Larry Kart

Edwards bio says he a native of Louisville, Ky. I certainly don't get any working-clas fgeel rom the way he pronounces his own first name, more an odd variant on the pear-shaped tones approach, though I'd be happy to be told it's really a "Luh-ville" thing."

I greatly admire "Jazz on Record: A Critical Guide to the First 50 Years: 1917-1967" (Harrison with Albert McCarthy, Alun Morgan, Paul Oliver and others); "Modern Jazz: The Essential Records 1945-70" (Harrison with Alun Morgan, Michael James, Jack Cooke and Ronald Atkins) ; and "The Essential Jazz Records Volume 1, Ragtime to Swing (Harrison with Charles Fox and Eric Thacker), but I have a (regrettably) more or less negative review of "The Essential Jazz Records Volume 1" in the soon to emerge Annual of the Institute of Jazz Studies. Nicholson seems to me an essentially cheesy customer (close to a P.R. man at times), Thacker (who sadly died before the project was completed) is solid but not often illuminating (he probably was more at home with pre-modern jazz), while Harrison, always something of professional iconoclast, has become so cranky that it's difficult (at least it is for me) to separate his genuinely felt divergences from received opinion from his desire (so I feel) to cast himself as the only fellow around who's got his ears screwed on right. (A typical Harrison remark: "Though by no means its only sign of virtue, this [recording] is the kind of music that has never found much favour with jazz fans, still less with those who write for them.") Worse yet in a book of this scope ("Modernism to Postmodernism"), the so-called jazz avant-garde (Cecil Taylor et al.) is largely left to Nicholson, which means that it's hardly dealt with at all in serious musical terms. (Nicholson seems to think that the issue here are not really musical ones anyway: "...free jazz remained impaled on the barriers of sociopolitical issues, part rhetoric, part artifice…") Not that I'm calling for blanket praise, but while Harrison is surely well-equipped to declare what's what here and make you at least sit up and pay close attention to what he has to say, at this point in the book he basically retires from the fray (though he does, lest you think he's a late-blooming jazz neo-con, sing the praises of Albert Ayler). After that, though, not much more from Max. In fact, the book deals with three key figures of the jazz avant -garde -- guitarist Derek Bailey, saxophonist Evan Parker, and the late percussionist-bandleader John Stevens of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (and such related figures as bassist Barry Guy, trombonist Paul Rutherford and percussionist Paul Lytton) -- by, for the most part, not dealing with them at all. A strong case could be made that Max Harrison at his best is the best jazz critic we've ever had. But IMO this is one strange book.

Two unfortunately out-of-print works (obtainable through used book sites) from a pair of often brilliant British writers: Francis Newton's very shrewd and commonsensical "The Jazz Scene" (Newton is the pseudonym of well-known political and social historian Eric Hobsbawn, who chose "Francis Newton" [once knew why he thought a pseudonym was a good idea here, but I've forgotten; the book was later reprinted under H's own name] because he admired Frankie Newton as a trumpeter and because they were fellow members of the Communist Party--though I don't see that Hobsbawm's political slant intrudes much here) and Max Harrison's substantial segment of "The New Grove Gospel, Blues and Jazz (with Spirituals and Ragtime)." Harrison's co-authors are Paul Oliver (blues, gospel, and spirituals) and William Bolcolm (ragtime).

Pretty sure that Edwards is a decent guy, but the way he pronounces his own first name -- "Boawb" is something like it -- has always struck me as the epitome of would-be upscale announcer-ly pretentiousness. Now there could be a regional American accent I'm not familiar with in which "Bob" is pronounced "Boawb" by almost everyone as a matter of course, in which case I take back the above. Does anyone know where, if anywhere, other "Boawbs" can be found?

