Larry Kart

This one is still around: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Courtly-Love-Mun...3168&sr=1-5 and holds up very well, though more recent performances of some of these works seem more specific (more relaxed or intense, as the case may be -- Munrow and friends might have been sight-reading at times). I was greatly enlightened by and enjoyed this set way back when -- for one thing, it led me to draw a (fairly shrewd IMO) comparison between the music of Roscoe Mitchell (specifically "L-R-G") and that of such 14 Century avant gardists as Grimace and Solage. I still wonder what Roscoe would have made of Solage's "Fumeux fume," which is the most Roscoe-like piece of non-Roscoe music I know.

I have been enjoying your book "Jazz In Search of Itself" a great deal recently. I had become frustrated at my inability to read it without constant interruptions from family members, so I moved it into a permanent place in the bathroom. Now I am able to read portions of it in a completely focused manner. Thanks. Writing a book that is best read in the bathroom was always my goal.

Buble, without question.

A guy is driving through rural Poland in the 1930s when he notices that his fancy pocket watch has stopped working. Passing through the next little town, he spies a storefront full of clocks and watches. He parks the car, walks in, hauls out his timepiece, and asks the gentleman behind the counter if he can fix the watch. "No." "You can't?" "No." Well what, may I ask, is your line of business?" I'm the town mohel." "And why is the window of your store full of clocks and watches?" "What should I put in the window?"

The DVD Royal Ballet "Pagodas" conductor was Ashley Lawrence, who died fairly young: (b Hamilton, NZ, 5 June 1934, d Tokyo, 7 May 1990). British conductor. He studied at the Royal College of Music and became conductor of Touring Royal Ballet Company (1962-6). In 1966 he moved to Berlin Opera Ballet as conductor then in 1970 to Stuttgart, rejoining the Royal Ballet in 1972, where he was music director from 1973 to 1987. He then worked as an international freelance, guesting with Paris Opera, Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, and Royal New Zealand Ballet.

Actually, I almost got the Knussen but decided instead to go for the DVD of the ballet: http://www.amazon.com/Britten-Pagodas-Buss...2779&sr=1-1 revised choreography by Kenneth McMillan instead of the original choreography of John Cranko. Read somewhere that McMillan's version is much superior to Cranko's (which was felt at the time not to be a success), but I have no basis for comparison myself. The McMillan/Britten is one heck of a gripping ballet though, both in terms of dance and story-telling, and it's danced to the nines by this cast. Don't recall who the conductor is and can't put my hands on the DVD right now, but having seen the ballet, even if Knussen's version is better-conducted, I don't think I'd ever be satisfied with just the music.

Good story well told, Hot Ptah.

I like just about every Knussen recording I've heard, though all or almost all I've heard are the only recordings of those works or the only ones I know. On the other hand, a brilliant pianist/modern music specialist (who can also play the pants off of Schumann et al.) volunteered when I told him I liked several of Knussen's Elliott Carter discs, that Knussen doesn't have much of an idea how that music works/should go. And on one of those recordings, this guy is the soloist. This guy then stopped me cold by saying that the Carter conductor he respects most is Barenboim. Soon afterwards I heard him play under Barenboim the work he had recorded with Knussen. The concert performance was a terrific experience in real time, but I really can't compare it to the Knussen recording because the latter I can re-listen to whenever I want, while the concert performance under Barenboim is just a fond but vague memory. Also, it's hard to retain enough of a work of Carter-level complexity in one's head to measure a single live performance from three or four years ago against a recording -- unless, of course, either the concert performance or the recording happened to be a disaster. FWIW, Barenboim introduced the Carter concert performance with a speech about the work (with musical examples) that was so long, disjointed (I think he was talking off the top of his head), and to some degree condescending that I feared the worst.

