Larry Kart

Dan's book is terrific, but Appel seems to me to be something of a riding-his-own-hobby-horse nitwit, as he was in spades in his book "Jazz Modernism" (though as I recall that's an opinion with which some here disagree). Also, I'm more than a little annoyed at the blandly high and mighty tone Appel adopts here -- given my feelings about the relative merit and knowledge of the field of these two men and my witness of/participation in an actual social encounter between them several years back, in which Appel's stance alternated between preening peacock and fawning abjectness. Yes, the reviewer's role tends to foster that high and mighty tone, but the Appel I witnessed that day is one of those guys who lives his life in order to adopt it whenever possible. And how could he miss the one thing that leaps out from this book as much as anything else does -- the loving character of the man who wrote it and the way he and the music have loved each other and, as the title says, lived together since he was a boy. That's Dan's story, or the one from which all his other stories spring, and it's all of our stories too.

Clem -- My problem with later Sorrentino is twofold (I hate people who say "twofold"). First, I don't get why he threw aside the stilleto and the garrote of "Imaginative Qualities" and exchanged them in "Mulligan Stew" for a blunderbuss. That we at once (and to some degree) novelistically "cared" about Sheila and all of the other sad and ugly fools of "Imaginative Qualities" is for me a big part of why and how that book worked, in the sense we the readers were quite rightly made to suffer for our caring. That is, a key armature of the book was fear, contempt, and pity -- contempt mingled with pity for all or most of the art-pretense fools, and fear that we might in fact be numbered among them and thus be no less deserving of contempt. But Gil clearly had so much contempt himself for the more moist, emotionally illusionistic trappings of fiction, and a whole lot else as well, that he apparently decided he no longer wished to traffic in that material at all, even in order to subvert it. But his metafictional stuff usually just falls flat for me. I know "The Orangery" -- some fine stuff there but that was early '70s or mid '70s I think. I know "The Moon In Its Flight" too and think you can see the line betwen Gil One and Gil Two very clearly there, as the metafictional curtain comes down IMO like lead. I bought "Plum Poems" too and like it a lot. That's when Feld was one of Sorrentino's crowd. Remembering Ross' name led me to pick "Only Shorter" out of a book section slush pile in the mid '80s and review it enthusiastically after I realized what a terrific book it was, which led to a great friendship with Ross, who died way too young (age 55, of leukemia) in 2001.

Clem -- That Sorrentino book is a darkly funny/painful masterwork (the only person I know [actually knew] who knew it was the late brilliant novelist Ross Feld, who was part of Sorrentino's circle for a while in the '60s), and I admire just about everything Sorrentino wrote that precedes "Imaginative Qualities," but I wonder if you agree that he went around the bend with "Mulligan Stew" and for the most part hasn't come back. P.S. I strongly recommend Feld's "Only Shorter" -- another masterwork. If you try and like it, there's more.

Leeway -- I know what you mean about the "great white hope" business, which tends to be crude and stupid. But I think that Terry Martin, in first of his two pieces in that book, deals with the question of Pepper's "aesthetic position as an American white" with a great deal of sensitivity, subtlety, and insight -- though that phrase ("aesthetic position as an American white") and the judgmental stance it suggests, might make its author (then living in Great Britain and a young college student I believe) cringe a bit these days. Also, a good many things have changed since then. But if "Straight Life" the book is to be trusted, Art's status as a white man making what he himself regarded as a black music loomed very large in his mind at times. Remember the passage where the young Art asks an acquaintance whether he (i.e. Art) has the "right" to play jazz?

