Larry Kart

I was thinking whiskey, but I'm really not sure what he drank, other than it was alcoholic.

Many thanks for the reminder sgcim. I have both those old Crown LPs and as fine as they are haven't listened to them much over the years because the sound was so bad (and on top of that my copies also were in nasty shape). Just ordered the CD and now I'll really get to hear this music. Which CD did you order, the Fresh Sound with both Crown albums or the Ace (UK) disc (or was it Boplicity)? The Fresh Sound, he said guiltily.

Art Farmer cropped up twice with Horace Silver, once with Sonny Clark, and twice with Hank Mobley -- always to fine effect.

Many thanks for the reminder sgcim. I have both those old Crown LPs and as fine as they are haven't listened to them much over the years because the sound was so bad (and on top of that my copies also were in nasty shape). Just ordered the CD and now I'll really get to hear this music.

No, just fermented grains (but eventually he gave up on that).

Great photos. Never saw JSngry before. Chuck's tie and shirt combo is excellent.

OK, I finally listened again, and while I don't hear it quite as I did back when, and, yes, that "Just a Gigolo" is wonderful, Cyrille does sound relatively ricky-tick and/or stiff to me on "I'll Never Be the Same" and "Under a Blanket of Blue. On the latter in particular, there's just no reason I can see for him to open and close his hi-hat that often and that regularly at that tempo.

That was Scorsese's movie, not Coppola's.

FWIW, Dave Kehr on Ebert: "I, too, regret the passing of Roger Ebert. He wasn’t a close friend, though I spent many years sitting with him in small, dark rooms, but I can say that he was a man of good heart and great skills as a communicator. As our art form of choice passes into ever darker days, we will miss him as one of its great advocates with the general public; there is no one remotely like him left." Interesting for what it does and doesn't say and quite fair-minded IMO. But then not everyone likes Kehr as much as I do.

Another much later semi-example** of Ebert in "Rumble Fish" mode, his review of Scorsese's generally reviled "Bringing Out the Dead" (this elbow-jog courtesy of A.O. Scott in his appreciation of Ebert in today's NY Times): http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19991022/REVIEWS/910220303/1023 I'm particularly struck by its bizarrely moralistic final paragraph: "'Bringing Out the Dead' is an antidote to the immature intoxication with violence in a film like 'Fight Club.' It is not fun to get hit, it is not redeeming to cause pain, it does not make you a man when you fight, because fights are an admission that you are not smart enough to survive by your wits. 'Fight Club' makes a cartoon of the mean streets that Scorsese sees unblinkingly." ** semi-example because the fierce two-paper town, Siskel-Ebert rivalry of the '70s and '80s was at an end by then. But this review does strike me as a likely Scorsese suck-up. Old habits die hard. Too bad that Ebert didn't see that David Fincher (whose "Fight Club" Ebert weirdly mis-reads; that film doesn't "say" any of things that he claims it does) was likely to be a better meal ticket down the road. Also from that review, Ebert in his by this time rather professorial auteur mode: ""To look at 'Bringing Out the Dead' -- to look, indeed, at almost any Scorsese film -- is to reminded that film can touch us urgently and deeply." I am glad, though, to be told that "fights are an admission that you are not smart enough to survive by your wits."

