Larry Kart

The Hi-Los were a folk group? Ah, yes -- those field recordings they made at the Cafe Bon Soir.

There's a Chuck Wayne/Joe Puma LP, "Interactions" (Choice), where on "Body and Soul" Puma plays one of the best solos I've ever heard on that piece from any instrumentalist. Haven't heard enough Puma, though, to say whether he was consistently at that level; I recall other recordings where he seemed rather bland. Another guy who qualifies, though there's not that much available, is Skeeter Best. He had a unique sound -- kind of sophisticated low-key "skrontch," if that makes any sense -- and laid-back phrasing to match. He's great with that Lucky Thompson trio with Pettiford, almost entirely as an accompanist I think, but his contribution is felt, and can be heard some as a soloist on that Granz Modern Jazz Giants date with Dizzy, Stitt, and John Lewis. If there's more good Best available, I love to know about it.

That might be a Parker memorial event of some sort (mounted at a club) that also included Sahib Shihab and Duke Jordan (also Cecil Payne? or Payne instead of Shihab?) and was released originally on Signal perhaps. Don't have the record (if that's the one) but heard some of it back when it was first released and recall it was less than I expected -- the band sounded thrown together, and some tracks were too long for their own good.

Allen, I don't know for sure what the ethics and legalities of this are. It's a long -- about 5,000 words -- self-contained chapter in an under-copyright work, and I was paid by the publisher for writing it. My assumption is that, from the publisher's point of view, it would be wrong for me to post it. I know that when I felt I had to quote about a two-hundred word passage (about Cecil Taylor) from it in my book, I had to go Oxford U. Press' rights and permissions department and get their OK.

Agree on that Connor Atlantic, though it's also good to check out the earlier Bethlehem material, which pretty much made her name (e.g. "All About Ronnie") and often is very spooky along the lines I described. Of her later stuff -- and her later musical self is a big part of the story I think -- I particularly like the mid-1980s "Classic," and not only because I wrote the notes for it. But then there any number of reasonable people -- Martin Williams was one -- who couldn't stand Connor, though she just a hip supper club thing or worse, couldn't stand her intonation for one thing (but then, Martin thought very highly of Mel Torme -- talk about a respect for certain sorts of musicality leading you to miss the big picture). For what it's worth, Ran Blake was and is ga-ga over Connor. Lazaro -- I don't quite get what you mean by "Is it true that the challenge is, 'If anything is possible what will hold the improvisation?'" Did I say something like that? If not, and it's entirely your own question, the terms seem a bit too loose or to make too many assumptions (e.g. that word "anything" and about improvisations necessarily being "held") for me to grab onto right now. Also, FWIW, my extended take on the avant-garde and whatver the issues involved there are or may be is not in this book but in the chapter on that subject that I wrote for "The Oxford Companion To Jazz." Would love to have included it in this book, but Oxford U. Press quite rightly would have said "no."

And Phil didn't seem like a weird guy either, although his buddy Gene Quill reportedly was a trip.

"...so dependent were they on Bird and on his the next record, and so rudderless did they feel without him -- I think there very well may be something to this, given the timing of Woods's decline." Not only that, Woods married Bird's widow, Chan! On the other hand, one of the things that was so attractive about early Woods was that he wasn't as Bird-dependent as a lot of guys his age, having worked out a simpler (especially from a rhythmic point of view) way of playing that left lots of room for relatively unfragmented, shapes-poised-against-shapes melodic thinking -- not unlike Monk actually, allowing for the difference in instruments and profundity. But then, on the third hand, I can see where Bird's death might have messed up a guy who had heard a lot of Bird and more or less gone his own way, especially if he was being touted as a potential successor. I can't recall for sure but think that might have been the case in some quarters; certainly Cannonball's name was being thrown around that way at that time. Jim, I confess I don't have enough Fathead in my memory bank to make the comparison.

