sgcim

What a melodic gift he had, Emily, A Time For Love, The Shadow of Your Smile, just those three would make him qualified to be one of the greatest songwriters of the last half of the 20th Century. RIP, Johnny. In connection with MASH's theme song, the name Ian Freebairn- Smith came up a lot. It turned out that he was one of the vocalists on the original version of the theme, and also a composer/arranger in Hollywood that also did some Hi-Los, and Four Freshman arrangements, and led a similar type of group called The Singers Inc.

Yeah that's him.

Another fascinating show, David! It's sad that the NPR station in NY uses Kevin Whitehead as their 'Jazz Consultant' (who is currently plugging his new book on "Hollywood Movies and Jazz", which seems as vanilla as his regular radio segments) instead of you; people might understand what great jazz is, but they could care less bout that... I've spent the last week writing an arr. of a David Amram piece, and think that he was a great composer/jazz french horn player, but I mentioned his name to a friend once, and he thought of him as a 'charlatan' of sorts. Have you ever heard Amram characterized as such?

Gabor claimed Bad Benson ripped him off on his monster hit of Breezin'- we held a Kangaroo Court and sentenced him to having to play some awful Schoenberg piece. Harsh punishment no doubt, but it fits the crime.

Yeah, it's just this bunch of raving Benson fanatics in some guitar discussion groups I belong to that insist that Benson is the living personification of Bird on the guitar, and ignoring the recordings of players like Raney and Farlow, who were actually present on 52nd St., and would spend every night they could hearing him live and incorporate all of his ideas into their playing. That is the core of my "Upsetment". As Jim said, only a recording of Schoenberg's "Op.24, Seranade for Septet and Baritone Voice" produced by Q. and featuring Bad Benson playing the guitar part would quell my upsetment. Here is an example of Johnny Smith playing it under Mitropoulos: He had to feed the nose....

It's when Benson's name gets linked with Bird that bugs me. There are a bunch of guitarists that think Benson was the greatest exponent of Bird on the guitar, but I don't hear it. Barry Harris has been quoted as saying that Jimmy Raney was the cat who played more like Bird than any other guitarist. Raney played with Al Haig, and he lived that music full-time 24/7 on 52nd Street. Then Benson comes along who was too young to even know who Bird was, and had never even heard him until he was a pro playing with McDuff. And then the "upsetment" intensifies when I read his jive autobiography, and he has the nerve to end the book agreeing with some jerk who says that "Bird destroyed jazz". Everything else is neither here nor there, but when he puts that garbage about the greatest jazz musician that ever lived, IMHO, it's extremely problematic. But don't worry, he's only about 80 now, he'll resurrect jazz from that nasty Yardbird jazz destroyer any day now................................................................................

Yeah, Benson tried to do it once, as he mentions in the book. He got together a great band, with amazing players. They did a gig somewhere or other, and no one showed up. Boom! That was the end of the band. Herbie keeps releasing jazz album after jazz album. I remember buying Benson's album with Joe Farrell, thinking, "How could this possibly be lame- Joe Farrell and George Benson. I used to catch Farrell playing with Sam Brown in the Village, and they'd blow their asses off for twenty minute-long solos. I put the record on, and couldn't believe it- smooth effing jazz- Joe Farrell! Not even one cut where they tried to play the type of stuff Farrell was playing with Sam Brown in the 70s. Duaneiac's interpretation of "destroyed jazz" is hardly what Benson and his admirer were talking about, (although I admire his imaginative, post-modern interpretation ), they were obviously talking about Bird's music not being as easy to dance to as the Swing music that was so popular. Then Benson saved 'jazz' by teaming up with Quincy and "Gave us The Night" "On Broadway", where we be "Breezin' through "This Masquerade" with "The Greatest Love of All"on the dance floor.. And it's not like he isn't a great player (the greatest in many people's eyes), but there's something subtle about his and Rodney Jones' rhythmic approach which funks more than it swings. His voice has such a great timbre, that when he's singing along with his lines, that it comes out as something greater than it would be if he were just playing guitar.

