Larry Kart

I haven't seen him in about 20 years. So when was he funny, in the '60s? About the same time that Rich Little's impressions were -- i.e. maybe never, but the earlier the better.

http://www.jazzwax.com./ Today's part 3 has much of interest to say about Mulligan and Baker -- their personalities and respective talents. Whitlock, as he explains in part 2, was the person who brought Baker into the group.

Not (re: Lehrer) that I think that cleverness/intellecuality and humor can't co-exist and exfoliate. Here for example is a transcript of Severn Darden's Second City metaphysics "lecture" (better when heard, but this is the only I could find it -- supply a German accent): http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.dementia/browse_thread/thread/86f5c66980d81fa3 Darden on "Oedipus Rex": http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.dementia/browse_thread/thread/6ef6125ed0644579/bfa1754d4e4da2cf?q=severn+darden

Apparently that Skelton review appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Dec. 10, 1986. Red was on a double bill; Andy Williams was the headliner (an Xmas show). I can't get hold of the review myself without paying for it. Can anyone else? As for Lehrer -- yes, he's clever, but for me he's clever in such a way as to usually undercut any impulse I might have to laugh. Maybe it's that his cleverness is more or less there IMO to establish an air of superiority. As for the political aspect of his humor -- same thing. His songs are just acidic billboards for sentiments that his fans already hold and congratulate themselves for holding. Sahl at his best, by contrast, typically wielded a double-edged sword, one that was particularly sharp on the side that met his audience's need to feel good about itself.

I'll agree on most, though maybe I'm missing the immortality of Red Skelton because I grew up with the unbearably maudlin TV version. Incidentally, Larry, Tom Lehrer is Jewish. Leher is Jewish? Then I disown him. He's the most un-Jewish Jewish comic imaginable. About Skelton on TV I understand, but even in that period he could still be a brilliant clown, particularly doing stuff that was in large part mimed. I saw him do stuff on stage in that period that was from outer space in its subtlety/emotional power. I wrote about it in a review; I'll look for it. If I can't find that review, though, I'd be hard out to recall anything about what he did other than it was tremendously funny/moving/powerful. And believe me I went expecting the Gentile equivalent of chicken fat.

I assume you're not responding to the query about comics who were neither Jewish nor black. I had no idea Phyllis Diller and Homer and Jethro were immortal. Didn't see that "or black" restriction. I'd say that the following are all immortals or close to it: W.C. Fields. Bob Newhart. Bob and Ray. Stan Freberg. Jonathan Winters. Bob Hope. Ernie Kovacs. Laurel and Hardy. Red Skelton.

A fair number of immortals here: W.C. Fields. Bob Newhart. Richard Pryor. Slappy White. Moms Mabley. Red Foxx. Edgar Bergen. Bob and Ray. Stan Freberg. Victor Borge. Lord Buckley. Tim Conway. Bill Cosby. Phyllis Diller. Jonathan Winters. Brother Dave Gardner. Dick Gregory. Homer and Jethro. Bob Hope. Sam Kinison. Godfrey Cambridge. Don Knotts. Ernie Kovacs. Laurel and Hardy. Tom Lehrer. Pat McCormick. Martin Mull. Eddie Murphy. Herb Shriner. Red Skelton. Smothers Brothers. Lilty Tomlin. Robin Williams. Flip Wilson.

One on that list would be George Gobel. Not to my taste, but there's Will Rogers. Buster Keaton. Fatty Arbuckle. Harold Lloyd. Dick Van Dyke. Jackie Gleason. Fred Allen. Steve Martin. Johnny Carson. A little late for me for list-making, but you get the idea.

It's Greene in both stories. He's the subject of Jones' "The Burton Greene Affair" and then the guy who encounters Baraka decades later in Amsterdam, brings up the piece after they've had a pleasant encounter and is told "It was all Black Nationalism." Not an excuse I would have accepted, I think, not without further explanation. In particular, I would want to know how many more of Baraka's rhetorically fierce essays/poems, etc. over the years does he now disavow and/or rationalize along "It seemed like the thing to say at the time" lines. We all change our minds about stuff, but there's a difference I think between doing that on a more or less internal basis and doing it (or saying that one does/did it) in a "it seems like the thing to say" manner. In any case, if Baraka were to take that "aw shucks, don't get your underwear in a knot over what I said" tack, I would say that I don't believe him -- the passionate, often acerbic tone of his work (and not only that) speaks of an internal consistency.

