AllenLowe

for a bit of Thornhill in his waning days I recommend reading Mike Zwerin's first autobiography (don't remember the name). Fascinating stuff about when he was on the road with the later band.

look this doesn't give us the right to yell "theater" in a crowded fire. but as a great man once said, "you can put a sieve in water but you cannot put water in a sieve."

the rain in spain often goes down the drain

1) yes, an working on the web site as we speak - updating and re-designing. 2) actually I like the idea of sending infected flash drives to whomever fails to book the band -

on the other hand, we often see in advanced societies how the insertion of external contracts effects the rising costs of doing business with third parties.

the Isley Brothers stuff is fascinating -

I have some of that with McPherson, but would love to hear the Booker Ervin stuff.

I never actually wrote it, but somewhere I have nice transcription of an interview with Dave that I should publish (I also have an interesting one with Triglia). Yes, I seem to be the Dave Schildkraut Memorial Society. I think of him as like certain obscure writers who only turned out a few stories or a lone novel. by the way, I've added an asterisk to my last post.

yes, and actually I think it was in many ways a self-inflicted limitation - on the other hand, I would argue that Pepper and Konitz, stylistically, were very "white," and carved themselves out a particular and outsider niche in that way, whereas Dave worked in an area closer to the African American mainstream (and was, I would argue, more admired by the bebop mainstream, many of whom regarded Konitz as "cold"). He wasn't the only one, obviously, there was Quill and Woods, but Dave was the best (and hence Dizzy's comment that "he was the only alto player to capture the rhythmic essence of Bird." Quite a compliment, I would say). And who knows what racial overtones surrounded his appearances? In my experience the reflections of race are not easily witnessed by people like myself and other white observers denied certain kinds of access. And Triglia described Bird's comments as somewhat mysterious and cryptic, so I think there was something there beyond the more obvious and documented attitudes. and I disagree, because I do think Dave's musical career is equivalent to the undocumented actors and performers and athletes - even if the barrier - psychological, social, personal - was much different. because obviously Dave was around, many people (including, I should add, as another witness, Sonny Rollins) admired his playing and reported on it - so if we define jazz history as not strictly reflected in recordings, we know he was there, he was considered not only a peer but a "great" by people we cannot ignore - and he made his presence felt, from Minton's (which he rushed to as soon as he got out of the Navy) on. So I don't think we should we say that he did not fulfill his own artistic destiny, only that he fulfilled it in a way different than many of his contemporaries. ***** ****this is a nice way of saying he was a nut.

it's supposed to have Knepper, Roland Kirk, Booker Ervin, I think. How was the sound on those originals?

yes and no - Davey was a major pain in the ass in terms of getting him to go out and play - on the other hand he saw his situation as one of family and of wanting to avoid the pitfalls of the jazz life with it's attendant selfishness, sexual adventurousness, and substance abuse (and his wife was failing for years; after his daughter was killed in a car crash, Gloria just took to bed and basically never got out again, and Dave refused to leave her for any period of time). So it was hard to argue with him - even, apparently, Charlie Parker remarked on it one night when he told Dave that he envied Dave's family life; Dave told him, "well, Bird, you could do it too, but you're always going uptown, downtown, you always have to play..." (this jibes with Al Haig's comment to me that, on some level, Bird would have liked to just be a family man). not to mention what may have been some racial issues, because Bird also told Bill Triglia "you know, Dave's gonna have problems because he's a white guy who plays like that." Triglia was convinced that Bird thought that Dave's elusiveness was related to a certain amount of racial self-consciousness. and it was amusing to sit one night with Bill Evans, at Evans' 50th birthday party, and hear Evans say "as far as I am concerned there were only two alto players from that era who didn't copy Bird - Lee Konitz and Dave Schildkraut. Schildkraut was one of my favorites but he refused to play. It's hard to understand such self destructive behavior." This, of course, from the guy who was slowly but surely commiting suicide. so, yes, my comments are related to pure talent and ability, not necessarily what he, in the end, left behind - and yet, on the other hand - with jazz you might say that most of what Schildkraut accomplished, played in person, has vanished - because look at the direct testimony of Dizzy, Mel Lewis, McLean, Getz, Ralph Burns, even Coltrane, who dedicated a song to Schildkraut at one his later Jazz Gallery gigs (Dave told me Coltrane had admired him because he - Schildkraut - was one of the first saxohonists that Coltrane heard use the altissimo range as more than just effect) - also of Buddy Rich, which I mentioned before, that Dave was the greatest clarinetist he ever heard, after Artie Shaw. (When I asked Mel Lewis about Dave, his jaw dropped and he told me I had no idea about how great a player Dave was; and Mel was no easy mark; Jackie Mclean said to me, "Is Dave still alive?", asked me for his phone number, and called him up to invite him to Hartford). So what we're testifying to is based almost solely on recordings. And though Dave was shy about that, he was, for some time, out there enough for his legend to develop by other means. think of the old legendary actors who barnstormed before the days of film, the great Negro League baseball players, the great old minstrel-age entertainers whose work has essentially been lost, all of whom survive primarily through third-party testimony, and I think you have something of an apt comparison.

