
sgcim
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Posts posted by sgcim
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I emailed JK when he posted that on another board a few years ago. He went to the same college I went to, and studied with the same composition teacher, John Lessard. He wound up studying privately with JL (one of Nadia Boulanger's favorite students) for seven years. He sent me some clips of him playing guitar in an organ trio. Sounded good, nice guy.
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I just took a glance at Howard Kaylan's new book, "Shell Shocked", a memoir of his days with the Turtles, Zappa and Flo & Eddie.
He makes the startling revelation that FZ did smoke some pot- in between orgies.
There was a little bit about Judee Sill and her husband, Bob Harris, a great jazz pianist who played with the MOI in 1971.
Not exactly a startling revelation. Zappa always said pot made him sleepy, which is why he didn't smoke much of it.
The way HK wrote about it in the book made it seem like it was a "startling revelation". FZ always cultivated the image of being anti-drug. That's why it seemed strange to me that he hired BH(1), who was a life-long junkie.
Getting back to FZ as a person, I used to work with a drummer who went on the road with FZ as a percussionist, and he said FZ was a cheap prick, who tried to screw the band whenever he could.
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I recently found a copy of the score to "All About Rosie", which had parts for Bassoon and French Horn, but no part for vibes.
On Youtube, there's a nice recording of it, but it features Teddy Charles on vibes.
Does the Modern Jazz Concert LP have TC on it?
Gerry Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band also recorded a big band version of it.
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I just took a glance at Howard Kaylan's new book, "Shell Shocked", a memoir of his days with the Turtles, Zappa and Flo & Eddie.
He makes the startling revelation that FZ did smoke some pot- in between orgies.
There was a little bit about Judee Sill and her husband, Bob Harris, a great jazz pianist who played with the MOI in 1971.
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I enjoyed his neo-classical music. I was listening to his String Quartet years ago, and almost had a heart attack when I heard him use "Giant Steps" changes in one section!
It was written in approx. 1950, so it pre-dated 'Trane by about nine years. RIP HS
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I still have about 100 cassette tapes left, with some great stuff, but some of the older ones emit a high-pitched squeal as they go through the heads. I've even got a few reel-to-reel tapes left, but no reel to-reel player to play them.
I liked cassette tapes for their editing capabilities.
I used to tape just the melody to a tune, and edit out all the solos I didn't like.
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The film has been compared to Godard, Fellini, Kafka, and even interpreted as JFK assassination paranoia (Ruby, Lapland).
It was shot by Godard's cinematographer, so it's so striking visually, that I remember most of its grotesque images.
Godard's cinematographer was Raoul Coutard. He was not involved with Mickey One.
Cinematographer on that film was Ghislain Cloquet who often worked with Louis Malle (and Robert Bresson and others).
Malle's companion Alexandra Stewart appeared in the film.
You're right- the review I read mentioned Bresson, not Godard.
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I taped Mickey One also and just saw it. The sound was better on my computer than it was on TV.
Getz sounds great, and ES' score is fine, also.
The film has been compared to Godard, Fellini, Kafka, and even interpreted as JFK assassination paranoia (Ruby, Lapland).
It was shot by Godard's cinematographer, so it's so striking visually, that I remember most of its grotesque images.
What it all means is wide open to interpretation...
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Piano Concerto -- Steuermann/Hermann Scherchen (Arkadia)
I heard that story about the recording of the Serenade, but in my version the original guitarist was replaced by Chet Atkins.
Chet Atkins? Not in a million years. I don't think he could read music on that level.
Schoenberg's 12-tone system was the model for Adrien Leverkuhn's "demonic creativity" given to him by the devil in Thomas Mann's "Doctor Faustus".
I read the novel when I was studying composition in college, and was all excited to hear this new way of composing music.
Then I listened to some 12-tone pieces, and that ended the fascination right there.
AS was a great composer, but his 12-tone system leaves me completely cold.
I was kidding.
Well, I should hope so. Now, Johnny Cash, there was a real Schoenberg man!
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Has anyone heard the BE "Book' LP (i forgot which one) with Frank Strozier on it?
Does FS get a lot of blowing time on it?
That one is called Exultation! and Strozier solos on all 6 of the original tracks. The cd includes 2 shortened takes of tunes without his participation.
Thanks, Chuck.
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Piano Concerto -- Steuermann/Hermann Scherchen (Arkadia)
I heard that story about the recording of the Serenade, but in my version the original guitarist was replaced by Chet Atkins.
Chet Atkins? Not in a million years. I don't think he could read music on that level.
Schoenberg's 12-tone system was the model for Adrien Leverkuhn's "demonic creativity" given to him by the devil in Thomas Mann's "Doctor Faustus".
I read the novel when I was studying composition in college, and was all excited to hear this new way of composing music.
