Larry Kart

Jeez, Larry, you're old! But what I wouldn't do to have been there with you. I'm 64 but feel about a year younger.

Hello Danielle -- Frank Rosaly, one of Chicago's best drummers (I'm a Chicago-area person), grew up in Arizona and played with the Northern Arizona U. band. Here's his website: http://rosalywelcome.blogspot.com/ I caught the fever in seventh grade and early in eighth grade got to go to a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert that included Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, and Dizzy Gillespie. It felt being in the same room with Zeus or Apollo.

I would make that argument too, except that there's been a noticable lack of the "intellectual" counter-balance in far too much of that music, which is, to me, a huge part of what made jazz the special thing it was back when it was what it was. Now, I don't meant to sound like I'm entirely blaming jazz for leaving the streets. The street over the last 25 years or so have gotten significantly nastier than they used to be, When I was out and about on them, a guy like me could get by by just following some simple, common-sense, rules. You could definitely get vibed stronger than was comfortable, and ther were even then certain pockets into which you did not tread w/o "proper accompaniment" (and one or two that you didn't, even with), but if you could handle walking among pimps, hookers, pushers, junkies, cons, and hoods w/o acting like a punk and/or a fool, you could get where you needed to go, and once there, get down to whatever business was at hand. Automatic weapons, drive-bys, crazed crackheads, and children playing Capone weren't a part of the equation then (give me 100 junkies - and 500 winos - over one crackhead any day. Seriously.) So I can understand. Earlier, I used the phrase "abdication of responsivility", and that might have been too much, given the realities. But I do question, not that people moved, but what they did once they moved. We rightly criticize government and "the majority" for abandoning the streets, writing them off and leaving them for dead. But what about the musicians? Couldn't they feel the raw enegry and the (often blunted) real intelligence coming out of all that "noise" that was coming from what they left behind? Didn't they feel at least some affinity/empathy for what was making it all go down like that? I mean, shit, I did, I heard Public Enemy back in the day when I was pretty much a "jazz purist", and said, "Yeah, I can understand this". But like too many others, I had lost my direct sense of connection (which was admittedly nowhere near as direct/constant/organic as many), and therefore any real sense of responsibility to in some kind of way find a way to look for a conduit, to let some of that into my world as something other than what "other people" were doing. I can chalk some of that up to my age, my maturation in marriage/family/etc., but some of it I have to admit was due to simply not "being there" any more and just not feeling the need. Hey, things were going well, i was making music, a lot of it the kind I wanted to make, so what if there was all this other shit going on? It could get along just fine without me, right? Well, yeah, it could get along fine w/o me, but I look at how many other "me"s there were, and how many of them had a lot more immediate conection to all this than me, and I'm thinking now that to not actively engage all this energy and raw intelligence in at least some form or fashion was a mistake. A lot of us were (and still are) hung up on the technology, and the ease with which "non-musicians" were making "music". Well, ok, we all have our vanities, egos, and conceits, but it soon became apparent that this was the way things were going to go, nothing we could do about it, so we pretty much said, "fuck it", and quit even pretending to be connected, instead looking backwards to the good ol' days when the wino on the corner had a heart of gold and some convoluted yet cosmically profound wisdom to drop on you if only you'd listen to him in the right way. That was a mistake, I think, and now where are we? Street music has continued to grow and evolve, and I hear so much of (but not on the radio or tv) it trying to grow, expand, to stretch out musically. But they just don't have the tools to get to where they sound like they're trying to get to, and whose fault is that? When are "jazz