sgcim

RIP Mr. Keepnews there's a whole series of interviews with him on youtube:

I love finding these obscure movies made after 1950 that show how the media portrays jazz musicians. This one has Zalman King playing a wealthy bari sax player(!) who owns a huge mansion, where he leads a decadent life style... Richard Pryor has an early role as a junkie jazz drummer. Here are some of the musicians involved (from JITM): Ronnie Lang ghosted bar sax solos for actor Zalman King, accompanied by Conte Candoli, trumpet; Bob Brookmeyer, trombone; Dave Grusin, electric piano; Ray Brown, acoustic double bass; Stan Levey, drums. Source music by Bud Shank plus strings. This was never released on DVD, but did make it to VHS. I read about it on the IMDB, but has anyone seen this?

In listening to a lot of the three day WKCR Memorial Tribute to CT, I was amazed at the amount of Memorial concerts that CT played at, and the effort that he put in to them. They played a few of those concerts that were taped, and CT's playing was good enough to be released as an LP. The Eddie Costa Memorial concert at the Village Gate was released as an LP, but I never heard it before yesterday. CT gave it his all for EC, and Dick Hyman did a fantastic job on piano. They also played another tape from Bill Pemberton's Memorial concert where CT even wrote a blues and played piano on it for BP! I had the honor of performing with CT at the Jimmy Nottingham Memorial concert at the club Storytown in NYC, and CT gave it his all, and yelled out, "Yeah, baby!" after every one of my solos, which made me feel pretty good. But that was what CT was all about...

David Amram mentioned him in "Vibrations" (his first autobiography) as training some of the European musicians he worked with when he was stationed in Europe during his stint in the army.

Listening to Phil Schaap talk about his father right now.

Well, we all knew it was coming, but that doesn't make it any less sad. RIP, to one of the greatest people and musicians that ever lived.

It should be noted that Zwerin was a big Dolphy fan, and stuck up for Eric all the way. Dolphy was very upset about being let go.

I've just read a few books that were pretty interesting. I just finished "Lush Life" which had me in tears reading about the end of this great man's life. I always find first person accounts of IMHO the 'golden age of jazz', 1955-65 fascinating, and David Amram's "Vibations" and Michael Zwerin's "Close Enough For Jazz" fit the bill pretty well. Amram's struggle against anti-semitism, and his fight for acceptance in the jazz world as a french horn player, and acceptance in the classical music world as a composer without any academic credentials, were quite inspiring. As someone who was involved in the education of inner-city youth, I was fascinated by Amram's account of the effect of the lack of a male role model on the youth of the war years (1941-45). The fact that white kids were completely out of control during this period, should dispel any notions of race having anything to do with criminal behavior. Zwerin's book offers extremely candid views of a number of jazz groups he played with (Claude Thornhill Orchestra, Maynard Ferguson Band, Orchestra USA, and the Earl Hines group tour of the former Soviet Union), and glimpses of unheralded musicians (Conrad Gozzo, Jimmy Ford, Budd Johnson) that are unavailable elsewhere. He talks about his time with the jazz group Orchestra USA, and there's a great shot of Phil Woods changing his reed, while Eric Dolphy is seated next to him. Zwerin talks about how John Lewis would take all the solos away from Dolphy, and give them to Phil. Maybe Dolphy should have tried to fit the character of the music, rather than ram all his outside stuff into every solo. Dolphy was upset when he eventually got the boot.

Yes, I always do that. I think I get him confused with the poet. The gig fell through anyway.

Oh God, very sad to hear this. Keith was probably the best drummer I ever worked with. He was also a very nice person, always offering words of encouragement. He talked about how he had just finished a tour with Stevie Wonder back then, and was annoyed by how they made him jam with the Rolling Stones without paying him for it. He said that the Stones were piss poor musicians with the exception of Charlie Watts, who he enjoyed playing a two drummer jam with. It feels weird that I was just called for a tentative gig with Percy Brythe, Billy Taylor's first drummer in his trio, still playing in his 90s. At the time i was playing with Keith, he was Billy Taylor's drummer... RIP, Keith- you were both a great person and drummer.

Whatever you do, stay away from "Saturn Sings" (2010). Sounds like she took a few guitar lessons since then.

I hated Guthrie P. Ramsey's "The Amazing Bud Powell". One of those black-centric books on a genius that had nothing to say about his music.

RIP, It's her funeral, and I'll cry if I wanna...

Paul Desmond used to call pianists, 'assassins', because he'd feel like he was being shot at when he was trying to solo, especially on ballads. That's why he only used guitarists like Jim Hall and Ed Bickert on his small group records, when he finally broke free from that master assassin of all, Dave Brubeck

That last paragraph is quite true. I was posting about all the books I've been reading about UK jazz (and other music) of the 60s and 70s, and one UK musician from that period got very indignant. He said that these young authors of said books knew nothing about what those times were really about, and were just spouting hyperbole.

