Sal Mosca 1927=2007

[brownie]

Sad news!

Sal Mosca had made a first appearance in Paris earlier this year. A marvelous concert!

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

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ooooooooooo--- NOT SAL MOSCA NOT SAL MOSCA- SAL MOSCA MAN- SAL MOSCA: STAR PUPIL OF LENNIE WHO DEVELOPED HIS OWN UNIQUE STYLE WHILE STAYING TRUE TO THE MASTERS WAYS. SAL MOSCA=ONE OF THE BEST PIANISTS IN MODERN JAZZ.

[White Lightning]

Sad news.

I love his playing all on those Lee Konitz albums

[Nate Dorward]

Not a surprise, but still very sad to hear.

His last album, Thing-Ah-Majig shows him affected by his many ailments but still producing magic every time he touches the keys. The effect is rather like Tristano filtered through Monk, & with a wistful sense of humour that's strangely affecting.

[king ubu]

Very sad news

I heard that Paris gig on radio and indeed it was great!

[J.A.W.]

Very sad news.

[Shannon Dickey]

I'll have to dig out my Mosca LPs. R.I.P Sal!!

[ghost of miles]

Sad loss for the music--listening right now to the 1979 concert date

[Spontooneous]

Sal had a groove of his own. RIP.

[Peter Friedman]

My favorite recordings by Sal Mosca all date from the mid-50's when he was a sideman.

Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh - Atlantic (and Mosaic) 1955

Lee Konitz Quartet - Inside Hi Fi - Atlantic (and Mosaic) 1956

Lee Konitz Quintet - Very Cool - Verve 1957

His things on the Wave label from the late 1950's were nice too.

[Quasimado]

Great artistry, integrity... the early work with Lee and with Warne - and the the Vanguard sessions with Warne from '81... among others. They say Verve has 50's treasures of Lee/ Sal/ Ind/ Scott in their vaults somewhere ...

Thanks Sal.

Q

[jazz4u]

It's sad, and difficult, to write about the loss of a great musician, and a kind man - Sal Mosca was both those things.

When I was living in Connecticut with my God parents, I got to see Sal and talk to him quite a bit. My God father, a man named Steve Silverman, was one of his students for over two decades. Sal would often come to the house for dinner. He was very dry, yet very direct; he always said what he felt. And, he had strong opinions about life as well ( I remember him once saying about his then new car, "It's going to be a piece of shit some day. All cars eventually become a piece of shit." He was on a roll about how things weren't as important as human beings.)

During my time in CT , about 2 years after having begun to play the bass, my brother filmed me playing a new years gig at an Italian restaurant in White Plains, NY. The band I was with played a bunch of Italian tunes and some standards. Sal saw the tape , and said to me, "Besides the Italian stuff, it sounds pretty good.". My late father, Warne Marsh, died before I'd ever learned to play, so Sal was the first truly heavy player to compliment my playing. I was 21 years old.

Sal was just that - heavy.

Rest in peace my friend.

Jason Marsh

Edited August 2, 2007 by jazz4u

[donald byrd 4 EVA]

sal was a true jazz great

[P.L.M]

Seen him in Belgium at the beginnig of the year, also.

He cames with a pupil of him, an alto sax who, at the end of the gig, plays two duets with SAM.

The name is CHRIS AIELLO and he is very much in the early KONITZ /MARSH style.

I made an interview with SAM after the concert who has also been filming (concert and interview).

Didn't really open himself much but his daughter was filling the gap.

When I ask him how old he was when he starts to learn piano, he answers "forteen", when I ask him how old he was when he starts to play professionnaly, he answers "forteen". When he sees my expression, he just adds" I was a fast learner".

Edited August 4, 2007 by P.L.M

[brownie]

Obituary in the New York Times today.

SAL MOSCA, 80, A JAZZ PIANIST AND TEACHER, DIES

By COREY KILGANNON

Published: August 6, 2007

Sal Mosca, a jazz pianist whose career began playing with giants like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan only to take himself out of the public eye in later life, died on July 28 in White Plains. He was 80.

The cause was complications from emphysema, said his daughter, Kathryn Mosca.

Mr. Mosca was one of the main protégés of Lennie Tristano, the jazz pianist known for his rigorous approach to improvisation and his cult following among students and fans. A lifelong resident of Mount Vernon, Mr. Mosca grew up emulating the stride of Fats Waller, the swing of Teddy Wilson and the technical and improvisatory mastery of Art Tatum. By the time he was a teenager he was backing up famous players in Manhattan nightclubs.

In the 1950s he played on several watershed early cool-jazz recordings, like “Ezz-thetic,” with Miles Davis, and “Subconscious-Lee,” with the saxophonist Lee Konitz, another Tristano student with whom Mr. Mosca played in clubs like Birdland.

Mr. Tristano later wrote in the liner notes for Mr. Mosca’s 1977 album “Mosca Music” that “of all the great people in jazz since the 1940s, Sal Mosca is one of the greatest.”

Mr. Mosca adopted Mr. Tristano’s curriculum of marathon practice sessions and studying the solos of a small pantheon of jazz improvisers. He stuck to a select repertory of standard songs, usually playing only extreme abstractions of the original melodies or substituting complex melodic lines over a song’s original harmonic structure.

Mr. Mosca played on the bill with Lenny Bruce at the Den in Manhattan in the 1950s and led a quartet along with the saxophonist Warne Marsh at the Village Vanguard in 1981.

But after that he largely avoided performing and recording, seeing it as a threat to the integrity of his intense practicing, playing and teaching, he said in interviews with The New York Times in recent years. He lived in a commercial building he owned in downtown Mount Vernon, where he could teach up to 60 students a week and practice late into the night.

After a series of operations he grew depressed, he said, and in 1997 he stopped playing altogether for four years, refusing to leave home or touch his Steinway concert grand, even as recordings of his earlier performances were being released. Eventually he returned to teaching, jam sessions and public performances. In January he played five solo concerts in Europe and taught several workshops.

In addition to his daughter, his survivors include his sons Michael and Steven and seven grandchildren.

Mr. Mosca credited his seclusion with giving deeper meaning to his music.

“I was only away from music physically,” he explained. “Even while I was away from the piano, I was always playing in my mind, going over chord changes.”

[AllenLowe]

Braxton has said that Mosca was one of his prime influences, interestingly enough -