sgcim

OK -- but what's the musical/expressive point of radically displacing the harmonic rhythm of "All of You" or any such Broadway piece of material? First, there is an obvious organic connection between the song's harmonic rhythm as Cole Porter conceived it. Alter that if you will, and if you can, but why? Only, one would think, as Martin Williams once said of the way jazz musicians typically alter the melodies of standard tunes, "because they can come up with better melodies (e.g. Charlie Parker on 'Embraceable You.'") But are the displaced harmonic rhythms on standards that BE would come up with musically/expressively "better" in any sense or are they just trickier, more difficult to grasp and execute? Further, is the resulting musical/expressive relationship between those displaced harmonic rhythms and what remains of the original tune all that coherent? I think of the early BE piece that was (I believe) built around such displacements, "Five," where the piece itself and BE's solo work were close to one thing. Looking back on the passage from that 1964 interview with BE, I finally came to think that for him the attraction to romantic material per se and 19th Century musical Romanticism (two different things, the former implying "imaginative, visionary, idealistic," the latter referring to a movement in the arts whose hallmarks were the anti-rational, a belief in the values of intuition, instinct, and private expression and a search for transformation and transcendence that would go beyond the limits of human society) were one thing and close to omnipresent. Thus he introduces rational disciplined "labor" (e.g. tricky displacements of harmonic rhythm, left-hand figures based on the "Erwartung" chord, etc.) to undercut/transform the potentially "schmaltzy" nature of the romantic material to which he is drawn and come up with "... the most beautiful kind of beauty ... romanticism handled with discipline.'" For me, both the musical results and the thinking that seemingly underlies it are kind of f---ed up. Maybe BE is jazz's Franz Schrecker? Evans' displacement of the harmonic rhythm of a song like "All of You" created an almost dizzying effect (that Marian McPartland experienced first-hand) that greatly added to the expressive nature of his improvisations on the tune. That his displacements were initially hard to comprehend, didn't mean they were just attempts to be 'tricky', because after repeated exposure to said displacements, I found the sense of tension and release created quite profound. Unfortunately, I can't find this sense of profundity after exposure to music not based on the tension-release emotional experience that Evans would create in his music; it seems that subjectively for me, there is no 'there' there. In that same interview with Marian McPartland, Evans said the most important requirement of a tune he would choose to perform would be that it had to have a solid architecture. Without said architecture, the results would not be satisfying, musically.

Evans could have a sentimental side, but many of his decisions were made for him by Helen Keane. While she probably saved his life and career, she also made some choices for him that he didn't necessarily agree with... I've never heard his recording of "People"(and don't look forward to), but he did manage to make something interesting out of that schmalzy POS "Make Someone Happy". I saw BE the second to last time he played at the VV, and his displacement of of the harmonic rhythm of the tunes he was playing was so beyond me at that time, I had no idea what the hell he was doing. He demonstrated this displacement technique on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz show on the tune "All of You", and MM had great difficulty playing with him on it. She was so unnerved by Evans' displacement of the harmonic rhythm of the tune, she called out, "I feel like I'm swimming against the tide!" I thought his choice of playing "Suicide is Painless" towards the end was due to his fondness for Johnny Mandel tunes, but as Steely Dan put it in their song "Jack of Speed" BE had a 'one way ticket on the shriek express"...

LOL! Two different worlds collide. GS described his and Evans' in depth discussion of the Erwartung Triad, and hinted at his influence on Evans' use of it in his left hand voicings.

I find it hard to believe that at this late date in GS' life, and given how much experience he must have had with jazz musicians over the years, it could have been news to GS that the BE who showed up at his door was a junkie on the mooch. Further, how could GS in 1963 not at least have heard through the grapevine that BE was an addict. He had been since at least 1959. GS described himself as being very naive about the drug scene at that time. He was more involved with the NY classical scene than the jazz scene at that time. He was explicit in describing two different Bill Evans'; the articulate, well-groomed young man, who came for bi-weekly four hand piano get- togethers at GS' apartment. and the second Bill Evans three years later; an unkempt, mono-syllabic guy that just asked for money and immediately left, with just a gruff, 'thanks'.

