Larry Kart

It would seem that erwbol was calling Jim and/or me (the other moderator here) Nazis for deleting/"censoring" one or more of his posts (didn't see those post or posts myself, so I don't know the details). In any case, one could argue that if the moderators are the targets of his nastiness, it's up to us to take offense at his remark and impose further discipline or to just step around the turd he has dropped on the sidewalk and get on with enjoying all the wonderful things we all have to say to each other.

Yes, kind of, but not really. They were working on a chart during rehearsal (maybe "So What?"), Miles had an idea, Gil asked a question about it, codified the suggestion Miles made and wrote it down. One could take that to mean that one was supposed to think that Miles was the chief creator of the arrangements, but I don't think that was what was meant -- rather the goal seemed to be to convey the feel of casual interpersonal interaction in the studio.

How did it downplay Gil's role in "Miles Ahead"? It showed him and Miles interacting at the recording session; what more do you want? It's a movie, not a tutorial. Milestones: As for the McGregor subplot, even though I used that term, it didn't strike me as a subplot that much but as a way of dramatizing Miles' arm-wrestling but often very close relationship to specific white people whom he chose to/felt like wrestling with because he found them intermittently annoying or useful to himself (Teo anyone?). Having once been on the receiving end of that aspect of Miles myself, I can assure you that the fact and the tone of Cheadle's jousting with McGregor was not all that inaccurate. Now if they'd painted McGregor's character as some sort of hero/saint that would have been a problem, but in fact he's just the sort of semi-weasel he probably would have been if he had had a real-life model. That he eventually whacks the crap out of the promoter who engineered the theft of Miles' tape might be thought of as a bit cheesy, but I found that satisfying -- in the sense that guilt over his own attempted theft of the tape has more or less energized him into semi-manhood, or at least released his own simmering generalized sense of rage over having previously been something of a patsy in life. What does this have to do with Miles? IIRC, in that scene Cheadle briefly takes in what McGregor's character has done to the evil promoter and at once (through facial expression) wryly approves of it and (more my speculation, but I still think it might be there) registers the fact that perhaps it's in part contact with Miles that has released in McGregor's character this unexpected but useful to Miles act of violence.

Saw it last night on DVD. I know the trumpet-playing former newspaper editor John L. speaks of and agree with him that Cheadle captured Miles to a startling degree. Generally liked the movie, even the beefy, dark-glassses villain, was tickled by the presence of an actor playing George Butler, enjoyed the shaggy feel of the "Miles Ahead" recording session. I even kind of liked the whole Ewan McGregor subplot, both as a device and as a way of suggesting some things about Miles' provocative, jousting character.

Excellent -- and unlike any other music I know.

Does anyone know the New York Philomusica version from 1972, the first U.S. recording of the work -- initially on Candide, then on a Vox 2-CD collection of modern wind music, with clarinetist Joseph Rabbai, violinist Isidore Cohen, pianist Robert Levin, and a cellist whose name I don't recall, under the direction of A. Robert Johnson, who later led a superb Vox collection of Mozart divertimenti and the best Serenade K. 361 I know? That Quartet for the End of Time seems top notch to me.

One of Shapey's problems, perhaps THE main problem, is that his music is rhythmically turgid.

Dig his solo here (at the 4:53 mark) from May 1957 with Paul Chambers on Chambers' "The Hand of Love":

On Fresh Sound, on "Byrd House," and probably on "Curro's" as well, after the initial round of solos and the head, the solos from the alternate take are tacked on. I'll have to check about that on "Curro's," but that is sure the case on "Byrd House." It feels a bit artificial, but IMO that's a small price to pay for more nice solo work. Adams sure was in fine form on this album, about as relaxed as I've ever heard him. Neither the original Warwick LP nor the Fresh Sound reissue has great sound, but failing an archeological discovery of the original tapes, which themselves might not have been that good, it's all we've got. I'm struck by what an effective and even somewhat aggressive comper/pattern-maker Hancock was on his first date. OTOH, it sounds like he and Cobb may have worked out some of those things in rehearsal. A fairly happy band, I would guess. Just listened to the Fresh Sound "Curro's." The two rounds of solos are different, and one can hear the tempo pick up a bit in mid-track as the switch is made between takes. P.S. It should be "Birdhouse," the name of the Chicago club where I heard the band, not "Byrd House," as Fresh Sound has it.

You mean Pete Welding, right? I'll have to look again at those notes to see what the putdown was, but it might have been an offshoot of something snarky that Martin Williams once said about Sheldon IIRC but without naming him I think -- a remark about a West Coast trumpeter who tried to emulate Miles but "put the climaxes in all the wrong places." Oddly enough, I think I know just what Martin meant by that; Jack of that era (especially on the first Curtis Counce album) engaged in some fairly eccentric and unique phrasing (e.g. sudden climax-like brassy outbursts followed immediately by sotto voce lyricism) that might have sounded to a sober-minded listener (and Martin was at once sober-minded and something of a finger-wagging Puritan) like it was based on Miles (which to some degree it was) but with" the climaxes in the wrong places." But those eccentricities of phrasing on Jack's part were IMO quite deliberate, were meant to be more or less wryly/startlingly humorous, and were, it goes without saying, an offshoot of who Sheldon himself was as a human being. One may not like that side of Sheldon's playing, but there was nothing inept about it.

