Mark Stryker

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID...030514/1035/ENT Oliver Knussen's name has come up on the board occassionally in passing, mostly in admiration I recall, so here's a link to a story we ran about him today in the Detroit Free Press. He's conducting a fabulous program this coming weekend with the Detroit Symphony -- Stravinsky's "Fireworks" and "The Fairy's Kiss" with Knussen's own "Flourish with Fireworks" and his Violin Concerto with Leila Josefowicz, who just played it in Chicago with Esa-Pekka conducting. The concerto is a terrific piece; you can get it as a download from the DG website. Anybody have memories of hearing his music live (or, alternatively, hearing him conduct)? MS

In the mid '70s my middle school band played at a jazz festival in Fort Wayne, Ind. with Woody's band as the guest. There were individual instrument clinics during the day and Frank did the one for saxophonists. What I remember most was that he was adamant that the best thing we could do to improve our sound on saxophone was to take up the bassoon. Any double reed instrument would do, he said, but especially bassoon. At 13, we thought the advice (and him) were among the weirdest things we had ever heard.. I mean, we could barely play the saxophone and here he was telling us to take up the bassoon. Anyway, it was only much later that I began to understand what he was surely getting at -- since a double reed instrument is played with a "double lip" embouchure you have to have your diaphragm-breathing-air column together or you can't produce a full sound or stay in tune. The idea is to transfer that air column to the saxophone, where many players bite down too hard on the top of the mouthpiece, constrict the air flow, cause intonation problems and don't produce a full or even sound in all registers. I had a saxophone teacher once who suggested practicing double lip for the same reason.

Here's a long piece about Feldman by composer-critic Kyle Gann: http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/200...ciency_fel.html

I did some fun listening over the weekend to some early Juilliard recordings and tried to flesh out the details of the discography. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a good discography online. I have in my files about half the Juilliard's complete Columbia/CBS/Sony discography in the form of a 12-year old fax from some publicity guy with Sony/Juilliard, but for some reason it cuts off with the letter "M," which is really a drag. Anyway, I was a bit off in my previous reference to the Juilliard's time with RCA. It started earlier than I remembered, in 1957, with the Mozart and Haydn recordings (before Korff was replaced by Cohen as second violinist), and seems to have lasted into 1962. The Dvorak/Wolf RCA has a 1964 copywright date on the back of the jacket, but it must have sat in the can for a couple years. It is certainly true that by 1963, the quartet was back with Columbia because I have a Mozart "Haydn" box from that year that was recorded in 1962 and released in 1963. I've got some Mendelssohn (1963) and Schubert from around this time as well, though, interestingly all of these were issued on Epic rather than Columbia Masterworks. Anybody know why that might be? I also wondered why the split with Columbia happened in 1957 and have thought that aside from the obvious answer (money), it may have had something to do with the Juilliard's desire to record standard repertoire and the fact that Columbia had long been committed to the Budapest String Quartet in Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, etc. For the first decade or so of its existence, the Juilliard was really known as a contemporary music group. Its first recording project was the Bartok cycle, which was issued in 1950, and it was followed by Second Viennese recordings of all four Schoenberg quartets, plus Berg Op. 3, Webern Op. 5 and other new stuff by Milhaud, William Bergsma and surely others. Since the first RCAs were Mozart and Haydn and the quartet started what appeared to be the germ of a Beethoven cycle, perahps the standard rep. issue had become a source of conflict with Columbia. On the other hand, there's a fabulous 1953 LP by the Juilliard that couples Mozart's No. 20, K. 499 and No. 21, K. 575. But then, maybe that was just a one-off to prove that the Juilliard could play mainstream literature as well as the contemporary stuff. Maybe nobody cares about this stuff but me, but I find it interesting. Here's something else: The back of that Mozart LP lists some previous Juilliard recordings and one is the Ravel with a catalog number of 2202; another is the Berg "Lyric Suite" (2148). These appear to be 10-inch LPs. I've never seen nor heard these and they've never been reissued to my knowledge. Some Googling turned up the Ravel for sale but not the Berg. Anybody know anything more about these recordings? Obsessively, MS

