Michael Fitzgerald

There was quite a bit of discussion in another Elvis thread. Mike

At points, two very different things are being talked about here - one is musicians who play jazz as well as classical music (like Jarrett doing Shostakovich), the other is jazz interpretations of classical themes. For the first, I'll mention Daniel Schnyder, Swiss composer/saxophonist who has written some nice chamber music that frequently features performers who cross the line - Mike Mossman recorded his trumpet sonata, Simon Nabatov and Dave Taylor and Kenny Drew, Jr. have also appeared on his non-jazz albums. In 1986 or so I saw Chick Corea perform a Mozart piano concerto (with his own improvised cadenzas - not strictly Mozartian), followed by the premiere of his own piano concerto. The recorded version of the Corea concerto is much more third-stream than that performance I saw. The recording has orchestra plus the Corea trio. For the second, there is a great Teddy Charles album of Russian music. And the John Kirby Sextet did some clever rearrangements of classical themes, so did the Claude Thornhill band. If I remember correctly, Bill Frisell does some Copland on one of his CDs. Also, there's a Bob Belden setting of - Tosca, I think - that was barred from being released in the USA. I think it only came out in Japan. That Fred Hersch Russian album is great. Mike

But God bless WKCR for doing *whatever* they're doing in depth and seriousness. No, I don't listen to everything they broadcast, but I never feel that they are pandering or playing from a rigid demographically-tailored setlist. Are they worried about losing listeners? No, they're very proud to be able to present all kinds of non-typical things (who else will?). The stations that are worried about losing listeners and program accordingly are the ones that have sold out - maybe to one degree or another - but sold out, nonetheless. Now, they may have sold out to *you* and only play one particular thing you like and that can be very appealing, but they've still sold out. I realize that a great deal of this probably comes down to expectations - "I turned on the radio expecting to hear a certain kind of jazz that I've become accustomed to hearing at a certain time of day and I didn't." And WKCR apologizes, as they always do when pre-empting programs. As for "is it music?" That's a question that John Cage addressed over 50 years ago. Besides, if the answer is yes, that doesn't mean it has to be "music you like." And the "I could do that" argument has often been used on artists like Cecil Taylor, Bill Dixon, Robert Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock, et al. Hey, great - knock yourself out! What it comes down to is establishing a new aesthetic that will let one be expressive in a very atypical format. To oversimplify - can one express love, or anger, or sadness, or joy in this new artistic style? Is one example of this style more or less appealing to someone than another? If so, it sounds like art to me. And if it's art in a sonic (rather than visual) medium, I guess we have to call it music. BTW, speaking of WKCR, I'll be on November 16, 2-7 PM for a Gigi Gryce jazz profile. We're talking depth here - in the New York area: WNYC/NPR gave Gigi 10 minutes, WBGO gave Gigi 60 minutes, WKCR will give Gigi 300 minutes. Mike

Pat Patrick actually had a band called the Baritone Retinue - 8 baritone players plus rhythm section. It started around 1972 and they made one record for Saturn around 1976 or 1977 (I think it's the only Saturn album without Sun Ra). The baritone players on the album were PP, Charles Davis, Kenny Rogers, Jabbo Ware, Mario Rivera, Reynold Scott, Rene McLean, George Barrow. I saw Bruce Johnston play maybe three years ago with a Kenton alumni band led by Mike Vax. He played some alto as well. In that band he wasn't even always the bottom of the section because they had bass saxophone there as well for some things. While I'm here - newer guy to mention: Charlie Kohlhase. Good work with the Either/Orchestra, with the Mandala Octet, and with his own quintet. Mike

If you are talking about jazz discography, I've been doing this in my own little way for about 8 years: simply collecting and sharing information online via the WWW. Recently I helped establish a new domain to make it even better and more reliable for users (see URL below). There are others who are doing similar things and about 30 artists are covered at this one collaborative website. While it's not the "global domination" you have come to expect from the dreaded allmusic site, the accuracy on what it does cover is far better. If anyone here is interested in contributing, please do. The software needed to do the job is available online and it's free. I'd love to see more people getting serious and adding to the wealth of information. Generally, I would recommend this Lee Morgan site over whatever is in allmusic: http://www.fsinet.or.jp/~lee/lee/leemorgn.htm (And there are other excellent resources out there. Of course, there are some incomplete unreliable sites, too.) On the other hand, if you are talking about the reviews and stars and "similar artists" listings and whatnot that the allmusic site does, that doesn't interest me. Mike