This Burton Greene interview makes it clear that he, not Blake, was the party involved: http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/interviews/greene.html

The Amsterdam/"It was just Black nationalism" story is about Baraka and pianist Burton Greene. Are you sure that it isn't Greene, too, in the first story? That Gerber says it is Blake, if Gerber's book is where you read it, doesn't mean it's reliable. Ran Blake would not have been that likely a musical partner for Marion Brown, and Greene certainly served in that role.

The Naxos S. Weiss series, with Robert Barto, is now up to six discs I think -- I have three or four, all excellent. Weiss was quite a composer.

Moms -- I agree with this reviewer: http://kemer.blogspot.com/2008/04/fistfull-of-forqueray.html on the differences between Rannou and Rousset in Forqueray. Having heard Rannou, I would say that perhaps Rousset just doesn't like this music, which is admittedly rather odd, particularly in its very low tessitura, and might even be taken for ugly until one hears someone like Rannou play it. Couperin or Rameau it ain't.

Alsut Records:110 East End Ave. NY, NY 10028. Mapleshade has an online catalog. I don't know if Long Night was issued on CD unless the master was purchased from whoever inherited the catolog from long-defunct Jazzland. Frank Strozier Quartets & Sextet: Long Night (Milestone 47095) I meant specifically the AlSut recordings. I'd prefer just to order them online somehow in what has come to be the normal manner, not engage in a correspondence with the label over prices, etc.

Like this one a good deal. Everyone, especially Kamuca, is in fine form. My LP copy has a different cover, a color photo of Manne IIRC.

How can those Anderson etc. records be purchased?

Based on prior experience (I finally dumped it) Christophe Rousset's Forqueray is crap: If I didn't know better from recordings of his gamba works, I'd have thought that Forqueray is crap, too. By contrast, Rannou's way with Forqueray seems ideal. OTOH, Rannou's glacially paced reading of the aria of the Goldberg Variations (on Spotify) seems absurd to me. Case by case.

Augustin Hadelich's Naxos recording of the Telemann Violin Fantasias is a winner IMO. Not HIP (at least in choice of instrument) but mighty fine fiddling.

Bassist probably was Jeff Castleman. http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2008/03/jeff-castleman-bass-player-and-lone-survivor

Are you sure he didn't have valves? His heart, yes.

That's "Bartok with valves," of course. Bartok himself had values but not valves.

Interesting. Clint Eastwood was a big Kenton fan in his youth and probably still is. At a certain age, he could have starred in and directed a potentially great Kenton biopic. The subject would have been perfect for him IMO.

Some Midori Bach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYdmG8ipvzE&feature=related In particular, check out the Allegro on the second clip; it begins at the 6:36 mark. And she was even better in person.

That last sentence seems to me to call for two qualifications: 1) Provided the players are really good, and too many HIP specialists IMO have been so-so players hiding behind their HIP allrightnik-ness; 2) It also can work like gangbusters on instruments different from the ones Bach had -- no, not the calliope, but ... well, you know the drill. Yes, but it's got to be on a case-by-case basis. Sampling Cafe Zimmermann, I was thrilled, but I think that Mullova, once a top-class player, has become a one-woman train wreck, at least in Bach. Yes, those chordal passages/strokes are important, but she emphasizes them to an absurd degree IMO with the air of a convert and virtually destroys the relationship between those strokes and the melodic line. By contrast I recently heard Midori in concert play half of the Partitas and Suites. I wouldn't say that in the days before Mullova became a sometime HIP convert that either she or Midori was the better player -- both were in the top class -- but these days Midori's combination of virtuosity and deep musical understanding in Bach leaves Mullova far behind, again IMO. You can find Midori's Bach on Spotify and probably on YouTube. BTW I'm with you on mono Walcha. Finally, sound-world/performance practice argument(s) need to be looked at far more closely than often seems to be the case -- not only because what musician X of the past accepted as the norm may or may not have been more or less what he had to accept but also because the historically informed sound world of instruments and the often speculative sound world of performance practice may not always jibe that well, in part because there are good many "informed" views of these matters and other related muscal-historical issues, in part because the final musical dish still has to be prepared by a talented, clear-headed musical cook who knows with his or her own ears the difference between chocolate pudding and a pile of steaming poo. The Mullova who recorded her HIP Bach is, so it seems to me, serving up chocolate-colored poo. Yes, the HIP fiddler next one over may not be, but ... case by case.

That last sentence seems to me to call for two qualifications: 1) Provided the players are really good, and too many HIP specialists IMO have been so-so players hiding behind their HIP allrightnik-ness; 2) It also can work like gangbusters on instruments different from the ones Bach had -- no, not the calliope, but ... well, you know the drill.