Mark Stryker

On a personal note (and to brag), the sociologist Robin Stryker who also won a Guggenheim this year is my sister.

For the record, Miles once said, "I'd rather hear Thad Jones miss a note than Freddie Hubbard make 12" -- one of the great put downs in jazz. Not fair at all to Freddie's best playing but an apt description of Freddie at his worst. It's worth noting that in Miles' 1962 Playboy interview with Alex Haley he named Freddie in a much more positive context. PLAYBOY: You've won all the trumpet polls. After yourself, how would you rank others? DAVIS: After me! Hell, it's plenty great trumpet players don't come after me, or after nobody else! That's what I hate so about critics -- how they are always comparing artists...always writing that one's better than another one. Ten men can have spent all their lives learning technical expertness on their instruments, but just like in any art, one will play one style and the rest nine other ways. And if some critics just don't happen to like a man's style, they will knock the artist. That bugs the hell out of musicians. It's made some damn near mad enough to want to hang up their horns. Trumpet players, like anybody else, are individualized by their different ideas and styles. The thing to judge in any jazz artist is does the man project, and does he have ideas. You take Dizzy -- he does, all the time, every time he picks up his horn. Some more cats -- Clark Terry, Ray Nance, Kenny Dorham, Roy Eldridge, Harold Baker, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Bobby Hackett -- a lot of them. Hell, that cat down in New Orleans, Al Hirt, he blows his ass off, too! Back to my view: I'm a fan, though certainly not an uncritical one and fully aware of the issues of taste and style-over-substance that can mar his later work. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion, but, good God, I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't hear the brilliance of, say, "Birdlike," "D Minor Mint"(!!), "You're My Everything," "Lament for Booker," ""Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum," "Pensativa," "Blue Moon" (!) "Skylark," "Maiden Voyage," well, you could on for a very long time. For me, Freddie Hubbard in full flight, with his ego in check and his musicianship on high alert, is one of the great sounds in modern jazz. Not to mention his influence -- creating a new template on his instrument by marrying his astounding level of technique with personal articulation and phrasing, a uniquely fresh melodic conception and command of modern harmony, all of which defined the post-bop trumpet. Perfect? Not by a long shot. One of the greats? No question in my book. http://youtube.com/watch?v=lglmw1izZ9k&feature=related

Enjoying this thread and this particular post... Funny, when I saw that clip, the first thing I thought of was how much he sounded like Philly Joe at times. The explosive attack. I think another link between them is that both made extensive use of the classic drum rudiments as building blocks in their solos and fills -- maybe a drummer or someone with a better understanding of drum techniques than I have could provide details. There are 13 basic rudiments (I think) and then a bunch more ... I can tell when I player is schooled in them but I can't name more than a few.

From Down Beat, Sept. 9, 1976. Interview with Philly Joe Jones by Sandy Davis. Davis: Who are your favorite drummers? Jones: My favorite drummers are -- and always have been -- Max Roach, Art Blakey, Kenny Clarke, Buddy Rich. I always get looked at funny when I mention Buddy Rich. Shit! If any drummer looks another way when Bernard is doing his thing, he's not only crazy but I'll bet you'll never hear his name get any size in music. Max don't want to play like Buddy and I'm sure it's the same with Art, Kenny and the others; but really, who do you know can upstage Buddy Rich? Or get the same ovation from the audience? If you listen and watch Buddy and have hands and mind, you'll cop something. I played with his big band and have been in competition abroad with all the aforementioned, plus Shelly Manne and Louis Bellson. And then there's Mickey Roker, Freddie Waits and Billy Higgins -- nothing but drummers forever.