There was indeed a lot of crossover in the early 70s, not just folk, blues and jazz but also rock. Examples include Manfred Mann Chapter Three and Keith Tippett's Centipede project. Arguably, the involvement of modern jazz musicians in the early to mid 60s with R&B was largely because modern jazz was dying on its feet as a result of the twin assaults of beat groups and trad jazz. After all they had to earn a living and a number of them turned to R&B which was also experiencing a boom and was often horn-based. The book on John McLaughlin ('Bathed In Lightning') is particularly good on this period. It was only towards the latter part of the 60s that modern jazz started to regain its self-confidence and identity. I just finished reading the book on Cream ("The First Supergroup"), and they mentioned that jack Bruce played with Manfred Mann for a while, and also mentioned one jazz LP that they made. I assume that was Chapter Three. I plan to read the Jack Bruce bio soon. There was also a quote from Ginger Baker where he said that the brave few that continued playing jazz in the UK in the 60s were 'bloody martyrs. I

Yes, there were some interesting things happening in the early 70s in the UK with artists like Nick Drake and John Martyn. One Nick Drake LP features solos by jazz musicians such as Ray Warleigh and the South African composer/pianist Chris McGregor! I was surprised to read that the jazzy arrangement of Mellow Yellow by Donovan was done by Led Zep's John Paul Jones, who was heavily influenced by jazz in his youth. But as early as 1962, you had jazz musicians like Peter Ginger Baker saying that he decided to 'go commercial, and start playing R&B as opposed to jazz and it just took off.' He had previously played in hard bop groups like the Johnny Burch Octet and the Ronnie Scott, Bert Courtley and Joe Harriot bands.

Dave Frischberg Blossom Dearie Bob Dorough Jay Leonhart If Ray Charles can't be considered a jazz singer, then jazz ain't worth shit. Bob Bruno Grady Tate Tiny Grimes Sacha Diste Johnny Amoroso

There was also an interesting mix of folk and jazz in the UK in the 50s and 60s that featured such interesting artists as Davy Graham and Danny Thompson, who influenced folk artists such as Donovan, Pentangle, Nick Drake, and others. This resulted in a very interesting blend that should have interested both folk and jazz audiences alike. The use of the upright bass was a common factor of these two musics, and there are some recordings of the above named artists that are quite unique.

I've been reading a few books on jazz in the UK, and all the British writers agree; the Beatles pretty much ended the audience for jazz in the UK, regardless of the quality of the music.

Basically, the decline I'm talking about is the simple fact that he became incapable of executing the fast, long, complex lines cleanly and in time, that he used to be able to execute in the 50s. Keep in mind that TF had brought that type of playing to its highest level (which still has yet to be surpassed IMHO), in the late 50s, and anything he did afterwards could only be the same or worse. I first found out that something was wrong when I picked up "The Return" (which is still a wild, enjoyable LP, despite the fact that there was something wrong with TF's ability to execute. I then found that out in person, when I attended the Newport in NY Central Park concert he played with Jim Hall and rhythm, and left with the profound pronouncement, WTF???? This wouldn't be an issue if TF had changed his style like Lee Konitz (who also said that his time on the road with Kenton messed him up), and stopped playing in that manner, but TF still played in that style a great deal. He did incorporate chord solos into his playing, which was one way of dealing with this issue. The person I cited was close to him from the late 60s till his death.

Thanks for the info on the French Tal bio, but I have to disagree with you on the subject of the decline in Tal's playing ability after the 50s. The person that I mentioned before, who is writing a book on Tal, attributed it to the effects of alcohol and life on the road, as well as the deterioration of his marriage to Tina Hammerstein. At least Tal returned to playing; two other guitarists from that era, Dick Garcia and Billy Bean stopped playing altogether.

Attaboy, Dave! These guys still don't realize that Bill was the Second Coming as far as most musicians are concerned. If the world was right, there would be a Bill Evans Day instead of our other stupid holidays. BTW, I got a lot out of your Bill Evans lessons on youtube. I session a lot with a cat named Rob Oro, who studied with Andy LaVerne, and Rob is probably the closest thing to Bill on the planet today.

Hadn't heard of that Tal Farlow book (by Guy Littler-Jones) before (seems like it is not distributed through the usual worldwide channels ...) but maybe that was for the better even though you can't go much wrong at $12.95. Last fall I bought the Tal Farlow bio produced by Paris Jazz Corner (author Jean-Luc Katchoura). Excellent in every respect and I haven't regretted shelling out the money (344 pages, limited edition - 1100 copies or so). If this is the one that sgcim's rumours allude to, then I for one would recommend it any time. http://www.amazon.fr/TAL-FARLOW-Parfait-Biographie-Biography/dp/2954962607/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1423050661&sr=8-4&keywords=Tal+Farlow The French one is definitely longer than the British one by GLJ, which is only 64 pages of writing, but it has a 50 page discography. I didn't know the French one had been translated already. Hopefully the French one goes into more detail about Eddie Costa and Vinnie Burke, because the UK one is skimpy on those two, and doesn't go into TF's decline after the 50s. The book I'm alluding to is being written by his protege, not a pro author, but bound to be interesting. He didn't have a publisher yet, the last I heard.

I bought the farlow bio from them. It was okay, but there's rumors of a better one coming out some day.