Then I listened to some 12-tone pieces, and that ended the fascination right there.
AS was a great composer, but his 12-tone system leaves me completely cold.
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There's a wild story about Serenade (Op.24); the conductor of the original recording, DM, fired the classical guitarist, because he didn't know how to follow a conductor, so they hired the studio/jazz guitarist, Johnny Smith.
Smith claims he came in and sight read it, and he plays on the original recording, which I managed to find on Everest.
I'm not a fan of the twelve-tone stuff, but I liked his early shit, Verklave Nacht, etc...
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My brother's dog is eleven, and has had IBD for two years, so when he's going though a bad period, his gas smells like some sort of metallic neurotoxin that they'd use to smoke out some terrorist who's holed up in an underground bunker.
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"The Letters of William Gaddis", new on Dalkey Archive Press.
Just reviewed favorably in today's New York Times Book Review
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well, you gotta know the JALC vibe, especially in those days. If there had a been a legion of unrecognized beboppers who were not white, they would have been all over it, trust me. As for being my friends - well, I knew almost everybody in those days. This was a whole generation of players who were all near the same age, could still play, and were working $35 gigs. It's not the same as Melodonian, these were people who were really everywhere around the small clubs in NYC.
No doubt the place was home to a fair degree of racialist thinking, but OTOH I don't recall the JALC gigs for C Sharpe, Tommy Turrentine, Dave Burns, Walter Bishop Jr., et al. Also, though I may be mistaken here, a good many of the relatively unrecognized non-white beboppers by the time JALC came into being were no longer among the living or not in great shape or not living in the NYC area. In any case, if there were a non-white counterpart to, say, Triglia or Schildkraut, he probably wouldn't have gotten a gig there either.
I don't think it's the same case with those guys as it is with AS.
They were strictly boppers, whereas AS is on small group Swing LPs with the Red Norvo Sextet from the early 40s. One sax player I know used to hear him on the radio when AS was sixteen years old.
Phil Schaap had AS on KCR a few years back, discussing the genesis of the line on "Indiana", which evolved into "Donna Lee".
It's fascinating how it evolved from a line that Tiny Kahn wrote (that was recorded on a Terry Gibbs Sextet LP) when AS, TK and TG used to play together as kids in the Bronx, to the bop line of "Donna Lee".
I transcribed the line from the TG LP, and it was very similar to Donna Lee, showing the "aural" tradition of jazz in NYC back then.
My comment about JALC is a moot point.
When things like the Jazz Interactions Orch., The Jazz Repertory Band, and finally The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band died, it was all over for that type of thing in NY.
The Crouch/Marsalis/JALC syndicate calls the tunes in NYC, and to quote Burt Lancaster in The Sweet Smell of Success: "Here's your head- what's your hurry..."
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it's hard to believe that BAI once had people like CA, Don Schlitten, Marian McPartland, Ira Gitler, Gunther Schuller and Dan Morgenstern doing jazz programming, but I read the Roland Kirk bio recently, and it said that RRK used to call up Morgenstern regularly, and have interesting discussions about jazz history with him. I was too young to hear any of that.
The reference to "Lenny" Lopate and the tape recorder reminded me how successfully he used "'Round Midnight" to advance his radio career...
My best memories of BAI are when they had the Free Music Store concerts in the church.
My friends and I saw Jim Hall, Ron Carter and Benny Aronov do a fine concert there.
Then we saw Chuck Wayne and Joe Puma play a concert there, and I got to sit in with Chuck Wayne- on the air.
Joe Puma was nice enough to say, "What club are you playing at?", after I finished playing, although I was still in high school, and had a long way to go.
I haven't heard much to listen to on BAI in ages...
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Interesting post. Thanks.
I listened to Nilsson Schmilsson on YouTube last night and thought it was OK, but not wonderful. I can see why Lennon and McCartney liked him. The best song was Without You, which of course he didn't write. I can't hear what is so great about his voice, which some rave about; was this after he ruined it?
I suspect that my feelings about him might be the same as towards the Stones: that the backstory is much more interesting than the music. I'd like to see that documentary.
Check out his early stuff. I can't listen to "Nilsson Schmilsson" or any of his later stuff, other than the standards LP.
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Sachs can be heard to great advantage (as can a number of other fine players, including Joe Wilder, Eddie Bert, Oscar Pettiford, and George Wallington) on several fine albums from the late composer-arranger Tom Talbert. The first one, "Bix, Duke & Fats," is quite special.
There's also a fascinating Talbert biography:http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2012/06/tom-talbert-different-voice.html
Yeah, I've got the Bix, Duke & Fats LP- great stuff.
he was also on the John Lewis LP "The Golden Striker".
He's always got some great stories about the heavyweights he played with.
