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Terry Gross is playing her interview with Buell today on Fresh Air sometime around 2:30pm or so on WNYC. If you miss it, you can probably find it in her archives. She's married to some guy who writes about jazz, so she's been featuring jazz once in a while.

I saw them at the Fillmore East in the early 70s on a bill with Argent and the Moody Blues. I loved Argent and the MB's, but i draw a complete blank on WA. All heavy rock bands sounded the same to me back then. No interesting melodies/chords...

Yeah, I thought that conductor guy was nuts, too. I could see Satie, but Ravel? I don't have any recording equipment right now, but maybe in the future...

He probably was lying. There are plenty of stories of people playing Schoenberg piano pieces, and telling their friends that they forgot the entire second half of the piece, but no one noticed! I'll try to find out the names. I went to a university that Chas. Rosen taught at, and took a course with him. One conductor got in an argument with him about the horror of serial music, and asked him why music can't go back to the naivete of Ravel. Rosen told him we can't go back to the naivete of Ravel once we've been exposed to Schoenberg."There is no turning back!" ALL of the composition teachers at that university were serial composers, and the two I studied with insisted that I write in the 12-tone style. I told the first one, a great composer named John Lessard, that I couldn't stand that music, and he confided to me that he despised Schoenberg. I asked him why he didn't write the great music that he had written in the 1950s anymore, and he said, "All of the great tonal music was already written in the 19th Century". He said he liked Webern. I went to another teacher who I thought would be more open-minded, because he liked my string quartet, and told me it sounded like Shostokovich. But I got the same treatment; we only write in the 12-tone style. He said that it was the same at most schools. Then he confided to me that he couldn't stand Webern. He said Webern sounded like a bunch of little farts. He said he liked Schoenberg... At that point I just got my degree and never looked back. Today all I write are pieces for the several big bands I play in. I get them played as soon as I finish them, and that's all I really care about. I've written seven extended pieces in the last year or two.

I agree that most of the concert audience goes with Beethoven and his buddies, but living composers like David Del Tredici, John Corigliano, George Crumb, Joan Tower, John Harbison, Margaret Brouwer, and minimalists like Terry Riley, Glass and Reich are still around, along with NYC composers like Julia Wolfe, David Lang and Michael Gordon. All of these composers started out as serial composers, because that was all that was being taught in composition classes in the second half of the 20th Century. When they realized that their only audience was other serial composers (as Schuller points out in his lecture in 'Musings'), they gradually began to realize that maybe something was wrong. By then it was probably too late, because the programs on most concerts today are limited to the dead composers you listed in your post.

I've heard Cecil's early stuff, and like Andrew Hill's and Sun Ra's early stuff, it was nothing to write home about. Just a lot of nebulous poking around in a minor key. When Eric Dolphy did the gig with Chico Hamilton, he played other people's music fine; Fred Katz', the Duke album, etc..., He could've played his outside stuff, and 'made his mark', but he acted like a real musician and played some beautiful stuff within the framework of the tunes. But Cecil is upset that MLW used Mickey Roker instead of Andrew Cyrille? So that gives him an excuse to 'make his mark' while lesser mortals like Mickey Roker and Bob Cranshaw are subjected to a bunch of noise that has nothing to with what they're laying down? Oh, but he's been called a genius innovator by the jazz history books, and even some respectable classical music people, while Cranshaw and Roker were only called to play with jazz musicians like Sonny Rollins and his ilk. Which leaders called Cecil to play with them? Oh, I forgot, he's Cecil Taylor; he's above all of that...

At least Buell was capable of playing with other "compromising" musicians, such as the Jimmy Giuffre Quartet on 'Live at the Five-Spot LP I have him on; if you read Bob Cranshaw's interview in Iverson's blog, Cranshaw said Cecil was incapable of playing their "compromising' music. A friend of mine wanted to study with Buell, and Buell gave him his business card so my friend could reach him. I don't remember what his business card said, but it was very unusual. Does anyone know what it said? RIP, to a great bass player.

Schuller made a conscious effort in his writing to add tonality by assertion, more consonant harmonic intervals, more coherent melodies, and other examples of the advice he gave composers in that lecture. The result IMHO made his music sound deeper, more sonorous, and less superficial than his earlier pieces.I liked the fact that Honegger, one of the great critics of the twelve tone method, was one of Schuller's favorite composers. Honegger described the twelve tone method as adding a 'ball and chain' to the composers who followed Schoenberg's strict method. Schuller did mention the fact that they were still flocking to concerts of Brahms, Beethoven, et al, but he felt that was because those composers reached their audiences emotionally; something the contemporary music of that time was failing to do. The tonal composers of the 20th Century, Britten, Walton, Stravinsky (other than that awful piano concerto he wrote in the twelve tone method, which IMHO was proof that even his music couldn't survive the twelve tone method- no matter what the critics said), Bartok, Barber, Hanson, Honegger, Poulenc, Part, Shostokovich, Prokofiev, Copland, et al, continue to be chosen by performers to be presented in the concert hall, and people still find them engaging. After 100 years, I think the twelve-tone method has been given more than enough time to say that it was just ahead of its time...

tt came from chapter 25 of 'Musings; The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller', pages 174-183. The title of the chapter is, 'Toward a New Classicism?' Some excerpts were GS proclaiming that, "contemporary music has failed to capture the sustained interest of either lay audiences or PROFESSIONAL PERFORMERS (my emphasis)" , and later that what he thought was the usual reception of new earthbreaking music; a a generation or two of hatred or apathy, and then they would grow to love it. Instead, he writes, "I resigned myself to the notion that the complexities of Schoenberg and Webern would have to wait their 30 to 40 year turn to be resolved and understood. The problem is that it is no longer 30 years; it's getting to be 60 years (now 100 years!). And my earlier optimism has long ago been replaced by a growing discomfort..." Read the rest of it and weep...

