Larry Kart

So-so "Otello" at Lyric Opera yesterday afternoon. Bland production, conducting, and singing except for the radiant Desdemona, Ana Maria Martinez. OTOH, thanks in large part to her, they pretty much brought home the bacon in Act Four. Except for the excellent chorus and Martinez, the singers all seemed rather mushy rhythmically, a bit behind the orchestra. But then the conducting seemed rather mushy, too, so....

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.

The musician I feel closest to in the sense that if played the alto and were a f---ing genius, I might sound something like Lee.

The simple fact that it was there and very popular when I got into jazz per se, in 1955.At first I don't recall making that much of an East Coast-West Coast distinction in terms of value, though I was aware that the musics sounded different and I had my favorites. Also, complicating the picture at that point was that I was listening eagerly to a lot of Swing Era and earlier jazz, which sounded different from most circa 1955 jazz from either coast. Then, when Hard Bop coalesced in the world at large and in my teenaged mind, I turned my back on a lot (but not all) West Coast jazz on the grounds that compared to Silver, Blakey, Rollins, et al. it sounded precious and effete (a claim that Silver himself made at the time). Eventually that way of listening and looking at things faded away for me, and while still recognizing that the music of, say, Shorty Rogers and His Giants came from one set of sensibilities and that of the Jazz Messengers from another, I found myself enjoying both.

Not "too sheepish" but somewhere, or so it seemed to me, between taking a pass and log-rolling. As Allen said, "New York is a small city."

Crouch's intent is one thing, and Garner's "The ideal way to ingest Stanley Crouch's new book is probably on audio, late at night, while driving between the major cities of the Midwest, your headlights pushing past truck stops and dying cornfields" nicely (and perhaps a bit mockingly?) captures it. But Crouch's actual writing, which Garner's passage may be attempting to mirror, is often full of would-be poetic "dying cornfields" b.s., examples of which I quoted in a longish post somewhere above on this thread. In any case, given the other things that Garner's review said, his final largely positive response struck me as a discreet dive.

I'm sure that there are some players I've gotten a bit worn out on, but mostly for me it's the other way around -- finding out that some players I once tended to dismiss (e.g. a fair number of West Coast guys from the 1950s) now strike me as interesting. One change of opinion of that sort for me was Bob Brookmeyer -- not a West Coast guy. For a long while I thought of his phrasing and time feel as kind of foursquare, even a bit corny (agreeing with a judgment of Andre Hodeir, though I felt that way before I read Hodeir's remarks). Then, so it seemed to me, Brookmeyer himself changed in those respects -- certainly by the time of the double album he did with Jack Wilkins et al. and his "Through a Glass Darkly" -- and hearing that I found myself enjoying a good deal (but not all) of earlier Brookmeyer, too.

In addition to the crankiness, he makes some specific musical points. OTOH, having listened to a snippet of that Willie Jones III "I Get a Kick Out of You" Max Roach tribute track on Amazon (all I could find), it sounded pretty good to me -- in fact, the sheer speed burned away a lot of the posing in front of a mirror quality I tend to get from such retro projects. And that Warren Wolf track that Tootie liked I found to be a snooze. He sure was right about that flashy-empty Wynton solo though, IMO.

Interesting. Thanks for your honest report -- and no irony intended.

Re: Make Me Rainbows Lenny Bruce -- Djinni in the candy store ("Make me a malted"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyjpStYJ0ZU

He's still only one croon away. But I for one don't feel that Rat Pack style performing and behavior had that much to do with crooning/romantic balladeering per se. Rather, it was, a matter of ring-a-ding-dingness, i.e. bad-boy horsing around or worse, and thus in effect was at the opposite emotional pole from the Sinatra who so sublimely sang, say, "Willow Weep For Me" on "Only the Lonely" or "I'm a Fool To Want You" on "Where Are You?" And I hear no Rat Packness in Bennett's "Lover"; rather I hear, for want of a better term, intensely dramatized sincerity. Nor am I aware that Bennett himself out there in the world ever indulged in any Rat Pack-like behavior.

You've got a point there.

I always thought of "Joey, Joey" as his signature tune. If the whole world didn't know that in the way the whole world associated Tony Bennett and "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," why would it have? It's like Reich is saying that Frank wasn't as popular as he would have been if he had been more popular.

Baltimore-based Jarrett Gilgore: http://jarrettgilgore.blogspot.com/p/media.html

Bennett is on "the Ratpack side of things"? I've never heard the least bit of ring-a-ding-ding from him. The Bennett album for skeptics to hear IMO is this one, with Ruby Braff and George Barnes: http://www.amazon.com/Tony-Bennett-Sings-Rodgers-Songbook/dp/B0009IW8XU/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1381155106&sr=1-1&keywords=bennett+rodgers This performance in particular:

OK. I like both Dearie (much of the time) and Bennett (almost always) and don't think of either of them as vanilla.

Just curious -- what by you would not be "vanilla"? IMO, Frank is a lot less "vanilla" than, say, Mel Torme FWTW. But if the standard of non-vanilla-ness is, say, Bobby Blue Bland that would mean or be one thing, and if it's, say, Billy Eckstine that would mean or be another. And if it's, say, Mark Murphy, I'm looking for the exit.

