Peter Keepnews and Ben Ratliff in today's Times

[Larry Kart]

YMMV, but I find Keepnews, dealing with Danilo Perez, to be compact, lucid, and sensible:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/arts/mus...erez&st=cse

and Ratliff, dealing with Marcus Roberts and J@LC, to be clueless and verbose (he says very little in about a third more space than Keepnews had):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/arts/mus...liff&st=cse

Disclaimer: I once exchanged an e-mail or two with Keepnews about something I don't recall; he seemed to be a nice guy. Ratliff I know only from his writing.

[Chuck Nessa]

At this point, i don't care.

[AllenLowe]

interesting stuff - Peter is a sharp guy, used to be a book review editor at the Times, not sure if he still is-

Edited November 25, 2008 by AllenLowe

[Christiern]

Peter, whom I first met when he was a kid, is indeed sharp and a very nice guy. He must have a difficult time dealing with Monk and having to somehow work around his father's exaggerations re role played with same.

Ratliff, well, I don't think he has ever written anything that didn't give me unintended pause (I'm being nice).

Ratliff obviously continues to be in Wynton's pocket. Here is a different take on that concert. I, wisely, it seems, declined my invitation.

Edited November 25, 2008 by Christiern

[AllenLowe]

I'm always wary of Monk tributes - I did one about 15 years ago and I thought, how can I play those tunes in a way that show something that Monk hasn't already shown? There was no way, as I find his compositions to be just too personal - instead we went through the Monk standards album - played Tea for Two, You Are Too Beautiful, Just You Just Me, It Don't Mean A thing - everybody relaxed, and instead we tried to show how Monk influenced our approach to these - worked nicely, and I didn't have to learn anything new for the show -