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Musicians who just lost the ability to play


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Hopefully he doesn't read this board, but I went to see Grachan Moncur  III at Smalls Friday night. I'm sorry to say he had no chops left. I've seen him before with Jackie McLean and Bobby Hutcherson in 2004 and he was able to play. I also saw Grachan at Vision Fest. I think that was in 2006 and he was able to hold his own. Last night his solos were one or two notes at a time and then long pauses. There were really no upbeat tunes the band played.

Anyone else witness a decline of a musician?

 

 

 

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long and complicated; Al Haig was never the same after the 1950s; he still had a beautiful touch and harmonic sense but lost a lot of his sense of line; I've always thought this was a post-alcoholic syndrome. Also, Joe Albany, even at his best, would have weird blackouts on stage, lose his place, forget to end. And then head right into some brilliant passage. Late JR Montrose was never the same; Art Pepper, I would say, too, but that's a whole other argument in itself.  I also saw Jo Jones in his later years and he was ok but had lost his real special sense of swing (another drunk, sad to say). On the other hand if you keep your mind active things can keep going; I didn't really feel like I was playing optimally until I was about 50.

Edited by AllenLowe
herpes
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Cootie Williams. Great, great trumpet player in his prime and with the Duke. He's terrifically good on that 1932-40 Ellington Big Band Mosaic set. But man oh, man his last few years with the Duke. What a decline. . After he played the solo on "A Train" he basically sat there for the rest of the night (actually separated from the rest of the trumpet section.)  Chops pretty much shot, I guess. And even in 1971 he was only 60, but he looked and sounded much older.  As someone said, he sounded "ancient."

Edited by John Tapscott
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In the 90s I saw the Hank Crawford/Jimmy McGriff band on a couple occasions and Hank would also go from being completely on and engaged...to a second later he'd be totally confused and couldn't even tell what song they were playing.  It was like watching a light switch get flicked on and off.  The first time I saw them he started the set in this fugue state (he had to walk over to McGriff 3 times during the first number to double-check what song they were playing...all 3 times McGriff yelled "SUMMERTIME" really loudly) and then suddenly a few songs into the rather shaky set he returned and played beautifully for the rest of the night.  The second time I saw them he started the set on fire, but then about halfway through he was gone again.  Luckily Frank Wess came up to sit in with the group for the last half of the set and saved the performance.  

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By contrast...

I went to see Sonny Stitt at the Keystone Korner.  Backstage, before the show, he was visibly weak, taking supplemental oxygen (other unhappy medical details omitted).  I thought "If he even makes it on stage, he'll be so tired..."  

He got on stage and he was SONNY EFFIN' STITT!  With Richie Cole and John Handy around (not to mention Bobby Hutcherson, Cedar Walton, Billy Higgins...), perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise.   Years later, 32Jazz put out recordings "Just in Case You Forgot How Bad He Really Was".  This was September 1981; nine months later, Sonny passed.

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By contrast...

I went to see Sonny Stitt at the Keystone Korner.  Backstage, before the show, he was visibly weak, taking supplemental oxygen (other unhappy medical details omitted).  I thought "If he even makes it on stage, he'll be so tired..."  

He got on stage and he was SONNY EFFIN' STITT!  With Richie Cole and John Handy around (not to mention Bobby Hutcherson, Cedar Walton, Billy Higgins...), perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise.   Years later, 32Jazz put out recordings "Just in Case You Forgot How Bad He Really Was".  This was September 1981; nine months later, Sonny passed.

Yeah, Sonny Stitt was one of those guys who didn't really seem to know anything else to be. Not that you'd have wanted him to be.

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I hate to mention it, but Lester Young didn't sound very coherent on his last studio sessions.

There have been a number of musicians having to re-learn playing after a stroke or other conditions, besides Oscar Peterson and Pat Martino, pianist Jack Wilson comes to mind.

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I hate to mention it, but Lester Young didn't sound very coherent on his last studio sessions.

I get that many people hear it like that, but the thing that strikes me about Pres  up until the very end was that, unlike, say, some mid/late Bud Powell, it never seemed that his fingers got tripped over themselves, like the wiring just wasn't fully connected. It's just that his time, internal/mental/whatever, just slowed waaaaaaayyyy down. And sometimes his air failed him, especially in that little run in the 50s where his health got so bad before, when was it, 1956? That he shaped up a little bit?. But even then, the thing I end up noticing in spite of all that is that no matter how long it takes him to land, he lands, and no matter how slow he's moving, he's in constant motion, at least as far as fingers go.

Then again, you could say that fingers not getting tangled means nothing if air is short and flight path is sub-dimensional. There's that case to be made, and I can't counter it other than to say because Lester Young, that's why.

This is extremely coherent to me, and that sound from 9:16 thru 9:19...that's a sound that is so far beyond "notes"...damndest thing I've ever heard. Yet objectively, running on fumes. But damn, what fumes, and the engine neither misses nor backfires. Nor does it race or purr, either, but hell, moving into death, etc. Right/wrong answers? Probably not any, unless and until one gets their for themselves, and by then...

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By contrast...

I went to see Sonny Stitt at the Keystone Korner.  Backstage, before the show, he was visibly weak, taking supplemental oxygen (other unhappy medical details omitted).  I thought "If he even makes it on stage, he'll be so tired..."  

He got on stage and he was SONNY EFFIN' STITT!  With Richie Cole and John Handy around (not to mention Bobby Hutcherson, Cedar Walton, Billy Higgins...), perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise.   Years later, 32Jazz put out recordings "Just in Case You Forgot How Bad He Really Was".  This was September 1981; nine months later, Sonny passed.

Sounds a lot like when I went to see McCoy Tyner last year. He looked so frail going up on stage, I was worried that he was going to fall over. And then he started playing and "Wow". After the show, he was in an even more weakened state, needing to be guided down the hallway by two people.

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Yes, Pres had a physical and mental breakdown in November 1955, was hospitalized, got good treatment, and came out in vigorous shape to make "Jazz Giants '56" and "Pres and Teddy" in early '56. Listening to the strength -- the sheer logic of his lines, melody upon melody-- of his playing on "Jazz Giants' '56" (everyone plays great) just stunned me, in part because I'd heard Pres with JATP in Chicago in Oct. '55, and he was not in good shape, though his playing there, especially in the ballad medley, while very minimalist and (if you will) vulnerable, also was very beautiful. I think that JATP performance was the first live jazz performance I ever heard. It was recorded, too -- came out on LP as "Blues in Chicago." Waiting at age 13  for the curtain to go up at the Opera House that afternoon and knowing who would be standing behind it was like waiting to see Achilles, Moses, Buddha, and Adam and Eve. We were out of our minds with excitement.

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