Mark Stryker

Picking two or three becomes excruciatingly difficult, but picking one is easy: "A Night at the Village Vanguard" -- Sonny's the greatest chord change player ever and "Striver's Row" and "Old Devil Moon" prove it. Plus, Ware and Elvin (!) That record could have been recorded yesterday it's so timeless.Side note: Is it even possible anymore to get the original sequencing on a single CD? Not that everything isn't great, but that's an instance where they really did pick most of the best stuff for the original LP. I can second "Alfie" and, from the same period, would add into the mix the incredible "There Will Be Another You" (import only at this point). From more recent times I'm partial to "+3" and "This Is What I Do."

C'mon folks, we've been through this many times: Posting entire stories violates copywright laws, and by denying clicks it harms the cause because the less traffic we get for jazz stories, the easier it becomes for editors to decide to do away with the coverage altogether. Seriously. Just post links. To that end, if anyone wants to see all of the coverage of the Detroit festival you can find it all here: http://freep.com/article/99999999/ENT04/90...e=2009_JAZZFEST

Amen.

For folks who might be interested, here's coverage related to the Detroit International Jazz Festival this weekend. Profile of John Clayton, who has written a 30-minute commissioned piece honoring the Thad, Hank and Elvin Jones (the fest is dedicated to them) http://freep.com/article/20090830/ENT04/90...in-Detroit-jazz The line-up with annotations: http://www.freep.com/article/20090901/ENT0...z-fest-schedule Highlights pulled out: http://freep.com/article/20090901/ENT05/90901061

Not a recording but a TV show. Jimmy Smith accompanied by -- wait for it -- Fred Astaire (!) who dances to "The Cat" in 1965. The collaboration comes at about the 5:30 mark, after a Smith trio tune and an Astaire monologue.

For what it's worth, there's a dynamite bootleg cassette of Bunky from the Chicago Jazz Festival -- I think from 1978 but I could be wrong -- with Art Hoyle on trumpet, John Campbell on piano, Steve LaSpina on bass and Joel Spencer on drums. My copy had three tunes on it -- "Tune Up," a Bunky original called "The Israelites" and "Blues in the Closet." He plays the shit out of everything, with his homemade outside-in approach to harmonic sideslipping and what a friend likes to call "pentatonic universe" and, affectionately, "chromatic dribble." The intensity is almost overwhelming, though the verite quality of the recording adds to the outness quotient. Hoyle and a very young Campbell sound great too. But Bunky is a force of nature. He willed himself into greatness.

Seems to me that Chastain was primarily interested in promoting herself. The Firefly is fairly close to my home, and I would have gone more if I could see acts other than Ms. Chastain. But I am not gloating over this development at all. I did see Tony Monaco over there, as well as Organissimo a few times. Others are entitled to a different read of course, but the notion that the Firefly Club was some sort of vanity project meant to glorify the owner is from my perspective as far from the truth as imaginable; her heart was in the right place. She rarely performed at the club as a leader; instead, most of her appearances were singing a few tunes here and there as a sideperson with one or another of bassist Paul Keller's bands. As a 7-night-a-week club (plus happy hours, etc.) the Firefly provided steady work for dozens of local musicians with regular bands, in all kinds of styles, given the opportunity to work week after week and develop an identity. On another front, thinking off the top, here are some of the national names I heard there in recent years: David Liebman, Hank Jones, George Cables, Frank Morgan, Sheila Jordan, Ken Peplowski, Jason Kao Hwang, Tim Berne, Tomasz Stanko, Lionel Loueke, Patricia Barber, Fathead Newman, Larry Coryell, Javon Jackson and Jimmy Cobb, Astral Project, Johnny O'Neal, Monty Alexander, Buster Williams, Geoff Keezer, Andy Bey, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Ingrid Jensen. Without passing judgement on any business or moral failings real or imagined, the loss of a jazz club of this stature is a tragedy.

http://freep.com/article/20090814/ENT04/90...ed-by-the-state Here's a much more detailed story from the Free Press.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/showcase-34/?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/arts/mus...=1&ref=arts Best quote: "There are some people who would kill their own mother for the only copy of a Son House record,” Mr. Heneghan said. “And they sure as hell would kill your mother, and you.”

