Larry Kart

You think Wilson's resemblance to Billie was creepy? Have you ever heard Al Cohn's former wife Marilyn Moore?

Inspired by Billie Holiday, with a hint of Mabel Mercer or at times even Mae West, Wilson was a cabaret singer, not a jazz singer: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/arts/music/julie-wilson-sultry-cabaret-legend-and-actress-dies-at-90.html Picked this up for 40 cents today because she's backed by the Ellis Larkins Trio, and why not? By this time (the album dates from 1960), Wilson, b. 1924, had little more than a throaty wisp of voice but much musical intelligence and makes intense dramatic impact; she's the very definition of an acquired taste. I mentioned Mercer, but Wilson lacks Mercer's arch, lifted-pinky mannerisms; as for West, at times the sexy undertone of Wilson's interpretations verges on the bestial-possessive. The Larkins aspect of the album is subtly remarkable. He doesn't so much accompany Wilson as continuously embroider crystalline new melodies around her, almost as though she (and the original tune) weren't even there, though it's a tribute to both Wilson and Larkins that there are no clashes nor any sense of discontinuity between her singing and his playing; rather it's like she's a statuesque model (she was one early on) and he's draping her in a series of elegant, spontaneously created gowns. Larkins' style is not unlike Teddy Wilson's but unmistakably his own and at times quite "out," albeit in a dapper manner. Follow his thinking closely though and you're in the Land of the Bizarre.

but pretends that he does strikes again. From Gopnik's review of "The Letters of Cole Porter " in the Jan. 20 New Yorker: "In the mid-nineteen-seventies, you had to haunt London record shops to find Ella Fitzgerald's Gershwin or Cole Porter albums. Now those recordings, and the songs they illuminate, are everywhere." What?!! I don't have sales figures in front of me, but haven't those albums sold steadily over the years? And what's with that "London record shops"? They stocked those albums over there in the '70s, but U.S. record stores didn't? Has the New Yorker's fact-checking department been relocated to Sri Lanka?

"Love and Understanding" is a bit different, with Stanley Cowell on electric piano, Bon Cranshaw on electric bass (he plays his ass off here), a very good cellist Bernard Fennell, Curtis Fuller, Sam Jones, and Billy Higgins, Heath takes a lovely flute solo on "In a Sentimental Mood." Picture of Heath" is all Heath originals, with Barry Harris, Jones, and Higgins.

My cutoff point IIRC was "Sugan," with Red Garland and Ray Copeland. Phil's sweet spot/highpoint IMO was his playing on Quincy Jones' "This Is How I Feel About Jazz," e.g. his solos on "A Sleepin' Bee" and "Walkin', in 1956. On "Walkin'" Phil comes in at 6:26, but the whole track is worth a listen. How shapely his playing is on these two tracks. And Art Farmer and Lucky Thompson! BTW, that's Mingus on "A Sleepin' Bee," Paul Chambers on "Walkin'."

Of course it's not in good taste. That's part of the reason I made it -- to remind us that cheating is cheating, that sometimes the consequences are very grave, and that the rationalizations for cheating are much the same before and until the chickens come home to roost.

"There's no cheat that can't be beat." Yes, eventually -- and for the most part after the horse leaves the barn. See who won the World Series in 2017 and 2018 or the passenger lists for those two Boeing 737 Maxes than went down. Yes, it's who won a game versus death, but some sort of cheating is the common denominator, no? The Astros knew what they were doing was wrong, as did the people at Boeing, but in both cases they thought they needed to do what they did in order to "win" and thought they they could away with it.

"As far as delaying the game, hell, if they knew what they were going to be dealing with, why didn't they plan ahead and get their "scheme" in place before the Series, not during the game itself? " According to the Post article, planning ahead as soon as they knew who their likely opponent in the Series was going to be and getting their hopeful foil-their-opponents-sign stealing approach in place is exactly what the Nationals did. OTOH, devoting all that time to novel and fairly elaborate anti-sign stealing methods could in itself screw up your own pitching staff. Do you want Joe Rotator Cuff thinking about getting that slider over the outside corner or thinking "What the hell pitch is it that my catcher is signaling me told to throw now?"

