johnlitweiler

Who was the subversive who posted this article on the Fox web site? It is so opposed to Fox News practice that they probably fired him already.

The auy who wrote the article is too young to know that folk music, pop music, and sacred music that provided the musical element in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1950s and '60s. Of course a some of the best jazz musicians back then expressed their solidarity with the Freedom movement. But for instance it was Mahalia Jackson, not Sonny Rollins or Archie Shepp, who sang with Reverend King.

I was there too and also enjoyed them. They played a Braxton composition and Douglas must have rehearsed them hard. While Zorn is no Braxton, the quartet burned a lot like a late '70s Braxton quartet.

Jenkins came to Chicago around 20 years ago and played in a concert tribute to Captain Dyett, his old DuSable High School teacher. He sounded just great.

Umbrella Fest is next week, with mostly younger musicians. I'll count the ratio of gray hairs to younger folks in the audience.

Thanks, Jim. A revelation. Where did this Hovie Lister-Jerry Lee Lewis-who else piano style originate?

Re whether jazz as we know it is dead yet - here's an opinion I wrote 3 years ago: http://www.sima.org.au/2008/05/05/reasons-for-hope-21st-century-jazz

Great news. Now if some label would only reissue Conserving NRG and Hal On Earth, and issue (for the 1st time) Flying Down To Salzburg. Hal's music was consistently excellent by the 1980s. And yet his music kept developing, in response specifically to all kinds of musical and cultural inspirations: Ayler, Artie Shaw, Astaire, movies, a book, etc. One of his last suites was "The Freedom Principle" - it needed editing, he had enough material for several concerts in that one. I use "Carnal Conscupicence" by Hal and Mars to scare away kids on Halloween. The whole LP is violently creative. Weasel Walter is another Hal Russell protege who made good. Mike Staron wasn't a protege, but a good collaborator. At the time it seemed like everybody's loss that Rafael Garrett turned down Hal's offer to put him in the NRG Ensemble. Fortunately Kent Kessler showed up. Looks like the NRG Ensemble is not going to get together this year for their annual Hal-loween Hal Russell tribute concert. Too bad. But Extraordinary Popular Delusions are well worth hearing on Monday evenings, including October 31, 2011.

Haven't listened to this for years - an interesting curiosity, is what I recall. Spy Vs. Spy was sorta fun: a long, fast group improvisation broken up at random by some Ornette themes. It's a little hard to take Zorn seriously. He likes to aim for shock value. The 2 times I heard him leading groups he ran out of gas after half an hour then repeated himself (not exactly the same songs) for the next hour.

Chris, thank you - these tapes of yours are a delight.

Sonny Stitt mostly played tenor when I heard him at the Jazz Showcase (mostly 70s), very melodic music. UnBirdlike, more of a post-Lester Young spirit. When he was swinging and intensely into his solos, he'd acccent by kicking back his left leg. He'd pick up the alto for one song a night, a ballad - he favored "I Can't Get Started" and "Stardust," unfortunately, both those harmonic structures thwart improvisers. In early Art Pepper the music's emotion came from qualities inherent in his songs, I think. Or more accurately, the way he felt the inherent emotion of those songs. In a lot of later Art Pepper he started with a melodramatic attitude. Not that melodrama is necessarily bad, but for instance compare the power of his simple, heartbreaking original "Winter Moon" chorus, ca. late 1950s, to his painful remake of "Winter Moon" during his comeback.

Aha! Thanks for the advice.

This probably dates from the 1970s: Love Poem to You, by Bill Knott I will love you as far as I can throw you then I will throw you some more your veins are carrying us to unanimous-poem climax from my lips escape the mating-cries of extinct animals --now do you understand the radiocarbon-dating process? once I had to leave you, so I arranged for earth-tremors at night so in your sleep you would think I was caressing you o you you orbiting the earth at a height of 5 feet 8 moon childhood mired in light

I like the Micros, miss the jokes somehow. Ingenious arrangements, good playing. The Dutch bands, including jokes, are usually another pleasure. So was Thelonious Monk's dancing, which was sorta like staggering. The best, though, was some of the young Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble's business, including custard pies, from the mid-1960s.

The two trombone players George Washington and Abe Lincoln. For a time they both lived in Los Angeles. According to Dick Buckley, they once were in a car together when they were stopped by a cop. Wish I could have heard that exchange.

Wasn't "Apres Vous" the title Parker gave the song? And wasn't "Au Privave" the way a Norgran/Clef person spelled it when Parker told him or scribbled the title? 40-some years ago Delmark mistitled Maurice McIntyre's first LP "Humility in the Light of Creator" but correctly titled his song "Humility in the Light of the Creator." Delmark's CD reissue now sticks their album mistitle into both the song list and the liner notes. Who on earth is the tenor saxophonist on the cover of the 2-LP set Hank Mobley/"Messages" (Prestige 24063)? Someday a scholar should write a paper on all the errors in Orrin Keepnews-produced reissues, beginning with RCA Victor stuff.

Number 5 Ben Webster admitted that Johnny Hodges was a primary influence on him. He sounds like it. The Lucky-Byas-Golson-Shepp-etc. line descends from Webster. Chu Berry is a wonder in that Mosaic box. Gonsalves can sound like Berry stretching out. That's a compliment.

That's right, on Monday, October 3, saxophonist and ethnomusicologist Melvin Butler will be our guest on Zoundz! He's the versatile tenor saxist who has been delighting Chicago audiences recently and also joined the University of Chicago faculty. We'll hear some of Dr. Butler's recordings and discuss his adventures traveling the world, performing and studying jazz (with Brian Blade, Reuben Wilson, and others) and Caribbean music. That's Zoundz!, 6:30 to 9 p.m. with Michael Rock and John Litweiler, on WHPK 88.5 FM and whpk.org/stream.

Flowchart or it didn't happen, please, (preferably made with Visio).. Buster Smith to Bird to Hemphill and Lake. Don't you think a lot of Hemphill's phrasing is extremely Parkerlike?

I hope you get to hear Les Rois du Fox-Trot at Le Petit before you leave Paris. They play there at about the beginning of each month. Le Rois du Fox-Trot, I mean. Le Rois. Sorry.

Very interesting. Ross Feld is an unfamiliar name to me. What of his writings should I start with? Were his words as sensuous as J.B. Figi's?

Nowadays the words "profound" and "deep" have become meaningless in music reviews. Has anyone discovered what "accessible" means? BTW is anyone else here old enough to remember when bluing was used for laundry? But that was only bluing-drenched.

Ouch, you got me.

I've now been listening to it and delighting in it. To me, the LP issues never sounded as good as this CD. My long-ago misgivings remain: too much slow tempos, the great drummer Philip Wilson is rather restrained. But Hemphill sounds great, he's so endlessly melodic and creative (ah, that Missouri alto sax tradition, from KC to StL), and Bakaida Carroll is also at this best. Thanks, Jonathon.

Muhal's music and the musics of others that he inspired were revelations and joy to a lot of us. George Lewis's wonderful book A Power Stronger Than Itself shows a more personal side of him, as the AACM began. More than that, what a good man. BTW the annual Ellington memorial concerts that he helped begin were a major part of the inspiration for the annual Chicago Jazz Festival.