GS described him as a talented photographer and poet. When I was doing student teaching in Brooklyn College, my mentor told me that Sticks had just quit teaching for the NYC public school system after a very short time.on the job. I took this as a warning of some type, because my mentor had just found out I was a jazz musician... Les Spann had also taught in the NYC system, but I haven't found any info about it. Gigi Gryce also taught chorus in the Bronx, under his Muslim name. Yusef Lateef mentored in the Bronx under a friend of mine. They had some very memorable experiences...

Was reading through the GS autobiography today, and happened on a few pages dealing with the friendship between GS and BE. They were kind of brought together by Tony Scott and Geo. Russell, and first collaborated on Russell's "All About Rosie", whose piano solo GS calls one of the greatest in jazz history. They got together in 1960 at GS' apt in NYC, and would play four hand versions of Wagner's operas, in addition to Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy! Though GS had a long and close relationship with John Lewis as his jazz pianist, he said that BE was the only jazz pianist who could improvise on his third stream music and stay within the spirit of the piece. He then recounted how BE SIGHT READ Milton Babbitt;s "All Set"- dynamics and all... They lost touch with each other for a few years, and then BE knocks on his door in 1963, and asks to 'borrow' some money. GS notices BE looks a little out of it, but gives him $15. The next day BE is back, asking him for more money, and the next day, and the next day... until after a month or two of this, GS' wife tells him to turn BE down, or they're going to go broke. GS finally realizes what's going on, and sends BE on his merry way- and never sees him again... You have to admire GS' ability to recognize the ability of lesser known players such as Eddie Costa ('phenomenal talent') and Sticks Evans (could sight read difficult polyrhythmic parts, and then serve as house drummer for Atlantic Records' R&B artists). And then there's the story of how Don Cherry and Ornette first got Jimmy Giuffre to play free jazz at the Lenox School of Jazz.... Fascinating reading.

I had to pay my favorite hooker to put me in a strait jacket so I would be restrained from buying the four or five CD Tubby Hayes set for only $8 being offered here, but now I know I did the right thing...

Rod was a big influence on me as a kid. I played in a kid's big band that was sponsored by the County, and led by a guy, who was a good friend of Rod's. He got the County to commission pieces by guys like Rod and Manny Albam for performances at County sponsored concerts. He wrote a great piece for the band called, "Babylon" which was similar to Tickle Toes. I wrote a tune based on the sax soli in it. He showed up for the concert with his blonde bombshell wife, and seemed to be having a great time, laughing his head off. He made a lot of money writing the theme song for Irish Spring soap. "42nd St" is as good as the other LPs, and it even features a short vocal by RL at the end, bellowing out, "About a quarter till Nine!!!" It comes out of nowhere, so it's pretty funny.

Thanks for the info! I'll stream it today.

I agree with your assessment of Lowe. Even when he was in his prime, he was no match for the many other guitarists on the scene back then, IMHO He was a good accompanist, and had a successful career as an arr./composer, but as a jazz improviser wasn't in the same league as Raney, Farlow, Billy Bean, Chuck Wayne, Herb Ellis, Dick Garcia, Rene Thomas, etc...IMHO.

Good, put me on Ignore, like I'm doing with you.

Strange film; Central Park in the 60s, before inflation ruined everything...

Phil Schaap is the only one I know that has a copy. It's on his website under Joe Dixon's name. He played it on the air when he interviewed Joe for his show. He even pronounced my name correctly. It's pretty expensive, or I would've bought a copy. Joe was ecstatic about my solo on it; he said to the group in the studio that it was the greatest jazz solo he ever heard. The piano player started yelling at Joe, saying that it wasn't that good! I used to have a copy, but I gave it to some commercial music library that was looking for instrumental music. There are a few of my compositions on it. Joe played my stuff beautifully.

A funny story about that LP, I transcribed "Lake In The Woods" from SIHH and the clarinetist Joe Dixon (T.Dorsey, Bunny Berrigan,, Stan Kenton sideman) fell in love with the tune, and wanted to put it on an album we were doing together, so I arranged it for him and a jazz quintet. He had to contact Mundell Lowe to get a release to record it, and ML's reaction to it was, "Why the hell do you want to record that lousy tune?" I freaked out, because I thought it was a beautiful waltz ballad (I listened to Satie a lot back then), and that began a lifetime of hate for ML. My guitar teacher said that ML used a ghost writer for a lot of his things. I have no proof that that was true, but that planted the seed in my mind that maybe he didn't really write that tune, and it was written by his ghost writer. Who knows, who cares?

