sgcim

Very sad to hear. I still listen to "Reflection" whenever I want to get into that spacey folk/jazz vibe. RIP John.

No, he bought that with his own money. Mario stopped making them after Sakashta was murdered, so there's not that many around anymore. I guess I'm just fixated on that one axe- the rest of his prices are probably cool.

I don't know about John's prices at Golden Age. I fell in love with a Beauregard MB there, and he said he wanted $9,800 for it. He wouldn't go down a buck on it, and he wouldn't take anything for a trade, to bring the price down a little. I even went out and bought another MB for 7K, and he wouldn't accept that for a partial trade. I was able to get my bread back on the MB I bought, but i gave up on the MB at GA.

They're all good guitars, but I hate Gretsch for jazz. Your best bet is to get to Guitars 'N Jazz in NJ. They have all those guitars, and you can play them before you buy. Here's the link: http://guitarsnjazz.com/ I don't know if they have lefties, but give them a call. What amp are you playing through?

from a coke-induced heart attack. His autopsy revealed that his arteries were completely clean.

I became very suspicious about this so-called CharlieBirdParker father-son team when I found this alto/tenor duo had posted these videos eight years ago. With a little research, I found that they had indeed pioneered the Jazz Karaoke Movement in Japan, after leaving everything behind in Alabama after the economic crisis left the father's genetic engineering firm (of which the son was an early experimental subject) bankrupt. This could account for the son's 'Children of the Damned' emotionless look and style of playing, as he was a result of a cross-cloning experiment using the DNA of Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz. They hustled the Karaoke Jazz circuit in Japan for years, posing as US tourists searching for what they described as "the perfect sashimi". In reality, they confided to their arresting officers that they were actually searching for the perfect Japanese tail. The father and son team continued their typical Karaoke Jazz routine of playing tunes from the Real Book without realizing that they had to transpose the music for their respective horns, resulting in that distinctive sound of parallel fourths that has been known to stimulate Japanese women. Their hedonistic orgies with multiple partners became so notorious, that the great Japanese exploitation film director, Takashi Miike, made a bio-pic about them entitled "The Great American Karaoke Jazz Hustlers". As a result of the film's popularity, the Yakuza became aware of all the tail their Karaoke Jazz employees were losing, and the duo had their fingers broken in the back room of the well-known Karaoke Jazz Club, Sashimi Palace in Tokyo. Without the financial support of their many Karaoke jazz conquests, the father and son team turned to crime, and were soon arrested for running a prostitution ring in Osaka. They were eventually deported back to the US to serve the remainder of their sentences. Here's a performance of the notorious Father/Son Duo "CharlieBirdParker" performing their infamous version of Donna Lee. Notice that they save their female sex organ stimulating parallel fourths sequence for the out chorus, to induce a buildup to the eventual Japanese female orgasm it so reliably produces:

Sad to hear. A drummer friend of mine used to work with him in Brooklyn. RIP Mr. Jeffrey

OOhh! That very good! You play entire Sonny Stitt solo instead of coming up with your own lines! We try to discourage creativity at Jazz Karaoke. Ladies, sex this boy up!!

I'm sorry, you play wrong note on bar 23- no sex for you! Next!

Yeah, but it's got to start in Japan. Americans are only capable of copying things that originate in Japan anymore; films, tech, Karaoke, etc... Some US club owner goes on vacation to Japan and sees the Eric Dolphy Karaoke, sees all the sex it generates, and then incorporates it into his club in the US. That's how it's gotta start.

In the first part of my post, I'm not talking about training; I'm talking about exposure to jazz or any other types of music other than hip-hop. They're not getting exposed to jazz on "Hot 97", they're not getting exposed to it as Mike said on the streets, the schools etc... My guess is that you were at least exposed to it somewhere earlier, but today it has become as Ralph Ellison would say, the 'invisible man'. And don't tell me the internet has made things better, because they just follow what ever becomes 'viral' on you tube.

