Larry Kart

"all frimbizzled..." -- that's it, exactly. Kris Bryant in particular. Another way to look at the same thing I heard today from the Cubs' radio color man Ron Coomer. Asked whether the umps' apparently somewhat expanded strike zone (especially down low) in this round of the playoffs should have led the Cubs hitters to adjust and swing at pitches that were outside the zone based on their prior experience, Coomer said in effect, "That way lies madness. Any attempt by a batter to expand his strike zone more or less on the fly, unless he's a habitual bad ball hitter like Yogi Berra, will give any good pitcher a huge advantage. You've got to stick with the strike zone that's worked for you and hope that the guy makes a mistake in location. If he doesn't, you're probably f-----, but the other way you're f----- for certain." The Mets pitchers just had the right concept and the right execution for the circumstances. There were a lot of low low strikes called, I thought, but the Mets pitchers did keep putting the ball right there.

I met Charles Davis socially in 2008 or '9 -- I was in Princeton, N.J. to spend some time with a woman whose first cousin is Davis' wife, and we went into NYC to have dinner with them and then go to Smalls to hear some music. A delightful evening; Davis was/is quite a guy and a trencherman in the top class, just destroyed a plate of paella with slow-motion relish. Fine player, too. Spending time with that woman didn't work out so well, but we both escaped relatively unmarked --at least I did.

"Birdman" scene won't play for me, but I saw the movie and for the most part enjoyed the heck out of it. That scene, however, IIRC, seemed to me to be a relatively weak point. Leaving aside whether any critic would ever have such a conversation, especially with an actor-director whose work she was going to review (yes, I know there was an element of fantasy to the movie, but still...), what she dissed him for -- not being a real THEATER type but a one-time movie star who was trying to ride on the back of his celebrity status -- struck me as kind of out of left field. Newspaper people (and I was one) typically identify with newspaper people (especially themselves), not with any actual or imagined notion of howhe people in the medium they're covering feel or should feel about things.

Wow. I really need to get around to seeing this movie. Everyone's a critic here to a certain extant. A lot of artists get shit on and i don't think that due diligence has always been done. Not that that excuses Iverson's errors in his article, obviously he's working at a higher amateur-professional level, but it's funny that people here are taking issue with his tone and attitude etc. Why is it "funny that people here are taking issue with his tone and attitude etc."? Jim and I and others have given plenty of examples of why we think he sounds quite snotty in his Beehive Mosaic piece. If you don't think he does, fine, but some of the stuff he thinks and/or pulls is just goofy IMO -- like that business about Clifford Jordan teaching his old Chicago colleagues how we do these things in NYC.

For EI the flip side of "We are not worthy!" seems to be a certain third-hand NYC arrogance -- a la "You are not worthy! Only people who have been accepted by Tootie Heath and Billy Hart are."

Jim -- I hear what you're saying, but some young white jazz guys take growing up in western Wisconsin one way, and some guys take it another way. Iverson often reminds me of this:

It all goes back to Menominee, Wisconsin.

Wonder what Cuscuna thinks about sending him the set?

Some more thoughts about Herbert, in response to a post on Doug Ramsey's blog: Bill Kirchner says May 23, 2014 at 7:17 am Thanks for this tribute to a largely unknown great player–though well-remembered by those of us who knew him. Gregory spent the summer of 1964 subbing for Russell Procope with the Ellington band, playing lead alto. Not bad for a 17-year-old. He told me that his favorite of all of his albums was Chet Baker’s ONCE UPON A SUMMERTIME, with the two of them along with Harold Danko, Ron Carter, and Mel Lewis. It’s a tragedy that Gregory never recorded as a leader. He wanted to do an album with strings. He was a wonderful ballad player, so that would have been a natural for him. gary anderson [the lanky tenorman in that "I Can't Get Next To You" W. Herman video] says May 23, 2014 at 2:45 pm Spent two years with Gregory on the road with the Herd. What a dynamic player whose life was tragically cut way too short because of stupidity and a bad case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gregory tempted fate constantly with a “Bird” mission in the back of his mind. But all of that can be overlooked because he possessed a unique talent … that combination of soul, heart & technique that is rarely found in any player that young. I heard it on a nightly basis—whether playing for 10,000 people at a festival or 100 on a friday night at an Elk’s lodge … Gregory had it all in front of him. Oh, the notes we never heard … Tom Marcello says May 23, 2014 at 3:12 pm A great, great musician and a terrible loss. His solo on Thad & Mel’s “Greetings and Salutations” (on the New Life recording) is one of the all time great tenor solos. Gary Carner says May 23, 2014 at 7:55 pm Herbert was an extraordinarily passionate and gifted player. Thanks for giving him a moment in the sun. I have a Thad-Mel broadcast from Cleveland where he just tears it up on the blues Take a Ladder, really lifts the level of the performance. Harold Danko told me about one night in particular when Herbert took another blues solo. Thad was miserable. He had stopped drinking and was in a terrible mood. Gregory, said Danko, had that look in his eye that he was going to fix things. He poured his heart and soul out and Thad surrendered after a few choruses with a huge smile. It’s great to see Herbert in performance but this approach to the pop tune ““I Can’t Get Next To You” is almost a novelty number that handcuffs Herbert in an altissimo bag and doesn’t showcase his profound harmonic and technical gifts. I encourage all to hear as much Herbert as possible on record and on audience recordings.