Lots of insightful comments here. Thanks, Bev. At the risk of stealing from my own upcoming review in Sunday's Detroit Free Press, let me add some thoughts. 1. I love the record: poetic, patient and full of concentrated adventure. Beyond Vitous, the players are not stars but they're really in tune with each other and the whole is greater than the sum, etc. At 50 minutes, there's no filler, no meandering and it can be digested in a single sitting. It's a reminder that most CDs today are way too long. 2. While Vitous eschews some of the obvious sound world elements of early Weather Report like the electric shimmer, the collectivist aesthetic here is deeply rooted in Zawinul's mantra "We always solo, we never solo" (or is it, "We never solo, we always solo"?) 3. Bev's point about Miles' is right on. One of the interesting things about the record is the way it reminds you how indebted conceptually WR's early aesthetic was to the Second Quintet and the Holland/Corea extension. 4. In a blindfold test you could probably guess that the bassist was the leader by the way by the action tends to flow through him; Vitous' tightly wound, springy sound (pizzicato and arco), cuts through the diaphanous textures and lives in the forefront of the ensemble. 5. The obsessive avoidance of an explicitly stated groove is the one weakness. There are two moments of a few seconds each where the music develops to a point where Vitous begins to walk and drummer Gerald Cleaver responds with a 4/4 ride cymbal. But the bassist immediately stops and shifts directions, as if he were afraid of breaking a rule against swinging. Of course, there's nothing wrong with not wanting to swing in the traditional sense, but there is something wrong about refusing to let the music go where it so obviously and naturally wants to go -- and, in fact, has already gone, until Vitous pulls it back. Frustrating. 6. Finally, I do hear the references to both Miles and Dvorak in "When Dvorak Meets Miles." The melody is an abstracted variant of the spiritual-like "Largo" ("Goin' Home") from the "New World Symphony."

Thanks for posting the reading, David. First time I've heard O'Hara's voice. This is, of course, one of O'Hara's finest poems, a quintessential example of the "I do this I do that" genre that he pioneered. "City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara" by Brad Gooch includes some interesting background surrounding the creation of "The Day Lady Died." The last time O'Hara heard Holiday was at the Five Spot in 1957. At the time, the club was becoming a replacement for the Cedar Bar as a gathering spot for artists. The Cedar was where the abstract expressionists had hung out, and O'Hara, who wrote for Art News, worked as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art and was tight with Pollock, DeKooning, Kline, Motherwell, David Smith, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, et. al., had been a regular. But publicity surrounding the Cedar was beginning to turn it into a tourist trap, so a migration to the Five Spot had begun. Kenneth Koch and Larry Rivers started holding jazz-and-poetry performances there. One night Koch was reading his poems with Mal Waldron at the piano, and Holiday showed up to see her accompanist and was persuaded to sing a few songs with him. Gooch points out that this was illegal, because at the time Holiday didn't have a Cabaret Card due to the drug busts. This is how Koch remembered that night: "It was very close to the end of her life, with her voice almost gone, just like the taste of very old wine, but full of spirit. Everybody wanted her to sing. Everybody was crazy about her. She sang some songs in this very whispery beautiful voice. The place was quite crowded. Frank was standing near the toilet door so he had a side view. And Mal Waldron was at the piano. She sang these songs and it was very moving." Gooch concludes his discussion with more detail about O'Hara's activities on July 17, the Friday that Holiday died. He wrote the poem on his lunch hour and later took the train out to East Hampton to meet up with painter Michael Goldberg and his wife, Patsy Southgate, for dinner (the Patsy and Mike in the poem). O'Hara and Goldberg talked about the tragedy of Holiday's early death on the drive from the station and when they got to the house Goldberg put on a Holiday record. After Southgate put the kids to bed, O'Hara, who hadn't mentioned the poem before then, pulled it out of his pocket and read it for his hosts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOT7heJgVcc...feature=related Another famous Dating Game alumni and comedian ... only time I've seen him without gray hair.

