Larry Kart

It may not need to be said, but a whole life went into Jerry/Jamil's writing that.

That Chuck hates to write is I guess definitive for him, but anyone who can come with this sentence -- "They exhibited the spare elegance of money" -- and place it where he did can really write.

Well, that Friedman/Zoller "Darn That Dream" now sounds a bit tepid to me. Two topnotch "Dreams," though, are Jimmy Raney's on "Jimmy Raney in Tokyo" (Xanadu) and the shorter of the two versions on Lars Gullin's "Stockholm Street" (Dragon).

That Carisi RCA Jazz Workshop material is a revelation. I'm going to check it out again in a minute to be sure, but I have fond memories of a Don Friedman/Attila Zoller "Darn That Dream" from Friedman's 1965 Riverside album "Dreams and Explorations."

Got that Hyperion CD of De Severac songs from Berkshire yesterday. Music and performances are excellent.

Dana: I've wondered about that "too demanding" thing over the years; all I can say is that Sonny Rollins once was, as I think I've said before, probably the most important living artist to me -- and "most important living artist" probably understates the case; Rollins and his music "knew" things about the world that were crucial, true, and seemingly unknown to or unspoken by others. And then Rollins IMO kind of lost heart, at the very least began leaking a lot of oil. Here's a brief allusion to what I think was going there from the intro to my book: "The rich complexity of Rollins’s musical thought, and his ability to at once dramatize and ironically comment upon virtually any emotional impulse that came to mind, led him to express multiple points of view--one could even say summon up multiple selves or characters--within a single solo. This was, however, not an approach that Rollins could sustain during the 1960s, in the face of rapid stylistic change in the surrounding jazz landscape. Responding to those changes in his own work, as he did quite strikingly up to a point, also meant that the broadly shared musical-emotional language of romantic sign and sentiment that had so deeply stirred Rollins’s own sentiments and wit was now becoming historical. It was a language that could still be referred to and played off of, but for him apparently not with sufficient immediacy." Being a great player, there was a lot of fine playing left to come (amid evidence of leaking oil or air), but urgent contact between Rollins, his material and preoccupations, and most crucially (for want of a better term) The Living World began to be a rear-view mirror phenomenon. And this, to exaggerate just a bit, broke my heart -- because I had so much more I needed to learn from that man, and he'd stopped speaking to us in that way and from that vantage point (or so it seemed). About Rollins albums, "Worktime" is essential. One that may leave people uneasy at times but that I think captures something of what was going on in Rollins' soul that can't be heard as vividly anywhere else is "Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders" (OJC) from 1958 -- "In the Chapel in the Moonlight" and "You" (perhaps not by accident the Art Linkletter Show theme song) in particular. Don't know if it's on CD, but the Swedish label Dragon has/had an LP "Sonny Rollins Trio in Stockholm 1959 (with Henry Grimes and Pete LaRoca) that's to die for. I think this was just about the last Rollins before the retirement from public view that ended in early 1962 with "The Bridge." Also from that time, taped a few days later (March 11, 1959) at a club in Aix-en-Provence, with Grimes and Kenny Clarke, is "Sonny Rollins Live in France 1959" (Landscape) probably OOP, where he sounds like Jacob wrestling with the Angel of God (or is it Jehovah himself?) -- which may be close to what was actually going on.

David Allyn -- an out-of-Bing crooner by voice type, a jazz figure to his toes. His version of "Dearly Beloved" is to die for. He can be heard with Teagarden and Boyd Raeburn in the '40s (where he made his name) and later on some albums under his own name that probably are OOP: three (I think) in the '60s for Discovery with big-band or band-with-strings charts by Johnny Mandel and others (that's where "Dearly Beloved" is), and one on a Don Schlitten label in the late '70s, backed only by Barry Harris. Allyn also is one of the key interview subjects in Ira Gitler's fascinating "Swing To Bop." I heard Allyn live in the early '80s in Chicago and did an interview with him. Still a terrific singer but a pretty complicated guy -- though no longer a user in the way that got him into so much trouble.

