sgcim

Yea, last night I brought down one of my charts on a standard that not too many people play, and some of the dudes were wondering what it was. All my charts are meant to propel the improviser into the zone, if they have the means to get there, but the notes have to be there, too. I try to think of writing things that Eddie Costa would play off of; a cat who would go deep into the zone almost always, but the notes would still be there. The alto player was trying to get there, but he didn't quite make it. Then the trombone player, a Swiss cat, Amadis Dunkel, who almost always gets there, just exploded! The cat was playing things that I couldn't even imagine existed, and the room just shot up so high into the zone, I didn't think it was ever coming back. But then the trumpet player (who usually doesn't get the solos, but the regular guy wasn't there last night), just took off like a rocket! On both of those solos i was jumping up and down, yelling out "Yes!" over and over again. Surprisingly, the tenor player who almost always gets there, just couldn't get there note-wise ( maybe because it wasn't a tune he was familiar with), and was anti-climatic solo-wise. Still the band played the schist out of it, and I was in seventh heaven. The al to player came as close a s I ever heard him

Dude had serious chops. I've had thoughts about doing a chart on Sunday in NY, but hearing someone like Mel Torme corn it up just stops me from going over the line. The bridge is pretty weak, too. I did one on a tune in the same groove by John Williams, because there wasn't a weak note in it, but SINY just doesn't call out to me enough. Nero must have done something good with those chops, in a jazz vein. He was admired by Horowitz, Ray Charles, etc... RIP...

Next thing you'll be suggesting Hawaii 5-0 with the drum fill!

Yeah, not obscure enough...

It was said that Tandyn Almer had a hand in writing the title song. Was that true?

I would've written an arr. on that, but it's too well known. Way too well known. I'll only arr. a tune from an obscure movie. One tune was from an obscure movie PLUS it wasn't even played in that movie! How much more obscure can you get than that?

It's a Helluva Town! https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-york/articles/2023-06-29/new-york-lawmaker-injured-at-new-louis-armstrong-center-opening

Today, KCR has their regular Jazz Profiles show with Sid Gribetz instead of that Labeled Show. He talks for about 5% of the time and plays music 95% of the time. Five hours of Carmen McRae. Great show.

You can't get much hipper than that!

About 78% talking to 22% music, just like Phil Schapp!

That was nothing compared to Buddy's plan at Buddy's Place, to have a detective friend of his pretend to arrest Mel, cuff him, and then throw him in the trunk of a police car, and drive around like a maniac for 45 minutes, with Mel rolling around in the trunk! The detective had some semblance of a conscience, and warned Mel to leave the club before Buddy put the plan into action. And then there was the time that Mel called him from a jazz festival he was headlining at, just to say hello, and Buddy said things so horrible that Mel never spoke to him again. My theory was that Buddy was so envious of Mel having a great gig at a festival, and Buddy not having said gig, that Buddy just went off the rails. We'll never know what Buddy said to him, but it hurt Mel like nothing else in his life. Yeah, I know a guy who is so proud of the fact that HE quit Buddy, against Buddy's wishes, he tells me the story every time I talk with him. He met Buddy after that, and Buddy just ignored him.

Yeah, I thank God that I never worked for either one of them, unlike the trail of bass players who were fired on the stand-in the middle of a Buddy gig! That doesn't explain the fact that my ex GF with BPD is still alive. She flirted with death every day of her life!

He did have a black belt, but never underestimate a woman's temper.

I remember talking to a female vocalist about Mel, and she couldn't understand why Mel would do some things that she flipped out over ("That's All", "Pick Yourself Up"), and then the "Velvet Fog" stuff where he'd sound completely different. like a cornball crooner. Sinatra had that same crooner period, and that stuff appealed to teenage girls like my mother, who would cut school and join the other bobbysoxers, going nuts over him at the Paramount. Then when I mentioned Mel, she'd just go "Ooh, the Velvet Fog!" I guess it's true that as Barney Kessel said, the music biz is all about exciting the hormonal glands of teenage girls. Elvis, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, and now Taylor Swift; what do they all have in common? The record companies know what sells, and when Rock&Roll came along, Mel called it "three chord manure", but couldn't fit in with it, so he went back to jazz. He was talented enough at it to make it work, unlike other singers his age. and had a career resurgence. He also wrote five books; one for revenge against Judy Garland for firing him from her TV show, and one bio of Buddy Rich, probably to get revenge against Rich for treating him like a piece of garbage, for reasons only known to BR. Like the NYT Book Review asks: You're organizing a musical dinner party. which three musicians living or dead would you invite and why? Buddy Rich, Mel Torme and Judy Garland, to see who would walk out of the room alive.

I understand what you're saying. He could be the corniest MFer on the planet on some things. Yet on other things he could penetrate your brain like a laser. I guess he was playing to his audience. I love some of the things he did with Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass, yet most of his own albums were corn city. I've never bought any of his records, because I was afraid of that corn infecting my brain. I've always wondered what Buddy Rich said to him on the phone that caused him not to have anything to do with Buddy till he was dying in the hospital, but maybe it had something to do with the cornball quotient.

I dunno. Check KCR- https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wkcr+89.9&t=newext&atb=v357-1&ia=web They call it Jazz Alternatives on their schedule, so I don't know if it will only last till the writer's strike ends. Make that "Jazz Profiles"

What Ken said about his multiple marriages.

Since the passing of Phil Schapp, there's been a serious lack of jazz facts obsessiveness on the air. However a new show, "Labeled" seems to be in contention to match PS' relentless concern over jazz minutia, but narrows its focus to Jazz Labels. I don't know how long its been on, but two 30ish sounding guys play some great stuff, meticulously list the tune's title, composer, personnel and date of recording, and then proceed to tear into everything and anything related to the label it was recorded on! This can include the engineers, the head of the label, the studio it was recorded in, the labels the artist has previously recorded on- basically ANYTHING related to Jazz Labels! Because there are two announcers (one of them is a writer on strike), there isn't a micro-second of dead air as they fight for domination of the subject matter, with one of them constantly giving in, and telling the other that he's absolutely correct, and he has covered the subject perfectly. If you're a jazz label fanatic , your ship has come in. The hours are unclear, but they went from about two or three pm to 7:30 last Sunday, and had to be followed by an Eastern Music show, as i f to say another jazz show would upset the balance of the universe!

A perennial best album cover and title ever.

Yeah, he was a real woman's man...

I don't get it.They were young, beautiful white women in gowns on the TV special- what'd they use CGI?😁

I think that was Rick Moranis on the TV version...

Oops, sorry!

No, I don't know if he was married before then.

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/in-memoriam-jimmy-giuffre-1921-2008-jimmy-giuffre-by-aaj-staff