sgcim

I just had the first public performance of my derangement of the theme from "Chinatown" for big band and solo trumpet, by a former student of Uan Rasey, the guy who played it on the OST. I never saw the trumpet player smile so much; it was kinda scary. It probably had sentimental meaning for him, due to the fact that he studied with Rasey. I just found out that Fats Navarro studied with Rasey for a short time, when UR stayed in NY for a short time while waiting for his flight to Europe.

Yeah, I never got it straight if it was only the Four Freshmen that he listened to, or if he also listened to the Hi-Los. It was probably just the Four Freshmen.

RIP.

RIP. Great songwriter/ vocal arranger, inspired by The Four Freshmen

A friend of mine told me about this. Anyone have any more info?

Just finished Dameronia, Great book. On "Fats Navarro His Life and Music" now.

I found a book about Joe Wilder that mentioned Talbert, but that was on the East Coast. On the West Coast, he had a lot of competition from Giuffre, Mulligan and everyone that wrote for Kenton. He tried to get some charts to Kenton, but Kenton didn't play them. Then he finally played one of them, and everyone liked it so much, Kenton used it as his closing tune for gigs.

Thanks for the link! One of the central theses of the book is that Talbert was the founder of what became known as West Coast Jazz. I wonder if he's mentioned in that regard in any of the books about West Coast Jazz (Ted Gioia, etc..)? The book was supposed to have a CD in it that included Talbert recordings from 1949-1999, limited to his own compositions due to copyright laws. Two cuts from the album you posted a link to are on the CD, that feature the musicians in California that were most devoted to him; Jack Montrose and Johnny Barbera on tenor sax, Harry Betts, trombone, and John McComb on trumpet, a musician that Talbert said was "way ahead of Chet Baker. Chet copied him (McComb) and never had the lyricism of John at his best". Talbert also said that "Howard McGhee never got the credit for being the innovator he was- he was Twenty times the player that Miles Davis was." Other musicians that were in Talbert's band on the West Coast were Jimmy Pratt and Art Pepper. I played at a jazz festival where Pratt played in the festival band, and he was the best drummer I ever saw live. I don't know what became of him. Warne Marsh also played in Talbert's band, along with Milt Bernhardt on trombone, so one could see that along with Talbert's contrapuntal writing, his band might have started the style of music we now call "West Coast Jazz". Talbert ran out of work in LA, and in 1950 took off for NY. Kenton took things over in LA. Here's an example small group writing that Talbert did in NY:

I found some of Talbert's stuff from the 50s

RIP to one of the all-time greats.

Just finished the book Larry mentioned on Tom Talbert. When I was a kid, my father had the "Bix, Duke and Fats" album laying around the house, and it was before I had any interest in music, other than listening to 45s like "Snoopy Vs The Red Baron" over my best friend's house. I don't think my father trusted me with his Harmon-Karden set yet, buried in the frightening unfinished basement. I always wondered who the hell Thomas Talbert was. In the decades that passed, I never heard a word about him. I just happened to find the book in Columbia U's library, and fought past the cops and demonstrators with the book clutched in my little hands. I was astonished to find two of the greatest players I ever worked with, Aaron Sachs and Eddie Bert not only recognized for their incredible prowess as musicians, but even interviewed in the book. I had considered Aaron a close friend of mine musically, but he never mentioned Talbert once to me. Also included was Bobby Tricarico, a former teacher of a sax player friend of mine, who along with Talbert, Sachs and Barry Galbraith was part of that circle of NY's elite musicians who played on the two albums Talbert made in the 50s. I haven't heard any of the stuff that Talbert did during his comeback phase in LA, but if you've heard it, is it on the same level as his great 50s stuff? TIA

Did you mean Musil's "The Man Without Qualities"? I never made it through that one either, but I loved Infinite Jest. It got me through the lock down. Can't wait for Pynchon's new book coming out in October; he's 88 years old. It's about the Big Band Era in 1930s Germany, among other things...

Wow! I just saw this post today. Does anyone know how Larry is doing? If he's okay, I'd like to take him up on his offer. If he's not okay, don't bother him. Let's all pray he's doing better.

I love the transposition program, the audio program and the backing tracks. It can get a little confusing on transposition to keys where the enharmonic spellings (double flats and sharps) are hard to read. There's not many theme songs from films, which can be really great if you get the right composer. There's also a lack of tunes by singer/songwriters like Laura Nyro, Jim Webb, Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Judee Sill, Donald Fagen, Kenny rankin,Boz Scaggs, etc...I looked around for Bachrach, and I only found three songs; he wrote a lot of good tunes. You should probably have a jazz section in the STYLES for the more modern tunes, because they're mixed up with old swing tunes. I already copied ten chord charts, so you're on the right track. I've been copying tunes from fake/real books all my life, and have an insane collection of good tunes.