Having known the LP from the first, just wanted to say that the sound on the CD is a notable upgrade (particularly on Warne, for reasons that Chuck has explained) and that the alternate takes (first time I've heard them) are pretty mind-boggling; the multiple versions of "I Have A Good One For You" are like you're looking over the shoulder of Dr. Frankenstein and his rhythm section as he tries out various ways -- some of them extremely, beautifully strange -- to bring his baby to life. Not many times in the history of recorded jazz that you get to look behind the scenes like this; only one I can think of right now that comes close are those multiple solo-piano dissections of "'Round Midnight" that Monk recorded for Riverside before he made the take finally released.

Flip Phillips' "Try a Little Tenderness" (Chiaroscuro), from the early '90s with subtle Dick Hyman charts and recorded by RVG, is one of the tastiest with strings dates I know. As explained in the notes, one of the reasons it works so well is that Phillips and Hyman got together several months before and taped piano-tenor duo versions of the tunes, then Hyman wrote his charts based on the moves that Flip was inclined to make. If you've never heard Flip on ballads, he was a marvelous soulful "singer," in the Webster tradition but with his own accent. In a more adventurous vein, the Konitz-Russo "An Image of Man" is terrific. Sad that the names of the string quartet members on that disc have been lost over time; they're really into the music.

Flip Phillips' "Try a Little Tenderness" (Chiaroscuro), from the early '90s with subtle Dick Hyman charts and recorded by RVG, is one of the tastiest with strings dates I know. As explained in the notes, one of the reasons it works so well is that Phillips and Hyman got together several months before and taped piano-tenor duo versions of the tunes, then Hyman wrote his charts based on the moves that Flip was inclined to make. If you've never heard Flip on ballads, he was a marvelous soulful "singer," in the Webster tradition but with his own accent.

Been following Don Friedman since "Circle Waltz" came out on Riverside. Friedman's relatively recent trio album "Waltz for Debby" (with George Mraz and Lewis Nash) is a gem. One highlight is a version of "I Concentrate On You" there that's among the most highly charged, invention-upon-invention-in-every-bar readings of a standard I've ever heard.

The button accordion?

If your tastes are a bit avant-gardish, I 'd recommend these shows: Friday - March 19 ******************************** * Tony Malaby, Angelica Sanchez, Tom Rainey 10 PM at the Velvet Lounge, 2128 1/2 S. Indiana - 312-791-9050 Saturday - March 20 ******************************** * Ernest Dawkins' New Horizon 10 PM at the Velvet Lounge, 2128 1/2 S. Indiana - 312-791-9050 Sunday - March 21 ******************************** * Grey Ghost; Josh Berman / Robert Barry Duo 10 PM at the Hungry Brain, 2318 W. Belmont - 773-935-2118 (donation) Grey Ghost, a duo, includes excellent young altoist Aram Shelton; Josh Berman is a cornetist in his early 30s who at times sounds like a cross between Ruby Braff and Don Cherry.

There's a very tasty John McNeil album with Tom Harrell from 1979 on Steeplechase, "Look to the Sky." The Candoli Brothers "Two Brothers" (Hindsight) -- recorded live in Chicago in 1983, with some of the best recorded work by the late great drummer Wilbur Campbell -- is definitely worth tracking down.

Damn, I bought "Jazz Guitar" back when it came out, but that was a time when I played my LPs on a living room console that had a tone arm that must have weighed five pounds. Whether that or something else did it in I don't recall, but I no longer had the LP when the CD emerged and was crestfallen when I noticed what was missing (not that what remained wasn't worth having). Maybe my experience is emblematic of what happened to most copies of the original "Jazz Guitar" LP, though it's hard to imagine that there isn't at least one crazed collector sitting in an underground bunker with a mint copy.

In terms of its imprinting impact at that time, Milestones. It was like the voice of God -- or several Gods (Philly Joe certainly among them) -- had spoken.

Many thanks, all, for the ideas and info. My techwise 28-year-old-son also suggested that spamming was the likely profit motive behind setting up those 16 sites in my name. Don't know if that should be a source of comfort or not. I've contacted Experian and have my fingers crossed.

