lkaven

The Smalls Records label and the Smalls Live label both came from the club Smalls. The Smalls Records name was licensed to me by Mitch Borden in the year 2000. The club was brought back in 2007, after closing for a time, by Spike Wilner, who began the Smalls Live label. Legally, the Smalls Live label can only present live recordings made at Smalls. The Smalls Records label can present live and studio recordings from any venue. There is some spirit of cooperation, and there may be collaboration in the future. Both labels originate with the club, though different generations of its existence.

This is true. There should be early copies available first at CD Baby about two weeks in front of the late-Feb release date. Teddy is playing in top form. I don't know why he hasn't made more records in the last 40 years. He certainly is up to it musically. I think you all will be pleased with this one. Luke

It is important enough that I am pretty committed to it. But the project requires an intern, some gear for transcribing cassettes, and a couple of months. Most of the material is very lo-fi, but it is more than enough to validate the claims people made about Sharpe.

Hi All, This year, bassist Ari Roland and his quartet were chosen by the US Dept. of State to represent the US in the "American Music Abroad" program. This is the continuation of what used to be called the Jazz Ambassador program. I think the idea first came about when Louis Armstrong went to Ghana in 1956 and 100,000 fans reportedly showed up at his concert. I am among those who believe that jazz is something that truly exemplifies freedom and democracy, and that a 'jazz ambassador' stands a chance of spreading more good will overseas than most anyone else in current employ. Ari has been traveling with saxophonist Chris Byars, and pianist Sacha Perry along with drummer Stefan Schatz. Chris Byars, who was chosen for next year's program, has been live blogging their tour with photos and mpegs from here and there. It's a very engaging presentation, so I thought I would share the link with members of the group here: http://web.mac.com/chrisbyars/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html Ari Roland's recording Sketches from a Bassist's Album (the title comes from Turgenev's Sketches from a Hunter's Album) is described here: http://www.smallsrecords.com/roland-sfaba.htm Chris Byar's record Photos in Black, White and Gray (in tribute to Jimmy Lovelace, who was a monochromatic dresser) is described here: http://www.smallsrecords.com/byars-pibwag.htm Best to all, Luke

Hi all, It took me a while to catch up with this thread! Frank was remarkably consistent to the point that there really were no outtakes (save for a handful all told) on Frank's own call. I'm planning to release the second part of the afternoon session that Fresh From The Cooler comes from, and more or less arbitrarily divided the takes into two parts based on mood and flow. I needed to do a little forensic work on the original DAT to recover some data from a particularly interesting version of Lover that Frank does that I think is so hip, and now that it's done, I'm going to go ahead. I think next spring we will be able to have a DVD of the "Not Afraid To Live" session, or a significant part of it. My film associate, Brock Graham and his partner Stu Entner, were working on a film about Smalls Records at the time, and came in to film this session. We never knew it would be Hewitt's last at the time. But you will get to see him talking in one part where he says "I'm not afraid to die, but I'm not afraid to live either." We only have two cameras for some of it, and only one camera for part of it. But there is a lot of Hewitt on camera and it really helps to give one a picture of the man playing in a way that helps one to understand the music more. But there are several things still to come, all consistent. The weight that is added to his musical reputation with each new release makes the neglect -- the malfunction -- seem that much more pathological. By the way, we also filmed what turned out to be Gil Coggins last recording session. I'm hoping we will get that out too. It does look good for my being able to release those recordings I made of him between 2000-2002 beginning this fall. Luke PS -- NHK is making a documentary about Perry/Roland/Byars right now and it should be very interesting. I like this filmmaker Hide Watanabe a *lot*.

This one should be available on stealth release by Wednesday direct from CD Baby. It has a couple of the tracks featured on David Brent Johnson's (aka Ghost) program. David, I will be sending this to you. It has remastered versions of those tracks that are quite a bit better than the draft masters I gave you for your progam.

What's going on with this? I want to put it out, but the task of handling the rights is a bit daunting. Perhaps Lou Erlanger can help to simplify it. I'll talk to him and see where we can take it from there. Eventually...one way or another. Bobby was a personal favorite of mine.

