John L

This has become a very interesting discussion. A few comments: I do not think that America, and Black America in particular, is ready yet to come to grips with the legacy of minstrelsy in all of its richness and complexity. There is just too much painful baggage that too many people are still carrying around. I think that we eventually will come to grips with it, but we probably need the detachment of at least one more generation. As for Wynton Marsalis in particular, I think that the quote that Larry Kart presented earlier from the Iverson interview on Duke Ellington as a symbol of dignity in African American music gets to the heart of his mindset. The fact is, Wynton Marsalis still believes himself to be on a crusade to counter racisism by always projecting jazz as a "dignified" African American art form. That is in direct opposition to the stereotype of minstrelsy in black American entertainment that he also indentifies in today's Hip Hop. I think that it is sad that Wynton Marsalis still feels the need to champion jazz in this manner in 2008. But that is the case. That is still part of the social context of the America that we live in. And Marsalis is far from unique in this regard. We might wish that we lived in a country where historical objectivity always rules the day on subjects like this. But we do not. Therefore, I still argue that Wynton's reaction to all of this is understandable, sad but understandable.

Fresh Sounds recently released this whole album with other early Evans material on a CD called The Sideman Years

Allen: There was no attempt on my part to be unfriendly here. I used the smiley at the end of that sentence to indicate that I meant it in jest, at least sort of. You did have the intention of carrying out a very substantative and challenging interview for Wynton, which he could have interpreted (even wrongly so) as hostile. Since I have not seen the inteview, and the summary of your conversation was incomplete with no actual quotes from Wynton, what I wrote was based on supposition. I am sorry if I supposed wrong, and please don't take personal offense.

Freddie Hubbard is the first hame that came to my mind as well. He has made some excellent albums as a leader, but his career highlights for me are mostly the huge contributions that he made to a number of jazz masterpieces under other leadership. I don't agree on Peterson, however. I tend not to enjoy his busy comping behind horn players at all, although do enjoy his trio recordings every now and again. The Verve dates with Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins did work out quite well, however.

Yes, the Weston set is very strong. I enjoy more and more every time I listen to it. Given your known love of good 70s jazz, I would certainly pick up the Hutcherson as well. There a lot of fantastic music on that one that is right up your alley. If you generally like big bands, the Akiyoshi-Tabackin is also a no brainer.

I would be very interested in seeing the tape of Allen's interview with Wynton. Given what has been said here, however, it is not difficult for me to understand that Wynton could have become rather cold and defensive in that context. Put yourself is his shoes for a minute. You, a controversial figure in jazz with many enemies, agree to do a a taped interview with a person who you do not know, and this person immediately comes right at you, putting your knowledge to test on late 19th and early 20th century American music. I would suspect that it might be a set up. And maybe it was? A real test of the degree of inflexibility of Wynton's views would probably have to be done informally over a beer. I get the impression that Wynton secretly regrets some of the more outrageous statements that he made in his youth on the basis of limited information, but his ego doesn't let him completely back away from those statements today. I see that syndrome in academia all the time. A brilliant scholar comes up with a great and influential theory that gets essentially disproven by empirical facts over time. Rather than acknowledge this fact, the common reaction of the scholar is to waste a huge amount of time and effort on coming up with statistical manipulations or new theories that could somehow exonerate the discredited theory associated with his name.

I really enjoyed reading that interview. Thanks.

This is indeed a great one. Could this be the best Joe Albany on record?

Hard to say. A lot of my favorite recordings on Mosaics I own in other formats. Of those Mosaics that I do own, I might choose Lester Young Andrew Hill Max Roach T-Bone and Turrentine also get a lot of play.

Count me soundly in the Kenny Dorham fan club. I just love listening to Kenny, any time, any day.

West Coast Jazz can be "hummed, whistled, and toe tapped" while other jazz is "stiff?" That is a very interesting opinion.

I heard that story, too. I doubt the truth, also. But it's a good story. MG I also seriously doubt that this story is true. I spent some time in Russia during the Soviet days. At that time, most Russian men refused to wear condums. It was a macho thing: "that's her problem." Abortions were free and more frequent than anywhere else in the world.

I quickly went through the track listing the other day, and it seems to the same, except for the Sid intros and voice overs. A reviewer over at amazon says an entire date with Navarro and Bud Powell is also "missing," but I can't tell if he's comparing the two compilations I highlighted or is referencing some other compilation. The tracks look the same to me, except for Sid. The date with Navarro and Powell does not come from the Royal Roost broadcasts. It was a Birdland concert that was recorded later (1950 in most discographies). Therefore, it is usually not included in the Royal Roost (i.e. live Savoy) boxes. There were a number of bootlegs in the past that mixed up tracks from the Royal Roost sessions and the Birdland concert together, which is probably the source of confusion for this reviewer.

