Larry Kart

Some Jacob Wick with guitarist Shane Perlowin: More from Wick and Perlowin:

He was following his taste and also had an axe to grind.

This sounds like something I would love. Where can I find a copy? Is Christiane Legrand on vocals? Is it anything like the "Jazz Cantata" on "Jazz et Jazz?" Apparently there are two recordings -- one with Monique Adelbert (1966), one with Patrice Caratini (2006)-- but for some reason I can't post a link to the earlier one with Adelbert. http://www.allmusic.com/album/anna-livia-plurabelle-mw0001589577

For all its cleverness, the work that may have been Hodeir's magnum opus, his jazz cantata on James Joyce, "Anna Livia Plurabelle," is holed through its engine room by its Mimi Perrin-styled vocals. For a work of, so it would seem, much ambition and beard-pulling "seriousness," such chi-chi warbling, while certainly French, was also IMO not that far in sensibility from Michel Legrand. To borrow from LeRoi Jones actually quite unfair putdown of John Carisi's "Angkor Wat," "It's cool progressive, you dig?"

Funny -- I was just recommending to someone Dodds's great solo on "Perdido St. Blues" with Kid Ory and His New Orleans Wanderers. Smart as he was in many ways, Hodeir was arguably -- dealing both with early jazz and and almost everything post mid-period Coltrane -- a prisoner of his own sort of "progressivism," both as a critic and (it should never be forgotten) as the creator of his own rather petit-point style of modern jazz, which he obviously hoped would become the wave of the future and the salvation of us all. His attitudes as both critic and musician were quite sophisticated up to a point, but IMO they led him as a critic to throw the baby out with the bathwater when dealing with (again) pre-Armstrong and post mid-period Coltrane material, and in the crankiest, snottiest/most arrogant manner he could muster. BTW and FWIW, in the mid-1960s I asked Lucian Berio what he thought of Hodeir's then recent book about modern classical music "Since Debussy." Berio literally spat in disgust.

In this general bag, leave us not forget Jacob Wick.

That's a complaint I hear about her writing -- that it works vertically but not horizontally, that is the chords are all voiced individually without concern for melodic voice leading within the inner parts. So, unlike say with Ellington, where every part is its own rewarding and sometimes independent melody, her inner parts lack melodic content; they just fill out the chord. This can be slippery analysis, depending on how much counterpoint you get going within the inner parts or how you use individual voices within the context of a harmonized sections. Thad's inner parts are more melodically oriented in some cases but in other cases they also just filling out the harmony. I understand the criticism but ultimately it doesn't bother me really because the other formal elements are so distinctive and there's a strong narrative flow in the charts -- "Quadrille Anyone," "Long Yellow Road," "Since Perry/Yet Another Tear," Transcience," "Strive for Jive," "Minamata," "Elegy." For me it's a unique, stimulating voice, a personalized take on the tradition with her Japanese heritage coming into play on certain works. My opinion, obviously. So, did Wess ever write full big band arrangements for other ensembles? Actually, we're pretty much saying the opposite here, no? -- you, that her music works vertically but not horizontally; me, that it works horizontally (kind of) but not vertically. If this can be resolved (and I may in fact just be dead wrong in what I thought I heard, both in listening to the band and in what I heard from my musician friend -- and I can't find right now the only Toshiko album I have and thus can't check), it's that I believe that she thinks horizontally up to a point but, as you say, "without concern for melodic voice leading within the inner parts." To me, this then can result in passages where the vertical relationships when much or all of the ensemble is involved don't really "speak," aren't particularly meaningful or even coherent. Don't know whether Wess wrote much for big bands post Basie, but he certainly wrote for medium-sized ensembles (e.g. a nonet), and what I've heard of that music was handsome.

Mark -- I re-read that review last night after I sent the post and discovered that it said the band played only one Wess piece and that that piece was arranged by Toshiko, not Wess. Whatever, my memory was that Wess's piece sounded very different from her own compositions (his a somewhat Strayhorn-esque and/or Dameron-like carpet of shifting colors rather than, as with Toshiko, something that sounded like it had been conceived for a two-horn frontline and then expanded). Later on I mentioned how I felt about Toshiko's writing by and large to a friend who is a talented veteran composer-arranger-bandleader-instrumentalist, and he agreed with me in detail (IIRC he said, citing examples, that her sense of how things "sound" vertically is often close to mechanical-random and that her sidemen often found the results frustrating). Finally, a day or two after that review ran I got a post-card from Bill Russo (hadn't met him at the time and somehow never would) saying "right on" or words to that effect. In any case, arguably self-serving stuff aside, all this came to mind because that was my first encounter with Wess' post-Basie writing, and it was a revelation.

Excellent arranger, too. I recall hearing Toshiko's band play several of his pieces at a Chicago club in the 1980s. They were gorgeously and subtly laid out for the ensemble -- quite a contrast in that respect, or so I felt, with the leader's writing.

