Stan Getz Quartet at the Village Gate November 26th, 1961

[Joe]

Fascinating!

I always looked to LaRoca's BASRA as the best indication of what a Trane quartet with Kuhn might have sounded like. This weirdly fussy (but not unenjoyable... Kuhn's chops are underappreciated, I think, and, when he goes, out, he doesn't really sound like anybody else... I think it's the shapes he makes...) take on "Impressions" argues for some reconsideration.

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Д.Д. said:

Why do you assume this was of much importance to Kuhn at all? Was working for Trane as a pianist in 1960 supposed to be a dream job and career-defining experience for everybody?   

There's enough of a print trail to establish that Kuhn was quite excited to be playing with Trane and was excited about what they were playing together. He's s said that Trane was very nice about letting him go, saying that it was just a matter of wanting to take his music in a different direction, and that McCoy was the guy for that. But Kuhn was a bit deflated by the experience, unable to understand why what he was doing wasn't what Trane wanted, etc.

Like I said, there's a bit of a print trail on this, so it's not speculation. Nor should it be overinflated into some kind of identity crisis. Just saying, Kuhn seems to have understood his removal better than he accepted it, or maybe the other way around, whatever.

[felser]

What are people's overall impressions of the new Getz set?   Essential?  Not essential, but nice to have?  Well done?  Getz is "on" or "off" overall that night?

[kh1958]

Getz is definitely on. The recording quality is very good. I've been very pleased with it. If you are a Stan Getz fanatic (like me) it is essential. If not, it's another very good Getz record.

Edited August 12, 2019 by kh1958

[Chuck Nessa]

2 hours ago, felser said:

What are people's overall impressions of the new Getz set?   Essential?  Not essential, but nice to have?  Well done?  Getz is "on" or "off" overall that night?

The mix drove me to stop listening halfway through the first disc. Sax and piano on the left and bass and drums on the right. Everyone seemed near the top of their game. I think they should have done a fold down. 

[JohnT]

This same group, but with Scott LaFaro on bass, played the New Port Jazz festival the summer of 1961. Unfortunately, it was Scott LaFaro's final gig as he perished in a car accident soon after. 

[sgcim]

Trane didn't like Bill Evans when they were together in Miles' Sextet, saying, ' a white man can't play the blues'.Among other things, that was why Evans could only take it for about seven months with that band. He had to get out of there.

Maybe that was in the back of Trane's mind when he thought about the long term consequences of having Kuhn in the band. There's no doubt whatsoever that Kuhn would've done anything to be in Trane's band. 

[JSngry]

Source for Trane himself actually saying that, please?

[sgcim]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Source for Trane himself actually saying that, please?

Either Pettinger's book or the Gene Lees book 'Cats of any Kind' or maybe some article on Evans time with MD. i'll have my lawyer look it up, Your Honor...

[JSngry]

Ah, so possibly hearsay.

Anyway, no doubt vibes, if not form Coltrane himself, then around the area, audience, especially. The Simpkins book goes into some of that.

Quite apart from the sociology, it wouldn't have worked, not like McCoy did. It surely would have been "nice", but Trane wasn't looking for "nice". Listening that trio from the Getz album, I hear somebody really trying to push the Bill Evans concept through to a "next level". Which is all well and good, but again, Trane had no need to want that. McCoy was what he wanted, what he needed, and what he got. Unlike many, I actually liked what Alice came in with, but Alice's relationship to McCoy is kinda like Kuhn's to Evans.

[T.D.]

I recently read Pettinger's Evans bio and believe there was mention of friction with Coltrane.

But I've returned the book to interlibrary loan and can't look for a citation.

[sgcim]

29 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Ah, so possibly hearsay.

Anyway, no doubt vibes, if not form Coltrane himself, then around the area, audience, especially. The Simpkins book goes into some of that.

Quite apart from the sociology, it wouldn't have worked, not like McCoy did. It surely would have been "nice", but Trane wasn't looking for "nice". Listening that trio from the Getz album, I hear somebody really trying to push the Bill Evans concept through to a "next level". Which is all well and good, but again, Trane had no need to want that. McCoy was what he wanted, what he needed, and what he got. Unlike many, I actually liked what Alice came in with, but Alice's relationship to McCoy is kinda like Kuhn's to Evans.

Yeah, I don't think it would've worked as well as McCoy, but it still would make a good movie. 

We get Kuhn freaking out and going on a killing spree at the VV. He takes out Trane, Garrison and Tyner, but Elvin slices his head off with a Zyldian.

[AllenLowe]

5 hours ago, sgcim said:

Trane didn't like Bill Evans when they were together in Miles' Sextet, saying, ' a white man can't play the blues'.Among other things, that was why Evans could only take it for about seven months with that band. He had to get out of there.