Given the level of intelligence and experience around here, I figure several someones out three might be able to give some guidance. Seems like I'm in the midst of an identity theft situation. Our most recent cedit card statement included a $175 charge for an internet provider we don't use. When I called the provider to complain and see what's up, I was told that 16 separate accounts had been opened up in my name a month ago on their website, and this could only have been done by someone who had my credit card number. He said they would close the accounts and contact my credit card company about ditching the charges. Then I called my credit card compan and cancelled our current account, with new cards on a new account due to arrive shortly. But then I began to think more about what might be up. Those bogus internet provider accounts in my name were opened up about a month ago -- again by someone who had my credit card number -- but those internet account charges were the only dubious ones on my current bill: no purchases of fancy shoes, fur coats, etc. So what else might be going on here that I'm not thinking of, and what should I do about it? It seems that if someone goes to the trouble of opening up 16 interent accounts in a person's name, and they have that person's credit card number, they aren't going to stop there. I have, BTW, reported this to the local police, and they gave me a packet of info about contacting national credit bureaus, which I'm about to do. But I'm figuring that some of you are way ahead of me, and also ahead of what that booklet is going to tell me. Thanks for any advice you might have.

Another very nice Hawes MPS/Saba album (and very handsomely recorded) is: Hampton Hawes Trio Hampton Hawes (p) Eberhard Weber (B) Klaus Weiss (d -2,4,6,7) Brunner-Schwer Studio, Villingen, West Germany, November 8, 1967 1. Villingen Blues (Hamp's Blues) 2. Rhythm - 3. Black Forest Blues - 4. Autumn Leaves - 5. What Is This Thing Called Love? - 6. Sonora - 7. I'm All Smiles - 8. My Foolish Heart - * Hamp's Piano (MPS [G] 15.149) * Hampton Hawes in Europe (Prestige PR 7695) I think it was the first record I got to review for Down Beat back in 1968.

I'm a great admirer of Hawes, but I recall the "All Night Session" albums, which I haven't heard for years, as being oddly lifeless, rhythmically loggy affairs. If I had to guess what the reason was (if indeed anyone out there agrees with me), I'd say it was the conjunction of Jim Hall and Red Mitchell. It's like their mutual, rather heavy, even thudding sense of where "one" was (at least at that time in Hall's career; he's since become far more supple rhythmically) plopped right on top of other and pretty much killed the whole thing. On the other hand, Hawes and Mitchell were a great team in Hawes' trio, and Hall and Mitchell were fine together on Hall's Pacific Jazz debut with Carl Perkins. But here they seem to me to drag Hawes down. I remember thinking that on "Broadway" in particular he sounded like man trying to walk through mud.