It's a Jazz Messengers live recording. Now - which one? I think it's a combination of 1958 Club St. Germaine and 1959 Paris Olympia material, all originally on RCA. I think "Night" is "A Night in Tunisia." Mike

Since "Don't Fear the Reaper" was a #12 hit, it must have been available as a 45 single. If the consumer in question chose not to purchase that item and instead gambled on the entire LP, well, you pays your money and you takes your chances. Mike

I learned that this is NOT the same show. 9/19/73 was Shibuyakokaido, Tokyo, Japan. 9/28/73 was Budokan, Tokyo, Japan. Good reference tool: http://www.angelfire.com/jazz/jmweb/MOsl.html Sound on 9/19/73 is great, fwiw. Mike

If this is September 19, 1973, it is in circulation. The title it goes under is "Between Failure and Frustration." Just trade for it - never pay. Mike

A little minutia - In 1946 Coltrane played with the Joe Webb band which included an organist. Coltrane was playing with Jimmy Smith just before he joined Miles Davis in 1955. Tomorrow I'll be speaking to the guy who took his place on that gig - Odean Pope. Also, around the same time Coltrane played in a band with Shirley Scott. Alice Coltrane overdubbed organ on Coltrane stuff that had been recorded on 2/2/66. Mike

Miles has several things to say about Gordon in the autobiography. Unquestionably they played together, but none were recorded it seems. Mike

It's both! A non-dairy dessert topping and a floor wax! Current Musicology is a periodical, an academic journal. This special jazz studies issue (it's a combined issue - numbers 71-73: spring 2001-spring 2002) is 550 pages total. So, yeah, it's a book! There are over 25 articles. Some of the articles are huge - the Lewis AACM one is 57 pages, the one on Lee Morgan is like 21. Oh, and there's a great article on jazz biographies by Evan Spring. It is sort of a detailed review of 6 books (on Roland Kirk, Charles Mingus, Clifford Brown, Sonny Rollins, Mary Lou Williams, Warne Marsh), but sort of a general rant about the bad (and good) in the state of biography. Mike

Definitely take a look at the site I mentioned - it has information that supercedes what is included with the CD. The page takes a while to load, but I think you'll find it worth the wait. The current wisdom is that the July 1948 studio session is actually part of the live material from the Pershing. Mike

Is that based on what the liner notes say or something else? The RSRF site I referenced seems to have better information. If I recall correctly, they were the guys who supplied the material for the CD to begin with. Check out their rationale for it being Ike Day. I haven't heard all this stuff, just some, but I tend to trust them - they're fanatics. Mike

George Lewis recently published a 57-page article in Current Musicology (numbers 71-73). The title is "Experimental Muisc in Black and White: The AACM in New York, 1970-1985." If you are interested in this (and you should be, it's a 550-page gem, including stuff on Rudy Van Gelder, Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, Django Reinhardt, a 20-page review of the Ken Burns show, and much more), email current-musicology@columbia.edu Mike

db 10/17/68 p.32 - Gene Shaw at the Hungry Eye, Chicago Shaw, trumpet; Bobby Pierce, organ; Fred Stoll, drums A few quotes - "Shaw, it seems clear by now, is one of the outstanding trumpeters of his generation, in fact, one of only two or three to survive the hard bop era as genuinely successful artists." "It totaled nearly three hours of continuous music, broken only by one of the shortest intermissions in Chicago night-club history." "This Hungry Eye gig marks Shaw's second return to jazz, following two years of serious religious study." Mike

No one has ever turned up any recorded evidence of Ike Day other than that one 1949 Ammons date for Aristocrat/Chess, correct? Broadcasts? Bootlegs? Anything? [i'll answer my own question - http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/archia.html proposes that Day is on the Tom Archia material recorded live at the Pershing in 1948. I'll have to pick up that Archia CD on Classics.] Mike