That ealy '60s Debussy/Ravel is a m.f. -- maybe the finest edition of the Juilliard at its absolute peak. RCA reissued it late in the LP era in its digitally remastered Legendary Performers series at midprice. It's still my favorite recording of these works. There were just five years or so in the early '60s when the Juilliard was signed to RCA and those LPs are are all stunners -- there's an incredibly intense Beethoven Op. 131; the Carter 2nd/William Schuman 3rd; Schubert "Death and the the Maiden"/"Quartettstz"; Haydn Op. 74, No. 1/Op. 77 No. 1; Mozart K465 and K387; and the Berg Lyric Suite/Webern Five Pieces Op. 5 and Six Bagatelles Op. 9. (The Berg/Webern has a great cover: sky blue background with the four guys in tails seated and standing and Bobby Mann looking lean and a bit like JFK.) Update Friday morning: I left out two LPs. There's also a Beethoven Op. 95/135 and a Dvorak, Op. 61/Wolf, "Italian Serenade."" I've had fun collecting all of the LPs but I've also taken the plunge on a couple of the Testament CDs -- the Beethoven Op. 131 coupled with the Schubert Death and the Maiden; the Berg/Carter/Schuman -- and nobody who invests will be disappointed. I wish this edition had recorded the entire Beethoven cycle, especially the Late Quartets, but by the time they got to it for Columbia in the mid and late 60s, Carlyss had replaced Cohen. That said, I adore that first Beethoven cycle for its mix of guts and insight, plus enough beauty when they need it. By the time of their last remake in the early 80s (live at the Library of Congress I believe) the later problems that Larry mentions are in evidence. But I will say that on a good night in concert (or good day in the studio), the later Juilliard could still bring it. With some trepidation I just bought a LP box of the Mozart "Haydn" quartets recorded in the early '80s and was pleasantly surprised to hear just how supple the ensemble sounds; some of the Juilliard grit is still there but in a soulful way. Sorting out all of the records is too daunting at this hour, but its worth mentioning that the early '60s Bartok cycle (with the Cohen line-up) remains incomparable. It's a crime that it's not available domestically and hasn't been for eons, but I'm pretty sure you can get it as an import. When I worked in a classical record store in Champaign in the mid '80s you could still get it as a 3 for the price of 2 LP box. The Juilliard's early '50s mono LPs (the first complete Bartok cycle on record, yes?) are a gas too. More raw, less settled and less sweeping than the later versions; sort of like Bird's first Now's The Time as compared to the great remake on Verve. The final digital Bartoks by the Juilliard late in the game on Sony have the same issues as the later Beethovens. God, I loved this quartet in its prime. Larry's got it right -- it's a heterogeneous blend in which you can hear all of the individual parts and personalities of the players without sacrificing a basic ensemble unity, along with that fierce rhythmic energy and edge and the interpretive imagination they bring to the notion of a composer's intent. The balance of individualism and ensemble is a truly American approach, and in many ways analogous to a jazz band. There are other great quartets no doubt and of those that came of age in the Juilliard's early years, the Hollywood remains especially underrated -- that group is another passion of mine. But the Juilliard is special. Bobby Mann is a particular hero, even with the sound and intonation problems that came up late in the game. Somebody once called him the most important American-born chamber music player ever and I think it's a pretty fair statement. When he finally retired (at 76 or 77), I wrote a story about him in which I quoted Juilliard cellist Joel Krosnick comparing him to Larry Bird. Mann was never the most naturally gifted violinist in terms of flawless technique or opulent tone, but through hard work, intellect and sheer force of will he transformed himself into a world-class musician. Bird was similar said Krosnick. "Can't run, can't jump, slow, but he scores 26 points a game, 12 assists, 13 rebounds and his team wins the NBA championship."

John Campbell is a hugely underrated pianist and he plays his ass off on Vol. 29, including a supersonic, swinging, bracingly melodic and rhythmically flexible bebop romp through "Just Friends" that opens the concert in which he oscillates between C and G-flat every half chorus. "Emily" is the other standout track, which alternatives between 3 and 4 and also has more key change twists. Both ideas descend from Bill Evans but it's way past imitation here. Full disclosure: He's a friend, but this is the kind of playing that should make better-known pianists nervous. I don't think the records he's made, with the exception of this one, capture the excitement he can generate live. http://www.amazon.com/Live-Maybeck-Recital...976&sr=1-11

I should check out those records again -- always a fascinating experience to go back to music that you loved very early, before you really knew anything, and see what your current ears tell you.

