Richard Twardzik

[johnblitweiler]

I used to know The Girl From Greenland when she was a nurse in Chicago. Her ancestry was Eskimo and in her younger days she lived with Littman's family in Boston (exchange student, I believe, from Denmark).

[Head Man]

Anyone know what did Peter Littman did after he left Chet Baker in the 50s?

Edited October 29, 2014 by Head Man

[AllenLowe]

_{Larry - I thought there was a lot of first hand, and so interesting and apparently reliable, testimony from contemporaries of Twardzik, interesting stuff from band members, girlfriends, family. Things from Herb Pomeroy, about Madame Chaloff, his father (who was a terrific artist). But I will re-read that link.}

Edited October 29, 2014 by AllenLowe

[Daniel A]

So, from those of you who have read both (which may not be too many) - which of Gavin's and Chambers' biographies should one read (first)?

(If anyone wonders where I got the Gavin quote above if I haven't got the book I found it in a Google cash of that page)

Edited October 29, 2014 by Daniel A

[sgcim]

After using my brother's connections with Columbia University, I was able to take out "Bouncin' With Bartok" The Incomplete Works of Richard Twardzic by Jack Chambers,  and found it to contain a good picture of Boston's jazz scene in the 50s, with a great deal of info on Bob Zieff, the so called,'Underground Jazz Composer'

The only info it gives on the life of Peter Littman after Chet Baker is that he was known to be working in a gas station.

I've got to take off now, but I'll go more into the book when I get back. The thing is at least $100 on Amazon, and goes as high as $387.

[Larry Kart]

The book contains one of the funniest typos or outright errors  I've ever seen. At one point Bob Zieff is quoted as referring to someone as "a "bone-fried bebopper." Yeah, there were a lot of those around. Try "bona fide."

[JSngry]

A chicken-fried mistake. 

[sgcim]

5 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

The book contains one of the funniest typos or outright errors  I've ever seen. At one point Bob Zieff is quoted as referring to someone as "a "bone-fried bebopper." Yeah, there were a lot of those around. Try "bona fide."

At one point the author was saying something about the Mccarthy hearings, and he referred to them as 'Commies'(!)

I knew I was in for a rough ride...

I spent a few hours listening to the studio album made for Barclay in Paris, Volume 1.

We're listening to three different types of music when we're hearing Twardzic play.
The first is the music of Bob Zeiff, which uses some phrases of jazz, but isn't in the song forms that jazz uses. Zeiff was a 20th Century music classical composer, who was constantly being turned down by people like Bethlehem records because his music was so weird. He was even supposed to write the music for some well known film, but got turned down for that, too.
He was Twardzic's music teacher, and that's how his six songs from the studio album made for Barclay in Paris, Volume 1.got on there.
When Baker was looking for a pianist to go on the European tour, he first asked the pianist he was using in the States, Russ Freeman, but Russ looked at Chet's eyes, and he could tell he was on narcotics, so he turned it down.
Then he went to John Williams, a straight ahead player on the East Coast who played on some Jimmy Raney and Stan Getz, Zoot and Al albums.

So Williams went to hear them play at a club, and Peter Littman was on drums, and he was terrible. Williams asked around about Littman, and everyone said he was a lost-cause junkie, so Williams said he'd only do the gig if Littman wasn't doing it.
Chet said "Fine, use whatever drummer you want to use.
A month went by, and he didn't hear from Chet, so figured it wasn't happening.
Then he gets a call from Chet asking him to come to a rehearsal in Yonkers.
When he gets there, Littman is setting up his set!
Chet goes into his junkie's apology, but Williams drives back to Manhattan without even playing with them.

Russ Freeman thinks Twardzik would be perfect for the job, and Chet hires him on the spot, but Twardzic says he doesn't want to play "My Funny Valentine" all night, and so Chet tells him to bring his own music, and Twardzic winds up bringing six Zieff songs, along with some of his own tunes..
Two bass players turn down the job, so Chet hires Jimmy Bond, a bass player from Philly, who just graduated Julliard
Chet flies to Europe, and the rhythm section has to take a ship.
So the second type of music is Twardzic's which is similar to Zieff's, but a little Monkish, without the banging.
The third type of music they play are standards.
I guess Twardzic's playing is similar to Monk's without the banging, but it's much more theoretical-based than Monk.




