Larry Kart

Huss' Haydn Overtures Vol. 1 just arrived. Superb.

John -- Where can those e-mails be found? Or where they sent personally to you? IIRC "Lonely Woman" was also played or alluded to in bass trumpeter Ryan Schultz's set on Sunday.

Yes, indeed

By contrast with Amiee (I hope), Elaine Dame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSezn9bQ6yo

Jim -- if that's an image of Ms. Amiee, you've got the picture. A coy putain.

Probably the Mulligan-Baker Quartet. It was in the air when I was a freshman in H.S. in 1956.

Chicago Jazz Fest notes for Saturday and Sunday (only days I could be there) Saturday: Afternoon highlights for me were Jason Roebke’s Octet with a lot of my Chicago favorites (bass clarinetist Jason Stein and trombonist Jeb Bishop in very strong form) and middle-aged veteran tenor and soprano saxophonist Brian Gephardt — Gephardt not a strikingly original player (somewhat akin to Pete Christlieb perhaps) but strong and genuine (he even has an attractive, Lucky Thompson-ish tone on soprano), and his band was really together and included an interesting trombonist, Tom Garling, and a very interesting ( both as comper and soloist) pianist, Karl Montzka. Gephardt has an album out with the same band, "Standing on Two Feet," which I bought and can recommend.A little bit of Ryan Cohan and Joe Locke was enough for me.In the evening caught most of the (so I thought) surprising relative revivification of Mark Turner. Not sure I particularly like what he’s into now as a soloist, but it’s interesting bordering on strange and above all active, versus the uniformly grey stuff I heard from him at Constellation last November (I think it was, with the same band but with Avishai Cohen on trumpet). Perhaps Turner's rather stiff but peppy new trumpeter Jason Palmer helped. Turner's pieces (perhaps better, ensemble frameworks) do remain remarkably grey IMO, and they often go on for a LONG time. Before that was the Claudia Quintet doing their Kenneth Patchen material. A bit arch for my tastes, with Kurt Elling joining in with T. Bleckmann on recitations/vocals (though Elling certainly has presentational flair, in this reminded me some of Stan Freberg) but there was undeniable talent up there -- especially bassist Drew Gress, vibraharpist Mat Moran, and the leader. Didn't stick around for Dee Dee Bridgewater. Sunday: Afternoon highlights were vocalist Elaine Dame -- a youngish, warm, real jazz singer -- veteran pianist Bob Dogan's band with tenorist Julie Wood and bass trumpter Ryan Schultz, and later, Schultz's own fusion-inclined band, which had sound problems though no fault of its own but included Karl Montzka, who again was terrific, this time on electric piano and Hammond organ. Ashamed to say I didn't know of this Chicago-area player until now. Tomeka Reid leading the Kenwood High Band in a program of pieces by AACM composers. Those kids killed it. One so-to-speak "conduction "piece, cued by Reid's expressive gestures, was especially effective. Evening: The Jeff Parker Trio was soporific, which for my taste often has been the case when Parker is the leader, though I've heard him play brilliantly in other contexts. Jane Bunnett with the all-female Cuban ensemble Maqueque (rhythm instruments plus piano) -- Maqueque was quite good; I like Bunnett's virtuosic flute solos but can't stand her on soprano. Next was French vocalist Cyrille Aimee -- yuck. Other than that, non-profane words fail me. Muhal's Experiment Band -- one long piece (about an hour). Several longeurs -- a percussion intro by Thurman Barker and Reggie Nicholson, good but too long IMO, a long,demanding mostly unaccompanied flute solo played by Wallace McMillan (the line itself quite striking but again it went on very long, and I'm not sure that McMillan's execution didn't falter some at times), and a longish trombone solo by George Lewis that consisted almost entirely of strangled, semi-flatulent tones. Yes, I've heard Lewis do that before but not exclusively and not for that long. Then, thanks be, heroic solo trumpet from Wadada Leo Smith, which almost brought tears to my eyes. Ancient to the Future indeed. After which, entwined alto saxophonists Henry Threadgill and Roscoe Mitchell, the former angular and abrupt, the latter soaring and almost Johnny Hodges-like, with lovely expressive variations in timbre. Threadgill's subsequent solo in the same vein as in the ensemble passage was brilliant; Mitchell, stepping out a bit more from his prior ensemble role, was brilliant, too. Toward the end, cascading virtuosic solo piano work from Muhal and Amina Claudine Myers.

