Larry Kart

Reference was to the once well-known in jazz circles fact that after a certain point in his career as an arranger, Quincy farmed out much of the work credited to him to ghostwriters -- the prolific Billy Byers chief among them. The cover of one "arranged by Quincy Jones" album, don't recall which one, has a photo of members of the band and their music stands. On one of the open scores, Byers name can be seen at the top.

The words spoken by "Quincy Jones" in the interview are actually those of Billy Byers.

Interesting how much Byrd's style changed over a rather short span of time; his playing here being Style One, while by the time of, say, "Fuego" or "Off To the Races" he was well into Style Two (much more brassy and round in sound, and with the number of notes per unit of time being fairly well pared down) or maybe even Style Three. And there were more to come. Style Two certainly owed a debt in passing to Clifford Brown, but once one had heard the Byrd of Style Two, it was unmistakably him, a personal translation of Brownie. P.S. I think that Byrd's actual technical approach to playing the instrument changed during this time -- from the pressure to no-pressure system or vice versa (I'm no expert there).. Then on "Fuego" he was playing the pocket trumpet, which made a difference.

BTW, on Amazon there's a an enthusiastic customer's review of the above Shapero album that's purportedly from "George Perle." I assume that was someone's idea of a joke, though it's not impossible that over time the real George Perle's view of the work turned 180 degrees. But if that were the case, I would think that the real Perle would say a little something about how what he shouted at the premiere of the work and the apparently dire effect the resulting ruckus had on Shapero.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMkoHveSa0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NuED8-SfWs

Fascinating works, all of them, especially the Sonata in F Minor (1948). Avowedly based on classical models, especially late Beethoven, this work ran so counter to then prevailing "progressive modern" compositional fashion that the work was hissed and booed by members of the audience at its 1949 NYC premiere (young serialist composer George Perle stood up and shouted either "Hurrah Beethoven!" or "Viva Beethoven!" -- accounts differ.) In any case, this hostile reception -- most of the those who booed and hissed were, like Perle, fellow young composers -- "...was enough for Shapero (b. 1920) to lapse into creative silence for many years," retreating into academic life to teach at Brandeis University from 1951 to 1988. I knew of this story and also knew of Shapero's similarly neo-classical Symphony for Classical Orchestra, which Andre Previn revived and recorded in the 1980s; there also was a previous recording of the Symphony from the early '50s or late '40s cond. by Leonard Bernstein. What I didn't reckon on is that while the language of these works is staunchly tonal and that there is the late-Beethoven skeleton to the Sonata in particular, the results sound quite unique and quite American to boot. Primarlly this is a matter of what might be called spacing. The harmonic relationships are tonal, but there is quite often so much distance in pitch (and even register) between one figure or gesture and the next that the music typically seems to be taking place in mid-air and at some height ... above, say, the Grand Canyon. Further, the emotional effect of this music and its methods -- at once so "open air" and with such a sense of calmly striding purposefulness -- is unique, too. Again, Shapero was an avowed neo-classicist, and the example of Stravinsky's personal transformative version of that mode was before his eyes, as were some aspects (in terms of spacing) of Copland. But then Shapero doesn't sound much like Stravinsky or Copland either. (BTW, Copland earlier on had spoken somewhat negatively of Shapero's "compulsion to fashion his music after some great model.... he seems to suffering from a hero-worship complex -- or perhaps it is a freakish attack of false modesty...." Be that as it may, just listen to these works and tell me they don't sound unique -- and, I think, terrific.)

Geez -- I guess I did say/write it. Well, what I believe now is what I said above.

Bird's playing on this recording "is at a level notably higher than any Parker had reached before"? Did I say that? I hope not because I don't believe it. It's superb Bird, but there's lots of other superb Bird of various moods and kinds.

Nice story, good record.

