Hot Ptah

I have it. I found it cheap when a used music store opened up and they were anxious for any cash flow at all, in the beginning. I like the set overall. I am glad that there is some representation of the mid-1970s band and wish there was more.

Your comments, and those of Larry Kart, on Toshiko Akiyoshi's writing for her big band are very interesting. What intrigues me is that her writing really appealed to masses of listeners, on an immediate, gut level, which would seem unlikely given the analyses which have been provided on this thread. I saw this happen several times. The Toshiko Akiyoski-Lew Tabackin Big Band was booked at the 1981 Milwaukee Art Fair. This was one of those public events with many traveling artists setting up their wares in tented booths. Thousands of people walked by, a few actually buying some art, but most just hanging out at the event and eating and drinking. A city official gave a short speech from a stage at one end of the event, saying that "the band you voted #1" would be playing later. Presumably she was putting far too much stock in the down beat Reader's Poll, considering it to be an American Idol-style national referendum. When Toshiko/Lew & Co. began playing, I walked down to listen to them at the stage. Soon hundreds, if not more than a thousand people, gathered around and to my surprise, were enthusiastically digging them. The crowd became quite vocal with enthusiasm, clapping, stomping and screaming its approval. I am quite sure that most of those who gathered around had no idea of the identity of the band. In Kansas City, the Parks and Recreation Department put on free jazz concerts in the parks once a week in the summers, in the early to mid-1980s. Dave Brubeck, Herbie Mann, the Heath Brothers, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie and others were presented. Every year the Akiyoski-Tabackin Big Band was one of the relatively few artists presented. It got to the point where the local press asked the Parks and Recreation Department why more variety was not being presented. In an interview in the Kansas City Star, the spokesman said that with Akiyoski-Tabackin, they knew that they were presenting a favorite of Kansas City audiences, a proven crowd pleaser, so that the series was assured of success. It did seem that the audiences were having a good time and enjoying themselves at the Akiyoshi-Tabackin concerts. When the Kansas City Folly Theater began its annual series of national jazz concerts in the 1980s, again Akiyoshi-Tabackin was often presented. I remember thinking that we were all missing out on big chunks of the scene as Akiyoshi-Tabackin was being presented so many times in the precious few concert slots. But the concerts were always sold out, with enthusiastic audiences. So if Toshiko's writing was flawed, too busy, or weak on brass, the audiences of the time didn't seem to feel it, from what I observed over several years.

If you like 1970s electric Miles, you need Big Fun.

Happy birthday, Jim!

I agree with you.

I have just learned that Kelly has her own website, www.gracekellymusic.com, for those who want to learn more.

Here's an example of a review which mentions Grace Kelly, from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Jazz Great Morgan Wows Home Crowd By MIKE DREW Special to the Journal Sentinel Posted: May 13, 2007 It's unlikely that, in the storied history of the Hal Leonard Jazz series at the Pabst Theater, there has been a more remarkable concert than the stunner that 750 lucky souls caught Saturday night. Before a note was played, drama resonated. The night marked the return home of alto sax giant Frank Morgan, 73. In the second comeback of a drama-filled career - first from drug addiction and prison, this time from a stroke - Morgan played wonderfully, with lush tonality, power and passion. He brought along a veteran rhythm section that backed him impeccably and a blazing young trumpet star. A Katrina survivor, Maurice Brown is transplanted in Chicago. What gave the evening a "star is born" dramatic tension was the playing of an amazing alto saxophonist, Grace Kelly. Just 14, she held her own in this extremely fast company. Morgan found her in Boston, where she attends two conservatories. She never lost her poise, trading solos with Morgan, Brown and pianist Ronnie Mathews, sometimes at breakneck tempos, without rehearsal. Navigating Jerome Kern's legendary chord changes on "All the Things You Are" was equivalent, perhaps, to mastering her conservatory finals. If so, successfully following Morgan and Brown's 16th-note sprints through "Cherokee" became an impromptu doctoral thesis. The changes on its bridge shot by faster than you can tap your toes. But Kelly, who'd never played it professionally, eluded all shoals, tingling spines. Among the event's other apexes was a series of solo "trades" between bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Billy Hart that moved from eight measures to four-, two- and one-bar exchanges before merging seamlessly. Brown's reconstruction of "Misty" was superb, his barely amplified fluegelhorn and muted trumpet filling the Pabst with lyrical, complex lines. Obviously pleased at the chemistry between his senior rhythm section and junior horn players, paterfamilias Morgan beamed and applauded. He ended the extraordinary evening playing "Goodbye," a farewell to a city and friends that, he said, "I'll always love." Fans who closed their eyes could picture a younger Morgan perfecting that mournful solo in one of the prison cells he called home for decades. The poignancy was palpable.