No, there was a 2 LP set called The Third World that came out in 1975. Although...I see now that Roswell Rudd did those notes! But...Crouch did the liners to some album in that series...and I remember them being pretty good. Right -- I had that set myself. I also had (bless me) the three original BN LPs, including the two 10-inchers -- bought them about when they came out after I listened to them in a booth in my local record store, Paul's Recorded Music, and thought they were terrific. IIRC, the first track that really caught my young attention was "Shuffle Montgomery." As Roswell Rudd later said: "One of the greatest riff tunes ever dreamed up by anybody!"

Jim -- I'm pretty sure that the first real re-presentation of Nichols music was the Mosaic set of 1987, with Roswell Rudd's magnificent notes, plus lots of fascinating reminiscences from figures such as Patti Bown, Gil Melle, Steve Swallow, Sheila Jordan, Max Roach, etc. The BN set that Crouch wrote notes for came out ten years later, in 1997.

Redemption of sorts, perhaps. Before Crouch turned stooge, I recall him having some interesting things to say...his notes to the Herbie Nichols BN LP two-fer talked about the overtones of a drum kit, and I was like whoa...NOBODY talks about how drummers tune, and yes, that is of critical importance, and hey, thanks for bringing that up, what else have you got to say? And he was cool about the early-ish "loft" music, he got it, he heard it, he was not stupid. Loud, perhaps, but not stupid. Until he was, and then he got all kinds of stupid, and then I was like, really dude? REALLY? And it only got worse, right? The awfulness kept gaining momentum, and I'm not thinking, you know what you're doing, right? You know you're being a total ignowhormus, right? But you do have your redemption stashed away for play when you absolutely ultimately finally have no further down underneath you, right? Well, you do, don't you? Now, I've not started this book (still enjoying my quite leisurely stroll through Mojo Snake Minuet), but it sounds like, no, maybe not. Maybe it got lost at the cleaners. But still - who in the "jazz critical community" brings drum tunings to a conversation, not in a Max Roach "pitched" digression, but as a matter of timbre, resonance, and, yes, overtones that blend/compliment to the momentum of the music? Nobody I've known about. So...what a waste. What a self-imposed soul-suck. And ain't no ambulances for no self-imposed soul-sucks tonight. Don't know Crouch's notes for the BN Nichols set, but that point about drum overtones was eloquently made at some length (four paragraphs worth) by Nichols himself in his notes to "The Herbie Nichols Trio" (BN 1519), reproduced in the Mosaic set booklet. I would guess that whatever Crouch wrote was a paraphrase of what Nichols said. If so, one hopes that he acknowledged that Nichols was the source.

Fixed it.

Mark -- I'm sure it exists (I wrote about Frank a good deal), but if it's before 1985, that part of the Chicago Tribune archive is behind a pay wall. Otherwise: A review I wrote of Frank in 1987: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-12-10/news/8704010919_1_final-note-jazz-singing First of a three-part Marc Meyers interview with Frank (from it you can get to the other parts): http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/03/interview-frank-drone-part-1.html Frank scatting to/with his guitar on "Four": "Body and Soul":

Two tastes of Johnny Janis, in reverse chronological order. The pianist on the first track is Billy Wallace, who took Richie Powell's place with Max Roach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNxXfa3ko7s If you ever run across his album "Once in a Blue Moon," don't hesitate. He's in the same class as David Allyn.

Wonderful singer and a great guy. Fine guitarist, too -- never heard anyone who could scat sing in unison (and in harmony, too, when he felt like it) with his own interesting solo guitar lines the way Frank could. Not sure there's anything on record that captures how electrifying he could be in a club. In some ways (but only in musical terms, thanks be) he reminded me of another Frank -- Rosolino. The inventiveness just seemed to bubble up. Another fine Chicago singer-guitarist who came up in the '50s was Johnny Janis, who made a killer album, unreleased at the time (c. 1962), with Dodo Marmarosa, Ira Sullivan, bassist Jerry Friedman, and drummer Guy Viveros. Dodo's comping is superb. Janis eventually put out the album himself under the title "Jazz Up Your Life" (Starwell). Don't know if it's still available.

Also, on p. 353, a contribution from Wynton on Parker's use of the upper intervals of chords: "Louis Armstong, Coleman, Hawkins, Art Tatum and others [also] played on the upper intervals of chords. What Charlie Parker did has happened perhaps only once in Western music. After figuring out how to double the velocity of the shuffle rhythm, which no one before him had done, he heard his improvised melodies at high speed and was able to hear Tatumesque harmonies at that velocity on a single instrument! This can be heard in Chopin and Liszt, but they are considered light composers. Bird aspired to make melody on a heavyweight level....." "...double the velocity of the shuffle rhythm" -- what "shuffle rhythm"? I thought that shuffle rhythm was the compulsive doubled-up but arguably mechanical time feel popularized by the Jan Savitt band, not anything that had to do with Charlie Parker: And who the heck considers Chopin and Liszt to be "light composers"?