Larry Kart

More material from the same 1957 club date that produced "The Real Lee Konitz" (Atlantic), which is on the Mosaic set. Lee, Don Ferrara (on four of eight tracks) Billy Bauer, Peter Ind, Dick Scott. About 60 minutes of new music, great stuff.

Had the same experience with them in Chicago. Don't recall any specifics now as to why that was, but my guess is that Tyner and Rollins weren't that compatible.

Waddada Leo Smith "Ten Freedom Summers"

Rega P2 turntable with Audio Technica 740 ML cartridge (cartridge was a nice recent upgrade), B&W 850 speakers (pre diamond-tweeter model, bought used some 20 years ago), Marantz SA-15S2 CD player, Marantz 15S1 integrated amp (both bought new about 15 years ago), Schiit Magni 3 headphone amp, Sennheisser MDXX headphones, both recent purchases, headphones replaced Grado 250s. I'm satisfied with what I've got. Have walls full of CDs and LPs, classical, jazz and a few trimmings -- haven't counted in a good while but several thousand of each, maybe many more.

Fascinating record. Heavily and very effectively influenced by the Birth of the Cool recordings (kudos to arranger Gosta Theselius) and in very short order. I once sat down and tried to figure out how that worked i.e. how rapidly some of the BOC recordings were available in Sweden. Maybe some musicians, e.g., Rolf, brought them back from the U.S. in their baggage.

That seems a fair summary. For me, it depends on what mood I'm in, and/or my sense of what mood Ventura was in. That is, was he a genuine if at times rabid extrovert who painted with a broad brush, like Vido Musso perhaps, or something close to a jazz carnival act, also like Vido Musso perhaps?

I've thought about that one several times but haven't pulled the trigger.

Some pricey sets of used books: Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion," The Letters of Thomas Gray, The Complete Works of Walter Savage Landor are three that come to mind; there may be more, but works that are not in print (like these) are a weakness. Mosaic sets (I have many) don't count as an Indulgence for me; OTOH I don't recall buying a pricey out-of-print LP or CD.

My best friend's younger brother was in the hospital for more than a month with Co-Vid, and is in rehab now. There's hope for him, they say, but he has several pre-existing conditions, including heart disease and prostate cancer.

"hasn't he expressed the opinion that everyone who is not avant garde in jazz at this point is worthless?" In this you are very much mistaken.

Still listen to and admire the late Mulgrew Miller, but IIRC he came up before the Young Lions promotional push and was mature from the first.

I've still got some Wynton and Branford around and some Lovano too (don't think of him as a Young Lion particularly) but don't listen to any of it for pleasure or enlightenment, just keep the Marsalis stuff if I need to cite representative performances in the course of some argument or other. My memory is that some of the Lovano medium-sized ensemble albums were interesting (e.g the Gunther Schuller one), but I haven't revisited them. Lovano in a blowing setting? Not for me.

Early on Dizzy Gillespie referred to Armstrong as "a plantation character." Later on Dizzy said this: "“I began to recognize what I had considered Pops’ grinning in the face of racism as his absolute refusal to let anything, even anger about racism, steal the joy from his life.”

Geez, Jim, it's obvious. He 'd be playing just like Wynton Marsalis.

Dig this from "Dizzy in South America": https://youtu.be/x2_BODxYE_g

In the book Woods extolls the virtues of the Dizzy Gillespie big band that toured South America for the State Departmant in 1956 (this after the band's mid-east tour) and says that it was recorded during the South American tour in topnotch form by Dave Usher. So I ordered volumes 1,2 and 3 of "Dizzy in South America." Vol. 1 arrived today, and it is something else. The band is really together, well recorded, and hot as hell. Rhythm section is Walter Davis, Nelson Boyd, and Charlie Persip, tenor soloists are Billy Mitchell and Benny Golson, Frank Rehak plays his ass off on trombone, and Dizzy himself is in fabulous form.