I have been hearing very enthusiastic eyewitness accounts, and reading very positive reviews, of a 14 year old alto saxophone player, Grace Kelly. From what I have heard and read, she is a remarkable player already, in a league above the "young lions" of the past who have been overhyped. Has anyone heard her playing in concert?

O.K., but once we get past the late 1970s and are out of the Deterioration Of Fusion era, has Clarke done any worthwhile recordings in the 1980s, 1990s or 2000s?

chewy, I agree with you on Earl Hines! He is someone that everyone should listen to regularly. As to the ridicule of "What Game Shall We Play Today", I saw Corea play an unaccompanied solo piano concert last spring. He announced at the beginning that he had nothing planned. Thus he paused between some songs, sometimes for a fairly long time. The audience shouted out requests at those times. Corea said in a negative tone of voice that he did not take requests, but he commented on some of the requests anyway, and the requests did inspire some of his performance choices. When someone from the audience shouted out a request for "What Game Shall We Play Today", Corea made a disgusted face and sang the title in a mocking voice.

The Brilliant Classics "Complete Bach Edition" box is an example of this. The first CD, with Musica Amphion and harpsichordist Pieter-Jan Belder playing Brandenburg Concertos 1-3, is by far the best CD of the set. The other 154 discs are not as good. It is all downhill after the first disc.

To me, Stanley is one of those musicians with tremendous chops who didn't do nearly enough with them. Is there a body of his work from after 1976 which I have missed, which would lead to another conclusion? If so I would genuinely like to check it out.

A great, very exciting live big band album is "The Dizzy Gillespie Reunion Big Band Anniversary", recorded 1968 at the Berlin Jazz Festival, released 1969 as MPS 15207. It was reissued in 1978 as "The Incredible Dizzy Gillespie" (MPS Jazz Time Vol. 6). I heard a cut from it on the radio in 1978 and had to pull over and stop the car so that I could write down the name of the song and album.

To me, your badge is that so much of what you have written over the years has been interesting and has made sense, and you have a lot of experience with many artists which many of us lack.

I have to go listen to Lew's albums again. I can remember Lew emitting low burp like sounds in his tenor solos during concerts, but I must confess that I never linked them to Sonny Rollins. I thought that they were just weird sound choices by Lew, and not my favorite moments in his solos, by far. Maybe it all just flew right past me, which is possible. Maybe they were such poor Rollins imitations that they weren't obvious to me. As I said, some listening is in order on this point.

Personally, I never found Corea convincing in his Circle role, nor on Miles Davis' Black Beauty, where he played in a similar style but on electric piano. But that's just me.

There was an album art game on another board (which starts with A) and in searching for matching images to fit the thread's several categories, it became quickly apparent to me that Chick Corea's album covers are one of the most fertile sources of strange and ridiculous images in all of jazz.

