sgcim

He was utter perfection in HTSIB (WRT)! RIP, Mr. J.Pierrepoint Finch. We saw the world premiere of it at Radio City Music Hall. Seen it a million times since then. We need another Frank Loesser....

Long refractory period.

I remember playing that tune with a pianist who had been on the road with Chet baker for 8 months, and was featured on the Woody Herman album "East Meets West>, but had just just received his doctorate in Musical Theory. He lectured us on how the tune was the most perfect miniaturization of Sonata Form in the history of music. We all just nodded our heads as if we understood what he was talking about.

Yeah, that's considered the gold standard in jazz guitar on accompanying a vocalist. My father had that album in his record collection in his basement record collection. I remember taking a daring 'expedition' in the middle of the night when I was a kid, because the album cover had a quite risque photo of Julie London's cleavage. I sneaked down the stairs, and found the album in the middle of all his Tony Mottola albums, and brought it up to my bedroom, and made love to Julie London under the sheets. Then I cleaned up, and brought the album back down to it's place among the Tomy Mottola albums. I remember worrying that he might notice some strange looking stains on the LP cover, but he never said anything. Illya Kuryakin had completed another successful mission...

LOL! That was the issue. I probably got it from the library. Some friends of mine got so sick of the "New Stars" column they had at the end of DB, they made up a story about some teenage 'Wunderkind',and it got printed! It was back in the 80s, so I don't remember any of the details, but it was really funny.

I remember buying a Downbeat with HM on the cover saying, "The only way to make any money in the music business is to go into the Band uniform field." I should thank him for waking me up from my idealism by wishing him HAPPY 98TH BIRTHDAY, Henry!

Red Norvo with Jimmy Wyble in Screaming Mimi (1958).

The dude never sounded bad, even the CTI ones.

This was reviewed today by Kevin Blank- I mean Whitehead on Fresh Air.

I'd like to think that Leo would be proud of you- but he was so weird, predicting his reaction to anything was fairly problematic...

Can you post a link to your album?

I remember seeing a Mann album in a record store that I'm pretty sure was a live album that had Joe Puma on it. In the liner notes Mann seems to be commenting on the album some time after the album was made. He raves about Puma's playing, and talks about how much he misses Joe, and even asks the question, "Joe, where are you? It's like you've disappeared from the face of the earth!" I've spent 30 years looking for this album with no luck. None of Mann's live albums seem to have Puma on them. Anybody know this album?

Lightening Striking by Lenny Kaye

Bill Evans composed an Octet for Winds when he was studying composition in college. His son Evan emailed me that he was going to try to get it recorded someday.

Cassavettes used Mingus for Shadows.That was about it AFAIK.

I heard the Paul Shaffer one. I think he tried to play "Emily". It was pretty sad. He must have been relieved when Letterman told him when he was hired for the job to not play any jazz. Letterman hated jazz. You should get some type of organissimo prize for this Ken. You're the best!

It's been done a zillion times already.

My big band writing thing over the lock down went into covering things by rock cats in the 60s who were also jazz dudes. So I wound up writing charts on bands and people like Tandyn Almer, Bob Bruno, Ian McDonald (KC),If, Judee Sill (the female Brian Wilson), The Free Design, and Nick Drake. One thing by Nasciamento, too Four Yanks and three Brits. They have to lend themselves to improvisation. Brian Wilson just didn't write anything that went that way. Most pop and rock writers didn't. Just like Sondheim. I could have went to The Beatles, or something fagatronic like that, but it's been done before. One thing you can say about the 35 or so charts i wrote over COVID time is that they've never been done by a big band before, or they've never been done the way I did them if they were done by a BB.

Mainly for the Brits here, some hilarious stories of the British music studio scene, as Vic Flick gets revenge on everyone from George Martin to John Barry to Jimmy Page. https://www.amazon.com/VIC-FLICK-GUITARMAN-BEATLES-BEYOND-ebook/dp/B00N2Y2YAA

New film about one of the pioneers of free form radio on WBAI, Steve Post:

Because of your profile pic, I think I was confusing you with the author of that book on Crime and Spy Jazz, who worships the ground JB walks on. I was surprised to find out that he didn't write the Bond Theme, that Flick became famous for; it was settled in court that Monty Norman wrote it. JB and Flick got together and worked out an arrangement of it, but Flick didn't get a cent for the guitar lick. Norman made hundreds of thousands of pounds, JB made millions from the spin-off, and Flick made seven pounds ten shillings!jj In "From Russia With Love", Flick came up to a part marked "Solo, E minor", but the orchestra stopped playing. He asked JB what to do. "It's a Gypsy encampment- think of something" he replied, with that-leave-it-up-to-the-sideman-the-royalties-are-all-mine look in his eyes. Flick watched the scene and improvised something to it. Again, no royalties. In a film JB was writing called "Deadfall" the producers wanted JB to write a guitar concerto for a scene taking place next to a concert hall where the bank robbers were robbing a bank. He called Flick over to his pool, and JB was lying on a chaise lounge with his eyes closed, conducting with his right hand. Flick said hello, and after asking Flick how he was doing, JB handed him a little sketch. JB said, "This needs to be scored for guitar- make it last about five minutes with lots of variation and plenty of big chords." Flick worked on it for a few days, and gave it to JB. The film came out to good reviews, and the classical guitar soloist who played the part was interviewed in the paper. She said, "JB's score is beautiful, and he is a master of writing for the guitar. His guitar music was a joy to play." JB gave no credit to Flick.

BTW, I'm finishing up the book Vic Flick autobiography "Guitarman", and he has some very unflattering things to say about your boy John Barry. One time EMI wanted to make him the "next Duane Eddy", and JB told them, "No, he's under contract with The John Barry Seven", which was complete BS! He spends quite a few pages getting revenge on JB, as well as many other people in the UK music business. There are also some hilarious stories of the numerous blunders in the British recording studios of the 50s and 60s. He even lets "Sir" George Martin, The Beatles, Jimmy Page, Streisand, Shirley Bassey, CILLA BLACK(!), and many others have it- of course in a very gentlemanly way. I think he was quite upset about too many people saying 'Vic who?'

Da Shadow know...

Once those guys from Birdland, where Smith used to play (Bird was one of his biggest fans), got their mitts on you, you could never escape. Read "Moonlight in Vermont- The Johnny Smith Bio" for the whole story. One time Smith went over TR's house to pick up some money that TR owed him, and he watched as TR went into his closet and pulled out a few hundred dollar bills from a suitcase stuffed with them.

Thanks for the link and good review, Ken. I found his playing much more refined and less frenzied than his Virtuoso recordings, especially that lousy first one where he played an electric hollow body guitar into a mic without also using an amp or plugging into the board. He also let the time go, to the extent that you couldn't tell where he was in the tune on most of his improvisations. When I was in grad. school some idiot student thought he was helping the rep of jazz guitar by loaning the classical guitar teacher that album. The teacher hated Pass' playing so much on that album that,he let out a string of curses in a violent tone of voice to describe it. I made a mental note, "don't loan any jazz guitar albums to this boy..."