yeah, I tend to agree - it's just we've got something interesting going here and I'm hoping to pick up an adventurous presenter or two and maybe things like Ear Shot.

well, if I had Schildkraut and Konitz in my band...well, I'd go with the preferences of Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Jackie McLean, and Mel Lewis, who each told me in one way or another that Dave was probably the best saxophonist they'd heard after Bird (though Evans hedged his bets a bit, and probably thought Dave and Konitz were equally creative) - I love Konitz, but to me Dave had (in Art Pepper's word) "so much soul" (sorry to drop so many names, but I spent years tracking these people down when I was trying to write an article on Dave) - Triglia indicated (and Bill was always a reliable source) that Kenton was happy to use the musicians his arrangers liked, but that Kenton personally wasn't crazy about Dave's playing. and I know I'm not in the majority here, but though I regard Konitz as brilliant, Dave was just on another level.

thanks, and interesting, because I would not have thought of that - is email never used?

of course there's always (by Wyatt himself): "At last I am free I can hardly see in front of me I can hardly see in front of me" I don't really understand how loss of immediate cognizance can set one free.

ah yes, Lark, but What a Little Moonlight Can Do is what is known as a rhythm song - meant to be swung. so the lyrics, with or without Billie, are just right. and Moonlight is Shakespeare compared to: "I see trees of green, red roses too I see them bloom for me and you The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky Are also on the faces of people going by I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do They're really saying I love you. I hear babies crying, I watch them grow They'll learn much more than I'll never know" I mean, it's enough to make me stop shaking hands altogether - and why does he think those babies will grow up to be so smart? and how are the colors of the rainbow "on the faces of people going by" ?

I hate losing pets, it's one of the hardest things in life - that's why I found a couple that can outlive me (unless the army gets to them first):

well, there are good songs (You Are Too Beautiful) and bad songs (Wonderful World) and decent bad songs (What A Little Moonlight Can Do) and a lot in-between, like some of that Tin Pan Alley stuff, a lot of which was underrated. but a bad song has bad lyrics and a bad (or banal( melody - sometimes weak harmonies (think the Bergmans) or a melody and lyric that do not transcend weak harmonies (and by weak I don't mean not complex - as Bob Dylan wrote many great songs with simple harmonies, as did Charlie Patton and Woody Guthrie, the Beatles, of course, and Lou Reed in his Velvet days, Sam Cooke, Leiber and Stoller, the Motown guys, Jerry Ragavoy, et al). just the other day I was listening to a later Solomon Burke recording, with "gospel" tunes obviously recently written, and I heard this, which may actually be the worst lyric ever written: "I just keep getting more and more tired; sometimes I think I'm gonna work 'til I expire." yikes.......

arguably. actually, I think I'm a Believer is a good song - much better than Wonderful World - or Round Midnight.

"does this mean that to cover 'Wonderful World' is always a bad song choice, whoever the artist or is it just a bad song choice for Wyatt? " always bad - sorta weirdly un-hip; though it's supposed to be a hip un-hip choice, it's acutally an un-hip hip un-hip choice. if you know what I mean.

are you Larry Kart or The Amazing Kreskin?

I'm putting this in miscellaneous music because this may be answered by someone on either side of the aisle - and because it's been about 20 years since I seriously tried to book my band. I have full promo material - electronic press kit, MP3s, CDRs, hookers, etc. when submitting booking info to clubs, fests, etc, here in the 21st century, what do booking people look for and expect? Sound samples? Pics of simulated sacrifice? Cute Cats? Endorsements from Clergy? thanks -

or a French band -

well, it just meant that Dave was too idiosyncratic for Kenton - whereas even Konitz was a stylist he could get his mind around. Same for Mariano I would assume. and it's born out by how little solo time Dave gets in that band. I can also tell you from experience that Dave drove rhythm sections a little bit crazy, especially if they weren't attuned to what he liked to do - like play two measures ahead, chord wise, or lag so far behind the beat as to seem in a different place. I can imagine this might cause trouble with a big band.