Not to hijack this thread from Pete Condoli, but http://www.jaycorre.com (but of course) seems to indicate he's living in Hollywood, Fla. (suburban Lauderdale-Miami). Corre was pretty much the first tenor saxophone soloist I got to know since my first jazz record at age 10 was Buddy Rich's "Big Swing Face" and Corre is the featured tenor man. I've got all of those old World Pacific sides by Buddy's band but haven't listened to them in a long, long time. I recall Corre's sound as deep and warm and his melodic concept sort of out of Stan Getz but very muscular.

EDC: I apologize if you find my reasonableness intimidating, but we all resort to our strengths in the heat of battle, and, besides, I'm hoping to hone my skills enough to become a member of the board's elite. This is one of those disagreements in which I think much of your position can be best characterized by paraphrasing Ben Franklin's epithet for John Adams: You mean well for your country, are always an honest man, often a wise man, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of your senses. I won't dive back into the fray at this point, but I will note that, leaving aside the recorded evidence, I've seen Herbie live several times in various contexts the last seven or eight years and only once was it out-and-out disappointing (a meandering night with Hargrove, Brecker, et. al.), and a trio concert with Kenny Davis and Gene Jackson contained some of the most daredevil piano playing I've ever heard (speaking of color and texture ...) I'm not saying that one great night absolves all, but if you heard what I heard, you would have dug it. Jim: I see what you're driving at re: harmony/texture, though I'm not sure the line is always clear. When Herbie is inspired I think that what often happens is that he starts abstracting the harmony in a functional way and then "breaks free" into purely textural ideas that extend and/or mask form.

Hagiography is certainly an issue in jazz crit; I've been guilty myself. Lord knows, Herbie's uneven output demands the most level-headed assessment one can muster. Has anyone else in jazz had the talent, nee genius, to fly as high and then stoop so low? But at the end of the day, his contributions still rank among the most important of any on his instrument since 1960, even if you accept the premise that he produced nothing of real value after 1968 (which I don't). EDC is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The idea that the Blue Notes "were hardly all that" and the patronizing attitude oozing through a statement like "Herbie might have once had something, sort of," profoundly downplays the scope of his achievement and influence on the sound of contemporary jazz -- reconciling Powell, Garland, Kelly, Jamal, Evans, blues, impressionist and modern classical harmony with his own melodic imagination, quick ears, progressive temperament and swing. The Blue Notes are fundamental to the DNA of jazz, and "Empryean Isles" and "Maiden Voyage" particularly are masterpieces, especially, for me, the former, where Herbie's spontaneous linear invention, harmony, rhythmic flexibility and touch have a sweeping authority that remains state of the art. And that's leaving aside the compositional ideas, the quick-witted accompaniment, the contribution with Miles and the "team player" aspects (which, in fairness, EDC acknowledges) and the extraordinary number of great records that he elevates with his presence ("Speak No Evil," "Oblique," "Search for the New Land" for starters.) At his best, I don't think there's been anyone greater. Now, how often he has been at his best is a different issue, or whether the positives of this or that later project outweight the negatives or whether he's coasting on his natural talent or truly digging deep or talking jive about "possibilities" but really just looking to cash a big check, not that cashing a big check doesn't hold some allure. For myself, I've developed a great love for the Mwandishi band and live Head Hunters (check out "Flood." Whew!). The former is pretty damned abstract and not commercial at all; and while there's obviously a populist thrust to Head Hunters, at its most inspired the funky grooves and adventurous blowing form an alluring marriage in which the aesthetic tension or paradox of the means actually makes the end results more compelling. The cats are playing. VSOP is, um, well, let's move on ... Actually, my problem with VSOP has never been Herbie, who to my ears often sounds great. It's the weirdly proportioned balances -- could Tony bash any more indiscriminately and could Ron's bass sound any louder or more rubbery? -- and the overall lack of taste. (Jesus, Freddie, if you play that lip-slur thing one more time I'm going to scream.) Those concerts were all played in big outdoor venues and to play in those places you have to fill up the space in way that precludes the kind of subtleties that lent so much magic to their previous work in intimate clubs or recording studios. That's not to excuse the excesses of the music but the circumstances, including cheering crowds, didn't help. For the record, I like much of the new Joni Mitchell project; there's some exquisite, communicative playing between Herbie, Holland and Shorter, and I even like some, not all, of the singers. Of course, the marketing is a tsunami. This is America and Herbie and Joni are stars. But I'm not responding to that; I'm responding to my ears. Unlike "Possibilities," which was trash, this is a serious record, albiet not to everyone's taste. Jim: What do you mean by harmony as harmony as opposed to harmony as texture? Any specific examples?