My good friend Bill Kirchner was a good friend of Herbert -- I think when they were both with Thad and Mel (Bill as a sub, Herbert as a regular); Herbert was one of his key musical role models. Bill wrote a beautiful piece in his memory, "Theme for Gregory." Bill has recorded it at least twice, on the "Bill Kirchner Nonet -- Live in Concert" and "An Evening of Indigos."

Gregory Herbert (at about 4:47) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thbKApD9Q7I

Attaway, Jim. That "at a hotel bar I’d be delighted" line speaks volumes, as does "(Note to self: Listen to more Fathead Newman.)" As for "Perhaps Jordan is being a bit cruel here to his home team: 'In New York, we play the hard forms right on the first take. Sorry, guys'” -- words fail me.

Interesting take on the Mosaic Beehive box from Ethan Iverson: http://dothemath.typepad.com As it happens, and going on memory, I share his reservations about all the Beehive dates Iverson has reservations about (that would be most of them), but the tone of his comments strikes me at times as off-puttingly snotty, and he displays significant gaps of knowledge/experience or just plain taste. For instance: ‘[Von] Freeman’s ballad feature “I’m Glad There is You,” is intriguing, there’s definitely something personal and avant-garde about his tone and phrasing, but I’m still left with the impression that I never quite hear the best Von Freeman. Perhaps he needed to be experienced live.’ Ethan, do your homework. Yes, Von live was exceptional, but exceptional Freeman on disc is not hard to find. Or perhaps Iverson is one of those benighted souls who just doesn’t get Von. Hey, Ira Gitler always dismissed Von because he thought he was out of tune and didn't know it and/or care. (Von's intonation was as much or more a part of his style as Jackie McLean's was a part of his.] 'Eddie Bert sounds burly and vital. All I really knew about him previously was that he played with everybody's big band, so it's nice to learn something about what a good soloist he was.‘ Again, do your homework. Bert's recorded legacy as a sideman and a leader is extensive and makes it clear that not only was he a good soloist but also a highly individual one -- a more or less saxophone-like trombonist, like Earl Swope, Jimmy Knepper, and Willie Dennis. Bert preceded them, with Pres being the saxophonist in question, though Bert's initial inspiration was Trummy Young. [Arnett] Cobb, Joe Newman and Al Grey all play really well [on Beehive’s Cobb album] despite the strangely unswinging drumming [of Panama Francis]. (Looking at his bio, I’m unsurprised to learn that Francis's work in rock seems more celebrated than his work in jazz.)’ Check out Francis on those revived Savoy Sultans albums; he swings like crazy. ‘The nice surprise is tenor saxophonist Sal Nistico, who leads his own date with Ronnie Mathews, Sam Jones, and Roy Haynes and all but takes over Curtis Fuller’s session with Walter Bishop, Sam Jones, and Freddie Waits. There were are lot of great white tenor players who showed serious homemade mastery of the idiom in the wake of Coltrane: A partial list would include Joe Farrell, Dave Liebman, Michael Brecker, Steve Grossman, Gregory Herbert, Bob Berg…it would be a valid educational project to listen and compare them all. (Actually I know there are those that spend their lives doing this already.) ‘At any rate I’d barely heard of Nistico, but he’s right in there…’ You’d barely heard of Nistico? And what’s with that “great white tenor players who showed serious homemade mastery of the idiom in the wake of Coltrane”? “[H]omemade”? As opposed to what? Also, the late Gregory Herbert was not a "white tenor player." He was African-American. Finally, though Nistico was certainly was aware of Coltrane -- how could he not be? -- his playing was not significantly “in the wake of Coltrane.”

