Larry Kart

Great piece, Chuck. "They exhibited the spare elegance of money." Yes! I think your experiences and the striking way you conveyed them captured one of the essential aspects of Stollman -- that he was at any moment at once there and not there, a shape changer of some primal, ectoplasmic sort. (Perhaps, as he saw it, his debts and obligations were owed in another universe.) BTW, other than the records he made (which certainly are evidence of a powerful sort), does anyone have direct evidence of the nature of Stollman's involvement in/understanding of the music he recorded? Or was he perhaps a New York area, "my folks have some money" Bohemian-sharpie type whose life briefly ran parallel to those of Ayler et al. and who saw and/or lived out the whole schmeer as part of his personal up-and-down financial/psychological "development." If so, he's not the only man or woman of that type that I knew or heard of. They abounded on the literary scene, bankrolling or editing this or that magazine or publishing venture, then disappearing without a trace for years, only to emerge as the spouses of the hedge fund managers or as bodies floating in the Gowanus Canal.

Well, stepping back from an armpit is easier than getting out of a wormhole.

You mean the armpit?

As much as we'd both surely like this to be... http://beachpackagingdesign.com/boxvox/donald-deskeys-odorono-jar And still to this day: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Odorono-Powder-Fresh-Antitranspirante-Y-Desodorante-2.5-fl-oz/10850105 What a beautifully named product. The emphasis on calamity is so good.

For some reason, when I click on the top link in my first post, it sometimes defaults to another Teagarden performance. If you have that problem, go to YouTube, enter "Jack Armstrong Blues V-Disc" and then select the one that runs 4:52 or so. Here it is again:

McGarity leads off in the trombone exchanges. Then after Louis' long solo, it's all Teagarden until Louis take it out.

Just ran across this. Some sublime playing. The longer of two takes. Teagarden and Lou McGarity begin by trading off, then Louis, a visitor to the session, begins to play and Heaven's Gate opens wide: Some further info: http://www.storyvillerecords.com/products/midnights-at-v-disc-jucd2048 https://books.google.com/books?id=mvyj8r6puTgC&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=herb+ellis+jack+armstrong+blues&source=bl&ots=hXyKrsVVp4&sig=LMFoMH0yh5QiFhqMiroy9LBOOzw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IIQ1VfSXN7T-sASE4IC4Dw&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=herb%20ellis%20jack%20armstrong%20blues&f=false

"It has all its happiness in gaining the cognition of unhappiness." Story of my life.

Taking one step further, what a gem "Curtis Fuller Vol. 3" is, with Art Farmer, Sonny Clark, George Tucker, and Louis Hayes -- from Dec. '57. As on "The Opener," the same Blue Note care in preparation/rehearsal without messing with in-the-moment freshness. Farmer is in excellent form, his almost plotted-out motivic precisions a nice contrast to Fuller's looser-limbed lines.

Moved on to Fuller's first Blue Note date, "The Opener," from June 1957, with Mobley, Timmons, Chambers, and Art Taylor. A blowing date too but a fair bit different in feel from "New Trombone" and "With Red Garland," probably rehearsed some the day before (as was typical of Alfred Lion) and routined/varied in solo order just the right amount. For instance, it's kind of annoying on "New Trombone" how many tracks begin with Hank Jones solos, and Jones also doesn't fit that well stylistically with Fuller and Kyner in the first place; nor on "With Red Garland" are Garland's solos placed to best advantage. On "The Opener" things just feel right, and Mobley (perhaps a bit hung up at moments) is basically a fine foil for Fuller. OTOH, as strong as Fuller sounds here, those tracks on "With Red Garland" where Fuller's tone is veiled (beret over the bell of his horn perhaps) and his approach is ruminative ("Stormy Weather" and the initial track of the album) are not to be missed.

Passage from Theodor Adorno’s just discovered early 1940s attempt to render into English a key passage from his “The Philosophy of Modern Music”: ‘The shocks of being ununderstandable dealt by artistic technique during the age of their senselessness tilt over. They enlighten the senseless world. Advanced music sacrifices itself for this purpose. It has all its happiness in gaining the cognition of unhappiness. It has all its beauty in renouncing the illusion of beauty. It is liked by nobody, by individualists as little as by collectivists. It resounds [dies away, lingers] (verhallt) unheard, without an echo. If time gleamingly (strahlend) crystallizes around music that has been heard, unheard music falls into the empty time like a pernicious ball (globe) (Kugel). Advanced music aims spontaneously though unconsciously at this last experience which is made hour by hour by mechanical music, the experience of being totally forgotten. Its hope lies with the doom of the world. It is the true manuscript in the bottle.’ Batshit in some semi-comic respects, but one gets (at least I do) what Adorno is trying to say much better than later translations from English-speakers manage to convey. More on this discovery: https://persistentenlightenment.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/adornoms/

Love the way he says" If you're not already in one." Also, the way he says "I lost my bird."