First, if the "mountain top," "saw God" images imply something other than the greatness of Sonny's achievement(s) -- if for instance they mean that he was an unusually ecstatic-type artist in search of revelations (or "revelations"), a la Coltrane perhaps -- I don't see things that way. Sonny I think was a multiple-consciousness artist, with an emphasis on the consciousness of it all (albeit within a "blowing" context), that was almost without precedent in jazz on the part of a horn player. "if you really DO want to live a sane and functional life for your remaining days, that you'd find what it is that gives you joy. and in Sonny Rollins' case, I believe that that is playing the tenor saxophone. NOT looking for new heights every time out (that WOULD drive you crazy, because as we all know, you can't go home again), but just playing because it is the one true joy in your life, the way that you achieve that metaphysical/spiritual/whatever state of "completeness. Just playing the damn thing as often and as well as you can." Joy I don't hear much of, haven't for some time. And one of the questions that the shape of Sonny's career may raise -- as does W. Shorter's in a some ways similar, some ways different way -- is the relationship (for such figures) between living " a sane and functional life" and functioning as an "in the 'one'" jazz improviser. I'm saying/guessing that from Sonny and Wayne's vantage point in the 1959-'66 period, something important changed attitude-wise. For instance, who promised any of us, and improvising jazz soloists especially, a state of "metaphysical/spiritual 'completeness'"? That is -- not to get too cute about this -- what those and other jazz voyagers of that time were exploring was how much and what kind of 'incompleteness" (aesthetic/metaphysical/spiritual) they could fruitfully accept or endure (or make, by God, into new "wholes") while, in the act, they told us about all this. I'm all for full bank accounts, maximum mental and physical and spiritual well-being, and due honors for jazz's elder statesmen, but let's not forget why they and we bothered in the first place.

"The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see." Glad you said that, Jim, because it sums up what most jazz musicians do or are obliged to do whenever they address their instruments in the present tense and what I think Rollins more or less stopped doing some time ago -- again (if so) for reasons that I think may be important beyond the boundaries of Rollins' personhood or reputation and that are very much worth talking about. As you probably recall, I did weigh in a bit on that subject in the intro to Ye Olde New Book.

Jim Sangry wrote: "It's a miracle/blessing/whatever that he's still out there doing it. I heard the tone start to "hollow out" on GLOBAL WARMING, and it had me wondering if maybe the end was near. Luckily, it wasn't, and still isn't, hopefully. But it's WORK, genuine hard physical labor, to play like Sonny does. How Von Freeman does what he does at HIS age is even more miraculous...." I certainly haven't heard every Rollins record and live performance in recent decades, but I don't think of his career over that time as " a miracle/blessing/whatever" but as a slow-motion train wreck. Look, a lot of us apparently have a understandable human/humane investment in Rollins the noble giant remaining noble and gigantic; I've felt those waves of feeling myself (for me Sonny was once maybe the most important artist on the planet). But to keep saying (believing?) that he's playing at a level that the evidence suggests he's not is not a good thing for him or for us either; for one thing, it more or less removes from our consciousness the perhaps important question of why and how any musician of Rollins' stature doe swhat he does when he manages to do it and why -- again, perhaps, quite understandably -- he no longer is able or no longer chooses to do it, if that is so. The mention of Von Freeman is telling. Von still does it, has never stopped. However miraculous that fact may be, I don't think it can or should be hauled over and wrapped around Sonny's neck. Whatever is or has been going on there, for many years it seems, is not a cause for celebration IMO. In particular, Jim, while we're all aware of what age does/has done to any number of great saxophonists, from Lester Young to Coleman Hawkins to whomever, it's always been my gut feeling that Rollins is a very different case -- that whatever role age and bouts of infirmity have played in his latter-day career, something pretty basic changed in his whole attitude toward making music as an improvising jazz artist a long time ago, as long ago as the end of the Cherry-Grimes-Higgins band. I'm not saying I'm automatically right about this; what I'm asking is when can we try to talk about Rollins in terms of his art and its actual trials and triumphs (whatever they are) and the whys and wherefores of same (all of which might involve "issues" that are of importance to the whole course of this music in recent years and down the road), rather than get ourselves all caught up in maintaining/gilding the Sonny Rollins statue?

A very hip drummer. His ride cymbal beat was unique, as was his at times glassily laid back feel for where "one" was. A bit reminiscent in both respects of Louis Hayes at the time, but Hogan seemed to me to be definitely his own man.

Can't make comparisons with that Columbia set, which I didn't buy because they screwed several things up there in ways I don't precisely recall anymore (put out some alternate takes as the originally issued performances, I believe -- wasn't Orrin Keepnews involved? that would explain everything) and also because I was holding out hope that there would be a Mosaic, sorely needed because this material cries out for completeness. For instance, wait till you hear Sonny Berman's brief but fairly astonishing solo on "Uncle Remus Said." That track, I'm almost certain, has never been reissued by Columbia or Sony in either the LP or CD era; I have it on a lousy sounding "Woody in Disco Order" bootleg LP.

Got mine today and have listened to disc one so far. I thought I knew this music inside out, but thanks to a great mastering job (fabulous job on the rhythm section in particular), revealing and intriguing alternates, and detailed, shrewd notes, it's like I'm hearing it all for the first time, and with a silly grin on my face. Everyone needs to hear this for Dave Tough at the least; you can hear what he's doing so much better than before, and what he's up to was/is so hip. And Bill Harris, and Flip, and Billy Bauer, and Sonny Berman, and Margie Hyams (much clearer and with more presence, thanks to Malcolm Addey -- who did likewise for Chubby Jackson), and Ralph Burns' charts, etc., etc. -- what a moment in time!