"I said, “You mean Bird?” He said, “That’s it!” “Charlie ‘Yardbird’ Parker.” “Yeah, that’s the name. Yardbird. They said he was going to destroy jazz.” On the way back to the hotel, I thought about what the man said, what the man felt, what the man believed, and you know what? He was right." And we're supposed to believe that the "new, beautiful way" he presents it is better than the way Bird and his followers presented it? The slick, over-produced arrangements of smooth jazz he plays live and on all his albums? If you listen to the lines that he plays and sings, they're hack blues cliches that hundreds of mediocre organ trio guitarists play. When Pat Martino was asked what he thought of Benson as a jazz guitarist, he replied, "He's a pretty good R&B player". Benson's egotism allows him to say, "He was right", because he believes that the way HE puts Bird's ideas to use is better than the way Jackie McLean, Sonny Stitt , Sonny Rollins, Phil Woods, Cannonball Adderly, ad infinitum. because he appeals to the LCD and sells more records, whatever that means anymore. His legacy will be his square, effeminate rendition of "The Greatest Love of All", because he refuses to put out any jazz records, because they don't make a lot of money. If your read the whole book, he drops anything that won't draw large crowds and sell a lot of records. The man who destroyed jazz, meanwhile, has a legacy that shows no sign of ever fading.

The advice on masks from various sources is pretty confusing. The surgical mask box says single use only. Other sources online say that you can wash them, but other sources say that once they're wet, they're useless. I bought a KN95 mask once, and the women pharmacists who sold it, all insisted that you can clean them with soap and water, yet the CDC says they retain viral particles, and should be thrown out after a single use. Some say you should never spray them with disinfectants, and others say a brief spritz is sufficient. Here in NY, supply has finally improved, and I was able to buy 15 masks for $10, so I'm just going to throw them out after a single use, and forget about washing them.

That was a long time ago that he said that. He changed.

I can send you some of the puke if you want me to. I saved it in a jar as proof of Bad Benson's unbelievable egotism.

All I remember about Benson's autobiography was that he agreed with the statement of one of his fans that Charlie Parker destroyed jazz, but that player's like Benson himself were taking Bird's innovations and creating a newer, better type of music. At that point, I either puked, or stopped reading.

You're right about the single-coil pickups Bickert had on his Tele during those recordings. He switched the neck pick-up to a humbucker shortly after Desmond's death. The sound of a single-coil is thinner than the humbucker that Jim Hall used on his ES-175 when he played with Desmond, and he also used thinner strings, so I can understand J.A.W's reaction to the difference in sound between the two quartets, but Bickert was at the top of his game during this period, and easily Hall's equal as both an accompanist and soloist. He 's certainly a better fit for Desmond than Frisell, who is suited to players of a different style.

He died of a bleeding stomach ulcer. Very sad that he died so young. He was a swinging player with very clear ideas..

Santana used one of Gabor's tunes, "Gypsy Queen" on the Abraxas album, as a prelude to "Black Magic Woman". Unlike "Bad" Benson, there was no stiffing of Szabo by Santana. You can hear clear influence of Szabo on the song, "I'm Reaching Out on All Sides" on the band "If's" first album, in the intro and on Terry Smith's guitar solo. Robby Krieger of The Doors, Jorma Kaukonen ("White Rabbit") of Jefferson Airplane, and Jerry Garcia were all influenced by Szabo in the 60s.

Halfway through "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace. It's great reading, but the hundreds of footnotes can make you lose your place consistently. I read Mason and Dixon before this, and while he's not as great a writer as Pynchon, he is easier to read. That doesn't mean he writes for retards, like Dan Brown or someone of that ilk, it just means that he doesn't use as many allusions as someone like Pynchon or Gaddis does. And if he does, there are always the footnotes!

Your CDs gave me a real RUSH!!!

