because there's a lot of stuff they can't operate on.

If perchance I'm guessing right about what Chuck had in mind, finding recordings that have the very elusive right spirit is crucial, and Leibowitz (best known for his advocacy of Schoenberg, Webern et al.) had a terrific feel for Offenbach. I have these two recordings on LP (plus some others by him, I believe) and can vouch for them as performances, though I can't vouch for the CD transfers: http://www.amazon.com/Offenbach-belle-Hélè...9543&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Offenbach-Orpheus-Un...9642&sr=1-3 Also topnotch is the first Cluytens "Tales of Hoffman": http://www.amazon.com/Offenbach-contes-dHo...9758&sr=1-3 This may be available from other labels as well; I have it on a libertto-less EMI reissue from 10 or more years ago. Do not confuse this recording, from the mid-1950s, with the second Cluytens "Tales," with Schwarzkopf et al.; that's a disaster.

Just got this email from composer-arranger-bandleader Anita Brown (Ted Brown's daughter): Dear Friends, This concerns a long-time friend of mine, and of most of you, who is a pillar in the International Jazz Community. My father's most recent CD includes Dennis' fine work (hear clips on iTunes thru my LINKS page) and I have had the pleasure of spending countless hours with him at The Village Vanguard after gigs. He has taught and inspired me so very much in business, music and spirituality. Dennis is truly a gem; a beautiful and spiritual person in addition to one of the finest bass players in the world. Learning of his illness just before Christmas was devastating to me. Please read below. I hope you can find the time and the means to help in some way. Every little bit helps. For those of you who don't know what "Sixteen As One Music" is, it is The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra's non-profit business name. Checks made payable to "Sixteen As One Music" are therefore tax deductible and being handled by The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra's Executive Board, FYI. With heartfelt thanks, Anita Brown and Anita Brown Jazz Orchestra Forwarded Message: Dear Friends and Associates; This email is in regards to Dennis Irwin, the beloved and world famous bass player whom we all know well. If you haven't already heard, Dennis is very seriously ill and will be leaving New York City quite soon to seek other treatments. Right now he needs our support both spiritually and financially. We will be having a benefit event for him at Smalls Jazz Club on Sunday, February 3rd after the Super Bowl. Even though this may not be the most convenient date, time is of the essence and we cannot wait here. We will begin at 10:00 PM and continue until 4:00 AM at Smalls. Everyone is invited to come down and participate by playing and also by making a contribution. A box will be set up so that the donations will be discreet and anonymous. Everything collected will go directly to Dennis. There will be no cover charge for this event but you'll be expected to contribute something, whatever's within your means. Smalls will be donating a portion of bar sales to Dennis as well (so come and drink!). Once again, the date is Sunday night, February 3rd starting at 10:00 PM, after the Super Bowl. Smalls is located at 183 West 10th street at 7th Avenue, just down the street from the Village Vanguard. Our website is www.smallsjazzclub.com <http://www.smallsjazzclub.com/ > . Any further questions or inquires please send an email to info@smallsjazzclub.com. If you cannot come and would like to make a tax deductible donation to Dennis, send a check payable to Sixteen As One Music, Inc to: Sixteen As One Music, Inc 888-C Eighth Ave. #160 New York, NY 10019 On the memo line write: Dennis Irwin. Please come out, bring your instruments and play and show your support for Dennis Irwin. Thank you so much! Smalls Jazz Club PS: Please forward this email to anyone in your email list you think would be interested.

I've belatedly become aware of Bishop, Johnson, and guitarist John Stowell through a couple of albums they did together, one with Rick Mandyck, one with just the trio. Excellent players who have their own voices.

A snippet from the website of singer Johnny Janis: http://www.starwellmusic.com/index.html "Another musical highlight for me was working at Le Bistro in Chicago with the Billy Wallace Trio. Five nights a week for two great years I couldn't wait to go to work. Plus I recorded an album (The Start Of Something New) with Billy's trio for Columbia Records." BTW, Janis offers a record, made some time ago but never released, that features him with Dodo Marmarosa and Ira Sullivan. I will be looking into this myself.

Just ordered it.

I wondered why Free For All and Joe G. were about the only ones who responded to it. When I die, if I go to heaven, I'll be listening to Raney/Zoller.

This latish (1988) Nistico album, Empty Room, with a very good Italian rhythm section, also sounds like Sal finally found that center within himself: http://www.amazon.com/Empty-Room-Sal-Nisti...t/dp/B000000G4T Samples can be heard.

Parts of that Hayes-Nistico interview are very poignant, if I can use that word. It's hard to be jazz musician, especially when, like these two guys, you were real good when you were young and now you've been doing that thing for a good while. Also I love Sal's last phrase in this exchange: HAYES: Right So you’ve always played a Conn, eh? NISTICO: Well, before that I had a Buescher. Which is a good sound but boy, it’s a big feeling in the fingers, getting around it The Conn is the same principle blowing–wise -- like, you blow and it feels like the metal is spreading.

