sgcim

There are two unwritten laws: 1) Whether it's alto or tenor, if you gush for an extended time period about another sax player to a sax player, at some point, he's going to find something wrong with said sax player, no matter how ridiculous it is. Corner me and tell me about how great Joe Pass was for a longish period of time, and I'll say the same thing your friend said about Warne, but in my case, I'd be right. 2) A Jim Sangrey post, by it's very nature, must have some cryptic quality to it.

Thanks! That's the best price I've seen yet, but they get you on the shipping.

Maybe he was referring to his Lester Young influence, if he listened to some old Warne, but it really makes no sense if you listen to the vast body of his work.Your friend probably fell back on the Lester Young thing after you bombarded him with your praise of Warne. This is a common reaction when you tell another saxophonist (or any other instrumentalist) how great another saxophonist plays. His ego could only take so much. I'm surprised he didn't resort to violence. You're lucky he just resorted to irrationality, like I'm prone to do. There was a cult-like attitude on the part of Tristano-ites that was so intense, that one apostate created that hilarious computer-generated stick finger series on You Tube, lampooning their dogma.

A lot of sax players put Warne down for his sound back then.

Yeah, fuck him, if he's gonna mock Warne- he was just tall. another genetic anomaly.

According to a search I did on Desmond's height, he measured 1.63m., which converts to a about 5'4. Some other alto players I worked with who were decidedly small were Chasey Dean, and Lenny(AKA Leo) Sinsgalli ). Lenny was a great player, and extremely talented arranger, who ghost-wrote Tony Bennett charts for Torrie Zito, and many others. Torrie showed up at the Memorial at St. Peters for Lenny, playing piano in the big band that played Lenny's great charts. I've went to memorials for musicians there before, but Lenny's was the only one that was so heavily attended, we had to stand in the back. Lenny was loved by every musician in NY back then. He wrote the jingle for Shaefer Beer ("Shaefer is the one beer to have, when you're having more than one").He was featured on a Claude Thornhill album from 1959 as alto sax player, and co-composer/arranger of "Texas Blues", and also played on a 1951 record of Buddy DeFranco in the sax section with Gene Quill, on alto. The archetypal small alto player in my mind would have to be an excellent player named Chasey Dean. He played on some of Matt Matthews records for Dawn back in the 50s, and was with Phil Woods in the Charlie Barnett band. He put up Phil and Chan for a while after they got off the road with Barnett. He also played with on an album called "College Jazz" in a group that featured Sam Brown on guitar, and Dave Frishberg on piano. Chase must have been about 5'2 or smaller, and reminded me of a Scottish Terrier, because he always seemed to be 'barking' about something. he put out a few self-produced jazz CDs before his death. "Chasin' The Dean" was the title of one of them. I can think of a few tall alto players (Richie Tabnik), but they were obviously just some genetic anomalies that should be encouraged to switch to tenor, to support my theory...

He was an Eyetalian-American, just like me, and on the average they seem to be on the small side.. If he was Sicilian, then he was probably even smaller than 5'7. Come to think of it, alto players seem to be smaller than tenor players. Frank Strozier, Phil Woods, Bird, Lou Donaldson, Cannonball, Steve Slagle, Gary Smulyan (he started as an alto player), Lee Konitz, Richie Cole, Gene Quill and Bud Shank. I don't know about Paul Desmond, and Jackie MacLean. Davey Schildkraut was pretty big for an alto player, but he was playing tenor when I saw him. McPhereson seemed average.

No, I'm pretty sure that's not her, either... I'm also pretty sure her kind probably didn't reproduce, but a niece is a possibility...

I'm gonna have to hunt that one down!

I only bought his LPs if Ed Bickert was on them. "Museum Pieces" etc...

No, I'm pretty sure that's not her, either...

I doubt it, freakier than Graettinger?

Derek Smith went on to say that he left the band shortly after when that psycho started to give him the "Ray". When he replaced his solo feature on "Love For Sale with a drum solo, Derek hit the road. The bad time he gave Phil Woods on the Moscow tour is legendary. It climaxed with Benny trying to embarrass Phil at a rehearsal, and saying to Phil, "So you think you can swing more than me, huh?"

Has the America in Swingtime BG Sextet ever been available commercially? The WNYC program has the added bonus of some great CC on "Flying Home" that the KCR doesn't have. IMHO, the "Blues" cut isn't that interesting as far as CC's solo was, but CC's solos on Flying Home and Gone With What Wind (which is just an up tempo blues) are priceless!!!! Benny could be a real dick about volume, as that story with CC shows. I just finished the Geo. Duvivier bio, Bassically Speaking, and Derek Smith relates the story of Duvvivier's last gig with BG. They were playing with the Quartet in Atlantic City, and Duvivier was using an amplifier. BG told him,"Pops, could you just turn it down a bit". It was at the lowest level possible, but George went through the motions of turning it down. Benny wasn't satisfied, and said again, "Pops, turn it down". So George turned it off, and Benny immediately asked him to turn it down again. Without another word, George packed up the bass and amp, and left. Duvivier called BG's secretary on the way back to NY, and told her to cancel any remaining dates he had with Benny, and told her to tell Benny if he ever called him for a gig, he was "busy for life". LOL!!!!!!!