Hmm. He almost does tuck it under his chin. Just to say that Ari's arco playing is not really influenced primarily by other bassists at all. While we're here, I want to garner everyone's semantic intuitions about this part of Ratliff's piece: '"Sketches From a Bassist's Album" (Smalls), a strong record, puts him with a like-minded, bop-obsessed group, including the tenor saxophonist Chris Byars, the pianist Sacha Perry and the drummer Phil Stewart.' [Emphasis mine.] To me the term "bop-obsessed" seems to imply some sort of unhealthy preoccupation. I really don't understand why any mention of "bop" has to include a derisive put-down. I understand that most of what is passed-off as bop these days is as bad as muzak (and maybe that's what most people think it is now). But if Ratliff had listened to me or read my notes, he should have understood that there are a few players who came up in the NY underground where bop was as real and alive as it ever was. It is not retro, and it is not revival. Would anyone say that someone who grew up in Cuba and plays Cuban music is "Cuban-obsessed"? Apparently killing off music that isn't dead is a big part of being a critic these days. Luke

Ari and I puzzled over this when it came out. Did Ratliff mean Ray Brown instead of "Steve Brown"? For the record, Ari's way of playing arco is influenced by interpretative violinists Eugene Ysaye, Fritz Kreisler, and George Enescu. Luke

Ned's quartet has Neal Caine on bass and Sacha Perry on piano, with Charles Goold Jr swinging his ass off on drums. Very good chemistry. There's plenty of "Fred Astaire meets Count Dracula". It's subtly subversive. Ned's internalized an amazing set of original moves to the extent that he swings freely with them. His message has a dark edge, perfect for the times we live in. Worth getting hip to.

I recorded one set of Bobby Forrester at Smalls with Bubba Brooks and William Ash and hope to have that out before too long. I really thought Bobby was great and we were planning a record before his death. Many thanks to the selfless Lou Erlanger for putting out Organic Chemistry as a labor of love. Luke

In lieu of Tommy, we can send a couple of our own cats to shout epithets from the back row.

If you could get Night Lights syndicated, I would count it as a significant victory for the art. You know the NYC regionals, both hard to penetrate. WAER Syracuse NY. Jazz theme station. It's just possible that Eric Cohen would be open to such a thing. There is an increasingly adventurous spirit in Syracuse. Though WAER is sometimes known for conservative fare. Contacts at: http://www.waer.org/contact.html WSQG Binghamton NY, w/relay to Corning. Small jazz theme station. Very conservative, bland. Small fish, but needs a wake up, gentle, like a velvet brick through the window. WAMC Albany NY, relayed around the state. They have some jazz programming. They have a dozen or so relays around the state and reach a big audience. Obviously, it'd be great to get you on the flagship stations with statewide relays. WRTI in Philadelphia covers a very large listening area. WPFW in Washington DC might find your show very appealing. I think Willard Jenkins is still there. WDET in Detroit packs a punch. It wouldn't hurt to talk to Linda Yohn at WEMU.

The lack of published method makes it even worse. It reminds me of the "non scientific" polls that CNN runs. It is a classic paradox. The presentation of the poll is intended to induce the belief that the poll is meaningful; but the poll is explicitly disclaimed and the lack of controls and adherence to scientific methods entails that the poll is meaningless. If you want to know how much ignorance is expected of the viewer/reader, that is a measure of it. The same is true here.

Isn't it a vanity piece? Isn't its real purpose to elevate the reputations of the putative experts as experts? Once again, popularity is slyly substituted for excellence (as often wealth is subsituted for importance). And popular misconceptions pass as "expert" judgments. This is another way that the best artists become relegated to the arts ghetto. Luke

Fixed, thank you. The page is there and the link now works, but CD Baby's search is behind.

Since I've been getting asked about this record so much -- some critics even putting it up for record of the year before its release date -- I put it up for sale in advance of its release date at CD Baby. You can read the liner notes and audition tracks there. It was ten years ago when I made these recordings (along with a number of others of Avital, Jason Lindner, Across 7 Street, and Frank Hewitt). Then I thought this group was one of the only groups I knew that had something really happening. Now, ten years later, after having all of our careers messed up some by Impulse Records in one way or another, these recordings seem to have a special urgency to people. I try to characterize in my notes, which again have to do with a critique of what I call mere eclecticism -- that is, an eclectic approach to music, but without further synthesis: it is the mere sum of its parts. This I contrast with the idea of synthesis, and I use Avital as an examplar, as one who can put a range of musical influences (and instrumental talent) to the job of telling a musical story. Most surprising is how little music has come our way in the intervening years that qualifies in that way. The interest in this record seems to say something, once again, about where the jazz world took a wrong turn...or two. I'll be interested in any comments from listeners. Luke

Best is to have your computer plugged into a quiet UPC, to have it running 24/7, and to keep your disks degragmented. Having fragmented files exercises the seek arm and head like crazy, and the increase in wear is about an order of magnitude greater I'd estimate.