Huh? Where does that McVea date come from Larry? According to the Billboard books of Whitburn, the record debuted on the Billboard pop charts on 25 January 1947 and on the R&B charts on 8 February 1947. None of the other hit versions of the song debuted on either Billboard chart before 1947. It's supposed to have been recorded in c September 1946 - I guess it could have issued in October. MG From Wikipedia: "The recording by Jack McVea, recorded in October 1946, was released by Black & White Records as catalog number 792. It first reached the Billboard magazine Best Seller chart on February 14, 1947 and lasted 2 weeks on the chart, peaking at #7. As stated above, this was the original recording." So while McVea's original recording didn't chart until Feb. 1947, it was supposedly recorded in Oct. 1946 (don't know when it was released). I'm guessing that if it it hadn't been released by the time those Davis-Navarro dates were recorded in Dec. '46, word that that specific record was likely (or things of that sort were likely) to be very popular was no secret at indie outfits like Savoy and Black and White (the label that made the McVea recording). After all, "Open the Door, Richard" sprang from an already well-known, in black entertainment circles, comedy-with-music routine, and what that record and a host of others to come was in part about was a significantly more overt permeation of American culture by black styles of entertainment (and acknowledgment of same) -- all this in the wake of World War II, which shook up and shunted about so many things. In particular, I believe there was on the home front a significant influx of Black Americans into areas like Detroit, Los Angeles et al., where war industries were going full bore; thus, far more white Americans than before the war were literally around good numbers of Black Americans, and of course vice versa. I'm painting with a broad brush here, but I dimly recall that even at age five, when "Richard" became a hit, it was fairly clear to me that the appeal of the record had something to do the the idea that it was in itself fun/exciting/cool/you name it to be in contact with something that came from the people from whom "Richard" came -- that plus the fact that arguably the people from whom it came previously had found it amusing themselves. Would it be going too far to say that a kind of casual, mutual sharing of experience was involved? I recall a young Black woman who baby sat for me a few times back then -- a latter-day Savoy Ballroom jitterbug-type person. I thought she was so cool, and trying one evening to draw picture of her with crayons to give her as a present, I was stumped as to how to capture her skin tone. Don't know if I asked her for help or she just observed my dilemma, but she volunteered that I should lay down a light base of yellow and add brown on top until it looked right -- all of this conveyed with much relaxed good humor; IIRC she might even have laughed. Boy, she had a lot of bounce, and discovering/acknowledging the presence and value of "bounce" might be one way to sum up what I think was going on in much of the society at that time.

Also, Mal Waldron -- as a pianist, not as a composer.

Checking up a bit on "Open the Door, Richard," I like my guess. The hit Jack McVea recording (the first of many commercially successful versions and one of the first pop records that drilled itself into my brain) debuted in Oct. 1946. The Davis-Navarro dates are from Dec. 18 and 20, 1946.

Among my favorite moments from the often brilliant, sometimes cranky/obtuse to the point of lunacy Max Harrison, writing here (in "The Essential Jazz Recordings. Vol. 2") of Jaws' 1947 recordings with Fats Navarro: "The dates with 'Lockjaw' Davis, an arch vulgarian who subsequently found his true metier as a cog in Basie's ponderous latter-day machine, resulted in performances which juxtapose some of the best and worst qualities that jazz has to offer. Sounding as if impaled on his own indignation, Davis naively deploys his armoury of honks and whinnyings as Navarro soars with majestic freedom. The exchange of four-bar phrases in 'Hollerin' and Screamin' ... demonstrates all too vividly the divergent ideals of this pair, with the trumpet's dancing melodic fragments answering the tenor's incoherent belches." Two or three things at the least: 1) Early Jaws can be quite raw and may be an acquired taste 2) but Max clearly not only loathes latter-day Jaws as well ("...found his true metier as a cog in Basie's ponderous latter-day machine") but refuses to make any distinction between the Jaws of '47 and the Jaws of 20 or so years further on, which is absurd to the point of insisting on something that's virtually false when you know you can be found out (an odd, creepy trait of Max's), and 3) Max takes no account of the likely fact that, as two of the titles on those Davis-Navarro dates ("Hollerin' and Screamin'" and "Stealin' Trash") virtually proclaim, Davis was quite deliberately going in a neo-R&B direction there, probably at the request of the producer, who might have thought that that approach might give Savoy an "Open the Door, Richard" type of hit. Certainly there are other recorded solos by Davis from that period where he doesn't sound that way.

Ophelie has one hell of a punim. Check her out (especially that striking prow of a nose): http://www.opheliegaillard.com/ And the excerpt of her playing is impressive too.

Either it was Dexter Gordon in conversation or Booker Ervin in a Blindfold Test who said, "Damn -- that Jaws plays backwards!" If it was Dexter who said it -- and he if didn't, he certainly said something like that -- it was said with a tone of great, bemused respect.

No, they didn't, but they're certainly weird in the sense that Drew doesn't, as one might expect for such an overtly Muzak-like date, merely damp down his normal approach to playing ballads -- which again could be quite floridly romantic though also very interesting/creative, a la Bud Powell's typical approach to ballads, in fact. Instead of doing that, which I'm sure would have filled the bill (such as it was) just as well as what he did end up doing, Drew IIRC adopts a wholly different approach that's so stiff and cheesy (like what you'd find in a circa 1932 ballroom) that it almost could be taken as parodistic, except that I'm pretty sure it's not. Was this Drew's idea or Orin Keepnews' or Bill Grauer's? (As I recall, Keepnews was the producer on one of these sessions and Grauer on the other.) Perhaps Chris Albertson would know. And if it was the producer's idea, how was it communicated to Drew? "No -- Kenny we don't want soft and pretty; we want total white-bread-and-mayonnaise-with-a-sprinkle-of-pearls-and-dog-crap-on-top stupid. Can you do that?"

