Christiern

I have no idea what prompted this venom from an anonymous fellow member, nor--considering the O history of the source, am I letting it bother me--but, where do we draw the line here, Larry?

Bill Dixon and George Russell in the same breath???????

Don a blond wig and return to that IKEA store looking kinda goofy and wearing a Swedish flag lapel pin.

Think of it, Chuck, you could have been Lubinsky!

Chuck, let's see if we can't get Schaap yo cough up an MP3 of the Jarrett grunt track he's been trying to get released.

If believing all that crap makes you happy, Clementine, knock yourself out. I am quite happy (delighted, in fact) not being Schaap.

Big Al: "I'm curious about which liner notes he proclaimed himself the 'world's greatest authority on jazz'..." Don't recall, but I think one was on a Verve album.

Thank you Larry, I found that one a bit odd myself. Enjoying the book, BTW.

1. Being a jazz "completist" is no sin. No, not per se, but Schaap's extremes might well fall into that category. 2. Many, perhaps most, jazz fans are obsessed with trivia. That's fine, but there is enough of the real thing to go around, Schaap makes it up and.or embellishes upon it. He also most of the time gives it priority over the actual music. I think the lengthy article gives an excellent example of that--okey? 3. All history, including jazz history, is subjective. Sorry to say this, BM, but that statement is, frankly, idiotic. If all history were subjective...well, think about it. 4. Phil has paid his dues. I don't know what dues you are referring to, but how much has he paid for the right to alter history and present his fantasies as realities? Remember, he pretends to be the world's greatest authority on jazz (he actually labeled himself as such on liner note credits). Well, I think that self-proclaimed distinction bears with it some responsibility--turning jazz history into a fable without disclosure does not seem very responsible to me. 5. David Remnick is a fine writer. That may well be, but I think he owes it to his readers to not accept what is told him at face value, especially when he relates something in his own words rather than as a quote. The New Yorker used to be known for its fact-checking. I and/or an event I was involved in have been mentioned in that magazine a few times in the past, and I always received at least one phone call from its fact-checking dept. I guess they have dropped that admirable routine. BM, f you have been listening to Schaap and taking his assertions seriously, you have a lot of catching up to do--unless, of course, you are happy in his fantasies.

Schaap has been/is so desperately in need of attention, a need to stand out, that he simply makes up stuff. This has had the desired effect of convincing people that he has information that somehow escaped learned historians. Unfortunately, the ploy has also resulted in distortion of that history. He does know a lot, names, dates (real and imagined), recordings, etc., but is obsessed with trivia, whether it is fact-based or not--look at the Benedetti set, was there any eartly reason to include trains passing in the night, just because Benedetti's machine happened to do so? Of course not. Equally ludicrous--and, I think, sick--was his inclusion of sound snippets last 5 or 6 seconds, and then identifying them as "possibly Lover Man"! I look forward to George Avakian making public some of the Schaap horror stories he has shared with me. I also wish people could see the submitted Schaap liner notes and compare them with the edited versions that were published. Peter Pullman's mantle is missing some deserved Grammys and so, I suspect, is at least one editor at CBS/Sony. As for for the all-star grannies and baby sitters, please--give us all a break! The man is 90% a fraud and 100% a jerk.

I thought you were simply trying to emulate the redundancy and tedium of a Schaap radio rant.

7/4, one posting of this piece well establishes Schaap as the asshole he is, as well as the writer's gullibility. I would love to be present when George Avakian and other's I know in this business read this piece. One day, someone will set the record straight on Schaap and his overly fertile imagination. He puts Hillary to shame with his stories--the sad thing is that some of his revisionist jazz history may have legs. I will now throw up

If it were possible to vocalize with your lips wrapped around a mouthpiece, you would hear a lot more--it is for some musicians a natural thing. Sensible microphone placement can at least reduce it. When I produced a session with Earl Hines in a Chicago, we used a club (The Bird House, closed for the occasion) rather than a studio (Riverside was on a tight budget). Earl wanted to include a couple of vocals, so we had a mic set up for that. Unfortunately, the clowns who engineered the session left the microphone open throughout, so the solos--and he rendered a particularly interesting one on "A Monday Date"--contained utterances that otherwise would not have been heard. Unfortunately, our control room was a converted Greyhound bus, parked outside, so I did not catch this until I heard the playback and it was too late to redo it. As I recall, Erroll Garner also grunted. It can be annoying, but it need not be as obvious as it sometimes is on recordings.

