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Scott Hamilton on Ballads


Dan Gould

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France is in fine form on this one:

http://www.towncrierrecordings.com/catalog/hayward.htm

I have this in cassette form, plus another cassette from the same label with the same personnel plus IIRC Buddy Tate. Hayward is rather cocktailish, a la Eddie Heywood, but on the whole that's no problem. One of the cassettes, I think the one with the two tenors, was recorded live at Eddie Condon's. Also, the same label has a fine, stunningly recorded solo set from Roland Hanna.

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Heyward was an interesting guy, played solo for years at the Town Crier - could really play when he wanted to but tended toward the cocktail, as Larry mentions - though one night I was in there and somebody asked him to play The Lady Is A Tramp and he snorted "that's for squares" and just kept going on something else -

another funny story - Heyward was blind (no, that's not the funny part) - one night he was playing wiht Percy's group at the West End, and Percy kept introduciing him as Herman Foster, who also sometimes played there with Percy and who was also blind - there was a group of us in the audience, and every time Percy made this goof we almost fell over with trying not to let anyone see how hard we were laughing - hope this isn't offensive, as I still find this amusing -

Edited by AllenLowe
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Heyward was an interesting guy, played solo for years at the Town Crier - could really play when he wanted to but tended toward the cocktail, as Larry mentions - though one night I was in there and somebody asked him to play The Lady Is A Tramp and he snorted "that's for squares" and just kept going on something else -

another funny story - Heyward was blind (no, that's not the funny part) - one night he was playing wiht Percy's group at the West End, and Percy kept introduciing him as Herman Foster, who also sometimes played there with Percy and who was also blind - there was a group of us in the audience, and every time Percy made this goof we almost fell over with trying not to let anyone see how hard we were laughing - hope this isn't offensive, as I still find this amusing -

I thought Hayward was white...

(His hands look white on the sleeve posted above.)

MG

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I think I've been rational and, if you will, "polite" about this whole Scott Hamilton thing, but I heard (or rather re-heard) something yesterday that made me feel just how much is being (and has been incrementally over the years) conceded here. What I heard was a reissue of a old favorite 1958 VeeJay Bennie Green-Gene Ammons album "The Swingin'est," with those two plus Frank Wess, Frank Foster, Nat Adderly, Tommy Flanagan, Eddie Jones, and Albert Heath. It's a great date overall, and all three tenormen are in superb form -- all of them arguably (at least at that time in their careers; Foster later would get rather Trane-ish) in much the same swing to bop vein that Scott Hamilton has mined since he made his recording debut. Now you'll say that it's unfair to compare Ammons (or Wess or Foster) to SH; Ammons is a master, and the other two (both of whom, especially Foster, more than hold there here) are.... But, then I thought, wait a minute! At the time of this recording, Ammons was, believe or not, only 33, Foster was 30, and old man Wess was 36. So at what point does does SH, or anyone like him (SH having turned 33 back in f------ 1987!), stop getting a pass for being the kind of player he is and be listened to instead alongside otherwise quite comparable, or so it seems to me, figures. I'm not saying that music is a competitive sport, but let's get real.

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I think I've been rational and, if you will, "polite" about this whole Scott Hamilton thing, but I heard (or rather re-heard) something yesterday that made me feel just how much is being (and has been incrementally over the years) conceded here. What I heard was a reissue of a old favorite 1958 VeeJay Bennie Green-Gene Ammons album "The Swingin'est," with those two plus Frank Wess, Frank Foster, Nat Adderly, Tommy Flanagan, Eddie Jones, and Albert Heath. It's a great date overall, and all three tenormen are in superb form -- all of them arguably (at least at that time in their careers; Foster later would get rather Trane-ish) in much the same swing to bop vein that Scott Hamilton has mined since he made his recording debut. Now you'll say that it's unfair to compare Ammons (or Wess or Foster) to SH; Ammons is a master, and the other two (both of whom, especially Foster, more than hold there here) are.... But, then I thought, wait a minute! At the time of this recording, Ammons was, believe or not, only 33, Foster was 30, and old man Wess was 36. So at what point does does SH, or anyone like him (SH having turned 33 back in f------ 1987!), stop getting a pass for being the kind of player he is and be listened to instead alongside otherwise quite comparable, or so it seems to me, figures. I'm not saying that music is a competitive sport, but let's get real.