musicians" going to reach out and say, "hey bro, that's a nice loop you got going there, but why don't you try variatin' it a little, maybe like this..." or "that's a bad rap you got going there, but why don't you put this underneath it to give it a little more meat, give it a little more dimensionality"? Contrary to what "we" like to think, the possibilities are damn near endless, not claustrophobically limited. More to the point - how many "jazz musicians" of today would have the cred to make suggestions like that that would actually work? And how many of them would deem the effort "worthy" of their "talents" in the first place? "We" like to bitch about shallowness and superficiality, but at what point does that cross the line into simple curmodgeonry, of not being able to enjoy a simple pleasure on its own terms w/o feeling "contaminated" by it or some wack shit like that? We whine about the Barbarians taking over, but how much resistance are the getting these days, how many alternatives are being proposed out there where the ideas are formed long before the records get made? Have the connections been so strongly broken that there's no re-connecting, ever? Probably so, and we're all fucked long-term (other than those whose connection to music doesn't extend beyond enjoying 30+ year old reissues in the comfort of their living rooms) if they have been, but I'm not making a definitive answer just yet. In the meantime, like I said above, we need more people like Mike Ladd (in no ways "jazz", but a seriously intelligent mofo w/a serious sense of musicality). And we need to stop "training" people to play like Bird & Trane. Instead, we need to be encouraging players to pay attention to what's going on and to actively engage it on equal terms. The two things that "jazz" is largely lacking right now is a sense of immediacy, and a sense of relevancy to anything other than itself. And the two things that street music is largely lacking right now is musical depth and a perspective of life beyond itself. You'd think that there'd be some sort of hookup, nature abhoring a vacuum and all, but there are not necesarily natural times in which we live... Admittedly my knowledge of the street music of today and recent times is limited and fragmentary, but much of what little I've heard leaves me with the impression (early Geto Boys would be one exception) that in terms of musical tools/habits (rhythmic tools/habits especially) and also, though perhaps not to the same degree or in the same way, sensibility, the divergence between jazz (no matter how broad we stretch that net) and the street music of today and recent times could hardly be more fundamental. However aesthetically valid "what's going on" might be, I get the impression that in terms of musical tools/habits and sensibility, a newly arrived Martian might think that the street music of today and recent times arose as in specific opposition to anything we might want to think of as jazz -- again in terms of musical tools/habits and sensibility. Of course, that's not (or hardly at all) literally the case; and though the incorporation/use of jazz "beats" does speak of a certain curiosity, it could just as well have to do with a vagrant impulse to alter/expunge via appropriation. Again, I'm not saying the street music of today and recent times isn't or doesn't deserve to be "what going on" aesthetically; but based on what I've heard, I see room for little or any musical congress beyond the level of decoration or mere literal (let's lay thing one on top of the other and see what we get) co-existence. Is the belief that it is or ought to be otherwise in part based on the racial makeup of today's street and the racial makeup of the streets that gave rise to jazz and furthered its development? One would think or hope that there would have to be/should be some overlap along those lines, but in terms of musical tools/habits and sensibility, I just don't hear it (which may be my problem/my ignorance). But if it doesn't have to do with the belief/hope that today's street links up with the streets of the past, and it is instead primarily a musical tools/habits and sensibility thing, then to me it's as though the polka were somehow in our world as sophisticated and edgy/street as can be. Would that then mean that jazz and the polka (arguably having so little in common in musical terms) still needed to work something out?