I agree with Garth and others that some of those Pablo Zoot albums are lovely, not rote at all. But perhaps I didn't frame, or think through, the question properly. When I asked if others felt that something had happened to Sims and Woods in around '56 or '57 or '58, such that mature (or at least well-established) principles of freshness in their music began to give way a bit (or a lot in Woods' case) to what I called "punchy-swingy-jazzy" playing, what I wonder is why on earth why? Were not talking about winded, grizzled veterans after all; Sims in 1956 was only 31; Woods was just 26 in 1957 when, it could be argued, his time of freshness (or better, "reality") as a player was just about at an end. (Terry Martin, who feels the same way about Woods as I do -- a great admirer of the Woods of "Pot Pie" and the like, but then either Phil (or we) take a left turn -- dates the last really good Woods on record as his playing on Red Garland's "Sugan," from 1957.) So if I'm not making all this up or am just plain wrong, what happened? The only common ground I know of is that Sims and Woods became New York studio regulars in '57 or so, but could recording a lot in busy commercial contexts mess with your living jazz identity that swiftly? A lot of other players were on that scene at that time and seemed to stay relatively fresh and themselves. I've been told that Zoot did a lot of drinking, and Lord knows that can catch up with you overnight. About what Garth said about recent Woods sounding rejuventated, despite his respiratory problems, here's a story that I might have told here before. Woods came into Chicago fairly often when I was reviewing regularly there -- from 1977 to 1988 -- and each time I found myself writing much the same review, deploring the (to me) artifical, jazzy hotness of his current playing, contrasting it with the IMO remarkable quality of his early work, and wondering why that change had occurred. I know I was tried of writing the same damn review each time, and I'm sure Woods was tired of reading them (if in fact he did). Then there came the first set of the next Woods engagement, and to my surprise the usual jazz circus act was nowhere to be found. Woods sounded marvelously relaxed, there was none of that muscle-flexing, pumped-up, bouncing-on-trampolines-and-off-of-walls hotness, etc. Delighted, I was ready to leave and go back to the paper and write, when Woods ended the first set with the announcement that he and the band were completely exhausted because horribly bolloxed travel plans had prevented them from getting any sleep the night before and that therefore he had to apologize for that lame first set we'd just heard. But stick around, he said, we'll get it together for the next one. So I stuck around, and in the second set the jazz circus came to town.

Brownie -- I'd extend Armstrong's golden age of creativity longer than the the early '30s. His 1938 big band version of "Struttin' with Some Barbecue" (Decca) might be the greatest solo he ever recorded, and it's not only not the only great Armstrong solo from that period, it's also a bit different in flavor from his previous work in some hard to define (for me at least) way -- fiery and powerful as hell when he wants to be, he also seems to be absolutely regal, secure, and wise, as though all the fruits of his labor were ripe and right at hand.

Interesting what you say, Allen, about Eager on alto coming closer to Bird than anyone other than Schildkraut. Another perhaps surprisingly strong candidate for coming close to Bird for me is not only another tenorman but one who probably owes a considerable debt to Eager, Richie Kamuca (on his album "Charlie"). Can't swear to the Kamuca-Eager connection from Kamuca's point of view, but this passage from Jack Kerouac's "The Subterraneans" suggests that Eager felt that there was one. Roger Beloit (a character based on Eager) is "... listening [on the radio] to Stan Kenton talk about the music of tomorrow and we hear a new young tenor man come on, Ricci Comucca, Roger Beloit says, moving back thin expressive purple lips, ‘This is the music of tomorrow?’" -- the implication clearly being that 1953 Kamuca strikes Beloit-Eager as a variant on his own 1948 self. I heard Eager several times in-person during his '80s "comeback." The first time he was pretty feeble, like Rip Van Winkle awaking from his long nap; the second time, with Al Cohn as his frontline partner, he was still a bit wispy in terms of technique but otherwise much more together. On the other hand, Al not only was in fantastic form but also seemed determined (and I don't think this was my imagination) to crush Allen into a powder with the sheer strength of his playing. If so, I thought this might have gone back to episodes from the Eager's '40s heyday; I've heard that he could behave with insufferable arrogance (especially toward fellow young tenormen) at that time, and Al might have been on the receiving end of some of that shit back then. Another thought that came to mind was that Al might have been playing at Allen like that (if, in fact, he was) as a way of semi-angrily saying to him, "Wake up, man -- you've pissed away your gift."