Frankly, I always thought that Archie's recognition factor exceeded his measure of talent--fame by association and fortuitously timed presence.

Alison, you are a gem.

I don't know what the going language is in Canadia, but if you lived in Canada and could not read English, you might well wonder why you were so short-sighted. It is easier for a Canadian to learn English than it is for any English-speaking person to commit 342 pages to memory. Also, if you were a writer/researcher, you would surely want a book such as Larry's to have an index, even a friggin' one. BTW, Whitney Balliett's New York Notes suffers the same handicap. The content of both books seriously lessens the pain while also underscoring the need.

Today, as I opened a book of jazz, I came across a bookmark--it is a relevant Down Beat clipping of a review I wrote for the Feb. 5, 1970 issue. I haven't heard this album in at least 30 years, so I hope I wasn't too off the mark giving it 5 stars (Oh, how I hated that rating system!): King Crimson IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING --Atlantic SD-8245. Rating: • • • • • Last November I went to the Fillmore East to catch a program headed by Joe Cocker and including Fleetwood Mac. Last on that bill, and therefore first on stage, was a group I had not heard before, King Crimson. Clearly the superior group, it rendered all that followed anticlimactic. Many groups of not-so-adept musicians have been rocketed to fame and fortune on the strength of their material. Such fame is of course not unjustified if, as is often the case, the group is also responsible for the material. In the case of King Crimson--who have not yet tasted fame and fortune, but are surely destined to do so--outstanding material is combined with some very impressive musicianship. I am glad that I had the opportunity to see KC perform in person before receiving their album for review, because, unlike many other groups in the genre, what they do on stage is not a mere duplication of their work in the studio. One of the things that impressed me about KC’s set at the Fillmore East was reedman Ian McDonald’s excursions into free-form jazz improvisation. The capsule biographies that accompanied my reviewer’s kit state that he counts John Handy and Eric Dolphy among his musical influences--it shows in his playing. In concert they stretch out, incorporating many improvised passages that are not on the record, but should have been included in place of the album’s only tedious track, Moonchild. As it is, they sounded more like a rock-oriented jazz group on stage, whereas the record leaves the opposite impresssion. This does not mean that their recorded performance is in any way inferior. It is more thought out, but the result--with the exception noted--is decidedly neo-rock (for want of a better term) at its very best, and such segments as 21st Century Schizoid Man and The Court of the Crimson King are close to being masterpieces of the genre. The former contains seething, at times almost symphonic instrumental passages in which the group, McDonald and guitarist Robert Fripp in particular, shows what powerful stuff it is made of. McDonald can also play pretty, in the lyrical sense, and his flute work on I Talk to the Wind is a thing of delicate beauty. Epitaph, a somber piece that incorporates a moving dirge (presumably March for No Reason), rates high, too. But, as noted, the album also contains a weak segment, and Moonchild is very weak indeed. Unforunately, it is the longest track, a little over 12 minutes of mostly meaningless doodling. Having witnessed what the group is capable of, I am sorry that they did not forego that track in favor of some improvised interplay. The lyrics are all by Peter Sinfield, who is considered a member of the group although he does not perform musically (he is also their light man). They are rather cryptic and contain nice poetry, but are easily overshadowed by the music. Although Moonchild does not rate any stars in my book, the rest of the album merits more than the limit. King Crimson has majestically arrived, proving that neither Beatles nor Stones were the last word from England. --Albertson

Yale told me the same, come to think of it. Since my initial edition had an index, I decided to do it myself (i.e. update it), but it was a frustrating job, because Yale would only allow me a certain number of pages. Ergo, I had to leave out much that I would normally have included. Still, there are 8 pages--the Stein & Day version had 9, and it was half the length. On books that lend themselves to research, I think an index is essential, don't you? As for proofreading, Yale did furnish a freelance editor and she was terrific--there are a couple of bad typos somewhere in Bessie, but it's mostly okay. One of my original editors, at Stein & Day, systematically removed initials from names, so I had to give them an argument to keep it "James P. Johnson", for example! I look forward to reading the book, Larry.

My book library was enriched today. Larry, I look forward to the read, but why is there not an index?

How about "Dummies for Allen Lowe"? I've been a member for quite some time. Back to currently reading, I'm re-reading Bob Wilber's autobiography.

I am truly saddened to hear of such bad news befalling such good people--you will all be in my thoughts.

One man's grin is often another man's groan. I don't recall hilarity ensuing when this stuff was popping up on t he snake pit board. But times change and what was not funny back then just might be hilarious today.