How Tall Was Art Pepper?

[sidewinder]

2 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Well, Med Flory I think I remember from Supersax. On those Supersax albums also Warne Marsh was playing. But what´s that Story About Med Flory and Wayne Marsh ? Didn´t they work well together.  

The Supersax was en vogue for a short time I think, some of the guys around me started to buy it.  I also had two or three Albums with them, but after a first "wow" I stopped listening to it, since if I want to hear Birds solos I hear Bird, and since I was trying to understand some of the Secrets of that Music, I thought it´s better to listen to the original, and anyway, nobody can have the Sound and phrasings of Bird. Bird was unique. 

In the mid 1970s they were pretty big in UK jazz circles, well as big as it ever got in such circles. I’ve still got that Capitol ‘Salt Peanuts’ album they did.

Remember seeing Med Flory in person - he was a pretty tall guy, very enthusiastic musician.

Edited July 30, 2019 by sidewinder

[Big Beat Steve]

I wonder if any of those whose height has been mentioned here have ever shared a bandstand with Swedish trumpeter Lars Färnlöf in the 60s or 70s. THAT would have made questions of being (bodily) tall or not appear VERY relative.

[Gheorghe]

I haven´t heard About Lars Färnlöf, but Talking About alto saxophonists, wasn´t Lee Konitz quite short. I dont remember seeing him on photos with other fellow musicians, but especially in later years he put on a lot of weight and that made him look even shorter.

[Big Beat Steve]

3 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

I haven´t heard About Lars Färnlöf ... , but Talking About alto saxophonists, wasn´t Lee Konitz quite short. I dont remember seeing him on photos with other fellow musicians, but especially in later years he put on a lot of weight and that made him look even shorter.

He can be googled (he was a major name among Swedish modern jazz trumpeters). He was very short indeed. I remember a photo of the Staffan Abeléen group (apparently used for publicity purposes to) on the bandstand where Abeléen (the "other" horn and therefore front man) stepped off the bandstand and onto the floor, apparently to make Färnlöf look less short.

[Larry Kart]

10 hours ago, sgcim said:

A lot of sax players put Warne down for his sound back then.

I have a friend, a very talented veteran saxophonist, who IIRC feels that Warne's rhythmic approach was  more or less  that of a Swing Era player. This seemed so at odds with abundant evidence to the contrary that it baffled me. I should perhaps add that this musician, perhaps like many others of his sort, regarded the relative isolation of Tristano-ites  from the jazz community at large as a dubious thing. OTOH, he was a great admirer of Lee. Go figure. OTOH, I did barrage him  for a while with claims/evidence of Warne's stunning musical virtues; perhaps he was just tired of me.

[sgcim]

3 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

I have a friend, a very talented veteran saxophonist, who IIRC feels that Warne's rhythmic approach was  more or less  that of a Swing Era player. This seemed so at odds with abundant evidence to the contrary that it baffled me. I should perhaps add that this musician, perhaps like many others of his sort, regarded the relative isolation of Tristano-ites  from the jazz community at large as a dubious thing. OTOH, he was a great admirer of Lee. Go figure. OTOH, I did barrage him  for a while with claims/evidence of Warne's stunning musical virtues; perhaps he was just tired of me.

Maybe he was referring to his Lester Young influence, if he listened to some old Warne, but it really makes no sense if you listen to the vast body of his work.Your friend probably fell back on the Lester Young thing after you bombarded him with your praise of Warne. This is a common reaction when you tell another saxophonist (or any other instrumentalist) how great another saxophonist plays. His ego could only take so much. I'm surprised he didn't resort to violence. You're lucky he just resorted to irrationality, like I'm prone to do.

 There was a cult-like attitude on the part of Tristano-ites that was so intense, that one apostate created that hilarious computer-generated stick finger series on You Tube, lampooning their dogma.

[JSngry]

4 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

I have a friend, a very talented veteran saxophonist, who IIRC feels that Warne's rhythmic approach was  more or less  that of a Swing Era player.

Because Category Or It Doesn't Exist?