Thanks, Lon, and also thanks for reminding me of "Prepare Thyself to Deal With a Miracle." After your post, I played it for the first time in years, and was astonished. What a fantastic record!

Are there any opinions about the 2 discs "Live in Paris" from 1970?

Very strange. I do recall posting something on this thread in the past, but post 32 was NOT made by me. Edited: Now, the current post 32 WAS made by me. Earlier, for some reason, Paul Secor's post 34 was under my name on 32.

Thanks, Lon. I didn't realize the circumstances under which Hart left the band.

The larger Mosaic box sets seek to present a certain entire body of work of an artist, warts and all. Sometimes even the more unsuccessful works and alternates can give a better appreciation of the development and accomplishments of an artist. In the digital age, programming out the lesser material for desired listening is not a big deal any more.

I agree. I think that the tremendous orchestral recordings that Armstrong made with Russ Garcia, along with the Autobiography, Ellington session, and duets with Ella, show just what tremendous heights Armstrong could still reach at that point in his career. The W.C. Handy and Fats Waller tributes are also top notch, of course. The recordings that the All Stars made for Decca were also good, but not as good (IMO) as other recordings that Armstrong could have been making at the time. The All Stars made consistently good music, but it did get to be a bit formulaic. As for the notable "diversity" of Armstrong's recordings from this period, much of that seems to me to be haphazard casual encounters that Louis did between shows without much thought, as opposed to carefully-planned ambitious projects. I believe that it was Gary Giddins in his biography who noted that Armstrong would generally not even rest his chops before a recording session, as they were so much lower priority than the shows.

If you are saying that Louis' demeanor was different when the audience was non-white, you are very wrong. I also don't for a minute believe that he worked on a "routine". Louis was just being Louis. I guess that what I am conjecturing is the following: if Louis' audiences had consisted primarily of people deeply interested and involved in black jazz, I think that he would have designed his show and much of his later career quite differently. It seems to me that Amstrong worked quite deliberately on reaching a very broad audience, including many people who had no real interest in jazz per se, or no awareness that jazz was something more than just casual entertainment. I am not saying that race was the key issue here, although I don't think that it can be ignored either. Louis did not expend energy nor did he concentrate on working up "routines". Like I said, Louis was Louis, a man of great talent—as a musician and entertainer—one might argue that he wasted some of it on inferior (but popular) material, and wish that he had concentrated more on jazz, but I think that is selfish. Artists aim to please audiences and when they can do so while at the same time creating as much great music as Louis did, we should be thankful for the legacy. I certainly feel grateful every day for Amstrong's enormous contributions and legacy. High art and entertainment for broad audiences are not necessarily contradictory, and Armstrong himself is very good proof of that conjecture. Yet the latter can still sometimes lead to compromises in the former. Armstrong took the importance of his roll as an entertainer for broad audiences so seriously that (IMO) he was willing to make those kind of compromises. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. That is the choice that he made, and he was able to reach more people because he made it. It is only as a jazz fan that I feel a bit of regret that he could have spent his later years more productively in terms of creating art. I love a lot of his later recordings, but I can't help but feel that there could have been even better and more diverse ones. A genius like that of Armstrong's is extremely rare.

Yes, Armstrong did try to reach as broad an audience as possible, including the greater white audience, and I do think that he made adjustments in his routine with that goal. That is what I had in mind, and that was in response to possible differences in the clowning routines of Armstrong and (maybe) somebody like Charlie Patton. I didn't mean to imply that it was a dumbing down, although I do personally wish that Armstrong from the early 30s on would have devoted more energy and concentration to making great art relative to what he spent every night on the world ambassador entertainment routines. I think that he could have achieved even more.

I really like the Mulligan set too: my favorite Mulligan, hands down.