Larry: Re: not part of the solution then part of the problem. I see your point and I agree. Equating novelty and quality is a danger, though I didn't mean to imply they were of equal value in my original piece. I was simply trying to point out the danger of such a regressive programming philosophy. While I do believe that adventure in and of itself is of great value in the concert experience, ultimately as a critic and a listener I suppose I am in favor of good new music and against bad new music. But until we hear a piece, how can we know for sure whether it is successful? One of the things about new music is that it has to get played for the distinctions to be made. There is no received wisdom about the latest from Carter or Riley, though I am willing to agree with with your conjecture that Carter's 5th outstripped the quality of what the Kronos played on this particular concert, though I wouldn't go so far as to say that none of those composers could ever write with more than a smidge of Carter's quality. Ultimately, I think that performers need to be allowed to play the music that they believe in most passionately because that's what produces the best performances and makes the best case for the composers' vision. I wouldn't expect to hear the Kronos play Carter and and I wouldn't expect the Juilliard Quartet to play Reich. But audiences should be able to hear the best music of any style. We can then all decide what we like and debate the aesthetic merits of high modernism vs. minimalism vs. post-modernism, etc. There's room for all in the marketplace of concerts.

I'm a little late to the party here, but without going too deep down this particular rabbit hole and with apologies to others who might have made these points in the preceding five pages, I wanted to add 2 cents and then post a piece I wrote about four years ago after an incident here in Detroit. First, the moral mandate that Holland was speaking of in his original review -- an aesthetic stance that downplayed aural pleasure for other values -- is not really the same as what Peter perceives to be a you-must-eat-your-spinach approach to programming on the part of his local chamber music society. The first has to do with the nature of the art itself; the second is an issue of presentation and programming philosopohy. I think that Holland's point, and there is merit to it, is that the line of atonal and serial composers -- Schoenberg, Webern and the post-war avant-garde like Boulez, Babbitt, Stockhausen, Carter (not serial but similarly "difficult"), Wourinen, etc. -- wrote music that was not only baffling to a wide swath of the classical audience but also sprang from a destroy-the-past, who-cares-if-you listen ideology. Now, I happen to really like some of this music, though I'm more than willing to admit that there is nothing worse than bad serial music or squeak-fart music, with the exception of Yanni and George Winston. But having been in school in the early '80s (late in the game as this war goes), I can attest firsthand to the ivory tower academic composers still around who railed against anything that smacked of tonality, convinced they were saving music for the rest of us. I'm just glad that the this particular war is over and nobody has to take sides anymore. I love Carter and Adams (sorry EDC). I was just interviewing some great young classical musicians last night who have formed a new music ensmble and play the shit out of everything from Glass and Reich to Stockhausen, Rzewski, and Ligeti. They made the same point; they are just so relieved that the scene is so wide open today that they feel free to enjoy the best of it all. I think audiences are beginning to feel the same way. The piece I mentioned earlier relates to the other issue of programming. It ran under the headline: "Two String Quartet Concerts: One Reactionary, the Other Triumphal." ---------- By Mark Stryker Free Press Music Critic For the record, the Pacifica Quartet gave well-played, fervid performances of Dvorak, Hindemith and Mendelssohn on Saturday. But the news of the evening was the cowardly 11th-hour decision by the Chamber Music Society of Detroit to cancel what would have been the Detroit premiere of Elliott Carter's Fifth String Quartet. Here was the chance to hear a terrific young American quartet tackle the latest from Carter, still active at 95 and considered by many America's greatest living composer. Carter's corpus of five quartets ranks with Bartok's six and Shostakovich's 15 as perhaps the most substantial contributions to the genre in the 20th Century. But society president Lois Beznos asked the Pacifica to drop the Carter quartet for fear of alienating those subscribers who complained after a November concert by the Juilliard String Quartet that included 20th-Century atonal works by Viennese modernist Anton Webern. This is lunacy. Never mind that Carter's Fifth (1995) is a brilliant work in the composer's late style, muscular but communicative, full of spry dialogue and texture. Never mind that the Pacifica's reputation is based partly on its passionate advocacy of Carter. Never mind that removing Carter to placate a few reactionary patrons drives a stake through the heart of the society's artistic integrity and tightens the noose more securely around the future of classical music. If you do not play the music of today, to paraphrase composer Gunther Schuller, there will be no masterpieces for tomorrow. And if you cut off Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert