sgcim

I'll always remember him as the first horn player to record a small group version of Raksin's sublime theme from 'The Bad and the Beautiful', and make it sound effortless and expressive as hell. I play with a decent trombone player who's been trying to play it for the last ten years, and can't even make it through the bridge. RIP, Urbie...

"Chops" with Joe Pass: https://www.allmusic.com/album/chops-mw0000104426

It might be fun for them to listen to some of the simpler Chico Hamilton sides with Fred Katz, and get the kids to play them together, with the uke playing the guitar part, and the alto playing the alto part. Maybe they could find some of their friends to act as rhythm section. But Fred Katz made some cello records on his own that the kid might enjoy. Alto player Hal McKusick made an album with four cello players, "In a 20th century Drawing Room" that's been re-issued on Lone Hill Jazz as "Hal McKusick Quartet; The Complete Barry Galbraith, Milt Hinton, and Osie Johnson Recordings". A very enjoyable album with good arrangements by Manny Albam.

Sorry, forgot. Bley is featured playing also back in 1962.

WNYC broadcast a four hour special on the Jazz Loft Project this morning, containing more in depth material on Monk, Hall Overton, Eugene Smith, and never before heard sessions with Chick Corea from 1962. This time you actually hear full conversations with Monk and Overton, as they discuss the scoring of the Monk Big Band Town Hall Concert, with Thelonious walking around in circles periodically, banging his shoe loudly on the floor. There's a lot of commentary by the few living musicians (Steve Swallow,Paul Bley and Ron Free) who played there, and also old tapes of the non-living ones. here's all four hours: https://www.wnyc.org/story/jazz-loft-anthology/

The Traveler, Perry Robinson's autobiography. It's really out...

The episodes are only 25 minutes long, but they seem twice as long due to the non-stop dialogue, unintentional(?) humor, supernatural mumbo jumbo and the confusion of three serial killers in competition with each other. It's not as sophisticated as the Korean or Japanese stuff, but it's hyper as hell, and a crazy experience. I forgot to mention "Struggle" a doc on Netflix about Szukalski, a once-famous Polish sculptor, whose work was destroyed in a Nazi bombing of Poland, and found himself living in Burbank. Pretty good if you're interested in sculpture, mad geniuses, and 20th century polish history.

Netflix just put some interesting foreign things out. "Parfum" (Perfume), a twisted German modernization in six parts, of the novel written by Suskind in 1985. It was made into a film before in 2006, but this version updates it to modern Germany, and changes the plot a great deal. It originally took place in 17th Century France. They also added an insane Hong Kong series called "Demon's Path', which is strange beyond belief.

A pianist I play with a lot, studied with Andy for six years, and the first thing Andy told him was, "After studying with me, you'll be playing so many reharms, you won't be able to get a gig in any club in New York!" His words proved to be prophetic...

I just heard this Norwegian composer for the first time on WKCR yesterday, and enjoyed the short orchestral pieces they played of his. I had to leave the car before they announced the title of the piece. I guess it was some type of orchestral Suite. Anybody know what piece it was? On Wiki, they said that 4/5 of his work was destroyed in a fire in 1970, but they've been trying to put together what pieces they can by individual orchestra parts, transcriptions, etc... Which of his pieces was considered his greatest work? Was it lost in the fire, or reconstructed? I tried to get to his website, but wasn't allowed because I didn't have the right software. TIA

A band I was in on Lawnguyland used to play at the North Hills Country Club, where Whitey Ford was at a lot of the gigs, completely bombed out of his mind. I explained to him how I used to model my wind up and cross armed pitching style after him, and he just kinda looked at me with a glazed look in his eyes...

Wow! Very nice, but you've got to remember that the Monkees were a Hollywood recreation of a rock group, and they had studio guys, songwriters, and arrangers that were superb musicians. Gene Puerling's roommate in the Hi-Los was writing vocal arrangements for The Association ("Cherish") , Harry Nilsson was writing songs for them, so who knows who was involved in this arrangement... Nesmith seemed to be the only member of the Monkees that wasn't just about show biz. He opened up his own recording studio, and recorded some pretty hip people there. Judee Sill's last album was recorded there, but she OD'd before they could add any string or orchestral tracks to it,( or mastering), so it was essentially just a demo tape. They got Jim O'Rourke to do some work on it, but I don't think it was what JS would've wanted done.

Yeah, it's 12 bars, but I hear that B natural in the 4th bar as leading to the ii chord, Cm7, which he plays instead of the IV chord Eb7, then he plays the standard blues changes. In the second chorus he does what Jim said, uses the tritone sub E7 to get to the IV chord. In any event, I'm glad he passed his civil service exam...

I thought it was from some obscure album from the 60s,.but it just came out this year! My bad.

Wow! Very nice, but you've got to remember that the Monkees were a Hollywood recreation of a rock group, and they had studio guys, songwriters, and arrangers that were superb musicians. Gene Puerling's roommate in the Hi-Los was writing vocal arrangements for The Association ("Cherish") , Harry Nilsson was writing songs for them, so who knows who was involved in this arrangement...

Hi Holger! One reason it sounds weird is because he's not playing off the blues form like all the other solos on the tune. It's some type of weird little section of turnarounds they added for the piano. He does use some Monkish descending runs, but it sounds weird because he keeps playing the flat two note (the third of the VI7 chord in the turnaround) when we expect to hear some type of blues progression.

I remember buying DM's baseball card, and it said he was a jazz organist. I wonder who the guitarist was? Probably that guy from Motown. DM, well he can play a mean chromatic scale...Marty Kallao on guitar.

Yeah, Billy Crystal was a big jazz fan.

RIP. I played Hair with Billy Butler, and he raved about Galt's writing for GM's New Pulse Band.

YES!

One guy I knew used to say that every time he saw her, she had that magic quality that made you feel she was singing only to you. My Brother-In-Law was friends with Billy Crystal in high school, and they both convinced the student government and faculty to hire Nancy Wilson to sing at their high school Prom! RIP.

I heard last night from one of the musicians I was playing a gig with that John Mosca, the trombonist who was the leader of the VV Big Band, and its longest member, is leaving the VV big band. Anyone know anything about this?

Yeah, Barry's approach to solo guitar playing was very unique. They put out a few books of his solo arrangements. He studied with George Russell before GR went off the wall with his LCC,

I searched for that LP for many years, before it was finally re-issued. It offered another too rare opportunity to hear the great jazz studio guitarist of the 50s, Barry Galbraith featured as a soloist, rather than the countless studio sessions he played back then, which would offer at best, one chorus or less of his swinging, linear style. Galbraith only recorded one album as a leader, "Guitar and the Wind", on which he used Osie Johnson and Milt Hinton, and Eddie Costa rather than Hank Jones. This could've been because it was one of those small group sessions of that time that featured arrangements (Billy Byers and Al Cohn), and Costa was a legendary sight reader of fast, intricate arrangements. Galbraith's LP also featured Urbie Green, and the wonderful, slightly out of tune flute of Bobby Jaspar, playing such rarities as Raksin's "Love is for the Very Young" (probably the first jazz recording of it), and Osie Johnson's, "Ya Gotta Have Rhythm". Galbraith's playing career was cut short by a painful nerve disease that left him unable to play the guitar on the same level that he did in the 50s.

Very sad to hear. He used to be a regular guest on Radio Unnameable with Bob Fass on WBAI, playing unaccompanied improvisational clarinet into the night. With his passing, NY just goes from bad to worse. RIP.