Larry Kart

Mine will be in the mail today.

Or this one: Yes, with Kovacs-style spacey slapstick gags interspersed. It's on YouTube.

Psychologist and jazz critic Judith Schlesinger has devoted a good deal of scholarly effort to refuting this sort of B.S.: http://www.theinsanityhoax.com/

The original singer of the song, Kurt Gerron, may or may not change your mind: (spoken intro comes first) Original words (in a partial, literal translation) aren't stupid: And the shark, he has teeth And he wears them in his face And MacHeath, he has a knife But the knife you don't see On a beautiful blue Sunday Lies a dead man on the Strand* And a man goes around the corner Whom they call Mack the Knife And Schmul Meier is missing And many a rich man And his money has Mack the Knife, On whom they can't pin anything. Jenny Towler was found With a knife in her chest And on the wharf walks Mack the Knife, Who knows nothing about all this. And the minor-aged widow, Whose name everyone knows, Woke up and was violated Mack, what was your price? And some are in the darkness And the others in the light But you only see those in the light Those in the darkness you don't see

The Flintstones? It's on "Rhythm" changes, I believe, and Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel and friends once made a cooking version of it. Then there this one with Ellis, Plas Johnson, Sweets Edison et al.

That's funny -- I vaguely recall catching someone else making the same "University of Indiana" mistake I did.

With rare exceptions, "Satin Doll." No exceptions if it's sung -- those lyrics!

John -- In what way, for what reasons, did Murray consider David Baker to be a racist? Hard to see how a man who headed the U. of Indiana jazz program for many years, guiding students of many races in what would have to be equitable manner or he wouldn't have been allowed to continue in the post, could be called a racist.

Not to be too self-serving, but here's a Facebook message I just got from an old Chicago Tribune colleague, John Blades: I was talking to Elmore Leonard at a party in the mid-80s, and when I told him I was from the Trib, he said, "Do you know Larry Kart? He's been writing about me for years, and he says he won't stop till he gets it right." I'm a little foggy about the rest of the conversation, but it was mostly a testimony to LK's tenacity and perspicacity. You (and maybe Bruce Cook) were the first to recognize his particular genius. Go Dutch, wherever you are.

Unfortunately my reviews of two early 1980s Leonard novels, "City Primeval" and "Stick," are behind the Chicago Tribune archives pay wall, but I have good memories of those books (plus much else by Leonard) and what I wrote about them. If anyone can rescue and post those reviews, I'd be grateful.

About Simpson being opposed to Glock and Glock in general being an avant garde-inclined tyrant, David Wright emphatically says no: http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/william-glock-not-avante-garde.pdf http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/william-glock.pdf OTOH, there's this, though I haven't read the Simpson book referred to here: http://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/07/classical-music-beyond-twitter.html

Composer Robert Simpson's book about Bruckner: http://www.amazon.com/Essence-Bruckner-Robert-Wilfred-Simpson/dp/0575011890 is among the best such books ever and should explain everything about how his music works, if you're among those who are in a place to get the message. Simpson's book about Carl Nielsen is no less superb. http://www.amazon.com/Carl-Nielsen-Symphonist-Robert-Simpson/dp/0900707968 I would add that unless you're among the lucky ones who get Bruckner right off, there may be no arguably great composer whose music is harder to grasp. For one thing, he requires that one have a very long-term memory for thematic echoes/returns and resemblances, longer than even most sensitive listeners tend to possess. But there are, Brucknerians feel, immense long-term rewards for learning to tune in on the attention span that Bruckner calls for.

We've all heard this song before, but If this is copyrighted material, posting a link to it is against forum rules. If it is copyrighted material, please delete your post, BT.

Winslow Homer show at the Clark Museum in Williamstown, Ma., the incredible Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston. Also the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, with the great Copley painting of Paul Revere staring you right in the face, plus lots of other stuff. But don't miss the Gardner.