You have to be a Post subscriber to access the article, but in it Menhart isn't whining or being emo. Rather he says that realistically knowing up front how it can affect pitchers if they think the hitter knows what's coming, the Nationals had to/chose to engage in fairly elaborate sign altering/changing schemes that either would disrupt the sign stealing or give the Nationals' pitchers the belief that the sign-stealing was being disrupted and thus allow them to pitch more or less as they would have before. Problem was a) those sign altering/changing schemes were of necessity so elaborate as to be potentially quite confusing to the catchers, pitchers, coaches, and managers who were using them (e.g. when I call for pitch X I really mean pitch Y unless I then give you a sign Z, which means that we start all over again from the top but read the signs in reverse order or something), and b) they were fairly time-consuming to implement -- this at a time when baseball was trying to speed up play.

From a a story in today's Washington Post about how the Nationals took elaborate (and time consuming, in the course of the game) steps to protect themselves against sign stealing in the 2019 World Series: "It’s the worst feeling in the world stepping on that mound and having an idea that that hitter knows what’s coming,” said Paul Menhart, the Nationals pitching coach. “It’s one of the most unnerving feelings. You feel helpless. You just get ticked off to the point where you lose total focus and confidence." One simple, ugly, non-technological solution: The catcher calls for a breaking ball, reasonably sure that the sign will be stolen. The pitcher, by prior agreement, instead throws a high and tight fastball. The batter steps confidently into the pitch, certain it will break, and takes a fastball right in the face. Rinse and repeat. Can you say Ray Chapman? End of the outbreak of video-based sign-stealing.

"Dungy said this morning on PFT Live that stealing signals is a legal and smart tactic in the NFL, and Sanders is wrong to conflate it with Spygate, in which the Patriots broke NFL rules by videotaping opposing teams’ signals from the sideline." The legal signal stealing Dungy that refers to is the equivalent of, in baseball, the legal stealing of signs by a savvy third base coach or his equivalent. In particular, all such an observer has going for him are his own eyes and experience. He isn't a guy hidden in the scoreboard using binoculars or the like (that was the story behind the "Giants win the pennant!" Bobby Thomson home run off of Ralph Branca) nor is he, if you will, looking down the road a bit, someone processing info collected by a drone or a spy satellite. You'll note that Dungy then refers to "Spygate, in which the Patriots broke NFL rules by videotaping opposing teams’ signals from the sideline." The surreptitious use of technological means -- rather than the savviness of of an experienced human observer using nothing but his own eyes -- is why what the Astros (and the Patriots and probably the Red Sox) did is both illegal and unethical. You don't see the difference?

An analogy: In pro football, plays are relayed electronically to the QB from the coach on the sideline; the QB and the rest of his offensive teammates then know the next play they're going to run; the defense does not. The defense's only recourse is superior skill/savvy/preparation on their part and on the part of their coaches. So what you're saying is that if the defense, through sub rosa technological means, could hack into the signals being sent to the QB and know in advance what play is coming, that's fair and OK by you? BTW, the electronic relaying of plays to the QB from the sidelines came in, I believe, to counteract the seemingly unfair advantage that really noisy crowds gave to teams that were playing in their home stadiums.

And the message is? That State Farm exists, sells car insurance, has hired Aaron Rodgers to appear in their commercials, and wants to disassociate their product from geeky guys in tight-fitting suits? Hey, I'm sold.

I get that the jokes are supposed to be at the expense of Rogers' agent, but I don't get the jokes. What are they? I mean, there's some interaction between Rogers and the agent, who behaves all geeky about the double discount or something, and the agent ends up with dung on his face without quite acknowledging or maybe understanding it, but what actually happened? Kabuki theater for me, although that I said "actually" may point to my problem here. This year I've watched entire episodes of "Saturday Night Live" without grasping the premise of a single routine. I think they call it "you're 77" disease.

A perfect day in the studio.