Never saw them live, much to my regret, and while I haven't heard all of the records, I always thought "Earth Beams" was the best -- it's a total firecracker -- and that the Blue Notes never captured the intensity of the earlier LPs. On a related note, I did see Don Pullen play a solo piano concert in a church somewhere in the Miami area -- might have been Coral Gables -- in 1994 less than a year before his death. I was working for the Dayton Daily News at the time and just happened to be in Miami on assignment, picked up the paper and saw the listing for the concert and took a l-o-n-g cab ride to make it. Remarkable. The heart, soul, spiritual and physical energy were incredibly moving.

Haven't seen this posted yet: Small's in New York has created a remarkable new website with what appears to be hundreds of hours of archived sets recorded at the club, with a searchable data base by musician. So, for instance, the other night I listened to half am evening from last year led by tenor saxophonist Grant Stewart with organissimo board member Michael Weiss in the rhythm section. http://www.smallsjazzclub.com/index.cfm?it...=0&banner=a The club also is broadcasting live video. Right now it's just past 11 p.m. Eastern on Thursday and you can watch a Brian Lynch Sextet including Vincent Herring. http://www.smallsjazzclub.com/index.cfm?it...=0&banner=a One warning. For some reason, the audio did not play on my work computer but does play on both computers at home. Must be a software issue, but I can't explain it and there's nothing on the site that helps.

http://www.larrysimprovpage.com/?q=audio/b...practicing_four Found this link via David Liebman's newsletter at his website http://liebintervals.blogspot.com/ This was new to me, so I figured it would be new to others as well. Anyone know anything more about its origins (date, drummer, etc.)?

http://www.freep.com/article/20090318/ENT0...sings+the+blues

"jazz of any stripe" does not take into regard any of these acts (I would hope) Faruq Z Bey and the Northwoods Improvisors the Raw Truth Ensemble featuring Michael Carey and Skeeter Shelton AACM member Anthony Holland leader of the new NYC wave Thomas Abbs (sideman to Sabir Mateen, Cooper-Moore, Roy Campbell, et al) Odu Afrobeat Orchestra featuring Fela Kuti alum Adeboye Adegbenro New improvised piano composer Thollem McDonas local composer Frank Pahl (while not jazz per se Mr. Pahl certainly deserves to be held in similarly high regard) or NYC based new freejazz unit the Eastern Seaboard trio who have all performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit in the past two and a half years. We are all very excited about this show with Roscoe Mitchell in April but I would like to give credit to the great lesser known names that have performed before him. Thanks for your interest, Benjamin Hernandez MOCAD Music and A/V coordinator Thanks for refreshing my memory and setting the record straight -- no explanation why I overlooked these past examples, other than perhaps conflating them with other venues.