 

[romualdo]

7 hours ago, sgcim said:

I've got to take off now, but I'll go more into the book when I get back. The thing is at least $100 on Amazon, and goes as high as $387.

Jack Chambers may still have copies - he's very approachable. I've contacted him a couple of times. He even sent an autographed copy of the book to another one of the group members.

[sgcim]

On 7/12/2023 at 8:54 PM, Larry Kart said:

The book contains one of the funniest typos or outright errors  I've ever seen. At one point Bob Zieff is quoted as referring to someone as "a "bone-fried bebopper." Yeah, there were a lot of those around. Try "bona fide."

I think that was just a joke on Zieff's part, because in the same paragraph, the writer says:

"But if Zieff counted Twardzik among the outsiders, there were many others in the Boston arts community, including the bona fide bopsters, who counted him among the all-stars, and both sides had a good case."

[Larry Kart]

 

 

Zieff wasn't the writer. The error was the product  of Jack Chambers's brain or his fingers.

[sgcim]

3 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

 

 

Zieff wasn't the writer. The error was the product  of Jack Chambers's brain or his fingers.

Why couldn't it just be a play on words that Zieff told Chambers? Chambers uses the words bona fide correctly in the same paragraph. Maybe Chambers wrote it down to show Zeiff's weird sense of humor, and there was no error.

Do you have something against Chambers? Did he do something bad to you in a past life?

[romualdo]

29 minutes ago, sgcim said:

Why couldn't it just be a play on words that Zieff told Chambers? Chambers uses the words bona fide correctly in the same paragraph. Maybe Chambers wrote it down to show Zeiff's weird sense of humor, and there was no error.

Do you have something against Chambers? Did he do something bad to you in a past life?

why don't you contact him & find out directly - contact details below (hope they're still current/valid)

https://chambers.artsci.utoronto.ca/

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by romualdo

[Gheorghe]

On 7/13/2023 at 8:05 AM, sgcim said:

 

 

 a little Monkish, without the banging.
The third type of music they play are standards.
I guess Twardzic's playing is similar to Monk's without the banging, but it's much more theoretical-based than Monk.




 

I don´t hear no banging in Monk´s music. He is rhythm, and what some call banging is sounds. Do you think a snare or a ride cymbal or whatever is "banging". It´s jazz, man. 

And Monk always has a little story in his compositions, he has a lot of musical humour and also really deep stuff. 
And even my wife, who is not really a jazz listener likes Monk, she says it´s so natural to hear and watch him on videos (which are the faster acces to music for not so really fans). 

I heard Twardzik only on some old records, I got to dig Baker only from 1978 on. Twardzik sounds very academically to me, something like twelftone or so. It didn´t give me the happiness I get when listening to Monk. 

Sure that´s a question of taste but I think nobody who becomes alive when he hears Monk thinks about his playing as "banging". 

[sgcim]

11 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

I don´t hear no banging in Monk´s music. He is rhythm, and what some call banging is sounds. Do you think a snare or a ride cymbal or whatever is "banging". It´s jazz, man. 

And Monk always has a little story in his compositions, he has a lot of musical humour and also really deep stuff. 
And even my wife, who is not really a jazz listener likes Monk, she says it´s so natural to hear and watch him on videos (which are the faster acces to music for not so really fans). 

I heard Twardzik only on some old records, I got to dig Baker only from 1978 on. Twardzik sounds very academically to me, something like twelftone or so. It didn´t give me the happiness I get when listening to Monk. 

Sure that´s a question of taste but I think nobody who becomes alive when he hears Monk thinks about his playing as "banging". 

Okay, playing percussively. I didn't mean it in a negative way; I love Monk.

[Stonewall15]

Dave Brubeck banged away but what a great improvisor.

[AllenLowe]

3 minutes ago, sgcim said:

Okay, playing percussively. I didn't mean it in a negative way; I love Monk.

nothing wrong with banging on a piano. One night back in the '70s I was at the Red Blazer in NYC watching Sol Yaged (a friend of mine, Bill Triglia, was playing piano). The band was awful; finally Bill took off his shoe and starting banging the keyboard with it. And here was a guy who had worked with Bird, with Lester Young, with Sonny Rollins - if he could do it anyone could.