WNMC -- Here is the piece I wrote about Jazz Grove; it appeared in the Chicago Tribune on 12/11/88. Trust me (though I don't suppose you will) -- I could have cited many times the number of goofs I did. I was, however, constrained by space limitations and also because, writing for a general audience, I felt I had to limit myself to pointing out errors whose erroneousness would be more or less self-evident to that audience. I passed on some of the other stuff to Gene Lees, at his request, and he then included it in his negative critique of Jazz Grove, which appeared in his magazine Jazzletter and was later included in one of his books. I should add that when I wrote the part at the end about the authors of most of the entries being jazz academics, I didn't yet know that many of them were actually first- or -second-year students in jazz studies programs, who were (as I said before on this thread) often thrown into the fray without having much if any prior knowledge of the musicians they were writing about (this information by way of people at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers, at whose door these students came knocking in droves). Also, FWIW, I've tacked on my review of Max Harrison's contribution to "The New Grove Gospel, Blues and Jazz." JAZZ GROVE All we ask of a reference work is that everything be included that should be there and that none of that everything be wrong. Of course, measured against that simple standard, all reference works must fail--not only because one person’s "everything" is another’s mass of useless detail, but also because one expert’s fact or shrewd conjecture is another’s dubious assertion or outright lie. Yet if no reference work can be perfect, we do expect relative virtue--especially when, as is the case with the just published, two-volume, 1,360-page "The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz" (Macmillan, $295), we are assured of the work’s "consistency and accu-racy" and told that it is the one authoritative reference source ... you’ve been waiting for." All right, let’s not mince words. "Jazz Grove" (as it will be referred to here) is a near-total disaster, a job so horribly botched that one winces at the thought that it might be taken as "authoritative." But that is the gist of the problem. However bad it is, "Jazz Grove" is almost certain to be purchased by many public, high school and college libraries--given the longstanding need for a reference work that does what "Jazz Grove" purports to do and the praise that has been accorded its predecessors: the sixth edition of "The New Grove Dictiona-ry of Music and Musicians" (published in 1980 in 20 volumes) and "The New Grove Dictionary of American Music" (which emerged in four volumes in 1986). Edited by a young musicologist named Barry Kemfeld--who is based at the State College of Pennsylvania and who himself contributed 179 of its more than 4,500 entries-- "Jazz Grove" is such a mess that one hardly knows where to begin. But let’s start with the some 3,000 biographical entries that are (or ought to be) the heart of the work. In the realm of exclusions and inclusions, what is one to make of a dictionary of jazz that has no entry for Peggy Lee but finds room for Tom Waits and Maria Muldaur? Or one that does not include pianist Hasaan Ibn Ali, baritone saxophonist-composer Gil Melle , bassist Ray Drummond, cornetist Don Joseph and soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom but does make us aware of Estonian guitarist Tiit Paulus--whose "compositions include ‘Simmanilugu’ (Tune from a village party) and the well-known ‘Bluus kahele’ (Blues for two), which he has recorded in a duo with the tenor saxophonist Arvo Pilliroog"? But leaving aside such oddities of choice, by far the most disturbing aspect of "Jazz Grove" is what is and isn’t said about the figures who are included. The format for a useful biographical entry in "Jazz Grove,’ or any music dictionary-encylopedia, would seem to be simple enough: a chronological account of notable events in the artist’s career, followed by an accurate de-scription of his or her music and a sound critical estimate of its historical significance and esthetic worth--the latter two factors determining the entry’s length. And that is the format followed in "Jazz Grove" by such knowledgeble writers as Max Harrison, Michael James, Dan Morgenstern, and Martin Williams. Here, for example, is the conclusion of one of Harrison's entries: "[serge] Chaloff was an important figure of the bop movement and one of the most significant improvisers on the baritone saxophone. Early performances such as ‘The Most’ (1949) show him to have been a virtuoso, while others, for example ‘Gabardine and Serge’ (1947), demonstrate the logic of his improvising and its often somber emotional content. Despite illness he continued to advance during the 1950s, adding to his style an integral use of dynamic and tonal shading and carefully varied degrees of intensity." But because writers of Harrison’s sort appear all too seldom in "Jazz Grove," decent biograpical entries are few and far between. More common are those that (a) make no at-tempt to assess a musician’s historical and esthetic importance or (B) do it so ineptly that one wonders if the writer even knows the music of the person being written about. Useless and frustrating though they are, entries of the first sort (the ones on soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray and trombonist-composer Grachan Moncur III are typical) don’t lend themselves to detailed condemnation. One merely notes the absence of what ought to be there and moves on. But breathtakingly wrongheaded entries of the second sort abound in these "authoritative" tomes. And, again, one winces at the thought of how much misinformation "Jazz Grove" may spread. For instance, editor Kemfeld contributes the following to his entry on tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips: "... on tours with Jazz at the Philharmonic (1946-57), he acquired a reputation for his energetic improvisations (notably on ‘Perdido’); despite his rather tasteless, honking tone, these performances were popular with audiences..." But Phillips’ performances were popular because of, not despite, what Kemfeld refers to as "his rather tasteless, honking tone." And by no means is that an obscure fact; it is the first thing anyone writing about Flip Phillips ought to know. An isolated instance, perhaps; a case of a writer momentarily overstepping the bounds of his expertise? Well, one could go on for pages listing Kemfeld’s sins of omission and commission-- the entry on alto saxophonist Art Pepper that says nothing about his autobiography "Straight Life" but does tell us that he was the subject of a documentary film; the entry that claims trumpeter Kenny Dorham "rivaled his greatest contemporaries in technical command" (a gifted melodist, Dorham never was a notable technician); the delirious entry on bassist Ron Carter ("his playing in rhythm sections represents the zenith of improvisation in the bop and modal-jazz styles"); and the egregious armchair psychoanalysis of the entry that says pianist Bobby Timmons’ career "declined rapidly because of alcoholism, possibly brought on by artistic frustration." When it comes to retailing the inane, the inadequate and the just-plain bizarre, Kemfeld--author of the Ph.D dissertation "Adderley, Coltrane and Davis at the Twilight of Bebop: The Search for Melodic Coherence (1958-59)"--has many cohorts, most of whom, apparently, are fellow academics. There is Steven Strunk on composer-arranger Manny Albam ("his compositions appeal to a broad public"), Andrew Waggoner on trombonist Curtis Fuller ("his rhapsodic sense of rhythm is inspired by the pulses of language"), Leroy Ostransky on tenor saxophonist Al Cohn ("he played in an uncomplicated style, employing