I think I may have mentioned this in an earlier thread about Jay Corre but Buddy's records were also among the very first I ever owned. I heard my brother's high school jazz band play "Big Swing Face" and that's what first hooked me into jazz when I was 10. I remain very fond of those World Pacific LPs, and it's not "first kiss" syndrome. I know what Jim is saying -- there's something about this band, Buddy, the charts, the vibe, something that emits a compelling charisma. It's definitely in a pocket -- not a Basie pocket mind you, but a pocket nonetheless. (Buddy would often sit in with Basie, which must have been great to hear.) Here's a slightly later edition of the band with Don Menza and Al Porcino. Does any film exist of the band with Art Pepper? http://youtube.com/watch?v=iJA1Ptr4s5Y

Thanks much for this part -- I'll check it out as soon as I have a moment. The forms of these tunes can be pretty tricky, not least because the band played them so loosely -- "Pinocchio" is a good example. I mean, exactly what are the changes? Plus, they hardly ever stick to the 18-bar form. Update: Found a bunch of hip transcriptions and analysis on Steve Kahn's site, including this disection of Herbie's solo on "Pinocchio" and the tune in general. http://www.stevekhan.com/pinocchioa.htm

Gang: The news here is the Sonny Rollins 1965 trio concert from Copenhagen with NHOP and Alan Dawson. Short snippets from "Oleo" and "St. Thomas" have floated around on youtube and elsewhere and I recently posted this link to "Oleo" in another thread. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=59...h&plindex=1 (haven't been able to locate St. Thomas for a couple months now -- anybody out there have a link?) I'm told the whole concert is 55 minutes long. The clips I've seen contain some of the greatest playing I have ever heard from Sonny -- at his peak in the late RCA/Alfie period and on this night, to borrow an old Ross Russell line about Bird, "in a mad blowing mood." I hope the rest of the concert is as hot as what I've seen so far. Can barely wait.

To follow up on my previous post: After some emailing with Sonny's webmaster, he has replaced the version of "Lover" on his site with another version that is some three-minutes slower. Sonny again sounds like he's playing tenor, though the pitch correction still sounds off, running perhaps a full step sharp, but I can't tell for sure without a piano or my alto handy. Also, the last few minutes are especially inconsistent with a few seconds here and there where it rapidly speeds up. For all that, however, Sonny and Max just destroy. It's worth the $2.

Hey gang: Some questions about the Sonny Rollins-Max Roach-Jymie Merritt trio bootleg from Graz in 1966. A pitch problem was brought up on an old thread I recall -- on some issues the speed was running fast and, in fact, when I downloaded a version of "Lover" from Sonny's website tonight, the speed was ridiculous. Sonny sounded like he was playing an alto or a stritch or something (total time: 15:56). Disappointing (though Sonny is obviously playing his ass off). Anyone know of another legitimate source for a pitch corrected version? Or is there a way to slow down this one now that I have it or what software might allow me to do so? Thanks

When I last heard him in 2003 at the jazz festival here in Detroit, he was 78 and the life force was astounding. He did his shtick on "Moody's Mood" and "Bennie's From Heaven" and the yodeling, rapping and all the jokes -- still funny stuff no matter how many times you hear it. But when he played it was all biz. I recall a "Sonnymoon for Two" on tenor that was like a great tiger stalking his prey -- an edgy sound and a lot of contemporary dissonance (Jim's 100 percent right about his harmony). My favorite moment of the festival that year was watching Moody backstage before his set, cocking his ear to listen intently to a fine local octet as it played a lushly idiomatic version of "If You Could See Me Now." I remember thinking that here was a guy who played that tune 55 years ago with Tadd Dameron when the ink was still wet. What a hero.

http://www.jazz.com/features-and-interview...h-wayne-shorter

David makes a really valuable point about the CJQ guys writing the influence of Miles' band into the compositions themselves and about the open-ended feel of the music, especially Charles Moore's tunes. (Hadn't heard that he was in France, by the way.) I would note that Miles' guys were already doing this in their originals recorded in the studio by 1967-68, and it's interesting that Moore referenced "Miles in the Sky" (released in 1968) as the turning point for his peers in Detroit because many of those tunes are filled with shifting meters and feels. "Paraphernalia" shifts between 4 and 3; "Country Son" also morphs between 4 (fierce swing and even-8th note sections) and a ballad-like waltz section. The form on "Black Comedy" -- and I'm cribbing here from Belden's liner notes in the Columbia box because this tune is where I hit the wall in my own ability to decipher meters; I get lost every time I hear it; guess that's why I'm a writer -- is four bars of 6 against 4; two of 4/4, one of 5/4 and one of 6/4. It would be interesting to know when exactly the CJQ guys heard "Miles in the Sky" relative to the recording of their two sides. I'll ask Kenny. Re: "A New Conception." I'll certainly concede that the Herbie-Ron-Tony influence is clumsy at times and the totally free passages David mentions were Rivers' aesthetic not Miles' (one of the reasons he didn't last in the band). But just because they don't necessarily have all the tools to pull it off doesn't mean they aren't trying to assimilate the ideas. The point I wanted to emphasize is that this was a really early example of the Miles quintet's influence spreading to young players. After all, it was recorded in Oct. 1966 -- before "Miles Smiles," "Sorcerer" and "Nefertitti" were even released, so the recorded references they would have been dealing with were still the standards records, save "ESP." Plus, none of the originals had yet made their way into the band's live repertoire except for "Agitation." The shit was really moving swiftly in those days. David: Look forward to hearing your recordings of Charles' tunes. Keep us posted.

