Larry Kart

Some of them lie down more frequently.

P.S. I recently picked up for a few pennies a Collectables release that combined Previn's "Four To Go" (with Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, and Shelly Manne) and a trio album of Astaire-associated tunes (with Red Mitchell and Frank Capp). Sound is muffled, as often is the case with Collectables, but for some reason "Four To Go" finds Ellis in the best form I've ever heard him in -- very alert and linear and without the autopilot twangy bluesiness that marks a fair amount of his work elsewhere.

Betty Bennett, Mia Farrow, Anne Sophie Mutter, and one more besides Dory. Oy vey ... and/or wow.

I'll never forget a 1986 Jazz Showcase gig he had with Lee Konitz, Steve Rodby, and Wilbur Campbell. If Lee ever had a trio with him that responded more wholeheartedly to his needs, I never heard it, and Jodie was at the core of what was happening. [1986] While jazz is supposed to be an improviser’s art--“the sound of surprise” as critic Whitney Balliett once put it--not that many jazz musicians really improvise. Instead they work their way through familiar formulas and offer up their favorite licks, all of which can be satisfying at times. But then one encounters the music of alto saxophonist Lee Konitz and realizes how surprising genuine improvisation can be. Performing through Sunday at the Jazz Showcase, Konitz began Friday night’s first set with a tender but rather tentative version of “Star Eyes.” A testing of motifs, his solo brought to mind an article Konitz recently wrote in which he described the ten levels of paraphrase a musician must pass through on his way from a song’s original melody to a genuinely new variation upon it. So on “Star Eyes,” Konitz seemed content to rest at level two or three, perhaps because that allowed his rhythm section to work its way into his conception of the music. And that proved to be a wise choice--not only because pianist Jodie Christian, bassist Steve Rodby, and drummer Wilbur Campbell began to interact with Konitz as though they could read his mind, but also because the next three tunes were sublime. First came “Invitation,” within which Konitz found a groove that is his alone--a kind of muttered-out gracefulness that seemed at first to be built upon the scattered rhythms of ordinary speech or the scuffling pace of a stroll down the street. But larger patterns soon began to take shape, and finally the whole solo stood revealed as a single unit, an event that had coalesced right in front of one’s eyes. “Body and Soul” was next, taken at an unusual ambling tempo and marked by two Konitz choruses that started at about level eight and stayed right on that track. Here the lyricism was bold and openly songful; and with that to deal with, Konitz’s partners rose to the challenge. Stirred by the ceaseless linearity of Konitz’s playing, Christian offered up a blend of tenderness and strength that matched anything one had ever heard from this gifted player. Rodby found a similarly exalted groove, and Campbell stitched things together with accents of hair-trigger sensitivity. Then, before a brief version of “The Theme,” there was “Stella By Starlight,” which had to be an example of Konitz at level ten. At once omnipresent and just out of reach, the melody of “Stella” gave birth to a seemingly endless string of variations, each of which was perfect in itself and each of which gave new meaning to what had come just before. Improvisation par excellence, this was group improvisation as well--for by this time the sharing of ideas was the norm, with each note and phrase being surrounded by so much space that the players seemed able to fully contemplate the music they made while remaining caught up in the act of producing it.

Wonderful player and man.

Oy vey: http://music.yahoo.com/blogs/stop-the-presses/blood-sweat-dishevelment-whitney-houston-tumultuous-final-days-144148765.html

And she has a degree in criminology. I'm there.

Hey -- Flo gets me hot. I mean, she seems so jolly and eager to please.

This is one of the ways that misinformation not only proliferates but also adds to itself. Trying to reconcile the two conflicting stories -- 1) Addison Farmer died of an attempt to treat a fairly longstanding medical problem (he died of the "synergy between two medications," says Feather-Gitler), or 2) he died in a car accident -- Allen "resolves" the conflict by coming up with yet a third "possible" scenario: "he had a stroke that LED to a car accident." Sure, it's possible, but why not just consult a widely available and usually reliable source, as Feather-Gitler (especially Gitler) is almost certain to be in this case? And yes, it was Richie Powell's wife. Also, Willie Dennis wasn't hit by a car. He was being driven through Central Park by a brief acquaintance who ran the car off the road, and Dennis was killed in the crash.

It's not funny, as in "odd" or "mysterious." It just means that people have spotty memories or that misinformation was believed and relayed.

Inevitability? If Brady and Welker hook up on that long pass with about four minutes to go (a play on which the Giants had blown the coverage), then the game almost certainly would have been over with the Patriots winning. Welker, as Chris Collingsworth said, normally catches that ball, but I put the onus on Brady for turning what should have an easy completion into a fairly difficult one.

He appears to use them at every meal, too. Dude could stand to skip a couple every once in a while. Off the charts infuriating for the fourth. Interesting all the way through for me, especially in the fourth. Why did the fourth infuriate you, Dan? P.S. Marvin Lewis on ESPN had a very interesting postgame take on the Patriots change in defensive strategy in the fourth (from three rush lineman to four), which may have doomed them, though it also may have been a case of flip a coin.

P.S. That Williams poem looks different on the page as he conceived it, but the spacing didn't carry over when I posted it. Also, I can guess what you have in mind, but what does go on in a feed store that is so enlightening when you figure it out? Further, if "life writes its own poetry," why do we need music or any other art?

Basie edited the charts, sometimes considerably, and set the tempos.

Williams was a family doctor, so I guess he was in a feed store of sorts.

... Look at what passes for the new. You will not find it there but in despised poems. It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. -- William Carlos Williams, from "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"

Herbert Morrison

And why can't you understand the well-attested-to fact from which all this stems -- that many of Q's peers, who certainly were far from ignorant of the ins and out of the music business, regarded the particular behavior we were talking abut originally with special disgust ... and did so at the time Q was engaging in it. Yes, perhaps it all seems rather quaint in the light of later developments in the business, but that was the Original Historical Context.

Jim -- When in this groove, it would seem that you could convince yourself of anything. In particular, a nothing vanity project like that Q album with Sarah, Ray Charles, et al. on it would not have been much (if at all) "an opportunity ([for them] to get their name out there a little more." Ray Charles, seriously? Their attitude toward this non-project project would most likely been one of rueful semi-indifference, a la (to up the ante a bit) "suck one cock and you're a cocksucker, so here it goes." The be-all and end-all of it business-wise was to submit to flattering Q's ego versus the consequences that failing to flatter his engorged ego might bring down upon you. Again, a not unfamiliar aspect of the business, but not the one you keep harping on. P.S. Posted this before I saw your most recent post, which grants much of what I've been saying for some time here. And, yes, I think that Q's disfavor could hurt people of considerable stature and longevity. Would you yourself, if you were Sarah at that point in her career, have taken the risk to find out?

By that point in Q's career, given his power in the industry, I would think that the primary motive for those artists who participated was not money but fear -- that is, they feared that if they failed to stroke Q's ego, his likely resulting disfavor could hurt them. Eat a shit sandwich today or eat a really big shit sandwich down the road. Business as it should be?

All I recall was that I bought it when it came out and have always enjoyed it for what it is -- the two saxophone dates in particular.

Touted as such where? It's not a big band album but three dates with a rhythm section and IIRC 1) four altos 2) three tenors and a bari, and 3) four trumpets.

If that's the Ben Neuman I know, he's a hell of a good jazz pianist.

I meant to the music, though the cover does have its own geeky charm.