Larry Kart's jazz book

[SNWOLF]

It's a great track, from a great album. But (and I'm thinking in terms of the remastered CD with extra tracks) it doesn't quite have that sense of urgency and startling invention that initially impels the album. Deep Night may have its own nocturnal eloquence, but the creative and emotional heat has diminished. The extra tracks, while intriguing, seem to me fatigued afterthoughts.

[Cornelius]

I love the bonus tracks, right through the elongated cat and mouse ending on "Lover".

[AllenLowe]

1) Deep Night is a beautiful old tune - my favorite version is Booker Ervin's on Structurally Sound.

2) Evans was also a big admirer of Oscar Peterson. So his taste could certainly waver from the sublime to the ridiculous...

Edited January 26, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Nate Dorward]

I think I associate the tune now with the end of My Own Private Idaho.....it's the tune that rolls after the ambiguous good samaritan ending (the narcoleptic hustler first robbed & then cared for by two passing vehicles). -- I haven't heard the Ervin version. There's a version of it on Betty Carter's With the Audience though it bears little relation to the original tune.

The odd thing about "Lover" is that Clark doesn't get a solo on it.

[ejp626]

Jack Fuller ... the author of several novels, including one about a Coltrane-like jazz musician, "The Best of Jackson Payne."

I've read that novel and enjoyed it. It is written from multiple perspectives and often information is contradictory, much like someone trying to track down the "truth" about an elusive musician for a biography. In fact, if I recall, the main character is a white biographer who is writing about Jackson Payne. The only thing I would alter from Larry's description is that Payne is much more like the character Dexter Gordon played in Round Midnight (running out on his children and never conquering his addictions) than Coltrane.

[Larry Kart]

Coltrane (and to a lesser extent Ayler) are the models for Jackson Payne because one of the major premises of the book is that Payne is the engine of a vast stylistic upheaval in jazz and one that in his case has would-be profound spiritual implications to boot. Lots of jazz musicians aren't great parents and have drug problems; to my knowledge, only Coltrane fits this pattern (though the book is a work of fiction, and Fuller certainly alters the Coltrane pattern when he wants and needs to).

[Lazaro Vega]

Hey! JSngry is quoted in Larry's book! In that section on Miles. Did you guys start that discussion here?

Edited January 28, 2005 by Lazaro Vega

[JSngry]

Contact was established as a result of postings here, yes. The actual exchange of ideas was done off-board, however.

I was both honored and flattered to be quoted in the liner notes, and to see that the same quote made it into the book.

[ghost of miles]

Sonny Clark was greatly admired by Bill Evans. The feeling was mutual. I even went to the trouble of reading a biography of Evans, "See How My Heart Sings", which gave me no psycholocical clues to Evan's'  wounded retreat from life, his desire to escape into a cute, soft-focus, high-brow tweeness.

Evans wrote "NYC's No Lark" as a eulogy for Clark (the title is an anagram of his name). I think they were also nicknamed the Gold Dust Twins for their addictive inclinations.

Edited January 28, 2005 by ghost of miles

[paul secor]

Sonny Clark was greatly admired by Bill Evans. The feeling was mutual. I even went to the trouble of reading a biography of Evans, "See How My Heart Sings", which gave me no psycholocical clues to Evan's'  wounded retreat from life, his desire to escape into a cute, soft-focus, high-brow tweeness.

Evans wrote "NYC's No Lark" as a eulogy for Clark (the title is an anagram of his name). I think they were also nicknamed the Gold Dust Twins for their addictive inclinations.

I believe that Hampton Hawes, in his autobiography, says that he and Sonny Clark were called the Gold Dust Twins. Perhaps it was a common nickname.

[JSngry]

These are the real Gold Dust twins:

Seriously, and just so "you" (as in those who don't fully understand the reference) know.

[Larry Kart]

Very interesting, Jim. That fits neatly (though perhaps too neatly) one of the points made in Peter Pottinger's biography of Bill Evans -- that the very sensitive Evans' solution to the "racial teasing" or worse that he received from other members of the Miles Davis Sextet, including Miles himself, and from audiences in predominantly black clubs like the Spotlite Lounge in Washington, D.C., was to become that much more of a junkie ("he was determined to be the worst junkie in the band," writes Pottinger) in the hope that the fellowship of junkiedom would lessen or overcome the Crow-Jim draft he was feeling. If so, it certainly seemed to have worked that way with him and Philly Joe. I'd bet that the bonds of Evans' friendship with Sonny Clark to some extent lay elsewhere, but it seems likely that Hampton Hawes' wisecrack is based on the perception by guys who were in the know that Evans was doing what Pottinger says he was.

[Larry Kart]

Soory -- That should be Peter Pettinger, not "Pottinger."

