sgcim

Kenny da man!!! My fave Kenny was when he played his D'Angelico back in the 60s and 70s on LPs like "Night Song". I don't know why he had to go back to those coarse, un-pedigreed Gibsons. There's no other guitarist who can touch him on ballads, and his sense of groove on medium tempoes is perfection. I recently read some self-appointed 'genius' pontificate that Kenny sounds "white". That's how out of hand things have gotten with the younger generation of jazz "artists". How can you come out of the Detroit jazz scene of the 40s and 50s and sound white? I've caught Kenny live a number of times, and he was always the best. He even owned a jazz club in NY which he named The Guitar, which featured the top players in NY of the late 60s and early 70s till it folded after a few years.

I was just listening to the sides he did with Jimmy Raney back in 1949. Man, those guys could play even back then!

Damn, I forgot about that one. How is that LP? I had a chance to buy it at a used record store, but it was kind of pricey. I think there was a Phil Woods feature on it. How is that? I remember I was working with George Barrows the day ON died; he was shocked. According to a book I was reading, ON got a lot of grief from black musicians because he used white guys like Woods and Ed Shaughnessey on his records. They used to slide pictures of slave ships under his door. ON said he just wanted to use musicians who could play his music the best it could be played.

In "Cats of Any Color" Gene Lees writes about hearing Evans play "hard,funky,dark Southern blues" late one night at the Village Vanguard. When Lees asked him about it, Evans replied, "I can really play that stuff when I want to."

I just remembered another tiny story. That friend of Don's and I were talking about Bill Evans on a gig once, and I asked him what Don thought of Bill, and he said that Bill invited Don over to his place one day and they played together as a duo for a few hours. Let's hope that's all they did... Must have been an extraordinary musical experience.

I don't know where you're going with this, but Benson was among Farlow's biggest admirers. Maybe he wasn't as subtle as Bickert and Raney, but I think he and Costa (and Burke on Yesterdays) sound excellent on both cuts, but the sound quality on ATTYA is lousy compared to the vinyl and CD recordings I have of it. The Yesterdays solo is better than ATTYA, but what is your complaint about Farlow on these cuts? Benson plays a lot more pentatonic (major) than Farlow does.

I wonder what happened to Bill Smith also, the guitarist on the Bell LP?

I've read that essay by Wallace before, and was impressed by his honesty. How often do you read or hear something from a musician admitting their weaknesses? His point about playing with musicians who seem incapable of playing BS, Bickert, Desmond, and others like Bill Evans, Don Joseph,Jimmy Raney etc... struck me as true, also. In a sense, it's a relief that there are no more players like that anymore; they're very intimidating. Everyone else is playing so much BS that they've just copied from records, that you don't have to worry about looking bad when you follow them! We should be thankful these geniuses are dead, and we should probably try to kill the few that remain!

Ed just gave up when his wife died seven years ago. IMHO, his best LP was titled "Ed Bickert", a live trio date on Sackville Records with Don Thompspon and Terry Clarke. I think it might have come out on CD this year, but it was from the 1970s. Here he is on the street of dreams:

After reading someone describe Ed Bickert as a "snoozefest", I did a search here and found no thread for him. I could go on and on about his harmonic and melodic genius, and lack of BS in any of his solos, but if you can't hear it in this old video of him, nothing I say is going to matter:

I think the Lockjaw LP has a recording of "Stolen Moments" for big band that pre-dates "BATAT" . There's also a video of him at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in the 60s leading a big band playing that tune, featuring Gato Barbieri(!)