Very interesting, Jim. If I get what you're saying (and I think I do), it makes a lot of sense to me and helps to explain why as much as I admire and have been moved by Pepper through the years, I'm not drawn much anymore to listening to him again. On the other hand, I wish you could read what Terry Martin says about him (in two essays actually, not one -- the first from 1964, when Terry was in his early 20s, the second from 1979) in "The Art Pepper Companion." Again, it's some of the best critical writing there is about any jazz musician IMO. One quote, about Art's solo on "Pepper Pot" from the Tampa Quartet album, that points to where Terry's coming from there: "'Pepper Pot' has the quintessential ambiguity of his artistry, a bounce tune beginning as a series of excellent swinging variations, say open to a Sims for example, but developing with startling logic to a totally new world of courage and pain; beautfully underpinned by the rhythm section, we are in Pepper's own organic world; it is coherent, there are laws we are no position to understand.... The timbral control and articulation are staggering, and the rhythmic development toward the close of his solo is worthy of Young or Monk.... Only Navarro I think equals Art Pepper on this ground of structured tragedy, the heart of Lester Young and the mind of Benny Carter." BTW, how do you feel about Benny Carter? Does his playing too seem to you "to be designed to intentionally extend outward just long enough to have been put on display and then immediately, if not sooner, snap right back inside from whence it came." No blame if that's how you feel, no claim of hypocrisy if you don't. I'm just curious -- if only because Terry's deep prediliction for Carter ("the master of construction," he writes elsewhere, but also a player whom lots of reasonable people don't warm up to) seems to have set him up to respond to Pepper as he did.

Off the top of my head, I don't hear Stitt versus Ammons as analogous to Pepper versus McLean. (And by "versus" I don't mean to suggest it's a prize fight, even though Stitt and Ammons did go at it almost that way at times.) And Jim -- if I understand what you mean by " Which, again, is somehow what I think is the point of the whole thing -- the creation of a totally individual identity that defies 'possession' of anybody except its owner" -- then I think, a la what I tried to say at the end of one of the Art Pepper pieces in the book, that that was Art's deal in human terms: He created a totally individual identity that HE could not possess.

This may be related to part of what Jim says above but coming at it from another direction. Art (Pepper i.e.) grabbed very hard emotionally way back when -- guess I was listening to his things from the time they came out from 1956 on -- but the union between the feelings that were aroused in the listener and that were (presumably, to some degree) being felt/expressed by the creator, and of course the union between all of that and the arguably (and perhaps paradoxically) exquisite craftsmanship with which the whole shebang was shaped and thenemerged in purely musical terms -- finally led to a kind of "I've had enough of that" sense of satiation. Everything of Art's that I loved back then, I still love, but I just don't listen to it that often anymore. I think I feel the same way about Mahler. Great music; I know it; I love it; but when I start to listen again to any of it, I feel like it's already been built into me and become part of me and to hear it again in real time would be redundant. Does that make any sense? I don't feel that way about a lot of other music that I know and love. I think, in both cases (Pepper and Mahler) it may have to do with the combination of pained, even tragic, opened-vein emotion and the typically perfect but highly personal formal/expressive means. Compare Jackie McLean to Pepper and it might become clear. No less potent emotionally, Jackie's playing typically has a shagginess or brokenness that asks you to try to complete your part of the puzzle along with him every time. Art, at his best, solves and resolves the whole thing. Or back to Mahler -- at the end of every one his symphonies, one of the feelings I get (and that I think you're supposed to get) is: Well, that's the LAST symphony anyone's going to write or need to write. Of course, there are in fact nine of them (or ten), plus Das Lied, but still...

Everyone who cares about Art Pepper should get their hands on "The Art Pepper Companion" (Copper Square Press), ed. by Todd Selbert, published in 2000, and check out Terry Martin's 1964 essay "Art Pepper: Toward a New White Jazz," which is among the most brilliant pieces of writing there is about jazz musician. For sources for Art's sound, look to Benny Carter and Willie Smith (both acknowledged models), filtered through Pres to some extent. On the album they share, Warne sounds like Warne to me, though perhaps the warmth of Art's sound and the mutual emotional/musical warmth of the encounter did have some effect. I'd say that at one point Bud Shank was influenced by Art, but I can't think of many others. Herb Geller was a somewhat related figure but came by his style, I'm pretty sure, on his own hook, though drawing from similar sources. The problem with being influenced by Art, and perhaps why not many were (unless I'm mistaken), is that what made him so good were things that were so "inside" the music that they were essentially inimitable -- if you were going to sound like Art enough for anyone to notice the resemblance, you'd have to be as good a time-shaper/shape-maker (for want of better terms) as he was, and and who else was that good in those ways then or ever? (Sure, others were, but they were fellow giants, and they sounded like themselves.)