I'd endorse all the '50s albums that Big Beat Steve mentions. In my probably minority opinion, Sims' playing lost much its freshness, became kind of professionally/predictably "Zoot-like," at some point in the '60s, although at least one of the Pablo Rowles-Sims albums is very good. Another choice Zoot moment from the '50s is his theme statement and solo on "Evening in Paris" on Quincy Jones' "This Is How I Feel About Jazz," an album that also has some of the best early work by Phil Woods, another player who IMO took much the same route that Zoot did at about the same time, though for more mysterious (at least to me) reasons. I've heard it said by those who should know that what happened to Zoot's playing over the years was essentially a function of way too much heavy drinking. and that the times when things were different for him musically were almost always times when he'd cut back for a while.

One that I really like that may be easy to miss is the Mike Wofford. A highlight is his version of Ray Bryant's "Tonk," an irresitably clever-catchy tune. There's also a version of a standard -- as I recall it's "Too Marvelous For Words" -- that's really Tatum-esque in its deep/quirky harmonic thinking, though it's far from a literal Tatum salute.

Words of much wisdom.

Tough to compete with what Ms. Giambarini is packing, but Meredith D'Ambrosio's "Wishing On The Moon" (Sunnyside), which I believe came out in 2006, is something else (and beautifully recorded by RVG): http://www.sunnysiderecords.com/release_de...p?releaseID=319 Here's an email I sent to a friend about it: Just picked up a newish Meredith D'Ambrosio album, "Wishing On The Moon" (Sunnyside) album. All the tunes are hers (words and music), except for one where she wrote words to an instrumentnal by Deena De Rose. I don't know everything that Meredith has recorded (I have maybe five of her albums), but I think she's been moving toward where she is here for a long time, and it's a special place. It sounds like (though I don't know at all if this is how she actually works) she begins as a writer with a musical framework, and to a perhaps lesser extent a template of words, that both spring from yet make somewhat abstract (in their relative irregularity) the familiar music-and-words patterns of "standard era" chorus structure material (for instance, her lyrics don't always rhyme and/or the rhyme words fall at the end of one line and the beginning or the middle of another -- e.g. "I remember you./You made me think you cared./So, What was I to do?/For a while I would somehow be/Spared from sorrow" etc. Meanwhile, or perhaps that should be "then," Meredith takes what she's got so far and I would guess regards it as an improvising instrumentalist would a tune that she or he is going to blow on -- not only modifying/varying the given material as it seems attractive to do but also doing so in what might be thought of as a specifically jazz-like manner, i.e. at this stage she discreetly introduces phrasing and harmonic choices that are both more overtly "swinging" and (sorry, can't think of another term) more "hip" in their relative obliqueness than was the case in the piece as originally conceived/sketched out. Then, having literally or in effect "performed on" the musical-verbal structure with which she began/had sketched out, she goes back and adds to the original sketched-out piece whatever from the "performed on it" version she feels is worth adding and preserving. And then, when satisfied (probably working from a good many "performed on it" attempts/variations), she essentially fixes and preserves what she's got. Thus, the recorded performances we hear occupy an interestingly equivocal place between composition and improvisation; on the one hand, their musical and verbal details are almost as fixed or pre-determined as, say, Richard Rodgers wanted those aspects of his songs to be; on the other hand, in Meredith's songs those details speak of and from a very jazz-like sense of looseness, freedom and "in the moment" choice -- though if I'm right, most if not all of her in-the-moment choices were made in the course of the compositional process, not in the course of the performance that we're hearing. A footnote about the "hip" aspect of all this, which I brought up but shied away from above. Building those genuinely "hip" (as in genuinely tasty) gestures into the texture of the songs themselves, she does not at all let (or hardly ever lets) "hipness" crop up in her performances of them (no scatting, finger-popping, note-bending, etc.). The effect of this restraint, in its own quiet way, is quite powerful -- the hipness is there, both musical and emotional, but D'Ambrosio presents it (and we encounter it) reflectively and a bit ruefully, at arm's length. Just to be clear, I'm only guessing about what Meredith's methods are, based on how the results sound to me. Probably she does it with eye of newt, toe of frog. BTW, she and Eddie Higgins are married. Also BTW, though it's a bit of headscratcher given Meredith's rather ethereal voice, her bio in The Penguin Enyclopedia of Popular Music says that she "met John Coltrane [in] '63, who invited her to join his quartet for a Japanese tour, but she had a 17-month-old daughter [by a marriage previous to hers with Higgins; they hooked up much later] to look after, so she declined." Guess Trane couldn't get Blossom Dearie.

Right -- from the Latin "desertus," past participle of "deserere" (to leave, forsake).