You're right, but I don't recall that I went into much detail. My main problem is that while I love vintage Sonny Rollins and in principle have to admit the possibility of there being good-to-excellent Rollins-influenced tenormen, when guys start to come up with some of Rollins's very specific/personal chortles, burps, and guffaws (as I think Tabackin does; in fact, LT not only imitates but also often exaggerates them), I run from the room with my hair on fire. Now it would be possible, of course, though difficult, to do what I think LT does as a sort of further humorous/ironic commentary on Rollins's own fairly extreme (and again quite personal) tendencies in that direction. But what I hear from LT and some other Rollins-drenched guys from his and later generations sounds to me like puppetry -- not that it's easy to do, but I feel like I'm listening to someone snatch away another unique man's living breath. I'd say BTW that this is not true, or not true to the same degree or in the same way, of most Trane disciples of however many generations -- while problems certainly lie in wait for them, the problem of speaking so directly in another man's voice is not high among them because I think Trane's "cry" was to some considerable degree generic (I mean that positively, as though Trane's voice were both personal and also inherently that of many or even a multitude, a la the bare-breasted woman at the barricades in Delacroix's famous painting; the same might be said of Young or Hawkins [though for somewhat different reasons in both cases, but Rollins' voice, when it gets emotionally specific in the way I have in mind. is not at all generic IMO]). An example of a Rollins-drenched guy who usually doesn't give me that "stealing the living breath" feeling would be Ralph LaLama. Among younger players, an interesting case is Grant Stewart -- who has considerable melodic and rhythmic gifts but can at times get too close for my tastes to specific Rollins-esque emotive figures; and now that I've stumbled aross that phrase, "emotive figures," perhaps that's the gist of what I have in mind. Rollins came up with and handled such figures in a way that I think was both new to jazz and unique to himself, in that these emotive figures not only were highly (almost luridly) emotive but also were quite self-consciously/knowingly (and usually humorously/ironically) so, such that the play between those figures and the rest of his musical-emotional vocabulary was a key part of his language. Can't think of many Rollins-influenced guys who have much a clue there. Actually, Archie Shepp probably did for a hot minute. And Ed Wilkerson Jr. does. while i thoroughly enjoyed your comments and certainly agree with some of them, i would humbly suggest that perhaps you need to listen to more of lew or perhaps more recent lew. I agree with Valerie B. I have listened to a ton of Rollins and quite a bit of Tabackin, both live and on album--and I am a bit mystified by Larry Kart's comments. Since it is Larry Kart, with all of the great respect that he deserves, I am going to go back and listen carefully to my Tabackin on tenor albums in conjunction with a select group of my mountain of Rollins albums. However, it has never struck me before that Tabackin was a mere Rollins copier. I always thought that Tabackin had his own style.

But even in his sell-out moves Corea was also inconsistent. I listened to all of the DiMeola RTF albums last year, for the first time in years. I found "Where Have I Known You Before" and "No Mystery" to contain some interesting, fine cuts, and some dull stuff. I found "Romantic Warrior" to be a complete snooze-fest from start to finish. Why did I ever like it? I thought that his Origin band was pretty good, and had real promise as a continuing unit, even if personnel changes would have been necessary over time--but then he dropped it, and to do what? I can't get a handle on how Corea plans his career, or views himself as an artist.

He was also on several Blue Mitchell and Herbie Mann records. Guy Corea was also on Richard Davis' "Philosophy of the Spiritual". I think that Corea is not a complete fraud, but that few artists with the talent he sometimes exhibits have released so many sub-par albums. He's inconsistent.

His "Rites of Pan" is one of the great jazz flute albums, I think, and contains some beautiful music.

There is really something to that, in my opinion. Those who "get" Betty tend to really delve into (and enjoy) her recomposing and deconstructing the songs, which she does in a unique way. It was more obvious that this is what she was doing when you saw her live, I think. Her stage presence was powerful--she was the opposite of a shrinking violet, and it seemed that she was boldly taking risks with the material, which risks were interesting and enjoyable to follow. At least that is how I viewed it and heard it. To simply dismiss her out of hand with little analysis is, in my humble opinion, like saying "that John Coltrane just ran all over his horn--I can't follow it--he's no good." Betty was a heavy artist, and if you don't get it at first, I don't think it is fair to dump on Betty.

I have always liked her rendition of Cole Porter's "Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love" on the "Now It's My Turn" album. She delivers it with just the right touch, for me.

My predictions for the end: I think Tony will have a load of asbestos-laden trash dumped on Phil's front lawn in Brooklyn. Phil will have Paulie, Syl and Bobby whacked. Tony will have some of Phil's slimy guys whacked. Tony and Phil will try to have each other whacked, with Little Carmine in the middle of it. Either Little Carmine will be screwed over by one side or the other in the final showdown, or Little Carmine will screw over everyone else and take over both families in the end, showing himself to be a tough, shrewd, ruthless and very smart guy who has been only pretending to be a wimpy, sensitive New Age gangster. Oh, along the way Carmella and Meadow will die in the gunfire, either as targets or because they get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. A.J. will descend deeper into madness. Uncle Junior will die in prison. Tony will be alive at the end but will have lost both his biological family and his Mob family. Either Phil or Little Carmine will be in charge of New Jersey at the end, and will either let Tony live as a pathetic shell of his former self, or Tony will turn himself into the Feds to save himself from being whacked by Phil or Little Carmine. If the Russian from the woods reappears, I would boo and hiss at that.

It is good to have you back! I was hoping that your wife would not pull the plug (literally) when the computer came back from the shop!