Larry Kart

Novels "are primarily written by a very narrow group of middle-class strivers"? Well, that settles the hash of Melville, Balzac, Proust, Conrad, Gogol, Flaubert, James, Mark Twain, Ellison, Dreiser, Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Christina Stead, Doris Lessing, Joyce, V.S. Naipaul et al. pretty neatly.

I certainly have read and still read a lot of contemporary fiction, but as far as reading the fiction of the past -- and the fiction of the past doesn't go back that far; it essentially begins with Cervantes and, in English, with Richardson and Fielding -- what of the curiosity about/appetite for what might be called "otherness," a sense of how people other than those of one's own time behaved and felt and how writers of those other times chose to depict what they chose to depict? To me, that sort of curiosity among the most important and useful traits a person could possess. The analogy might not be perfect, but a jazz fan who has no knowledge of the music of, say, Jelly Roll Morton or King Oliver would be much deprived. Further, as a late friend of mine who was himself a brilliant novelist liked to say, there is such a thing as the "fictional way of knowing," by which he meant IIRC that what is enacted on the "stage" (so to speak) of a good novel can tell us important things about the warp and woof of life that can be conveyed in no other way -- this in part because, to the degree that the characters in the novel come alive to us, our feelings about/identifications with them allow us to semi-literally experience (or if you prefer "experience") things that we might not have been able to experience otherwise. Finally, of course, we the readers are also aware to some degree, depending on the strategies of the novelist involved, of the novelist's perspective on the beings and the world that he or she has created (think Flaubert, for one), which in turn can give us a kind of stereo-optican perspective on ourselves and the fictional beings that we've found to be enough like life that our own deep feelings and would-be self-understandings have been stirred by them. P.S. Now that I think of it, my friend's phrase was "a novelistic way of knowing."

Don't remember the whole weird exchange that well now, but IIRC my sense of this guy's attitude was that he already was so heavily invested in the theory of Bruce around which he had already built his essay (maybe it already had been published?) and that this theory was a good deal dependent on his mistaken belief that the whole Fantasy LP, and those two mock interviews in particular, was Lenny's work and also crucial to who Lenny was as a comic that he just couldn't give up on the whole edifice he'd built on top of this error. That he also was quite a jerk didn't help. If you recall the Joyce Hatto affair, maybe it was a bit like that. P.S. I won't call out the guy's name right now, but upon checking via Google I see that the piece he wrote was more than 20 pages long, appeared in a prominent academic journal back in 1997, and later was included in a book. As for why Fantasy re-used the EP cover for the LP and threw the Jacobs material and the Bruce material together, I can't say for sure, but I'd guess that they just didn't have an LP's worth of Bruce available at the time Lenny was getting some early recognition and just slapped trogether the old EP cover and two fairly disparate performers in a slapdash manner, not because of nervousness about Bruce. Fantasy had some history of being slapdash. On Mort Sahl's brilliant initial Fantasy album "Sahl at Sunset" (at least I think it was his first) they significantly speeded up the concert tape to get all of it onto the LP. Mort, who thus sounds like he was on benzadrine that night (this not necessarily to the detriment of his work, I think) was furious at what Fantasy had done, and I think he successfuly sued to get the album suppressed. Too bad because, again, it's brilliant. If you have any taste for Sahl and see a copy, grab it.

Not reissued on CD apparently. I prize my copy. As for the original Petterstein EP cover mutating into the cover of the LP that contained the Petterstein-Sholom Stein material plus Bruce's first recorded routines, I once had a set-to with some academic who was writing a supposedly (in his mind) definitive essay on Bruce and had based it in part of his assumption that Lenny was responsible for the Petterstein and Sholom Stein interviews. Aside from the fact that he should have recognized that the tone of the Petterstein interview was as unlike that of Lenny as could be -- compare Lenny's routine about the junky joining the Lawrence Welk band -- this guy simply refused to believe that there was such a person as Henry Jacobs, was sure that it was Lenny under a pseudonym and eventually told me I was a liar when I tried to explain who Jacobs was. BTW, haven't listened to it myself yet, but there's a lengthy interview with Jacobs on-line (Jacobs died this September): http://www.kpfahistory.info/conv/conv005_jacobs.mp3

Full Petterstein interview (Shorty is Henry Jacobs, the interviewer is Woodrow Leafer). As you can see, I got Shorty's remark about Art a bit wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afdMn8thXnU In a similar vein, an interview with scholar Prof. Sholom Stein (Jacobs is the interviewer, Leafer is Stein). I played this many years ago for a Navy friend of my dad, an anthropologist who taught at Notre Dame. By the end, tears of laughter were running down his face: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKKkRdY0dpc

To quote Shorty Petterstein, "Art came on the band about three weeks ago..."

