sgcim

Wild stuff! Thanks!

I started off the pandemic writing arrangements of all of my original tunes, then went on to obscure jazz standards and movie themes' that no one has done for big band, then standards that I had original harmonic/rhythmic ideas on, then standards that the greats (Puerling, among others) had great ideas on (that I could steal- you can't copyright arrangements), and now I've reached the point where I'm using tunes from other genres whose composers had jazz roots. So far I've hit up rock tunes from bands like The Association, Circus maximus, Nick Drake, Judee Sill (!), If, Manhattan Transfer, Steely Dan and Traffic. All these songs have great harmonic/melodic/rhythmic features to them that make them the equal of any other good tunes, and I also love them. Does anyone have any suggestions of NON- standard tunes that they think might work for big band?

Thanks for the link. He had a crazy career. He was a fine arranger, too. He wrote this fantastic overture for S & Y , that was giving me harmonic orgasms as I played it. The fourth night of the gig, he told us we weren't playing it anymore. I asked him why. He said those two cornball azzholes said it was too "Symphonic".(!) I still had some optimism back then about the music business, and I told him it was a great piece, and offered to beg S & Y to put it back in. He said something like, "Forget it, kid.You're gonna find out that most people have no idea what good music is about (or something to that effect). Boy was he right about that! Early education...

Speaking of "the indisputable leader of the band", one of my first big gigs when I was about 18 or 19 was playing at a big NY theater for Sandler & Young. Their MD was the guy who did Benny's voice in "Top Cat", Leo De Lyon (who knows what his real name was) , and he used to break me up doing Benny's voice on breaks. He could also whistle and sing Bach two-part Inventions! They brought in Bernie Glow to play lead trumpet, and Charlie Fowlkes was on bari. Some guy in the audience was a friend of Leo's, and he came up to him after the show and told him he saw him with his wife in Florida. Leo told him, "That wasn't my wife", but the guy kept insisting that he was putting his arms around her and all. Leo answered again, "I know, but that wasn't my wife". The guy looked at him like he couldn't believe it. I realized that my innocence was gone, and there was no turning back; I had just entered the world of show biz scandal!

Dupes of "Wide Range" were being passed around the bunch of musicians I work with, and Quill's sound on that recording was so rich and full that we're still not sure if it was Phil or Quill playing.

Great sound on that recording.Some of the JR records I've heard sounded out of tune, or poorly recorded. He must have sold his soul to Diablo to get that type of sound out of the band.

Sounds like Sergio Mendes on LSD.

Played at my cousin's backyard memorial Saturday. I thought it would be a solemn affair where her friends would tearfully read touching poems written about her, through their KN95 masks. Just the opposite- they were doing maskless shots the whole night! Then they found a mic, and some maniac followed my 'exquisite' Duke Ellington medley with "Sympathy For The Devil", reading the lyrics through his cell phone and screwing up the melody five times each line. My B-I-L, who runs a Health Center in MA, was the only one who came in with a mask, but it was off in 20 minutes, after he got crocked on shots, and he led the whoo whoos in SFTD. My aunt is a devout catholic, and I wondered how she was taking a song about satan being played at her daughter's Memorial celebration, but I was laughing so hard I didn't care. At the end of the night she slipped me $100 in cash, so i guess she didn't mind too much. I found myself leading an Irish sing-a-long when a bagpipes player dressed in a kilt came up and played the real Irish schlitz. The wild revel petered out after 6.5 hours, and five days later, and no word about any infections. I was at 98.6 last night, so it looks like the vax works.

Chocolate was my fave flave of Necco's. It's lucky that they're online; I have self control over buying things online.

I think it's time that this fine WKCR jazz DJ got a thread of his own, after 40 years of his Sunday afternoon show "Profiles in Jazz" which centers on one artist for five hours. Ed Beech had a similar show on WRVR in its heyday, which lasted shorter, but was on five nights a week. Gribetz, a Family Court Judge in the Bronx for over 20 years(!), always does a well researched show without the unrelenting verbal assault that is typical of another DJ at the station, yet still offers enough verbal information to clearly describe the artist's career. He offers a wide selection of artists that goes well beyond the usual ones that have been played to death, ensuring an interesting show every week. Today he is doing a show on George Wallington, and has brought in records from his incredible collection that illustrate every phase of GW's career. By the end of one of his shows, you have been exposed to enough of the artist's output presented chronologically to fully appreciate that artists style. ,

A keyboard player I worked with a lot was MD for Jack Jones for a while, and he said JJ was the most musician friendly singer he ever worked with. There was nothing he wouldn't do for members of his band. In fact, for JJ to have kept this dude as his MD for any length of time, revealed that JJ mist have been pretty out there, because the keyboard player was way out there. He got picked up by the police in Atlantic City, just for looking dangerous, was voted "Most Likely to Become a Serial Killer" by his senior class, and once knee dropped my amp almost overboard on a cruise gig we were playing. He overheard me putting down one of the changes he played, and then attacked my amp, and threatened to send me overboard too when I started yelling at him. I'm 99.9% sure he's no longer with us, and judging by the age the online obit said he died at, the rest of us in that band figured somebody must have put out his lights. Those High C's JJ kept hitting were pretty out there, and the tenor solo was good. You can't say much good about the Joe Beck/Sinatra thing. Even Ethel Merman was trying to climb on the disco bandwagon!

Notice that he stayed mainly in the low register on his solo To express his time during the day spent underground in his crypt. He was supposed to be the bass player on "Blues For Dracula", but they held the sessions during the daytime. This situation convinced Frid to leave the jazz scene, and his friend Robert Cobert got him the DS gig, which was shot only at night.

