sgcim

Most of David Raksin's films after he named names in the McCarthy hearings of the 50s were smaller budgeted, lesser known films, because Hollywood stopped giving him films like "Laura", with stars that had drawing power. Instead of the government blacklisting him or throwing him in jail, he got 'blacklisted by Hollywood itself.

Simpatico Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri. Phil Woods plays on a few cuts and saves the album.

If I could just find that interview...😁

Yes, that's the weird way Zieff speaks. Thank you for your support in this case of Kart vs. Chambers in Organissimo Court. My defendant had a tough time of it, but he's a hard-working, honest linguist/jazz writer, and though I've never met him or heard of him, I'm sure he thanks you, too!

Agreed.

Chambers opens up chapter seven like this: "I wasn't a bone-fried bopster, and Dick had outgrown it," Bob Zieff told me. "He even listened to Brubeck before Miles Davis kosherized him. So there were very few of us lonelies." But if Zieff counted Twardzik among the outsiders, there were many others in the Boston arts community, including the bona fide bopsters, who counted him among the all stars, and both sides had a good case. The fact that Chambers uses the term bona fide bopsters correctly in the same paragraph, means that Zieff liked to use word play in his speech, such as "kosherized" and "lonelies", and bone-fried bopster is just another example of that, as far as I can tell. Also, when Chaloff comes back to Boston after the Basie Octet broke up, and then re-formed using another Bari sax player than Chaloff, Chambers made it very clear that Chaloff was a widely known musician, and Twardzik was a little known (outside of Boston) eighteen year-old who Chaloff took under his wing, because he recognized the amazing talent Twardzik had when he heard him playing in a club.

Yeah Larry, you've said this about three times already, but this time you're correct (as opposed to the "bone-fried bopper- the guy's a linguist for God's sake). Twardzik was the heavyweight pianist in Boston at that time, but his two attempts at playing outside of Boston, in Mexico City and Florida, were complete disasters. It was two years after Chaloff returned to Boston that he became Bird's favorite pianist (at least in Boston) and they bonded over their love of heroin and Bartok. What Chambers either meant to say or did say was that Chaloff and Twardzik were on equal footing in the jazz community of Boston; definitely NOT outside of Boston. I'll look for the passage. One criticism of Twardzik seems to be valid. Johnny Williams said that he didn't know how to comp in a rhythm section to make a band swing. You can hear the difference in the Chaloff album where Russ Freeman plays on half of the cuts, and Twardzik plays on the other half. The band is fine with Freeman, but it dies when Twardzik takes over. As Joe Dixon used to tell me, "Pianists are assassins; that's why I use guitarists." So far it seems like Chambers was overly critical of Chaloff's behavior. Chaloff seemed to be a model citizen until he got hooked on heroin in the Georgie Auld band, and he just seemed to be using heroin to cope with the inhuman schedule of one night stands that he played with various bands. Up to the Second Herd, he never missed a date, or even showed up late, and there's no mention of him even getting involved with any women. He was only 22, but was able to hang with musicians twice his age.

RIP. Maybe he and Levon can work things out now that they're wherever they are.

Darn, I should've presented that as evidence in the case!

I have Guy Berger on Ignore, so I don't know what he said, but it can't be good. I'm about halfway through this book, and because the writing is so small, the 97 pages are equal to double of that. It's a much more objective book than the Chambers' Twardzik book. The author took the time to listen to records, air checks, concert broadcasts and private recordings that Chaloff just played section parts on. He finally reaches the "First Solos" chapter, and has a wealth of sessions that Chaloff was finally allowed solos on. He pinpoints SC's addiction to heroin to the Georgie Auld Band, and covers Sonny Berman's OD death in a few sentences, blaming the death on the "unevenness of the drugs" with the official cause of death as Heart Attack", with Berman literally dying in Chaloffs arms. Chaloff tried to get straight, but couldn't do it. Already, at the age of 22, Chaloff is presented as a master musician, able to go from band to band on endless tours of one night stands, and still able to shine on every date.

Yeah, I guess it won't hold up in the Organissimo court of law. I declare this a mistrial, and find the defendant Snidero innocent of all charges. Court Adjourned! "But your Honor, I hoid it on the radio!" "Guards, escort this joker out of my courtroom, before I hold him in contempt of court!" "Alright,alright; just don't touch me; I don't like to be touched..."

I'm just saying what he said in the radio interview. I'm not agreeing with him.

I can't believe it, Chambers squeezed out about 300 pages on Richard Twardzik, who lived to be 24, but not including a great discography, Vladimir Simosko only got 97 pages out of Serge Chaloff, who made it to 36! That's not even three pages per year, when Chambers averaged about 42 pages per year on RT. Of course, Chambers included bios of everyone Twardzik ever knew, and stories about RT's dogs, drawings and other important things, but at least he got a fat book out of it!😁

I just heard Fable of Mabel, and that stands up to Blue Serge and Boston Blow-Up as another excellent SC album. He wrote a lot of the tunes on this one, and they're all good. There's even one that Madame Chaloff co-arranged, entitled "Dzot". You can hear the difference Richard Twardzik made in the group on the seven cuts that he plays on, and Johnny Williams was right, RT doesn't make the group swing as much as Russ Freeman does. Freeman also plays some excellent solos, as do Boots Musulli, Serge and Charlie Mariano. There was a rivalry between the musicians of Boston and NYC during the 50s, with the Boston musicians claiming that NYC musicians were thrust into the limelight before they were ready musically, because of all the media coverage, and I'm beginning to think they might have been right. There was never a lack of hype in NYC...