Not so, Shrdlu. Quoting from John Chilton's "Who's Who In Jazz," Freeman "was with Dorsey from April 1936 until joining Benny Goodman in March 1938" -- a month less than two years.

Echoing Dick Sudhalter's opinion in "Lost Chords," a set of six Sunbeam label LPs of the T. Dorsey's band's Raleigh-Kool radio broadcasts "show the band far looser, more powerfully swinging than on its commercial recordings" -- with great work by Dave Tough, clarinetist Johnny Mince, and Bud Freeman (a regular until he left to join Benny Goodman in 1938). Dont believe that material is on CD though (someone tell me if it is, because I don't have all the Sunbeams). A terrific band, with its own style, and there's nothing not to like about TD's trombone.

Thanks for the clarification, Chris. Otherwise, I'd have to --- sue you! About "Ventura on roller skates," believe it or not, that line first popped into my head years ago, in response to a David Murray performance. Don't think I used it in the review though.

Hey Chris -- Maybe I'm too sensitive, but it seems to me like someone (or several someones, I hope not you) was thinking along way too loose lines in the final sentence of this graf from your previous post: "There was another John Levy (also black) who came into Billie's life. This was an unsavory character and Billie came down hard on him in the original manuscript of Lady Sings the Blues. Bill Dufty (her co-author) told me that Doubleday edited all that out, thinking that Levy was Jewish and would sue." Jews are inherently more inclined to sue than Gentiles? Oy Gevalt!

I'm willing to bet that all this boiler plate is just a way to get you to fill out a form in which you give a scam artist your social security number or something of the sort. In fact, I vaguely recall another scam (if indeed this is one) that was directed at PayPal users.

I had one -- but only one -- of those phone calls, too. Stanley was in the Chicago area for a while in the mid-'80s I think it was, working on a book at a suburban writers retreat, the Ragdale Foundation, when he called me out of the blue at the Chicago Tribune to shmooze (or so it seemed). He rattled on a bit, then suddenly said something (in an expansive "guys like you and me who know what's what" manner) about Lester Bowie not being able to play the trumpet, then tried to zoom right on to something else. I said, "Wait a minute" (or words to that effect), "just want to make sure you understand that I don't agree with you about that." Maybe ten seconds later he rang off.

Why is it that so many seemingly critical pieces about Crouch, such as this new Village Voice piece, are compelled to give away the store? "[O]ne of the great essayists of his generation"? As Chris pointed out at the start of this thread, Crouch "is a terrible writer."

l p -- I too would call Joe a sometime grouch rather than a "bastard," especially when it comes to the problem of releasing tapes of performances he's taped. Chuck Nessa can correct me if I've got it wrong, but I'd guess that Joe's main stumbling block here is not that he's greedy but that he wouldn't put out any of that material without obtaining the proper releases from surviving performers, relatives/estates, etc. and that the upfront costs of doing that are beyond his personal means. Doing something of the sort in conjunction with interested parties who do have the dough -- which is something that Joe has done a few times over the years -- would then seem to be the answer, but such parties don't lie thick upon the ground these days, I would think, and besides, any such enterprise would require that Joe be sufficiently organized, somewhat adventurous, and in a mood to cooperate with someone else. Offhand, I wouldn't say being well-organized, cooperative, and adventurous are Joe's strong suits.

Given Dale Peck's "For me the beginning of a [Rick Moody] book is a bit like having a stranger walk up and smack me in the face, and then stand there waiting to see if I’m man enough to separate him from his balls,” it seems more and more like he and Stanley Crouch were made for each other. In fact, even though Stanley seems ready to take the face-smacking route (or worse) at most times, I wonder whether he was directly inspired by this passage. When Life imitates Criticism?

Lazaro -- Book is due in November, so they tell me. I'll post the whys and wherefores when I'm certain. There's a lot of stuff to think about in your two grafs that begin "While the romantic side of the jazz fan..." You're a wise man. About "So in some ways Coltrane was multi-faceted dramatically in his later period -- or at least able to capture the energy, ecstacy and simultaneous confusion of the time, a time that was not so much about reflection as it was going headlong into the future. By the mid-60's Sonny was sounding like that , too, don't you think?" I'd say that however necessary it may be to go "headlong into the future," a lot of heads got lost or badly mangled in the process. As for Sonny sounding like that, too -- what I've always wondered is why his great band with Cherry, Grimes, and Higgins was such a shortlived thing for him stylisticall, even if those particular players couldn't have remanind together. It's like Sonny went out on the edge and thrived there -- and then in the aftermath he became (or even decided to become) historical in relation to himself. A lot of fine music was still to come from him, of course, but it was like the Sonnyness of Sonny was now more or less fixed; the adventures would only be within the boundaries of (though it seems absurd to call it this) his "act" -- little or no significant interaction with players of similar stature or with what was happening in the music around him.

Lazaro -- I have some further thoughts, I think, but won't be able to post until this afternoon or evening.

Oops, that's "The Avant-Garde 1949-1967."