The "community" point that Jim just made so well on the "Nero problems" thread is a BIG deal to me.

I know what you mean, I think, but also believe that it depends on how the analysis is done. If it's merely a way of stating in technical terms (and displaying in musical notation) what one can hear on a recording, what's the point? All that you've done in effect is draw a map in which one inch of map equals one inch of the landscape or put a label that says "leaf" on every leaf of a tree (unless there's some special, minute but vital, ambiguity at work that virtually demands musical notation for this thing even to be discussed further). But if you can point precisely to the specific musical facts that are the crucial ones -- a la the ways (to continue the tree metaphor) one might distinguish an oak from an aspen or a healthy, beautiful oak from one that's not in good shape -- then you may really have something. Example of such analysis are less common than one might wish, but a terrific one is Ted Brown's analysis of a Warne Marsh solo in Safford Chamberlain's Marsh biography "An Unsung Cat" (it's an appendix to the book). I recently lent the book to someone, but IIRC Brown is writing about a Warne solo on "Tickletoe." BTW, such an analysis can be meaningful even if one isn't that technically versed or a score reader (I am neither), because when Brown homes in on a key element in the solo and discusses its relation to other key parts and to the whole, it's fairly easy to re-listen to the solo yourself and get just what he's talking about.

Willie Pickens at the Gate sessions, too, I believe, certainly Donald Garrett; in fact, he played bass as often as Victor Sproles; and Dorel Anderson on drums. No Von Freeman, not when I was there. No John Gilmore or Clifford Jordan or John Jenkins (all probably in New York by that time) or Andrew Hill either. Julian Priester must have been on the road then with Hampton or Dinah Washington. No Richard Abrams, I think, or Eddie Harris. Trying to think of other Chicagoans who should have/could have been there but were not and why, aside from their being on the road or at other regular gigs. The clique (though "clique" probably would be too strong a way to put it) no doubt centered around Ira musically and Joe Segal as the man at the door (at the least). Also, the Gate was located on the North Side -- on Chicago Ave. (800 North, at the corner of Wabash) for whatever that's worth; the racial composition of the players was mostly Af-Am, to use some shorthand, and I never sensed that there was any hint of a "draft" in any direction. The standard that shaped things there seemed to have been stylistic comfort/compatibility and level of skill within that. Later on, when Ornette made his first records, Ira and Nicky Hill were playing Ornette's pieces (e.g. "When Will the Blues Leave") right away. Nicky, always a melodic thinker, really seemed to get what was going on there, but sadly he would be gone much too soon.

Thanks Larry, I will put that on the cover of my upcoming book...... Actually I love the cover of your book! m I do, too http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Search-Itself-L...3609&sr=1-1 which I can say because I had nothing to do with taking this picture of Ira Sullivan, Johnny Griffin, and bassist Nevin Wilson (don't even know who took it), though it came into my possession years ago, and the publisher said they could use it (as I recall, being prepared to pay something if the photographer later showed up and could show that he/she took it). I love it in part because it looks like it was shot from the same front table at the Gate of Horn where I used to sit to hear/see Ira and Griffin at Monday night Joe Segal-run sessions circa 1957, where you could get in while in your teens because in Chicago at that time Monday was a so-called "off night" for clubs, and no alcohol could be served. Actually, I think this shot was taken somewhere else, maybe the Pink Poodle, because I have no memory of ever seeing or hearing Nevin Wilson. The usual bass player at the Gate sessions was Victor Sproles, with people like Jim Atlas, Bob Cranshaw and others sitting in. Wilbur Ware was in New York by then, I'm sure, didn't hear him "live" until later on. Usual first-call drummer was Wilbur Campbell, pianist was Jodie Christian. Heard Chris Anderson there; he was magical but was terribly frail, had to be lifted onto the stand and IIRC placed on the piano bench. Very high-intensity atmosphere at those sessions, a fast track. I remember being impressed by the way the young Stu Katz (piano and vibes) handled himself under those conditions. Other frequent visitors included, tenormen Nicky Hill, Dick Kroll (Mobley-esque), and Haig Tchian (sp?) -- it was pronounced "Tich-ee-an -- who also played alto, tackling both horns in an abrupt, "pecking" Shafi Hadi-like manner, though Tchian developed independently, had been playing this way before Hadi became known outside Philadelphia. Didn't know it at the time, but Tchian was celebrated for the large size of his organ; he carried a photo of it (in a flacid state, I believe, a la the famous magazine ad shot of Joe Maini) in his wallet; when he saw a woman he was interested in, he would show her the photo. Apparently, this worked often enough. Other pianists I recall sitting-in were Eddie Baker and the young Denny Zeitlin, who was pretty amazing -- not yet under the thrall of Bill Evans, blending his own stuff with Bud Powell and Tristano strains, as Evans himself was at that time, but Zeitlin's own early stuff was something else, almost Dick Twardzik-like IIRC. Drummers included Walter Perkins. It was a bit odd in retrospect being restricted at the time to only those local musicians who showed up at the Gate sessions, but you just couldn't get into ny another club if you were a teenager, unless maybe your parents or some other adult took you, and I didn't see my parents taking me to the Crown Propeller Lounge. The Blue Note, a few times -- to see Woody Herman, and Mulligan with Art Farmer -- and there were JATP concerts and the Basie Band-Birdland All Stars tour. I remember seeing Maynard Ferguson's band on one of those Birdland-linked tours, and during a heated solo altoist Jimmy Ford had some kind of spasm onstage -- one arm flew off the horn and began to flap around uncontrollably for about four bars. Don't know Ford in action well enough to say whether that was a mannerism or some genuine physical-mental problem, but at the time I assumed it was latter. Kind of scary, I thought.

