Fred Katz 1919-2013

[HolgerFreimutSchrick]

Fred Katz (February 25, 1919 – September 7, 2013), the American cellist and composer has died. He was one of the first jazz musicians to establish the cello as a viable improvising solo instrument.

http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/top-news/music/327733216?client_source=feed&format=rss&sb=1

[romualdo]

RIP Fred

nice innings @ 94

[brownie]

Sorry to hear this! An interesting and rather unique musician.

Enjoyed his playing since I heard him with the Chico Hamilton Quintet.

At least he did not die in the prime of life!

[J.A.W.]

Sorry to hear this.

[king ubu]

r.i.p.

Always enjoyed the Chico Hamilton Quintet with him - and a lot so! One of my first five or six Mosaics, and the original band with Collette and Katz was truly wonderful!

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-fred-katz-dies-20130909,0,1766008.story

[clifford_thornton]

Unfortunate news, but a life fully lived.

[sidewinder]

Sorry to hear this - I saw him one one occasion conducting one of his compositions with a Third-Stream group, which was intriguing. RIP.

Edited September 10, 2013 by sidewinder

[sidewinder]

Tribute here in the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-fred-katz-dies-20130909,0,1766008.story

[sgcim]

I thought I posted this already, but FK is worth a double post.

He even appeared in my fave movie of all-time, "The Sweet Smell of Success", and wrote some of the tunes the Chico Hamilton Quintet played.

That folk song LP is great- does anyone know the personnel?

RIP, Fred.

[JSngry]

Spectacular! was one of the first 25 or so jazz records I ever owned/heard, so...goodbye, and thanks for the riffs on "Buddy Boo" (and other things).

[Teasing the Korean]

His score for "Little Shop of Horrors" is an example of the Twilight Zone Jazz genre that I love so much.

RIP.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

he played a show in san diego earlier this summer

[brownie]

That folk song LP is great- does anyone know the personnel?

Here goes...

http://jazzdiscogcorner.pagesperso-orange.fr/discographies_%20labels/w/warnerbros/instrumentals/k/katz_fred/discography/warnerbros_fredkatz_1958.htm

[sgcim]

Wow, Billy Bean and the 'other' Johnny Williams on piano!

Thanks, Brownie- you da man!!

[sgcim]

His score for "Little Shop of Horrors" is an example of the Twilight Zone Jazz genre that I love so much.

RIP.

TTK- I heard a film score by the great Ennio Morricone the other day that had some TZJ in it.

It was the Italian 'Giallo' "What Have They Done To Solange?"(1972)

Every time you see the culprit's car, Morricone writes this psychotic theme that features two electric bass players walking a bass line composed of harmonically dissonant intervals, and then he sprinkles some 'out' piano and winds on top of it. Priceless...

[king ubu]

@sgcim: I love "Sweet Smell of Success", too!

A small label called Reboot Stereophonic did a wonderful reissue of the Folk album - I know you saw the line-ups and stuff, but they've got the entire booklet up on their site - some good notes and all info there is avaiable (who did the fine cover painting, though?):

http://idelsohnsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/far_out_folk_songs_liner_notes.pdf

There's also a sound sample (Store > Albums):

http://www.rebootstereophonic.com

[Larry Kart]

Listening to Mate'ka" from "Folk Songs for Far Out Folk" on Spotify and am very impressed. Helluva of a committed performance by the top-level LA studio players Katz assembled. Must get this one.

[Teasing the Korean]

TTK- I heard a film score by the great Ennio Morricone the other day that had some TZJ in it.

It was the Italian 'Giallo' "What Have They Done To Solange?"(1972)

Every time you see the culprit's car, Morricone writes this psychotic theme that features two electric bass players walking a bass line composed of harmonically dissonant intervals, and then he sprinkles some 'out' piano and winds on top of it. Priceless...

yes, that is a gem!

[sgcim]

@sgcim: I love "Sweet Smell of Success", too!

A small label called Reboot Stereophonic did a wonderful reissue of the Folk album - I know you saw the line-ups and stuff, but they've got the entire booklet up on their site - some good notes and all info there is avaiable (who did the fine cover painting, though?):

http://idelsohnsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/far_out_folk_songs_liner_notes.pdf

There's also a sound sample (Store > Albums):

http://www.rebootstereophonic.com

Thanks for the link.