This should tell you where he was at: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/bernard-stollman-the-esp-disk-story-by-clifford-allen.php I first heard the Fugs on an ESP sampler. RIP, BS.

Oh, come on, no one's mentioned Eric Dolphy's "God Bless The Child" on Bass Clarinet? Shame on youz!

I stumbled across this hilarious interview while searching for something else. It concerns the NYC Jazz Loft Project. You have to scroll down to ORAL HISTORIES, and then down to the Halls'. They seem to have forgotten most of what was happening there, and proceed to interview the interviewer! There are interviews with Brookmeyer, Dick Katz, Bill Crow , Ron Free, and some other people who thought of it as a special place, but the Halls seem very blase` and seem to think that those other people are 'idealizing' the loft. This is not the main Loft site: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/jazzloftproject/

Wow!! never knew that - always had a soft spot for The Left Banke - liked their "baroque" rock sound - "Walk Away Rene" one of my favourite tracks from the 60's Why the difference in surnames? He didn't think Lookofsky sounded American enough.

Back when they still had vinyl in libraries, I used to take out all of Stan's comedy records, and enjoyed them very much. RIP Mr. Freeberg.

This was my fave Left Banke song when I was a kiddie- note the arr. and the lydian melody

Michael Brown, songwriter and keyboard player for the rock band The Left Banke passed away last month at the age of 65. It turned out that he was the son of the violinist Harry Lookofsky, and Harry actually manged and produced the band when they had the hit records "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina". Harry owned a recording studio in NYC, and probably helped the band achieve their 'Baroque-Rock' sound that they became known for, but Michael wrote all the music, and played the harpsichord and piano on all their early records. Harry and Michael had some type of disagreement with the rest of the band, which led to Michael leaving the band and forming other bands that also did some interesting rock music.

For BH's 100th birthday, WKCR has been playing all BH on their jazz shows all week. Today and tomorrow, they'll be playing BH 24/7. They've played a lot of her early stuff with neanderthal rhythm sections, and she seemed to react to her rhythm section, causing her to sound much less nuanced then her later stuff. Then they played her later stuff with Tony Scott as her musical director, and he hired much hipper musicians like Kenny Burrell and others, and you can hear her genius as she reacts to the hipper changes and sings some incredible things.

LF screws up the last eight on the first video, but gets it right on the second video (or at least gets to the iii chord at the right time). Those pictures of HM are getting me excited , Aaron Sachs was a lucky man, until he woke up one morning, and both the piano and HM were gone!

One pianist I knew went to Berklee, and there was a Scientology office right down the street, and they were always trying to recruit musicians. He and his friends used to get drunk on Friday nights, and then go over to the Scientology office and tell them that they wanted to commit suicide. They'd give the suicidal guy a test, and the suicidal guy would rip up the test papers and run out of there laughing his head off.

I think everyone knows that Scientology only established itself as a "religion" so L.Ron wouldn't have to pay taxes. There were many jazz musicians who got involved in it, and as a previous poster said, it was sad to watch some of them living in poverty because they were giving what little money they made to the Org. One musician told me the sales pitch they gave was: "You can either spend tens of thousands of dollars going to a psychoanalyst, or you can just give us a thousand bucks, and get the same result." The Org was basically in a vicious fight with psychiatry to get people who had psych issues to come to them, rather than a shrink. One Org musician proudly showed me the letter he had written to some newspaper, backing the effort to close down mental hospitals. The Org probably helped some of the musicians I knew deal with issues that were not solely biological, but those who who had mental disorders of a purely biological nature just got worse. The last time I saw one musician like this, he was trying to stab another musician in the band with a fork (they had an argument about dynamics on the stand), and after he was disarmed, proceeded to have his head banged on the pavement repeatedly. As he was restrained by an off duty cop, he repeatedly defended his actions by exclaiming, "I had to defend my integrity!" The first time I met this musician was around the time that L. Ron had passed. His first comment was, "He's not dead; he's just away on research."