Larry Kart

You have my deepest sympathies.

Today stumbled across something that turned out to be darn good — Ambrosetti’s “Gin and Pentatonic” (Enja) which combines two Enja albums, one from from 1983, “Wings,” and one from 1985, “Tentets,” with some tracks left off because the compilation as it stands is more than 71 minutes. Personnel on “Wings" is Mike Brecker, John Clark, Kenny Kirkland, Buster Williams, and Daniel Humair; on “Tentets” it’s Lew Soloff, Mike Mossman, Steve Coleman, Alex Brofsky (Fr. h.), Howard Johnson (his usual double), Tommy Flanagan, Dave Holland, and Humair. I’ve heard Ambrosetti before, don’t recall exactly where, find him to be a very good, heady, agile, feisty player who more than holds his own in this company. Second, both these rhythm sections are on fire; best Kirkland solo work I’ve ever heard, sounds like an updated Wynton Kelly; Brecker is pretty much on fire, too; Coleman has only one solo spot where he surprisingly sounds like an updated Johnny Hodges; Buster, who for me often can be way over the top, is on his best behavior and strong as a bull, Holland is at his best, too, and Humair is inspired. Originals from Ambrosetti, his father Flavio, and G. Gruntz, plus Shorter’s “Yes and No” and a way-up electrifying “Autumn Leaves.” As Indiana native John Litweiler once said, I haven’t had so much fun since the pigs ate my little brother. Track 1 below is with the Flanagan-Holland rhythm section, track 2 is with Kirkland and Buster Williams.

In addition to the music, dig Terry Martin's liner notes. Don't know this one, but as something of a Raney fan, I'm in that tub right now! For me, this is Raney at her best:

Maybe they do already like and appreciate their work. I'm just saying that talk about the underlying principles/differences involved doesn't amount to some would-be elitist attempt to deny anyone the pleasures they already feel. Rather, looking back on my own life as a listener, it's an attempt to add to the overall pleasures that might be experienced -- one's own and those of others.

Joe -- How about this? In an artist's work that is in one's opinion not that successful at times (and I do like some OP) there are almost certainly certain underlying principles at work (or not at work). And it then can be worthwhile/interesting/etc. to talk about what those principles are/might be and about why one feels that in this artist's case there are problems with the way they function or don't function. For instance, there's OP's tendency to fill up most if not all of the space that's available to him or his sometime reliance on a stock of familiar bluesy licks. The point would not be to take away anyone's pleasure in OP but by suggesting that there are higher levels of musical mastery in, say, in the two areas I just mentioned (use of space and blues feeling) and by making relevant comparison to other players (e.g. Monk for use of space, Horace Silver or Sonny Clark for blues feeling) to thus sharpen one's awareness of what those higher levels of mastery might be. That's a bad thing?

Brubeck? But not really, not these days. Phil Woods -- at least to me and and a few like-minded souls, but I think we're very much in the minority. (BTW, I very much like Woods up through '56-'57.) At one point I really didn't get Benny Goodman as a player, but those days are long past. Likewise with Gerry Mulligan as a player; in his case, I think he just got better over time; my change of mind on Goodman took place entirely in my mind. I used to not care for Billy Taylor; now when I'm in the mood I find him clever and charming. If Jon Faddis qualifies, he never did anything for me, not that anyone cares.

Just placed my order witrh CD Japan successfully. Looking forward to what the album sounds like in this form. My LP copy is a mess.

Tried to order it but couldn't -- the site wouldn't verify my credit card's three-digit secondary number, whatever the heck that's called.

When we were in fourth or fifth grade, my best friend and I saw the one with Jerry and Dean in the Navy (I think it was "Sailors Beware") three times in one day. Can't remember why exactly -- we thought the movie was funny, but seeing it three times in a row was also a kind of mutual self-imposed dare, like licking a flagpole in below zero weather.

"Three for Duke" -- from 1957 on Jubliee, with Teddy Charles, Oscar Pettiford, and Hall Overton. I'd give a lot to get a remastered or even just a clean copy of this one. All parties are clicking; Overton could really play, in a kind of arranger's-piano offshoot of Monk; the all-Ellington program is great ("Mainstem," "Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me," "Sophisticated Lady," ""Don't Get Aound Much Anymore," Sherman Shuffle, " The Mooche"); it's the best Charles in a blowing format I know; and Pettiford is just terrific. Unfortunately, on the rather beat up used copy I have, and probably on the original, what Petttiford plays is not as clear as it should be/might be.