On the Lewis sessions (and concerts?), he'd sit around and practice Bach on the flute, while all the black dudes would be getting high. So John Lewis comes up to him and says, "Wow, I've never seen anything like that- you're actually practicing classical music. Maybe the other guys should be doing something like that...".
There was a time in the 40s when he said he was being promoted as the "great white hope" against Bird.
So Bird sees him on the street in NYC one day, and comes up to him and says, "I know who you are... Don't go thinkin' you're so special!"
I think he played on a Sarah Vaughn record with Bird and Diz (not sure).
On the many gigs I played with him, every solo was a subtle work of art- you literally cannot hear anyone play like that anymore.
He gave me a CD copty of the LP he made with Jimmy Raney and Hall Overton, a tape of a trio gig he did with Joe Puma, and a tape of a concert he did with Janice Friedman. All great stuff.
You'd think NYC would celebrate a great national treasure like him while he's still alive, but no- all we get is Wynton and work songs...
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is Sachs still alive? He was married to Helen Merrill at some point.
here's something I disagree with and which is I think is dangerously dated, that Ethan says: "you seem to follow the melodic line more than the changes, which is really the higher space of playing."
I think the highest space of playing is to forget about melody and only think about triads. But that's just me.
Yeah, Aaron is still going. I've done numerous gigs with him in Westchester.
He told me the story about when HM ditched him. He woke up one morning and she and the piano were gone!
He's a walking history of jazz, beginning his recording career with the Red Norvo Sextet in the early 1940s, then was a member of the Terry Gibbs Quintet, and then the Earl Hines Quintet
Unlike other BG clones, AS assimilated bebop and beyond, and even studied with Hall Overton.
Plays tenor sax just as great as he plays the clarinet.
Still a creative improviser into his 90s!
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On my fave Harry LP, "Aerial Ballet" he records some great original tunes which are essentially standards. The only improvisation is his unique style of scatting, but the arrangements by George Tipton are very tasteful. Like Sinatra, without great arrangements HN is not so impressive. Tipton did the arr. for all his early stuff, which is the only HN I like. I HATE his rock crap.
Tipton put up his life savings to pay for HN's demos, which eventually got him his RCA recording contract.
HN fired his first record producer by telegram, and never spoke to him again.
The hapless guy appears in the documentary to tell his sad tale.
Then he screwed Tipton over royalties, and Tipton refused to appear in or be quoted in the doc.
The strange thing was that Tipton years later recorded an instrumental LP of all Nilsson material.
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Here's a guy who never seems to get any recognition, but he pre-dates Konitz, recorded several LPs as a leader, and look at his sideman credits:
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Thanks for the link!
IMHO, the greatest jazz improvisers had the ability to think of and execute high quality lines at tempos the reast of us can only open our mouths and say, "huh?
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Mayor Bloomberg is a super rich fellow with his heart in the right place and nothing else but the power of his position and bank book.
Bloomie might seem like he has his heart in the right place, because his PR machine is so extensive. He owns TV channels, a magazine, a news service, a financial terminal that every financial company has to rent monthly (if you do something he doesn't like, he simply won't let you rent it), and he's mayor of NYC. What gets out is what he wants to get out.
In the last election, the vote was split down the middle- 52% white vote for him, and 48% everyone else for Thompson, whom he smeared like he's doing to John Liu now.
Since he assumed mayoral control of the city's schools, I've been his employee for twelve years, and there's not one teacher I know that isn't praying for his term to end.
He's destroyed the education of an entire generation of children, so he can privatize the school system, and bring down the union. He's done this by closing down almost every HS in the city (now he's closing down all the elementary and middle schools), and re-opening them as charter schools that only admit the highest performing students.
The remaining public schools get the lowest performing students, and are composed largely of Special Ed. and ESL students.
I wonder which schools are going to perform better?
At my HS, we were graduating kids that weren't even ready for the tenth grade, not to say college, because he ordered principals to pass 80% of the students, regardless of their grades. If a teacher didn't comply with this, they would receive a "U" rating, and eventually get their license taken away. There were FIVE lawsuits by teachers against the principal of my HS at last count, even though they had to fire her because of incompetence, anyway.
You can ask any CUNY teacher, and they'll tell you that the percentage of NYC students that need remediatial classes is 80%, in the schools they can even get accepted by.
Even NYC residents know nothing about this (my niece works for him in the gov't, and she isn't aware of this), because he has contributed to every media outlet, and they're all beholden to him.
Sure, he's for gun control- he's probably afraid someone's going to shoot him!
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What? You mean he's not going to be serving a fourth term?
Ben Tucker - RIP
in Artists
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Always liked his recordings with Grant Green. Musicians like that can't be replaced. RIP, Mr. Tucker...