[Peter Friedman]

Warne having a sense of superiority to the bebop guys was a surprise to me. I had the sense that Warne was a kind of laid back somewhat taciturn, maybe shy kind of guy.

Guess I was wrong?

[Larry Kart]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

Because Category Or It Doesn't Exist?

Sorry -- I don't know what you mean by "Because Category Or It Doesn't Exist?" I would say though that he certainly didn't/couldn't have meant Lester Young, whose rhythmic approach often was mindbogglingly subtle. He might have been thinking of someone like Chu Berry. I love Chu, but that's nuts. OTOH, my friend's reaction had nothing to do with ego -- for one thing, he didn't play tenor; for another, player that he is, he also teaches jazz history and takes a very learned, objective approach there, though he's a wee bit prey to what I think of as NYC jazz locker room thinking e.g. if you can't comfortably take over a chair in, say, the Vanguard Orchestra, you're a lesser being musically.

[Larry Kart]

56 minutes ago, Peter Friedman said:

Warne having a sense of superiority to the bebop guys was a surprise to me. I had the sense that Warne was a kind of laid back somewhat taciturn, maybe shy kind of guy.

Guess I was wrong?

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but my impression was that, a la Tristano himself, Warne thought the most rhythmically advanced players of that ilk  (and that in my view and perhaps in Warne's too would be Warne) were the most rhythmically advanced players there were. Shyness has little or nothing to do with it; rather, I would guess, it was that Warne heard what he heard and was quietly secure in that. Also, re: Bird, whose rhythmic acuity was in one sense or more quite boundless, I'm reminded of Konitz's feeling, which Warne might have shared, that this was to some degree a byproduct of sheer heat of emotion/execution on Bird's part, and that given such factors, the results produced by an inspired heated Bird might need to be discounted a bit. There I would emphatically disagree, or at least say "apples and oranges -- who says one needs to chose?" But I'm just trying to explain/speculate on what Warne's attitude toward overt Bird worship might have been,

[Chuck Nessa]

At this point I should remind you the original plan for All Music was an all Bird program.

[Larry Kart]

36 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

At this point I should remind you the original plan for All Music was an all Bird program.

OK -- but I don't see that this necessarily contradicts what I've said above. In particular, a fondness for Bird's pieces, especially if one has been playing them night after with Supersax (and the "All Music" rhythm section) doesn't preclude Warne's possible feeling that his own rhythmic acuity was least in the same ballpark as Bird's. Again, for me it's apples and oranges, but Warne's rhythmic imagination was sublime, and I think he knew it.

[Chuck Nessa]

Yes he did.

[sgcim]

6 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Sorry -- I don't know what you mean by "Because Category Or It Doesn't Exist?" I would say though that he certainly didn't/couldn't have meant Lester Young, whose rhythmic approach often was mindbogglingly subtle. He might have been thinking of someone like Chu Berry. I love Chu, but that's nuts. OTOH, my friend's reaction had nothing to do with ego -- for one thing, he didn't play tenor; for another, player that he is, he also teaches jazz history and takes a very learned, objective approach there, though he's a wee bit prey to what I think of as NYC jazz locker room thinking e.g. if you can't comfortably take over a chair in, say, the Vanguard Orchestra, you're a lesser being musically.

There are two unwritten laws:

1) Whether it's alto or tenor, if you gush for an extended time period about another sax player to a sax player, at some point, he's going to find something wrong with said sax player, no matter how ridiculous it is. Corner me and tell me about how great Joe Pass was for a longish period of time, and I'll say the same thing your friend said about Warne, but in my case, I'd be right.

2) A Jim Sangrey post, by it's very nature, must have some cryptic quality to it.

[Dan Gould]

16 hours ago, JSngry said:

Because Category Or It Doesn't Exist?

 

12 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Sorry -- I don't know what you mean by "Because Category Or It Doesn't Exist?" 

 

6 hours ago, sgcim said:

 

2) A Jim Sangrey post, by it's very nature, must have some cryptic quality to it.

I don't think its that cryptic:

The comment about "swing era tenor" was a required attempt to categorize Warne, to put him in a box with a label, for everyone must be categorized or else cannot be evaluated.

