sgcim

Great stuff! Imaginative arrangements and yet more great Phil Woods and Clark Terry sideman solos, plus french horns! Put me down for a copy.

I heard he was suing the hospital that caused him to lose his voice just the other day, and now I heard he passed away today.

A drummer i recently played with recommended the sessions he played with Richie Cole on as having that quality. I think he called it Richie Cole Alto Madness, although it has four horns. The George Russell Smalltet's great Jazz Workshop album had only McKusick and Farmer on horns. Most of the Phil Woods Quintet and Sextet albums had that type of writing going on. Rob McConnel's Jive Five also had it. Hal McKusick's Triple Exposure LP had Billy Byers writing and playing for the Quintet.

There might be some info on that in all the research that's went into The Jazz Loft, where Overton lived, and the Monk Big Band rehearsed. They have a web site where they have recorded interviews with the people involved in that scene, and there's a lot of dope on HO. His piano playing never struck me as anything special, but his 'serious' compositions are very interesting, especially his String Quartet in One Movement.

Up until he started doing some jazz production, I only knew of him as a rock and/or roll DJ on WABC FM (now WPLJ). They told us young boomers they were an 'underground' rock radio station, and there was a guy who called himself 'Brother John'', who told us how much he loved us... Upon doing a little searching, Brother John was also a Lutheran Minister, who was part of a syndicated format called 'LOVE', which was some sort of unholy mixture of Lutheranism and 'progressive' rock. Back then they called new, unheard rock music 'progressive'. It wasn't what's now known as PROG.

Was this interview included in the collection of interviews that was published as "Coltrane on Coltrane"? I came out of that book with the impression that JC was a saint. Any interview on a Pacifica radio station is going to be heavily slanted towards the Left. I think they blew up the Pacifica station in Texas!

That video just shows that Sebastian wanted to get rid of Zal, because Zal didn't like the stuff Sebastian was writing, and was clowning around, which everybody actually enjoyed (including me). He didn't want to fire him himself, so he called a meeting, and let the other guy fire him. Rolling Stone magazine found out that Boone and Zal informed on the drug dealer who sold them the dope. Then the cops said their records would be clean if they would introduce a member of the law enforcement to the dope party that they were going to, as a music industry friend of theirs', so he could bust the drug dealer, and some more of those evil drug-taking hippies. The Lovin' Spoonful were then branded as Finks by Ralph J. Gleason and Jan Wenner of Rolling Stone. It all sounds like the plot of a bad B movie from the 60s, directed by Roger Corman!

According to the book "Hotter Than a Match Head: Life on the Run With the Lovin' Spoonful" by Steve Boone, the bass player for the LS, "It had been John (Sebastian) that instigated Zally's firing in 1967. He'd never explicitly admitted it, but I know he was regretful". P.287 Later on, JS and ZY played a reunion concert on the Isle of Wight in 1979, where ZY yelled at him, "You fired me!", and JS jokingly responded, "I thought you quit!" The infamous drug bust situation prevented ZY from being deported back to Canada, so it had nothing to do with ZY leaving the LS. We've decided to settle the situation non-violently, by emailing JS a link to the disco version of 'Summer in the City', so I can avoid having to drive up to Woodstock. This would be punishment enough for JS' cynical statement on not falling into the "Jazz Trap" when the LS recorded their many hits in the 60s. As an extra treat, I will include a story Boone included in his above-named book. The LS found themselves on a plane flight with Miles Davis seated right near them. JS got up and went into a long spiel about how much he loved Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain, and how much Miles had contributed to the arts in the US, etc... Miles responded to JS, "I don't talk to honkies" Js went back to his seat...

I thought the article said that he still lived in the West Village. That's just one long subway ride away on the A train... I'll try and find the nonsense he wrote on the "Jazz Trap". It will change your opinion of him as "a truly nice guy", and you'll probably want to get in on the sucker punch scheme. With you holding his arms for me, it will make the sucker punch much easier to land. Eddie Diehl worked at that Folk Music Center in NYC during the 60s, repairing guitars for guys like JS. JS was probably picking up one of his guitars from Eddie when you saw him at Eddie's gig. If he idolized Eddie so much, why didn't he hire Eddie after he fired Zal? Imagine Eddie Diehl in The Lovin' Spoonful? You're right, just listening to that felt like I'd just been sucker punched.

Whoops, he's only 74. I'll have to stalk him for the next six years; then I'll give him the sucker punch he deserves...