Boy, there are just so many great dates with these two together, but if we're talking definitive examples of their art together, two I haven't seen mentioned yet are "Kelly at Midnight," a Wynton Kelly Trio record on VeeJay with the tune called "Temperance" as one of the best of the best; and the Sonny Clark Trio LP on Blue Note ("Two Bass Hit," "Tadd's Delight). Otherwise, I'd say "Milestones" and "Relaxin'" (they kill on "Tune Up" and "Blues by Five" on "Cookin'" too); "Cool Struttin' and "Blue Train." A few others that may not be on the level of the preceding but which come to mind immediately as records that I love are Lee Morgan's "The Cooker," the half of Jackie McLean's "Jackie's Bag" that they play on together; Miles' "Porgy and Bess," Freddie Hubbard's "Goin' Up," Dexter Gordan's "Dexter Calling" and the first Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section record, KD's "Whistle Stop." Larry's on to something about the way they played in the moment, helping craft a unique feel on so many dates, influenced by the material, the players and the mood in the studio, while also, of course, bringing their particularly unique hook-up. I've tried to analyze their time feel and I've always heard it this way -- PC. plays on the beat, a tiny fraction ahead of Philly Joe, so the bass gives the impression of pulling the rhythm section along; meanwhile, Philly Joe's high hat is right on the beat with PC, but his ride cymbal lays back on the time. Together, this creates a really w-i-d-e groove, both intensely relaxed and intensely fiery. But my ears could easly be playing tricks on me since perception of time can be very subjective. Anybody else got ideas on this topic? (Interestingly, I can think of a few tracks where they actually slow down as the piece progresses, but I can't think of any where they actually rush.) One interesting footnote. I think there is only one of Philly Joe's records on which he used PC, but I think most or perhaps all of PC's dates as a leader included Philly Joe.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit is on the west side of Woodward about six blocks south of the Detroit Institute of Arts. It's a significant new institution, obviously devoted to contemporary visual art, but they do present music, though it's mostly been on the rock/experimental side. There hasn't been much jazz of any stripe, though New Music Detroit, a terrific ecumenical contemporary classical music ensemble that plays everyting from Stockhausen to Reich, has performed marathons and other concerts there that have included John Zorn's "Cobra" and other works in the cracks. It's a bit off topic ffrom where the thread started, but if anyone's interested in knowing more about MOCAD, here's a story about the recently appointed first permanent director of the museum, Luis Croquer. http://www.freep.com/article/20090201/ENT0...manent+director

To the extent that any of my previous posts implied the contrary, let me say I agree with Jim's sentiment about celebrating uniquely American freaks. Harvey was a self-invented original, who managed to do what he did for 60 years and signed a 10-year contract at age 82. Everything else aside, that ain't nothing.

I guess the rest of the story is pretty damn complicated, but then, as in most things, it usually is.

Harvey was the subject of an Esquire cover story in Nov. 1978. Here's the cover of the magazine; the short summary from the table of contents says nothing specific, only that his image is not the reality. http://cgi.ebay.com/ESQUIRE-November-7-197...bayphotohosting There are some website references to the article, though interestingly all that I found repeat the exact same language that appears to have been part of a wiki entry at one point but isn't any longer. The quick take from those dubious sites: Harvey stole an airplane and was discharged with a Section 8 (mental illness). So, obviously, one would have to track down the Esquire issue and evaluate the sourcing, documents, etc. Interesting. Anybody got an Esquire collection lying around to check?

I was no fan of Harvey's politics and love a good conservative hypocrisy tale as much as the next lefty. But I've seen no mention in any of the obits about draft dodging. To the contray, Harvey enlisted in the army in 1943 and, according a staff written obit in the Washington Post, was discharged honorably in 1944 for medical reasons following a training injury. I thought this previous profile from the Post reprinted today does a good job of exploring the nuances of Harvey's influence, innovations and his politics, which evolved in interesting ways (came out against the Vietnam war in 1970, supported the ERA, criticized the Christian right) though in most ways he remained right-wing. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher..._harveygoo.html