I'm merely reporting what "just about everyone who was on the inside in Chicago features/entertainment journalism back then felt Roger was up to in those instances." Further, I'm placing it in the context of the fiercely competitive journalistic framework that prevailed between those two papers in that era. I was there. As for that review of "Rumble Fish,"while it's not impossible that Ebert liked the film, what I think happened there, in addition to what I said in my previous post, is that Roger borrowed for the moment a bit of fancy-dan auteur thinking/reasoning, whereby any work of a filmmaker who has achieved auteur status has to be of value (in part and/or in a pinch) because it tells us something about who this auteur is, and applied it to the film at hand to rationalize what he wanted to do for the practical reasons I stated. As for "his editors blabbing that they had a meeting and convinced Ebert to 'take a dive'," no such meeting would have taken place because (a) there would have been no need for it to take place (the goals that I think were moving Roger here were ones that he would have incorporated for both practical and personal reasons -- the rivalry between the two papers along these lines, and between Gene and Roger of course, was fierce and omnipresent; again, I was there), and (b) because such an open request/suggestion/demand aimed at Roger (or almost any other journalist-critic in his shoes) would have been regarded by that person as offensive/outrageous in its vulgarity or what have you, a gross violation of journalistic ethics. Paradoxical perhaps, but that's the way things were, and the way one (or most journalists) thought. Two personal notes: I almost got fired at the Tribune when I wrote a very negative review of IMO a very bad performance that Frank Sinatra gave at Chicago Fest (a very large, publicly funded event) -- the Trib's then-new and temperamentally explosive editor Jim Squires saying that I should have understood that it was my duty to praise Sinatra (in a review that was going to appear on the back page of the front section of the paper, surrounded by a bunch of concert photographs) instead of saying what I did. Acting behind the scenes, features editor Colleen Dishon saved my ass, but even though (as it happened) Siskel and I were the only two parties who came to my defense in a meeting that was held in Squires' office for the whole features staff, the consensus among the seemingly frightened crew who were present was that Squires' point of view here marked him out as something of a rube, in that editors of big-city papers didn't say such things openly. BTW, what really ticked me off about this incident is that Royko, then at the Sun-Times, had been at the concert as an invited guest of Mayor Jane Byrne, and the day after my review appeared he wrote a column attacking/mocking what I'd written, saying that obviously I was a kid whose hearing had been ruined by too much exposure to rock music. What Royko wrote tickled me, but what I didn't like is that Squires said to my face in the meeting the next day that he had called up Royko, told him that he agreed with his column and had then offered him my job. That last was a joke of course, though Squires did say that to Royko, but it was also part of campaign that Squires had launched to get cozy with Royko and bring him over to the Trib, one that soon would be successful. I was furious, though -- you don't stab your own people in the back like that, even as a semi-joke in the course of an attempt to woo someone important over to your paper, and you also don't tell me and a bunch of my co-workers that you've done that. Another story: I was reviewing a Chicago Jazz Festival concert on a night that tenorman Lin Halliday played with a group led by Ira Sullivan. Halliday was a somewhat eccentric, stop-and-start player with a lot of personal hang-ups, but I was familiar with his musical approach and usually admired the results -- often a great deal. And what I heard that night sounded like good or better Halliday to me, which is what I said in my review. The next day I ran into my old Down Beat boss Dan Morgenstern, who had been there the night before, and he said something that made it clear that he thought what I'd written about Halliday was a case of my "taking one for the team." That is, Dan felt -- based in part IIRC on the way Lin looked as he played (he could be quite twitchy or worse, I wasn't that close to the stage during the set) and perhaps also because he wasn't that familiar with the IMO interesting oddities of Lin's style -- that Lin's performance that night was more or less inept. I tried to explain that honestly that wasn't my view, that what I wrote was what I thought, but I could tell that Dan didn't really believe me. Weird feeling, though it didn't affect our friendship.

A key factor in the rampant rivalry-hostility between Ebert and Siskel was an aspect of journalism at the time that was to some degree unique to Chicago and is in any case almost forgotten. Roger and Gene were not just film critics but also their respective papers' chief feature writers and interviewers in the movie realm -- and this in a very competitive two-paper town. Combine this with the fact that Gene was among the most ferocious and often unscrupulous masters of gamesmanship on the planet (see for example the N. Kinski anecdote in the Slate story I linked to in a previous post), and one had a constant battle over who was going to get the juicy, "promotable" interview that week. Also, those interviews often were "exclusive" -- i.e. if Ebert got Harrison Ford that week, he would only be talking to the Sun-Times. Further, not that it needs to be said, Gene and Roger's editors were on their asses all the time to get the juicy interview that week, because if they did get it, without fail it would be on the cover of the paper's Sunday Arts section and be trumpeted in advertisements. Again AFAIK this situation was unique to Chicago in the 1970s and '80s. For example, the NY Times movie critics back then either didn't do that kind of work or confined their non-review writing for the paper to the occasional "think" piece. Other staffers did the interviews. BTW, this stuation led to one aspect of Ebert’s work back then that was IMO less than appetizing. Because the Sun-Times was a less important paper that the Tribune in terms of circulation and demographics, Ebert was always working at a disadvantage when it came to the getting-the-choice-interview battle. One of his solutions to this at times was to play on his relatively greater prestige as a critic and take a quite rosy view of, say, Francis Ford Coppola’s new film if it happened to be a relative dog (I recall in particular his review of “Rumble Fish” http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19830826/REVIEWS/50826002/1023 but there were others in this vein) -- the strategy being that even though the film was a dog and Coppola himself was at a fairly low point in his career, there probably would come a time when everyone would want to talk to Coppola again, and in Chicago he now would talk exclusively to Ebert, because he would gratefully recall the positive review of "Rumble Fish" that he got when he was down. The problem, of course, being that when those conditions prevailed in Ebert’s mind, he arguably was not telling his readers what he actually thought of the films at hand but setting himself up to pick a journalistic plum down the road. Not what one wants in a critic, I think. And Siskel, whatever his faults -- certainly Roger was the smarter and more sophisticated critic of the two -- never in my experience said anything about a movie that wasn’t exactly what he thought of it. My evidence for this account of what Ebert was doing here? At this distance in time I can’t cite chapter and verse, but I do recall that just about everyone who was on the inside in Chicago features/entertainment journalism back then felt that that was what Roger was up to in those instances -- taking a dive (or rationalizing to a fare-thee-well) in a review in order in the hope of currying favor with a star director of actor/actress and then getting a choice interview from them down the road. If I’m right about this, how bad was that? Up to you.