Nice try, but I'll be creamin' off to Lola Falana there tonight. Ole.

Good god, I emailed Irwin Chusid, and even he, author of "Songs in the Key of Z", said he has never seen a photo of Gail Madden. Chusid's book was where I first heard of Graettinger, and he quotes Carol Easton, author of "Straight Ahead", a bio of Kenton, as saying, "Gale sic Madden looked even freakier than Graettinger", not Bob Whitlock (who was actually quite fascinated with her), who I cited in my previous post. The hunt continues...

WTH? Every time I post something in each category section, one of my old posts comes up! Ignore Harlan Ellison, and check out this link: https://futurism.com/the-byte/jazz-generated-neural-network-terrifying

I've been playing the entire summer with a big band that plays outdoors, and a touring theater company, whose shows are either outdoors, or in theaters. Last night with the big band, the wind was the biggest problem, blowing our music from our stands, because some genius forgot to bring the see-through, plastic, rectangle-shaped music holders that prevent the music from being blown away. It was all worth it, because the lousy lead trumpet player, and the equally lousy lead alto player couldn't make it, and the subs they sent made the band swing like mad. With the numerous shows I've played this summer, there are so many problems that it would take a book to list them all. Here are a few: 1) One bass player decided to drive through Manhattan to get to Jersey, and the traffic was so bad, he called from the entrance of the Holland Tunnel telling the MD that he was turning back to drive back home, and he was cancelling next week too, just out of frustration. 2) At a park show, there were thousand of people in attendance, and two families decided to camp out on the grass and let their little children run around the band area, where one kid knocked over some of the percussionists equipment. Then they started screaming at each other during the most quiet, dramatic moments of the show, creating a feeling that there were two shows going on at once. 3) Thursday night it started to drizzle at the show, and the MD had to play and conduct with a huge blue tarp covering his electronic keyboard, and protecting himself and the score from the rain. He looked like some creature from a horror movie. At the same show, one of the leads slipped and fell on the wet show-mobile metal floor, went straight down, but popped up like a true trooper in a second. The audience let out a collective gasp. They had to add an extra intermission before the end of the first act, so the park's crew could dry off the stage floor. 4) The humidity causes the wood instruments to go out of tune on the outdoor gigs, and i had to re-tune after every number one night.

"And also how nutritious'.

Kenny's latest reply: https://jazztimes.com/blog/jazztimes-exclusive-a-new-statement-from-kenny-burrell/

He didn't look too good. Peter Ind said that his last gig would've been a two alto gig with Lee Konitz at George Wein's Storyville club. Wein wanted to present the two leading altoists together in a quintet. When Bird didn't show up, Ind thought that Bird didn't want to play with them, but then they found out that Bird had died. Ind said he found out years later that Bird's virtually last words were, "I've got to get to that gig, man".

I was finally able to access the dissertation on Mulligan's early career. Thanks again Niko for unearthing it. I think it pretty much covered Madden's involvement with the jazz scene in both NY and California. It pretty much ended when she told Mulligan that she should leave him so he could develop on his own, without her encroaching on his freedom. Unfortunately, without her help, Mulligan went back on heroin, and wound up in jail. This leaves us with only two questions: 1) What became of her after splitting with Mulligan? We only have Quasimodo's recollection that she was running a small motel somewhere in LA in either the 50s, 60s or 70s. 2) What did she look like? We know she was a model, so she must have been good looking. We know she had big boobs, because Jerry Lloyd got kicked out of a rehearsal when he started making jokes about her tits bouncing up and down when she played the maracas. And finally, we know, "according to Bob Whitlock, she was even freakier looking than Bob Graettinger"!!!!!!!!!!! If you've ever seen pictures of Graettinger, that alone should justify interest in seeing a picture of her. I was told by someone on another forum, after he had done an unsuccessful search on her, to use my imagination, but that will not suffice. Hence, I challenge the brilliant jazz minds of Organissimo: "Bring me the head of Gail Madden!"

Damn, i could use that big blonde to protect my guitar when I take breaks on some outdoor gigs I got coming up. I'm gone down to post bail for that big mama!

RIP, Joao. Gary Burton's autobiography has some funny stories about working with Getz and Joao in the 60's. They were performing at Carnegie Hall, and Joao was afraid of walking in the streets of NYC for some reason, and they had to rent him a room that was right next to Carnegie Hall. Then they had to rent a limousine or something to drive him ONE BLOCK to the stage door, and rush him in!

I've just started on "Bassically Speaking: An Oral History of George Duvivier" by Edward Berger. A great book about a GREAT man. There are many interviews done with some of his contemporaries, including a lot of input from another great bass player and man, The Judge, who tells the real story behind the arrangement of Bobby Darin's massive hit, "Mack the Knife". It turns out Judge, Hank Jones, Osie Johnson and Barry Galbraith came up with it in the studio, and didn't get arranger's credit for it. Instead, credit was given to some POS who had nothing to do with it, and he had the nerve to complain about not winning a Grammy for it. Hinton, Jones, Johnson, and Galbraith got their standard pay for the session, $41.25!!!!!! This wasn't an isolated incident....