Can't tell for sure if it's mono -- not much "spread" -- but if it's fake stereo that probably would account for the brittle sound. Thanks.

Jerome Lowenthal recorded the original version of PC 1 for Arabesque in the late 1980s (now on Bridge), and a very fine performance it is. http://www.bridgerecords.com/products/tchaikovsky-the-music-for-piano-orchestra/ Startling to hear the opening as Tchaikovsky intended it:

mjzee -- I don't think Alderson's studio existed back in May '57. Sure don't recall any Prestige dates from him of that vintage. Allen -- This remaster was in Fantasy's hands; don't think RVG was asked to remaster anything but Blue Note material.

The other day I picked up a copy of "Curtis Fuller with Red Garland" (probably New Jazz initially, perhaps Prestige), with Sonny Red Kyner, Paul Chambers, and Louis Hayes. Fuller's second album, produced by Teddy Charles, it's a better than average blowing date, distinguished by the leader's relaxed rhythmic flexibility and (on several tracks) his lovely veiled tone -- one suspects that he draped a beret over the bell of his horn there. Only drawback is the oddly harsh recording -- Garland and Kyner (whose tone could take the paint off walls in any case) sound especially brittle. I say "oddly" because this was an RVG recording, and the above traits are not his. In any case, I then bought Fuller's first Prestige album "New Trombone," produced by Ozzie Cadena,with the same personnel except for Hank Jones and Doug Watkins, and discovered that the sound there was just what one has come to expect from a Hackensack RVG date, though so far I think that "Curtis Fuller with Red Garland" is superior musically, albeit Watkins plays his ass off on "New Trombone" and links up nicely with Hayes. The minor mystery is the considerable difference in sound between the the two dates (quite brittle on "Curtis Fuller with Red Garland" versus RVG's typical compact richness on "New Trombone"), especially mysterious when I saw that "Curtis Fuller with Red Garland" was recorded by RVG just three days after "New Trombone" -- May 14, 1957 versus May 11, 1957. Perhaps that sonic difference was because two different people at Fantasy Studios did the re-mastering (Phil De Lancie on "New Trombone," Kirk Felton on "Curtis Fuller with Red Garland" -- though it's hard to imagine anyone consciously or carelessly turning a typical RVG recording into something this harsh); perhaps it was that "New Trombone" is mono and "Curtis Fuller with Red Garland" might have been an early stereo date (can't be sure if it is) that required a different setup that didn't come off soundwise. Any thoughts/info on this?

Hey, I got one of Sierra's Bridge albums, too, and am just dipping into it. Very impressive so far. My one encounter with Rouse's music -- I think it was his prize-winning trombone concerto -- was pretty annoying. That kind of "large" emptiness is an art in itself, capable of killing off good-sized populations.

My favorite Melody was a weather girl.

Based on some recent listening to D. 960 -- Schubert. Dvorak and Borodin are shrewd choices, though.

Hahn did a nice job on the Cage pieces from 1950, in the same bag as the String Quartet -- Satie-like, no vibrato. The Lang piece was brief and Reich-like. The Bach Partita was excellent, the Debussy merely OK; Hahn and her pianist Corey Smythe (also a jazz guy who has played with Braxton, Tyshon Sorey, et al.) didn't seem quite in synch in terms of dynamics; one would be too loud, then too soft, seldom together. The Auerbach was interesting but perhaps too brief; it and the Lang were among the series of encore pieces that Hahn has commissioned. The Schumann was superb; the dynamics disparity of the Debussy was solved from the first phrase, with Hahn really leaning into things with fitting Romantic schwung (no schmaltz though) and Smythe right there with her. A lovely piece, too, though the rather monothematic nature of all three movements might be taken as a sign of Schumann's growing obsessiveness/mental distress.

Hilary Hahn recital at Orchestra tomorrow afternoon. Cage Six Melodies Lang light moving Bach Partita No. 3 for Violin Debussy Sonata for Violin and Piano Auerbach Speak, Memory Schumann Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano

Much to be preferred IMO to Argerich in Prokofiev No. 3 is Van Cliburn:

Sure don't want to fall into the tired old and almost always false "lets the music speak for itself" bag, but despite her digital brilliance and abundant musical insights, almost every Argerich performance I've heard has seemed to me to be more about Argerich than about the piece she is playing.

Happy Birthday!!