Larry Kart

Hall Overton (1920-1972) was primarily a classical composer (studied with Riegger, Milhaud) who also played decent "arranger's style" jazz piano and was associated with some of the more intellectually inclined jazz musicians of the '40s and '50s (Teddy Charles, Jimmy Raney [both studied with him] etc.) I particularly like the album he did for Jubilee with Charles and Oscar Pettiford, "Three for Duke," which AFAIK has never made it to CD. He also plays on at least one of Raney's early Prestige dates. I have a CRI label LP with an Overton classical work on it, Pulsations." It's dedicated to Monk and is definitely jazz-influenced, though not in any "jazzy" way. He wrote a lot of other things, including an opera based on "Huckleberry Finn," but "Pulsations" is all I've heard. I'll listen again and report back if there's anything worth adding.

There are lots of sides to Shorter at different times, but I'll never get over the bizarre deadpan humor of his work on "Introducing Wayne Shorter" and "Kelly Great" (both VeeJay) -- not only because it's terrific but also because it's pretty much unique ("pretty much" because you could make a case that there's some relationship between this side of early Shorter and the serio-comic late '50s Rollins, even though the results sound very different).

I recall, probably in the '67-'68 range, a visit that Hemphill and other B.A.G. members from St. Louis (including Oliver Lake) paid to Chicago, performing at the Abraham Lincoln Center (I think). Very exciting in itself and also as confirmation of a kinship with A.A.C.M. ways of seeing and doing things.

Two recent discs that I've been listening to a lot -- "One Night in Vermont" (Planet Arts), a 2001 concert recording with Bob Brookmeyer and pianist Ted Rosenthal, and tenor saxophonist Ted Brown's "Preservation" (Steeplechase), a 2002 studio date with Harold Danko, Dennis Irwin and Jeff Hirshfield. Brookmeyer is in top latter-day form on "One Night," and Rosenthal -- an ideal partner harmonically and rhythmically -- is a very tasty, inventive soloist, comparable to Fred Hersch in style perhaps, though he's his own man (at odd times he reminds me a bit of Martial Solal, very witty). The program is all standards. Brown, the 75-year-old Tristano-ite, sounds as fresh as can be -- continuous, utterly spontaneous, soulful improvising -- and Danko really knows how to play with Brown (as he has with Konitz, too), keeping the harmonic palette rather basic instead of drowning the soloist in substitutions but remaining very inventive on that chosen path. Also, Irwin is something else -- like a rock timewise and a deep, non-flashy soloist.

As Bertrand said -- nobody who loves Shorter should miss "The Soul Man." Must have been one of those ideal days in the studio, everyone perfectly attuned to each other and relaxed.

Miles is in great form (at once playing hard and thinking hard about how he wants to play, or so it seems--he's definitely on the move here), Blakey fortunately is close to the mike, and Kenny Drew is really locked in. A strong feeling of that specific wedge of the past, too. A feast.

Seems to me that the big "problem" with late Trane ("problem" is in quotes because IMO it is a problem from one point of view, but may not be from another, or from others) has to do with this (to quote from something I wrote): "In 1961, Coltrane said, 'I admit I don’t love the beat in the strict sense, but at this phase I feel I need the beat somewhere.' By 1965, it had become clear, in the words of his biographer Lewis Porter, that Coltrane 'no longer wanted to swing' but rather to play over 'a general churning pulse of fast or slow.' Here, too, the example of Charlie Parker may have been crucial. While Coltrane was regarded by his peers as perhaps the most forcefully swinging soloist of his time, he could not, within a metrical framework, approach Parker’s dauntingly transcendent rhythmic acuity." Nothing wrong with abandoning (or stepping aside from) the metrical framework IMO -- and you can argue that this was for some players at that time an absolutely necessary, logical step. The problem (or "problem") is, when you step away from the metrical framework, what (in specific musical terms) do you have left? What Cecil Taylor or Albert Ayler or Roscoe Mitchell or Evan Parker had left was IMO more than enough; no one could say that Taylor's or Ayler's or Mitchell's Parker's musics (each different from the others) weren't brimful of urgent rhythmic information. In late, post-metric Trane, though, where is the meaningful rhythmic information? Is it there, but I can't hear it? Or is that the weight of the music is being placed in other realms, and if so, where and how? Over the years, I've come up lots of "yes" and "no" and "I don't know" answers (and with lots of examples to back up how I felt). But I don't have an answer that feels right and probably never will.