I may well have posted this long profile before, so if it's a repeat I apologize. I was fortunate to spend time with Flanagan on a couple of occasions not long before he died. This piece was written in August 2001, just a few months before his death in November of that year. I first saw him play live in the summer of 1988 at Sweet Basil with G. Mraz and K. Washington. My plan was to hear the first set and then wander to another club, but the trio was so note-perfect and beautifully integrated that I ended up staying all night. I came back the following day with a similar plan and again ended up staying the whole night. Cecil Taylor was there one of those nights and I remember Tommy acknowledging him from across the way on the break with a friendly, "Hey, C.T!" A few years after he died I was talking with Bess Bonnier, a Detroit pianist of Tommy's generation (they were classmates in high school and lifelong friends) and she told me a story that illustrated his dry wit. They were all in a cab on their way to one of Tommy's gigs and his wife, Diana, a very excitable woman who Whitney Balliett once described as a person who moved twice as fast as her husband, was going on and on worrying about how late they were. Finally. Tommy looked at her as they were inching through traffic and said calmly, "We're gaining on it." A LEGENDARY TOUCH THE DETROIT-BORN PIANIST TOMMY FLANAGAN BRINGS HIS SAGE, SATINY AND SWINGING BEBOP HOME FOR THE JAZZ FESTIVAL BYLINE: MARK STRYKER FREE PRESS MUSIC WRITER DATELINE: NEW YORK Tommy Flanagan descends the steep staircase leading from Seventh Avenue to the Village Vanguard and briefly surveys the empty club before shuffling to the piano. His hands fall lovingly on the keys as if he were shaking hands with an old friend. Flanagan -- one of the greatest musicians ever produced by Detroit and a headliner at the Ford Detroit International Jazz Festival -- first played the Vanguard as a sideman with trombonist J.J. Johnson in the late 1950s. More recently, Flanagan's all-world trios have spent many nights in residence at this hallowed temple of jazz, and he's recorded two exemplary albums here. But now, in the afternoon stillness, he plays for himself and the ghosts of Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and the other departed jazz heroes whose photos line the smoke-stained walls of the world's most famous basement. One soft-spoken chord meanders into another until a melody emerges from the mist -- "Gone with the Wind," a 1937 gem that reminds you Flanagan doesn't know every tune, just the best ones. He glides into a walk-in-the-park tempo, improvising fluid ideas ripe with insouciant swing, fine-spun counterpoint and elegant bebop melodies whose single-note lines hang on the chords like Christmas ornaments. Flanagan's lyrical touch is legendary -- each note sounds like a pearl wrapped in silk -- and this is the first topic he addresses when the songs ends. "My touch comes from listening and trying to get a sound that I had in my head," he says in a gentle voice that rarely rises above a stage whisper. "I never did get much out of playing too hard. In fact, when I thought I was playing too loud, I'd use the soft pedal. I liked that -- you play harder but get a softer sound. I had an old, harsh-sounding piano at home, anyway." At 71, Flanagan plays like the hippest angel in heaven, seducing listeners through a sublime marriage of grace and guts, swing and sagacity, wit and warmth. It's been two years since he last performed in his hometown -- illness forced him to cancel a 70th-birthday concert at Orchestra Hall last year -- and his festival appearance marks the local debut of his latest trio, with veteran drummer Albert Heath joining bassist Peter Washington. Flanagan's poetic brand of modernism is so universally admired today that it's sobering to remember it wasn't always that way. Until launching the second act of his career in the late '70s, he was a secret to almost everyone but his fellow musicians. Most observers regarded him as a career accompanist. Flanagan's self-effacing personality and his resume worked against him. He spent 14 years as Ella Fitzgerald's pianist, from 1962 to 1965 and 1968 to 1978. (In between was a brief stint with Tony Bennett.) Flanagan recorded sparingly as a leader, releasing zero records under his own name between 1960 and 1975. He recorded prolifically as a sideman, however, appearing on such classic '50s LPs as Miles Davis' "Collectors' Items," Sonny Rollins' "Saxophone Colossus" and John Coltrane's "Giant Steps." The turning point came in 1978, when a heart attack put him in the hospital for 17 days. He quit smoking, cut down on drinking and gave his