Hey, I knew Bloomfield (in passing) when he was in seventh grade in Glencoe, Il. (I was a year ahead of him.) Went over with my folks to a Sunday dinner party at the house of Bob Greenspan (a greasy [very much by design] darkly handsome Bloomfield pal, later a singer with him) -- and Bloomfield was there too. Don't recall what Greenspan's father was into, but the level of wealth on display was kind of jaw-dropping, much higher than what I was used to. So after dinner, Greenspan, Bloomfield, and I retire awkwardly to the rec room, while the adults hang out upstairs and my sister and other youngsters mingle. At one point, Bloomfield or Greenspan says portentously, especially so given the house we were in: "Let's walk into town and see if we can find some ... 'action.'" This struck me as at once hilarious and insane -- at 8:30 p.m. on a Sunday night in downtown Glencoe circa 1958, there was nothing but streetlights and empty sidewalks. I still have no idea what Greenspan or Bloomfield had in mind; perhaps they were living inside some personal mental motion picture.

Both Art and Warne Marsh are in great form on "The Way It Was" (Think that's the U.S. title; I have it on a Japanese CD). Their solos and exchanges on "All The Things You Are" are to die for. Another great one from the end of Art's first Contemporary label period is "Smack Up." I much prefer Art's original version of "Winter Moon" with Hoagy Carmichael, an altogether wonderful album if you have a taste for Hoagy's singing (I do).

Our ailing fridge died just before Thanksgiving. We'd been praying it would last until we remodeled the kitchen -- the old fridge fit right into a stupid little cubbyhole that was (still is) the first thing we'd want to get rid off -- but the wise repairman said buy the cheapest Frigidaire (about $400), and then when you do remodel, you'll in effect be tacking $400 onto the bill, and you'll have an extra fridge you can put in the basement. So far, that move makes sense, plus for the first time in several years we've got a freezer that keeps things frozen.

Forget about there being no, or almost no, complete performances -- I recall that a Charlie Parker solo (maybe "Ko Ko" or "Scrapple from the Apple") that was being played while they showed images of I don't remember what was tape-looped!

Don't know if made it to OJC, but even better than that Eardley album is "Pot Pie," with Woods at his early best (IMO, only early Woods is good Woods).

The Eddy Louiss album is not be missed. Also, though he is quite rightly a bit subdued on it, I love Klook's playing with Konitz and Marsh on their Atlantic album. The pairing of Klook and Pettiford, always special, plus Billy Bauer -- mmm.

The one Art Pepper album to get at all costs is the "The Art Pepper Quartet" (originally on Tampa) from 1956 I believe, with Russ Freeman, Ben Tucker, and Gary Frommer. "I Surrender Dear" and "Besame Mucho" are masterpieces.

This will have to be a truncated report, because Dregni's book pretty much lives or dies on the accuracy of its French scene/Gypsy life background and foreground, and I don't have enough independent knowledge to judge those matters. In other areas, as I said above, odd glitches appear. For instance, on p. 255 Bobby Jaspar is identified as one of a group of "African American expatriates," and p. 254 Roy Eldridge is a "bebopper." Apparently, jazz as we know it is not Dregni's home ground. Again, there is some reason to assume that the French and Gypsy milieus are where he speaks with more authority, but I can't swear to that. I wasn't impressed with Dregni's account of Django's music at first, but in the latter stages of the book, he mounts a vigorous, fairly detailed, and, in my opinion, accurate defense (if that's the right word) of Django's latter-day electric guitar work. There's some amazing, more or less unprecedented music there; Django was re-inventing himself. Also, if Dregni is to be trusted as a judge of talent, there's a intriguing epilogue in which he discusses a host of allegedly remarkable guitarists (many of them also gone now, some of whom never recorded) who sprang from the same world Django did. I'm inclined to trust Dregni here, because he praises the Ferre brothers, Boulou and Elois, and they are remarkable.

Yeah -- I've got the Maynard Mosaic set, and it's full of smart, ballsy music.

