Michael Fitzgerald

A friend of mine was offered the trumpet spot, twice! First to replace Hubbard and then to replace Lee, a few years later. He turned them both down. BTW, my info says Marchel Ivery did the gig in 1983. Mike Mossman was in the band for that same minute. Anyone who hasn't seen the Blakey chronology, please check my website. Mike

I've seen this film, on AMC, I think. Not bad for its type and the jazz content makes it an interesting curiosity. Mike

Both Carmen Leggio and Henry Grimes are skeptical that Grimes appears on this album. The original LP has no personnel credits at all. Further research is needed. Is Roy Burns still with us? Mike

I guess this is the Gigi Gryce thread. Following up on an earlier post - the Association of Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) named "Rat Race Blues: The Musical Life of Gigi Gryce" as winner for Best Discography (Recorded Jazz Music) at their 2003 awards ceremony on May 31 in Philadelphia. Noal and I are very proud. Mike

Lewis has already put out a wonderful 57-page piece on the AACM in NYC, 1970-1985 in the new issue of Current Musicology (published by Columbia University). It just whets the appetite for future work. Email current-musicology@columbia.edu for details. Mike

I don't think so. Apparently Brotzmann played with Milford Graves on Saturday, but I was unable to attend. I see no mention of Evan Parker in the program. Mike

Quick early morning comments from the Vision Festival closing night - Well, my expectations were blown out of the water. Grimes took an extended unaccompanied solo (no, it's not redundant) towards the front of the set by the large William Parker ensemble (almost 20 musicians). His energy was amazing, outdoing his physical capability at this point in my estimation, but man, what fire! The whole group was wonderful, combining Jeanne Lee's words with words and music of William Parker. Four member vocal ensemble including the wonderful Jay Clayton. Nick Rosen also played bass and said that Grimes was intense and very happy. Gunter Hampel Galaxie Dream Band also performed, and had a rare reunion with Mark Whitecage (first time in perhaps a decade). Gunter and Jeanne's son Ruomi was there for dance and poetry. Perry Robinson has been with the Galaxie Dream Band since the beginning 33 years ago. Solo piano by Amina Claudine Myers got a very strong response. A reunion performance by The Call trio is imminent. Probably this weekend on WKCR during the 100-hour Henry Grimes marathon. I will let folks know. I also have photos of the trio from tonight. Mike

In my view, there are only two good Monk books out there right now: http://www.ejazzlines.com/store.cfm?search...47288&do=detail and http://www.ejazzlines.com/store.cfm?search...33968&do=detail Mike

If HG goes along with the idea, someone will. I'll be seeing Grimes again tonight and will post comments tomorrow. I'm not expecting any big show, based on how he played in California. But just seeing him live on stage playing will be miracle enough. Mike

Glad to see HG getting the NYT attention. Unfortunately, he's basically out of luck in terms of royalties. Only leaders get royalties and "The Call" is his only such album. It has been recently reissued, so that's better than nothing. BTW, a few numbers are off - he's 67 not 65. I'm pretty sure he left NYC in 1967, not 1968. And he's had the new bass for 4 months, not 2. Mike

In addition to the harmonic knowledge, an improvising vocalist needs the concepts of structure and development that are fundamental to jazz improvisation. It seems the vast majority are just out there treading water, both in terms of harmony and in terms of *saying something* - it just fills space until the chorus is over (let alone getting into multi-chorus development). Yes, Jon Hendricks has concerned himself with this - but who else? Even Hendricks isn't really up there with the greatest instrumentalists. His presentation isn't the clearest and he gets hung up by his technical limitations. Still, he can hold his own on the bandstand. Almost everyone else out there could be ripped to shreds by a mediocre "non-singer" instrumentalist scatting. There are thousands of student players who know how to construct solos - why not singers? And god, don't get me started on the college "vocal jazz" world. It has about as much in common with jazz as "jazzercise" does. Betty Carter could have been a real contender in the scat area. In his bio, Bill Bauer points to her work on "Babe's Blues" which is amazingly innovative. But she had other fish to fry. Which is fine. In her scatting, Ella Fitzgerald seems to be a little too pat, too planned out, too many stock phrases. Great execution, but it seems safe. I've never been that thrilled with Roberta Gambarini. Seen her live a few times. Just doesn't have the impact. When I have broached this subject with singers, I have received quite a bit of righteous indignation, but I'm still waiting for them to back it up with performances. Mike