I went nuts over 'Amy's Theme' when I heard it in the movie "You're a Big Boy Now" played by a harmonica. Its D-E-F C-B-A G-A G melody was the first ii V I lick I ever learned on my instrument, and I couldn't stop playing it. Since it was from the soundtrack, I wonder if Sebastian or a film composer wrote it.. It's similar to another ii V I lick song I loved at the time by Johnny 'Hammond' Smith, played by the great Houston Person, except that one had a 16th note pickup of C#, followed by a 16th note triplet D-F-A- then C(held for 2 and 1/2 beats) followed by B-C B-C-D B-G. Anyone know it? It's kind of ironic that anything having to do with John Sebastian would have a jazz connotation; I recall reading a diatribe by Sebastian (maybe in Boone's book on the band?)about avoiding at all cost falling into what he described as the "Jazz Trap" when making a record. He meant including anything that had anything to do with jazz on a rock, folk or whatever, record would doom said record's commercial appeal. The fact that Clark Terry and Fathead played on "Darling Come Home Soon" (did anyone notice Sebastian's screwing up his entrance on the return to the chorus after the strings' played the A section?) is equally ironic, and DFN and CT should have given JS a sucker punch, after receiving a check for the date. Now that I know JS lives in the West Village, I feel tempted to do the same if i see him on the street.. After all, even I could take an 80 year-old man.

The Liberry...

Yeah, that was in the 70s and after, but you've gotta admit his stuff in the 50s and early 60s still swung...

I was always hoping that his rejected Exorcist score would be worthy of the music needed to summon Pazuzu, but from what I've heard of it, maybe Friedkin was right in using various music by contemporary classical composers instead. I remember reading Friedkin hated Schifrin's score so much, he threw the reel of tape it was recorded on out into the street!

Thanks for the interest! The pianist, Rob, is working on getting enough material together to make his first CD- at the age of 64! He's had the worst case of osteo-arthritis his doctors have ever seen, and it's spreading over his body. First a shoulder replacement (with another one coming up), then a hip replacement, and now he needs a knee replacement, also. He may be on his way to becoming the first robotic jazz pianist on earth.

Thanks!

Recorded in the pianist's living room: Straight from the pianist's living room https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NgpHC1FGpc&feature=youtu.be

No one in NYC could afford it anymore, and it was free!

I thought it was about autobiographies, but I think it means autographed pictures or drawings.

In a Twentieth Century Drawing Room was a pisser! Manny Albam wring for four cellos and McKusick's quartet with Barry Galbraith blending in nicely on guitar. Jimmy Raney recorded an album that never made it to CD called "Strings and Swings" which has some great Raney playing and writing (he did the string writing on it) in his "Suite For Guitar Quintet. I loved the Deodato arr. of Salt Song on Turrentine's album of the same name. The Chico hamilton album with Dolphy and strings is so powerful, it's almost frightening. Fred Katz did the arr. Manny Albam liked to add strings to his big band records. Johnny Smith did two beautiful "Mood Music" LPs with strings "My Dear Little Sweetheart' and "Guitar With Strings", where he did all the orchestrations.

In his autobiography, Gunther Schuller had a whole chapter on that bad boy of classical music, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and his disruption of concerts at an annual Music Festival in Germany. If KS' followers thought the music was too conservative, they'd let loose a series of catcalls, boos and other sounds that would completely derail the performances. The breaking point came when KS himself disrupted an intimate performance in a small room of Webern lieder. Even Webern had become too conservative for the 'forward-looking' KS! This disgusted Schuller to the point that he wanted nothing to do with KS anymore.

Thanks for getting back to me! You saved me $25. I buy ANYTHING EC plays piano on, but while the vibes are good, I much prefer his piano playing.The Hodeir French recording is available on various streaming sources.

Thanks for the ideas! I'll check them out. medjuk- I saw Obsession in a movie theater when it first came out. What an unforgettable experience! I was concentrating so much on Herrmann's magnificent score, I didn't even bother following the plot! All I remember is that Cliff Robertson was in it... It seemed like DePalma was giving Bennie his last shot at composing the film score of a lifetime, which he did!.

Thanks for the ideas! I'll check them out.

Thanks! It's funny you mention Herrmann and Evans; the pianist heard Evans at the age of eleven, and has spent his life studying,analyzing, and transcribing Evans' work. He even studied for six years with Andy LaVerne, one of the few students Evans took on. He also played me some of his attempts at film music, and he wrote one demo called 'Bernard Herrmann', which sounded extremely Herrmannesque. Other than 'Taxi Driver', it would be difficult to find some Herrmann to adapt to a jazz quartet. I've looked in vain for Herrmann's Yiddish musical. I don't know of any recordings or published music. Herrmann didn't write songs... Since it's the pianist's ball game (it's his baby grand, recording equipment and house we play at), I'm trying to convince him to record some Raksin, who unlike Herrmann, wrote many songs besides the completely exhausted 'Laura', but this situation is not a democracy, It would be a hard sell for him to record anything that he doesn't know inside out. However, a friend of mine started a dynamite big band, and there's a good chance that he's going to record some of my original compositions, plus an arrangement of a Raksin tune that has already had several successful performances.