As a music teacher at an inner-city HS for over 15 years, i conducted various forms of research into how non- musician kids perceived music before taking my class. Some findings were: 1) About 98% of the kids that didn't play an instrument or sing could not tell if a pitch was higher or lower than another pitch. 2) The only jazz/swing music they responded to was "Sing, Sing, Sing" , probably because it was in that Jim Carey movie, The Mask. 3) Most of them could not identify the sound of most instruments. Almost nobody could tell that Tal Farlow was playing a guitar, on tests(!) 4) They all hated Esther Phillips. 5) When given the opportunity to pass the class by doing an extra credit assignment that consisted of simply listening to any jazz recordings, and explaining why they did or did not like the music, about 50% chose to fail the class. The other 50% would say they liked the recordings because they found the music relaxing. Since the kids that played instruments and sang were the polar opposite, the solution might be to have as many students as possible learn instruments and sing in chorus, gospel choir, etc... However, since Bloomberg assumed mayoral control of the schools, music programs hit rock bottom, with no instrumental programs in ANY elementary schools, barely any (maybe 5%) music programs in Middle School, and approximately 25% of high schools having a basic music program (not just a Chorus). This 25% was further reduced to almost nothing as a result of Bloomberg forcing music out of the curriculum by requiring students to have double math and English periods, and then closing down almost every High School large enough to have a music program, and dividing each school into three independent charter schools which would make it impossible to have a school band, orchestra, etc...within that school(s). The fact that most jazz musicians, Charlie Parker, Eric Dolphy, etc...learned how to play their instruments in school is almost beside the point. The point is how can you expect to have an informed listening audience for jazz with the multiple assaults of hip-hop, non-existent school music programs and technology's destruction of the music business. I find it amazing that there is any listening audience at all, at this point.

According to a trumpet player friend of mine, Clark Terry couldn't even play the trumpet for the last 20 years. He saw people like Clark at Town Hall in Queens about 20 years ago, and he had difficulty even getting notes out. The same thing happened with his idol, Freddie Hubbard- he could barely play towards the end. IMHO, Lee Konitz is a shadow of what he used to be... Jazz musicians are like athletes in that sense.

John, I just finished "There's A Mingus Among Us", another great interview. Here's my favorite quote when you asked Mingus about the influence that Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman had on the jazz of that period: "How can you talk about Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman? Eric Dolphy was a master musician. Ornette Coleman can only play in the key of C. Ornette Coleman doesn't have any color in his music. Jazz is supposed to have a tradition. I don't hear any tradition in Ornette Coleman. I don't hear any Charlie Parker in his playing. Now I like the songs he writes- they're good songs. But he could never be the the player Eric Dolphy was." Downbeat Feb. 27, 1975.

Órale!! The music is by Terry Smith. I wonder if he's related? Muddy Waters is also played when the young women do their act;.

I knew someone would cheat and use the IMDB. The movie was "Street Girls" (1975), (the other IMDB listings are TV shows where he probably played the organ). This movie was so obscure, that it wasn't listed in either of the two volumes of the Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film I own. Jimmy plays a hip, jive talkin' strip club bartender named Jimmy. He's usually dressed in a thick leather jacket with a big cowboy hat when he's on the street, but he wears typical bartender garb in the club. The plot is similar to the George C. Scott movie, "Hardcore", where a daddy is looking for his wayward little girl. Although he has a tough exterior, 'Jimmy' is a strip club bartender with a 'heart of gold', as he rescues the father getting the shit beat out of him by a pimp. There's a great scene of 'Jimmy' playing pool with some of the 'brothers'. He's constantly smoking a cigarette, blowing the smoke out of his nose. 'Jimmy' is pretty much the only sympathetic character in the flick, as all the white characters are shown as a bunch of stoners, junkies, pimps, rednecks and stripper/'hoes'. Jimmy is constantly shown shaking his head smiling, as whitey keeps making fools out of themselves. As whitey continues to ruin the lives of everyone they come in contact with, Jimmy gets the last line of the movie, shaking his head, and muttering, "Crackers..." The movie was co-written by Barry Levinson, a fact that he probably doesn't include in his filmography.

I couldn't believe my fucking eyes tonight when I was watching a movie that had Jimmy Smith in a dramatic role. There wasn't an organ in sight, and he even had the last line in the movie.