Don't see a Monk tune on the Wilson Mosaic, but there is IMO a fascinating, subtle version of '"Round Midnight" on Wilson's Columbia album "And Then They Wrote," now on Collectables coupled with "Mr. Wilson and Mr. Gershwin." Wilson takes it in a less solemn, more "walking" manner than usual, revealing both its Swing Era roots and its roots in Wilson's own music in particular. Another gem from the same album is Wilson's version of "Artistry in Rhythm."

Booty Wood John David Booty Reggie Bush

Uh oh -- Lee Konitz (with Warne at his shoulder). These Desert Island things are impossible. Also (mysteries of language question), why is there is no desert on a desert island?

Louis = Armstrong Also, maybe Ornette should be there. Tatum in part not only because there's so much there but also because what's there is so rich. Lots of time on that desert island.

I got few classical pals, none who lives closer than Whitehall, Michigan (I live in the Chicago area), and I don't think Mr. Nessa is an HIP fan. I do, however, like Harnoncourt's "Poppea" and think that an HIP approach to Charpentier, Rameau, DeLalande et al. is close to essential, not that it's any guarantee. For the big Bach works, I like E. Jochum -- so shoot me.

And K. Bohm's "Zauberflote."

About the operas, as with many other standard rep works, I have older LP versions that satisfy or interest me sufficiently: E. Kleiber, Leinsdorf, and C. Davis in "Figaro," C. Davis and Klemperer in "Don Giovanni," Jochum and Leinsdorf in "Cosi," though I do have Gardiner's "Clemenza" (on CD). It feels funny BTW to identify two of those as Leinsdorf's; it's the singers more than the conductor that make those sets work, while the conductors' contributions are at least as vital on the other sets. My only Requiem is C. Davis'.

I think I know what you mean, but that's not his fault --it's the performers' and the listeners' (some of them, in both cases). And "Don Giovanni," Der Zauberflute," and Cosi Fan Tutti" are cute? The mature string quintets? The K. 361 Wind Serenade? The K. 526 Piano-Violin Sonata? Etc, etc. Come on.

Ellington Pres Tatum Bird Monk Second five: Jelly Roll Morton Louis Coleman Hawkins Miles Roscoe Mitchell

"These are days when no one should rely unduly on his 'competence.' Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed." -- Walter Benjamin, "One Way Street"

And it can be listened to here: http://www.rhapsody.com/stangetz/thesoftswing

I see it's a Verve "e album."

A somewhat little-known (I believe) but superb Getz album from the '50s (AFAIK never out on CD, at least in the US) is "The Soft Swing" from 1957, with Mose Allison, Addison Farmer, and Jerry Segal. It's maybe the most rhythmically relaxed Getz on record.

Hal McKusick George Russell Juanita Odejnar

And it's Art Mardigan, not Isola, on most of the tracks. In addition to the feel of the tune, I think I had Mandel in mind because of the title's play on words ("Hasty Pudding/Tasty Pudding"), a la Mandel"s "Keester Parade" and "Groover Wailin'" ( off of NYC's one-time celebrated civic greeter, Grover Whalen).

Interesting, slightly different feel on that record, and I believe it was bit more apparent there than on any studio album made by that group -- a kind of Mulligan-esque, noodling groove. I know that Brookmeyer's time with Mulligan followed his stint with Getz, but much of it stems from Brookmeyer, I think, and the rest from John Williams and Frank Isola. It's like the time feel is a walking/talking/kicking-a-can-down-the-road thing, with a good deal less of the mercurial, bop-like fluidity that was typical at any tempo of Getz's quintet with Jimmy Raney. I like both, but this approach, again, seemed a bit different. The difference is epitomized, as I recall, by "Tasty Pudding" (Johnny Mandel's piece I think) -- both the piece itself and the groove they get on it. I guess you could say neo-Basie as well as Mulligan-esque, but something definitely was in the air along those lines at that time.

Jim Hall Jimmy Giuffre Juanita Odejnar