regular phrase lengths and idiomatic bop figures") and trumpeter Joe Newman ("the energy and quiet strength of his playing have been praised by critics and musicians alike"), Lawrence Koch on bassist Wendell Marshall ("notable for the ingenious use he made of rising and falling lines"), James Lincoln Collier on Louis Armstrong ("scarred with a deep-seated, lifelong sense of insecurity") and Scott Yanow on alto saxophonist Joe Maini ("He died after losing a game of Russian roulette"). But a special spot must be reserved for Marty Hatch, who informs us that the work of bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto "often has an economy of melodic line and a steady momentum akin to that of Basie." Right—and did you know that both Pee Wee Herman and Sir Laurence Olivier use the English language? On the plus side are the occasional entries by Harrison, James, Williams et al., most of which were picked up from the two previous "Grove" dictionaries, strong new entries on Charlie Parker (by James Patrick) and Art Tatum (by Felicity Howlett) and an ambitious, worldwide list of "Nightclubs and other venues." But why is there no entry for "Jazz publications," surely an important topic? And why was Collier’s stolid account of the history of jazz picked up from "The New Grove Dictionary of American Music," when "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians" contains Harrison’s brilliant survey of the same ground? The answer to those questions, and to almost everything else that’s wrong with "Jazz Grove," would seem to be that incompetent people were asked to do an admittedly difficult job—presumably by people who themselves were not competent to detect the difference between actual and would-be jazz expertise. It’s understandable that the series editor of the "Grove" music dictionaries, Stanley Sadie, and the consultant and managing editors for "Jazz Grove," Alyn Shipton and Rosemary Roberts, would think that the academic world was the place to look for the experts that "Jazz Grove" required. After all, that is where "Grove" had sought and found most of the contributors who had made its previous publications successful. But if Kemfeld and Co. are the norm, academic jazz scholarship in the United States must be in ghastly shape; the two hefty volumes that make up "Jazz Grove" being littered with errors so gross they should be obvious to most jazz fans of any breadth of experience --although one fears for those who will consult "Jazz Grove" under the assumption that whatever it says must be fact. So "let the buyer beware"hardly seems an adequate response to the advent of "Jazz Grove." "Let there be no buyers" is more like it. THE NEW GROVE GOSPEL, BLUES, AND JAZZ "I know it when I hear it" may well be the only honest answer to the question, "What is jazz?" So it is tribute to the honesty of British jazz critic Max Harrison that he begins his survey of the field in "The New Grove Gospel, Blues and Jazz" (Norton) with the statement: "Attempts at a definition of jazz have always failed, and this reveals something about its mixed origins and later stylistic diversity." "Reveals almost everything" one wants to say, after Harrison has concluded his brief (120 pages) but brilliant critical history of jazz --written for "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians" and now published in revised form with Paul Oliver's solid studies of the blues, gospel and spirituals and William Bolcolm`s of ragtime. Before touching on some of the points Harrison makes, a word about one of his key predecessors, French critic Andre Hodeir--whose otherwise valuable book "Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence" came to grief when its author tried to nail down what is, and is not, essential to the music. Deciding that a trait could be essential only if it were both "constant and specific" -- that is, present in all jazz but not in any other form ofmusic -- Hodeir was forced to eliminate almost everything normally associated with jazz (improvisation, blues feeling, vocalized instrumental timbres and so forth). As for what was left after all that pruning, Hodeir said: "By our definition, jazz essentially consists of an inseparable but extremely variable mixture of relaxation and tension (that is, of swing and the hot manner of playing)." Fleshed out a bit, that is a good description of one of the ways a lot of jazz works. But it can't be, as Hodeir claims, what "jazz essentially consists of" -- if only because, as the more knowledgeable, less stylistically prejudiced Harrison points out, "the type of rhythmic momentum known as swing is absent from some authentic jazz, early and late." Writing in the 1980s, Harrison has an advantage over Hodeir, who cannot be blamed for failing to take account of future developments that only a seer could have predicted. But if Harrison's hindsight is 20-20, he also sees the picture whole -- using the jazz present to explain the jazz past, and vice versa. Harrison's key point is that the coming together in America of so many varied, evolving and intensely interactive cultural strains (African, European, then Afro-American, Euro-American and so forth) led to the formation of a "matrix" -- a kind of musical compost heap so "broad and composite" that it was "different from the single folk traditions from which other forms of art music have arisen." And because that matrix was rooted in such "a wide range of folk and popular styles, it has allowed jazz to retain --indeed, to expand -- its central identity through all later acquisitions and refinements in a way that has been impossible for other types of music, such as flamenco, which have kept their links with popular sources but have not developed." All that seems like common sense, both from an artistic and a historical point of view. And if the phrase "central identity" suggests that Harrison is about to do what he has said cannot be done and attempt to define jazz, that moment never comes. A critic of markedly independent bent whose judgments always are stimulating and almost always acute, Harrison has a tendency to play the role of iconoclast for more than it's worth. But the necessarily encyclopedic tone of "The New Grove" planes down his excesses, while the verve with which he sums up the work of such masters as Armstrong, Parker and Ellington and reassesses such underestimated figures as Eddie Sauter and Bob Graettinger still shines through. As Harrison approaches the present -- the danger point for any writer of a critical history his analytic powers do not decrease. Having passed through an era when Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler "seemed to promise a new beginning for jazz as an independent music purged of its European borrowings," jazz drew back from that daunting prospect to find that it no longer had a common language -- that it had entered a "post-modernist phase" in which "all styles are, it seems, valid." For "valid" this writer would substitute "potentially useful" or something even more qualified. And one wonders whether the nostalgic or conservative strains that run through most of today's seemingly diverse styles might amount to a kind of mass yearning for the common jazz language that no longer exists. After all, one of Harrison's key points is that as jazz became a "vehicle of more individual attitudes," after having begun by using "familiar material to express common sentiments uniting performer and audience," this new role as "a discipline of self-discovery" inevitably transformed jazz into a "minority art." How strange, then, that jazz should turn its back on "self-discovery"and all that it entails and instead attempt to return to the now illusory coziness of "common sentiments." But perhaps one need not fear such developments, because, as Harrison says, "jazz can neither repeat its past nor escape it."