Speaking of a Gene Quill Opportunity, dig this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D93UFJJZ2oU The trombone solos/exchanges (Cleveland, Rehak, Jin Dahl) are pretty impressive too. The trombones and Quill made a good album together, "Thee Bones and a Quill."

Haven't listened to it in a while, but I recall that that the Albam WSS album is just as you describe it. In addition to uber-excellent playing by the Charlie's Tavern ensemble, there is IIRC some passionate solo work. Also, IIRC and FWIW, L. Bernstein dug the record. Scoring wise, it's a jazz album but not a jazzed-up album; for this Manny Albam deserves much credit.

So now it's MY fault? All I did was point out that as a listener with mixed to negative feelings about OP I had found an album of his that I enjoyed and then tried to say why I enjoyed it. If you think that in doing so I was trolling or anything like it, I was not.

I have several excellent Strazzeri piano trio CDs. FWIW, he was Elvis' favorite Vegas accompanist. http://www.amazon.com/Franks-Blues-Frank-Strazzeri/dp/B000000I89/ref=sr_1_12?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1441391086&sr=1-12&keywords=frank+strazzeri http://www.amazon.com/Kat-Dancin-Frank-Strazzeri/dp/B000WB0DWC/ref=sr_1_16?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1441391170&sr=1-16&keywords=frank+strazzeri And at least one other album that I can't find a link to right now. Don't know about his playing being a blueprint for later players, though. Seems to me that he was an inventive personal offshoot of somewhat earlier hardbop mainstays -- e.g. Elmo Hope, Sonny Clark, Horace Silver to some degree, et al. -- and it was through such more well-known figures rather than Strazzeri that those pianistic devices entered the jazz mainstream.

going to see her this Saturday night with Michael Formanek & Tyshawn Sorey. New trio for her. I've seen her numerous times and she is a wonderful melodist. A highlight was a trio with Mat Maneri and Tyshawn. Very fine. She has a week at The Stone early next year and there are many interesting combinations. She is special.

Thanks mjzee. One fairly early (at least in his recording career) Pass performance I recall with pleasure is "Teri" with the Gerald Wilson big band. I dug the harp-like things he got going there, which were attractive in themselves and right in tune with Wilson's piece.

I'll try to ask about and/or report on their style. They do have a good-sized and good bunch of percussionists, very crisp. Wonder if Philly Joe ever played in a marching band?

I'm not sure. I did see a cell-phone video of a rehearsal (the band has a very strong, sound as big as a house, female trumpet soloist, reminds me of Manny Klein), but I'm not well-versed enough in marching band styles to say whether they're old school or modern. If I had to guess, I'd say old school. They do kick ass on a Beatles medley -- lots of good players, thanks to kids taking lots of music lessons.

Who else is going? I plan to be there all day and night Saturday and Sunday. Would like to catch Friday too, but that's the first night my freshman year stepchild plays in his high school marching band.

"Tangerine," Jimmy Dorsey Could be worse First pop song I was aware of -- "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" (I liked it) First piece of music I loathed -- "Funiculi, Funicula" (played on the electric organ by one Rosa Rio, it was the theme song of the soap opera "Lorenzo Jones")

Again, my point was that a jazz guitarist of some considerable stature had decided to go down the route of, for want of a better term, "instrumental embroidery." Off the top of my head, I couldn't and can't think of a comparable jazz artist on any instrument who had done something similar -- and by that I don't mean BTW had taken a "pop" route, which is not I think what Pass had done. Fine for him, fine for those who dug it, but worth, I thought, noting in a review and weighing in on what I thought the losses of this change in approach might be. Don Shirley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5c_zu86SAI&index=9&list=PL7fwS1wWjrTs5UwT7XVfkxT9wXxrz6k2S

Moms -- Did you see my PM? Also, do you know whether the Huss Haydn Divertimenti are the same Haydn Wind Divertimenti that make up the Consortium Classicum set or a different group of works?