Yes, like Roscoe -- absolutely.

Well, the proof (up to a point and/or in a sense) is in the listening, and I haven't yet had a chance to re-listen to "The Hawk Relaxes." OTOH, I don't care that much one way or another about this, was just mentioning what I recall myself and recall being told about that date. Speaking of Hawkins of that period, though, do you know the stuff he played at the Playboy Jazz Festival in 1959, with IIRC Eddie Higgins, Bob Cranshaw, and Walter Perkins. Good God! http://www.amazon.com/COLEMAN-HAWKINS-QUARTET-CHICAGO-BLOWIN/dp/B00154KX48

I knew Roger a fair bit, though not much socially -- I went home after work when I wasn't going out to review a show, not to O'Rourke's and similar watering holes. Siskel I knew much better. I also in later years became very good friends with Tribune writer Monica Eng, whose divorced mother Ingrid was Roger's ... mistress, I suppose you'd say, for many years. Afterwards they remained good friends. She, Monica, and her sister Megan all lived with Roger during that time; he was Monica's virtual stepfather and an exceptionally kind and thoughtful one. Here's the heartfelt piece she wrote about him: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-0408-ebert-appreciation-eng-20130408,0,6681153.story

You're saying Cyrille gigged with Williams before that Hawkins recording date, which I believe was Cyrille's first? His bio says that his previous professional experience was backing singer Nellie Lutcher, and that he had met and then played with Cecil Taylor in 1958.

Yes, but if I'm recalling correctly what Dan said, Cyrille came into that date with a dismissive attitude. If so, it was not a matter of what he thought needed to be done musically but what he felt like doing socially -- i.e. demonstrate his indifference to/separate himself from these old farts and their musical ways by playing in a rather corny, near two-beat manner. Again, I'd have to listen again to be sure I'm not exaggerating, but I do recall thinking at the time something like "What the heck does he think he's doing?" P.S. This was 1962, and perhaps Cyrille (he was only 21) thought that if wasn't Trane or the like, it was a moldy fig thing.

Check out Siskel Ebert Outtakes on YouTube. Also this: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/03/siskel_and_ebert_an_oral_history_.html

Pretty sure I have "The Hawk Relaxes" and will check out that track. BTW, my memory of the album, corroborated IIRC by Dan Morgenstern, is that the young (age 21) Andrew Cyrille almost sabotaged the date, much to Hawkins' annoyance, by playing in a ricky-tick, hotel band manner, as though he thought that was what an "old guy" playing standards required. OTOH, in his bio of Hawkins, John Chilton writes: "...the unconventional punctuations from Cyrille preclude any displays of lethargy."

Just listened to "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" from "Good Old Broadway." Far more than a mere reading of that tune IMO, though Hawkins only plays on the in and out choruses. Check out the stern, stiffening rhythmic gestures during the second eight bars of the first chorus. Leonine, magnificent. Monk would have dug it, I think; there was some kinship between Hawkins approach to this material and Monk's to standards on his solo recordings of this period, not in terms of influence but of affinities.

Some problem with that loudspeaker? If you have earphones, do you hear the same problem in that channel?