But seriously -- am I the only admirer of Sims who feels that he was seldom as fresh and inventive a player after the period that the Dawn "Modern Art" and his wonderful Argo album probably epitomize? By 1960 or so, maybe even a bit earlier, it sounds to me like Zoot starts playing Zoot-like solos, at least by comparison to his '56 self; the lines are more short-breathed, the melodic content of too many phrases is arguably too "punchy-swingy-jazzy" rather than having that great back-and-forth balance between floating lyricism and gliding swing, etc. If so, perhaps this parallels what some of us feel happened to Phil Woods at about the same time, though self-stylized Zoot (if that's what happened) never grated on me like most post-'57 Woods does.

"I could have sworn that Williams once wrote something to the effect that a good deal of Eastern European "folk music" contained more of a jazz feel than most blues music." Don't recall Martin writing that, but I do recall Barry Ulanov writing -- in his history of jazz (the title is "Jazz," followed by a colon and some other words; Garth Jowett recently mentioned it on another thread I think) -- that there is more jazz in a gypsy fiddler than there is in a corps of African drummers.

Yes, I talk about the "Turn Out the Stars" and "The Last Waltz" box sets. I much prefer the more relaxed and lyrical "Last Waltz" to the (to my mind) rather harried Evans of much of "Turn Out the Stars," even though Evans understandably begins to wane toward the end of the "Last Waltz" engagement; he died eight days after it ended.

Medjuck: You seem to think of critics as would-be lawgivers, which would be annoying; I tend to think of them as thinker/talkers -- interesting, knowledgable ones at best -- and I couldn't live without them when they're good at it. As an inherently verbal person who tends to get VERY interested in the things that interest me, it always seemed completely natural to think and talk about the things I was interested in to others who shared my interests, and of course, to listen to what those others had to say. Is it really much more complicated than that? Yes, it can get nasty for a while if a fool or a jerk is hogging the stage, but don't such people tend to get found out sooner or later (see Leonard Feather)? I don't see anyone saying that it corrupts the nature of baseball to talk in detail about why you prefer Roger Clemens to Sandy Koufax or Willy Mays to Mickey Mantle. If you care about a thing at all, you want to make (or try to make) distinctions. As the late Clement Greenberg said: "I am willing to like anything, provided I enjoy it enough."

I can vouch for the Wallington Trios. A fascinating musician. Wallington had several incarnations: -- the electrifying bop virtuoso of those sides; the more sober bandleader-comper of the mid- 1950s (check out his "Jazz for the Carriage Trade on OJC for one, with some of the best Phil Woods there is; also the Cafe Bohemia band with scary early Jackie McLean); his coinciding or a bit later somewhat East Side lounge-ish trio thing, but Wallington was no sell-out, always had a strong vein of romanticism in him ("Knight Music" on Koch, often found as a cutout); and the final solo work of the mid-1980s ("Virtuoso," "Symphony of a Jazz Piano" -- which is darker, much more craggy, a bit Monkish in a personal way, and superb. Those solos albums (there may be more; I don't know) were recorded in the U.S. by Japanese producers and issued only in Japan I believe. They're worth searching for. Wallington left the music business for longish stretches to work in the family air-conditioning business.

For boogie woogie, you'll want to hear Jimmy Yancey. I'd try "The Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1" (Document). Yancey's no powerhouse, like Ammons, but he's deep. For stride, don't miss "Harlem Piano -- Luckey Roberts and Willie The Lion Smith" (OJC). It's good Lion but fantastic Roberts (with both men well-recorded in late '50s stereo). What a composer he was! Check out "Inner Space" for one. For Lion at his best, I'd seek out his Commodore solo performances, recorded in 1939 (I believe), which must be available somewhere on CD now. (I have them on LP.)