Look at who all was alive in 1958 that the principles mentioned above definitely had first-person experiences with, musically and otherwise.

Whole different life, whole 'nother world.

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I don't think it's a matter of that - any musician (or any artist) who wants to put his work on pubic display can and should be held up for scrutiny - as a musician myself I'm jealous of other musicans who get larry kart's scrutiny - meaning that it's rare for one of us to be examined by a critic who is so aware of the demands and needs of personal expression and who so well understands this musical world. Nothing to get mad about - Larry and I disagree on more than one musician - I happen to like Warren Vache's work as well - but I always find that Larry's criticism of musicians that I happen to like begs my attention and makes personal intellectual demands upon me that should be made - it's not as though he does a "John Simon" on musicians, he's not petty or nasty or overly picky - just absolutely honest -

Edited by AllenLowe
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"The term 'mainstream”' is in jazz parlance not merely descriptive. Coined in the mid-1950s, reportedly by English critic Stanley Dance, it arose from the belief in some quarters that bop, and modern jazz in general, was something of an artistic wrong turn, and that a number of still vigorous Swing musicians (for example, trombonist Dicky Wells, trumpeter Joe Thomas, and tenor saxophonist Buddy Tate) were far less visible on the jazz landscape than they ought to be. Thus the labeling of such musicians as mainstream was at once an expression of aesthetic preferences and an attempt to translate those preferences into permanent values.

So "mainsteam" thinking (and beginning in the mid'70s the Swing Kids thing) is in part based on the idea (entertained by some but not all of its players and probably by more of this music's audience) that, as I said above, "bop, and modern jazz in general, was something of an artistic wrong turn" -- "wrong" in part because some of it was felt to be alienatingly hectic, angry, or just ugly (remember Coltrane and Dolphy being labled "anti-jazz"?), and/or needlessly complex, and devoid of attractive, recognizable, warm human/humane values; and wrong as well in practical commercial terms, in that jazz once was a popular music and now much of it figuratively was turning its back on any chance to connect with its surviving former audience and any new audience of similar size to boot.

Sorry for chiming in kind of late in this debate, but aren't you putting a bit too much emphasis on (actual or imaginary) artistic jugdments about a superiority that allegedly "mainstream" jazz set out to establish?

If you reread period articles about what became to be known as "mainstream" jazz you will very often find the term "middle jazz".

This term may have fallen into disuse since but isnt' this what "mainstream" (or "middle jazz", for that matter) is all about? A stream of jazz that is somewhere in the middle between 50s/early 60s modern jazz and Dixielandish revivalist jazz (THIS is where true revivalism was and is)? I.e. nothing more than updated swing music.

It is true that the British jazz publicists who coined the term felt that many Swing-era masters were unfairly overlooked by the mid-50s (small wonder ...) but yours is just about the first major statement that I see where the protagonists of "mainstream" are accused of denigrating Modern Jazz (and its outgrowths) as being a "wrong path". So is or was there ever really this confrontation in mainstream jazz that actually existed in the "Moldy figs" debate of a decade before? After all, there have always been "mainstream" artists who have been more on the "Modern Jazz" end of "mainstream" and those who have been on the "swing" end of "mainstream.

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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It seems to me that Hamilton has mastered his craft, has found an audience that appreciates his music, sells reasonably well for a jazz artist, and is enjoyed and successful. What more do you want from a musician?

Larry, the CEO wants to know what you got against businessmen.