It turned out my Super had never received a vaccine shot. He was about to get his first shot the day before he was tested positive. He's not contagious anymore, so he installed the cheap POS bathroom sink/vanity I bought for $248. I greeted him at the door with a mask and gloves on, and he said, "What are we in China?" The poor guy is a long hauler, so I didn't try to chew him down when he asked for $100 for the installation. He had to go down to his place and get O2 after he finished the job. I visited my 94 year-old dying uncle last week, and just came back from his funeral and the social gathering we had afterwards. No one had masks, not even my retard sister who refuses to get vaxxed, because Gary Null told her it was dangerous. I ignored the retard for four hours, until she went back to her shithouse in Staten Island. My cousin also hasn't gotten vaxxed yet either (because she's afraid...), and she wanted to hug me goodnight, and I told her I don't hug anyone who hasn't gotten vaxxed, and she told me she was gonna get vaxxed. I told her I'd hug her after she got vaxxed. Saturday, I've got to play some Irish tunes for a Memorial gathering for my cousin who died of cancer a year ago. These are the first large gatherings I've been to in over a year.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about "Emily" and "Spartacus" here. While they indeed have the same first six notes of their melodies, and are both waltzes, Spartacus is in a minor key, hence giving it a tragic quality, while Emily is in a major key, and has a kind of prettier, lighter quality. However, on the Bill Evans/Jeremy Steig LP, Bill Evans adds a parallel major section that, AFAIK, was not in the original Alex North score.This genius move on the part of Evans (or whomever first thought of it) makes it a wonderful blowing vehicle, which is what BE's harmonic choices are all about. This change gives a sense of triumph to the song, as if a victory has been achieved over some some dark force, which Emily lacks, so that's another way to differentiate it from Emily. I wrote a big band arrangement of Spartacus (along with about 25 or so other songs (originals and obscure movie themes/standards) over the pandemic, and hopefully in Sept. we'll start playing again, and I'll be able to hear it played by real instruments,instead of the synthesized accordion sounds of MuseScore.

The funny story I read in the Geo. Russell bio that I may have mentioned before, was that Miles couldn't cut the EZZ-Thetic head, because he was strung out (or whatever), so he tried to sneak out of the recording studio before they played it. Russell's wife was at the exit. and latched on to him like a pit bull, until George and the guys dragged him back in there. George gave Miles a simple descending line to play in whole notes, and Lee played the heck out of the head, and played a great solo on the LFS changes. I can never get enough Lee in the 50s, but he said to a friend of mine that the Kenton tour messed him up, and that he was never the same since.

IMHO, Norman was probably the greatest jazz accompanist that ever lived. His work with Betty Carter and Joe Williams was perfection. Rest In Peace, Brother.

I can't wait!

Who kicked you out?

He once described his music as bebop adapted to pop music!

Yeah, I always wanted to hear some of Vladimir Duchevsky's 'serious' music. Anyone who could write Autumn in NY must have written some interesting stuff.

TTK BACK IN DA HOUSE! Fascinating interview with a guy who was sideman on a bunch of records, who I always wondered about. Good to hear he hated Schoenberg's music when he was at Julliard. That chamber piece he wrote for Count Yorga sounded like a great piece of music. I was completely unaware that he scored the Yorga movies and the film that featured hippies treating a vampire as their guru, "Deathmaster", in addition to the Blacula sequel. I'm going to look for his autobiography to find out more. Thanks!

Here's another thing that Bill did on Contemporary that I never heard, and it's just one movement of four, with him playing clarinet! I don't know why he wasn't considered the next Buddy DeFranco PLUS Geo. Russell, Gil Evans, etc..This thing was done by Shelly Manne back in 1956. Some clarinet player named McGuiness recently recorded the whole thing and videotaped it. I asked my friend who received the Grand Prix in Rome along with Bill in the 60s, and he never heard of the chamber music LP you mentioned on Contemporary. Here's Mike McGinnis playing it live:

I was just talking to a trumpet player friend of mine who went on the road with Lionel Hampton ("Gates") back when Curtis was playing with the band. Gates would play all the well known crowd pleasing stuff on most gigs, but when they played Detroit, he wouldn't use any of the white players,except my friend, who had an Afro back then. Gates figured the people wouldn't know what the hell he was! They'd change their repertoire, and play stuff like "Moment's Notice", and my friend would have to play it with Curtis, scared as hell! He said Curtis paid him a compliment (kind of) by saying he had a weird way of playing, but it works. RIP, Curtis.

Yeah, Lennie and Chet were very close friends. When Lennie died ( police think that he was strangled and dumped in a pool) Chet couldn't even talk about it without breaking down and crying, as he did during the documentary on Lennie made by his daughter.

I never knew they did these things live. #1 I don't get involved in Middle Eastern politics #2 Disliked, I don't care who it is. #3- The great Lennie Breau. He went on the road with her, so this must be a tribute to her. Only Lennie could play those false harmonics so quickly in chords, so it's got to be Lennie. #4 - That's got to be Ray Crawford on guitar Benson couldn't play that well if a gun was pointed at his head, and it's not Burrell or Green. Great cut! #5- ATTYA There are so many great lines you can play on a fifth fall chain. Just listen to Bach. #6 Great cut! If Jim said JG, then it's either him or someone on his level. Masters all! #7- Who cares? #8-Definitely Quincy and all the NY boys. Phil and Urbie or Cleveland take no prisoners. #9- Some of the things he did with Emily reminded me of The Peacocks, so maybe Jimmy Rowles, or someone influenced by him? Very conservative rendition, but good.