Garth (or anyone else) -- Any clues as to how I could listen to this? I have an IMac running OS9, and when I click on the "listen" button at BBC3, they give me lots of unspecified error messages and suggest that I downlead Real Player Basic, which I already have and have used before. So I tried to download Real Player Basic again from BBC3, per their instructions, thinking that there might be a difference between their version and the one I already have, but when I try to do so the only option that's alive (so it seems) for Mac users is for OSX; if you click on the OS8/OS9 button, nothing happens, i.e. it's not a working link.

Allen, Mike -- stop it, you guys. I've got tears running down my cheeks, and I've never even been to Japan!

It's organ-less in one sense, but I nominate Stanley Turrentine's "That's Where It's At," with Les McCann, Herbie Lewis, and Otis Finch.

Many thanks. Joe. About Litweiler -- to me he's John, but I don't think that friendship means I'm biased; besides, we became friends way back when because I already knew and admired his work (what there was of it at the time) and was surprised and delighted to discover that the guy who had written those pieces happened to live in the same neighborhood. Anyway, "The Freedom Principle," in addition to everything else it does very well, has so much hard to define "soul" going for it; while it's full of shrewd judgments, it also tells you between the lines why this music had to be made and why the people who responded to it at the time needed to hear it. This is a big part of the story of any evolving art, and once the moment when direct testimony is possible has passed, it's damn hard to get those things right or even to acknowledge their existence. John gets that right, and there's lots of acute analysis to boot. Now a "Collected Litweiler" would add much to this picture, because John has written beautifully about jazz of all eras. For example, his liner lines for the Nessa Ben Webster album "Did You Call?" probably is the best appreciation of Webster there is. Also, John has a unique prose voice -- wry and nutty-sweet. J.B. Figi (who also caught that moment in time on the wing in words) once referred to John as "the Herb Shriner of jazz criticism." John is from Indiana, as Shriner was, which no doubt is one reason the phrase arose in Figi's mind, but I'm sure the main thing he was thinking of was the deep Middle Western taste for "now you see it, now you don't" irony. Another reference point might be Paul Rhymer, the creator of the "Vic and Sade" radio show.

Unfortunately, the three latter-day Kamuca albums I know -- "Richie," "Drop Me Off In Harlem," and "Charlie" -- all from the mid-1970s, all originally on Concord LPs (never saw one on CD), are all OOP. I recall reading here that they were leased to Concord by Kamuca and that the rights reverted to his estate, so Concord couldn't reissue them in the unlikely event that they wanted to. On the other hand, I've seen some of these albums used from time to time in stores like the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago, so it's not like they've disappeared from the face of the planet. Good hunting.

Michael Tippett's. Karol Rathaus' -- the most melancholy piece of music I know.

A perhaps useful rule of thumb -- which I owe to Terry Martin -- is this one (as far it goes or as far as you can or want to take it): Is it conceivable to you that the music of "avant-garde" musician X or Y could have arisen if there had been no such thing as jazz, either in his or her personal musical background or just on the planet period? To me it certainly works for, say, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, and John Stevens. Offhand, I can't think of a single so-called avant-gardist who interests me (or who think ought to interest me) for whom it doesn't work. Can't, or haven't yet tried, to build a theory on this, but if others also feel this way, there may be an organic principle or two at work.

No it wasn't Dan's book but Ned Sublette's "Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo."

Just want to say that I'm with (or would prefer to be with) Nate and Allen here. The phrase in the introductory chapter that Montg might have been reacting to in part -- the one that refers to the sense of "language upheaval" in much avant garde art that curiously, so some feel (including me), does not go away with the passage of time -- doesn't mean that I buy into ... well, I agree completely with what Nate says about the differences between spoken or written language and music as a language. In any case, I pretty much borrowed the lasting sense of "language upheaval" notion (with attribution, and because it struck me out of the blue as novel and true) from the late German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus' essay "'New Music' as Historical Category," which can be found in his terrific book "Schoenberg and the New Music" (Cambridge U. Press). The passage I quoted from Dahlhaus appears on p. 13 of that book. He was something else. His "Nineteenth Century Music" (U. of California Press) is a particular treasure trove. What a smart guy.