The details are that there's a way to delete a post that we all or almost all know, but if you're a moderator, but only if you're a moderator, there's quite another delete button in a different place that deletes the whole thread. Add the fact that I was brain dead at that point, and you can guess the rest. Unfortunately, once a thread has been deleted, there's no way to recover it.

Previous posts in this thread are gone. A moderator who shall be nameless (that would be me) made a mistake.

Put on Mal Waldron’s “Mal -1” today, and while it’s not all solid gold, these three tracks really struck me. Personnel is Idrees Sulieman, Gigi Gryce, Julian Euell, Arthur Edgehill. This is a good as I’ve ever heard from Sulieman, likewise perhaps with Gryce. Nice added interlude on “Stablemates,” probably from Mal. The depth of the mood on “Yesterdays” is special, and “Dee’s Dilemma” is a nice tune. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo4bSHH73IM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H66wq_Pbp1Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFpNoWFmU0Y

Just getting into some of the recent SC Gregory Tardy albums. Talented, individual, soulful player.

Try these:

A favorite for me too, but that Limelight band was different -- not better, just DIFFERENT.

Very short measure (c. 31 minutes) and the material is mostly routine gospel-tinged stuff, but this 1964 album is worth a listen because it's the only one of this enticing Messengers line-up (Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, John Gilmore, John Hicks, Victor Sproles), and because Lee (back for a while after three years on his own) is in bristling, loosey-goosey form, as is Fuller. Gilmore doesn't get much solo space but makes good use of it, and Sproles (I remember him from c. 1957 Chicago sessions) is striking in accompaniment and in his one solo. A shame that this band wasn't unleashed at length in RVG's studio for Blue Note or Impulse.

I love Doug Watkins. He must have been a fan of Oscar Pettiford -- I hear a good deal of kinship. BTW, what a shame that expatriation and then early death deprived us of all the records Pettiford could have made in the US in the '60s and beyond. For what he could do in a hard bop context, check out the Red Rodney album on Signal from 1957, with Ira Sullivan on tenor and the drumming split between Elvin Jones and Philly Joe Jones. It's available here, coupled with another Rodney date from that time with Billy Root: https://www.amazon.com/Rodney-Quintets-1955-1959-Borrowed-Time/dp/B002EPAOKU/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1489097126&sr=1-1&keywords=red+rodney+1957

As more than a snap shot of the so-called "sheets of sound" period, I've always been very fond of Wilbur Harden's "Mainstream 1958," with Trane, Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins, and Louis Hayes. That rhythm section is just perfect for what Trane was doing at the time. And Harden is no slouch. Trane's solo on this track begins at 3:27 (what an entrance!) and never ceases to thrill me. The head rattle-ing swing he generates! And not just through timing and accents -- the intervals themselves are like precise hammer blows.

Thank God.

Very impressive so far, with some remarkable work from Pat Metheny, of all people. Rest of the band is Jason Moran (on Fender Rhodes as well as piano), Nasheet Waits, and bassist Harish Raghavan.

We miss you living here too. FB either is hipper or casts a wider net -- maybe both.

I know -- we all know how we think about OP. But I had a bit of an oblique wake-up call today, when I picked up (the price was right) a Verve compilation "Oscar Peterson Plays Broadway" and found myself responding with a a good deal of pleasure to the first eight (of fifteen) tracks. Busy they were at times but also quite harmonically adventurous in a sly/clever Nat Cole-like manner. Pretty much of a piece, and, in contrast to what most of us think as OP's characteristic manner, quite unbluesy for the most part, the earliest of these eight tracks came from 1950, the latest from 1954. Then we jump in time to 1958 and a near comically funky reading of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" (a dog tune to improvise on I'll admit -- at least IMO), and we're into the OP that some of us have little time for and some of us can't get enough of. What struck me, though, was how different the OP of the early '50s was from the OP of later on. Everyone is entitled to change over time, but I was startled by how considerable the change in OP was. At that point I took a break, but I have high hopes that the album's final track -- a near 12-minute "Body and Soul" from 1952 -- might be quite special.

Check out this Green solo, with Benny Goodman, Ruby Braff, Steve Jordan, Dave McKenna, Tommy Potter, and Bobby Donaldson, from 1955.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xirI-mfOmg