Larry Kart

Cooper's final studio album "For All We Know" (Fresh Sound) -- rec. 1990 with Lou Levy, Monty Budwig, and Ralph Penland -- is the best playing I've ever heard from him, often heartbreakingly soulful, as though he were thinking of June Christy (who died about two months before this date). Cooper also is in fine form, as is his frontline partner, on "The Bob Cooper-Conte Candoli Quintet" (VSOP -- rec. live in 1993, only two weeks before Cooper's death from a heart attack), but I'm not crazy about the bass-drum team here (John Leitham and Paul Kreibich). The rhythm section on "For All We Know" is in a different league.

"I just think...........we should discuss narcissism.........in the jazz community of course........any examples come to mind??" Yes. Reportedly, Stan Getz washed his hands BEFORE urinating.

'Cause he's got a sound as big as all outdoors? Actually I've got some Johansson on an album by drummer/composer Peter Danemo that I like, "Kapell" (Dragon). Nice solo work there too by trumpeters Flemming Agerskov and Staffan Svensson.

Clem, I'm sorry to hear what you say about the availibility of the book, but I'm not surprised. I think I've detected several disconnects on the line that runs back and forth from Yale U. Press to bookstores of various sorts (chains and independents) and to the distribution firms (e.g. Baker and Taylor) that usually serve as middlemen. First, the attention that Yale's editorial and sales forces are prepared to give an item like this appears to be minimal and/or distracted. For instance, after Kevin Whitehead named it toward the end of Dec. as one the best jazz books of the year on "Fresh Air," I sent an e-mail about this to my editor, to which she replied "Wonderful news." Two weeks later, she mentioned the "Fresh Air" thing in an e-mail to me (because she'd just seen it mentioned in an internal Yale U.P. newsletter) and asked if I was aware of the broadcast. I reminded her that I'd brought it to her attention in the first place. Second, a number of people have told me that when they ordered the book at their local Barnes & Noble store, they were told that the book was out of the stock at the distributor and wouldn't be back in stock for three weeks to a month. When I mentioned this problem to my editor, it immediately became clear that at Yale the editorial folks at aren't supposed to talk to the sales or distribution folks. Finally, a friend told me that when he tried to buy the book at a supposedly quality independent bookstore in Manhattan, St. Marks Books (I think that's the name), they not only didn't have it in stock but the clerk also did everything he could to discourage him from placing an order for it, apparently because doing so would involve more effort than the clerk was willing to expend at that moment. I'm beginning to think that many of the problems of the American book business are of its own making.

OK, lp -- one more time. Leonard Feather "did a lot of nasty things to people (read: musicians) etc." Agreed. But how do we get from there to "the Jewish race"? BTW, if you think Feather is "still considered a decent guy by most," I think you need to do your homework. I'd say that at least half the people who have ever heard of Feather are well aware of the more unsavory sides of his behavior.

Trolling (so to speak) back through lp's posting history to see where he might be coming from, I found this gem about Joe Segal of the Jazz Showcase, whom lp had called a "bastard" for not putting out on commercial recordings more of the material he had taped at the club over the years. This used of "bastard" led someone (I think it was Sal) to reply that Segal could more accurately be characterized as grouchy -- to which lp replied: "it's all about money with these people. that's why he's a 'bastard.'" Ah, yes -- "these people." Also if Feather is "just a piece of shit who HAPPENED to be Jewish [my emphasis]," how, again, was he "a huge ugly blotch on the jewish race in the jazz world"? Go ahead, lp, take your dog out for a walk but don't then insist that it's a pussy cat.

lp -- Enlighten me on how Leonard Feather was " a huge ugly blotch on the jewish race in the jazz world." Yes, Leonard was a self-promoting jerk in many respects, but how does one's feelings about that behavior transfer to the "race"? Are you saying that Feather's behavior springs from and relates specifically to his Jewishness? Sticking with promoter/record biz types, Alfred Lion is generally regraded as a man of sterling reputation and high achievement. If you agree (perhaps you don't), does Lion being the man he was amount to a huge lovely bouquet to "the Jewish race"? If you agree, staying in this realm, that John Hammond was somewhat equivocal figure in many respects, is Hammond then "a huge ugly blotch" on White Anglo-Saxon Protestants?

Bill is a longtime friend, one of the nicest, brightest guys I know. If you ever see the two Sea Breeze LPs by his nonet, "Infant Eyes" and "What It Is To be Frank," don't hesitate. Bill wrote some lovely charts for Lee Konitz's nonet -- I remember "Footprints" in particular, on the Steeplechase album "Yes, Yes, Nonet." At the time (late '70s), Bill was a student of Lee's, and thereby hangs a tale. Back in 1969-70, when I was at Down Beat, I enthusiastically reviewed Lee's album "Spirits." Bill, then a high school student in Youngstown, Ohio, read it, got the album, and, so he later told me, made a vow to study with Lee one day if possible. In recent years, Bill, who used to play alto, tenor, and clarinet too, has focused only on the soprano. IMO he has the best sound on that instrument of any one playing today -- incredibly pure and in tune but not too thin; the way he can lean into a note, expanding and contracting the vibrato the way a potter shapes wet clay on a wheel, is something else. The soprano rolls over on its back, puts its paws up in the air, and purrs for him. You can hear Bill at his best as a player on the 1997 A Records album (a division of the Danish label Challenge -- probably available from their website) "Some Enchanted Evening," duets with pianists Marc Copland, Mike Abene, and Harold Danko. Also, Bill is the editor/creator of "The Oxford Companion To Jazz."