from the oxygen of contemporary currents, you slowly suffocate their life force, turning the canon into a wax museum. It is also a remarkably shortsighted approach to audience building. Sitting next to me at the concert was a couple from Grosse Pointe who specifically came to hear Carter. They were livid. "We won't be coming back," said William Cox. "It's obscene." The irony is that the society is sold out through subscriptions and has a waiting list. If playing Carter means the defection of a few patrons who think music stopped developing around the time the Titanic sank, then we should say good riddance and welcome in some fresh air. The most recent piece to be performed during the society's 2003-04 season now becomes a woodwind quintet by Samuel Barber written during the Eisenhower administration. Carter's Fifth lasts 20 minutes. The nine concerts this season total about 15 hours of music. What's the purpose of a chamber music society unwilling to invest 20 minutes out of 15 hours in the future of its art? Thankfully, the University Musical Society believes in chamber music as a living art form. UMS presented a captivating program Sunday by the Kronos Quartet called "Visual Music." The concert folded 10 diverse pieces into a seamless 90-minute multimedia production. Collaborating with the Kronos were scenic and projection designer Alexander Nichols, lighting designer Larry Neff and sound designer Mark Grey. Not every piece worked, but the precise staging, the committed playing and true integration of aural and visual elements left a lasting impression. The set included four huge wire sound sculptures and a large screen. The quartet at times played in front of the screen and at times behind it. For Krzysztof Penderecki's "Quartetto per archi" (1960), the players -- violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt and cellist Jennifer Culp -- turned their backs to the audience and read the huge graphic score as it rolled across the screen, producing tapping bows, harmonics and other sonic delights. In the opener, Steve Reich's "Pendulum Music," the musicians swung microphones through the sculptures creating cuckoo-like feedback. It proved a funny prelude to John Zorn's "Cat O' Nine Tails (Tex Avery Directs the Marquis de Sade)," a nutty score in which snippets -- "Tea for Two," cartoon music, a hoedown, Beethoven allusions -- are smashed into a collage. A glimpse of Bugs Bunny on the screen was a riot. More sobering was Scott Johnson's "How It Happens," in which post-minimalist pulsing music merged with sampled narration by the radical journalist I.F. Stone, who intones phrases like, "There's nothing more unholy in human history than a holy war." The indeterminate film imagery turned into a ghostly airplane at the close. Terry Riley's "One Earth, One People, One Love" also made a humanist statement, with the mournful cello melody adding unexpected poignancy to the NASA images. On a brighter note, Conlon Nancarrow's hyper "Boogie Woogie No. 3A," based on a work for player-piano, was a rush of smiling adrenaline. I was less taken with Grey's "Bertoia I" and "Bertoia II," which found the players waving their hands in front of the wire sculptures to trigger ambient electronic sounds. But overall, the concert bristled with adventure and relevance. There will always be a place for traditional string quartet concerts like the one the Pacifica Quartet gave on Saturday, but the juxtaposition of the Kronos Quartet explorations with the Chamber Music Society of Detroit's unwillingness to engage with the music of its own time left no doubt that if you're not part of the solution in classical music, you're part of the problem. --MS

Larry: A lot of fresh insight and close listening here, thanks. It really is the difference between the great nights and the average nights that is worthy of study; God is in the details an all that. I don't have the CD so I'm just responding through your ears, but the out of phase issue you describe really might come down to whether the cats could hear each other. You suggest it might be due to the set-up required for stereo recording, but it may well be an issue of capricious acoustics. Concert halls are notorious in this regard, especially for jazz since they weren't built for drum sets. You're describing sensations I hear all the time in concert halls (and festival settings) -- even with monitors, the sound on stage can be weird enough to fuck up the time. Or the band can actually be together but the balance in the hall is so screwy -- do all of today's sound engineers have ears of stone or just those at concerts I happen to attend? -- that it sounds out of phase to those sitting out front. OP and company would not have had monitors of course, and excessive separation could certainly have exacerbated problematic acoustic issues on stage. The extra swift tempos would certainly play into this too. I don't know much about the technical issue of recording in those days -- lots of extra physical separation would have been needed for stereo? MS

Another fascinating but overlooked piece from the first half of the 20th century is Karol Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto (1933) -- ripe with Polish folk melody folded into a late-romantic sound world redolent of Scriabin and Strauss. I heard Leonidas Kavakos play this recently with the Detroit Symphony and was quite taken by him and the piece. MS

God yes, the Ligeti! It's a masterpiece. I spaced out on that in my list. Good grab, David.

