Larry Kart

I was with Leon Kelert while he was recording the Jug and Dexter set for Prestige - Steve McCall, drums, I believe. Don Byas, before he began playing, came over to us to insist that Leon turn off the recorder. Wilbur Campbell played drums for that last set. Larry, do you remember, after the music, the 3 tenor players walking together across the street into the Lincoln Park night? Don't remember that part, but it was a pretty long time ago. I do recall Byas being fairly wound up.

That is hilarious.

Three I was at. Chuck Nessa not only was at the last of these but also IIRC played a key role in its being recorded: http://www.amazon.com/Bird-Lives-Ira-Sullivan/dp/B000A3PMPU/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1382386828&sr=1-1&keywords=ira+sullivan+charlie+parker http://www.allmusic.com/album/charlie-parker-memorial-concert-mw0000313619 http://www.amazon.com/Chase-Ammons/dp/B000000ZF1

Just ran across this -- Bela Rudenko singing the Cavatina and Rondo from Glinka's "A Life for the Tsar" (aka "Ivan Susanin"):

Looks like Gary was making a sarcastic remark about something he heard the band play. No -- my friend said he was quite serious and asking for validation of his "insight."

Perhaps the most West Coast of all West Coast albums -- almost incredibly clever/precious, but the playing is expert, and the whole thing is very entertaining (too bad this reissue doesn't have the original Flora cover, one of his best): http://www.amazon.com/Collaboration-1954-55-Shorty-Rogers/dp/B000H6SUQ8/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1382306505&sr=1-1&keywords=andre+previn+shorty+rogers http://www.google.com/search?q=jim+flora+collaboration&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=1VNkUvXsKuibygGL7ICgAg&ved=0CCkQsAQ&biw=1047&bih=948&dpr=1

I'm usually lukewarm on Lovano, but this one is a gem, in large part because of Mike Abene's charts: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=30334#.UmPsnijFUYg

Ken Burns sure knows how to pick 'experts' for his docs... At least IMO, Giddins has done some good work, but it's important to know that you don't know what you don't know. IIRC, Giddins eventually took some lessons from guitarist Howard Alden in an attempt to acquire a general technical background, but, again IIRC, they agreed early on that things weren't working out.

Online: mostly Amazon and Amazon-related sellers. Stores: mostly Half-Price Books. There's one nearby, with a fairly regular flow of interesting stuff from the community, not just the usual corporate roster of cutouts and EU packages.

A musician friend of some prominence told me that several decades ago he was on the bill at a NYC concert at which Giddins was the emcee. Standing together in the wings before the band he was a part of was to go on, my friend was startled to hear Gary muse, in response to what the band then onstage was playing, "The blues and 'I Got Rhythm' are the same thing harmonically, right?"

Maybe not the greatest ever (it's a little too jolly for that) but what a delight:

One great melody after another (sometimes two at once, as in the probably worked-out muted tpt. solo and its accompaniment), the high point probably being the melody that the reed section launches into at 1:17:

Picked up this 1998 Impulse collection of live performances from Smalls, vividly recorded by David Baker, and found it to be more successful and less studied (and/or quirky to no particular end that I can see) than any of the later albums I have on the Smalls label by various members of the club's inner circle -- e.g. Ari Roland, Chris Byars, Omar Avital. Perhaps things were fresher with those players and other Smalls regulars at this earlier stage? In any case, I was particularly struck by tenorman Charles Owens who seems to have ended up Charlottesville, Virginia. He had something personal and interesting going IMO. http://www.allmusic.com/album/jazz-underground-live-at-smalls-mw0000032219 http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=43486#.UmGadijFUYg

Bud Shank with a water pistol (I thought it was the real thing). Also, Bob Enevoldson was standing nearby with an angry Alaskan Husky.