The relevant passage about Al Haig from Woods' autobiography: "Less great were several memorable encounters with Al Haig, one of them a New Years Eve gig at a longshoreman's club in Brookyn. It looked like a scene from 'On the Waterfront' with pitchers of beer on the table. There was no bandstand, the three-foot Acme piano in the middle of the dance floor was out of tune, and the other bandmember was a midget with a snare drum and a hi-hat... His time came and went, and no sign of Al. The crowd was getting rowdy so I offered to play the piano. It was a quarter tone flat and the midget was little short of time. Finally Al showed and I jumped on him. 'What is this, Al? That little MF can't play, and I can't tune to the piano, and we might end the year in the river with cement overshoes! And the bread sucks and you're late!' "Al's retort was the first indication I had that he was stone nuts! 'Oh, all of you artist type exhibit tension and bring an overload of emotional problems to the marketplace of life! Don't you know any polkas? Are you a musical illiterate? Communist or what?' "I excused myself and went to the toilet with my horn and case and slipped out the back door. I ran like the wind to the subway, hoping I wouldn't be missed until I was safely aboard the first train out of this gig from hell." Afterwards Al shows up at Phil's home in rural Pa., where he interacts bizarrely with Chan and Phil's step kids and lobbies to become a semi-permanent houseguest. Phil finally drives him back to New York; on the way Al buys a bottle of sherry for a dollar and a half. "When I finally ejected him from my Falcon at 52nd St. and 7th Ave. the last words I heard were, 'Yeah, f--- you. You're a self-centered bastard and your wife's a shrew, your kids are a drag, and your fucking arthritic dog is a faggot!' [The day before Al had picked up the dog by its hind legs and shaken it violently, saying that this was a sure cure for its arthritis. At this Chan snapped and said Al had to go.]

The Blue Note record -- intermittently evanescent, bold, mysterious.

Previously unknown to me player/composer; took a flier on it on one of Tommy's Jazz sales because I like Mark Shim. Feeling on the date is special, reminiscent of Tony Williams'"Lifetime."

I also like -- per your long ago recommendation iIRC -- Peter Frankl (split between two Vox Boxes).

Kindle should be fine.

Good story from the book, p. 156: "At an important political fundraiser in San Francisco, Paul Gonsalves was tore up, bouncing off the dressing room wall like an oval billard ball. Duke told him to lay out on this one; too many important people to allow Mex onstage. Paul kept saying he was cool, no problem, really felt like blowing man, no problem! Let me at that sax!" Duke insisted: "Paul! Cool it on this one!" Paul kept raving about "no problem, man" Duke finally blew. "Don't bullshit me! I invented bullshit and you ain't goin' out there."

I'm pretty much enjoying the book, but at times I'm left with an underlying uneasy feeling about -- and this is close to but not quite it -- how tightly wound Phil was/could be. BTW, I'm just past the point where he and Chan split up after, Phil emphasizes, seventeen seemingly good years together (as he says, people who speak snarkily about him marrying Bird's widow; he quotes from Art Pepper's "Straight Life" to that effect) forget that "we were in love with each other"). Also, I've yet to encounter anything in the book about Chan that's negative, just mentions of a spat or two. Further, Phil seems to have been a warm caring stepfather. Allen Lowe alert: On p. 138 there's a fairly creepy story about a New Year's Eve gig for $35 that Phil had at a longshoreman's club in Brooklyn, under the leadership of the latter-day Al Haig, that, Phil says, "was the first indication I had that [Al] was stone nuts!" There's a fair bit more about how out there Al had become. Phil concludes: "What a poet! What a piano player! What a piece of work!"

Louis Armstrong was sui generis and a genius.

I hear you on "Lemons Never Lie." It was the first Stark novel I read, and I enjoyed the heck out of it -- the comedic touches really work, and it opened the door to all the rest. Sorry that Grofeld couldn't last. I think the trick to the ones with Grofeld was that Stark's main criminal protagonist Parker enjoyed/appreciated Grofeld.