A few thoughts: *I didn't see the Berg Violin Concerto on your list and it's among the most ravishing works in the repertoire -- it's a 12-tone work but the row is set up to exploit tonal relationships and Berg's sublime romanticism is a constant miracle. *Among brand new concertos, I'm in the John Adams camp. He's written two -- the first has a more traditional cast (though in his language, of course) and the second, "The Dharma at Big Sur" is for electric violin and is very jazz oriented. *I heartily endorse Larry's recommendation of the Dutilleux, and would add that he recently completed a second concerto, "Sur le meme accord," for Anne-Sophie Mutter, who recorded it a couple years ago for DG. It's only 9 minutes long but it's a real sweatheart of a piece. It's coupled on CD with Mutter's earlier recordings of the Bartok Second and Stravinsky. (Related note: Don't miss Dutilleux's Cello Concerto either, "Tout un monde Lointain.") *I like Takemitsu's "Far Calls, Coming, far!" (1980). It's in the stream-of-conciousness, impressionistic tradition coming out of Debussy, similar in many ways to the Dutilleux in that it's not really goal-oriented. You can sort of split 20th century Violin Concertos into two big camps -- the virtuoso, heroic works growing from the 19th century tradition (Barber, Bartok, Nielsen, Adams, etc.) and those that are more chamber music writ large (Dutilleux, Takemitsu, Berg). *Some others I can suggest in widely varying styles; Kaija Saariaho, "Graal Theatre" (fantastic colors, textures, impressionistic, darting -- akin to the Dutilleux ) Bernstein's "Serenade" (Americana) Elliott Carter's Violin Concerto (super high modernist density) Oliver Knussen, Violin Concerto (neo-Stravinskian) William Bolcom, Violin Concerto (gutsy, post-modern eclectic).

Speaking for myself, I've never found the early Dvorak quartets especially compelling. Pleasant but not essential and in no way as significant as the early and middle Beethoven quartets. That said, I can't imagine living without the late quartets and have always had a special fondess for Op. 51 (No. 10). You might try sampling the great Piano Quintet in A, the two Piano Quartets and the mature Piano Trios after the late quartets for more music representing higher-plane Dvorak. Of course, if the quartets are truly speaking to you then get them all. On a related note, the two Janacek string quartets are extraordinary -- I mean, extraordinary, works. Unique, idiosyncratically modern, with a comprehensive aesthetic both nationalist and cosmopolitan that's similar to Bartok. The Smetana Qt versions on Testament are terrific though they come on two CDs, each coupled with a Dvorak (Piano Quintet/14th Quartet). I cannot vouch for the Vlach on Naxos having not heard them but if it's good enough for EDC it's good enough for me. And speaking of "Jenufa," seeing Karita Mattila in the MET production a few years ago was one of the highlights of my life. And speaking of naked, I didn't see Mattila in "Salome" but heard great things about her in the role. Czechily yours, MS

I don't have time for annotations or to check what's in print or not (or even if all of these ever made it to CD), but Brecker is killin' on these dates from the '70s. These are some great post-bop records. Hal Galper's "Reach Out" and "Speak With a Single Voice" (with M. Brecker, Wayne Dockery and Billy Hart/Bob Moses). David Liebman's "Pendulum" (with Beirech, Tusa, Foster). A previously unreleased set by that Galper Quintet came out a few years ago on Concord too. Oh, there's a more recent Jack Wilkins CD called "Reunion" on which Brecker sounds inspired. It literally is a reunion of a band that make a record in the '70s. DeJohnette, M.B., Gomez I think. Brecker comes mostly out of Hubbard, but there's Lee, KD and '60s Miles in there too. Related question. Anybody know if he went through a spell of chop problems? I recall hearing some sides maybe 10-12 years ago where a definite rasp had crept into his trumpet tone and he just didn't sound as supple. That's completely cleared up the last few times I've seen him and he sounded as clear and fluid as ever.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6Ff6098PAhc

