Joe Pass "Sounds of Synanon"

[undergroundagent]

Alright, I'm callin' out the jazzheads on this board to pull this badboy off the shelf and clear away the dust. What's it like? Is it one that people reach for often? I'm very intrigued by this record.

Edited March 4, 2004 by undergroundagent

[PHILLYQ]

Isn't Syanon the drug rehab place?

[Chuck Nessa]

When this record came out in the very, early '60s I played it in the store (you could do that then) and decided I did not need it. Have not heard it since. Us old guys can be jaded.

Edit to correct the name: Synanon.

Edited March 4, 2004 by Chuck Nessa

[JSngry]

Never owned it myself, but I had a high school buddy whose older brother had it, and we listened to it a fair bit back in the day. It's good. Not great but good, and good in the kind of way that you don't mind it not being great.

Just remember that not all junkies are "great" players. For every Frank Morgan or Art Pepper, there's about a hundred cats who would have never been more than "good" even if they had stayed straight. No different than the talent distribution in any subculture.

[Free For All]

There were quite a few notable players in Synanon- I think Frank Rehak was a participant, wasn't he?

[JSngry]

Yeah, but he's not on the record.

From Pass, who was unknown at the time, the next "biggest" name and talent was Arnold Ross. From there, it's all "good" players, which is, of course, good, but I think that sometimes some people think, "AWWWW he coulda been a contender if he hadn't gotten all fucked up off into that shit", whne in reality, maybe he'd have been no better a player than he was anyway, he'd have just had a stable life, maybe a family, and maybe some money in the bank.

Sometimes I think the reason that some cats get into the shit is because deep inside they know that they're never going to be "great", and it kills them (it shouldn't, but expectations are high, and none higher than the ones we set for ourselves), so they create this whole other thing as a smokescreen, a diversion, an avoidance mechanism, mainly for themselves, but also as a "sympathy ploy" for outsiders as well. If you can get others to believ that you "could have been", they'll never suspect that no, you couldn't.

If that sounds dark and harsh, well, how dark and harsh is it to be strung out and have your whole life revolve around shooting some shit every cuppla hours?

[undergroundagent]

I don't like to admit this fact about many people, but you guys are jazz geniuses. Man, reap the knowledge everyone. B)

Edited March 4, 2004 by undergroundagent

[brownie]

There were quite a few notable players in Synanon- I think Frank Rehak was a participant, wasn't he?

Rehak was at Synanon. He talked about his experience there in a very interesting Cadence interview in the mid-80s.

Charlie Haden and Art Pepper were also at Synanon.

[ghost of miles]

I got this via Mr. Tanno not long ago and concur with Jim Sangrey--you might want to wait for a domestic re-issue. For a better (IMO) album coming out of a somewhat similar sociological concept, check out Elmo Hope's SOUNDS FROM RIKER'S ISLAND, which includes John Gilmore, and which recently got re-issued by Fresh Sounds.

[garthsj]

Frank Rehak came to Houston in the early 80's to start a branch of Synanon, or something similar to it. I was doing my radio show at the time, and he called me up one day to ask if I would like to interview him. (I should add that he came to town very quietly, and no one in the jazz community knew he was here at first). He was upfront in wanting to publicize his organization in exchange for open access to "his story" ... I knew very little about him other than his presence on some major recordings, such as the Gil Evans/Miles stuff and his sojourn with Woody Herman; I also was lucky enough to have both of his own LP's ... on Dawn and Bethlehem. Anyway ..... he was incredibly interesting, and we had two one hour shows together, playing his music and discussing his life, and the descent into drug hell. I remember particularly how he described collapsing on the stage during a Herman concert, and Woody, having reached the end of his patience tryng to help Frank, deliberately just leaving him there in disgust, and walking over him while the band played on ...

Frank Rehak was a marvelous trombonist whose career was truncated by his addiction. Sadly just as he was getting his act together again after his rehabilitation, he succumbed to cancer.

Garth,

Houston.

[ghost of miles]

Just came across this while doing some Internet searches for Arnold Ross:

 

Synanon (Pt 1)

 

...it's a fictionalized 1965 movie about Synanon. Music by Neal Hefti.

 

For anybody interested in the Joe Pass album, here's the Night Lights show I did:

Resolution: Jazz From Rehab

Edited April 4, 2020 by ghost of miles

[Bill Nelson]

The 1965 soundtrack album, 'Synanon', was not performed by 'the Original All-Junkie Cast'.

The music was "composed, arranged, and conducted by Neal Hefti" and produced by Dave Pell.

The players were likely the same studio cats who did film dates by Mancini and Previn.

Whatever junk they'd done was back in the 50's, they now had families and house payments.

'Synanon' (1965) soundtrack on Liberty LST-7413

'Sounds of Synanon' (1962) on Pacific Jazz PJ-48 (or ST-48), credited to Joe Pass and Arnold Ross

[Ken Dryden]

It was also reissued on a Japanese Toshiba EMI CD, which is how I picked it up.

[JSngry]

What is "YLEM"?

[Ken Dryden]

I think I bought a Japanese import CD from Red Trumpet years ago before they ceased operations. Okay stuff, though I haven't played it a lot.

[Stonewall15]

Frank Rehak LP Dawn DLP-1107 titled "Jazzville vol.2" is reissued on Dawn CD DCD-114 titled "Jazzville".

[jazzcorner]

 

3 hours ago, Stonewall15 said:

Frank Rehak LP Dawn DLP-1107 titled "Jazzville vol.2" is reissued on Dawn CD DCD-114 titled "Jazzville".

[Teasing the Korean]

I can has the Neal Hefti album.

Except my copy is MONO, LRP catalog number, and not stereo LST. 

Does anyone know why I filed this in the Now Sound section and not the Crime Jazz section? Seems like a weird choice, but I can't really remember the music.

Edited April 4, 2020 by Teasing the Korean

[Late]

On 3/24/2020 at 4:35 PM, JSngry said:

What is "YLEM"?

ylem (noun) •  the primordial matter of the universe, originally conceived as composed of neutrons at high temperature and density

[mjzee]

[JSngry]

Ok, now can somebody tell me why I asked in the first place?

[mjzee]

13 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Ok, now can somebody tell me why I asked in the first place?

Going stir crazy at home?