Neither I nor Allen, I believe, is saying "more authentic," not at all -- just different in flavor, as you say, and also perhaps different in recipes/ingredients and cooking methods. And those differences are potentially interesting. Also, minstrelsy and clowning are not necessarily the same thing. Thanks, Larry. I guess that I misunderstood your post. The difference between ministrelsy and clowning is an interesting question. I sometimes wonder to the degree that Armstrong's ministrelsy-type clowning was a conscious play at minstrelsy, as opposed to just natural clowning from somebody who grew up surrounded by the tradition of ministrelsy. Maybe the difference is not that important, but it does appear to concern the question of the difference between clowning and ministrelsy. We can only imagine what Patton's clowning might have been like, but I see no reason to assume that it was completely detached from minstrelsy-type humor. Of course, Armstrong's routines were more consciously designed for mixed race or white audiences, which is maybe where the most important difference lies.

Sure, but I think that part of Allen's point (if not the gist of it) was that when Armstrong was becoming Armstrong, in the early to mid-1920s, the lay of the land in regard to blues strains and strains of minstrelsy in the music was significantly different than it is now, and if one knows what the lay of that land was (insofar as we can know it), Armstrong's undeniable use of blues material seems to have been from a minstrelsy perspective. This, of course, does not mean that Armstrong was what used to be thought of as a minstrel show performer; not at all. Rather, that the game-like, shape-shifting of minstrelsy (its gift for amplification and projection) was, Allen and others feel, what can be heard in how Armstrong handled blues material, and that is not what one hears in, to follow Allen's apt example, someone like Tommy Johnson. To emphasize again, Tommy Johnson and guys like Tommy Johnson matter in this not only because of the nature of what they were doing but also what they were doing then was pretty much being done then -- music like theirs was consensually/communally regraded as the blues (were not just talking about record companies here), and Armstrong was part of the community that was well aware of that strain of American vernacular music, felt its power, but (as Allen feels) then went on to, in Armstrong's case, "handle" it in effect. Armstrong, as is well known and can be heard, also felt and "handled" a fair amount of the Italian opera vibe that was readily available in New Orleans, but one wouldn't say that when he did this he was a Puccini or a Caruso musician. P.S. I can't put my hands on it right now, but one of the most fascinating pocket examples of the musical "lay of the land" back then is a CD of Gus Cannon and His Jug Stompers material from 1927 -- Cannon born in Mississippi in 1883. From piece to piece, things shift from strains that are pretty clearly blues-like, minstrel-like, even what what would come to be called "old-timey" country (this is the band that gave us "Walk Right In")-- all this being played and sung by pretty much the same group of musicians with frequently tremendous zest and flair. But however satisfying/charming the blues-like pieces are, there is a definite sense of minstrelsy-like handling and presentation to them vis-vis-a-vis the kind of direct dramatic involvement one gets from Tommy Johnson or Charley Patton -- this also being evident in how the Cannon band can shift so readily and convincingly into other stylistic modes. Now I'm not saying that Tommy Johnson or Charley Patton didn't know and couldn't have played the crap out of some mountain fiddle tunes if they'd wanted to, or that the "direct dramatic involvement" of their own material involved no amount of dramatization of their part, but you probably get the picture. And I'm certainly not saying that Cannon's Jug Stompers were in the same place as Armstrong, if only because the latter was, musically and otherwise, a kind of unleashed, unstoppable,immensely sophisticated thunderbolt, while Cannon and his colleagues had little room for "development" in themselves; they were great in their time and place, and that was about it. Finally, Jim, not every attempt to sift and quantify is at bottom (as I sometimes feel you've come to think) an attempt to control and dismiss what has been running free and should be left to be that way. Take a look, for instance, at Lawrence Gushee's "Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band" (Oxford U. Press, 2005), to see what real jazz scholarship at work can be like and, more to the point, how it involves sifting through all sorts of contemporary, often fragmentary evidence and partial highly colored latter-day testimony, reminscences, and perspectives with a rather jaw-dropping blend of love and scrupulousness -- all of which can leave us with (as is the case with Gushee's book) something very close to a near-living-and-breathing woolly mammoth; the Creole Band (which included Feddie Keppard, Jimmy Noone, bassist Bill Johnson et al.) of course being tremendously important to the history of jazz -- touring the country as a fairly major vaudeville act from 1914 to 1918, it had a vast influence, even though the band left behind not a single recording. Some interesting thoughts, but I don't know. Charley Patton and Tommy Johnson may sound less minstrelsy-like on record than Louis Armstrong often did, but that was not necessarily true of their live shows. Charley Patton had such a reputation for clowning that even Son House became dismissive of him for that reason. Tommy Johnson had a similar reputation. Patton, Johnson, and Armstrong offered very different flavors of the blues, but I don't see any reason to consider the former more authentic than the latter.

Well, most modern blues shows feature a lot of funk, P and otherwise.