[JSngry]

Dan Gould FTW.

[Larry Kart]

4 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

 

 

I don't think its that cryptic:

The comment about "swing era tenor" was a required attempt to categorize Warne, to put him in a box with a label, for everyone must be categorized or else cannot be evaluated.

OK --- now I kinda get what Jim meant. But I don't  think that's what my friend was doing. First, he's not given to such categorizations; rather he was finding a way to accurately express (by his lights)  his apparently longstanding and somewhat disparaging estimate of Warne's rhythmic concept. I was and still am baffled by why he felt that way and why he chose to put Warne in THAT category; the only Swing Era tenorman who is at all like Warne is Lester Young, and Pres himself was rhythmically sublime and didn't much resemble other Swing Era tenormen in that respect. If my friend had doubts about and/or just couldn't hear Warne's rhythmic conception, why didn't he put him in the "Oh, he's just a Tristano-ite" category? That would have been accurate up to point, albeit unintelligent. In any case what I should have said was -- "Leaving Pres aside, name me one Swing Era tenorman whose rhythmic concept is akin to Warne's."

Sgcim:  I once expressed similar feelings about Joe Pass in a review of a latter-day Pass solo performance; if I recall correctly I  said that he had become  a "self-hypnotized navel gazer" or something of the sort. A talented Chicago guitarist then sent me a death threat --- I'm not kidding.

[JSngry]

I get what I think he meant. Warne, coming out of Bach as much as anybody, often used regularly paced eighth note lines as his building blocks, then genius-ized them whit his internal accents and displacements. Your friend probably heard that as "Swing Era", like Hawk or Chu or something, running them eighth notes.

But of course your friend was/is wrong. Just goes to show you the peril of thinking in categories, of trying to take what we hear and make it an equivalent-ish of something we've already heard. It's a natural inclination, of course, we all do it, but sometimes it's not a bad idea to stop it, just stop it, because we reach such an absurd conclusion as this one.

If you want to "understand" Warne, I think you need to understand Bach as well as Pres as well as Bird as well as a lot of non-musical stuff. Then you can grasp him as an individual contributor without resorting to the cheap boxing-up of the categorization impulse.

[sgcim]

6 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

 

 

I don't think its that cryptic:

The comment about "swing era tenor" was a required attempt to categorize Warne, to put him in a box with a label, for everyone must be categorized or else cannot be evaluated.

That's only because you've taken a course in JSangryology in University. If it had been phrased as clearly as you so eloquently did, we wouldn't have needed your translation.

 

2 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

OK --- now I kinda get what Jim meant. But I don't  think that's what my friend was doing. First, he's not given to such categorizations; rather he was finding a way to accurately express (by his lights)  his apparently longstanding and somewhat disparaging estimate of Warne's rhythmic concept. I was and still am baffled by why he felt that way and why he chose to put Warne in THAT category; the only Swing Era tenorman who is at all like Warne is Lester Young, and Pres himself was rhythmically sublime and didn't much resemble other Swing Era tenormen in that respect. If my friend had doubts about and/or just couldn't hear Warne's rhythmic conception, why didn't he put him in the "Oh, he's just a Tristano-ite" category? That would have been accurate up to point, albeit unintelligent. In any case what I should have said was -- "Leaving Pres aside, name me one Swing Era tenorman whose rhythmic concept is akin to Warne's."

Sgcim:  I once expressed similar feelings about Joe Pass in a review of a latter-day Pass solo performance; if I recall correctly I  said that he had become  a "self-hypnotized navel gazer" or something of the sort. A talented Chicago guitarist then sent me a death threat --- I'm not kidding.

That doesn't surprise me. I'm considered a pariah on one jazz guitar forum, because I pointed out that fact about Pass (which Jim also was also aware of), and the fact that he 'borrowed' Jimmy D'Aquisto's plans for his guitar (without his knowledge), and gave them to the Ibanez guitar company, so they could make a "Joe Pass Model Guitar", modeled on the very D'Aquisto that Pass gave to Ibanez to copy.

