Larry Kart

"Stan Getz -- The Last Recording" http://www.amazon.com/Stan-Getz-Last-Recording/product-reviews/B000641Z86/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 from Munich, 1990, 93 minutes, excellent sound and camera work, with Kenny Barron (in top form), Alex Blake, Terri Lynn Carrington, and two synth players on some pieces (they don't get in the way). Stan takes a little while to fully warm up, but he certainly does -- the version of Mal Waldron's "Soul Eyes"! Best of all, in some hard to define but to me unmistakable way, seeing Getz play here tells a great deal about who he is and how he plays -- to a degree that few jazz videos do in my experience. I usually find that the visual information doesn't add that much to the sonic information and that I'd just as soon close or half-close my eyes and pay attention to the sounds only -- which is how I often listen to music I like anyway. With this one, I can't take my eyes off what I'm seeing. Another video that gave me that feeling is the Jazz Icons Monk, but the reason for that was more obvious -- seeing Monk's hands on the keyboard and feet on the pedals -- than it is (or seems to me to be) here.

The same rhythm section on "Energy Fields" is anything but '50s West Coast mellow to my ears; rather, it's cooking and thrashing, with drummer Joe Corsello, as Michael Cuscuna says in the liner notes, in the vein of Tony Williams and Joe Chambers (I'd add Billy Hart). Huh, that's interesting. I've met Corsello and heard him play with pianist Joyce DiCamillo and never would have guessed that he'd be into that bag. On Corsello's MySpace site: http://www.myspace.com/joecorsellodrummer there are links to several tracks ("Just in Time" from "Energy Fields," "Loose One, Gain One" from "Carmen Leggio Quartet") where he's playing with a good deal of intensity. He also lists his influences as Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Peter Erskine, Jeff Hamilton, Bill Stewart, Billy Hart, Duduka Da Fonseca, Victor Lewis, Kenny Washington, Adam Nusbaum, Alan Dawson.

The same rhythm section on "Energy Fields" is anything but '50s West Coast mellow to my ears; rather, it's cooking and thrashing, with drummer Joe Corsello, as Michael Cuscuna says in the liner notes, in the vein of Tony Williams and Joe Chambers (I'd add Billy Hart).

The "bass" in those recording was Morton's left hand, no?

Really got into it tonight. Wow. Terrific interview, too.

That would be even better -- the time when many major cities where developing their own versions of Haight-Ashbury. In Chicago it was Wells St.

Yes, it almost literally reeks of that era, late '60s, (which would be, I assume, when this material. rec. 1961, was released).

That would be Jon Avant.

If "Interstellar Space" and the last quartet recordings were where Trane was headed -- and not only chronology but also achievement (IMO) suggest that that was the case -- I wouldn't say "struggling to keep up" but "increasingly on different pages." Likewise with Elvin and Trane. Also, wasn't that the conclusion that all parties reached?

Was listening a few weeks ago to "Meditations" and felt in particular that McCoy's long solo on "Consequences" sounded like (in the words of Dave Liebman) "a mini-twentieth century piano concerto" -- which Liebman meant as praise, but I think it's pretty turgid-Romantic. I prefer Alice Coltrane's approach to playing with (or behind) late Trane.

It really was outrageous, particularly when they got away with that low hit to the knees late in the game. I'm with you -- here's hoping that the Saints get a humiliating shellacking in Miami!! I know this makes me a bad person, but every hit Favre takes, illegal or not, gives me pleasure. OTOH, that pass interference call in OT was crap. And Childress' CYA non-explanation of that crucial 12 men in the huddle blunder! At least the other Vikings' mistakes were made by guys who were being hit by other guys. OTOH again, I think Peterson does have a problem there that is more than just physical. Can't think of the guy's name right now, but there was another very talented back in the recent years (was it Shaun Alexander or Tiki Barber, or both?) who put the ball on the ground too often in a somewhat similar manner. There seems to be a whiff of petulance or something like it that gets into the mix.

