sgcim

This is a long list, but here's only a few: Don Joseph jamming with Bill Evans Jimmy Raney playing with Bill Evans at a jazz clinic Pepper Adams playing Miles Davis' solos down an octave at the same time Miles was supposedly improvising Bob Bruno playing bass with Teddy Wilson while tripping on acid Bob Bruno playing piano duets with Don Preston at the Musicians' Union in Cal. Bob Bruno jamming with Jimi Hendrix and Larry Young in NYC Bob Harris playing piano with Gabor Szabo in 1970 Judee Sill playing upright jazz bass and singing in a duo with Bob Harris Phil Woods playing at Carnegie Hall with the opera singer mentioned in Martin Williams' rundown of the Thirdstream concert featuring Eric Dolphy Steve Kuhn playing with the John Coltrane Quartet All of these things happened, but weren't recorded, AFAIK...

You're lucky, Jeff. Bloomberg has fucked the shit out of the NYC Public School music programs.

That's sad about J&R, but we know what NYC is all about... I scored many great CDs and LPs there. I still remember when one of their employees defiantly put Steely Dan in the Jazz section, with something like, "Yes, they deserve to be here!!!". Another time, I heard them talking about a chick they knew who was a Frank Strozier groupie. I used to go into Manhattan every week, and spend twelve hours just looking at records at Tower, J&R, Rockit Scientist, etc...Now they're all gone. I haven't gone into Manhattan in years- it's just a big tourist attraction- Bloomberg's destroyed it...

Yeah, there's a scene in the last 20 minutes of Once a Thief that has a great piece that could've been written today. It also had a wild opening scene of a jazz drummer playing a drum solo in a jazz club, that went on for more than five minutes.

You're a manly man, Jeff. Band Camp has driven many a music teacher into retirement. They stranded a friend of mine on an island with the little monsters for a week every summer, and that eventually drove him to call it quits.

Wow is right! Thanks for that.

Yeah, Bennie da man!

There was a great 1960s British horror film anthology that featured a short horror story about a jazz trumpet player who transcribed some sacred African melodies, and performed them in a club.The resultant piece is a bongo-filled, dissonant, wild cacophony that builds up to the leader of the tribe laying the hapless trumpet player to waste. I forget the name of the movie- maybe something like "Tales of Terror"(?). Kenton might have done some stuff like that. Lalo Schifrin's first Hollywood score (some 1966 crime movie with Ann- Margaret), ends with a wild piece like this. David Raksin wrote some dissonant stuff for "Force of Evil" that might qualify. i think there was some of this type of stuff in "Crime and Punishment, USA" (1962).

On the record PW made with RC, "Side By Side", they play Donna Lee at 352BPM. Like Roland Kirk did with George Adams, and Sonny Stitt did with RRK, PW mops up the floor with RC. Sorry all you jazz pacificts out there- this is a noble jazz tradition.

This is considered the standard text for jazz musicians in films. I just used it to discover that Bud Shank was the flautist in the jazz club scene in "Night Tide", a lesser known Raksin film score. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/jots/jazzscreen-home.html

That would be pretty strange if it were true. A British guitarist is writing a bio of Smith that should be coming out pretty soon; maybe he'll go into it...

Good post. Years ago, I was playing with a very talented jazz musician, who was too broke to afford a car, so i had to pick him up at train stations, and we'd drive to our gigs together. I also played on a jazz LP with him. Somehow, he got hooked up with a journalist, who became his agent, and the next thing you know, he was releasing albums on a big label, appearing at all the big festivals around the world, and winning jazz polls on his instrument.

There are many interesting facts about JS that I've unearthed over the years, but they would mainly interest only guitarists. However, he received the greatest endorsement of all when he played at Birdland in the 50s, and Bird himself would perch himself in the front to listen to him play. Which is not to say that JS played in Bird's style- just that Bird recognized the beauty of Smith's genius on the guitar.

At 8:06 am. First Johnny Smith and now Sam Most. RIP Mr. Most...

We've just lost the greatest master of the plectrum guitar that ever lived. Even today, nobody has even come close to the artistry JS displayed with a pick on those records he made on Roost in the 50s. I bought every one of them, and still bought the Mosaic set. You could play better jazz than him, you could swing more than him, but you CANNOT play the guitar with a pick better than him. Rest In Peace, Johnny...

I remember hearing that Toots Thielmans used to like to practice harmonica in his bathroom because he liked the sound.

Thanks, Jeff. I read that book many years ago, and forgot about that part. There's a very embarassing part for Jim Hall on the George Russell piece where he can't cut it. He pretty much gives up, and says, "Can't you get Barry?", referring to the great Barry Galbraith, who was such a great reader that Russell used to use him on every recording he made in the 50s.

I haven't replied to this yet because I'm away from my home and books, but yes, that's more or less the case, if I remember correctly. Schuller presented several "third stream" pieces, some featuring Dolphy, then the three Dolphy quartet tunes and the jam session. Someone (Martin Williams?) wrote an article about the final rehearsal for the concert. The classical musicians were apprently amazed at how casually the jam session was organized. Was this the same concert that they recorded 'Variations on a Theme By John Lewis (Django)? That was a mind-blowing performance featuring Eric Dolphy on flute, Eddie Costa on Vibes, and Jim Hall with a string quartet. I have that on cassette tape, so I don't have any specifics. I think that was from a great LP called "Jazz Abstractions", but I don't know if it had anything to do with the Donna Lee session...I'm so confused!

Thanks, guys. On the video, Knepper is listed as playing baritone. I'm not sure, but the way he's getting around on that thing it could have been valves. While the other guys sound more "modern", I'll take PW, NT and JK any day. JH sounds like he's scuffling...

I saw this on youtube and almost had a heart attack when i heard the first solo. Eric Dolphy playing like a bop master...? Then i checked the personnel and realized it was Phil Woods, and Dolphy plays his usual outside stuff on a later solo. This was from a set called "Vintage Dolphy", but does anyone know who was the leader on this date?

I know where you're coming from. After my late father got married in 1947 after the war, he quit music and became a salesman for the rest of his life. Never had a salary, lived on commission. If he didn't like the job, he just quit, and moved on to the next one. He must have worked for at least 50 different companies selling anything you can imagine...

Thanks for the heads up, Pepsi! I missed the first 2 hours, but I'm digging Mal now, got the cassette recorder taping.

What non-musicians don't understand is there just ain't a living in it anymore. Most jazz clubs in NYC aren't paying enough to justify commuting there, unless you can somehow afford an apt in Manhattan. With my equipment, I usually have to drive into Manhattan, the Bronx or Westchester, and the price for tolls, parking and gas comes to $50. One time I thought I found a parking spot on 1st Ave, but after the gig, I couldn't find my car. Turned out it had been towed, and I had to take an expensive taxi ride to the West Side so I could pay the $200 fee to get a cop to escort me to my car. i remember there was a girl crying her eyes out because she didn't have the bread to get her car out and had to phone her parents in NJ to help her. I lost about $100 on that gig. I've got a steady gig that I've been doing for the last 20 years or so in Westchester coming up this summer, and if we didn't carpool, we wouldn't make shit.

Always liked his recordings with Grant Green. Musicians like that can't be replaced. RIP, Mr. Tucker...

I emailed JK when he posted that on another board a few years ago. He went to the same college I went to, and studied with the same composition teacher, John Lessard. He wound up studying privately with JL (one of Nadia Boulanger's favorite students) for seven years. He sent me some clips of him playing guitar in an organ trio. Sounded good, nice guy.