But isn't that - adapting nonguitar material to the guitar a way of covering new ground too? And who is to fault him for reworking teh source material that way? So who is anyone to blame a musician for going down that road? No, I am not that much of a Joe Pass fan either, maybe for "virtuoso" reasons too (give me Tal Farlow anytime for improvising mastery of the instrument) but don't quite get what you fault him for if you admit the above. Value of the music is not only found in just making noises that nobody has consciously made before and then calling it "innovation" either. My point was that "much of his energy seems to be wrapped up in making them sound guitaristic." Perhaps I should have said "too much of his energy." As I said just before that, "What is missing [in my opinion] is any sense of linear invention, any feeling that the original melodic impulse of the songs Pass likes to play has stirred a new melodic idea in his own mind." Don't see what that has to do with 'just making noises that nobody has consciously made before and then calling it "innovation."' Rather, it is the minimum one expects/desires when listening to most jazz players. Yet again, it was my sense that Pass had turned himself into the host of a guitar seminar. If that's what one wants, as a listener or the host, then go for it. But I found it at once odd and notable that a talented jazz musician would take that direction. It was as though (name your favorite jazz pianist) had decided to turn himself into Don Shirley.

Here's a review I wrote back in 1986 of a Joe Pass solo gig: "Endlessly fascinating to his fellow guitarists, who flock to his performances like moths to a flame, Joe Pass otherwise seems a rather strange figure: a onetime jazz improviser (and, on occasion, still a very good one) who has turned himself into a navel-gazing virtuoso. Now virtuosity, as an end in itself, is seldom found in jazz--or at least not among the major players. While Art Tatum and Charlie Parker, to name the most obvious examples, were astonishing technicians, their music both generated and consumed their executive skills, leaving no idea or flourish that was merely decorative. But for Pass, who again wasn`t always this way, decoration is the name of the game. Typically he picks sweet, familar pop tunes (``I`ll Remember April,`` ``Polka Dots and Moonbeams,`` ``Just the Way You Are,`` ``Satin Doll`` etc.) and proceeds to state and restate them--draping them in cobwebs of subtle chords and throwing in an occasional bluesy run. What is missing, though, is any sense of linear invention, any feeling that the original melodic impulse of the songs Pass likes to play has stirred a new melodic idea in his own mind. (From that point of view, those bluesy licks are quite revealing, for they have much the same shape, no matter what piece Pass is performing.) Of course that is the reaction of a nonguitarist; and it should be said that most of the crowd that gathered Tuesday night at the Jazz Showcase seemed to be awed by the octopus-like ease with which Pass flowed over his instrument. But even from the standpoint of the instrument, one has doubts about the final value of Pass` music. Because most of the tunes he plays were not conceived for the guitar, much of his energy seems to be wrapped up in making them sound guitaristic. An Ivan Lins bossa nova was an exception to this rule, and it may have been no accident that this was the most intense performance of the evening." A day or two later I received a violently angry letter from one of Chicago's better guitarists, saying, in effect, "How dare you?"

Heard Hilton Ruiz several years ago at Smoke sitting in with trombonist Chris Washburne's Latin Jazz group SYOTOS, and he was on fire. Have several good albums by Ruiz, but they're a little over-produced and not quite at that level.

At some point in the late '70s or early '80s, I caught Waldron backing Stitt at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago. His comping was inspirational; it clearly had a big effect on Sonny. Talked to Waldron between sets, told him how glad I was that he'd returned to Europe for a visit. He couldn't have been nicer. So, per those interviews Hutch Fan mentioned, Mal was a user in the '50s? That he wasn't was just my optimistic guess. OTOH, user though he was back then, I'd bet that his life wasn't as rampantly disordered as that of some of his colleagues.

Also, Moms, are the Divertimenti Huss performs the Divertimento for Winds? I have a Consortium Classicum set of those and am happy with it. http://www.amazon.com/Haydn-Divertimentos-Wind-Joseph/dp/B001HU91TI/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1441030801&sr=1-1&keywords=consortium+classicum+haydn

Mal probably was on those Prestige hard bop dates more for his I assume level-headed organizational and "You need a line? Give me five minutes" compositional abilities (also his not being a drug user?) than for his piano work. Maybe Weinstock got along with him?