Granting the presence of the omniscient narrative voice, IMO Dickens, Trollope, and George Eliot are about as different as three authors writing in the same language in the same century could be. "Middlemarch" was tough going for me for a while but finally very rewarding. The one of hers I couldn't stand was "Romola." I love virtually all of Trollope (have read a lot of the huge lot there is), finally got into Dickens a few years ago after decades of resistance. One has to put up with a good deal with Dickens, I think, but if you can make the right adjustments, the rewards are abundant -- the sheer vitality of the writing at its best. My favorite so far is "Our Mutual Friend." Enjoyed "The Pickwick Papers," too. As Anthony Powell, my favorite novelist of the 20th Century has remarked, there is a deep sadistic streak in Dickens, and the sheer elaborative zest with which he visits various horrors and torments upon his characters (this arguably somewhat independent of what the novels per se seem to call for) has to be reckoned with by the reader, unless he/she happens to be similarly inclined.

Enjoyed "The Deptford Trilogy" and "The Lyre of Orpheus."

OK -- I think I understand. In any case, I like both Medtner (though his music is very performance dependent and can turn to mud in the wrong hands) and Hawes. Some of the best Medtner on record I know is this: http://www.amazon.com/Medtner-Violin-Sonatas-Nocturnes-Canzonas/dp/B00005YDZJ/ref=sr_1_7?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1450675514&sr=1-7&keywords=medtner+violin+sonatas Do you know it?

Roscoe Mitchell's Fred Anderson concert at Constellation, now on CD. (That was this year, right? Things get blurry at my age. ) Keefe Jackson Trio at Elastic. ICP Orchestra small groups at Elastic. I'll think of more later on, probably. And here's more: Nick Mazzarella, Avreeayl Ra, Elastic Jacob Kart, Silent Funny (Yes, he's my son, but that was some GOOD stuff) Matt Ulery's Loom : Geof Bradfield, Russ Johnson, Rob Clearfield, Matt Ulery, John Deitemyer, Elastic Nick Mazzarella Trio with Anton Hatwich, Frank Rosaly, Constellation Keefe Jackson Quartet with Oscar Jan Hoogland, Joshua Abrams, Mikel Avery, Elastic Brain Gebhardt Sextet, Chicago Jazz Festival Jason Roebke Octet, Chicago Jazz Festival Jamie Branch, Elastic Jarrett Gilgore with Russ Johnson, Elastic Nick Mazzarella, Samuel Mösching, Brian Sandstrom, Steve Hunt, Elastic

Ellington's "T.T. on Toast" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ooKwUYlCM Bob Brookmeyer's "Raney Day" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaaYA_88sPM

Manny Albam’s mock-lugubrious “Poor Dr. Milmoss,” which refers to the James Thurber cartoon below. Solos by Gerry Mulligan and Al Cohn on baritone, plus brief sallies by Joe Newman and Bob Brookmeyer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9DEBvjFjRw

Al Cohn's "Zoot Case" and "Nose Cone" Horace Silver’s “Horoscope,” “Quicksilver,” and “Hankerin’” Carl Perkins' "Grooveyard"

Ted Brown's "Smog Eyes" (on the changes of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujAAMN_s9L8 Al Cohn's "Ah-Moore" (which alludes to his then-wife, singer Marilyn Moore) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugck_15nHO4

Johnny Mandel's "Keester Parade" and "London Derriere"

Just being honest about what Wild said. And your point is? Apples and oranges, no?

The groove on "Smile, Stacey" is ridiculous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wcFx26D5Ck

BTW, Wild was an Oscar Peterson admirer, refers to him as "great." Two more Wild gems. His “Rhapsody in Blue” etc. with Fiedler are widely (and IMO rightly) regarded as the best recordings of these works. The Gershwin transcriptions are quite something. FWIW I have the earlier RCA LP recording of the transcriptions, not this remake: http://www.amazon.com/Rhapsody-Blue-American-Paris-Earl/dp/B0002XNLTW/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1450455600&sr=1-3&keywords=earl+wild+gershwin http://www.amazon.com/Earl-Wild-Plays-Transcriptions-Gershwin/dp/B000003GD0/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1450455645&sr=1-1&keywords=earl+wild+gershwin

Throughout his long career, and later on too, Wild was regarded as quite an improviser, albeit not in any mode that might appeal to most of the likes of us, more in a kind of Liszt bag where he would come up with an extended improv based on notes suggested by an audience member.

Sorry -- see previous post with album covers.

Without a doubt. But Wild was, in the minds of more than a few and in the right repertoire, one of the major classical pianists of the 20th Century.

What makes you think so? His dislike of Jarrett's music-making? Wild is fond of jazz; on p. 39 he says, "I have tremendous respect for the various jazz pianists I've had the pleasure of hearing in my life. I especially enjoyed watching, and listening to Art Tatum perform...."

Plug "Jarrett" into the “look inside” function to read Wild’s acid takedown of Keith: http://www.amazon.com/Walk-Wild-Side-Memoir-pianist/dp/0578074699/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450397516&sr=1-1&keywords=Earl+wild BTW, Wild's memoir runs over 800 pages! From what I've read so far, he speaks his mind freely to say the least.

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Got the Weigl 5 & 6 and his string quartets (they got me into him), am about to order his piano and violin concerto. Like all the Schmidt I've heard, chamber works especially. Leifs -- I've got a fair amount -- seems to me another sort of cat altogether than any of these guys, more akin to Langaard (sp?).