Jump to content

fasstrack

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    3,812

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

  • Donations

    0.00 USD 

 Content Type 

Posts posted by fasstrack

  1. Chet Baker, misjudged?

    in Artists

    Posted

    On 30/08/2006 at 0:12 PM, medjuck said:

    Unfortunately I think "Let's Get Lost" is oop. and has never been available as a DVD. I avoided seeing it when it first came out because it sounded exploitative.  

    It was exploitative, very much so. As was James Gavin's claptrap of a book. They cashed in on the junkie-outlaw image, and neither film-maker nor author had the depth of knowledge to adequately discuss the music. Worthless stuff... 

  3. Percy France

    in Artists

    Posted

    6 hours ago, mjzee said:

    I saw Big Joe at Tramps - I wonder if it was one of your gigs!  Percy opened the show, as I recall.  I could see Doc Pomus in a booth along the far wall.

    I doubt it. I lasted a week. Joe liked me, but Pomus seemed to loathe me. When I came back to Tramps after being fired just out of curiosity to see who they got on guitar (the guy was jumping up and down on the stand, and ended up taking a lesson from me---go figure) Pomus glowered at me, a real hate stare seeming to say 'what the f. are you still doing here?'.

    The story I heard was that Percy---whose band preceded the one I was in---also was fired after he defended someone in his band who was accused of smoking weed on the stand. I guess Pomus had a 'fire complex'... 

  4. Percy France - I SHOULD CARE (1980)

    in Recommendations

    Posted · Edited by fasstrack

    On 07/02/2005 at 0:27 PM, AllenLowe said:

    just to mention the West End Cafe, as Larry has - though run by the much maligned Phil Schaap (and I like Phil for all of his foibles), it was at the West End that I saw the following:

     

    Earl Warren (best swing alto player I ever heard - I would take him even over Benny Carter, and he never recorded to advantage)

    Sammy Price -

    Joe Albany

    Jo Jones

    Warne Marsh

    Dickey Wells

    Willis Jackson (I sat in with the band; biggest asshole I ever met; scowled the whole time at the white boy playing tenor next to him)

    Jabbo Smith - still had some trumpet chops, and the most beautiful singing voice I ever heard

    Joe Turner - was a friend of Percy's, and he used to sing with a mocrophone from a side table. Everything in the key of C -

     

    all for under $5.00. A great place -

    Benny Carter and Sweets Edison also played there. Also Lonnie Hillyer. Dick Katz put together a Monk tribute band with Lee Konitz, John Eckert and Leroy Williams. I remember him getting tired or something, and saying 'Let's play a couple of choruses of Nutty, and go home'. 

    It was a great place for a young musician to hang out, sit in, and gain experience. My first gig there was with George Kelly's Jazz Sultans. Percy recommended me. One night I was playing with Percy, and Art Blakey and Lou Donaldson came in to listen. They sat down and applauded us.

    The 1st owner I remember was a rackets guy who actually treated me nicely. Then it was sold to a snake, whose name I won't mention, nor an unpleasant encounter I had with his slimy self. He ran it into the ground. 

    But my memories are fond...

  9. Bob Brookmeyer, Composer

    in Artists

    Posted

    8 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

    Shame on me, but somehow the stuff with the Mel Lewis BB after Thad had left didn´t reach me. Had heard the original ThadJones/Mel Lewis and was disappointed with the 1980 edition with much of Bob Brookmeyer´s originals.....

    I think I know what you mean. Thad's writing IMO is warmer than Bob's, so maybe he reached more people. And the personnel in that '60s band was pretty incredible...

  10. Return Of The Film Corner Thread

    in Miscellaneous - Non-Political

    Posted

    4 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

    I always find it disconcerting when hearing a well established British actor speaking in an American accent. I've no way of knowing how authentic the accent is but my brain is expecting the familiar voice. Hugh Laurie was especially difficult to adjust to. 

    FWIW He convinced me as House on American TV. Had no clue he is a Brit until someone later told me...