WNMC -- You wrote: "The standard by which to judge a book like this is usefulness. Do its ideosyncracies seriously hamper it's usefulness (and the pure fun of reading it)? "I don't think so. "It's sort of like early dictionary projects--were there things wrong with the Johnson and the early Oxfords? Yes. Did they deserve scorn for them? No. They were both less than perfect and in their separate ways enormously useful." The idiosyncrasies of Johnson's dictionary and the OED, such as they are, were not the result of their compilers--and in the case of OED, their armies of assistants--adopting a half-assed attitude toward these projects. Rather, an attempt was being made by them to do the best job possible, in light of their human limitations, of the body of knowledge available to them at the time, etc. Jazz Grove, on the other hand, is a work that shows every sign of having been executed in a half-assed manner in the here and now of its compilation -- that is, it contains statements that any editor of such a work ought to know are dubious or worse. For instance, the entry where Kenny Dorham is said to have "rivaled his greatest contemporaries in technical command." You say you're "no judge of the technicalia of the trumpet." Well, have you listened to Dorham and his contemporaries at all? If you have, you'd know that this marvelous, highly individual player was by no means a notable technician by comparison with such contemporary trumpeters as Fats Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie, or Howard McGhee. This is pedantry? No, it's the sort of stuff that everyone who cares about the music manages to find out sooner or later, and in one way or another, before they themselves start to pontificate, which is something that you seem inclined to do when it suits you -- witness, on that thread about Robert Johnson and the blues, the seemingly authoritative tone of your "The generation of social critics and musical historians who built the Johnson myth had agendas ... that are pretty obvious to me in retrospect," which after much fumphing about led to this discreet withdrawal ("You obviously are more deeply read than I in this field, so I'll defer to your judgement on these issues") when JohnL weighed in with some genuinely authoritative course correction. No, I'm not going to point in detail why Collier's entry on jazz is such a turgid piece of dreck, if only because lack of curiosity and/or unwillingness to do some homework seems to be part of your problem. I advise you again, though, to track down Max Harrison's brilliant entry on jazz in regular Grove (it's also available in a book, "The New Grove Gospel, Blues, and Jazz"). You're sure to learn a good deal from it, and it seems like you have a good deal to learn. You say of Jazz Grove: "I read it for fun, yes. I also read it for research for on-air stuff. I find it useful for both these purposes. If it turns out that it is so riddled with errors that I oughtn't use it for the latter purpose, I'd be very put out, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that level of problems." Based on some of things you've said here, if it were riddled with errors, how would you know?

