Larry Kart

I believe that it was in response to Schuller's abandonment of the project that Bill Kirchner decided to assemble "The Oxford Companion To Jazz": http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-Jaz...7344&sr=1-1 in which an allegedly qualified individual writer (yours truly was one) was asked to write each chapter, and the totality would be as comprehensive as space and each writer's actually savvy would permit. In the event, and thanks in large part to Bill's stewardship, the project was completed in remarkably short order. Gunther's main problem was that he felt that no one man, certainly not a man of his age, could do the job anymore -- if only because the developing music would slip out from one's grasp during the time one was working on such a project. On the other hand, I think that Alyn Shipton took a good whack at it.

The man is on a roll.

Knowing the Garner estate, if the European thieves make a move, we'll have World War III.

I saw that band at the London House in Chicago. They were on fire.

That's seriously funny.

Herbie Nichols, probably.

BTW, I do own and like some Jarrett recordings -- Impulse era.

You think she was bad? Last night I saw May Britt in "Murder Inc." Goodness gracious! Peter Falk was fun as Abe Reles, though.

She also had the main female role in Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye," playing the wife of Sterling Hayden's character.

"In the weeks leading up to a solo improvised concert, Mr. Jarrett retreats into creative solitude to empty his mind."

I would say, a woman's breasts photographed close up, and then the image was turned upside down. P.S. I reviewed the album for Down Beat when it came out. Nice stuff.

That "I Got Rhythm" excerpt sounds "poppish"? I want to hear the pop music where you live.

Highly recommended: http://www2.broinc.com/search.php?row=0&am...p;submit=Search The Apollo and the Oedipus have been released before (though with Cocteau's narration from a later Paris performance substituted for that of the German who was the actual narrator for this radio studio performance). Everything on disc two is previously unreleased (or so Music and Arts says). All excellent performances IMO, with just the right "edge," in very clear, somewhat dry German radio studio sound. Haven't sat down and compared these to later Columbia recordings of the works, but I'd be surprised if these weren't preferable -- for one thing, they're real performances; for another, it's Rosbaud's Baden-Baden orchestra on all of disc two and the (I believe) similarly inclined and trained Cologne Radio Orchestra on side one. And Martha Modl as Jocasta!

I love the first of his two duo albums with Lee Konitz, "Speaking Lowly" (Philology).

of his own tune "What Is This Thing Called Swing?" from Armstrong-scholar Ricky Riccardi's blog (January 19 entry): http://dippermouth.blogspot.com/ They're both fine, but the second one, from a concert, with its perilously swift tempo and great drum work from Sid Catlett (behind Armstong and in an extended solo) is really something else. Also, as Riccardi notes, Armstrong's personality comes through with exceptional vividness, spontaneity, and "edge" in his verbal interplay with the band and the audience.

Leaving The Bad Plus aside -- which I'll have to do because by some miracle I haven't heard them yet -- over the years I have heard Iverson on a number of other recordings as a leader and a sideman where "pop appropriation" was not an issue and have been impressed. Also, based on his blog posts and a few email exchanges I've had with him, while I certainly don't agree with Iverson about everything, I'd say that intellectually he's very far from "an inferior little f----." Instead, my impression has been that he's full of genuine curiosity about a whole lot of things and usually does quite well following his own nose. See, for example, his informative, shrewd blog post on the late Donald Westlake, whom he took the trouble to get to know: http://thebadplus.typepad.com/

Yes -- I wonder how he could keep playing with Julie glued to his side. Also, on a number of the tracks from that show, Budimir's comping is pretty special (e.g. behind Troup on "Route 66").

False alarm; that's not Fagerquist. A poster on Jazz West Coast writes: A bit of internet snooping reveals: Julie London with Bobby Troup - Live In Japan 1964 - Filmed for TV broadcast w/o audience. Lineup: Julie London, Bobby Troup - piano, Joe Burnett - tpt; Dennis Budimir - gtr; Don Bagley - bs; Dewells [Dee] Barton - drs.

About London digging things, there's a story about her told once by trombonist Milt Bernhart. At the time Bernhart was with Benny Goodman, playing a stage show in which London's then-husband (1947-53) Jack Webb (hot from "Dragnet") was making an appearance. Goodman and the band were invited to the Webbs' hotel suite (or maybe to their apartment) for a party, at which Webb proudly put on a Dixieland recording, he being a big fan of that music (vide "Pete Kelly's Blues"). London strode to the phonograph, removed the record in mid-stream and replaced it with a Charlie Parker recording. Bernhart said that he knew right then that this marriage was on the rocks.

Sorry -- I'm an idiot:

It sounds and looks like him to me. Also, looks like that's Dennis Budimir on guitar. Other Fagerquist photos from various eras: http://www.jazzhistorydatabase.com/collect...ist-photos.html

Just realized that I mis-spelled Quasimado's name two different ways above. Sorry. Signed, Klactoveedsedstene

Iverson is a bright guy, a nice guy, and a fine player, but I was disappointed by the facile-cheesy/armchair psychoanalysis amalgamation of musical and racial themes in the passage Quasimodo quoted, and elsewhere in the essay IIRC. Some of the same thinking crops up in Iverson's much chewed-over here interview with Marsalis, where at one point Iverson himself gets all "I'm not worthy" (along musical/racial lines) with Wynton about Iverson's provincial (for want of a better term) Wisconsin upbringing. BTW, Lester Young had much the same taste in drummers as Tristano did, apparently for similar, primarily musical reasons. But I guess Pres was lying and really didn't want too much African diaspora in his jazz.

"....Long after it was no longer fashionable or even permissible to practice a flinty, granular realism, Wyeth went on making pictures with the kind of brushwork that specified the world in almost molecular detail ....." Oh, really? See the immensely fashionable (for a good stretch of time now, in some quarters) work of John Currin (some of these images may be offensive): http://images.google.com/images?source=ig&...=1&ct=title

Sorry if I was being too suspicious, leftright. Been a bit jumpy the past few days.