As mjzee said, Benson fanatics are fascinating. I knew it was a mistake to say anything less than that the Almighty GB is not the greatest jazz guitar player that ever existed, but here are some African-American guitarists I like: Wes Montgomery (of course!), Kenny Burrell (one of my faves!), Henry Johnson, John Collins, Irving Ashby, Russell Malone, Grant Green, Ray Crawford, Freddie Green, Jimmy Ponder, Mark Whitfield, Sonny Greenwich,Anthony Wilson, Ed Cherry, Charlie Christian, Les Spann, Billy Butler, Phil Upchurch, Sonny Sharrock, Bobby Broom, Rodney Jones, Earl Klugh, Bill Smith, Al Casey, Calvin Keys, O'Donal Levy, Lionel Loueke, Ted Dunbar, and last but not least the Almighty GEORGE "BAD" BENSON himself!!! YES! I dig Benson, and many others who don't play with the same rhythmic feel as Raney,Farlow, Hall, etc..., but I think I made it clear that this was just my personal opinion, and that Benson and Jones are incredible jazz guitarists. The Pat Martino comment about Benson was made to a private student of his, and wasn't in your little Downbeast magazine, or whatever rag you read. I hope you're not a guitarist, because your comment about Ed Bickert being a "snoozefest" would indicate a very sad state of affairs on your part. Tal may have lost it after the 50s, but his recordings of the 50s are the best representations of Bud Powell on the guitar of that time.

I always liked this bossa nova version of "Melancholy Baby" featuring Warren Bernhardt on organ:

I never heard him play, but I remember that he used to have a "club date office" on LI back in the 1970s, and he used to get gigs for a jazz pianist friend of mine, who was completely whacked out and unemployable back then, so the gigs were very loose, and we just played jazz on them, whether the people liked it or not. He talked like a "hep cat", so we thought he was cool. I've seen one of his LPs at a used record store I go to, but it didn't look like a jazz LP to me.

I've got to agree with this. There are plenty of jazz guitarists I find more subtle and swinging than GB- Ed Bickert, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow (1950s), Jim Hall, Rene Thomas, etc..., however this is all just my opinion. I know you GB supporters can be a very vocal lot, and i wouldn't want you to strain yourselves needlessly. Benson lays more on the funk/blues spectrum than the swing spectrum rhythmically to my ears, and he and Rodney Jones can't be beat in the jazz/funk idiom. Even Pat Martino was quoted by someone when asked what he thought of GB, as saying, "I think he's a pretty good R&B player."

Beautiful playing! Yeah, I've seen that before. The only one I know is Mike. We played in some college groups together back in the 90s. Wonderful player and wonderful guy. If I heard Wynton play one solo as musically satisfying as Don's, maybe I could understand what's going on in NY, but I haven't heard it yet. But that goes for the musically bland "jazz revival' crowd, also.

Alright Nino- I can take a hint. I'll just spit out what I can remember. He always said Don reminded him of a tall David Niven. In his Wikipedia entry (which was poorly written by what seemed like a well-meaning friend of Don's), it said that DJ was a full-time teacher at a Catholic HS, but actually, he just helped the band teacher out a little with the trumpet players. he didn't seem capable of holding down a FT job of any kind to my friend, who used to drive him around and help him out. The SI musicians worshipped him, and he'd sit in on their gigs, but his chops were not in the greatest shape. Sadly, one younger SI musician, Drew Francis, who was in that crowd, also picked up on DJ's junk habit, and OD'd at a too young age. Drew played both the piano and tenor equally well, and used to be consulted by Michael Brecker on sax matters. He was also a gifted composer. A terrible, terrible loss... Don was subject to panic attacks when driving over bridges or tunnels, and couldn't fly. He was supposed to play the trumpet solo for the Jackie Gleason Show theme, but he couldn't take a plane for the session. I think Jimmy Nottingham played it. One time Don was going to a gig with a friend, and they had to drive through the Holland Tunnel to get to NJ. He got so frightened, he just bolted out of the car before they entered the tunnel, and left his trumpet in the car, never making the gig! I opined to my friend that maybe DJ's junk habit was self-medicating for his case of Panic Disorder, but my friend started describing DJ's descriptions of the rush that he got from shooting up, and I dropped that line of reasoning pretty quickly. My friend asked Don how he could achieve success as a musician, and Don's answer was, "YOU GOTTA GIVE IT YOUR ALL!" He and Don used to listen to an older Italian concert pianist whose name I can't recall, all the time. DJ also worshipped great prizefighters. DJ had replaced his junk habit with alcoholism, but then replaced alcoholism with a deep religious faith (it was either Mormonism or Jehovah's Witness), and was intensely neurotic about it. The whole SI crowd he'd play with seemed to be on the Chuck Wayne LP "String Fever", along with Eddie Costa. I wish i could've asked Don about that fellow jazz genius (EC). This was back in the 80s, when I used to play in a band with said friend, so it's kind of hazy, but the last thing I can remember was his account of Don's funeral (he died of a sudden heart attack). It was very solemn, until an older woman who claimed to be either a former girlfriend or wife of DJ walked in, looking like a reincarnation of Chan Parker(!) and started telling funny stories about DJ that had everybody laughing their heads off, making it into a joyous affair! I haven't spoken to my friend in about fifteen years, but maybe I'll give him a buzz.