If you need another tenorman, Clifford Solomon, who can be heard on Tadd Dameron's "Fontainebleau."

Paar's blend of smarminess, rampant insecurity, megalomania, and corny sentiment always made me throw up. I remember at the time feeling that his advent and the grip he established on a goodsized portion of the American public was an ominous sign -- of what, I can't say for sure, but I'd bet that a lot of really nasty stuff in the world of celebritydom/entertainment could be traced back to his example.

Another clue as to what the problems/limitations of some Collectables releases might stem from. Today I bought the John Lewis Golden Striker/Gunther Schuller Jazz Abstractions compilation because my copy of JA went missing some years ago. Comparing the Collectables Golden Striker to my clean old (but mono) original LP was a shock. The CD was harsh, blare-y, almost airless (the original sound edged over in that direction -- that was often Atlantic's house style, as I recall -- but not like this) and lacked low- and high-end definition. Then in the liner notes I saw "special thanks" to two record stores that specialize in o.o.p. jazz, Rochester, N.Y.'s The Bop Shop and Pittsburgh's The Attic. That suggests that the GS tracks (maybe the JA ones too) are dubs from LPs, probably because, even though the stuff is licensed from Atlantic, the original tapes were victims of Atlantic's famous warehouse fire.

Also, among players whose honking made them famous -- don't forget Flip Phillips. It was the battles between Phillips and Jacquet that made Jazz at the Philharmonic a big success. Much of the JATP audience was waiting for the honks, and when they came, so did the audience. Or so it sounds.

In the name of historical accuracy, the primordial honker in terms of influence (though of course he was much more than a honker) was Lester Young. See p. 49-50 of Lewis Porter's fine Young bio. Porter notes that Young probably picked up the device from Jimmy Dorsey, who used it on record as early as 1930, "but Young was the one who influenced hundreds of other jazz players to adopt it." Porter also is precise about what a honk is: "Normally one approaches the lowest register of the saxophone cautiously, using a controlled embouchere and a moderate air flow to minimize the contrast with the middle register. The honk is a conscious exploitation of that contrast. The player loosens his embouchere and speeds up his air flow."

About Coltrane maybe getting hung up/confused during his solo on "Nita," the part I mean is the approximately five-second pause he takes beginning at 3:55. At that tempo five seconds is a pretty long time. I'd be curious, if I'm right, what the specific source of his confusion/indecision might have been.Did he lose track of the form? The changes? Or perhaps it was that he realized at that moment that the idea that was in his mind/fingers probably wouldn't fit. Of the other soloists (Byrd, Burrell, Silver) the one who sounds most at ease with the piece IMO is Burrell.

Seems to me that Coltrane gets a bit hung up/hesitant/confused (along the lines brought up in Jim Sangrey's post) on his own piece "Nita" on "Whims of Chambers." As Lewis Porter says in his Coltrane bio, "Nita" is a pretty complex structure for blowing, in terms of both form and harmony.

Bought the Hasaan album back then and have always loved it. The Elmo Hope relationship that Chuck mentioned is definitely there, but I also hear a strong kinship to Herbie Nichols (even if Hasaan didn't hear him much or at all) because the typical Hasaan and Nichols performance doesn't give you a tune first, then improvisation on the tune feel -- it's like the piece itself is omnipresent, a la the great stride players, but with a modern, semi-fractured sensibility that grows more fractured as Hasaan elaborates on the initial design. Admittedly, in Hassan's case, this can border on the oppressive/obssessive at times (which IMO is never the case with Nichols, with all his wit and humor), but I assume that's who Hasaan was. BTW, the Hasaan album is essential for Max admirers--he plays his ass off on it.