Wow -- you can almost tell what's coming next? I sure as heck, even in works that I know very well, am almost always ... well, surprised isn't quite the right word (though sometimes it is), but I find that what does happen in Mozart in relation to prior events in the work is almost always a matter of "more" and "other." Likewise, very often, in terms of the relationship between movements e.g. the Sonata for Piano and Violin K. 526. If, listening to first movement of that work, you can anticipate what the second is going to be like, and listening to the second, anticipate the third... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YffZjUz1xU

Three more: Clarinet Concerto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_gm0NCabPs Clarinet Quintet Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola

Jim -- Hoping to cure your aversion to Mozart, here are four of my favorite works: String Quintets K. 516 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGe4o2jk2-E K. 593 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQEXFnCR5j4 k. 614 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L9IQL4unl8 String Trio K. 563

Yes

Anecdote from Robert Craft's "Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories": During a Stravinsky visit to London, Isaiah Berlin wangled seats for Stravinsky and crew to a new production of “Figaro,” orchestra seats that would enable Stravinsky to leave after the first act and rush to the Albert Hall for Monteux’s 50th anniversary performance of “Le Sacre.” "But when the second act of ‘Figaro’ followed the first without intermission, Isaiah had to extricate the Stravinskys from a fully occupied front row and hustle them off…. The departing composer apologized to his neighbors in a stage whisper: ‘Excuse us but we all have diarrhoea.’”

Gidon Kermer -- Hommage a Piazzolla http://www.amazon.com/Hommage-Piazzolla-Gidon-Kremer/dp/B000005J48/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1445225076&sr=1-1&keywords=kremer+piazzola

Here is some of the most relaxed Getz I know, from the 1957 album “The Soft Swing.” This was the Getz album that converted the previously averse Martin Williams. IIRC Martin said in his DB review that he played some tracks from it for a musician, whose response was “It sounds like Zoot.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSYtbqYtk5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4CJ-yPTqSU

I know what you mean by "like you're beneath (or even inside) it," but I felt that on that recording it was more like my sonic vantage point was that of Davis Jr. himself. Probably not what you want every time, but I'll take it on that occasion.

The first Getz solo you ever really liked? Geez.

Jim -- You owe it to yourself to track down "Illumination," if that can be done. In addition to some top-drawer Davis Jr., Bob Mover plays his ass off on the tracks where he appears, and he and Walter are really tuned into each other. Also, some of the best Kenny Washington I know, and Ron Carter is in fine form. Hey, and it's engineered by David Baker.

I believe that Sprey's "studio Steinway" (his term) was a vintage instrument of some sort, which may account for a certain twang it has. As for EQ-ing, I thought Sprey's recording philosophy, a la that of the Rusch crew at CIMP, precluded anything like that. Yeah, well, supposedly it does. Supposedly lots of things in life preclude supposedly lots of other things. But let's talk about close-miking a piano, and what that does to its sound. Seriously - do the Davis & the Willis sound like they were recorded identically objectively? Not to me. Again, not talking about differences in touch/pedal technique, etc. I'm not sold that the piano in the studio had the same sound where Davis was playing it that it did once it got to the tape, that's all I'm saying, and although that's true of so many things, especially Rudy's piano, thery're not accompanied by a ghost story narrative either. Did Sprey have it in his mind that since Davis had had a "visitation" by Monk that he was going to make a record hat carried that same feeling and then record accordingly? I don't know, but even if he did, that's not dishonest, that's a conceptual choice. All I know is that it sounds funny to me, unnecessarily funny, and does not serve the playing itself, which kind of pisses me off, because the playing amply carries its own water. Anyway, it's not that big of a deal, really. It's just one of those quirky things that bug me, and that gets amplified every time I play the record, perhaps amplified out of proportion to the degree that it's happening. If you've not noticed it by now, there's certainly no reason to go looking for it!. I really like the Mapleshade Davis Jr. record. Beyond that, I think "not that big of a deal" is where I'm at. Can't prove anything one way or the other about Sprey's version of what Davis supposedly said to him or about what Dwike Mitchell said or was thinking when he said what he said according to Sprey, don't want or care to. Maybe I've misplaced my sonic detective badge, but I can't tell much that's definitive about the recording jobs per se, versus differences that arise because they're different pianists, by comparing the Willis cut to the Mapleshade Davis Jr. record. Further, one is a YouTube clip and the other is on a CD being played back in my basement, which is a difference right there.

I believe that Sprey's "studio Steinway" (his term) was a vintage instrument of some sort, which may account for a certain twang it has. As for EQ-ing, I thought Sprey's recording philosophy, a la that of the Rusch crew at CIMP, precluded anything like that.