WNMC: What makes "He died after losing a game of Russian roulette" so ridiculous (at least to me) is the phrase "after losing a game of" -- as though Russian roulette were a contest of skill rather than the twirling of the barrel of a revolver loaded with one shell, pointing the gun at one's head etc., and that after losing at this game one might then become, I don't know, angry or depressed and decide to put a bullet through one's head. No, not everyone who "loses" at Russian roulette necessarily dies, but what the writer probably should have said about Joe Maini was simply: "He died playing Russian roulette." As for the rest of your pluses and minuses dance, let's say your the editor of Jazz Grove and you see that Astrud Gilberto entry. Do you -- again, you're the editor of this would-be REFERENCE book, not an eventual reader who is, as you seem to be, looking for entertainment -- think of that entry as just a "loopy idiosyncracy"? And if so, do you let it pass? Or do you suspect, as I think you should, that the author of that entry was just bullshitting his or her way along and take steps to correct it?

WNMC -- You wear me out with your "that's how reference books get written" stuff. You work at an NPR station, right? If some NPR programs aren't very good and/or are run by people who don't really know what they're doing (which I'm sure is the case, given what we hear), would you then say "That's public radio reality -- deal with it"? Further, if I've characterized that reality at all correctly, should that alter the degree of care and diligence with which you try to do YOUR job? (Seems to me like you're saying something like that when it comes to the editors and publishers of reference works.) Also your "A LOT of this sort of work gets done by grad students etc." skates over a crucial disntinction or two. Some grad students are quite capable of doing such work very well; others are not. It's the job of the editors of the reference work to chose only people who are capable and then oversee their work with a reasonable amount of care. The editors of Grove Jazz apparently did neither of these things, though this presupposes the editors were capable of telling good from bad. In the case of Grove Jazz, that seems not to have been the case. The Dorham entry, for instance, was written by the overall editor of Grove Jazz, Barry Kernfeld. As for your "Maybe you don't like James Lincoln Collier. Other people do. That's how it is" -- if you read Collier's entry on Jazz in Jazz Grove and Max Harrison's on Jazz from regular Grove and conclude that the differences between them are just a matter of taste, there's little hope for you.