[sgcim]

37 minutes ago, AllenLowe said:

nothing wrong with banging on a piano. One night back in the '70s I was at the Red Blazer in NYC watching Sol Yaged (a friend of mine, Bill Triglia, was playing piano). The band was awful; finally Bill took off his shoe and starting banging the keyboard with it. And here was a guy who had worked with Bird, with Lester Young, with Sonny Rollins - if he could do it anyone could.

A woman that a friend of mine knows said she was doing a club date with Bill Evans, and the band was so bad, he started banging his head on the piano. Must have been a thing back then...

BTW, I read something by someone who said that Davey Schildkraut stopped playing jazz professionally because he wanted to work as a civil servant. Previously, an alto player I used to work with said it was because he lost his wife in a car accident. Do you know which one was the real story?

Edited July 25, 2023 by sgcim

[AllenLowe]

1 hour ago, sgcim said:

A woman that a friend of mine knows said she was doing a club date with Bill Evans, and the band was so bad, he started banging his head on the piano. Must have been a thing back then...

BTW, I read something by someone who said that Davey Schildkraut stopped playing jazz professionally because he wanted to work as a civil servant. Previously, an alto player I used to work with said it was because he lost his wife in a car accident. Do you know which one was the real story?

it's a little more complicated; he stopped playing music because, he said, he wanted to be with his family more. So he got a day job with the city of New York which was pretty menial. Then his daughter was killed in a car accident, which sent his wife to bed for about 10 years; she finally died of cancer. Beautiful, sweet lady, she just never got over it. As for Dave, he would have made some real money as a musician; Norman Granz was offering a tour, Dizzy offered several recording dates, all of which he turned down. But that was Dave.

[sgcim]

Some tragic stuff. Thanks.

[clifford_thornton]

I only have the Twardzik/Freeman split, but I love his playing & tunes on there. Sublime stuff. I've perhaps said this elsewhere but working with Shipp on this book and getting to experience his playing in so many contexts has gotten me to listen to the piano in a very different way, think about harmonies differently (as a non-musician), etc.. and Twardzik hits me very hard now, whereas I just did not catch all the subtleties (and some of the not-subtle parts) before.

[Daniel A]

On 10/29/2014 at 4:15 AM, Head Man said:

Anyone know what did Peter Littman did after he left Chet Baker in the 50s?

Interestingly, I just came across this:

https://michaelwelchpublications.substack.com/p/peter-littman-100-drummers-ive-seen

Based on what has been written here (or maybe mostly in the Chet Baker biographies) I wouldn't have thought that he survived the 1950s.

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks, that's an interesting story.

Like you, I wouldn't have been surprised if Littman had been reported dead before the end of the 50s. I remember reading a story about the tragic days in Paris in 1955 (cannot recall the source; this was well before the publication of Jack Chambers' book). The author claimed that one major reason why Twardzik fell back into his habit was that Peter Littman, an (I quote from memory) "incurable addict", was the worst possible travel companion for Dick Twardzik (even more so than Chet Baker, it seems) - as he made it all too easy for Twardzik to score again and get high and into the habit again. With the results we know ...

So ... time to listen to the CD of the Holland Concerts by the Chet Baker quartet (of 17 and 18 Sept. 1955) now ...

Edited December 5 by Big Beat Steve

[Gheorghe]

I think the only recorded example of Dick Twardzik (how hard to pronouce that name) is a version of "April" on the Musidisc LP "Happy Bird". But it´s Bird who really shines on this , and the strong bass of Mingus. Maybe I heard another example too, but I am not sure. In any case, the West Coast part is missing in my discography, I fear to say. 

Somehow, from the short listening experiences his playing seems to have some directions that remind me of mostly Tristano (whom I like more, if he does not do that overdubbing crap) and maybe from that film I saw about Joe Albany. 
It sounds a bit like if Dick Twardzik would have listened to some 12 tone things, that kind of classical music of the 20th century. 

I got to hear Chet Baker for the first time in 1978, before that, with all the Giants of Jazz I had seen until then, Chet was a completly uncommon name for me. But from 1978 on, when I saw him live for the first time, I liked him and saw him dozens of times. I even have some of his records from the 70´s or 80´s ........But the reason may be that Baker in his last 10 years sounded much more like let´s say early Miles, or Kenny Dorham...