notice to Ella. Soon he formed the first in a series of trios specializing in nattily tailored interpretations of exquisite standards and underplayed jazz originals by Thad Jones, Monk, Tadd Dameron, Billy Strayhorn, Ellington and others. Flanagan became a fixture in the New York clubs and recorded a string of thrilling albums, mostly for small European labels. Not until 1998, when Blue Note released "The Sunset and the Mockingbird," did a major American label support Flanagan. By then his brilliance was received wisdom. "Flanagan's position is less a matter of besting the competition than bringing his powers to a peak where competition is irrelevant," critic Gary Giddins wrote a few years ago. "He's perfected his own niche, a style beyond style, where the only appropriate comparisons are between his inspired performances and those that are merely characteristic." Flanagan's style is deceptive. He is known for his satin touch, but he can play with a cunningly sharp attack and swings as deeply as anyone. He is a child of bebop and a master of bop's rhythmic displacements, harmonic challenges and the horn-like style pioneered by pianist Bud Powell. But Flanagan's roots also reach back to pre-bop pianists like Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum, Fats Waller, the transitional Nat Cole and the early modernist from Pontiac, Hank Jones -- all pianists with active left hands and refined elan. "I was first influenced by Teddy Wilson," says Flanagan. "He was a firm player, but he also had a beautiful touch. If that's your first inspiration, you really want to improve on it. In the last 20 years or so my volume has increased. In fact, I had a drummer once who left the group because he said the piano was too loud." Flanagan laughs at the irony. "Imagine that -- a drummer telling the piano player he was too loud." Michael Weiss, one of the legion of younger pianists who revere Flanagan, points out that a large part of his identity is his pianistic approach to dynamics, attack, pedaling and orchestration. "Each note or chord has a carefully considered sonority, as opposed to a generic kind of voicing," says Weiss. "He might start a melody in single-note lines, then play something in thirds, octaves or full chords. That carries over to his improvising. If he's soloing and ascends to a climax, he'll orchestrate that moment -- put a chord under the melody note to color or accent what he's doing." Flanagan manipulates the keyboard pedals like a classical virtuoso, employing the sustain pedal to connect his ideas in a smooth legato without allowing his notes to bleed into a puddle. "Sometimes guys just come and watch my feet," says Flanagan. "You know, there's a way of breathing when you use the pedals. It's like phrasing." Flanagan is a handsome, distinguished man, but he is more frail than in years past, and his clothes hang loosely on his small frame. He has a long face, tender eyes, a sweet smile and wears large round glasses. He lost his hair early, and only a wisp of white remains above and behind his ears. A bushy gray mustache almost hides his dimples. Flanagan does nothing in a hurry, least of all talk. He answers questions in stages, leaving long gaps of silence and looking past his interviewer into an undefined middle distance. Still, when the mood strikes, he is an agile conversationalist with a martini-dry wit. "Tommy may not say much, but when he does speak, it's the truth," says Weiss. Flanagan has lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan since the 1950s, for the last 25 years on 82nd Street with his wife, Diana, a vivacious woman whom he married in 1976. Married once before, Flanagan and has three children from his first marriage and six grandchildren. The apartment is tastefully decorated and cluttered with Diana's books -- a former singer, she was a literature major in college and devours fiction, poetry, history, biography and music tomes. A Steinway grand piano stands in one corner of the living room opposite a sitting area by the window. Photos of jazz musicians like Charlie Parker and Ellington are scattered about, along with paintings, including a small landscape by Nancy Balliett, wife of New Yorker jazz critic Whitney Balliett. A framed caricature of Flanagan by the cartoonist Al Hirschfeld watches over the piano. On this afternoon, Flanagan and Diana nuzzle on the sofa while paging through the recently published "Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit, 1920-60" (University of Michigan Press, $24.95). Flanagan points and smiles at the photos of lifelong friends like Barry Harris, Kenny Burrell, Elvin Jones, the late Pepper Adams and others who were part of a remarkable