Disagree about Grove Jazz. I wrote a long article about its many errors of fact and emphasis when it came out, and as far as I can tell, every one of those goofs is retained in the revised edition. The main problem with Grove Jazz is that to economize they hired a bunch of college students at dirt-cheap rates to write many of their entries, and many of these students then descended on places like the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers, asking questions that made it clear that they barely knew who the person they were writing about actually was. There's some fine stuff in Grove Jazz--e.g. Felicity Howlett's Tatum entry--but the main entry on Jazz is written by James Lincoln Collier (!!) when the regular Grove Dictionary of Music has a superb entry on Jazz by Max Harrison, and any biographical entry you turn to is likely to be a disaster. Again, I don't have my old article at hand, but off the top of my head I recall the end of the Joe Maini entry ("He died after losing a game of Russian roulette"), the Astrud Gilberto entry ("Her work often has an economy of melodic line and a steady momentum akin to that of Basie..."), Al Cohn ("...he played in an uncomplicated style, employing regular phrase lengths and idiomatic bop figures"), Kenny Dorham ("...Dorham rivaled his greatest contemporaries in technical command...") etc. And then there's the omission of Peggy Lee. You're better off with the less ambitious Feather-Gitler Biographical Encyclodpedia of Jazz. I'm sure that on that project much of the scutwork was farmed out too, but at least the surviving co-author was someone in a position to know right from wrong as he looked over the entries that he didn't do himself.

FWIW, I prefer Shaw to Goodman, but why do I have to choose? They're very different, and B.G. did a lot of marvelous things, both as a player and a bandleader. Defranco vs. Scott, though -- yes, Buddy has his licks (though less so than some have thought), but Scott often strikes me as a histrionic twiddler.

There is (or used to be) another CD of the '49 Shaw band, radio transcriptions, on an English label, Prism. It's at least as good as the MusicMasters "1949" and duplicates only a few pieces. One of the new ones, "He's Funny That Way," featuring the band's very musical girl singer Pat Lockwood, is absolutely hallucinatory -- worthy of Gil Evans but in a style all its own and one that I don't recognize. I'd love to know who wrote that chart. Only problem is that Prism is (or was) a cheapo label, and after I played my copy once, several tracks stuck or refused to play.

The 1949 Shaw band arguably was his best, with an incredible sax section (Herbie Steward, Frank Socolow, alto; Al Cohn, Zoot Sims; tenor, Danny Bank; baritone) plus Don Fagerquist, Jimmy Raney, charts by Johnny Mandel, George Russell, Tadd Dameron et al, and Shaw in peak modern form, having assimilated as much of bop as he needed to or should. If it's still available, look for the MusicMasters CD "1949." Shaw played like an angel, but that documentary film about him that came out in the mid-1980s I think made quite clear what I'd long suspected -- that Shaw is one of the all-time narcissistic jerks. This came through all the more vividly because the approach of the filmmakers was total adulation; without intending to do so, they gave Artie all the rope he needed to hang himself. That a man like that could make the music he did -- go figure.