Larry Kart

Pretty damn terrifying/chilling in the hands of Sigi and Lenny.

Sorry -- you are correct.

The first amendment is commonly misunderstood: "First Amendment - Religion and Expression. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech" etc. First Amendment has nothing to do with the right of particular individuals to speak in particular venues or unmolested (does heckling count?), however much we might think it right or fair that they be allowed to do so. For sure, both the left and the right have for many years misunderstood and/or abused what the First Amendment actually says.

I know, I know. It kind of slid sideways into that. I promise to stop myself.

A bit more on Hoff Summers: https://studentactivism.net/2016/04/27/christina-hoff-sommers-and-milo-yiannopoulos/ FWIW, I don't myself put Hoff Summers and Yiannopulos in the same bag, but while I would not give a platform to the latter if I had a choice/vote but would to the former, that doesn't mean that I think of her as anything other than a disingenuous provocateur.

And see this response from Charles Pierce: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a19177772/bari-weiss-campus-free-speech-new-york-times/

DSTMIASW seems to me like a rather awkward way of responding to music that you don't like and that you don't like because it seems to you to have specific flaws/defects etc. -- flaws/defects. etc. that also may well, as often is the case, touch upon "problems" (if you will) that are at work in the larger musical or even social landscape. No, I'm not going to buy space on three billboards in Kansas to proclaim my dislike of musician X, but I'm not going to behave like a Trappist monk either.

IIRC many if not all the Dawn jazz albums were very nicely recorded by engineer-classical pianist David B. Hancock. Hancock had his own style, which I like but find hard to characterize -- clarity and a sense of natural balance among instruments, would be my attempt. Perhaps Chuck or someone else with real knowledge could weigh in on this.

mjzee: 'I guess what bothers me is the assumption that "new" is, every time and in all cases, "good."' Who, especially around here, is making that assumption? At times during this thread, I've thought of Frank O'Hara's old wisecrack: "A lot of people would like to see art dead and sure, but you don't see them up at the Cloisters reading Latin."

Yes, new is not about the calendar; it's about what might be called continuing "presentness." Jelly Roll, Josquin, Chopin, etc., when heard, never cease to exist/function in the present moment. Sorting out the continuing presentness of, say, Chopin from what may seem overly familiar in his music may not be a snap, but it sure can be done.

Sorting out as honestly as one can the new that works from the new, or would-be new, that doesn't is part of the challenge and the fun. Is that a problem?

Yes to both, with a qualification. New and challenging for sure, especially challenging in language terms because it's so stimulating (for me) to try to grasp the principles of a new way of speaking. Comfort zone, too, but the "speech" of what's being spoken there has to be genuine. To pick two examples at random -- I wouldn't have asked Johnny Hodges or Benny Carter to play something that was utterly new to me (or to them), but I'd have wanted/expected them to be themselves in "the present." Anyone who can't be themselves in "the present" -- I don't care what style they play, what era they come from or are trying to inhabit, I'm elsewhere. If what I mean here is unclear, ask me a question and I'll try to explain further. BTW, now that I think of it, an example from up thread. When I first heard Nick Mazzarella about twelve years ago, he was more drenched in Ornette than one would have thought possible. But I felt sure right off that he wasn't emulating Ornette per se but working toward what would become his own music in a way he needed to work, and such has proved to be the case. Three from (or including) another young altoist I like, Jarrett Gilgore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABeyi8I69oo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y33XnU3FabQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj85z8XNcXs

I just did above -- Nick Mazzarella.

The idea that Jim was picking on Grace Kelly is absurd. And here's an altoist who's just a few years older:

Sad news.

Just ordered the Kubelik. Thanks for the recommendation. Now I've listened to it. Thanks again.

Speaking of Das Leid -- I just listened for the first time to the Bruno Walter/N.Y. Phil/Ernst Hafliger/Mildred Miller recording. Hafliger in the first movement is terrific -- yes. there's Wunderlich with Klemperer, but Hafliger seems to me to get right "in there" emotionally, while Fritz is more about his gorgeous soaring voice.

