ok, fellow Chuckies: Johnny Richards: Kiss Her Goodbye

[AllenLowe]

ok, this one I will strongly recommend - with reservations (guilty with an explanation?) -

great music; I've been up and down over the years with Richards; he overdoes everything, but sometimes taste isn't everything -

some problems with sound - on the Birdland broadasts Sunnnenblick's engineer (same guy who did the Christian) -is leaning too heavily on the de-hiss; one can hear that tell-tale deadness, some breathing, loss of resonance - so it's acceptable but could have been better, oh well.

this one I can live with - and it has Davey Schildkraut on the last three cuts, and Davey takes some brilliant solos -

this is a keeper -

[JSngry]

...one can hear that tell-tale deadness, some breathing...

Kiss her goodbye indeed, while there's still time!

[AllenLowe]

I've come to like Richards - the bombast works for me. There's just, in these transfers, a little air missing, but such is the problem with the new tech; engineers (myself included) get what I call "listening fatigue" and sometimes you just have to put it down and come back at a later date. I've tried maybe 10 de-hiss programs. They can be very effective at making things listenable, but you have to stop at a certain point.

[JSngry]

I've come to like Richards - the bombast works for me. There's just, in these transfers, a little air missing, but such is the problem with the new tech; engineers (myself included) get what I call "listening fatigue" and sometimes you just have to put it down and come back at a later date. I've tried maybe 10 de-hiss programs. They can be very effective at making things listenable, but you have to stop at a certain point.

Still working on that myself, I find the whole thing about listerner fatigue and stopping at some point applies for me to his writing as much as it does to the engineering. But that's pretty much subjective all the way around, I suppose.

Indirectly speaking of Kenton-related bombast, have you ever checked out the album that Bill Mathieu did for Kenton? Standards In Silhouette, I think it's called. That's bombast that works for me, just because its not relentless. That, and Mathieu really tells stories with the loudness instead of using a lot of devices, which is still mostly how I hear Richards. Maybe Richards was telling stories too, I just can't get to them.

[AllenLowe]

I don't know that, though I do like a lot of the Kenton things that are disdained by the "serious" jazz world.

[Larry Kart]

Those Schildkraut solos are fairly well mind-boggling. As for Richards, what I especially like is, for want of a better term, his surreal, gusto-filled, Falstaffian humor, which for me usually tempers, modifies, even undercuts the apparent bombast. Those insane piccolo lines! And the way Billy Slapin (usually) plays them!

Also, the particular sorts of ensemble virtuosity Richards' writing demands from players typically seems to inspire them to play their asses off across the board. Dig Ray Copeland and Jimmy Cleveland's solo work on this album. Back to the bombast factor, some of his more "sweeping" orchestral statements are genuinely sweeping IMO, e.g. either "Nipigon" or "The Ballad of Tappan Zee" from "Wide Range" (maybe both).

[ejp626]

Those Schildkraut solos are fairly well mind-boggling. As for Richards, what I especially like is, for want of a better term, his surreal, gusto-filled, Falstaffian humor, which for me usually tempers, modifies, even undercuts the apparent bombast. Those insane piccolo lines! And the way Billy Slapin (usually) plays them!

Larry:

Have you been moonlighting over at Dusty Groove?

Anyway, between you and Allen, you've got me pretty well convinced to try this out, though I will have to wait until I have refilled my DG account with more trade-ins...

[Larry Kart]

Those Schildkraut solos are fairly well mind-boggling. As for Richards, what I especially like is, for want of a better term, his surreal, gusto-filled, Falstaffian humor, which for me usually tempers, modifies, even undercuts the apparent bombast. Those insane piccolo lines! And the way Billy Slapin (usually) plays them!

Larry:

Have you been moonlighting over at Dusty Groove?

Nope. Bought "Wide Range" when it first came out, got it again in the Mosaic set. Another Richards album I really like, one where the humor is especially striking, is "Something Else" (Bethlehem). An obvious point of comparison is Pete Rugolo, and I'll take Richards over Rugolo by miles. IMO Rugolo can be insufferably cute and coy, his bombast is truly bombastico, and he also seems to me to often lack a basic interest/involvement in the music as music rather than as gesture. One may not have a taste for Richards, but he pays real attention to the details of what he's doing.

[JSngry]

An obvious point of comparison is Pete Rugolo, and I'll take Richards over Rugolo by miles. IMO Rugolo can be insufferably cute and coy, his bombast is truly bombastico, and he also seems to me to often lack a basic interest/involvement in the music as music rather than as gesture. One may not have a taste for Richards, but he pays real attention to the details of what he's doing.

Agreed on all counts, although my preference of Richards over Rugolo might better be measured in portions of a mile rather than several of them, of only because I have miles to go before I sleep, but not before I nap, and neither Rugolo nor Richards seem to sympathize with that!

[John Tapscott]

Those Schildkraut solos are fairly well mind-boggling. As for Richards, what I especially like is, for want of a better term, his surreal, gusto-filled, Falstaffian humor, which for me usually tempers, modifies, even undercuts the apparent bombast. Those insane piccolo lines! And the way Billy Slapin (usually) plays them!

Larry:

Have you been moonlighting over at Dusty Groove?

Nope. Bought "Wide Range" when it first came out, got it again in the Mosaic set. Another Richards album I really like, one where the humor is especially striking, is "Something Else" (Bethlehem). An obvious point of comparison is Pete Rugolo, and I'll take Richards over Rugolo by miles. IMO Rugolo can be insufferably cute and coy, his bombast is truly bombastico, and he also seems to me to often lack a basic interest/involvement in the music as music rather than as gesture. One may not have a taste for Richards, but he pays real attention to the details of what he's doing.

FWIW, I enjoy a great deal of Richards' music. The Mosaic Select (sadly out of print) is a gem IMO. I think the bombastico factor, while certainly there, is less prominent in his own recordings than in his writing for Kenton, possibly because Richards' own brass sections typically had 4 or 5 less players than Kenton's. Plus I think Johnny's band sometimes swung harder in a more traditional big band way.