I've loved "Wide Range" from the time it came out, especially "Cimarron," which begins with an austerely noble melody and then shifts into an absolutely hellacious up tempo solo by Gene Quill. Also, that was just fine bunch of players, the trumpet and trombone sections in particular. The trombone section (Jimmy Cleveland, Frank Rehak, and Jim Dahl) went on to make a nice album with Quill and rhythm, "Three Bones and a Quill." Another Richards album not to be missed is "Something Else," with a fierce west coast band whose trumpet section included Maynard Ferguson, Buddy Childers, and Pete Candoli. Yikes. Stu Williamson and Shorty Rogers came along for the ride. Nice solo work from Richie Kamuca and Charlie Mariano. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHaYRDsEyeE

I agree, but FWIW the common definition of "copywriter" is someone who writes the words that are part of an advertisement. Yes, at newspapers, magazines, etc., one refers to what one writes as "copy" (thus the old cry, "copy boy!" to summon the young employee who would pick up your "hot" copy on deadline and take it to the copy desk to be edited), but the person who writes those stories is just a writer or a reporter. Likewise, if you were looking in the help-wanted section under "copywriters," those would be jobs in the advertising field, not journalism.

Mine, too. Followed by the next two -- Mulligan-Baker and Albert Ammons-Meade Lux Lewis. I maintained an unbroken record up until the Commodore sets, which I regretfully decided were too rich for my blood, but picked up the pace again on the other side for a good long while.

Probably not, but all that means, I would think, is that obstruction calls are pretty rare, period.

Late to the party, but to all you McCarver bashers, here FWTW are two Facebook posts from my friend and former Chicago Tribune colleague Alan Solomon, the best baseball beat reporter I've ever read (he covered the White Sox for seven years) and the husband of Carrie Muskat, the veteran Chicago-based AP baseball writer. Before the Series began: "Best two teams in baseball. And a final round for the vastly underappreciated Tim McCarver. Those of us who know appreciate him." After last night: "...and as pal Tim Clodjeaux correctly observed earlier on another thread, in all the chaos, Buck and McCarver did a great job of immediately picking up on what happened and explaining it. Not a false word -- no mistaken call, no confusion, no outrage. Imagine, if you can stand the pain, Chip Caray or Dick Stockton on that play."

I first encountered Whittle on this Johnny Keating album, way back when: http://www.discogs.com/Johnny-Keating-And-His-All-Stars-Swinging-Scots/release/3352141 Just listened to samples from his Warm Glow and Blues in the Dark on Amazon. Very nice; he had his own thing. Also, now that I think of it, I have a very good Whittle quartet album from 2003, "Grace Notes" (Spotlite). Mostly standards, plus two tasty originals from the '50s, Lucky Thompson's "Tom-Kattin'" and Hank Mobley's "Funk in the Deep Freeze."

As we all know, they're the worst kind.

Really? You think it's correct to prosecute a satirical publication for racism? Yes. Here the question of interpretation lies in the offence given. In this article, an individual is slurred with racial epithets. That offends Jews, not just him. Otherwise the excuse for racism becomes 'oh I was only joking'. In any case, what happens in a joke? This joke focalises racial aggression. There is no point in dignifying it by analysing its layers. In my book this is actually classic anti-semitism. The message to Jews is: look, you have to put up with this language, one of your kind has stepped out of line - watch out, there's plenty more where this came from. That's completely absurd. This joke does the opposite of focalize racial aggression and the only way to figure that out is to understand the context -that is, to analyze its layers. The whole point of this joke is to lampoon the patronizing attitude of most Americans (and particularly Dan Snyder) who keep saying that "Redskins" is not racially offensive even though this is the easiest and cheapest opinion for those people (since they are not themselves Indians) to have. It does this by setting up an analogous example that's OBVIOUSLY AND INTENTIONALLY racially offensive to point out that these same people would never stand for it if their ethnicities were caricatured like this. It has nothing to do with making Jews "put up with this language" and everything to do with illustrating the ways in which powerful people make others put up with the same kind of language every day. Well put.

Darcy James Argue on Gunther Schuller's mis-transcription of "Mood Indigo" in "Early Jazz" and why what actually happens in the piece is darn important: http://musicalexchange.carnegiehall.org/profiles/blogs/arranging-ellington-the-ellington-effect

FWIW, Adam Schatz: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/arts/music/05archive.html?_r=0 contributes an enthusiastic review of Crouch's Bird bio to the current New York Review of Books. It's behind a pay wall, unfortunately: http://www.nybooks.com/issues/2013/nov/07/

In the words of Russ Freeman, Hugo Hurwey.

Here's something from one of the Sakata performances I heard (wish the sound and image were better, but it was an amazing band and night):

At age 71, still lots of enjoyment but probably not as much excitement as when I was, say, 21 or 31 or 41 -- probably because I associate excitement, by and large, with novelty and/or sheer intensity, and by now I've heard so much music of so many sorts that I don't run across much these days that seems that novel to me, while in the sheer intensity realm certain standards were set in my brain by hearing the likes of Coltrane, Ayler, and Roscoe Mitchell in person, and, aside from Roscoe himself, such levels of intensity are hard to come by these days, at least in my experience. OTOH, one of the most intense musical experiences I've ever had came courtesy of alto saxophonist Akira Sakata a few years ago, so there's hope.

My people are eternally grateful for the disappearance of Dreft and Halo. We sleep better without those slurs hanging around.

Chiefs, Scouts, and Indians are fine with me -- for the reason you cite and as long as the accompanying team images and associated behavior (e.g. the Atlanta Braves' tomahawk chop) aren't racial caricatures.

Be that as it may, to me the controversy rests on the fact that the term originated as a disparaging one and was applied as such from the outside; no Native American ever woke up and said, "Hey, I'm going to call myself a redskin."