eruption of jazz talent in mid-century Detroit. Diana squeals at the pictures of her husband working around town as a teenager. "Oh, sweetheart! What a darling you were! I would have loved you!" "Stand in line," Flanagan deadpans. He lays the book down on a table and begins to reminisce about his salad days. In 1953, he joined the famous house band at the Blue Bird Inn, working alongside saxophonist Billy Mitchell, trumpeter Thad Jones and drummer Elvin Jones. At the Blue Bird, Flanagan first played with many of the musicians with whom he would later work in New York. "I couldn't have gotten very far without those days in Detroit," he says. "We had good role models. They didn't use that term then, but we had some people we respected who played as well as those people who came into town that we'd go see. We had people like Milt Jackson, Yusef Lateef, Lucky Thompson, Wardell Gray." Flanagan grew up in northeast Detroit in Conant Gardens. He was the last of six children. His father was a postman, and both parents loved music, especially his mother. Flanagan started on the clarinet at 6, but by then he was already climbing up on the piano bench, imitating the lessons he heard his brother practice. Encouraged by his mother, Flanagan started piano lessons at 10 and still has a fondness for Chopin and Ravel. He got interested in jazz when his brother started bringing home the latest Billie Holiday records, which featured Teddy Wilson on piano. "I've been living with this music since I was 6 years old," he says. Flanagan attended Northern High School, where pianists Roland Hanna and Bess Bonnier were classmates. In 1949, after Flanagan backed Harry Belafonte at the Flame Show Bar, Belafonte offered him a gig in New York. But Flanagan's mother thought her baby was too young to leave town, so a disappointed Flanagan stayed put. Then he was drafted and spent two years in the Army. When the orders came to ship out to Korea, he wanted to take the newest music with him, so he stuffed Thelonious Monk's Blue Note 78s into his suitcase. Eventually, Flanagan made it to New York, moving there in early 1956. Outside of music and family, his memories of Detroit are not all pleasant. "I always wished I'd left earlier," he says. "Detroit started to grind on me. There wasn't much freedom to move around. The police were horrible then. They'd hassle you in your own neighborhood. One night when I was about 12, I was walking by a printing shop where they'd found some subversive material and they stopped me, guns drawn. I said, 'What are you going to do? I'm just a kid.' " In New York, things moved swiftly. Within a year, Flanagan had subbed for Bud Powell at Birdland and recorded with both Davis and Sonny Rollins. He cherishes the memories: At the first recording session with Davis, he recalls, the trumpeter pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket containing a barely legible sketch of Brubeck's "In Your Own Sweet Way." Davis supplied the chord voicings for the famous introduction that Flanagan plays, but Flanagan devised the rhythm. Then there was the time J.J. Johnson's Quintet alternated sets at the Vanguard with Jack Kerouac, who would read from his books or extemporize. One night, Flanagan, Elvin Jones and Kerouac -- a world-class drinker -- ended up at Flanagan's apartment. "Before the morning was over, Elvin threatened to kill him," Flanagan recalls. "Kerouac said something outrageous and Elvin took offense. I think I did too, but Elvin was more menacing." Talked out, Flanagan stands up and slowly makes his way to the piano. Stacks of popular songbooks sit on a nearby shelf, and on top of the piano is a folder of compositions by Modern Jazz Quartet founder John Lewis. The pianist had sent the music to Flanagan for a possible CD before his death in March. Flanagan plays a few enigmatic arpeggios before slipping into the the Jimmy McHugh ballad "Where Are You?" with a fanciful twist of harmony that unlocks a back door to the song. He plays a chorus sotto voce and then a second with more volume, dialogue and emotion. The results are so eloquent that a visitor quickly requests "Last Night When We Were Young" to keep Flanagan at the keyboard. It's an unusually abstract pop song; Harold Arlen's melody and harmony move in odd patterns. Flanagan hasn't played it in ages, and he watches his hands with a puzzled look on his face, as if his fingers belonged to another pianist. When he gets stuck for a note, Diana, who seems to know as many songs as her husband, softly sings Yip Harburg's mature lyric from the sofa. The music shudders with feeling. When it's over, Diana has a tear in her eye and Flanagan a faraway look in his. ((END))