The RVG series apparently has no such stipulation. The Birth of the Cool sessions have absolutely nothing to do with Van Gelder, for example. Ditto for Ornette at the Golden Circle. Mike

These must be some very curious legal issues, because the aforementioned Cross Country Tour set and the classic But Not For Me *are* available on CD from Universal/Chess as are other various compilations. I understand about the Mosaic situation, but I'm not sure why Universal could issue some but not all of the Argo material. Interestingly, the discography at the official http://www.ahmadjamal.info/ site lists NONE of the Argo/Cadet issues/reissues. Chamber Music of the New Jazz, recorded 1955 - that's T minus 2 in European terms. I would hope the legal isues would be sorted out before then. Mike

I have this set and it's fine with me. However, it's no longer complete as there are additional takes on the RVG reissues. Mike

Worth mentioning that "West 42nd Street" should never be considered a Kenny Dorham album in the same way that "Blue Spring" or "Trompeta Toccata" or "Whistle Stop" are, since it was NOT his record date. This was originally issued as "Ease It" by the leader of the date, saxophonist Rocky Boyd. Muse and then Black Lion deceptively marketed this under Dorham's name. It would be just as wrong to consider "Hard Driving Jazz" as a Dorham album - even though that Cecil Taylor date has been misfiled under Coltrane. It's just a matter of whose name is bigger (and whether anyone will bother to put up a legal fight). Mike

I'm pretty sure Tyrone Washington is around in Newark, not playing though. Tom Price is from Massachusetts and attended Berklee (to hook up with that jazz education thread) in the early 1960s. He studied for a number of years with Alan Dawson. He was in the Army in Panama with Perry Robinson and Bill Folwell, the original Uni Trio. They developed their incredible free ensemble concept there, playing on the banks of the Canal. More about that in Perry's book "The Traveler." Then he lived in NYC sharing an apartment with Perry and Henry. He's been involved in education (both music and otherwise) for many years, but still gigged in the NJ area. I last heard him play when the Uni Trio reunited at a book party for Perry almost a year ago. I did a long interview with him when I wrote the Grimes article for Signal To Noise. I haven't transcribed the whole thing, but maybe I'll do a little webpage on him so the world can learn. The CD I have of "The Call" says basically, "nothing is known about Tom Price except the recordings he made for ESP." Dig his playing on "The Call" - he's phenomenal. Mike

A few hours ago I brought Perry Robinson and Tom Price to meet Henry, a beautiful reunion of the trio from "The Call." They had a marvelous time and we may well see them play together again in the near future. I also met with Nick Rosen who is a great guy who traveled to NYC with Henry. Nick is working to set up some gigs for Henry in California. An appearance with Joseph Jarman is a strong possibility. Mike

If you're not a musician, there are better periodicals to suit your particular interest - Signal To Noise for avant-garde, Cadence for avant-garde and straight-ahead, Jazz Journal International for straight-ahead - those would be my recommendations. Jazz Improv isn't outstanding for the non-musician kind of material. Mike

I have been a subscriber from the start and will continue. To call this a magazine is really not doing it justice. I mean, Down Beat is a magazine. Each issue of Jazz Improv is 250+ pages and has things that the fan magazines don't, like lead sheets, transcriptions, analyses, etc. Also the interviews are conducted by musicians so they address points that the typical journalist misses. If you are a musician, you will really appreciate what Jazz Improv is doing. There are some parts which are not so great - record reviews are by readers and are very hit or miss. I have no interest in those, so I mostly skip those. Mike

Well, that's what I do September to June. But having quality public school music education might just encourage kids to continue into college. And there's no reason why it shouldn't. We need great education at all stages of the game. Mike