I can't help but wonder how much of that was really a Miles influence on Rivers? Didn't Williams play with Rivers before playing with Miles? So isn't it possible that there is actually no direct influence? Just a thought. The influence I'm getting at is speficially the way the Galps-Lewis-Ellington rhythm section as a unit emulates the approach of Herbie-Ron-Tony in terms of relating to the soloist and the hide-and-go-seek approach to time keeping.

Charles lives in Los Angeles where he teaches at UCLA (lecturer in ethnomusicology). BTW, he is also interviewed extensively in Ratliff's Coltrane book. Henderson's story is a tragedy. He suffers from mental illness and is a recluse. My understanding is that he hasn't really played since the CJQ disbanded in the '70s, except for a few reunions with the band in the ealry '80s; otherwise, silence. BTW, the drummer on the CJQ albums, Danny Spencer, is still active and playing great on the San Francisco scene. And to second JamesJazz, Kenny is going strong here in Detroit. Those CJQ sides on Blue Note hold up very well -- young firebrands working through Miles' 2nd quintet influence in real time -- a much different proposition than 25-30 years later. On a related note, I think one of the first clear examples on record of the influence of Miles' band is on Sam Rivers' "A New Conception," a quite magical and underrated all-standards Blue Note LP recorded in the fall of 1966. The trio of Hal Galper, Herbie Lewis and Steve Ellington is deep into a break-up-the-time looseness that comes right out of Herbie-Ron-Tony circa "My Funny Valentine," "Four and More," etc. The link is especially revealing because of the parallel standard repertoire. Interestingly, Galper and Ellington were Boston guys (so was Rivers of course) with long relationships with Tony. Don't know about Lewis.

Well, this is certainly more straight-ahead than Our Man in Jazz but both are killin'.

No shit... It's like I said about Wayne in another thread, there's certain players that I get "friendly" with, and for them, I dig checking out wherever they decide to go, because that's what most people I dig do - they move around, always curious, not in a "I Can't Decide Who I Am" type way, but in an "Let Me See What THIS Is All About, It Might Appeal To Me In Some Form Or Fashion, Some Of It". And sometimes where they go ends up being a dead end, sometimes they end up looking but not touching, and sometimes they actually find somethings that open them up a little more to be somebody a little different than they were before. As that pertains to Sonny, well, I remember Larry saying in one of our periodic Sonny Spats a few years ago that he didn't hear any joy in any of Sonny's later work (that's a paraphrase, iirc). And sorry, but that's just....not plausible in my mind. But ok, what can I say other than I hear it, he doesn't. It's just that I find the notion that something like this marks "the beginning of the end" for Rollins is something that I find nothing short of absurd, true only if it's your definition of what "the end" is, and true only if that definition is formed entirely from what you think the world is. Otherwise, there's been a lot of good-to-great music made by the man, and the end is nowhere in sight. Even if it ain't "like it was", it's still good-to-great (and yeah, some duds, too, like you say , you pays your money...) in the "like it is" world, and can't nobody do what Sonny Rollins does in that world but Sonny Rollins. I'm right with you on every point here, even if we disagree on the quality of these particular '75 performances. And speaking of "Alfie," what I love about this '65 trio performance is that he's coming from the "Alfie" perspective in terms of sound, thematic improvising, articulation, rhythmic control and melodic rhyme, but he's still swinging the shit out of I Got Rhythm. In a way, I think it's similar in meaning to the what Miles' quintet with Wayne and Herbie were doing with "Stella" -- taking bebop fundamentals and stretching them in a way consistent with their own histories.