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I mean, ok, that was "clever" (and I usually abhor "clever", but I figure the guy's ignoring me, so what the hell), but c'mon - if your criteria for "music appreciation" is primarily from a "craft" standpoint (and don't get me wrong, there is plenty of enjoyment to be had from that part of music alone), then the types of arguments/points that Larry makes have no relevance to you. So if it doesn't appeal to you, that type of perspective on music that Larry - and lots of people, actually, has/have, I guess I don't understand the need to rip it apart.

But now let's see:

!) People who like to see jazz moving ahead really want it to move further away from itself

2) People who enjoy a lively disagreement are all assumed drunk until proven otherwise

and now

3) People who don't give it up for good craftsmen & businessmen are "ripping apart" the music

This is your world, eh?

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"I'm not saying that music is a competitive sport, but let's get real."

I've not said anything in this thread, because to be honest I'm still bristling at some of the things I've read you say about Warren Vache, a person I not only admire but take lessons with.

It seems to me that Hamilton has mastered his craft, has found an audience that appreciates his music, sells reasonably well for a jazz artist, and is enjoyed and successful. What more do you want from a musician?

When someone has made a lot of records over the course of almost 30 years now and has been on the receiving end of a lot of praise during that time, as is the case with SH, what I want is not to have to be told in effect that it is perfectly OK that he's never going to be much more than OK -- this when there are lots of players who are, I think, stylistically quite comparable to SH who were playing their socks off when they were a whole lot younger than SH is today. I don't begrudge SH's ability, or anyone's ability, to make a decent living playing OK music, and I like some of the music that SH makes. What I am saying is that what's at stake here at a certain point in all this is our ability to make (or even our desire to make) accurate, meaningful aesthetic estimates.

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"The term 'mainstream”' is in jazz parlance not merely descriptive. Coined in the mid-1950s, reportedly by English critic Stanley Dance, it arose from the belief in some quarters that bop, and modern jazz in general, was something of an artistic wrong turn, and that a number of still vigorous Swing musicians (for example, trombonist Dicky Wells, trumpeter Joe Thomas, and tenor saxophonist Buddy Tate) were far less visible on the jazz landscape than they ought to be. Thus the labeling of such musicians as mainstream was at once an expression of aesthetic preferences and an attempt to translate those preferences into permanent values.

So "mainsteam" thinking (and beginning in the mid'70s the Swing Kids thing) is in part based on the idea (entertained by some but not all of its players and probably by more of this music's audience) that, as I said above, "bop, and modern jazz in general, was something of an artistic wrong turn" -- "wrong" in part because some of it was felt to be alienatingly hectic, angry, or just ugly (remember Coltrane and Dolphy being labled "anti-jazz"?), and/or needlessly complex, and devoid of attractive, recognizable, warm human/humane values; and wrong as well in practical commercial terms, in that jazz once was a popular music and now much of it figuratively was turning its back on any chance to connect with its surviving former audience and any new audience of similar size to boot.

Sorry for chiming in kind of late in this debate, but aren't you putting a bit too much emphasis on (actual or imaginary) artistic jugdments about a superiority that allegedly "mainstream" jazz set out to establish?

If you reread period articles about what became to be known as "mainstream" jazz you will very often find the term "middle jazz".

This term may have fallen into disuse since but isnt' this what "mainstream" (or "middle jazz", for that matter) is all about? A stream of jazz that is somewhere in the middle between 50s/early 60s modern jazz and Dixielandish revivalist jazz (THIS is where true revivalism was and is)? I.e. nothing more than updated swing music.

It is true that the British jazz publicists who coined the term felt that many Swing-era masters were unfairly overlooked by the mid-50s (small wonder ...) but yours is just about the first major statement that I see where the protagonists of "mainstream" are accused of denigrating Modern Jazz (and its outgrowths) as being a "wrong path". So is or was there ever really this confrontation in mainstream jazz that actually existed in the "Moldy figs" debate of a decade before? After all, there have always been "mainstream" artists who have been more on the "Modern Jazz" end of "mainstream" and those who have been on the "swing" end of "mainstream.

