sgcim

The 21st Century Schizoid Band Live in Japan concert had some nice re-workings of stuff from McDonald and Giles, along with some stuff from "Road Eyes" and Giles' great (and only) album as a leader.

That vocal part sounds like it would've been good for Exorcist 2: Heretic.

Me? Lose a Yahtzee game? Surely you jest. I was declared a Yahtzee Master by my mommy and my friends. Now I don't even remember how to play it, but it would just take one game to restore me to my former glory. It would just take one Amtrack ride (unless he's defunded that, too) and then after the tournament, we could break in to your Alma Mater and uh, borrow those Puerling scores, so I don't have to transcribe anymore. Are you packing? We could get Chuck or TTK as our getaway driver.

R.I.P I liked when he had the quartet with Leo Wright, and the work he did on piano with Diz. He had Jimmy Raney on `the Samba Para Dos album that Mike posted, and the Brilliance album, too. I just fought through the protesters and the cops again at Columbia to pick up his autobiography, "Mission Impossible: "My Life In Music". Haven't started it yet, but Raney isn't in the index. Should be fun to read his version of "The Exorcist" mess. I've already read Friedkin's side of the story.

I used to love to play it with my mommy. I was very good at it. I'll drop over the house and play you $100 a game.

Yeah, that's a fifty piece ensemble! I checked out a live concert on YT of the 21st Century Schizoid Band in Japan. and that seems to be the only place where he wrote arrangements where he and Mel Collins could play jazz sax solos on a few of their songs that lent themselves to jazz improvisation. His playing is fine, but it lacks the spontaneous feeling of the 1969 concerts. Mel really impressed me with his playing on a couple of his features. Michael Giles was the real instrumental star of the show with his constant fills. They couldn't capture the crisp sound of his snare drum that he had on the first KC album, which was a shame, but I don't know whose fault that was. Although the 21st CSB can degenerate into nostalgia, it's probably the only place you can hear Ian on alto playing jazz. The only other choice is to go searching through the 26 CD(!) Box set of KC, when Ian still saw himself as primarily a jazz sax and flute player, influenced by John Handy and Eric Dolphy, as he said in his press kit. They feature interviews with each member of the band on the YT 21stCSB Japan concert,, and Ian says that he sees himself more as a record producer than anything else, and I guess that sums up why he never pursued any semblance of a jazz career. Thanks for replying!

You have earned your freedom. Now dance the hell outte here!

I don't even remember what I posted above that is now unavailable on YT, but someone put up the "Epitaph, Live 1969" recordings, and I finally got a chance to hear Ian McDonald' sax playing, and just like Chris Albertson's DB review said back in 1970, IM, indeed does sound like a John Handy/Eric Dolphy- influenced player. Not only that, but he sounds fantastic! This explains why Fripp started crying when Michael Giles and IM told him in SF that they were quitting the band, and Fripp's offer to quit the band if they would stay in the band! This was verified by two commenters on the YT video I'm about to post, who said that the public version of why IM quit the band (hated touring) was not the real reason why he quit KC; it was Fripp's playing that was driving him insane! IM said that he wanted to play happier sounding music than the deafening, dark music that Fripp wanted to push the band to play. This was verified by a documentary on KC in which IM made those comments. Whether Giles felt the same way, is unknown, but he had the same hatred of touring that IM said he had. If IM hated touring so much, why did he help form the horrible Foreigner soon afterwards? They toured even more than KC. The obvious reason was for the money. All of that doesn't explain why Ian never played jazz alto on any sideman record dates that I'm aware of. Unlike Dick Morrissey, who played in IF and The Morrissey/ Mullen Band, DM still played a ton of jazz dates also. But when I look at Ian's sideman credits on All-Music, they're all for fusion and or rock bands, none for jazz groups. Even when he released his only album as a leader, "Drivers Eyes" there was none of the incredible alto playing that he did on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi8x9OsJnEY&list=PLXhfRoiJBIisO5XAgsF3Ah9BXbJbsr-yk They do a full blown jazz performance on cut #13 of the concert, with Lake walking and doing his own version of 'jazz' singing on the song, and the next cut "A Man, A City". I'm going to check out Judy Dyble's "Harpsong" from "Talking With Strangers", and see what he did with The 21st Cetury Schizoid Band", to see if he did anything other than I Talk To the Wind on flute. If you can think of any other recordings he did on alto sax, please let me know!