Maynard isn't really a jazz player IMO but a special effect -- but when that's the effect you need or want, there's nothing else like him. Thank God, some will say, but there's a realm of "lose your mind" expressive excess that at times needs to be explored, and Maynard (especially the '50-'53 Maynard with Kenton) can go you there in ways, and to degrees, that are unlike those that other high-note guys can reach, at least in my experience. For instance, Al Killian was pretty nutty way up there, but his nuttiness had a different flavor than Maynard's, while Cat Anderson, to my mind, was more like a whistler.

Brownie -- Django's attempt to get into Switzerland in Nov. '43 is mentioned in a paragraph but not in much more detail that you referred to. My guess is that the Delauney book was Dregni's source there. A signing in Paris? What a dream that would be. My wife and I were there last April for about five days of heaven (stayed at a nice little place, the Hotel Aviatic, 105 Rue de Vuagirard, near the Montparnasse Metro stop) but don't think we could afford a visit with the dollar where it is now versus the Euro. It was expensive enough last year, though not as bad as London, where everything seemed to cost twice as much as it should even after you took account of the exchange rate. The account of the war years in "Django" is interesting -- our hero, though not a collaborator per se (that issue arguably was not on his radar screen), was never better off financially than he was then, and jazz reached unprecedented peaks of popularity under the Occupation -- but the book as a whole to this point has a few problems. Some odd goofs -- the Nazis are said to have invaded Poland on Aug. 20, 1939 (try Sept. 1), "Stompin' at the Savoy" is credited to Benny Goodman and Chick Webb, not to its actual composer Edgar Sampson, etc. Also, the author, though he's a musician, hasn't said much so far about Django's music that seems to me to be insightful and a lot that strikes me as wooly, e.g. on p. 230, of Django's composition "R-Vingt-Six," "Its breathless runs of harmonizing chord changes..."

"I fear after 6 hours my wife would have to chip the sugar crust off so I could move again."

I like that Philly Joe piece, too -- the only damn time I got to hear him in person, but I was lucky enough to be seated half a level above the bandstand (about two steps up) and close enough to PJJ's left shoulder that I almost could touch him. The relationship between what he played and what his hands and feet did to produce those sounds was magical, hypnotic. It was like you could have been deaf and known from how he moved exactly what he was playing. Also, I think that was a so-called overnight review -- catch the first set, go back to the paper with an 11:30 p.m. or thereabouts deadline, and the review appears the next morning. I used to love to do that -- one shot and one shot only at getting it right, and a great adrenaline rush when things worked out OK.

"I can see why they provoked a death threat, though. The truth can drive some people crazy." I had a similar feeling at the time -- that the depth of anger among those musicians I knew (or knew of) who were angered by the piece seemed to confirm my point about the crutch-like relationship (in both literal musical and emotional/spiritual/cultural terms) between Evans' playing and that of many of his many disciples. Of course, you could say that it was self-serving of me to think that; those angry musicians just might have been reacting to views they found unfair and/or stupid. But at the least, I don't think that either my tone or stance in that piece (or in the new epilogue to it) is/was other than genuine, however wrong what I had to say might seem to a stone Evans admirer.

pyan (and anyone else who'd like a signed copy) -- I think the simplest way (maybe the only way, though I'm open to suggestions) is for you to send me your copy, and then I'll sign it and mail it back. When the time comes, send me a personal message and I'll pass along my street address.

Greene has begun to resurface lately, as many Greene watchers predicted he would -- an op-ed piece in the NY Times, an appearance on Nightline (I believe), etc. If I were a betting man, I'd say that such a relatively quiet, "Don't we all agree that I've done my time?" return won't really work, if only because lack of regular exposure to Greene's particular form of journalistic b.s. probably will make him seem a bit "off" and dated to those -- both in the audience and in the industry -- who might otherwise have remained susceptible to him. My guess is that his only hope is go all out -- write a mea culpa book about his career as a supposed sex-addict who had a sad yet irresistable need to bed hero-worshipping teenage girls. The risks of doing this are obvious but... Still reading the Django bio. My guess is that the author's account of Django under the Occupation will be the meat of the book.

Thanks Jim and Brad. The direct real response you get at a place like this, and from people who really know what they're talking about (because for years they've been talking about and thinking about the same things you have), is something else. It's like you're a caveman drawing on the walls what you hope are interesting images of bison, and then your fellow cavemen come by and say, "Now that's a bison."