The jazz quiz .....

[AllenLowe]

Larry's probably right about my previous mention of Schaap and this - ("you know you're gettting old when...)

ok here's a new trivia one, maybe it's gotten around already, I don't know -

"what famous actor is marrying what famous bass player's daughter soon (if not already)?"

[7/4]

Larry's probably right about my previous mention of Schaap and this - ("you know you're gettting old when...)

ok here's a new trivia one, maybe it's gotten around already, I don't know -

"what famous actor is marrying what famous bass player's daughter soon (if not already)?"

Jack Black and Charlie Haden's daughter Tanya.

Edited August 17, 2006 by 7/4

[Niko]

Hm, I think it's being mentioned in the liners to the 5LP Savoy box, no? I am sure I've read it somewhere.

Just looked it up there: "Bird prepared three of his finest and most sophisticated compositions - Chasin' the Bird, Donna Lee (named for Curly Russell's daughter) and Cheryl (named for Miles' daughter). His fourth original, Buzzy (named for Lubinsky's son), is a simple, but attractive riff blues." (from James Patrick's article on "The 1947-1948 Sessions" in said 5LP "Complete Savoy Studio Sessions" from 1978)

i think i read somewhere that buzzy was named after (??) boston drummer buzzy drootin (spelling?)

[AllenLowe]

correct on Jack Black and Hayden's daughter -

[Guy Berger]

Hm, I think it's being mentioned in the liners to the 5LP Savoy box, no? I am sure I've read it somewhere.

Just looked it up there: "Bird prepared three of his finest and most sophisticated compositions - Chasin' the Bird, Donna Lee (named for Curly Russell's daughter) and Cheryl (named for Miles' daughter). His fourth original, Buzzy (named for Lubinsky's son), is a simple, but attractive riff blues." (from James Patrick's article on "The 1947-1948 Sessions" in said 5LP "Complete Savoy Studio Sessions" from 1978)

Wasn't "Donna Lee" composed by Miles?

Guy

[Larry Kart]

Wasn't "Donna Lee" composed by Miles?

Guy

Yes. Brian Priestley's "Chasin' the Bird," page 59: "... the 'Indiana'-based 'Donna Lee' was an original line put together by Miles, whose authorship ws contradicted by the record-label credit 'Parker' but confirmed by Gil Evans and many other observers."

Also this, from Priestley's earlier, briefer "Charlie Parker": "Parker also uses a melodic 'macro-syncopation' of the length of phrases (a lack of which easily identifies tunes attributed to but not written by Parker, such as 'Ornithology' and 'Donna Lee')."

[Guy Berger]

Wasn't "Donna Lee" composed by Miles?

Guy

Yes. Brian Priestley's "Chasin' the Bird," page 59: "... the 'Indiana'-based 'Donna Lee' was an original line put together by Miles, whose authorship ws contradicted by the record-label credit 'Parker' but confirmed by Gil Evans and many other observers."

Also this, from Priestley's earlier, briefer "Charlie Parker": "Parker also uses a melodic 'macro-syncopation' of the length of phrases (a lack of which easily identifies tunes attributed to but not written by Parker, such as 'Ornithology' and 'Donna Lee')."

In Priestley's book good? I really enjoyed his Mingus biography.

Guy

[AllenLowe]

I like all of Priestly's work, and the Bird book is short but smart and accurate -

this is interesting, Larry, as I tend to identify Bird's compositions by the ingenious harmonic extensions - usually shown in broken chords that land on odd but perfect places and which resolve quite miraculously. But Priestly may very well be right - though I do hear Bird's melodicism on Ornithology - on the other hand it, like Donna Lee, lacks the chromatic complexity of some the tunes we know to be his - thinking, also, rhythmically, of Billie's Bounce and Relaxin at Camarillo (playing that last with inexperienced rhythm sections always caused problems, somewhat like Dameron's Sid's Delight, which has the most difficult rhythmic twist I ever encountered in a bebop tune) -

Edited August 17, 2006 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

the Bird book is short but smart and accurate -

That's how it struck me. I also like Carl Woideck's "Charlie Parker." And don't miss Argentianian writer Julio Cortazer's long short story/novella "The Pursuer" (in his collection "Blow Up" -- yes, Antonioni's film is based on the title work) about the relationship between Bruno, a Leonard Feather-like jazz writer/promoter, and Johnny, a musician who is mostly based on Parker with a sprinking of Bud Powell. There are passages here where Parker the man and artist comes alive for me as he does nowhere else (nowhere else on a page, that is).

[Larry Kart]

Sorry -- that's Julio Cortazar (1914-84), who was Paris-based and touched upon jazz in several of his works. Brownie probably knew him. The original title of the the "Blow Up" collection was "End of the Game." His best-known work probably is the novel "Hopscotch."

[Bright Moments]

i have one - when pharoah sanders came to new york in 1962 he met sun ra and began to work for him.

doing what?

no one has gotten the right answer yet!