The legislator did say that the results of this case were not what he had in mind for the law, but that's why such moral grandstanding, mandatory sentence laws are not a good idea.

FWIW (I think it's just a ghastly irony) if I understood last night's NBC Evening News story on this case correctly, the Georgia legislator who was the driving force behind the aggravated child molestation law under which Dixon was sentenced is black.

I'm pretty sure that guitar distortion problem is on the original LP.

FWIW, "Jordu" bears a strong resemblance to "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite."

Deus -- Glad you like that Wilson set. It was a revelation to me, and I already had the Mosaic. About Collectables sound in general, I think it's hard to generalize. I'm pretty sure they do some noise reduction sometimes, but on the others Collectables I have (the Gullin, Art Farmer's "Sing Me Soft of the Blues" etc., an Elvin Jones on Atlantic compilation), either I don't have the LP originals with which to make a comparison, or my LP originals are in sad shape). By and large, I'd say that if the material appeals, take a chance. We're not likely to see any of this stuff repackaged/remastered again for some time, if ever.

That N. Adderley band on the early '80s with Fortune was something else. Fortune and the rhythm section (Larry Willis, Walter Booker, Jimmy Cobb) were locked tight and on fire. Likewise, a somewhat earlier Charles Sullivan-Fortune band I caught live in Chicago, with another fine rhythm section (Juney Booth is the only name I recall). That was the first time I heard Sullivan, who seemed like he might be Booker Little reincarnated.

I've got a copy, and it's definitely worth a listen. Overtly commercial in one sense in an almost Enoch Light manner (there's a phrase in producer Teo Macero's notes that will curl your hair, something like don't be afraid of this jazz stuff, folks -- we took out all the parts you don't like), it has one main point of interest IMO: several "solos" that Carisi wrote out for the massed-guitar ensemble. Handsomely played, they're also nice instances of C's linear thinking at work, unencumbered by his limitations as a trumpeter (at least by this time in his career, though he does take a few tasty melody choruses). The other solos by Brookmeyer and Woods are nice examples of their work of the period.

Most of Bauer's recordings are as a sideman with Lennie Tristano and/or Lee Konitz in the '40s and '50s. He made one album under his own name for Clef or Norgran in about '57 that came out as a Verve Select a few years ago and is probably out of print. Bauer had a very rich chromatic approach that, like Ellman's, allows for a lot of what might be called ambiguous or "evenhanded" motion i.e. harmonically, at just about any moment, up can turn into down, forward into backward, etc. Bauer was born in 1915, and I believe he's still around. He did a lot of teaching in later years and wrote several guitar method books; if Ellman and Jeff Parker do know of his approach, it may be through those books. Listening again to the album, I bet they got Ellman's sound about right, but I've heard Shim and drummer Eric Harland live, and they do sound damped down a fair bit here -- lacking in sizzle, space, and overtones (Shim live may have more overtones going for him than any tenorman since Ike Quebec).

P.S. As far as Ellman's sources, I have an odd feeling that, like Chicago's Jeff Parker, he's been listening some to guys like Billy Bauer, maybe even to Louis Mecca and Joe Cinderella (onetime assopciates of '50s composer-baritonist Gil Melle). Of course, it's possible these days, with the music's history folding back on itself multiple times, that guys can sound like they've been listening to players they've never even heard of. But I've been that Jeff Parker does know his Billy Bauer.

Bought the record for Mark Shim, and now I like the leader too, but that's a pretty dull, thumpy recording job -- courtesy of Kurt Lundvall. Not as bad as Lundvall's much lambasted, virtually unlistenable Lovano Nonet at the Vanguard work, but I think this one could have, should have, had a lot more zest and presence to it. With a fair amount of dial twisting I can compensate a bit, but only so much.