Thanks, I'll pick up the CD, if it has alt. takes. A friend of mine who used to hang out with Don on Staten Island didn't seem that excited about that LP, because he thought Don had done his best playing in the 50s. He had some interesting stories about Don. I'm having trouble posting on this board.

Clark Terry admits that he had a severe gambling problem in his autobiography. He lost many a gig's pay in crap games in the back of the bus. One musician friend of mine said that Matt Matthews had so many gambling debts, that he had to get out of NY before you-know-who would do him in.The same person claimed that gambling debts were also responsible for the disappearance of Dick Garcia from the NY scene, although Garcia still lives in NY.

I saw this in a used record store today, but I wasn't sure I wanted to pay what they wanted for it. Does anyone have it? Is it worth getting? TIA

TV Time- They had an old Jack Benny episode with Wayne Newton swinging his ass off on a ridiculously uptempo version of "Falling in Love with Love". He sounded like Dinah Washington! Then he did some hokey Al Jolson thing, but he played the trumpet, violin and banjo pretty well. Who knew? On WNET, they featured a retrospective of some of their old programs, and they showed a few excerpts from the program "Soul" from the 70s. There were some good R&B acts, and then they had The Max Roach Quintet playing. I know I saw Roland Kirk destroy a chair on one episode, but were there any other jazz things anyone remembers?

Check out the harp solo in "Eye Of The Devil", one of my faves. I still can't find the documentary on him anywhere. Has anyone seen it? The musicians back then loved him. Clark Terry talks about how much he loved his music in his recent autobio, "Clark", bemoaning the fact that he was poisoned. Thankfully, the sicko that (inadvertently, he claimed) poisoned him is rotting in hell. I've worked with two musicians who recorded with him- Gerry Sanfino, double wind player on "October Suite" and Joe Cucuozzo, and they get all choked up when remembering him.

See, this lady (she looks like she could be a variant on Chan Parker) is trying to enjoy life, take it to a higher plane, but the spaghetti of life won't let her, it is too much the boss of her and slaps her every time she starts to partake. She feels overwhelmed and needs an escape so she can get to her own special place. So she takes the Tums heroin and chills that shit right down so she can go about ruling life the way only a hip chick with a belly full of Tums heroin can. The Tums heroin puts her life where she wants it to be and now she can stare down the spaghetti life and it just limps out. She is free, at least until the Tums heroin wears off. And it always does. I mean, if you can't understand how Tums heroin works, are you sure you're ready for the real thing? Now see here; I just read "My Life in Eb", and Chan never once mentions being hooked on Tums (or junk, for that matter) . She seemed to be a real boozehound, though.

Please, tell me that's a manip! I

One great LP that may never make it to CD is Jimmy Raney's "Strings and Swings". His son said that there were legal problems regarding the extended piece of music that Raney composed, "Suite For Guitar and String Quintet" that may never be settled. It's a shame, because it's a historically significant piece of music that combines Bartok and jazz, and has some great Raney solos on it. The other side is a regular jazz quintet recording featuring Raney leading a group with Bobby Jones and Dave Lahm, live in Louisville KY. It's also excellent. If you have that LP, consider yourself lucky.