I hear what you're saying re: Work Song -- put another way, he's stripping back to the core values of the soul-jazz minor blues groove. I dig "Work Song" more than the duet and do not think RRK outplays him, especially on a conceptual level, though I can understand that point of view. (Or maybe, Kirk, in the top hat and tux is so far beyond everybody in the layers of irony and role playing that it qualitifes as conceptual art -- swinging conceptual art. How many masks can one man wear and symbolize? But I digress.)

At the risk of pushing this thread further down the rabbit hole of a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on Sonny's post-second sabbatical career, I think his playing on these performances is not inspired at all and, as someone who generally thinks Sonny has made a ton of great music since 1970 and who has heard him play like a God on more than one occassion in this period (and also heard some truly awful sets too -- pays your money; takes your chances) -- the period this show encapsulates is my least favorite of Sonny's, starting with the incessantly cloudy-buzz of his sound. I also don't hear rhythmic treachery here; I hear stuck-in-the-mud spinning, though, again, I've heard treachery in plenty of other performances. Having said all that, the Down Beat show performances en masse are great fun and it's interesting that even as late as 75 we still had jazz on TV in this way. Now, in the spirit of can't we all at least agree on something. Here's Sonny in 1965 with NHOP and Alan Dawson playing rhythm changes. Holy shit -- this makes a lot of other very good musicians sound like children. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=59...h&plindex=0

Larry (and all).l Here's the review. from that 1988 gig. I copied it from Nexis... JOHNNY GRIFFIN SWINGS SAX AND GIVES JAZZ A LITTLE KICK BYLINE: By Larry Kart, Entertainment writer. SECTION: CHICAGOLAND; Pg. 9; ZONE: C LENGTH: 502 words Writers about jazz often are on the lookout for images that will help to explain the music's magical methods of creation. And Wednesday night, listening to an exceptional set from tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, I think I came up with a pretty good parallel. Imagine that you're walking along at a steady pace and kicking a stone as you go-the idea being to keep the stone on the sidewalk, to kick it in such a way that you break stride as seldom as possible, and then, once you begin feeling foxy, to throw in some sly, variant kicks that will test your imagination and physical grace. Those who have engaged in that homemade little game may recall that when things are going well, the stone seems to take on a life of its own-as though its progress down the sidewalk were a thoughtfully exploratory act, and that each time your shoe came into contact with it, the stone would relay news about what it had seen and felt since the last time you'd given it some impetus. Well, the making of a jazz solo has something in common with that process-as Griffin and the rest of his fine band (pianist Michael Weiss, bassist Dennis Irwin and drummer Kenny Washington) demonstrated with particular flair on their version of Billy Strayhorn's moody "Isfahan." Originally part of Duke Ellington's "Far East Suite," the piece was still rather new to Griffin-which is why he had the sheet music for "Isfahan" in front of him and why he let Weiss take the first solo. But as the pianist's ideas unfolded with an appropriate Ellington- Strayhorn blend of romance and wit, one could detect Griffin mapping out the path he would follow during his own chorus-the way a golfer is said to "go to school" on the putt of the man who shoots before him. Or, to return to our original image, Weiss' solo line was serving as Griffin's stone- showing him what the road ahead was like and proposing attractive variations on the more obvious choices of route. That something of that sort was going on could be detected all over Griffin's face, as an especially nice Weiss idea led the leader to raise his eyebrows in bemused pleasure and inspired a preparatory rattle of fingers on saxophone keys. And with what Weiss had played in mind, one could hear how the stone had been neatly transferred from one man to another, with each man giving it his personal stride and spin. Before this, Griffin had begun with an informal Charlie Parker tribute- playing two of Parker's favorite tunes, "Just Friends" and "If I Should Lose You," with a darting grace that was exceptional even by Griffin's high standards. Thelonious Monk's "Coming on the Hudson" was next-written when Griffin was a member of Monk's band, and a piece he plays so well that Monk probably wrote it for him. At once bouncy and mournful, a mood that the whole band evoked, "Hudson" was balanced off by the strains of "Limehouse Blues"-brisk, happy, not a blues at all and the perfect ending to a perfect set.