No, that's me. But don't believe those liner notes. Last time I listened to the record, I thought that while there are some wild moments in the good sense, mostly it's out of control -- undoubtedly for the reason Chuck mentioned.

There's a plane crash in it that's the most remarkable I've ever seen on the screen -- and not just from a special effects point of view; it's a powerful storytelling episode, maybe the most powerful in the movie. On the other hand, it's damn hard to make an epic about a psycho of Hughes' type. Scorsese did his best, but maybe a movie about a man like Hughes called for a smaller budget and Luis Bunuel.

Got a copy today, have listened to the first three tracks and am very impressed. Per the discussion on another thread of how to write behind soloists, listen to how Phil's figures inspire Pete Christlieb. Fine recording job too.

Allen -- I was just pointing out some facts (or at least I think that's what they are) about the dawn of the trad impulse in jazz. Otherwise, to the degree he can bear it, I associate myself 100% with what Jim Sangrey has posted on this thread -- shrewd, accurate (IMO), in-the-trenches, from-the-heart, seat-of-the-pants history and analysis. BTW, some of that first-generation trad music was marvelous music, though not quite the teturn to the holy source that some of its ideological backers supposed it to be. Particularly remarkable -- almost to the point being an alternate-world phenomenon -- was the music made from the early 1940s on by the best of the Australian trad people: The Bell brothers (Roger and Graeme), Dave Dallwitz, Ade Monsborough, et al. The remarkably fertile Dallwitz, for example, took off from Morton and other late '20s Chicago and New York small band strains and built upon it a body of music that was more or less "in the style of" but not really modeled after any one thing in particular. Dallwitz, who died about two years ago at a relatively advanced age, is one of the great jazz composers period IMO. Check out his "Ern Malley Suite" or "Gold Rush Days" on Swaggie.

"To what extent does the 1980s escape into conservatism mirror that of the trad jazz revival in the middle of the last century?" The trad jazz revival took shape not in the middle of the last century but in the mid-to-late 1930s (Lu Watters and others in San Francisco, the re-discovery of Bunk Johnson in 1937 by William Russell, the advent of the Bob Crosby Band with its neo-Dixieland approach and material, the Condon Commodore sides of 1938, etc.). Oddly enough, some of this music was fervently celebrated in Left Wing circles at the time on the grounds that the big Swing bands were a bourgeois commodifiction of what once had been an authentic music of the people, and that the trad revivalists were radically returning to the one true source.

Couw writes: "In the end all of this must boil down to preferences, and preferences can only be stated, not argued. You cannot argue that jazz needs to be an open type of music that is continuously evolving. You can only state your preference for it to be like that; a preference which I share BTW. But I will also admit that that is as equally restricting a definition as any other one." You logic-choppers wear me out; save your "must boil downs" and "will also admits" for the mirror. As my old friend Ludwig Wittgenstein used to say: "We just do not see how very specialized the use of 'I know' is."

A footnote to the point Mike has made above, which I've heard before from several talented leaders of medium- to large-sized jazz ensembles (who were able to cite chapter and verse as to how rapidly and why the jazz touring circuit dried up): Your average arts-venue presenter out in the hinterlands (or anywhere for that matter) probably doesn't know that much about jazz. What he or she has to work with is a budget, a series of dates to fill, and a need or desire to book groups of various musical styles that aren't overtly or merely commercial, are artistically sound by some standard. and have enough of a name to put asses in the seats. (BTW, a lot of these venues are series operations and have the ability to effectively present names that aren't yet, or maybe never will be, big names -- e.g., to cover the stylistic spectrum, ensembles led by a Bob Brookmeyer or a Roscoe Mitchell.) So the multiple big-footing of Marsalis and the LCJO (and its offshoots) does two things 1) it "solves" the presenters' problem by filling the season's semi-obligatory jazz slot or slots with a brand name that everyone recognizes (albeit the "product" is artistically more-or-less empty IMO) 2) it virtually guarantees, as Mike said, that there will be only ONE jazz slot filled per venue because the price of the (publically subsidized) LCJO outfits is so damn high. Again, many of us may not have direct experience of the jazz touring circuit Mike speaks of because we may not live in a place where there is such a venue or because we only know what's up in the area we live in. But I've been told on good authority that not too long ago this circuit was healthy enough to support/justify the existence of, say, a nonet of talented players whose names we would know, led by a composer/player of whom the same could be said. And by "support" I mean no more than five or so concerts per year, at various places around the country.