Snidero is the guy who I heard interviewed on WKCR, who throughout the interview claimed he had the one secret about jazz that no one knew about (sounded like clickbait). He finally revealed the secret, which was that jazz musicians work out their solos beforehand. He used as proof the Miles Davis Quintet albums alternate tracks he heard, and claimed that they all played the same basic solos as the tracks used on the albums themselves. I posted about this before, and someone disagreed with me by posting another interview with him, in which he said the same thing, but phrased it differently. As far as in tune alto players, your friend Phil Woods was incapable of playing OOT, unless he was dying of Emphysema on his last albums. Gene Quill,Jackie McLean and many other alto players can't make that same claim.

Wow! I didn't know she was so hardcore. I'm glad she got rewarded with her Band of Gold. She deserved it! Thanks or the info.

Yeah, but no one knew that when she went for her "Band of Gold". A bunch of the rockers were hip to jazz from the 60s Jesse Colin Young had an apt. across the street from the Vanguard. When he did "Ride the Wind," he had Victor Feldman playing vibes with him. Nick Drake played alto sax before he played the guitar. Judee Sill played upright bass with her jazz pianist husband, Bob Harris at clubs in North Hollywood. When they got married in Vegas, they had to play lounges there to afford the trip. Her piano solo on "Enchanted Flying Machines" was worthy of the couples' idol, Ray Charles, who Harris went on the road with for a few years.

James Taylor recently released an album of standards, and is using guys like Steve Gadd in his band. Stevie Winwood got sick of the whole rock scene, and is now performing kind of Latin Jazz tunes that are interesting. Randy Bachman has always been a champion of Lenny Breau, and has sung songs that are the equivalent of jazz bossa novas. Harry Nilsson realized his greatest ambition to put out an album of standards with Gordon Jenkins arrangements. Besides Joni Mitchell's band with Metheny and Jaco, she put out an album of standards backed by an orchestra where her grasp of that idiom was so different than her other stuff, I thought it was some singer from the 50s I'd never heard before. Freda Payne has released albums with big bands, where she sang standards convincingly.

I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but in the Twardzik book someone said his favorite trick in their quartet would be to play a long cadenza at the end of Body and Soul, and undo his belt somewhere in the middle of it, and he'd time his cadenza to end with his low Bb while his pants would drop down to his shoes. What a showman!

Yea, the great ensemble writing and tunes on Boston Blow-Up, plus the fine improvisations of Serge, Boots Mussulli, Herb Pomeroy, and Ray Santisi made Boston Blow-Up more enjoyable for me than Blue Serge. Maybe it was the fact that he was playing with all his buddies from Boston that made Serge play with more abandon than on Blue Serge, where he seemed to be playing more carefully than on Blow-Up and especially the wild Boston 1950 CD, where he was all over the horn. Like you said, one album leads to another, and I'm looking forward to checking out the Boots Musulli Quartet album, and Fable of Mabel LP. I finally found a copy of Serge's biography that I'm expecting to get today, and learn more about him than his rampage on the Four Brothers Band.

I had heard Chaloff a long time ago, and discounted listening to him because of the usual things I don't like about bari players, ponderous low pitch that drives me nuts after I listen to it for too long, overuse of vibrato, no chops, etc... But when I was talking about Richard Twardzik to a friend, he recommended that I buy Chaloff's "Boston 1950". I just listened to it, and couldn't believe it; he was some type of genius on the instrument. Beautiful tone that was almost completely in the upper range of the instrument, great ideas, great chops, no overdone vibrato. I don't know how he did it. As much as I love Pepper Adams, Ronnie Cuber, Nick Brignola and others, I can't listen to them for extended periods of time (i.e. a quartet or trio album) because of the natural ponderous sound of the low pitched instrument. Chaloff seemed to realize this and found some way of overcoming this natural limitation of the instrument. Mulligan realized this, too, but IMHO, lacked the chops, and sound that Chaloff had. I don't know if he plays as well on his studio albums (Boston Blowup and Blue Serge) as he did live here, but I'll check them out. It could be that he had some physical aspect that helped his embouchure (i'e Phil Woods statement that, "I was just a natural") or maybe his famous mother had something to do with it (even though she taught piano), but i was blown away by this album. In the CD booklet, thanks is given to Chuck Nessa, so maybe he had something to do with it. 😁

I just bought this incredible CD, and they're playing off the changes to "Savoy" like you and Jim thought.

LOL! I give up. Can't be any good, Phil Woods plays bells and whistles on it...LOL!

Yeah, he might like PW, too...LOL!