Speaking of Sal and tenormen interacting with a big band, what say you of these with Sal? The first is with Basie, the next three with Herman, the last (not a video) is a long blues with a Detroit small group. It would have been nice to hear Tubby and Sal face off: Jumpin' at the Woodside: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CRmsW6tuH0 Four Brothers (dig Joe Romano's eyes; here and even more so on "Hallelujah Time" below, he reminds of Sid Caesar's "Progress Hornsby"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEPrs5DkzsM Sister Sadie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbjK9TZ3vnQ Hallelujah Time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_5GvWEqbL8 Blues: http://jazzaudienceadvocates.org/musicians.htm

...fines?

If he played with Von it's probably the same Billy Wallace. If so, great news that he's still with us. It looks like Max's "Jazz in 3/4 Time" and "Live at the Bee Hive" may be Wallace's only records. Toward the end of his solos, he liked to play semi-parallel lines in the upper and lower registers. The young Denny Zeitlin may have picked up on this, though it's also possible that Denny began to do that kind of thing independently (I mention this because both were Chicago-area players, though Denny was a fair bit younger at the time, in his late teens). In both cases, there was some real in-the-moment thinking involved in this; it wasn't just a worked-out, worked-up device. I think Wallace might have been from Milwaukee originally.

Here's Zoller with Jim Hall, Red Mitchell and Daniel Humair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64nasU3XKo Some nice music, but it's annoying how much time is spent on tight shots of faces and fingers (some of them virtually meaningless and/or not particularly coordinated with what is being played) instead of, as in the Raney-Zoller video, just letting us see the guys play and interact.

Rene Leibowitz?

Sorry I screwed up the name -- it's Attila Zoller. (And now I've fixed it.) And I even met him once back in 1969, a nice guy. Here's a sweet-sad interview with him, done two weeks before he died in Jan. 1999: http://www.vtjazz.org/about/attila_interview.html

Do you know the unreleased at the time Strozier 1960 VeeJay album "Cool, Calm and Collected," released in 1993 with numerous alternate takes? Fine rhythm section -- Billy Wallace, Bill Lee, and Vernel Fournier -- and the date was recorded with exceptional presence at Universal Studios in Chicago, probably by engineer Bruce Sweiden, who did a number of Chicago VeeJay dates. In any case, Universal Studios was just a good, airy room, a la Columbia's 30th St. Studio. Arguably, Wallace is a bit high in the mix, and his instrument is not the finest, but the band is in the room with you. Some of the best Fournier on record. The liner notes oddly refer to Billy Wallace as "Wallace William" and quote Dan Morgenstern as saying this "may be his only record." If there was a Wallace William, maybe so (no blame to Dan for responding thusly to an erroneous question), but this is Billy Wallace (correctly identified on the back cover of the CD), who recorded with Max Roach among others.

Sorting through the Tubby Hayes that's on YouTube, I came across this interesting performance that finds Hayes with a Benny Golson-led big band and that features a solo by an interesting Rene Thomas-like guitarist, David Goldberg, that I've never heard of before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srXtl0QQaJM But this is astonishing: Raney, for me, is one of the best improvisers ever, regardless of instrument. Also, dig his expressions and body language here. And the last note!

Damn -- I liked that woman. She and Ann Southern had a certain kinship -- sexy, funny, a bit of a weight problem.

I agree -- she looks fresher in the face (and no less fresh elsewhere). I wonder if Marilyn later had some work done on her punim.

I've hauled in this post of mine from another list, where a review of a recent Med Flory Jazz Wave big band concert brought this to mind: Al Cohn's excellent composition and arrangement "No Thanks" from that Fresh Sound Med Flory Jazz Wave reissue ["Go West, Young Med!"] has what may be the best shout chorus I've ever heard. It sure does shout, but it's also so melodic and with some unexpected but utterly organic rhythmic anticipations/reversals. The long line of that chorus (it's virtually a single evolving thought) reminds me of Johnny Mandel, but the whole piece has that moaning feel that was among Cohn's trademarks. Wonderful to think how much artistry Cohn poured into one three-minute piece for a rehearsal band. But then that was quite a band: John Bello,, Al Derisi, Jerry Kail, Doug Mettome (tpts.), Billy Byers, Urbie Green, Milt Gold (trbs.), Flory, Hal McKusick, Cohn, Jack Agee (saxes), John Williams (pno.), Teddy Kotick (bs.), Art Mardigan (dms.). Only four tracks by them on the album, but they're all memorable. The rest are by West Coast versions of Flory's Jazz Wave, from 1956-7, plus two odd tracks for reeds and rhythm from 1959. The "No Thanks" band was New York- based, rec. in 1954.

What a shock that would be.

I don't understand about the Lytle sessions. Weren't his records fairly popular by the jazz record co. standards of the time? Or was that just his later stuff for Prestige (or was it Muse?) -- or did his stuff never sell much for anybody?

BTW Bright Moments, the girl in the photo at the bottom of your post looks tantalizingly familiar to me (as well as just tantalizing), but I can't quite place her. Is it Doris Day before she got so blonde?

At first glance I thought it was a tribute to Martin Williams.

No wonder he was so hard to bring down.