When Jimmy found out about it, he sued Ibanez, and their aborted D'Aquisto rip-off  (they placed the pick-up in the middle of the space between the neck and the bridge!!!!) was taken off the market. 

D'Aquisto didn't speak to Pass for many years; even when Pass needed Jimmy on bass for a gig in NY, Jimmy played the gig without saying a word to Pass, pulled his cable out of the amp they provided for him, and marched out of the gig, without saying a word to Pass the entire night.

When Jimmy got the contract with Fender years later, he and Pass started talking to each other again.

Pass is considered a MAJOR deity of the jazz guitar world. To say anything negative about him is considered heresy. 

[JSngry]

11 minutes ago, sgcim said:

That's only because you've taken a course in JSangryology in University. If it had been phrased as clearly as you so eloquently did, we wouldn't have needed your translation.

Hey, if you really want to know, you'll figure it out on your own. If you don't really want to know, don't bother. I don't get paid by the understanding, and therefore am not incentivized to broaden out the accessibility factor to a general audience.

[T.D.]

20 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Sorry -- I don't know what you mean by "Because Category Or It Doesn't Exist?" ...

Me neither, but I assumed "Or" was a typo and "For" was intended. I of course defer to the cognoscenti of "JSangryology".

Edited July 31, 2019 by T.D.

[JSngry]

cf. Pictures Or It Didn't Happen.

cf. Because Science

cf https://www.theguardian.com/technology/booksblog/2017/dec/07/internet-online-news-social-media-changes-language

#etcetc/YAWN

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, sgcim said:

That doesn't surprise me. I'm considered a pariah on one jazz guitar forum, because I pointed out that fact about Pass (which Jim also was also aware of), and the fact that he 'borrowed' Jimmy D'Aquisto's plans for his guitar (without his knowledge), and gave them to the Ibanez guitar company, so they could make a "Joe Pass Model Guitar", modeled on the very D'Aquisto that Pass gave to Ibanez to copy.

When Jimmy found out about it, he sued Ibanez, and their aborted D'Aquisto rip-off  (they placed the pick-up in the middle of the space between the neck and the bridge!!!!) was taken off the market. 

D'Aquisto didn't speak to Pass for many years; even when Pass needed Jimmy on bass for a gig in NY, Jimmy played the gig without saying a word to Pass, pulled his cable out of the amp they provided for him, and marched out of the gig, without saying a word to Pass the entire night.

When Jimmy got the contract with Fender years later, he and Pass started talking to each other again.

Pass is considered a MAJOR deity of the jazz guitar world. To say anything negative about him is considered heresy. 

Just read this review of Ella Fitzgerald/Joe Pass "Take Love Easy" (Pablo 2310702) the other day:

... Ella Fitzgerald accompanied by a sole musician, guitarist Joe Pass. And this accompaniment has ruined the record for me. Joe Pass plays with such flabbiness and langour that borders on a state of decay and does not feed the great singer even one single atom of swing. "Swing" may not be the keyword here because obviously swing was not the aim here. Yet Ella almost always swings her ballads, even at very slow tempos. Here the music of Joe Pass is so very emollient that Ella just was unable to give her best. The music makes you feel like you're stuck in a club with all the lights dimmed at 4 or 5 in the morning at the moment when most of the customers, well tired, start dozing off ... To have her accompanied by a sole guitarist, il would have needed a George Benson or Bill Harris ...

I am no Pass expert at all because for all his chops he somehow has never grabbed me they way other guitarists with boundless technique and fluency (like Tal Farlow) have. Just not enough "bite" for me (at least in what I did hear of him).

Edited July 31, 2019 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

I actually like Pass on his early records on World Pacific Jazz Pacific World Jazzjazz. Something happened though, by the time he got to Pablo, all the good was gone, at least for me.

I went to school with a guy who was a student of his. He claimed it was the aftereffect of all the smack, but I was like, no, not unless he kept using after he allegedly cleaned up. Something else besides that. He did the WPJPBJ thing for how long, 7-8 years? Shit was all good there. But then...

 

[mjzee]

Pass needed a drummer to kick his ass and make him play.  Check out Live At Donte’s.