I once administered a mini-Blindfold Test to Wynton. It was back in '80 or '81, I think, soon after he had left Blakey, with maybe one album under his belt, before he'd gotten tight with Crouch et al. and decided (at their urging) that he ought to be the Young Prince of the Realm whose job it was to save jazz instead of the impishly clever trumpet whiz kid he actually was then (or seemed to be). Anyway, I'd decided that one way to look at the Wynton I was hearing back then was that he might be a kind of modern-day analog to Charlie Shavers, so before I left the house to interview him (he was doing a clinic at some hotel out near O'Hare Airport) I taped the title track of Coleman Hawkins' "Hawk Eyes," which includes a series of exchanges between a brilliantly explosive Hawkins and an incredibly virtuosic/witty Shavers, and at one point during the interview I played the tape for Wynton, Blindfold Test-style, to see what he thought of it. As I recall, he was wary at first, as though he thought I was trying to trip him up (I wasn't and didn't expect him to be able to identify anyone, just wondered if he'd dig Shavers and perhaps catch the likeness to his own playing of the time that I thought was there). I believe he did say something that showed he enjoyed the music, though it also seemed fairly clear that stylistically it was not at all familiar to him, but then I didn't expect that it would be. Whatever, the Wynton of that time struck me as a very different guy than the Wynton or Wyntons to come.

Dan's account of what led up to that day and what happened during it is in Chilton's book. Reading between the lines, I'm sure he had doubts about proceeding with the show (of course it could have gone on with just Roy Eldridge and the rhythm section), but I would say, based on what I remember, that a) Hawkins very much wanted to play and b) and, as Dan's account makes clear, dealing with the shocking fact of Hawkins' condition when he arrived at the airport and its emotional impact on everybody, especially Dan, Hawkins' insistence that he be released from the hospital where he had been taken from the airport, and the practical problems of then getting him from his hotel to the TV studio, once he had eaten something (the doctor who examined him said that the problem was malnutrition) and began to feel better, built up a lot of pressure and momentum in what was only a short period of time -- and then there was an even shorter period of time once everyone got to the studio.

Lazaro -- Honestly I don't remember. All I recall was how worried Dan Morgenstern (my boss at Down Beat then, who had brought Hawkins to town without being aware of how far gone he was) and I, and others too were about Hawkins' condition -- both in terms of his ability to play and his general physical/emotional well-being. I'm sure there were thoughts of not letting him get up on the stand, but that's what he wanted to do, and it seemed like it would have been humiliating to try to stop him. It also seemed clear that he had only a short time to live, that there was nothing anyone could do about it or that he wanted anyone to do about it. I recall, too, hoping that there might be some way to protect and preserve his dignity under the circumstances. (As it turned out, the next day at the airport I got a chance to do something that might have helped some there.) Having since been around other people shortly before they died, I think I understand what was going on a bit better now, but still...

Allen's mention of the West End Cafe reminds of a time I caught Hal Singer there in the late '70s. I knew him mostly from "Blue Stompin'" (now on OJC), and he was at least that strong in person.

The Town Crier label still exists http://www.towncrierrecordings.com/catalog/index.htm and they have a Lance Hayward album with France on some tracks, though it's not the same material I have on those Town Crier cassettes. If there are any Roland Hanna fans out there, his Town Crier solo album may be his best recording. Terrific sound too.

I've got two commercially released cassettes on the Town Crier label under the leadership of pianist Lance Hayward (a kind of Eddie Heywood/cocktailish type) -- "That's All!" and "Live at Eddie Condon's" -- the former with France and Buddy Tate, plus Major Holley and drummer Clarence "Tootsie" Bean, the latter with the same lineup minus Tate ( Rec. in March and April 1984.) France is in great form, as is Tate, and the sound quality is exceptional for live recordings.) Town Crier was the creation of Claudia Marx. She also produced a nice solo album by Roland Hanna, and one that paired Flip Phillips with Toronto-based pianist Carol Britto.

Now that I've reread Shelton's email, what he meant was that Dragons 1976 was in Georgia in the midst of a 10-day tour but not a 10-day tour OF Georgia.

Whoa -- I think should write about it myself. Pass the coffee.

Chris -- What puzzles me is that Chilton, unlike Dahl, had no malicious or self-serving agenda that I could detect; also, he may not have been taping the interview, just taking notes. My best guess is that this kind of paraphrase was/is the norm for some writers, though of course it shouldn't be. Again, what bugs me about this is that he took an incident that I was thrust into by circumstance and that shook me up as few things I've ever been party to have done and, by genteely rephrasing in what I said, sort of painted me as a blase neo-British twit. Twit I may be, but I was far from blase that day. Maybe the answer is to right about it myself.

No -- it's Ed Partyka, a bass trombonist, born in Chicago, a resident of Cologne.The album is "Madly Loving You" (Challenge) and features Bob Brookmeyer as soloist. The other pieces are by Bill Holman, Maria Schneider, Partyka, Brookmeyer, etc. Personnel seems to be drawn from the NDR Big Band.