I heard Pres in Chicago in Oct. 1955 with JATP. He was not in good shape and was hospitalized that November for alcoholism and depression. He emerged, judging by the music he made in 1956, in very good shape. IIRC, the superb "Jazz Giants' 56," with Roy Eldridge, Vic Dickinson, Teddy Wilson, Gene Ramey, and Jo Jones, was the first album to proclaim his return. Yes, 1954-1955 was generally a down time for Pres. It was no accident that one of the tracks from his Verve session as a leader in 56 with Teddy Wilson was titled "Pres Returns." Still, lucky you to have seen Pres live in any condition! What I wrote about that concert in my book: 'The first live jazz performance I heard was a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert that took place at the Chicago Opera House on October 2, 1955, with a lineup that included Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Flip Phillips, Illinois Jacquet , Lester Young, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich. Aware of the music for just five months, at age thirteen I knew the names of most of these musicians. And one of them, Eldridge, was a particular favorite because he seemed to speak so personally and openly through his horn, with such passion, genuineness, strength and grit. (By contrast, I thought that Jacquet and Phillips’s tenor saxophone battles were exciting but mostly for show, not to be taken at face value.) 'Lester Young, however, was only a name to me; I’d yet to hear a note of his music. And partly because of that lack of context, much of what he played that afternoon struck me as very strange. (As it happens, the concert was recorded, and eventually released on the album Blues in Chicago 1955, so I can place memories alongside what actually occurred.) Young was not in good shape on the1955 JATP tour, physically or emotionally . He would be hospitalized for several weeks that winter, suffering from alcoholism and depression, though he would recover sufficiently to make two of his best latter-day recordings, Jazz Giants ’56 and Pres and Teddy, in mid-January 1956. But in the gladiatorial arena of Jazz at the Philharmonic, the wan, watery-toned Young I heard seemed to speak mostly of weakness, even of an alarming inability or unwillingness to defend himself. And yet this state of being was undeniably, painfully being expressed, though at times perhaps only out of dire necessity; the brisk tempo Gillespie set for the piece the two of them shared was one that Young could barely make. 'Then toward the end came a ballad medley, which began with Young’s slow-motion restatement of “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.” That he seemed to be more in his element here was about all I realized at the time, though even that fact was provocative. And the recorded evidence confirms this, as Young bends a bare minimum of resources to the task --as though he were saying “This is all I have” and asking “Is this not enough?” Admittedly, that is largely an adult response to a performance that now seems remarkable to me. Yet something of that sort must have been crystallizing back then, because I was immediately eager to find out more about Lester Young.' Thanks, Larry. I recall also reading this in your book. I didn't realize that the 1955 Chicago concert was recorded. I have never heard it. One of the notorious Spanish boot labels did release a September Carnegie Hall JATP concert from that tour not long ago. Pres is featured on "I Didn't Know What Time it Was" at that concert as well. He sounds weak, but still manages to get off an absolutely gorgeous solo on that song. In fact, I think that it is my favorite Pres solo from 1954-1955 among those that I have heard. Not on CD AFAIK: http://www.allmusic.com/album/blues-in-chicago-1955-mw0000955309 http://www.amazon.com/Blues-Chicago-1955-Jazz-Philharmonic/dp/B003MXOTOK As to whether what's on "Blues in Chicago" is the exact concert I heard, even though it's labeled as such in the liner notes, I'm aware (from the recent Granz bio and elsewhere) that Granz could be quite capricious about what was recorded when and where -- e..g Peterson's "Live at the Concertgebouw," which was recorded somewhere else IIRC, and the stereo and mono material from the Getz-J.J. Johnson JATP sets, which again IIRC were recorded in Chicago and Los Angeles but were tagged on the 1980s LP reissue the wrong way around. Also, though it was corrected on the CD issue, which has room for all that material,, the LP reissue didn't have room for all of it and understandably in one sense chose the (different from the mono) stereo performances of the duplicate titles. But the liner notes, by no less a figure than Bob Porter, claimed that this was because the stereo performances were musically superior to the mono ones (which had been issued on the original mono LP), when in fact the mono performances were superb and the stereo ones were rather discombobulated --and that in part IMO because the arrangement of the band on the stage for the stereo tracks seemed to have placed the members of rhythm section and the horns so far apart from each other that group cohesion was almost impossible. BTW, it might be nice to have a list of all the Granz recordings that were recorded in places and at dates other than what the original albums claimed.

OK, but for some $48?

The "Don't do that" line was part of Smith and Dale's great "Dr. Kronkheit" routine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_%26_Dale By "risk and reward" I meant that on that R.T. Jones Jr. course I could see for the first time the living logic of a well-designed course, that if you hit it over here, where you knew you should, you would benefit from being in a better place to hit the next shot and if you hit it over there you would be at some disadvantage. About getting depressed and angry, that wasn't so much when I actually played but when I was practicing ... or rather obsessively fiddling with different and often contradictory ways to hit the damn ball properly when I would have better off just leaving things alone. But then, as Tiger Woods' career shows, even the best golfers can't resist the usually pernicious need to fiddle. I would guess that among the greats Nicklaus was relatively free from fiddling because of his temperament and because the principles his early teacher Jack Grout gave him were so sound and simple and so in tune with his skills and body type. Lee Trevino likewise, perhaps -- his self-taught method was rock-like in its simplicity I believe.

Just checked it out on Spotify, sounds great; Vernell is fabulous; bassist Ed Howard and pianist Kevin O'Connell, a new name to me, are really in there, too. Reaching for the credit card again.