Larry Kart

One line in this piece stopped me in my tracks. Dealing with the period of Cherry's latter-day physical decline and return to heroin, Adam Shatz writes: "His old bandmate Gato Barbieri passed him on the street and pretended not to recognize him." Sure sounds mean of Gato, but unless Barbieri himself said that he did that, or he told someone whose word can be trusted that he did that, how the the heck does Shatz know that Gato "pretended" not to recognize Cherry when he passed him on the street? And then in the next sentence Schatz writes that William Parker, seeing Cherry on the Lower East Side, "mistook him for an elderly Chinese man." So others who knew Cherry didn't recognize him in his last years, but Gato "pretended" not to? I don't get it.

I love Anita's singing (a lovely person too), Abene's charts, and it's some of the best Gary Burton I know.

On that Flory album, Al Cohn's "No Thanks" has an exceptional shout chorus.

The singer Tom Waits.

Happy Birthday! Here's looking at you (as of May 16) from age 77.

Don't know Rhea. I'll look for him.

https://www.amazon.com/Receding-Tide-Vicksburg-Gettysburg-Campaigns/dp/1426205104/ref=sr_1_1?crid=COCLBE2E683Q&keywords=receding+tide&qid=1558289330&s=books&sprefix=Receding+tide%2Caps%2C1003&sr=1-1 Probably the best battle accounts and among the best campaign accounts I've ever read. One always feels that author Edwin C. Bearss has zeroed in on the crucial moments and levels of decision-making, in many cases (e.g. Gettysburg), in ways that were new to me. I knew not much about Vicksburg, a good deal about Gettysburg, but didn't know how closely interwoven those two campaigns were -- in time (Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863; the last day of combat at Gettysburg was the day before) and in strategic importance. Indeed, the fall of Vicksburg was of immense importance -- opening up the Mississippi to commerce from the Union North to the perviously captured port of New Orleans and virtually severing the South from the slave-holding states in the southwest, e.g. Texas, Arkansas. Further, I had no idea that Grant's campaign against Vicksburg was such a masterly and complex act of generalship and of political savvy too. That Robert E. Lee pretty much screwed the pooch at Gettysburg was not news to me, but Bears leads one to see that given the circumstances (Lee was prone to issuing ambiguous orders, and he had lost a host of key subordinate commanders (Stonewall Jackson, in particular) who pretty much knew how to read Lee's mind and/or were aggressive in the right ways on their own hook; plus as is well known, Jeb Stuart's rather narcissistic adventurism before and during the battle deprived Lee of the cavalry's key role as the eyes of his army. The battle then, painting in broad strokes, came down to heroic fighting by many units on both sides, a lack of leadership by a fair number of Confederate commanders, and a lot of excellent leadership by a good many Union commanders under Meade (Winfield Scott Hancock was virtually everywhere on the field at Gettysburg, wheeling/hurling reserves into place just as needed; and Meade himself made some crucial good decisions and no bad ones, unless one considers his decision not to attack Lee's withdrawing forces on July 4th to be one such. In the aftermath, Lincoln thought it was a grave error; Bearss' verdict: "Lee wants to shorten his battle line on July 4, so he orders Ewell to fall back through Gettysburg [i.e. the town] and dig in along Oak and Seminary Ridges. Soon breastworks and rifle pits extend for two and a half miles ... on the western slope of the ridge line, hidden by trees. If Meade attacks on July 4 it will be across open ground against well-defended positions." Also, Beers takes some of the air out of the balloon of one stalwart Union officer, Joshua Chamberlin, who also was a great promoter of his own achievements and those of his men at Little Round Top on the far left on July 3, while Bearss turns a spotlight on the arguably no less important and almost certainly more stalwart defense on the far right of Culp's Hill (the Union forces there faced much greater odds) under the leadership of the almost forgotten Gen. George Greene and Col. David Ireland.

I had an implant done about five years ago. It went well and continues to be so. IIRC the procedure as a whole took a fair bit of time: First, the placement in the jaw of the metal post to which the crown will be fastened, then some months later, fastening the new "tooth" (i.e. crown) to the post. I think they had to wait several months before the final step to make sure that the jaw/post part of the implant process was going as it should. (The implant was necessary -- a la Ann Nessa's experience --because an old root canal job underneath it all was giving way and something very bad was happening or about to happen. That whole old tooth was a goner, had to be extracted, and any underlying infection cleaned up.) Pricey to be sure, but at least no particular discomfort I can recall. Also, my very good dentist of some 30 years is tight with most of the good oral surgeons, endodontists, etc., in the area, which gives me confidence. If she says so-and-so is good, he/she is good. Also, my dentist is a nice measuring stick for the aging process. An attractive young woman 30 years ago, and with an at once warm and business-like manner, she retains that manner and a core of good looks as she reaches her mid-60s.

about "Kind of Blue" and Miles, and at the end there is a two-part Lester Bowie interview about Miles. https://allan-chase.com/2019/05/09/bill-evans-on-miles-davis-and-kind-of-blue/

Oops -- you're right.

Originally Juanita Odejnar. Russell gave her last name to a piece from the "Ezzthetic" date.

If I'm the Larry you have in mind, I was thinking along the lines of both pro athletes and many jazz musicians thinking in terms of a "clubhouse" to which those who deserve to belong belong and those who don't are on the other side of the door. If so, this no doubt has to do with the many ways that both groups are isolated from the rest of humanity by the special demands they must meet, the special skills they must possess, and their belief that the rest of humanity doesn't understand this. Nor, one could argue, do the members of either group particularly want the rest of humanity to understand this -- staying behind a door that's closed to strangers can be satisfying.

Check out her first film, "Romance on the High Seas," with Jack Carson (he's excellent) and some fine numbers with Doris and the Page Cavanaugh Trio. This is the movie in which she sang "It's Magic," sexy times ten. It's on YouTube in two versions.

Donation on the way ASAP.

Herbie? (Hancock, not Nichols)