As far as quintet sessions, I'm afraid that was all that we had. And it is really a shame. I would like to have been able to document some of the earlier Hewitt quintet that had Charles Davis and Joe Magnarelli on the front line. There are to be several more Frank Hewitt trio releases, though, some of which are live. I have long had plans to release some of the C Sharpe material. What makes it difficult is that there are about 70 hours worth of cassette recordings that need to be transcribed. I need to find an intern who can do that, along with the equipment to do it. At various times I've had one or the other, but not both at the same time. The recording quality is poor on most of the C Sharpe tapes, for collectors only. But there is a wealth of material there, good evidence of how brilliant he was. Luke

Most of the players mentioned in this thread came through Smalls some of the time, and at one time or another I've heard spectacular music from all of them. As overall artists, I'm not sure I know of anyone who excites me in the same way as--for example--Eric Dolphy did/does. And that is an interesting comparison. Because my love for Dolphy as an artist was in a combination of musical genius and poetic force. He had something to say. And the musical resources that today's artists avail themselves of have nothing over him. He's still more hip and more modern than they are. And oddly enough, I scarcely know any horn players who listen to him now and understand him. Similarly, I know almost none with anything to say. Some of the best modern horn playing that I've heard was a product of an inspired group setting. The next subject of my label will be early recordings I made of the Omer Avital Sextet at Smalls. I think the saxophonists in this group did some of their best work in it. The early group had Mark Turner, Greg Tardy, Myron Walden, and Charles Owens in it. Over its first two years, it also featured Joel Frahm, Grant Stewart, and Jimmy Greene rotating through the saxophone line. Omer is a strong leader, and the episodic nature of his music cast his sidemen as the dramatis personae. Mark Turner was a real catalyst when he was in the band. I would vote Chris Byars as being most like Frank Hewitt in being potentially misunderstood and vastly underrated. He was Hewitt's saxophonist and appears on Four Hundred Saturdays. His own material (and w/ Across 7 Street) is unbelievably challenging. Grant Stewart calls him "the smartest tenor player in New York". He's the only one I know who can play brilliant music over the hardest changes in the world at ~400 beats per minute. [Come to think of it, there's an MP3 on the Smalls Records site of Across 7 Street playing Ari Roland's "One For D.T.", a very fast through-composed tune, the sheet music for which is also on my site. That's the kind of solo I'm talking about. Virtually nobody makes that much effortless sense on THOSE kind of changes at THAT speed.] He's chronically underestimated by people who can't hear his tricky moves, and you can spend a long time puzzling over his resolutions. Superficially, it sounds like something else, so you have to give up the belief that you know best when you listen to it. I've listened to some of his solos hundreds of times, and they are about the only solos that stand up about as well as Frank Hewitt's. He really understood Frank, and vice-versa. [One of the only other horn players (on any horn) I would put in the same league is trombonist John Mosca.] I think Ira Gitler agreed with me. He voted Across 7 Street / Made In New York the #1 Album Of 2005 in Jazz Times, and almost nobody in the world caught a single lick off that record, and those who did didn't understand it. So the next generation of Frank Hewitts are already lined up. Next on my underrated list is Zaid Nasser, who is technically an alto player, but really swings on tenor as well. You might recognize him as Jamil Nasser's son. He's one of my favorite after C Sharpe. If you don't know any better, it sounds like he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Don't believe it. It's a trap. Also one of Hewitt's regulars. I'm very impressed by Joel Frahm's playing in the last couple of years. I think he's come into his own as an artist, and his playing is often very much worth hearing. Aside from recordings I made of him with Omer Avital, I'd like to get some of his new work. Luke "been down in the basement so long, it looks like the penthouse to me" Kaven

I had a nice time talking to Ghost of Miles earlier this week about Frank Hewitt. He's got a good program and there ought to be more DJs around like him. I supplied him with some unreleased Hewitt performances that he can use during his program, so if you tune in, you might get to hear some prime Hewitt that you won't be able to hear on disk for a while yet. Luke

Mark Turner was born in 1965, so he is turning forty this year. He frequently cites Wayne and Warne as his big influences. Personally, I think Turner, even though not so old, is a major influence on players of today. He was a direct influence on, just in what I've witnessed first hand, Ravi Coltrane, Myron Walden, Greg Tardy. These are people who spent many days practicing with him, besides performing with him. Some feel he was influential through his records on much of this generation. I recorded many hours of the original Omer Avital sextet, which featured Turner, Tardy, Walden, and Charles Owens. He was a source of a lot of ideas on the bandstand, and a major catalyst in that group. Luke

Okay -- CD Baby has finished on their end, and the page for the new Frank Hewitt Quintet (Four Hundred Saturdays) is now up and available! Here is the link: http://cdbaby.com/cd/frankhewitt3 Back with more later... Luke

CD Baby received a carton of Four Hundred Saturdays yesterday. They should be available in a day or two. Official release date is October 11, but who wants to wait? Luke

Since last I was here, I arranged to take Ned Goold's latest group with Sacha Perry and Neal Caine (and Charles Goold Jr!) into the studio to make a record. The chemistry in that group is remarkable, and everybody is getting into something interesting with it. I'll write more later in October after the recording. Luke