We've already had an official reading of the lyrics, and the word "dance' is not mentioned once. Case closed. Guilty on all charges.

First of all my video had a dance scene. Yours did not. There is no second of all.

R.I.P "Lightening Strikes" should have been nominated for an Oscar for "Best Rock Tune For a Dance Scene in a Horror Movie At a Halloween Party"

I just had the first public performance of my derangement of the theme from "Chinatown" for big band and solo trumpet, by a former student of Uan Rasey, the guy who played it on the OST. I never saw the trumpet player smile so much; it was kinda scary. It probably had sentimental meaning for him, due to the fact that he studied with Rasey. I just found out that Fats Navarro studied with Rasey for a short time, when UR stayed in NY for a short time while waiting for his flight to Europe.

Yeah, I never got it straight if it was only the Four Freshmen that he listened to, or if he also listened to the Hi-Los. It was probably just the Four Freshmen.

RIP.

RIP. Great songwriter/ vocal arranger, inspired by The Four Freshmen

A friend of mine told me about this. Anyone have any more info?

Just finished Dameronia, Great book. On "Fats Navarro His Life and Music" now.

I found a book about Joe Wilder that mentioned Talbert, but that was on the East Coast. On the West Coast, he had a lot of competition from Giuffre, Mulligan and everyone that wrote for Kenton. He tried to get some charts to Kenton, but Kenton didn't play them. Then he finally played one of them, and everyone liked it so much, Kenton used it as his closing tune for gigs.

Thanks for the link! One of the central theses of the book is that Talbert was the founder of what became known as West Coast Jazz. I wonder if he's mentioned in that regard in any of the books about West Coast Jazz (Ted Gioia, etc..)? The book was supposed to have a CD in it that included Talbert recordings from 1949-1999, limited to his own compositions due to copyright laws. Two cuts from the album you posted a link to are on the CD, that feature the musicians in California that were most devoted to him; Jack Montrose and Johnny Barbera on tenor sax, Harry Betts, trombone, and John McComb on trumpet, a musician that Talbert said was "way ahead of Chet Baker. Chet copied him (McComb) and never had the lyricism of John at his best". Talbert also said that "Howard McGhee never got the credit for being the innovator he was- he was Twenty times the player that Miles Davis was." Other musicians that were in Talbert's band on the West Coast were Jimmy Pratt and Art Pepper. I played at a jazz festival where Pratt played in the festival band, and he was the best drummer I ever saw live. I don't know what became of him. Warne Marsh also played in Talbert's band, along with Milt Bernhardt on trombone, so one could see that along with Talbert's contrapuntal writing, his band might have started the style of music we now call "West Coast Jazz". Talbert ran out of work in LA, and in 1950 took off for NY. Kenton took things over in LA. Here's an example small group writing that Talbert did in NY:

I found some of Talbert's stuff from the 50s

RIP to one of the all-time greats.

Just finished the book Larry mentioned on Tom Talbert. When I was a kid, my father had the "Bix, Duke and Fats" album laying around the house, and it was before I had any interest in music, other than listening to 45s like "Snoopy Vs The Red Baron" over my best friend's house. I don't think my father trusted me with his Harmon-Karden set yet, buried in the frightening unfinished basement. I always wondered who the hell Thomas Talbert was. In the decades that passed, I never heard a word about him. I just happened to find the book in Columbia U's library, and fought past the cops and demonstrators with the book clutched in my little hands. I was astonished to find two of the greatest players I ever worked with, Aaron Sachs and Eddie Bert not only recognized for their incredible prowess as musicians, but even interviewed in the book. I had considered Aaron a close friend of mine musically, but he never mentioned Talbert once to me. Also included was Bobby Tricarico, a former teacher of a sax player friend of mine, who along with Talbert, Sachs and Barry Galbraith was part of that circle of NY's elite musicians who played on the two albums Talbert made in the 50s. I haven't heard any of the stuff that Talbert did during his comeback phase in LA, but if you've heard it, is it on the same level as his great 50s stuff? TIA

Did you mean Musil's "The Man Without Qualities"? I never made it through that one either, but I loved Infinite Jest. It got me through the lock down. Can't wait for Pynchon's new book coming out in October; he's 88 years old. It's about the Big Band Era in 1930s Germany, among other things...

Wow! I just saw this post today. Does anyone know how Larry is doing? If he's okay, I'd like to take him up on his offer. If he's not okay, don't bother him. Let's all pray he's doing better.