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Happy Birthday Larry Kart!


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Happy birthday! :party: And thanks for all the great jazz writing. I've save a lot of your thoughts on Bill Evans, and while I don't agree with some things you wrote, they have continued to challenge how I listen to Evans, and I'm very thankful for that. :tup

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No -- I'm here. It's just that the last week has been very busy, and so is today probably, and the weeks to come too. On the other hand, when I can get away, here is where I seem to want to be. Thanks for the birthday wishes. I share this birthday, BTW, with Woody Herman, Betty Carter, and Liberace -- two of whom I've interviewed.

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No -- I'm here. It's just that the last week has been very busy, and so is today probably, and the weeks to come too. On the other hand, when I can get away, here is where I seem to want to be. Thanks for the birthday wishes. I share this birthday, BTW, with Woody Herman, Betty Carter, and Liberace -- two of whom I've interviewed.

Did Liberace provide his views on Betty Carter and Woody Herman?

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No -- I'm here. It's just that the last week has been very busy, and so is today probably, and the weeks to come too. On the other hand, when I can get away, here is where I seem to want to be. Thanks for the birthday wishes. I share this birthday, BTW, with Woody Herman, Betty Carter, and Liberace -- two of whom I've interviewed.

Did Liberace provide his views on Betty Carter and Woody Herman?

No, but he did provide his views on Barbra Streisand. Not very positive. As I recall, she opened for Lee (so his friends called him) the first time she played Vegas and stubbornly resisted his suggestion that she replace the schmatte (his word) she was wearing onstage with something more flattering and suitable. Also, I got to meet and observe Liberace's young sidekick Scott Thorsen, who was being paid a visit by his adoptive parents and young half-siblings. Hard-core Orange County, Ca., folk. That was weird. What did they know or suspect, if anything? Among the exhibits at the Liberace Museum in Vegas was a full-sized grand piano that some prison inmate fan of Liberace had fashioned out of toothpicks. Liberace was a smart, sly dude, it seemed to me, though I guess not smart enough when it came to balancing his sex life against his health. I think on the same visit to Vegas, I interviewed Jerry Lewis. That was fairly alarming.

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No -- I'm here. It's just that the last week has been very busy, and so is today probably, and the weeks to come too. On the other hand, when I can get away, here is where I seem to want to be. Thanks for the birthday wishes. I share this birthday, BTW, with Woody Herman, Betty Carter, and Liberace -- two of whom I've interviewed.

Did Liberace provide his views on Betty Carter and Woody Herman?

No, but he did provide his views on Barbra Streisand. Not very positive. As I recall, she opened for Lee (so his friends called him) the first time she played Vegas and stubbornly resisted his suggestion that she replace the schmatte (his word) she was wearing onstage with something more flattering and suitable. Also, I got to meet and observe Liberace's young sidekick Scott Thorsen, who was being paid a visit by his adoptive parents and young half-siblings. Hard-core Orange County, Ca., folk. That was weird. What did they know or suspect, if anything? Among the exhibits at the Liberace Museum in Vegas was a full-sized grand piano that some prison inmate fan of Liberace had fashioned out of toothpicks. Liberace was a smart, sly dude, it seemed to me, though I guess not smart enough when it came to balancing his sex life against his health. I think on the same visit to Vegas, I interviewed Jerry Lewis. That was fairly alarming.

Alarming because of Lewis' views on Woody Herman and Betty Carter, or for some other reason?

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[Alarming because of Lewis' views on Woody Herman and Betty Carter, or for some other reason?

Alarming because Lewis quite actively gave me the impression that his view of comedy, and of entertainment in general, was that it if he could amuse or entertain someone, that would allow him to eat their soul. In particular, he showed me a slapstick sequence on his editing machine of a film he was working on at the time, and when I laughed at some bit of business in the right place, the look on his face was utterly vampire-ish. On the other hand, he had nothing but nice things to say about Woody and Betty Carter.

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