The performances I'm referring to above are the first six tracks on "Charlie Parker, Boston 1952" (Uptown) , with Joe Gordon on trumpet, Twardzik, Mingus, and Roy Haynes, rec. at the Hi-Hat 12/14/1952. Tracks 7-13 on that album are from the Hi-Hat 1/18/1954, with Herbie Williams, Rollins Griffith (pno.), Jimmy Woode (bs.), and Marquis Foster (dr.). Good stuff but IMO not close to the 12/14/1952 material. More from the Parker, Herbie Williams, Rollins Griffith etc. group at the Hi-Hat, from 12-18 & 20, 1953 and 1/24/1954, is on "Bird at the Hi-Hat" (Blue Note). No one said it did. I was making a comparison, in terms of Parker's musical-emotional mood as I perceive it, between the fiercely intense Bird of the Washington quartet performances and the much more relaxed but no less creative Bird of the first six tracks on "Charlie Parker, Boston 1952" (Uptown).

The quartet side of the album below to me epitomizes the "hellhound on his trail" Parker. Hear this track for example: (p.s. I don't it's just a matter of tempo here, though it is way "up.") This track too:

(Piano) Vladimir Feltsman (It's only $5.07 right now for Feltsman's complete WTC, in its MHS incarnation, on Amazon. It was originally on MusicMasters.) (Harpsichord -- First book) Pierre Hantai

Love, and am stunned by, "Ride the Wind." I'll certainly listen again to “Discussions," but the first time though I didn't care for it much. In particular, I thought the two group improv pieces were full of improv cliches, percussionist William Winat sounded rather square to me, and none of the transcribed and then orchestrated pieces seemed to hang together that well or be that well-played by the ensemble by comparison to “Ride the Wind.” If I read the notes to “Discussions” correctly, Roscoe didn’t orchestrate any of these pieces on the album; based on “Ride the Wind” his role as orchestrator seems to be crucial.

Sorry -- you're right about "The Hustler."

Apparently not.

"The West Coast film music featured I found painful to listen to, because all the soloists who improvised or played melodies, played with this horrible, corny-assed vibrato that made me want to puke." If you were referring to David Raksin's soundtrack for "Too Late Blues" -- which along with "The Hustler" is the only soundtrack on the album that stems from the West Coast ("Satan in High Heels" features NYC-based musicians) -- then you're saying that Benny Carter (alto saxophone soloist on the soundtrack) "played with this horrible, corny-assed vibrato that made [you] want to puke"? And the trumpeter is Uan Rasey, perhaps best known for his work here:

I thought all the Parker solos on the soundtrack of "Bird" were actual Parker solos taken from recordings, with new rhythm section work by contemporary studio guys (e.g. drummer John Guerin). The score for the film was otherwise the work of Niehaus, but I don't think that he played in place of Parker on the soundtrack.

What Chet said was better: "Sorry about your old man."

"Chet Baker in Tokyo" may be the best, along with the Steeplechases Paul mentioned above.

Only two HPB stores near me, one about a 35 minute drive, the other about 10 minutes. I hit that one several times a week. They know me by name there.

Isn't the Half-Price Dallas store the "anchor" store for the whole chain? That may account for part of the abundance there.

Don't agree. I've been into Graettinger's music from way back when; it never ceases to fascinate.

No, I've never seen that kind of stuff at our Half-Price: if I did, I'd be buying it. They do have/get a lot of LPs but not anything unusual by and large.

Yeah -- I remember, for example, that Stan Levey/Sonny Stitt story.

What's particularly sad in buying and sorting through a batch from Half-Price as I've described above is coming across an album by two veteran players whose names are new to me, and their album is endorsed in detail by a respected veteran musician whom I know and that includes another respected veteran whom I know in the rhythm section, but the co-leaders of the quartet (a trumpeter and a pianist -- I won't name them, no need to be mean about this) are IMO at once so faceless, devoid of any element of self-expression, and even borderline inept (the trumpet player) that I not only wouldn't cross the street to hear them play but also would move farther away as soon as possible in an attempt to erase all traces of their music from my brain. And yet there they are, playing gigs in New Jersey or wherever. They're content, I guess, as are the people who go out to hear them, but in some -- you should pardon the the term -- existential sense ... well, I'm not sure what I mean to say except that when I hear music like this that undeniably belongs somewhere under the umbrella of jazz (it sure doesn't belong anywhere else) but also is IMO so clueless, I either feel like slitting my wrists or committing murder.