I'm hoping somebody can clear something up for me. Yesterday I bought a used LP of the Roy Haynes' trio record "We Three" with Phineas Newborn and Paul Chambers. Great side, of course. I've had it forever as an OJC LP and on CD, but this appeared to be an original copy and it was at a killer price -- $3 -- and even though it physically looked a bit scuffed and the cover spine was maybe 60 percent split, it was still impossible to pass up. As it turns out, it sounds great, with just a bit of surface noise. It's a mono recording, by the way. OK, here's the question. On the front of the jacket, the label is listed as New Jazz. However, on the back, the label is listed as Status. The inner label on the record is the orange Status liner with that familiar logo (the s-that's-also-an-arrow.) I always thought this record first came out on New Jazz (purple label), which is the indication of my OJC. I know that New Jazz and Status were both Prestige subsidiaries. So what gives with this LP? Why does it say different things in different spots? Frankly, it looks like a fuck-up, which I suppose is entirely possible -- like a misprinted stamp or something that gets recalled right away. Perhaps it's worth more on the collector's market because of the mistake. So, if anybody out there wants to offer me an obscene amount of money for this, I'm all ears. Explanations anyone?

I agree completely with Larry's previous posts on Bennett's relationship to jazz. This is an interesting topic, and I've talked to Bennett about it on a couple of occasions and thought the board might be interested in his view. Here's what he said in 1992: "I'm not a jazz singer; I'm a singer that a jazz audience likes." (author's note: this thread suggests not all of the jazz audience would agree, but Bennett's point still stands.) ''My job is to always sound vital. I have to produce energy and a vitalness, and the jazz artists supply that to me. I improvise with them. Every night, I'll sing the same songs, but by the way they're playing, I'll listen to them and sing their phrases. Wherever they're at, that's how I'm singing.'' In 2006 he said this: "I know how to improvise, and for me jazz is the greatest contribution culturally that the United States has given to the world." Also: "It's the interpretation of going behind the beat or in front of the beat, and it changes every night. You might be singing the same song but there's a vitalness that the musicians feed me and I feed them. I'll make a turn of phrase and all of sudden they'll change the chords, embellish it and make it better." I will add that I heard Bennett about seven weeks ago and I thought he was in great form, especially on ballads, which he often sang in a strikingly loose rubato over just guitar or piano accompaniment. Even at 80 he could maintain a legato line. (He turned 81 earlier this month.) On both the swingers and the ballads, he was always telling a story, and I heard all kinds of little nuances of phrasing that personalized the lyrics and deepened the emotional quality of the work. Complaints? Well, the over-reliance on "big finish" climaxes is still an issue and there are other mannerisms too. There has always been something stiff about his stage patter too (though not in his singing in my view). The line between soul and false sentiment is awfully thin in the idiom in which Bennett works, but I've always felt Bennett communicates the former not the latter. Others may disagree. I did find it interesting the degree to which Bennett both aesthetically and physically placed himself inside the center of his quartet as opposed to singing outfront of the band, if you know what I mean. The group, incidentally, included pianist Bruce Barth, guitarist Gary Sargent, bassist Paul Langosch and the former Basie drummer Harold Jones. MS

Jim: Thanks for such thoughtful and illuminating responses. I find myself agreeing on several counts. Still, while I'm intrigued by the notion that the past featured more of a masculine projection of feminine values than the real thing, I'm not sure I'm convinced -- I would need some time to ponder this. Also, for the record, I'm always the one willing to stop and ask for directions; it's my wife who will stubbornly stick to her guns, even if it means getting more lost. MS

Ted Striker: Because of my mistake, six men didn't return from that raid. Elaine Dickinson: Seven. Lieutenant Zip died this morning.

Clem: Re: Jamal. I'm glad we could find common ground on something. Re: Cabinetmaker. No need for a home visit. I'm cool with the website. Re: Jones. My point is that there is a lot more happening in Hank's music than mere craft, and while the level of craft is certainly remarkable, perhaps its very polish makes it too easy to dismiss/overlook the unique depth of expression, substance and originality in his improvising. Hank is no radical, but the voice is unimistakable and deep. Is radicalism the only standard for greatness? It is true that Hank spent a lot of time in the studios and he came of age in an era in which performing as a "professional musician" was not always the same thing as as a "professional jazz musician." But peak achievement is not nothing, and if by flatline environment you mean bebop and standards, well, that's a big chunk of modern jazz you appear to be damning as aesthetically irrelevant. When Hank assimilated bebop in the '40s, that style was on the cutting edge. MS

Here's a link to the full obituary as it ran in the Detroit Free Press on Thursday morning. http://159.54.239.117/apps/pbcs.dll/articl...70574/1010/NEWS