Am I the only one who finds Fred Hersch......

[crisp]

What's curious about that though is that Hammerstein adopted the same approach earlier on with Jerome Kern. Yet Kern and Hammerstein songs have much more readily become jazz standards: All the Things You Are, Why Was I Born, Old Man River, etc. And apparently these tunes are often very harmonically complex (Kern worried that All the Things You are wouldn't register with the public, for instance).

Rodgers seems to have allowed his music to become a lot more staid under Hammerstein's influence than Kern did.

[Tom Storer]

I was just perusing his web site; really the first time I have listened to him after hearing him praised to the skies by rational people; so I was surprised I found his work so soporific.

it had almost a new-age veneer, though it was superior new age. No edge, no sense of deep search. Just a very competent skimming of the surface.

Allen, you ought to see the man live once or twice before finalizing judgment. "Perusing his web site" shows no sense of deep search, just a skimming of the surface. ;-)

I like Hersch very much in trio. His solo efforts are better than Keith Jarrett's, anyway. Now those are soporific.

[AllenLowe]

but I like a pianist who screams along with his playing.

[Pete C]

What's curious about that though is that Hammerstein adopted the same approach earlier on with Jerome Kern. Yet Kern and Hammerstein songs have much more readily become jazz standards: All the Things You Are, Why Was I Born, Old Man River, etc. And apparently these tunes are often very harmonically complex (Kern worried that All the Things You are wouldn't register with the public, for instance).

Rodgers seems to have allowed his music to become a lot more staid under Hammerstein's influence than Kern did.

You're right. I hadn't thought of that before.

[seeline]

I wonder how much of the seeming resistance to Rogers-Hammerstein songs in the jazz world has to do with their work being perceived as being overly sentimental, even corny. (Which it is sometimes, but not always.) It certainly doesn't fit with the "hip" ethos of the 50s and 60s...

[Pete C]

I like Hersch very much in trio. His solo efforts are better than Keith Jarrett's, anyway. Now those are soporific.

I don't like Jarrett's solo marathons much, but I wouldn't call them soporific. In fact, the one I do like is probably the one most likely to be called soporific, Vienna Concert.

A player I find a total bore solo who is good in a trio setting is Enrico Pieranunzi.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Pete C

[king ubu]

A player I find a total bore solo who is good in a trio setting is Enrico Pieranunzi.

I thought of him each time I opened this thread ... he can swing like mo-fo if he's in the right mood and has the right guys with him (Joey Baron, Idris Muhammad), but he often just plays nicely without grabbing my attention much.

[A Lark Ascending]

Rodgers seems to have allowed his music to become a lot more staid under Hammerstein's influence than Kern did.

I wouldn't call Rodgers later music 'staid'. It might sound staid because it became one of the middle-of-the-road sounds by the 60s. But it's very rich harmonically - there are some heart stopping modulations. I was listening to Harry Allen's version of South Pacific yesterday and what I noticed was how the jazz versions actually iron out much of that richness in order to make it jazz-worthy. In its orginal form 'My girl back home' is a wonderful evocation of nostalgia for home, brilliantly evoked in the music; in the jazz version that tristese is lost.

I wonder how much of the seeming resistance to Rogers-Hammerstein songs in the jazz world has to do with their work being perceived as being overly sentimental, even corny. (Which it is sometimes, but not always.) It certainly doesn't fit with the "hip" ethos of the 50s and 60s...

I think that's much closer to the mark. Those musicals are extremely sentimental - I wouldn't go near 'The Sound of Music' for decades after an infatuation with it as a ten year old. But I watched it again a couple of years back and was enchanted.

The streetwise wise-crackers of Rodgers and Hart songs are always going to have more kudos than nuns and kids dressed in curtains. But I think that disguises a richness in Rodgers music that the knowing music fan often misses but the general public gets without even thinking about it.

Edited September 18, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

....more kudos than nuns and kids dressed in curtains.

I dunno, man, sounds like a wild time to me, that does!

[Pete C]

I'm rather partial to nuns in Venetian blinds.

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm rather partial to nuns in Venetian blinds.

Is that something like pigs-in-blankets or toad-in-the-hole?

The Sound of Music also has a goatherd and a sprinkling of Nazis. You won't find them in Pal Joey.