Oh yeah. For a Harry Partch student, he sounds nothing like him. His (classical) music is a departure from all that minimalism and Asian influence that most folks associate with microtonal music. Kepler Quartet sequenza21 article A Conversation with Ben Johnston The Microtonal Piano music is amazing, a bit different from what others have done with the piano and microtones. Less of the hymnotic drone and more of the abstract splat. Thanks for bringing up Ben Johnston's music -- I adore this music. The Kepler's CD is the first of what I believe is a projected three CDs of Ben's 10 quartets -- a heroic project. Thanks to a Kronos recording from some time ago, the best known is No. 4, a mesmerizing set of microtonal variations on "Amazing Grace." The earlier works are basically atonal and idiosyncratic in their use of avant-garde techniques. The later works return to tonality with more references to the past. I recall the 9th as being particularly warm hearted. All of his music is profoundly human, often witty. Ben was still teaching at the University of Illinois when I arrived on campus in 1981. He retired a couple years later and I unfortunately never got to know him.

"That's the definitive jazz album. If you want to know what jazz is, listen to that album. That has all you'd ever want to hear. It embodies the sprit of everyone who plays jazz." -- Tony Williams. FWIW, " Milestones" has long been one of my two favorite records of all time, the other being Sonny Rollins' "A Night at the Village Vanguard." I play "Milestones" way more than "Kind of Blue" and I wonder if others do too. The latter may be the more important and influential record historically but "Milestones" is a lot more fun and if I could only have one, there's no question which one I'd choose. If "Milestones" turns 50 this year, then "Kind of Blue" turns 50 next year -- get ready for the onslaught of anniversary stories. Ugh. 'Course, I'll probably end up writing one myself. Sigh. Anniversaries are like crack to journalists. Can't break the habit.

Great thread gang -- peoples' enthusiasms have me anxious do explore music I don't know (Imbrie, Rawshtorne, Bax, Bridge). And Berger rocks ... Re: Rochberg -- his music has never thrilled me either but, historically, as the first big-name American serialist who morphed into a neo-romantic, he became a key figure in helping to topple the hegemony of serialism, paving the way for the post-modern age. The 3rd Quartet (1972) is the turning point. My contribution to the discussion is Leon Kirchner, still underrated but coming on strong, whose four quartets comprise a really profound cycle. The Orion String Quartet is in the process of recording all four, but it's not available yet. Meantime, you can get the first three on this indespensible disc: http://www.amazon.com/Kirchner-Historic-Re...6826&sr=8-2 I heard the Orion play all four quartets in a single evening here last summer and it was one of the great concert experiences of my adult life. Here's how I wrote it up. I don't usually gush this much but it was something else ... LEON KIRCHNER GETS ROYAL TREATMENT AT GREAT LAKES FESTIVAL ORION FOURSOME PLAYS COMPOSER'S 4 STRING QUARTETS BY MARK STRYKER FREE PRESS MUSIC CRITIC June 20, 2007 The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival traditionally features a concert devoted solely to its resident composer for the year. It's always a treat, but Monday's traversal of all four of Leon Kirchner's string quartets - a 57-year autobiographical arch from 1949 to 2006, with the 88-year-old composer in attendance - was one for the ages. Bristling with a revelatory sense of discovery and thrilling authority, the evening underscored the Kirchner zeitgeist. Neglected for decades, the 88-year-old American composer's uniquely personal modernism is in the full flush of being rediscovered. The Great Lakes festival engaged several Kirchner champions this year, including the Orion String Quartet, whose fiercely committed and polished performances Monday upped the ante even further. The concert was a repeat of the Orion's March program for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York, where Kirchner's music was celebrated all season. Why Kirchner and why now? Perhaps because his music fills a niche in today's pluralist scene. For listeners who find high-modernist complexity too bullying, minimalism too simple, neo-romanticism too mushy and post-modernism too derivative or affected, Kirchner's tautly argued but communicative music satisfies both the mind and heart. Though a student of Arnold Schoenberg, Kirchner remained an ear composer rather than a system composer. His four quartets balance sinewy textures, pugnacious rhythms and ambiguous harmony perched on the edge of atonality with a lifelong addiction to beauty, intuition and a storyteller's command of tension and release. The String Quartet No. 1 (1949), for example, lurches forward in a tremendous rush of coiled energy, recedes into rhapsodic solos and then splinters into free counterpoint rife with tannic dissonance and aggression. The piece was famously called Bartok's Seventh Quartet by Hungarian violinist Josef Szigeti (Bartok wrote six), but its high-strung carriage also sounds like music born of the atomic age. The Second Quartet (1958) is a masterpiece. Its three movements, played without pause, total 15 minutes and pack a concentrated punch. The music is dense with thematic ideas that grow in tightly organized but never predictable patterns. Textures are thinner than in the earlier quartet, with a darkly hued, almost Brahmsian luminescence hovering in the adagio. Scurrying chromatic lines turn the finale into a dervish. The final gesture, a sweetly tonal chord that turns deliciously sour is typical Kirchner. Scored for string quartet and electronic tape, the Third Quartet (1966) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1967, but it has not aged as well as the earlier works. The bleeps, bloops and blats sound too much like a 1950s version of the future. At Kirchner's suggestion, the Orion Quartet segued directly into the Fourth Quartet, which was written for them last year. The effect was stunning, as the final 13 minutes felt like a homecoming, the composer returning to clarified textures, romantic melody and shimmering harmony. The Orion Quartet brought an intensely focused blend, plangent warmth and technical aplomb to all of the music, alert to the mercurial shifts of mood and expression. They were met with rapturous applause, and in a touching coda, ended the evening by walking down the center aisle to shake the composer's hand one by one.