I agree about the nature and number of the phases, and that the best of first phase was his best playing.

Been listening to "The Cat" lately, which is one of the tastiest Byrd-Adams Quintet albums (Philly Joe is in great form, there are attractive originals from Duke Pearson and Byrd, and Adams is very creative-mellow), but a la that dimly remembered (by me) review I wrote of "Slow Drag," there's something about Byrd in his several pre-Black Byrds incarnations that leaves me a bit uneasy/less than convinced for various reasons. The early Byrd (at his best perhaps on the Jazz Messengers' "Nica's Dream" date) was the "light and graceful playing on the chords" guy IMO -- a very chord-to-chord improviser in practice, I think, though with a clear desire to make the results sound lyrical (which certainly could happen), though the thinking again seemed to be more chordal than melodic, which even when it all worked out left one (at least me) with a slight feeling of unease. Then things got much less-notey, more brassy, and at times overtly simple and overtly soulful. Again, even when it all worked, as it often did, I couldn't help but feel that the most prominent but mostly concealed element in this mix was Byrd's will to make things come out this way; the simplicity and soulfulness (the former especially) both sounded so "studied," if you know what I mean -- especially in the light of the lithe, chord-running Byrd of a few years before. The transition from one style to the other seemed kind of odd, even extra-musical. Was it in some way a response to Clifford Brown's death? Also, does anyone know on which albums of the '60s Byrd is playing pocket trumpet? He is on "Fuego" IIRC, and he sounds like he might be on "The Cat" as well.

That third shot is especially nice. Lovely mood to it, lots of unobtrusive skill on your part.

If so, I can see why Jim probably wouldn't want to go into details. On the other hand, the details would matter I think, because I can't imagine (and, again, this may be my lack of imagination at work) that anything I'm aware of that's been said here over the years by anyone other than the few (?) people who've been kicked off for really bad behavior would offend anyone whom one would want to work for. I know, that sounds really arrogant or worse -- it wasn't my gig that was lost. But, practically, if it was just the fact that the band was associated with a place of the same name where relatively free speech prevailed, wouldn't such a club owner be pretty likely to find another reason or two to make the band's life miserable -- before, during, or after the gig? Now if it was about something more specific -- but what would/could that have been? Oh, wait -- what am I thinking? Was it Joe Segal? That I can understand, because Joe (God bless him for much) has said things to my face that made it clear where he stands on this and related topics.

I'm an admirer of Chris (both in his role in the world at large and on the board -- though we certainly don't agree about some things) and have never had anything but positive thoughts about Couw. But while I kind of understand what Couw means by the board's "positively huge google presence" and how "it may serve or hurt the band," I don't understand how a negative remark made here about Peter Nero could possibly hurt the band. Maybe I'm dense, but I just don't get it. Now if the board became known as a place where, say, fierce ugly remarks were often made about subjects that commonly give offense, I can see where the association via Google between those remarks and the place where they were made (and the assumption that the board's moderator has no problem with them) would/could cause some problems for Organissimo the band. But, again, Peter Nero? And are there examples of Organissimo the band being affected in its livelihood by things that have been posted here. Maybe so -- and, if so, perhaps Jim doesn't want to get into specifics -- but has that happened?

Not strictly true (I am really just picking nits***) -- the revolt itself was successful in chasing the Syrian Greeks out (with occasional setbacks) and creating a Jewish kingdom in Judea. However, about a century later the rulers of that kingdom (descended from the Macabees) fell into bickering and when Pompey the Great brought Roman legions into the Levant he "settled the dispute" by sucking Judea into the Roman orbit. Guy ***I am sure Larry's parenthetical comment was just intended as a summary of my paragraph. Thanks for the correction, Guy. Actually, I'd clean forgotten (but am pretty sure I once knew) that that much time elapsed between the revolt that overthrew the Syrian Greeks and the Roman takeover of Judea.