I cited it in our last argument about 12 tone music. I'll try to find it.

I was talking about AS' Twelve-Tone System of composition. Even Gunther Schuller finally realized what a mistake that was in an article from 1960 where he realized the failure of that system of composition, exclaiming, (loosely) "We've driven audiences out of the concert halls with the Twelve Tone System." He then pleaded with composers to add some tonality to their music, add some coherent melodies, or the audience will disappear completely. The Duffie interviews are a great source of information on many 20th century composers.

From his bio by J. Reel, " Born in St. Louis, Wilson played jazz piano in his home town, as well as bass in St. Louis orchestras". He also cited Charlie Parker as one of his major influences.

I remember walking into the Village Tower one afternoon, intending to spend an hour or so looking at records, and walking out of there about midnight, completely disoriented.

Very sad to hear. I liked his CRI recordings. Those recordings JSngry put up were great! Wilson and other jazz-influenced 20th century legit guys like Hall Overton, Hale Smith and David Amram, represented the 'ear' composers, as opposed to the 'mathematician' composers who grew out of Schoenberg's anti-music systems. We were lucky to have composers like these, who resisted the lure of the university gigs if they'd just get with the program and write garbage like the rest of the twelve-tone ghouls, and instead chose to write 'ear' music rather than 'slide rule' music. RIP to a great man.

I still have 'Brains On Fire' laying around somewhere.RIP

I heard Schildkraut on that Geo. Handy album. Now I know what you were talking about!

The heaviest... I don't know how he did it. A friend of his said he was into the Kabala, maybe that had something to do with it...

I heard Schildkraut on that Geo. Handy album. Now I know what you were talking about!

I understand that, but being honest online can cause a lot of problems for everyone concerned. One website that had a lot of 'honesty' resulted in death threats, law suits and other nastiness. Some people are convinced that their reputation as a musician hinges on what one person says about them on a web site. I savaged one person that everyone was raving about after I bought one of their records, and couldn't believe how lame it was. Sure enough, that person emailed me and begged me to delete the post, which I did. As an example, I could say that I bought one of the alto player's records mentioned in this thread, and found that he or she couldn't play in tune and was incapable of playing a double-time idea in time, but what's the point? Maybe he or she sounded better on other records. Maybe I was in a bad mood when I heard the record. Maybe I didn't understand what he or she was doing at that time. As someone said about one of the alto players in this thread, "his playing doesn't appeal to my taste", which is just another way of saying DSTMIASW.

When I was in grad school for music, I was talking privately with a prof when I started going on a rant about how I thought XYZ sucked etc... He immediately got very upset, and told me to phrase my indifference in a more objective fashion. He told me to say "XYZ's music doesn't speak to me in a special way", to voice my indifference. I'd like to say I use that approach all the time, but sometimes I lose my cool... So if ya don't like it, DSTMIASW; if you do STMIASW. 'nuff said.

Saw her at the Phil Woods Memorial concert in Pennsylvania with Vincent Herring, Brian Lynch, Randy Brecker, and Phil's rhythm section and big band. I don't know why they needed her there when they had Herring doing the PW stuff. Then Houston Person came out and blew them all away. Bill Mays also cooked his brain out.

I've never heard the Bushkin things, but thanks for the heads up. 'Rooms' was originally a ballet. Hopkins said he was going for a claustrophobic feeling on the piece, and he certainly achieved it AFAIC; it scared the hell out of me! I never knew that about Hopkins; maybe he turned it down out of respect for 'Benny'. I bought the vinyl for Benny's turned down version of TC. Hitch should've been ashamed of himself. They finally issued 'Obsession' on CD, one of Herrmann's crowning works; have you checked it out yet? Yeah, Phil Ramone was an old buddy of Phil's from Julliard.

I never heard him play it, and I caught Phil whenever he was in town. i was surprised that it worked so well as a small group tune on the Intrada CD, so it's a possibility. Woods never even played any of the pop tunes he had well-known solos on at his gigs (Billy Joel, Steely Dan, Paul Simon). Shortly after 'Just the Way You Are' came out, Woods happened to be playing a show opposite Billy Joel somewhere, so he went backstage to introduce himself to Billy Joel. He said, "Hi Mr. joel, I'm Phil woods, the guy who played the alto solo on JTWYA." Joel shrugged his shoulders, told him he never heard of him, and fluffed him off! When Woods was flown in to play the solo on 'Dr. Wu' by Steely Dan, they put him up in a swanky hotel with full room service in LA. He called every alto player in LA to party their brains out all night on SD's bill, and then showed up at the recording studio with no sleep in a hangover the next morning. Walter Becker was the only one there, and he played a tape of the section he wanted him to solo on. Phil played it once, and Becker said, "Okay, we're done", and Woods walked off with a bundle. The Billy Joel solo was also a first take.

I've never heard the Bushkin things, but thanks for the heads up. 'Rooms' was originally a ballet. Hopkins said he was going for a claustrophobic feeling on the piece, and he certainly achieved it AFAIC; it scared the hell out of me!

Roswell was a highly skilled musician capable of playing in any situation. A trumpet player friend of mine used to play with him at the resorts in the Catskill Mountains!