[AllenLowe]

Per their drug use, "If so, it certainly seemed to have worked that way with him and Philly Joe. "

interesting, and somewhat ironic, as I remember Evans's wife telling me, at the time, that he had to stop using Philly Joe because of excessive substance abuse problems -

[Larry Kart]

"Interesting, and somewhat ironic, as I remember Evans's wife telling me, at the time, that he had to stop using Philly Joe because of excessive substance abuse problems."

Yes, but that was 20 years down the road from 1958. Also FWIW, according to Pettinger, Evans' substance of choice in 1978 was cocaine and Philly Joe's was alcohol. On the other hand, according to Pettinger again, their junky-buddy friendship persisted, to the point where one day on the road, recalls Evans' then-bassist Michael Moore, Bill and Philly Joe went to a nearby Sears store and bought for the trio three matching "horrible polyester suits -- powder blue coats, white trousers, and reversible vests (pink on one side). They decided it all -- I had nothing to do with it, except I had to wear the damn things."

[AllenLowe]

yes, absolutely right - Evans used to come up on weekends to Branford Connecticut and lock himself in his room up in their house - his method of injestion was the classic junkie one, reminding me of what Lenny Bruce was supposed to have said when the cops broke into his room and found needles:

Bruce: I never take anything stronger than aspirin.

Cop: Than why all the needles?

Bruce: I can't stand the taste of the stuff.

Edited January 31, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Lazaro Vega]

Sounds like you'd have to be high just to look at those outfits. High as a 7 iron in Tiger Woods' backswing.

Edited January 31, 2005 by Lazaro Vega

[ghost of miles]

These are the real Gold Dust twins:

Seriously, and just so "you" (as in those who don't fully understand the reference) know.

Jim,

Yeah, I was aware of the connection, though I haven't seen that illustration for a long time... I wonder when the company stopped using it.

[Lazaro Vega]

The insight about Tony Williams and Miles, and Miles subsequent desire to keep the background in the background is an interesting way to look at that, Larry. I can dig that. Was just checking out the new "Yo Miles!" recording by Henry Kaiser and Wadada Leo Smith, it is called "Upriver," where they take on some of that post-Bitches Brew music, with Greg Osby, John Tchicai and Rova playing winds. Even in Leo's wildness there's still a sense of playing in front of a curtain of rhythm, as opposed to what Davis had going on in that 60's era quintet......

[Larry Kart]

I'll have to check out the new "Yo Miles!" I really liked the first one, thought Leo played great on it. BTW, at the time I wrote those notes for "Filles," I'd not yet heard the rumors about what Miles and Tony might have had going on on the personal level, even it might read like that's what was in the back of my mind.

[Rooster_Ties]

I'll have to check out the new "Yo Miles!"

Actually, there's a NEW new "Yo Miles!" release. So there's a total of three so far...

Yo, Miles! (Aug., 1998)

Sky Garden/Yo Miles (May, 2004)

Upriver: Yo Miles (Jan., 2005)

Gosh, has it really been going on 7 years since the first one??? Time sure flies!!!

[Clunky]

Larry's book arrived today- nice looking package , can't wait to get started.

[Big Al]

Just got past the articles on Hank Mobley and Philly Joe Jones. Interesting that the article about “the Hankenstein” would be back-to-back with the article on Philly, as they made me dig out my CDR of the No Room for Squares session (I should explain that the CDR was taken from my copies of the CD of the same name, as well as the tracks from Straight No Filter, so as to have the whole session in one place). I’ve always dug the two separately: Mobley for his plain beauty (as Larry put it more eloquently than my memory of it); and Philly for the Rice Krispy" sound he got (lots of snap, crackle, and pop! HA!); but I forgot what a potent team they were together! (And on this particular session, the addition of Andrew Hill is nothing short of a stroke of genius. My CDR also includes the session from 3/7/63 that produced a good chunk of The Turnaround, also with Philly Joe on hand).

Forgive my errant memory, as I don’t have the book in front of me, but iirc, Larry writes about Philly’s way of emphasizing the snare drum more than the cymbal. It’s for this reason that I really dig Philly’s accompaniment of mid-size/big bands; he sounds like an orchestra all by himself!

Gots to check out more recordings with Hank and Philly Joe. Gots to get more Philly Joe in my collection, that’s for sure!

Edited March 1, 2005 by Big Al

[Larry Kart]

A bit self-serving for me to mention it, but the review of my dreams finally got posted on the website Classical Net:

http://www.classical.net/music/books/revie...300104200a.html

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Yes, indeed that is a good one, though a bit non-jazz (but that is its forum, after all). BTW, this is surely NOT the Steve Schwartz we know here from Boston.

Though I heartily disagree with the scorn that Bernard Shaw (and apparently Mr. Schwartz) have for the use of musical notation when writing about music. At the appropriate time, nothing could be clearer. And the exceptions to the jazz book pigeonholes, Wilder's American Popular Song and Schuller's The Swing Era - both make good use of notation. They deal with "the music itself" - and rightfully use notation to do so.

And it was interesting that the name of Bill Evans did not even come up in this review.

Mike