Seems to me to be pretty much written in code, but as much as I can sort out, I agree with his point about the likely Burns Effect but doubt there is much Kelley Effect in the sense Rich seems to mean (Kelley's Monk bio altering the way worthwhile music is being made and perceived in the present), in part because I seem to be one of the few people who find Kelley's book disappointing. For all his research, I get little sense that he has much understanding of why Monk's music was and still is important as MUSIC; if so (and I'm not saying I'm right, just that this is how Kelley's book strikes me), then the book is more or less another exercise in adding another immobile noble statue to the cultural museum and is thus not far removed from one key strain of Marsalis-ism. (Also, it may be just an irrelevant verbal tic on Rich's part, but his mention of Steve Lantner's playing being enjoyed by "the Vandermarks" made me think of '50s Broadway columnist telling us who was at the Stork Club last night.) In any case, the good music I go out to hear with some regularity (and enjoy with other somewhat like-minded people around me) is being made on its own good terms, as far as I can tell. Actually, last night one of the guys I like, Chicago guitarist Matt Schneider, was playing a fairly obscure Monk piece by himself (don't recall the title) to warm up before the set, but I don't think he was in the grip of the Kelley Effect because I've heard him play that piece more than a few times over the years -- and not, I would venture to say, to pay tribute to Monk or the like but because it's simply music that interests Schneider as a musician, has some bearing on things he likes, or would like, to do himself. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

Pace, Allen, but a conversation I had with Freddie Green about his role in the Basie rhythm section really did it for me. I've talked some to other players of note who were older, but for some reason (perhaps because Green seemed not to be inclined to talk but then did so forthrightly and very insightfully, albeit briefly), it felt as though I were in touch with a stream that ran deep and went way back.

The trick is that by 1:09 Niko means the one-hour-and-nine-minute mark, not the one-minute-and-nine-seconds mark. Advance the counter to that point and voila! Pretty astonishing stuff. My first reaction is that his lines sound so "suspended" -- rhythmically, harmonically and melodically -- more so than is the case with any soloist I can think of from that time and not until "sheets of sound" Coltrane, if then. Raney, perhaps, if he'd wanted to do it that way, but his temperament and inclinations were somewhat different when it came to the shapes he liked to make. Likewise, perhaps, with Warne. And Bird of course. Otherwise...

From Randy Sandke's self-published "Bix Beiderbecke: Observing A Genius At Work" (1996): "Bjx's solo on "'Tain't So Honey, 'Tain't So" stretches the rhythm further than anything he'd done up to this point. Only five of the sixteen bars contain downbeats." There 's a transcription of the solo (one of many) in the book.

IIRC correctly, a good deal of what's in the H.R.S. box, though of course that's OOP.

That second video! I much prefer it to the first one. Also, in the first one, dig the movements of the trumpeter on the left (I think it's Freddie Jenkins). That's all she wrote.

FWIW, Gunther Schuller praises the Crosby band in detail in his "The Swing Era," pp. 652-60. He begins: "The Bob Crosby Orchestra was in its heyday quite special -- and for a while one of the very best in the land."

Probably: 10:00PM at Elastic, 2830 N Milwaukee, 2nd Fl, 773.772.3616 Spacer : Jason Adasiewicz, Nate McBride, Mike Reed Halo Defect : Dave Rempis, Nate McBride, Michael Zerang Last night heard Rob Mazurek, with Adasiewicz, Josh Abrams, Matt Lux, and John Herndon.

Scott Wendholt

Help me out here -- why wasn't he "in a position to do that five years ago in [his] congressional testimony"? (My emphasis]