Read the period articles that such often estimable in many ways figures as Stanley Dance, Raymond Horricks, Albert McCarthy et al. wrote, and I think that you'll find that denigration of modern jazz was implicit, sometimes quite explicit, in their work. BTW, it's not so much the superiority per se of the music they loved (and that I love) to modern jazz that they were trying to establish; rather, it was their belief that certain key aspects of "modern" (guess that needs to be in quotes) jazz were effete, ugly, lacking in warmth and direct human feeling, unduly angry, prone to hysteria, you name it, in comparison to the golden sounds of the golden age. Which is not at all to say that there wasn't a genuine age of gold.

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Yes, I think I see what you mean and coming to think of it, some articles in "Jazz Monthly" of those years (late 50s) that I've read might be interpreted that way. But of course the "other side" sometimes made it VERY easy for them too to adopt that attitude. All this babble about the "angry young men" of jazz that occurred at the same time etc. ... Which reminds me of a rather caustic article on those allegedly oh so angry young men that appeared in "Orkester Journalen" and stressed the fact that Sonny Rollins, then touted as one of THE angry young jazzers was actually a soft-spoken, thoughtful and introspective (but certainly not angry) person once you made an effort to talk to him (backstage or otherwise).

Anyway ... "middle jazz" really seems to describe that music better, and isn't it so that the musician who sailed under that "Mainstream" tag in the 2nd half of the 50s and thereafter were not really crusaders for a return to any "golden age of jazz" and did not seriously wage any war against hard bop etc. either and that any confrontation was more of a writers' stunt? I mean, we are not talking about the 40s situation here.

So far, so good ... must acquaint myself more with Scott Hamilton now to follow the rest of your debate better ... ;)

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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"I think this strikes at the heart of the meaning of artistic criticism. Are you asking for some unassailable ranking where you judge how people stack up? And who judges the judges."

1) critics, it is true, don't require licensing (though I think Larry has gotten his shots) - we judge them on their own merits, sometimes on credentials (and credentials can just be prior work) - but any good critic - or really great critic - in my experience, offers as much insight in his criticism as that which he is criticizing - for me Larry fits the bill. Maybe not for you. But that's ok -

2) we judge the judges right here - no need to say - "well that's only your opinion" because nobody, unless they specificially claim otherewise, is saying anything else (though I do claim to represent all white Jewish Males over the age of 50 who refuse to take their meds, are personally tired of their jobs, long for a good vacation, and who live in the past) -

Edited by AllenLowe
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"What I am saying is that what's at stake here at a certain point in all this is our ability to make (or even our desire to make) accurate, meaningful aesthetic estimates."

Could you elaborate on this point. I think this is an fascinating point. It begs the question: who exactly is making these aesthetic estimates and for whose benefit? And for what purpose. I think this strikes at the heart of the meaning of artistic criticism. Are you asking for some unassailable ranking where you judge how people stack up? And who judges the judges.

I think Larry made that clear when he said "our ability" and "our desire." We all make aesthetic estimates. I look to critics to stimulate my thinking, to help me interpret not just music but my own reactions to music. A good critic doesn't sit in judgment, he honestly assesses and explores for the benefit of the larger community of listeners. And that's who "judges the judges," too.

Music criticism necessarily entails value judgments--that's the point, or one of the points in any case. I'd rather read a critic with strong opinions say what he or she finds lacking in a musician I like than a critic who never leaves the realm of feel-good compliments because anything else would be "tearing the music apart." Larry isn't making personal attacks on anyone's character, he's talking about art. I have no reason to think Kenny G isn't a hell of a nice guy, but that doesn't mean I won't say what I think about the kind of music he makes.

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I'm finding I agree with Bill.

Stop the board, I wanna get off. :g

But seriously, I'm glad that I engaged Larry on this question and attempted (and succeeded, to an extent) to get him to give Hamilton another listen. But what I get from Larry's most recent comments are:

I think Scott is little more than mediocre and that therefore no one should derive much if any pleasure from his playing, why do we give him any benefit of the doubt when players the same age or younger were doing it better way back when.