  11. Darcy James Argue and others on Bob Brookmeyer

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted · Edited by fasstrack

    He also said Chick Corea was a 'lightweight', Terence Blanchard needed 'half-valve surgery' and wondered if Charlie Parker was a 'good idea'. His most venomous tirades were directed at Wynton and Stanley, but let's not go there.

    At the same time, the people he admired, like Bill Finegan, he truly worshipped and was a true friend to. After Bill's wife died he called him every day. We got together to get Finegan a lifetime achievement award from ASCAP (he and Johnny Mandel did all the heavy lifting). And he really pushed his students. He wanted them to lose sleep over the charts and wear their brains out doing better...

  12. Darcy James Argue and others on Bob Brookmeyer

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted

    I remember an interview now with Jimmy Knepper in DB where he said Mingus never actually 'wrote' anything. I remember his exact words: 'Nothing about notation or accuracy. He wrote a note for alto that the guy was straining to play, and I said that would be a lot easier for trumpet. Oh, er, I wanted that 'strained' sound. Bullshit'.

    I played with him once when I was a kid. He was a bit of a crank, so...

  13. Darcy James Argue and others on Bob Brookmeyer

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted · Edited by fasstrack

    4 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

    as for schooling; personally I am grateful to jazz because in any other form I would have been sent away years ago; it is the one format that might be considered an art that I can fit into, self-taught and untutored that I am. I always felt that players like Brookmeyer didn't really understand this.

    I had bandstand schooling, street schooling, formal schooling and self-schooling---and still have volumes to learn. My teachers were giants in my view. 

    There's room for everybody and everything in jazz and art. Except bullshitters...

  14. Darcy James Argue and others on Bob Brookmeyer

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted · Edited by fasstrack

    5 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

    I admire him though it bothers me that, like a lot of the 1950s progressives, he could not accept a lot of the 1960s avant garde. I understand the reasons for this - hell, Johnny Carisi and Lee Konitz were/are the same, among many others - but he could get a little nasty about some of the players and composers who were less schooled than he (Carisi had the same hostility). And I think that's the key - these guys and players were a bit more 'by the book,' meaning they had much more theoretical basis for their work than, say, Hemphill, and they resented unschooled musicians getting greater amounts of - or really any - attention, when they had worked so hard to devise very formal systems. It is unfortunate, and it cuts across styles - hell, I've even heard Knepper talk very cynically about Mingus' very hit-or-miss techniques. And of course Mingus thought the avant gardists were largely phonies and charlatans. And I daresay I myself dealt with a bit of internal static when I worked with guys with formal musical educations who were bothered that I got better reviews than they did.

    He was more than a little nasty. I don't know how much jealousy had to do with it. I didn't know Bob, nor was I inside his head.

    I think a at least some of the resentment may be justified. Eric Dolphy was a MF and a virtuoso. A lot of other free players weren't. I don't know enough about the composers to comment. But you're supposed to study and learn what the hell you're doing, whatever the pursuit. Knowledge is power, and the days of seat-of-the-pants artistry are long gone. There aren't many geniuses out there, and they have to study, too. I seriously doubt that Mingus was 'hit-or-miss'. Trial-and-error, maybe, but that goes under the rubric of stretching and that's good. Jimmy Raney, a pretty fair composer himself, used to tell me 'art is controlled emotion'. I took that to mean it's a blend of intuition and craft. I don't know about 'formal systems' myself, and have, as a composer, been a bit suspicious of them. But whatever works works.

    Formal education isn't the only kind, either. Gil Evans was tremendously autodidactic. He took scores home from the library to study. No excuses...

  18. Bob Brookmeyer, Composer

    in Artists

    Posted

    4 hours ago, six string said:

    Whhat kind of website is Such Sweet Thunder?  I found that add for that album or book that kept hovering in the area I was reading very annoying.  Is it a membership type site?  Great stories though.  Fascinating.  I'm going to pull out some Bob Brookmeyer lps to spin today and focus more on the arrangements.

    It's his blog. Someone else complained about that ad, too, in the comments section. I guess a guy has the right to hawk his product on his own web page...

×
×
  • Create New...