Maybe that was in the back of Trane's mind when he thought about the long term consequences of having Kuhn in the band. There's no doubt whatsoever that Kuhn would've done anything to be in Trane's band. 

to me this doesn't sound like Trane speaking. Even if he thought it I don't think he would say it. Not that kind of guy,

Edited August 12, 2019 by AllenLowe

[felser]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

 

Ah, so possibly hearsay.Unlike many, I actually liked what Alice came in with.

I did, too.  And when I listen to "Om" and "Live in Seattle", McCoy seemed totally not into it, so I think Alice was the right pianist for the final stretch.  And I like her own stuff also - she didn't sound like anyone else on any of her instruments.

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, AllenLowe said:

to me this doesn't sound like Trane speaking. Even if he thought it I don't think he would say it. Not that kind of guy,

and even if he did say something like that (and something like that, I could entertain the possibility of having been said), I seriously doubt is was about skin color as much as culture, background, life experience, desired outcomes. I mean, did anybody say that about Pepper Adams? For that matter, did Pepper Adams openly nurse bruises from The Mean Black People not "welcoming" him?

Hell, Bill Evans had a hard time (internally) doing a "free" improvisation with Paul Bley...could you see him, or Steve Kuhn, going the distance on "Africa" or "India" or anything like that? 

And could you see Steve Kuhn dropping that big 4 with Elvin and then riding that wave all the way into the next one?

Different worlds. Nothing wrong with that.

[Larry Kart]

My take on Evans' take on that piece from George Russell's "Jazz in the Space Age" with Bley:

'Quite articulate about his music, in a 1964 interview Evans  said this: “The only way I can work is to have some kind of restraint involved, the challenge of a certain craft or form and then to find the freedom in that…. I think a lot of guys…want to circumvent that kind of labor….” Then there is this Evans statement: “I believe that all music is romantic, but if it gets schmaltzy, romanticism is disturbing. On the other hand, romanticism handled with discipline is the most beautiful kind of beauty.”

Plausible words, perhaps, but the value  that Evans seemingly places on restraint in itself leads one to ask, What is being restrained and why?  Evans’s “challenge  of [working within] a certain craft or form”  is not merely an account of his own necessary  practice; it lends to that practice an aura  of  moral virtue (“I think a lot of guys …want to circumvent that kind of labor….”). In other words, for Evans  certain sorts of musical labor are not only valid but they also validate.  And should an aesthetically valid outcome be reached in a seemingly non-laborious manner, that can be disturbing.  Thus in 1964 , after acknowledging that the brilliant, lucid, and “completely unpremeditated” two-piano improvisation that he and Paul Bley  played on George Russell’s 1960 album Jazz In The Space Age  “was fun to do,”  Evans  says: “[But to] do something that hadn’t been rehearsed successfully, just like that, almost shows the lack of challenge involved in that kind of freedom.”

A Puritanical Romantic, that's what Evans was?

 

[sgcim]

There was a type of unapproachable 'no man's land' that was involved with trying to play with Evans on his own home turf. If Helen Keane wanted him to make an album with such diverse players as Herbie Mann, Jeremy Steig, Warne Marsh, Kenny Burrell,, Geo. Russell, Paul Bley, etc..., he'd loosen up enough to follow where they were going, and make a record that would satisfy her and the record company. But once it got to his domain, his trio, even players on the level of Gary Burton had a hard time fitting in. In Burton's autobiography, he talks about two or three times where he tried to sit in with the Evans Trio at large festival concerts. They didn't give an inch, and Burton himself said that each time he played with Evans, it was a dismal experience. The same thing happened with the great guitarist, Lenny Breau, who like Burton, had modeled his approach to harmony on Evans' records. When LB sat in with the Evans trio in Toronto, the results were disastrous, according to friends of his who were at the club that night.

Even when Marc Johnson was first playing with the Evans trio at the VV, I went to the bathroom during the break, and Marc Johnson and Joe LaBarbera were having an intense conversation about playing with Bill on ballads. Johnson was complaining to LaBarbera, "But I don't understand what he wants me to do!" LaBarbera answered, "He wants you to get that 'floating' feeling on ballads." 

Strait is the gate that leads to Bill Evans, my friends!

I've posted a recording of myself playing a duo here with one of Evans' most intense disciples on the tune, "My Foolish Heart". I couldn't even begin to tell you what an extraordinary experience that was, because the guy wasn't giving an inch when we were playing without a rhythm section. It felt like an entire orchestra was playing tons of different lines and harmonies when I was playing both the melody and my solo. I'll never forget it.

Strait is the gate! 