My brain fills in for me too with JH, but at times I want to hear more, and the Ozawa is remarkable in its own right.

Unhappy with every Mahler 8th recording I’ve heard -- Horenstein would have been ideal, but the sound isn’t what it needs to be for these vast forces, and the celebrated in many quarters Solti/CSO is interpretatively brutal — I was prompted by this review: http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2006/07/alles-vergngliche-ozawas-mahler-eighth.html to try the unlikely (so I thought) Ozawa/BSO recording. Bingo!

The liner notes are worth that much.

I heard that Dick Johnson-led Shaw band that Artie had rehearsed -- extensively, I was told. The trumpets sounded like violins -- amazing. Only band that was at all similar that way in my experience was the Gerry Mulligan "Walk on the Water" band of the early '90s (I think) that recorded "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You."

Someone who knows where the bodies are buried agrees with me that Shaw was both a great musician and a narcissistic jerk but says that he'd be inclined to trust Shaw on Auld, though he adds that Auld was not a literal gangster as far as he knows, just "rough-edged." BTW, I may be getting hung up on the details of language (as I'm inclined to do) but what I especially like about that Buddy Rich funeral anecdote from Shaw is that when Auld made his angry remarks to him, Shaw was talking to Mel Brooks. That's my man Artie -- he had to be talking to someone special and throw that in. BTW, can't recall the details, but when I read Nolan's Shaw bio I thought it had many dubious passages. Nolan also wrote a bio of detective writer Ross Macdonald (creator of private eye Lew Archer). Nolan seemed more at home dealing with noir fiction, but IIRC that book too had its dubious aspects. OTOH, the writer who could fully capture both Artie Shaw the musician and Artie Shaw the multifarious man may not exist.

Don't miss Gonsalves on "I've Just Seen Her."

Likewise, I was surprised that on a recent list here of latter-day Ellington recordings, many of which were singled out as being of special merit, this one was not. It's superb:

https://www.amazon.com/You-Got-Jumpin-GEORGIE-AULD/dp/B0009JOQ02/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519514497&sr=8-1&keywords=georgie+auld+you+got Interesting boppish ten-piece band, recorded live and in decent or better sound. Personnel: Auld, Pete Terry, t. sax. Clint Neagley, alto, Gerry Mulligan, b. sax, Neal Hefti, tpt., Billy Byers, trb., Jimmy Rowles, piano, Joe Mondragon, bs. Alvin Stoller, drms. Karl Kiffe, bongos. Hefti and Byers get a good deal of solo space -- both as good as I've ever heard them. Auld, of course, was a swinger. I've wondered about this passage from Tom Nolan's book on Artie Shaw: In Tom Nolan's Three Chords for Beauty's Sake, his biography of Artie Shaw, Nolan quotes Shaw on Auld:"At Buddy [Rich's] funeral [in 1987], I'm talking to Mel Brooks, outside the funeral home. And Georgie Auld—he turned out to be a fucking gangster, horrible guy—he comes up: 'You're fulla shit. You're fulla shit.' 'Wadya mean, George? Wadya talkin' about?' I said, 'Is that your considered opinion? Is there anything you want to add to that?' "George was disappointed he wasn't called on to speak [at Buddy's funeral] and was very angry. 'You're fulla shit.' That's all he could say! Chagrin! What—I dunno, he identified himself with me, and he never could quite make it, as a star, you know, whatever it was. Angered him. Infuriated him. When I quit the music, man [in 1939], I gave him the band; I gave him my book. He could not make it work. He didn't have the quality that it took. Certain people don't." Auld was a "horrible guy," who "turned out to be a fucking gangster"? Hmm. Well, Shaw for sure was a narcissistic asshole in the top class, in addition to being a great clarinetist. So who knows what's up here, if anything. Also, of course Auld couldn't make it work as the leader of Shaw's 1939 band after Shaw quit; no one could have. People wanted to see/hear Artie, not his band, fine as it still was.