I'm definitely picking this one up.

We could do a whole thread on jazz interpretations of folk music

Jim Hall did a fantastic LP with clarinetist Bill Smith, with Shelly Manne on folk themes.

John Benson Brooks also did a nice one, though I liked his "Alabama Concerto" more.

[king ubu]

Try and get the OOP Juan Calle disc, too - that one is great as well!

And yeah, the Barry Sisters, too! But I guess that's not to everybody's liking ... there's a previous thread here:

[Larry Kart]

Ordered Katz's "Folk Songs etc."

Brooks' "Folk Jazz U.S.A." has some fine solo work from the horns (Zoot Sims on alto, Al Cohn on baritone, Nick Travis trumpet), but I too prefer "Alabama Concerto," which is a pretty amazing job of writing/assemblage by Brooks and uses (for want of a better term) "hipper" material. The work of Cannonball, Art Farmer, Barry Galbraith, and Milt Hinton, is close to all one could wish for, though one wonders what the album would have been like if Ornette could have handled Brooks' score and had taken the place of Cannonball (and with Cherry in for Farmer).

[ghost of miles]

@sgcim: I love "Sweet Smell of Success", too!

A small label called Reboot Stereophonic did a wonderful reissue of the Folk album - I know you saw the line-ups and stuff, but they've got the entire booklet up on their site - some good notes and all info there is avaiable (who did the fine cover painting, though?):

http://idelsohnsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/far_out_folk_songs_liner_notes.pdf

There's also a sound sample (Store > Albums):

http://www.rebootstereophonic.com

Thanks for the link.

I'm definitely picking this one up.

We could do a whole thread on jazz interpretations of folk music

Jim Hall did a fantastic LP with clarinetist Bill Smith, with Shelly Manne on folk themes.

John Benson Brooks also did a nice one, though I liked his "Alabama Concerto" more.

Scgim, you might be interested in this Night Lights show I did several years ago:

http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/jazz-goes-folk/

[ejp626]

Ordered Katz's "Folk Songs etc."

Brooks' "Folk Jazz U.S.A." has some fine solo work from the horns (Zoot Sims on alto, Al Cohn on baritone, Nick Travis trumpet), but I too prefer "Alabama Concerto," which is a pretty amazing job of writing/assemblage by Brooks and uses (for want of a better term) "hipper" material. The work of Cannonball, Art Farmer, Barry Galbraith, and Milt Hinton, is close to all one could wish for, though one wonders what the album would have been like if Ornette could have handled Brooks' score and had taken the place of Cannonball (and with Cherry in for Farmer).

It all comes down to taste, but I'm confident I would not have preferred Alabama Concerto with Coleman/Cherry.

[Larry Kart]

Ordered Katz's "Folk Songs etc."

Brooks' "Folk Jazz U.S.A." has some fine solo work from the horns (Zoot Sims on alto, Al Cohn on baritone, Nick Travis trumpet), but I too prefer "Alabama Concerto," which is a pretty amazing job of writing/assemblage by Brooks and uses (for want of a better term) "hipper" material. The work of Cannonball, Art Farmer, Barry Galbraith, and Milt Hinton, is close to all one could wish for, though one wonders what the album would have been like if Ornette could have handled Brooks' score and had taken the place of Cannonball (and with Cherry in for Farmer).

It all comes down to taste, but I'm confident I would not have preferred Alabama Concerto with Coleman/Cherry.

Not sure I would have either, given the success of the recording we have, but am curious about what Coleman and Cherry's response to that material would have been. All academic, though, because Ornette almost certainly wouldn't have been able to read/play those scores as written (i.e. working from Brooks' annotation), and there wouldn't have been time for Brooks to convey all those details to Ornette by ear, as Mingus famously did with members of his ensembles on occasion. Not that Ornettte was incapable of responding to/handling complex material (e.g that Gunther Schuller chamber work, "Abstraction" I think it was, that he recorded for Atlantic), but the length and level of detail in "Alabama Concerto" is a different thing.

[JSngry]

Anybody heard Brook's Avant-Slant from 1968? That suggests to me that if a Brooks-Coleman collaboration would have worked, it would have worked in 1968 a lot better than in 1958.