Thad Jones

[Mark Stryker]

Looking for some help from anyone with a collection of old Metronome magazines. I'm trying to track down a complete copy of the famous letter that Charles Mingus wrote to Metronome editor Bill Coss about hearing Thad Jones.("Bartok with valves" and all that.) The letter ran in 1954, but I don't know the issue. Unfortunately, none of my local university or public libraries has Metronome either in bound copies or on microfilm. Anyone happen to have this? If not, my next step will be out of state libraries ...

Thanks.

On a related note, in the course of doing some research on Thad today at the Univ. of Michigan library, I read a 1968 interview in Down Beat in which Jones called Wayne Shorter "a coming star in the writing business" and mentioned that the band (Jones/Lews BB) was currently rehearsing Wayne's arrangement of his tune "Dolores." Thad: "He doesn't write easy, rhythmically or harmonically. You have to work it out with the band and with the section you play in, in order to really comprehend what he's doing. Once it hits you, it really knocks you out."

Pretty tantalizing, huh? I wonder if that chart is laying around in Wayne's closet, and I really wonder what it sounded (sounds) like.

Edited August 3, 2012 by Mark Stryker

[Larry Kart]

That's "Bartok with valves," of course. Bartok himself had values but not valves.

[Mark Stryker]

That's "Bartok with valves," of course. Bartok himself had values but not valves.

Um, yes. Correction appended. Was writing around midnight just before going to sleep, wearing glasses that don't correct well ...

Thanks.

[J.A.W.]

That's "Bartok with valves," of course. Bartok himself had values but not valves.

Are you sure he didn't have valves?

[Larry Kart]

That's "Bartok with valves," of course. Bartok himself had values but not valves.

Are you sure he didn't have valves?

His heart, yes.

[bertrand]

I'll try to find out more about a possible 'Dolores' arrangement. This is a very tantalizing discovery. I'm still trying to find the arrangements of 'Nellie Blye' that both Maynard Ferguson and Gerry Mulligan played (not sure if they were two different arrangements).

Bertrand.

[Mark Stryker]

That's "Bartok with valves," of course. Bartok himself had values but not valves.

Are you sure he didn't have valves?

His heart, yes.

Focus, guys. Focus.

[Lazaro Vega]

Francis Davis might have a copy....?

http://www.pdfio.com/k-402871.html

http://www.newworldrecords.org/linernotes/80581.pdf

[Mark Stryker]

Francis Davis might have a copy....?

http://www.pdfio.com/k-402871.html

http://www.newworldrecords.org/linernotes/80581.pdf

Thanks, but the brief excerpt he quotes has been widely reprinted in many sources and Francis was almost certainly not drawing from a copy of the original letter -- Metronome is not listed in the Bibliography at the end of the notes on that New World release. The most extensive excerpt I've seen comes from Coss himself who offers a few choice quotes but with many ellipses in a 1963 Downbeat interview with Thad. Which brings up something I hadn't thought of: Is Coss still alive?

Edited August 3, 2012 by Mark Stryker

[Michael Weiss]

On a related note, in the course of doing some research on Thad today at the Univ. of Michigan library, I read a 1968 interview in Down Beat in which Jones called Wayne Shorter "a coming star in the writing business" and mentioned that the band (Jones/Lews BB) was currently rehearsing Wayne's arrangement of his tune "Dolores." Thad: "He doesn't write easy, rhythmically or harmonically. You have to work it out with the band and with the section you play in, in order to really comprehend what he's doing. Once it hits you, it really knocks you out."

Pretty tantalizing, huh? I wonder if that chart is laying around in Wayne's closet, and I really wonder what it sounded (sounds) like.

John Mosca told me he came across some parts to "Delores," the implication being that parts were missing. I'll ask him about it again.

[bertrand]

John Mosca was the person I was going to ask as well.

Was this the only Shorter piece for which the Jones/Lewis Orchestra had an arrangement?

Bertrand.

[umum_cypher]

Looking for some help from anyone with a collection of old Metronome magazines. I'm trying to track down a complete copy of the famous letter that Charles Mingus wrote to Metronome editor Bill Coss about hearing Thad Jones.("Bartok with valves" and all that.) The letter ran in 1954, but I don't know the issue. Unfortunately, none of my local university or public libraries has Metronome either in bound copies or on microfilm. Anyone happen to have this? If not, my next step will be out of state libraries ...

Mark, email the Darmstadt Jazz Institut and ask them for their Thad Jones bibliography. The article/issue will almost certainly be listed. Then, you can order a scan from them for a few Euros. The Jazz Institut is brilliantly run, and endlessly useful.

Re: Bartok's values, from the *1942* essay Race Purity in Music: "Racial impurity … is definitely beneficial … A complete separation from foreign influences means stagnation: well assimilated foreign impulses offer processes of enrichment". Good old Bela.

[Mike Schwartz]

Photos from the 40's from LIFE magazine

http://life.time.com/culture/giants-...am-sessions/#1

[Mark Stryker]

Looking for some help from anyone with a collection of old Metronome magazines. I'm trying to track down a complete copy of the famous letter that Charles Mingus wrote to Metronome editor Bill Coss about hearing Thad Jones.("Bartok with valves" and all that.) The letter ran in 1954, but I don't know the issue. Unfortunately, none of my local university or public libraries has Metronome either in bound copies or on microfilm. Anyone happen to have this? If not, my next step will be out of state libraries ...

Mark, email the Darmstadt Jazz Institut and ask them for their Thad Jones bibliography. The article/issue will almost certainly be listed. Then, you can order a scan from them for a few Euros. The Jazz Institut is brilliantly run, and endlessly useful.

Re: Bartok's values, from the *1942* essay Race Purity in Music: "Racial impurity … is definitely beneficial … A complete separation from foreign influences means stagnation: well assimilated foreign impulses offer processes of enrichment". Good old Bela.

Thanks much for the tip -- appreciate it. Perhaps the Institute of Jazz Studies could run it down ... haven't called on them before for a research question.

Edited August 4, 2012 by Mark Stryker

[Big Beat Steve]

@Mark Stryker:

Have you found that Mingus letter re- Thad Jones or are you still on the lookout?

Just recently I have been able to buy a collection of about 45 Metronome magazines (not cheap but cheaper than what they always seem to go for on eBay) covering the mid-1952 to mid-1960 period, including 10 of the 12 1954 issues. The mags arrived today so I checked. Unfortunately none of the readers letters in the 1954 issues I now have contain any letter by Charles Mingus, let along one praising Thad Jones. So if that letter actually was published in 1954 it must be in the November or December issue of 1954 (which I don't have).

Sorry I have not been able to help. I will keep an eye out for anything like that when I start "devouring" the contents and will report here but as it now stands it was a close miss.

[Mark Stryker]

@Mark Stryker:

Have you found that Mingus letter re- Thad Jones or are you still on the lookout?

Just recently I have been able to buy a collection of about 45 Metronome magazines (not cheap but cheaper than what they always seem to go for on eBay) covering the mid-1952 to mid-1960 period, including 10 of the 12 1954 issues. The mags arrived today so I checked. Unfortunately none of the readers letters in the 1954 issues I now have contain any letter by Charles Mingus, let along one praising Thad Jones. So if that letter actually was published in 1954 it must be in the November or December issue of 1954 (which I don't have).

Sorry I have not been able to help. I will keep an eye out for anything like that when I start "devouring" the contents and will report here but as it now stands it was a close miss.

Thanks much for this update and appreciate you keeping an eye out. Bad luck on the near miss. But I've talked with the folks at the Institute of Jazz Studies and I've got a reference librarian checking Nov and Dec for me.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Mark Stryker