Works well for science, but art is different, I think. Art isn't the same - maybe ever. It's constantly changing and jazz is such a personal, individual thing that I don't think one could ever pinpoint it with any certainty the way that one can break down matter into molecules. What goes on in the classrooms of college programs has been going on in jazz for decades. Musicians have been sharing information, people have been copying the masters, writing arrangements, rehearsing, analyzing, jamming, listening to records, meeting new players, hearing stories, discussing, etc. etc. The brilliant book "Thinking In Jazz" addresses this subject very well. It's a required text for all my private students. One can make the statement that "jazz has changed since it went to college" but where is the evidence? Are you going to do a blindfold test and pick out the schooled player from the street player? I got some doozies for you - real curve balls. Does any difference you hear truly correspond to the influence of institutional education or is something else a factor? I also wonder if the distinction being made between "jazz" and "music" studies is all that relevant. Contrary to what some folks would have you believe, jazz *is* music. There are a whole lot of principles from the "non-jazz" world that apply to jazz and studying aesthetics, or counterpoint, or learning about vertical precision in a concert band - all these transfer to the jazz area. Going back to the original post - has Berklee produced new conceptions, new styles, new pioneers? Well, no and yes. How many "pioneers" have there been in jazz? How many after 1950? Is this the fault of Berklee? Everyone in jazz didn't attend. Berklee certainly has produced MANY influential jazz musicians. http://www.berklee.edu/about/alumni.html From that list, I'd point to Gary Burton as one hell of an influential musician. Jan Hammer and Joe Zawinul, too. Sonny Sharrock and John Scofield and Mick Goodrick and Mike Stern have certainly been widely listened to and emulated. As I've said, Berklee shouldn't get all the credit for these great individuals - there isn't a course on "how to be Sonny Sharrock" - but Berklee shouldn't be ignored either. Mike

I question the allegation that "once people began to learn more jazz in school than in the nightclubs and bars, jazz began to lose some of it's fire." First, I assume you mean to say "learn jazz more in school." Secondly, there have always been stronger and weaker players. If one likes "fire" - look no further than someone like drummer Ralph Peterson, a product of a university jazz program, and currently a teacher in one. Many of the best players today attended such institutions. Many of the not-so-great did too, it's safe to say. Of the high quality players, that individuals as musically disparate as Tom Chapin and Harry Allen could come out of the *same* college jazz program is strong evidence that institutionalized jazz education isn't an albatross. Any student who thinks that he will gain EVERYTHING necessary to succeed as a professional jazz musician just by attending a college is woefully naive. No one should assume that a jazz studies program is the be-all and end-all. Ditto for any kind of education. Thirdly, since collegiate jazz education wasn't around much before the 1950s, it's misleading to compare the state of jazz pre- and post- because so many other factors come into play. Not only was how people learned jazz different, but jazz itself was different. Also, it's impossible to say whether players would have availed themselves of the resource had it existed. Plenty of top jazz musicians were alumni of college music programs - Sam Rivers, Benny Golson, Dave Brubeck, Wayne Shorter, Booker Little, Henry Grimes, the list goes on and on. I think that had courses in jazz been offered that they may well have enrolled. Certainly by the late 1950s, the Lenox School of Jazz summer program was attracting students who would go on to make a difference - Gary McFarland, Attila Zoller, Perry Robinson, David Baker, Don Ellis, J.R. Monterose, Jamey Aebersold, Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, see my website for more. BTW, I wonder if we have the same impressions about other performing arts - how about acting schools? I watch episode after episode of "Inside the Actors' Studio" and I hear a lot of big time folks talking about their positive experiences in school. I can't chalk *all* of it up just to the fact that they are talking to acting school students. I think these actors really did benefit from their institutional educations. But they didn't learn everything there. Mike

Addressing the last part of your post - I am curious to know whether you have any experience or contact with graduates of collegiate jazz programs. Are your comments regarding what the students know or don't know based on fact or are they just suppositions? If you have had contact with such people, I think that specifics need to be addressed - which students and how many, what colleges - are we talking only of Berklee?, which teachers, when - during what years, etc. Such a huge idea as "institutional jazz education" cannot be accurately described or discussed in such general terms. This is a topic near and dear to my heart, both as one who holds degrees in jazz studies and as a music educator who has sent students off to such programs (and also discouraged such a path, btw). Mike

Well, I guess maybe you are losing it because the alto is there. It plays a minor second below the tenor on the opening A section (with the parallel voicings) and mostly a major second above the tenor on the B section. The C section is in unison. For the last note of the tune, the trumpet has a concert F, the alto has the C below that, and the tenor has the A below that. To pick out the alto part it helps to focus on articulation. Henderson is very very short on his releases and Taylor is less so. There are a couple of places where sloppiness of execution lets the alto be heard more prominently. The basic horn writing is similar to that on "Amanda" by Duke Pearson. It's a great three horn sound. Mike

I thought I just said that...... Hosea is a he, as far as I know. Mike