The problem Larry is that you have different ears than others. They aren't better, and they aren't necessarily more perceptive. You seem to believe that empirically, it is impossible to prefer Hamilton to X, Y and Z but that is simply not a sustainable premise. You already note that Hamilton has received a lot of praise. You give him virtually none. So everyone who praised him is wrong? I'm not saying that you are wrong, I am just saying that you hear differently than others.

Saying

I think I've been rational and, if you will, "polite" about this whole Scott Hamilton thing, but I heard (or rather re-heard) something yesterday that made me feel just how much is being (and has been incrementally over the years) conceded here. What I heard was a reissue of a old favorite 1958 VeeJay Bennie Green-Gene Ammons album "The Swingin'est," with those two plus Frank Wess, Frank Foster, Nat Adderly, Tommy Flanagan, Eddie Jones, and Albert Heath. It's a great date overall, and all three tenormen are in superb form -- all of them arguably (at least at that time in their careers; Foster later would get rather Trane-ish) in much the same swing to bop vein that Scott Hamilton has mined since he made his recording debut. Now you'll say that it's unfair to compare Ammons (or Wess or Foster) to SH; Ammons is a master, and the other two (both of whom, especially Foster, more than hold there here) are.... But, then I thought, wait a minute! At the time of this recording, Ammons was, believe or not, only 33, Foster was 30, and old man Wess was 36. So at what point does does SH, or anyone like him (SH having turned 33 back in f------ 1987!), stop getting a pass for being the kind of player he is and be listened to instead alongside otherwise quite comparable, or so it seems to me, figures. I'm not saying that music is a competitive sport, but let's get real.

and

What I am saying is that what's at stake here at a certain point in all this is our ability to make (or even our desire to make) accurate, meaningful aesthetic estimates.

basically is putting your critical judgments ahead of everyone else's. Maybe you think the aural evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible but the fact is that other people hear different things when they listen to SH.

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basically is putting your critical judgments ahead of everyone else's. Maybe you think the aural evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible but the fact is that other people hear different things when they listen to SH.

Wasn't the whole purpose of this thread to put Larry's opinion up front and center in the first place? If you're asking him his opinion, and he gave it to you, why are you saying he shouldn't be entitled to have his own opinion, or that it's not valid to him?

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"What I am saying is that what's at stake here at a certain point in all this is our ability to make (or even our desire to make) accurate, meaningful aesthetic estimates."

Could you elaborate on this point. I think this is an fascinating point. It begs the question: who exactly is making these aesthetic estimates and for whose benefit? And for what purpose. I think this strikes at the heart of the meaning of artistic criticism. Are you asking for some unassailable ranking where you judge how people stack up? And who judges the judges.

I think Larry made that clear when he said "our ability" and "our desire." We all make aesthetic estimates. I look to critics to stimulate my thinking, to help me interpret not just music but my own reactions to music. A good critic doesn't sit in judgment, he honestly assesses and explores for the benefit of the larger community of listeners. And that's who "judges the judges," too.

Music criticism necessarily entails value judgments--that's the point, or one of the points in any case. I'd rather read a critic with strong opinions say what he or she finds lacking in a musician I like than a critic who never leaves the realm of feel-good compliments because anything else would be "tearing the music apart." Larry isn't making personal attacks on anyone's character, he's talking about art. I have no reason to think Kenny G isn't a hell of a nice guy, but that doesn't mean I won't say what I think about the kind of music he makes.

Exactly what I meant, Tom. Thanks. All I'm doing, I used to tell myself (particularly when I was a working journalist filing over-night reviews) is starting one-half of an honest conversation about matters that are likely to be of mutual interest in the right circles, even if I don't always get to hear an actual response (though I often did get them and certainly do now, which is one reason why this place is so addictive). It's not about laying down the law; it's about saying to a friend after you've both experienced something -- "Here's what I thought; what do you think?" Don't see how that's unnnatural or unfair or whatever.

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