My translation, from some years back, of Eugenio Montale's famous "L' anguilla" (The Eel): The Eel The eel, siren of ice-bound seas, who leaves the Baltic to reach our seas, our rivers, our estuaries, who traces their depths against the current, from thinning streams, to fingerling rills, ever deeper, deep in the heart of stone, filtering through veins of mud until one day light darts from the chestnuts to catch its quiver in a stagnant pool, in ravines that descend the Appenine peaks to Romagna; eel, torch, whip, arrow of Eros on earth, which only our gullies or the dried-up creeks of the Pyrennees again guide to paradises of fecundity; green spirit seeking life where there is only parched ground; scintilla that says everything begins when all seems ashes, a buried stump; eel, tiny rainbow-iris, twin to those your lashes frame, that you send shining, intact, to the center of the sons of man, immersed in your slime, can you not call her sister?

Who is he? Can't find any references via Google. Sorry, this was an inside joke. John was the husband of Lynne Ludy, a coworker at JRM/Delmark back in the day. John was an introvert and seemed to spend all his time composing. He had stacks of his work next to the piano in their apartment. On rare occasions he would play some of them for close friends. I'm sure John Litweiler heard a few. They moved home to central Michigan in the '70s and divorced. John passed away a few years ago. Sorry for the derailment. Oh, yes, now I remember -- vaguely, but I remember.

Who is he? Can't find any references via Google.

Martinu's surrealist opera "Julietta" is something else: http://www.opera.co.uk/view-review.php?reviewID=32 Feel very fortunate that I have the 1965 Suprahon set (cond. by Krombholc) on LPs

Egon Wellesz Rued Langgaard (talk about your madmen!)

Karl Weigl Eduard Erdmann http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FskQW0PMYI

That's the same chart, and a damn good one it is, but not the same performance. The one I have is one of the three Raeburn versions of "How Deep Is the Ocean?" that can be found on Spotify. It's the one from "Rhythms By Raeburn" that lasts 4:14, which leaves room for three soloists -- a warm-toned trumpeter (probably Ray Linn) who states and handsomely embellishes the theme, the trombonist, and a tenor saxophonist (perhaps Emmet Carls).

Listening to a recently acquired album of 1945 Boyd Raeburn airchecks, "Rhythms By Raeburn," on the aptly named Aircheck label -- these taken from broadcasts from the Rose Room of San Francisco's Palace Hotel in June, July, and August 1945, I was struck by a number of things, including the sheer madness of the setting that arranger George Handy provided for vocalist David Allyn on "Out of This World." But I was really surprised by the trombone solo on "How Deep Is the Ocean?" from Aug. 7, 1945. At once very smooth-toned and lyrical and quite modern in its harmonic flow, but without any boppish rhythmic touches, it didn't sound like the work of any trombonist of the era I've heard, with the possible exception of Jimmy Knepper, who was not with the Raeburn band, and besides it doesn't really sound like Knepper -- maybe like an improbable cross between Jack Jenney and Lester Young. No personnel is given, but poking through the fluctuating personnel given elsewhere for the Raeburn band of that vintage, my best guess is either Jack Carmen or Ollie Wilson. Johnny Mandel was also in the section around that time, and the melodic and harmonic traits I heard could be Mandel-ian, but I don't recall anyone saying that Mandel was more than a marginal player technically, and this is superb playing in terms of both concept and execution. Any ideas who it might be?

Computer left behind, yes, not phone, but no one here has ever contacted me by phone.

I'm leaving town and my computer behind tomorrow for a vacation and will return on 8/14.

Jazz Swings Broadway (Pacific Jazz) -- Bud Shank/Bob Cooper Quintet, Stu Williamson Quartet, Chico Hamilton Quintet, Russ Freeman Trio, all tracks not issued elsewhere AFAIK. Boyd Raeburn, Rhythms by Raeburn (1945 airchecks from San Francisco) Peter Pears/Julian Bream, Music for Voice and Guitar (RCA), works by Britten, Walton, Seiber, and Fricker Mozart Clarinet Concerto, Bram de Wilde, Van Beinum, Concertgebouw (Epic) All LPs, total price $2.50