As fate would have it, yesterday I had this email exchange about Iyer with a musician friend (who shall be nameless here): My friend: 'I've just listened to Vijay Iyer's HISTORICITY, which recently has been getting raves galore. I've heard items by Iyer on the radio, and interviews with him as well, but this is the first CD of his I've heard. it was, as I feared beforehand, an oppressive experience. 'It's not that Iyer and his sidemen (bassist Stephen Crump, drummer Marcus Gilmore) are bad musicians; they're actually very good players. And iyer as a pianist is far better than, say, Matthew Shipp. But there's an oppressive faux-intellectualism in Iyer that really bugs me--as in "I'm the smartest guy in the room and I want you to know it!" 'The music of pianists like Bill Evans and Herbie Nichols is "intellectual," too, in very different ways, but theirs is a very unself-conscious kind; it's just who they were. With Iyer, it's in your face virtually all the time--not only in his music, but in his liner notes and even in the long list of people he thanks. He's really out to impress you. Not unlike Oscar Peterson and his endless displays of chops, but even Peterson relaxed and played ballads that showed you another (tender) side of him. When Iyer plays Bernstein's "Somewhere," there's such an emotional disconnect from the piece that you want to slap him. 'Is it just me, or does this ring true for you as well?' Me: 'I've been turned off by Iyer since the first time I heard him, though perhaps that should be, I've never been turned on by him, because my initial "this is not for me" experiences have led to little further investigation. 'Anyhow, my initial response to Iyer was the same as yours -- "oppressive," but perhaps with a slightly different slant. The faux-intellectualism I vaguely recall, but what really put me off were the busy up-front "odd" meters -- not primarily because of their air of exotica (such metrical activity is after all part of Iyer's cultural background, though IIRC he does shove it in one's face more than a little, in an extramusical socio-political manner), but because it's been my experience that a lot of upfront "odd-meter" activity in jazz is more or less a straightjacket in musical terms. Two obvious qualifications would be Don Ellis, because Ellis was Ellis, and because aside from his own solo work, the main thing there was the writing and the ensemble; and Brubeck up to a point, because Paul Desmond was his own sweet inventive self no matter what. 'Another two, and this might be more to the point, would be the somewhat related figures of Nichols and Hasaan Ibn Ali. Admiring Nichols less than I do, Martin Williams I think pointed out that Nichols didn't really improvise in what was then the normal modern jazz manner but instead essentially stated and restated the initial premises of his pieces with decorations ("decorations" being a near-insult in Martin's scheme of things), a la such Stride composer-players as Luckey Roberts and Willie The Lion Smith. Well, yes, but the overall "orchestration" of Nichol's pieces was typically both unique and beautifully balanced -- rhythm, harmony, and melody all meaningfully interactive, quite comprehensible and handsomely varied in mood, even charming at times -- and the pieces, perhaps above all, were designed to make room for vigorous interaction from the likes of Max Roach and Art Blakey. Likewise with Hasaan, though the flavor of his music is a bit more driven and narrow and might not wear as well as Nichols' does if we had a lot more of it than we do, though its drivenness and arguable narrowness is inseperable from why it's of value. 'I'll listen again to Iyer, but I just don't get much sense that there's much going on past the upfront surface metrical complexities and related foreground "patterning." I mean, there they are, to the degree that a listener of my background and ear can comprehend them, and then what? The actual performances. for me, don't seem to really go anywhere -- or they go to "energy" places I've been to many times before over the years, except that this time the seasoning is a bit different. 'BTW, my son and some of his friends were very taken with Iyer and his sometime altoist associate Rudresh Mahanthappa, at least early on, because the music of their own band of the time fell into the so-called Math Rock bag -- lots of meters that no one this side of a grad student could count. But in their music, all other things being equal (or, I suppose one should say, unequal), these odd-meter blizzards often worked out just fine because, as in so much rock of many sorts, the "surface" was, and was pretty much meant to be, the whole. Interaction between the typically overwhelming surface and other musical factors, if any, was appropriately fairly limited and formulaic -- block choral effects, if you will, rather than a situation where the actions and personality of an individual performer would be of interest. On the other hand, my son's interest in Iyer might have been in part because he always knew what the meters were right off and could hold that knowledge over my head. 'In any case, I'll listen again to what Iyer I have, though what I have does date from a few years back, and say more if I have different thoughts.' P.S. A vagrant thought I had last night. Asked about Janacek's music in one of his "conversation" books, Stravinsky said IIRC that it was "like eating a long and very stringy Czech noodle." I don't agree about Janacek, but if there are any noodle-like dishes in any Indian cuisine, that's how Iyer's music hits me.

Jim, did you just make that up?

Jim -- IMO, though you and Organissimo have your models, you also have developed your own thing, and it's of value.

Excellent account of Grant Stewart IMO. He and Walt Weiskopf are the two "in the tradition" tenormen (if WW is an "in the tradition" player) that I always check out. BTW, Stewart is in fine form (as is everyone) on board member Mike Melito's aptly titled recent album "In the Tradition" (with John Swana, tpt.; Bob Sneider, gtr.; Paul Hofmann, pno.; Neil Miner, bs.; Melito, drms.) Highly recommended. Sneider and Hofmann are Rochester, N.Y.-based players (as is Melito) who have their own things going.