sgcim

A Whole slew of Manny Albam records: er The Drum Suite (RCA Victor, 1956) The Jazz Workshop (RCA Victor, 1956) Manny Albam and the Jazz Greats of Our Time Vol. 1 (Coral, 1957) Steve's Songs (Dot Records, 1958) Jazz Horizons: Jazz New York (Dot Records, 1958) Sophisticated Lady (Coral, 1958) With All My Love (Mercury, 1958) A Gallery of Gershwin (Coral, 1958) The Jazz Greats of Our Time Vol. 2 (Coral, 1958) The Blues Is Everybody's Business (Coral, 1958) Double Exposures (Top Rank, 1960) West Side Story (Vocalion, 1960) I Had The Craziest Dream (RCA Victor, 1961) More Double Exposure (RCA Victor, 1961) Jazz Goes to the Movies (Impulse!, 1962) Brass on Fire (Solid State, 1966) The Soul of the City

Yea, all the NY albums like that are great. Manny Albam made a bunch of albums that are fine. They always had Phil Woods or Gene Quill on lead alto, Eddie Costa on piano and/or vibes or Hank Jones on piano, Clark Terry playing trumpet solos, Bernie Glow playing lead trumpet, and of course the NY rhythm section, Milt Hinton and Osie Johnson with Barry Galbraith on guitar, and Urbie Green on Bone.

Yes, maybe he suspected that the contaminated water there resulted in causing his senseless violence. Astute observation Mr. N.

Whitman left a note before his rampage asking that an autopsy be done on him to find out why he had these homicidal compulsions. The autopsy revealed the brain tumor that some believe caused his homicidal activity. He knew something was wrong with him, but he never found out what it was.

Peter Bogdonavich also made a movie about the Charles Whitman shooting spree called "Targets". Roger Corman told him he could make any movie he wanted to, but it had to use the set Corman just shot a movie on, and had to use Boris Karloff(!) in it, because Karloff was still under contract to Corman for two more days from the movie Corman just made, "The Terror". So PD made a movie a retired horror movie star (BK) receiving an award for his horror career at a drive-in Movie theater, and making a speech about how useless horror movies are now, because real life is much more frightening than horror movies. As he accepts the reward, a real sniper starts shooting people in the audience from a tower. It was so soon after the Whitman shootings, they had to do some editing to to get it relesfed. Recently, someone did an animated documentary about the Whitman shooting spree.

Sadly, the bass player Ellis used on The French Connection", Bill Plummer, died this past year. I found out about it when I saw the premiere of the documentary on Judee Sill in the city. He was Judee Sill's bass player on all her LPs. I was just laughing my head off, because the filmmaker put my name on the credits at the end (special thanks to..) for some research I did for the film, and then the film ended with a dedication to Bill Plummer. I was shocked.

Thank God he got that song away from her husband. CS made it a great song! You can have the original TTK! This one gives my brain a buzz whenever I hear it. There are a lot of names on it, but they don't say who arranged it. Do you two know if Stepney had anything to do with it. Everything is great, except that operatic interlude in the middle. Otherwise, Pop Perfection! The great Henry Lewy was listed as one of the producer/engineers. He did both of Judee Sill's albums, and some of Joni's stuff. A legend.

They were a pretty trippy band. That's why they called her Minnie Tripperton.

Speaking of Les baxter, I was just reading Brian Wilson's 'odd' autobiography, where he said that he loved listening to Les Baxter, because he did all these big productions that sounded sort of like Phi Spector productions"(!) Everything to Brian was either Phil Spector or The Four Freshman.

Thanks for posting all the Percy France stuff. I would have never heard of him if you didn't. I like the way he plays. He's got a lot of felling, and there's not a superfluous note in his solos. As I mentioned before, I worked with Leonard Gaskin in a band, and he had a friend who also played in that same band, and he tried to play in that same style, but he just couldn't pull it off. I never knew where he was coming from until I heard France.

It says that it's out of stock right now, but you can buy it new for $16 and change from Oxfordshire Records. Thanks for the alert!

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!😁