[7/4]

i have one - when pharoah sanders came to new york in 1962 he met sun ra and began to work for him.

doing what?

no one has gotten the right answer yet!

Is IS a really good question. I wouldn't mind knowing the answer.

[Face of the Bass]

Is IS a really good question. I wouldn't mind knowing the answer.

I'm having a hard time with this one. Szwed's Ra biography just says that Sanders worked his way into the band. A couple newspaper articles online state that Sanders was working as a waiter and selling his blood for cash at this time. Then he moved into the Arkestra's house, but I'm not sure what he was doing other than getting lectures from Ra.

[Face of the Bass]

Well Valerie Wilmer's book has this to say:

For about a year, [the Arkestra] worked at the Playhouse, a room in Greenwich Village owned by Gene Harris, formerly the pianist with a group called the Three Sounds. Pharoah Sanders, newly arrived in New York, heard them there and took a non-musical job in the club in order to follow their nightly activity. When John Gilmore took a leave of absence to make a European and Japanese tour with Art Blakey, Sanders took his place.

That's not really an answer to the question, though.

[Kalo]

Waiter? Page-turner? Rest-room attendent? Cigarette Girl?

[EKE BBB]

Wasn't "Donna Lee" composed by Miles?

Guy

Yes. Brian Priestley's "Chasin' the Bird," page 59: "... the 'Indiana'-based 'Donna Lee' was an original line put together by Miles, whose authorship ws contradicted by the record-label credit 'Parker' but confirmed by Gil Evans and many other observers."

Also this, from Priestley's earlier, briefer "Charlie Parker": "Parker also uses a melodic 'macro-syncopation' of the length of phrases (a lack of which easily identifies tunes attributed to but not written by Parker, such as 'Ornithology' and 'Donna Lee')."

I found this technical explanation on why 'Donna Lee' was not composed by Bird on some remote web:

...Miles Davis, no doubt. Check every single tune Parker wrote - NO other tune resembles "Donna Lee" in terms of phrasing, and in terms of lack of repitition within the 32-bar melody. It sounds more like a chorus of an improvised Bird Solo than a composed piece.

I once was told that Donna Lee was, in fact, a Parker solo that someone transcribed. I think that this is closer to, yet still NOT, the Truth; look at how the composer seems to have gone out of his way to include almost EVERY SINGLE BE-BOP Device that one could fit into 32 bars : the chromatic surrounding notes that begin the phrase just before Bar 5 (and what a long phrase that is! 3 bars - show me another Parker composition that has a single phrase as long as that!); the classic Be-bop Tension notes in Bars 13 and (particularly) 14; the chromatic upwards-spiralling line through bars 25-26 (certainly a device Parker used in his improvisations, but not his compositions); Again, this line begins just before bar 25 and continues as one VERY LONG PHRASE until beat 1 of Bar 30.

It is almost as if someone has written a Be-bop STUDY by taking as many Parker-isms as possible and applying an almost THEORETICAL Be-bop approach to assembling VERY LONG PHRASES (it is Meticulously Crafted; a LOT of thought has gone into it), ultimately coming up with a "composed solo" over the changes of "Indiana" - a tune Parker blew over RELATIVELY infrequently.

It's as though Donna Lee was put together by an ambitious, almost over-eager, though very knowledgeable STUDENT of Be-Bop - a description that fits a 19 year-old MILES DAVIS perfectly!

[B. Clugston]

i have one - when pharoah sanders came to new york in 1962 he met sun ra and began to work for him.

doing what?

no one has gotten the right answer yet!

Kalo Posted Yesterday, 10:49 PM

Waiter? Page-turner? Rest-room attendent? Cigarette Girl?

Tenor saxophonist?

[7/4]

i have one - when pharoah sanders came to new york in 1962 he met sun ra and began to work for him.

doing what?

no one has gotten the right answer yet!

Kalo Posted Yesterday, 10:49 PM

Waiter? Page-turner? Rest-room attendent? Cigarette Girl?

Tenor saxophonist?

now that's just crazy talk...

[Hot Ptah]

Regarding the Pharoah Sanders question, you don't mean that his job was to replace John Gilmore during the time that Gilmore left the Arkestra to play with Art Blakey and others, do you?

[sidewinder]

i have one - when pharoah sanders came to new york in 1962 he met sun ra and began to work for him.

doing what?

no one has gotten the right answer yet!

Ra-Ship pilot?

Scribe?

Chauffeur?

Costumier?

Moon stew preparer?

[Bright Moments]

i have one - when pharoah sanders came to new york in 1962 he met sun ra and began to work for him.

doing what?

no one has gotten the right answer yet!

Ra-Ship pilot?

Scribe?

Chauffeur?

Costumier?

Moon stew preparer?

this album:

has an interview with pharoah sanders in which he says that he first worked for sun ra at the door, collecting money in a cigar box, for sun ra's performances!

BTW he was working in the club as a chef at the time (but not for sun ra) so a tip of the hat for that guess!

[White Lightning]

I think it was Ra who named him "Pharoah"...