You'd think that they would've mentioned one word about Gabor Szabo(1) in the article. I read a round table discussion with a bunch of jazz guitarists in Guitar Player magazine, and they were talking about their excesses, and Joe Pass mentioned his junk habit, but when it came to Gabor, he said his problem was with excessive sex. Actually it turned out that GS had a bad junk habit that eventually took his life. It wasn't a well known fact; even Larry Coryell told a story in his autobiography about the time that he went to Gabor's place, and he thought it was a riot that he turned this old guy from Hungary on to pot. Little did he know... I read an old Fillmore East program online for the Mothers of Invention concert there for the "Live at the Fillmore East" album in 1971, and they had a little blurb about each member of the band. Under the keyboard player Bob Harris' name, he said that he was most proud of the fact that he was playing in Gabor's group, just before he joined The Mothers. Harris was a lifetime junkie, jazz pianist, so the junk connection probably had something to do with him playing with Gabor. Zappa must have found out about Harris' habit, because he only lasted a few months with The MOI. I'd give anything to hear Harris with Gabor's group, but there are no recordings of that group. Gabor represented the anti-Tal Farlow style of jazz guitar, and he wanted jazz guitar to go in a completely different direction. My fave recordings of his were his astonishing version of My Foolish Heart, with only Richard Davis accompanying him, and some of the stuff with Gary McFarland, where GM would vocalize with his vibes.

Ray was more interesting than most guitar players, because he had a previous career as a sax player.

Yeah, GM would've been perfect for AG. He sure would've been better than Gil Evans; the only one I really enjoy on that album was the one where he just pulled all the horns, and just had one wind player and rhythm. Middle period Jimmy Giuffre would've been a trip- just Jim Hall, Ralph Pena and JG and maybe Brookmeyer (his solo on AG's Aruanda sends tingling from my head down my back just thinking of it; truly nirvana) in his more care-free days.Magic timbres that we'll never hear again. The only people I can think of that had GP's sense of the power of the surprise cadence in a new key were late period Bill Evans, and Chris Dedrick.

19 pages! Il Duce's son and A.J. Sciacca!

Yeah, IMHO, some very perceptive comments by you and Larry about what made GP the Master he truly was. There are people on the scene now like Jacob Collier and Charlie Rosen who are 'kitchen sink' writers; (they throw everything at you but the), and it's better than nothing, as they are reaching a non-jazz audience, but they lack the taste and profundity of GP's thought. Some of GP's harmonic choices remind me of Percy Grainger's comment that he "used harmony in his music to wrench the heart of the listener". Grainger once told the the college where he was teaching, that he couldn't get the greatest composer in the world to appear before the class, because he was no longer alive, but instead he brought the greatest living composer to the school, and his band, DUKE ELLINGTON! GP is always aware of the lyrics of the song, and tries to emphasize what they mean to him in the most profound, deeply felt way. Instead of presenting "I Wish You Love" in the Maurice Chevalier, sophisticated cabaret-style, he literally rips your heart out (with the sublime Bonnie Herman's help) from the very start. A pianist friend of mine wanted to record a song that GP happened to arrange, and I excitedly transcribed GP's profound treatment of the song, figuring that it would be great to do an instrumental version of it, but when I went to his living room studio, he called the tune at a fast tempo, the exact opposite of how GP interpreted it. The arrangement of the song is everything, IMHO. It can turn a bland pop tune into a masterpiece in the right hands. The Beatles had George Martin turn some of their songs into great art through his hard work, the Beach Boys had Brian Wilson do the same, even Arthur Lee used the great arranger David Angel to take Love's "Forever Changes" to a higher level. This is what IMHO GP did with The SU. There are other vocal groups that are tremendously talented; The King Singers, Take Six, and so on, but without a visionary like GP to elevate their material, the result is usually slick impeccable corn.

Sounds like a C11th chord with the F on top in the key of Eb. I've played that song a lot, but nothing can compare what they do with it.

It's incredible that nothing is written about GP in academic circles. I've searched for books, thesis lists, etc.. and come up with zilch. Of course, he's the darling of college vocal jazz group programs, but they tend to go with his more 'cutesy' stuff. I've been transcribing anything by him that hits me, and there's some stuff I've never heard used by anyone before, even Gil Evans. His stuff does translate well into the big band idiom, and I've had success with adaptations of some of his more abstract things that I weld together with my own sections that make it a vehicle for swinging improvisation. One trombone player who played it came up to me and said, "It's... just a great piece". When I mention GP's name to them, they just give me a blank stare.

How can you just walk out of the studio after a session like that? I wonder what Kellaway said about the experience with GP?