[Larry Kart]

7 minutes ago, sgcim said:

There was a type of unapproachable 'no man's land' that was involved with trying to play with Evans on his own home turf. If Helen Keane wanted him to make an album with such diverse players as Herbie Mann, Jeremy Steig, Warne Marsh, Kenny Burrell,, Geo. Russell, Paul Bley, etc..., he'd loosen up enough to follow where they were going, and make a record that would satisfy her and the record company. But once it got to his domain, his trio, even players on the level of Gary Burton had a hard time fitting in. In Burton's autobiography, he talks about two or three times where he tried to sit in with the Evans Trio at large festival concerts. They didn't give an inch, and Burton himself said that each time he played with Evans, it was a dismal experience. The same thing happened with the great guitarist, Lenny Breau, who like Burton, had modeled his approach to harmony on Evans' records. When LB sat in with the Evans trio in Toronto, the results were disastrous, according to friends of his who were at the club that night.

Even when Marc Johnson was first playing with the Evans trio at the VV, I went to the bathroom during the break, and Marc Johnson and Joe LaBarbera were having an intense conversation about playing with Bill on ballads. Johnson was complaining to LaBarbera, "But I don't understand what he wants me to do!" LaBarbera answered, "He wants you to get that 'floating' feeling on ballads." 

Strait is the gate that leads to Bill Evans, my friends!

I've posted a recording of myself playing a duo here with one of Evans' most intense disciples on the tune, "My Foolish Heart". I couldn't even begin to tell you what an extraordinary experience that was, because the guy wasn't giving an inch when we were playing without a rhythm section. It felt like an entire orchestra was playing tons of different lines and harmonies when I was playing both the melody and my solo. I'll never forget it.

Strait is the gate! 

Interesting post. But was Helen Keane more or less in charge of Evans' career when "Jazz in the Space Age," with that duet with Bley, was made? I would think that album was an offshoot of Evans' previous fruitful relationship with George Russell (e.g. Russell's  RCA "Jazz Workshop" album and  his "All About Rosie," from 1956 and '57 respectively), which I believe was well before Keane arrived.

[JSngry]

[sgcim]

13 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Interesting post. But was Helen Keane more or less in charge of Evans' career when "Jazz in the Space Age," with that duet with Bley, was made? I would think that album was an offshoot of Evans' previous fruitful relationship with George Russell (e.g. Russell's  RCA "Jazz Workshop" album and  his "All About Rosie," from 1956 and '57 respectively), which I believe was well before Keane arrived.

Helen Keane pretty much took care of every aspect of Bill Evan's life once she became his manager. Before that, it seemed to be a regular sight in NYC of Bill Evans sitting on the sidewalk next to all his earthly possessions, because he had been evicted again. I don't know if HK was in charge of his affairs during the 'Space Age' album; I'll ask that pianist friend of mine, who knows most aspects of Bill's life. His sister calls him a Bill Evans idiot savant!

Evans was no stranger to contemporary music such as JITSA; he astonished Gunther Schuller by sight reading Milton Babbitt's "All Set" including dynamics and articulations at the same college concert that "All About Rosie" was premiered. The other players needed hours of rehearsal and practice before the concert to get the piece down, and these were legendary East Coast studio/jazz players like McKusick, etc...

 

[felser]

Thoughts on this one?  I love it, but am unqualified to join the present conversation:

[Larry Kart]

3 hours ago, sgcim said:

Helen Keane pretty much took care of every aspect of Bill Evan's life once she became his manager. Before that, it seemed to be a regular sight in NYC of Bill Evans sitting on the sidewalk next to all his earthly possessions, because he had been evicted again. I don't know if HK was in charge of his affairs during the 'Space Age' album; I'll ask that pianist friend of mine, who knows most aspects of Bill's life. His sister calls him a Bill Evans idiot savant!

Evans was no stranger to contemporary music such as JITSA; he astonished Gunther Schuller by sight reading Milton Babbitt's "All Set" including dynamics and articulations at the same college concert that "All About Rosie" was premiered. The other players needed hours of rehearsal and practice before the concert to get the piece down, and these were legendary East Coast studio/jazz players like McKusick, etc...

 

Wikipedia: "[Keane] was Bill Evans' manager and producer from 1963 until his death in 1980."

[JSngry]

5 hours ago, felser said:

Thoughts on this one?  I love it, but am unqualified to join the present conversation:

I like it as a George Russell record.

[sgcim]

2 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Wikipedia: "[Keane] was Bill Evans' manager and producer from 1963 until his death in 1980."

 Keane wasn't running Bill's affairs for him then, so it was his choice to record with Russell. He owed Russell a lot for featuring him on All About Rosie, and Concerto for Billy the Kid.I wonder what was going through Evans' mind during the Living Time" album?

[Chuck Nessa]

35 minutes ago, sgcim said:

 Keane wasn't running Bill's affairs for him then, so it was his choice to record with Russell. He owed Russell a lot for featuring him on All About Rosie, and Concerto for Billy the Kid.I wonder what was going through Evans' mind during the Living Time" album?

Notes and lines.