"People Time," the 2-CD duet album with Kenny Barron recorded about three months before Getz died in 1991, just kills me. Getz's melodicism is so extraordinary -- every phrase as natural as breathing, and the pair just seems to float so ebulliently through the swinging tunes. I'm fond of the late records with McNeely, but for me nothing compares to the depth of expression on "People Time" ... Speaking of "Captain Marvel," if you haven't seen this, go now: http://youtube.com/watch?v=v5u747pBucM Larry, I'm extremely jealous that you saw this band live around the same time ... I'd love to see the rest of this tape. I remember reading a story in Down Beat around 76-78 and somebody -- maybe Stan's wife? -- said something that always stuck with me, that (paraphrasing) Stan and Miles were the youngest 50 year olds in jazz. Jim: I haven't heard the CD of "Captain Marvel." Your comment suggests a new mix or radically changed sound from the LP. Can you elaborate?

Well, I didn't start this thread as a thumbs up or thumbs down referendum on Cosby, and I'm staying out of it. I thought the tale was funny and was especially interested in what the context of the telling says about the relative place of jazz in the culture. However, I will add one thing in response to Debra's comment. I don't think jazz was presented at all as Dr. Huxtable's eccentricity or as a museum piece. In fact, the best part of the show as it related to jazz was that the music was seen not as weirdly exotic but simply as part of the everyday life of these people and ingrained into their culture. Cliff's father had been a professional trombonist. The family often went to hear jazz in clubs. The names of musicians like Miles Davis came up organically in dialogue. Theo had a poster of Wynton Marsalis in his room. I recall Cliff one time singing a big chunk of "Moody's Mood for Love." Etc. One of the great moments in the whole series actually was a spot at the end of one program when Cliff and Claire dance romantically to Coltrane -- "Dear Lord" if memory serves. The music is never named and nobody makes a big deal out of it. It's just there in the center of their home, as it is for many.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPgcQydWWeE Was sent this wonderful clip today -- Bill Cosby telling a long story about trying to sit in with Sonny Stitt as a kid. Beyond the hilarious story -- and Cosby's hilarious storytelling -- I was struck by how hip you could be on a talk show in those days, especially on Cavett's show. Dig how Cosby warns him before he starts the story that it might be too inside for the room and Cavett's response is to go ahead, and then he takes about 8 minutes to tell the whole story. MS