Well put Colin, and you didn't have to type a letter!

RIP. He had universal respect from the thousands of musicians he worked with.

Well, things like that take time... I didn't know you were on this forum, great article! I look forward to reading "There's a Mingus Among Us". As someone who was writing for DB, John, what do you think were the reasons for DB going from a great jazz magazine back then, to what it is today?

I've been reading the Downbeat anthology, "The Great Jazz Interviews" (75th Anniversary), and there's one article on the AEOC entitled, "There Won't Be Any More Music" Roscoe says, "You know, someday soon there won't be any more music. Oh, there'll still be musicians, but they'll only be playing in their homes, in their living rooms, for their families and other friends. Money! That's what it's all about." -Roscoe Mitchell, Oct. 1, 1971

I'm happy to wish the great George Coleman a happy birthday. We were forced to go to some meeting where a woman that had something to do with the Grammy Awards organization told us that George was practically on his deathbed. This was about ten years ago. Does anyone know what she was talking about? Misinformation from the fascist Bloomberg regime was a regular occurrence back then, so I didn't think much about it.

I bought one of Calvin's CDs hoping to hear a guitar equivalent of his brother, but that wasn't the case at all. I don't know what's going on with the Phineas lineage, but there's a Phineas Newborn III who's a Hollywood actor.

Here's two performances of Lush Life by Newborn. The first in 1961 or 1962: The second in 1989:

Silver didn't single out a specific pianist. Rather he said, in Down Beat in 1956, "I can't stand that faggot-type jazz," by which it was understand that he meant the predominant West Coast jazz style of the time. As for Newborn, it's my understanding that he always was a psychologically fragile person, though the "mere virtuosity" putdowns of his playing probably didn't help. I was getting that quote from his autobiography, "Let's Get To the Nitty Gritty". I'll have to check it to see if I got it wrong. Newborn definitely had nervous system issues, but I've never heard his diagnosis. Those West Coast critics didn't help things out, though. He's worthy of a biography. As for those criticisms of Newborn for being too flashy or too indebted to Tatum and what all, I don't recall that they came from West Coast-based critics at all -- if so, they certainly weren't criticizing Newborn from any "West Coast Jazz is the thing" perspective; there was little or nothing about Newborn's playing that was akin to the styles of either coast -- but, IIRC, from guys like John S. Wilson of the NY Times and, maybe even, -- oh, the horror! -- Nat Hentoff. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Nat hadn't compared Newborn unfavorably to that earthy unflashy paragon .... Horace Silver. BTW, whatever happened to Adam Makowicz, who in the '70s received much the same response that Newborn reived in the late '50s? Interestingly, one of Makowicz's chief critical advocates was the typically stern and insightful Max Harrison. I got it from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Newborn,_Jr. It said that it happened when he moved to LA, but it said 'some critics' so i was wrong to assume that that it was West Coast critics. Good proofreading/fact checking Larry; you might want to consider working for a newspaper. I was inspired to read the 1959 DB article on OP after reading what Allen said about Dick Katz' statement that OP had facility- not technique. Some of the article was about OP criticizing other pianists; specifically Horace (too linear), Ahmad Jamal (only uses abstract 'singing' lines) and Errol Garner (He's a stylist, we'll never hear what he would've sounded like if he had studied). He said it was too early to judge Bill Evans. He was criticizing just about all the pianists of that time for not playing the whole piano. Oscar had studied piano technique in depth, and played all the classics, so I don't know about the validity of Katz' critique. OP details his heavy debt to Tatum, but criticizes Tatum for not fitting into a trio situation (overplaying) as well as he did. Hentoff was inspired by the sad demise of Newborn to set up a fund for jazz musicians (mentioned in the Wiki article above) with his issues. There's a very creepy video of one of Newborn's last solo performances. He turns around and stares at the audience after every phrase he plays... I was surprised to find that Newborn played on what is considered by some as the first rock and/or roll record, "Rocket 88" , or at least played on the tour that supported the record. Ike turner is credited on the record.