[Pete C]

a sprinkling of Nazis.

Thankfully they cut the scene with a sprinkling BY Nazis.

[JSngry]

The Sound of Music also has a goatherd and a sprinkling of Nazis. You won't find them in Pal Joey.

No telling what you'll find in Joey...

[Pete C]

More than a sprinkling of Scotch, to be sure.

[A Lark Ascending]

The Sound of Music also has a goatherd and a sprinkling of Nazis. You won't find them in Pal Joey.

No telling what you'll find in Joey...

I know - back in '76 Dylan spent what seemed like aeons singing about him.

[JSngry]

[Pete C]

Hey, if it weren't for that bastard there'd be no Regis.

[JSngry]

And then there'd be no Kathie Lee.

Or maybe there would...

[fasstrack]

And to bring the Joey factor full circle, a surprize quiz: Which baritone balladeer-o Jazz Wags-recorded Joey, Joey, Joey (Bishop's theme song) and on what album? Eyes on your own papers...and....GO!!

[Pete C]

I have a Bill Henderson version. But it's on a compilation.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Pete C

[fasstrack]

Trick answer! Sit in the back and yeah, you may wear your MENSA cap. (; I was thinking of another singer named...

[seeline]

I wonder how much of the seeming resistance to Rogers-Hammerstein songs in the jazz world has to do with their work being perceived as being overly sentimental, even corny. (Which it is sometimes, but not always.) It certainly doesn't fit with the "hip" ethos of the 50s and 60s...

I think that's much closer to the mark. Those musicals are extremely sentimental - I wouldn't go near 'The Sound of Music' for decades after an infatuation with it as a ten year old. But I watched it again a couple of years back and was enchanted.

The streetwise wise-crackers of Rodgers and Hart songs are always going to have more kudos than nuns and kids dressed in curtains. But I think that disguises a richness in Rodgers music that the knowing music fan often misses but the general public gets without even thinking about it.

Oh, there are some "wise-cracker" songs in at least one Rodgers-Hammerstein show, but those songs were cut from the movie version. Cue "How Can Love Survive" from one of the original cast albums (stage) of "The Sound of Music"...sung by Max (booking agent) and the Baroness:

No little shack do you share with me,

We do not flee from the mortgagee,

Nary a care in the world have we;

How Can Love Survive?

You're fond of bonds and you own a lot.

I have a plane and a diesel yacht,

Plenty of nothing you haven't got

How Can Love Survive?

No rides for us on the top of a bus

In the face of the freezing breezes.

You reach your goals in your comfy old Rolls

Or in one of your Mercedes!

Far, very far off the beam are we,

Quaint and bizarre as a team are we,

Two millionaires with a dream are we,

We're keeping romance alive.

Two millionaires with a dream are we,

We'll make our love survive

No little cold water flat have we,

Warmed by a glow of insolvency,

Up to your necks in security.

How Can Love Survive?

How can I show what I feel for you?

I cannot go out and steal for you,

I cannot die like Camille for you.

How Can Love Survive?

You millionaires with financial affairs

Are too busy for simple pleasure.

When you are poor it is toujours l'amour,

For l'amour all the poor have leisure!

Caught in our gold plated chains are we,

Lost in our wealthy domains are we,

Trapped by our capital gains are we,

But we'll keep romance alive.

Trapped by your capital gains are we,

We'll (You'll) make our (your) love survive

Back to the overall take on the shows: I think another thing that changed drastically - re. musical theater in general - is that the Rodgers-Hammerstein shows wedded the book to the songs, and vice versa. This is a major change from the era of Rodgers-Hart, the Gershwins, et. al., when the plot and characters were thin, one-dimensional, disposable - and often, interchangeable.

Not so with Rodgers-Hammerstein, or much else in musical theater from the 50s on.

Edited September 18, 2012 by seeline

[fasstrack]

By trick answer I meant you sure tricked MY ass! Bill Henderson-great singer, never heard his version. I was thinking of the better-known---'s rendition on the --- label. Anyone?

[JSngry]

I seem to recall a Johnny Hartman version...forget what album.

[Pete C]

By trick answer I meant you sure tricked MY ass! Bill Henderson-great singer, never heard his version.

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