This one has some impressive latter-day Jack. Nice choice of pieces, too: Nice choice of pieces, too: 1. Naima 2. Persuance 3. Seven Steps to Heaven 4. Four 5. Milestones 6. Well You Needn't 7. Chelsea Bridge 8. Freddy the Freeloader 9. Steeplechase 10. Yardbird Suite https://www.amazon.com/What-Jack-Sheldon-California-Quartet/dp/B0012DDLVO/ref=sr_1_10?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1480615613&sr=1-10&keywords=jack+sheldon

Today ran across this 1998 album on the Qwest label with the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra and Bags (it was his last date) and was pleasantly surprised at how good it is. Bags not only is in fine form but also is recorded better (by engineer Joel Moss) than I’ve ever heard him before — there’s a lovely sense of space and depth around his sound, and the balance between him and the band, also well-recorded, is ideal. Further, in a warm, albeit relatively conservative neo-Basie vein (with it seems to me some welcome touches of Benny Carter and perhaps of Quincy Jones when Quincy was still writing his own stuff, c. 1956), John Clayton’s charts are very good, as is the band itself. The trumpet section, for example, includes Snooky Young, Byron Stripling, Oscar Brashear, Clay Jenkins, and Robert Rodriguez, and George Bohanon is among the trombones. Bags plays on most but not all tracks, but one where he lays is the tastiest version of “Emily” I’ve ever heard, with Clayton handsomely stating the theme arco followed by a essentially thematic Carter-like solo from brother Jeff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vedF6B-6otc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06QLg9ya3u8

On "Confirmation," the trumpeter sounds like Blue Mitchell to me, and that might make Junior Cook a possibility on tenor -- in any case probably not Dexter IMO but a Dexter-influenced player. OTOH, that sure isn't Horace on piano.

I heard Ayler in person c. 1965 in a loft above the Village Vanguard with a version of the New York Eye and Ear Control band -- Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, probably Lewis Worrell, and Milford Graves -- and he was by far the loudest saxophonist I'd heard. But I'll qualify that by saying that Ayler's "loud" wasn't at all PAINFULLY loud. Rather, the effect was of an almost impossibly overtone-rich sound that seemed to come up through the soles of your feet and come out the hair on your head. Further, and perhaps most important, the overtone-richness meant that it was not a BLUNT sound; it didn't strike one externally, like a blow to the head or gut, but animated one's being internally.

Glad that you connected with it.

Roy Eldridge's solo on "Let Me off Uptown" with Krupa -- blew the top of my head off, as it was designed to do -- and Pee Wee Russell's hoarse-toned, baring-the-soul solo on Max Kaminsky's "Stuyvesant Blues." Joe Sullivan's second chorus too. And Max as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0e_YBcsFYI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT2u3kda2eI&list=PLCIrQRWQ2D28y08OmrPBZLTfSib-7eahT

I heard her live in a suburban Chicago nightclub (in a hotel near O'Hare) in the early '80s and reviewed the show. She was terrific. An African-American reader of the paper called me a racist (he already didn't like me because I wasn't a fan of David Murray) for writing that in some respects Starr reminded me of Bessie Smith. I was happy to point him toward the Lester Young interview in which he says the same thing of Starr and Smith. Her Hep compilation "I've Got a Right To Sing the Blues, 1944-48" is a gem, and her 1975 GNP album "Back to the Roots" (with Red Norvo, Blue Mitchell, Georgie Auld, Al Viola, Jimmy Rowles, Monty Budwig, and Stix Hooper) is one of the great jazz vocal albums IMO, well worth seeking out. Kay was an improviser. Here's the whole album:

First ran across him and Walter Perkins at a jam session in Evanston, Ill. (Cranshaw's home town) circa 1956-7, when I was in high school. They sounded terrific.

What do you think of this one? I heard them play all six Bartok quartets without scores in front of them (i.e. by heart) this fall (over two nights) and was very impressed. Bought their Bartok Quartets CD and their Brahms Quartets CD too, also played by heart.

I know of several not-that-famous but highly talented players (pianists, in particular) who retired because of arthritis.

Picked up a 2006 big band album led by bassist Jim Widner, "Our of This World" (Widner is the longtime head of the jazz department at the U. of Missouri-St. Louis) because I saw that trombonist/forum member Paul McKee was among the soloists and arrangers, and so far I'm delighted. Paul's arrangements of the title track and "Alone Together," and his solo work on the former, are excellent and quite distinctive -- the writing is long-lined melodic, relaxed, and soloistic, not "shout chorus"-oriented, and his solo on "Out of This World" is handsomely integrated with the chart. Jim Sangrey might like to know that one of the tenor soloists on three tracks is his old partner in Quartet Out, Pete Gallio. Band seems to be a blend of guys from the West Coast (trumpeters Mike Vax and Clay Jenkins [excellent on "Alone Together"], drummer Gary Hobbs, altoist Kim Richmond, trombonist Scott Whitfield), the Midwest (Widner, pianist Chip Stephens, tenorman Chip McNeill) and the East Coast (altoist Dave Pietro, trumpeter Dave Scott). Album was handsomely recorded in Springfield, Mo., "Gateway to the Ozarks," of all places -- a city I know fairly well because my late wife's in-laws lived there and my brother-in-law does today.

I was able to order Goldstein's recording of Feldman's "Triadic Memories" yesterday from here: http://nuscope.org/shop/

Goldstein’s spoken intro to “Sonatas and Interludes” (he’s — charmingly IMO —very 1982 here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoKLr6g6Q-I And his performance in 2015 of another Cage prepared piano”piece, "Daughters of the Lonesome Isle": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUesD0xY-vk Goldstein's Cage (Sonatas") and Feldman recordings ("Triadic Memories" and "For Bunita Marcus") seem to be o.o.p. and were never widely available, but they may be obtainable directly from him: http://college.wfu.edu/music/facultystaff/faculty/louis-goldstein-professor-1979/

Louis Goldstein's performance on You Tube: Goldstein's performance of Feldman's "Triadic Memories":