Maybe I'm taking "shook your world" a bit too literally, but there are lots of recordings I love that didn't shake my world because they didn't radically alter (i.e. shake) my expectations of how music was and could be (either, or both, in terms of how it went about its business language-wise or in what it expressed) but more or less confirmed and fulfilled a somewhat pre-existing sense of what in those realms might be possible. Ones that did shake me in the sense I've mentioned, in addition to Roscoe Mitchell's "Sound" (a new language, new forms of order), were Serge Chaloff's "Boston Blow Up" for Chaloff's nakedly intimate performance of "Body and Soul," and, for the same reason, Pee Wee Russell's muttered out, then virtually screamed solo on "Stuyvesant Blues" from a Max Kaminsky album on the Jazztone label. Also, Ornette's "The Shape of Jazz To Come" (the sense of a new language was overwhelming), Jackie McLean's "New Soil" (the transformation into an almost incredibly planed-down fierce austerity of McLean's style and voice on "Hip Strut" was startling, in part because I already had so much invested emotionally in prior McLean, and this change seemed such a breakthrough), Wilbur Harden's "Mainstream '58" (my first encounter with "sheets of sound" Coltrane, here at its most astounding). No doubt there are more, but those are the ones that come to mind. Why, I wonder, didn't Monk ever hit me that way -- say, his great and arguably quite radical solo on "Bag's Groove" with Miles? I think because, once you climb on board, the logic of Monk's thinking always explains itself as it goes along, at once creates and satisfies expectations. By contrast, McLean's "Hip Strut" solo is like having a bandage ripped off your chest in slow motion -- you feel what's happening but while it's going on you pretty much can't believe that it's going to continue this way.

Rick Atkinson's "The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944" I thought I knew a fair bit about the Italian campaign, but it was far worse than I'd thought -- one screw up after another, with Anzio and Monte Cassino topping the list so far. Allied generalship was largely execrable, with Churchill doing some unconscionable wishful meddling, German forces were formidable and often brilliantly led, and the whole idea of fighting our way up narrow mountainous Italy virtually squandered the Allied advantage of material superiority -- poor terrain for tanks, etc. Atkinson's previous volume "An Army At Dawn," about the North African campaign was also harrowing.

Now that I think of it, that's probably why I rank Etcetera and All Seeing Eye at the very top of the bunch, specifically because of Herbie's involvement in both. I absolutely LOVE his (Herbie's) playing on both, especially All Seeing Eye. I'm trying to think of other free-leaning dates with Herbie on acoustic piano, and other than these two (plus TW's Trainwreck), none are immediately coming to mind. Herbie's rhythmic approach on these free-ish acoustic dates is nothing short of fantastic, at least in my book. Maybe not as "free" as the ones you mentioned, but Herbie takes a striking free-ish solo on "My Joy" on Bobby Hutcherson's "Oblique." That track also includes a jaw-dropping bass solo from the late Albert Stinson.

Yes.

The only thing the least bit West Coast about "Blue Serge" was that it was recorded in Hollywood and that the bassist was L. Vinnegar. Serge, Sonny Clark, and Phllly Joe Jones could hardly be more East Coast, through Clark did spend some time as house pianist with the Lighthouse All-Stars. Obviously I should have added an ironic emoticon before posting my answer. Thought it was plain enough that I was aware of the non-West Coast implications of the various musicians involved! Sorry -- I should have known you were being ironic.

Impressionism and Fashion show at the Art Institute a few weeks ago. Excellent, very thoughtfully put together, untypically (these days) clear and informative words on the wall, no b.s. theorizing.

Roscoe Mitchell, "Sound"

Voted for "The All Seeing Eye," but I prefer "Introducing Wayne Shorter" (VeeJay) to any of the Blue Notes. Early Wayne was really "out there."

The regular catalogue issue of this Benny Goodman-Make Believe Ballroom Tribute to Fletcher Henderson concert: http://ml.islandnet.com/pipermail/dixielandjazz/2007-March/044757.html Don't recall that it knocked me out. Probably bought it because it looked like something special.

"Tiger Rag," with Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band (1942): I lived to fight another day.