I got an email announcing that his Crouchness will soon be talking about Minton's Playhouse at the Museum of the City of NY. The promotional email said he "has written a biography of Charlie Parker that is due out next year." (2004!? - I will believe it when I see it - "due out," remember.) http://www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org/news.html Mike

Von was back by the time Moody was in Vegas. He recorded in Chicago in March 1969, then was playing at the Concept Ballroom (a few times in the summer of 1969), with organist Eddie Buster at both the Living Room (summer) and at the Red Carpet Room (formerly Sutherland Lounge - fall), then at Sloppy Joe's (Feb. 1970), then at the North Park Hotel on 8/23/70 (Charlie Parker Memorial album). That's about 10 minutes worth of research into the subject. If anyone needs more, let me know. Moody started with Dizzy Gillespie in 1962 and was still touring with that band until at least late 1969. They played Chicago at Kim Martell's Supper Club in the early fall of 1969. BTW, the Ammons return was at the Plugged Nickel, 2 wks starting 10/22/69. The band was King Kolax on trumpet, Wallace Burton on piano, Chester Williams on bass, and Bob Guthrie on drums. There is video of Kolax with Ammons from the Just Jazz TV show produced by Dan Morgenstern. I saw it a couple of months ago. I think it's 1970 or 1971. Maybe this has been mentioned before - great interview of Von Freeman by Ted Panken here: http://www.jazzhouse.org/library/index.php...3?read=panken12 Mike

A friend of mine played with Ammons at the C&C - trying to pin down the dates (the C&C gig lasted from 1962 to around 1964 and included Eddie Williams, Roland Faulkner, Dorell Anderson, and others, Sleepy Anderson, later Charles Stepney). Sounds far-fetched, but he remembers Gene being let out of jail, escorted to the gig, and brought back immediately afterwards. I'll try to get some more specifics. BTW, I see that discographies show a 1968 Los Angeles Richard Boone record date with Ammons (on the Nocturne label) - that's got to be wrong. Mike

Are you sure there was something on Aladdin? I find no mention in Michel Ruppli's "The Aladdin/Imperial Labels." Don't have his King label book here but suspect what you are looking for is in there. I think at least one date for what you want is included in my Slide discography (April 7, 1953). Mike

The Mosaic box set covers his Mercury small group things, and the Clifford Brown box set on EmArcy covers the Brown-Roach stuff. So that's most of 1954-1960. A general discography like Bruyninckx or Lord will have most everything covered. Did you have a specific question or period you were looking into? Mike

I had high hopes for this, but was very disappointed when I previewed it in the record store. I ended up not buying it. The tunes are just BORING. Monotonous vamps. I was hoping for some harmonic sophistication and interesting songwriting because SW certainly has it in him (somewhere). None on there as far as I could tell (I listened to maybe a minute of each track). I guess some people go for "grooves" but I need quite a bit more otherwise a "groove" is just another word for a "rut." Arc of a Diver is actually quite a good album (While You See A Chance is a gem in terms of the qualities I mentioned above), Talking Back to the Night is not bad too - both were one-man operations. The demo-like quality works well, in my opinion. It's the ones after those two that are real disasters: formulaic, way overproduced, and just pop fluff in terms of the lyrics and music. BTW, some people aren't aware of his first solo record, Steve Winwood, from 1977 - it never made much impact. Not the strongest, but with some worthwhile things. Better than anything since Talking Back, at least. The Keyboard article is interesting - the new album was recorded live - vocals, organ, pedals, the whole deal. Not many pop things like that. But so much is very simplistic, so maybe it's not all that impressive. Mike

It depends on the source - in many cases the dotted eighth-sixteenth signifies a "ricky-tick" kind of old fashioned style - hear this in the jazz march shout chorus of "Whisper Not" or in "Dat Dere." You will also sometimes see two normal eighth notes both marked as tenuto to signify even eighths in the midst of a swing eighths piece. Without seeing it and the entire context, I can't say for certain regarding the Bellson example you cite. In fake books - forget it. The transcribers often have no knowledge of reality. Mike

I think the Monk story has been told without honestly too many times already........ Mike