Larry Kart

Yes. I got choked up a couple of times.

Dutch contralto Aafje Heynis (don't miss the first piece, from Elgar's "Sea Pictures"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z8UVgyw3yw

Conchita Supervia (and pianist Frank Marshall sure is no slouch on the first three tracks). Someone once wrote that Supervia's vibrato was like castanets being clacked together:

For openers ... Fernando De Lucia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyPOJycMctw...feature=related Mattia Battistini: Dig the closing cadenzas on both tracks; Battistini's especially suggests what Louis Armstrong picked up from opera. BTW, I have a set of heavily pitch-corrected De Lucia recordings that are a revelation.

Interesting post ( from the Songbirds site) about Dearie from composer-pianist Richard Rodney-Bennett. Speculations about why she didn't marry Johnny Mandel are welcome. Songbirds poster Bill Reed commented, "God greatly gifted Johnny Mandel in more ways than one," but I'm still curious about the actual wording of Dearie's "quiet but definite complaint." Rodney-Bennett: I learned many of the best songs I know from Blossom. In the early 60s she used to come to stay at my house in Islington, London. She would always have a bunch of new Cy Coleman songs, that he had given her, unpublished. I'm talking about 'I Live My Love', 'For Once In My Life' (not the famous one), 'Little What-If'. "My How The Time Goes By" and so on. She was an exceptionally demanding house-guest (which of course thrilled me, since I idolised her.) She would march into my work-room, saying, with no introduction: "I'm hungry" Or "I'm cold." Or "I'm thirsty". And this had to be put right immediately. Mike Renzi does the ultimate Blossom speaking voice; often my phone would ring, and this imperious little voice would say "I'm horny". I was very much influenced by her piano playing, notably her beautiful harmonic sense and her economical, swinging style. Johnny Mandel told me that he met her when she first "came down from the mountains", and as he puts it, she had it all, right from the beginning. They were romantically involved, and there is a very funny story, told by John Wallowitch, about her reply when he asked her why she didn't marry Johnny. I can't possibly quote her reply (David would be shocked and might throw me off the list), but it was uttered in her usual tone of quiet but definite complaint. I shall miss her very much. Richard

Ah, Chewy, you're so predictable.

Here's a link to that MTM show episode, "Lou's Second Date" --1974: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0789511/ Unfortunately, you can't watch it from this link, as you apparently can watch that whole BN show episode from the link in my previous post. BTW, a possible explanation for the difference I think I see in the two episodes is not only that, as previously mentioned, the BN show episode is from early in that show's first season, but also that the MTM episode is from 1974, when everyone in that series was really into things.

Well, what do I know. Having tracked down that BN show episode, "Goodnight, Nancy" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0528366/ it was directed by Sandrich. But it was the fifth episode from the show's first season (1972), and things must not have been in gear yet.

The principal director of the MTM show by a large margin (see totals below) was Jay Sandrich. Info about Sandrich, from here http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/...sandrichjay.htm follows: Although he ventured briefly into the field of feature films, directing Seems Like Old Times in 1980, Sandrich decided quickly that he preferred to remain in television. "The pace is much more interesting," he explained. "In features you sit around so much of the time while lighting is going on, and then you make the picture, and you sit around for another year developing projects. I like to work. I like the immediacy of television." For many of his colleagues, Sandrich has defined the successful situation-comedy director. "I think it was Jay who first made an art form of three-camera film," said producer Allan Burns, referring to the shooting technique most often used for sitcoms. Although he was modest about his own accomplishments, and quick to note that good writing is the starting point for any television program, Sandrich asserted that he cherishes his role as director in a medium often viewed as the domain of the producer. "If there's a regular director every week," he stated, "[television] should be a major collaboration between the director and the producer--if the director's any good--because he is the one who sets the style and the tone of the show. He works with the actors. And a good director, whether he is rewriting or not, he is always making suggestions ... and in many cases knows the script a little bit better than the producer because he's been seeing each scene rehearsed and understands why certain things work and why they don't.... So when it's a regular director on a series, I think it's not a producer's medium. It is the creative team [that shapes a series]." P.S. I'll try to investigate further, but it sounds like three-camera technique means that three cameras were shooting while the scene was done as few times as was necessary to capture good performances, then results from those cameras could be edited/combined (this modifying my earlier thought that editing may be less important in sitcoms than in films; rather, this suggests that it is may be as important but different in nature). P.P.S. My memory is that a lot of Newhart show episodes were better than the one I saw (though despite its clunkiness compared again to the MTM episode, it had its moments). I would guess then that it was not directed by Peter Bonerz, who directed many BN episodes, but by a director who did few of them. MTM show directors: Jay Sandrich (119 episodes, 1970-1977) Peter Baldwin (10 episodes, 1970-1973) Alan Rafkin (4 episodes, 1970-1974) John C. Chulay (4 episodes, 1973-1974) James Burrows (4 episodes, 1974-1976) Marjorie Mullen (4 episodes, 1975-1976) Jerry Paris (3 episodes, 1971) Jerry Belson (3 episodes, 1972-1973) Hal Cooper (2 episodes, 1972) Nancy Walker (2 episodes, 1973-1974) BN show directors: Peter Bonerz (29 episodes, 1974-1978) Alan Rafkin (23 episodes, 1972-1975) Michael Zinberg (15 episodes, 1975-1978) Peter Baldwin (12 episodes, 1972-1974) James Burrows (11 episodes, 1975-1977) Dick Martin (11 episodes, 1977-1978) Jay Sandrich (10 episodes, 1972-1975) George Tyne (6 episodes, 1973-1974) Jerry London (5 episodes, 1973) Alan Myerson (4 episodes, 1976) John C. Chulay (3 episodes, 1976) Martin Cohan (2 episodes, 1973) Bob Claver (2 episodes, 1975)

The MTM show (1970-77) and the earlier BN show (1972-78) were contemporaneous, so I don't think there would be any "'next generation' of actors" problem. Also, I had no impression that Newhart himself (the only standup in his show's cast) was doing less or other than he should in terms of inhabiting his character effectively. MTM regulars: • Lou Grant (Edward Asner) Mary's boss • Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod), the head copy writer • Ted Baxter (Ted Knight), the vain, pompous, dim-witted news anchor. • Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) (1970–74), Mary's best friend and upstairs neighbor. • Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman) (1970–75), Mary's snobbish landlady • Georgette Franklin Baxter (Georgia Engel) (1972–77), Ted's sweet-natured girlfriend and eventual wife. • Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White) (1973–77), host of The Happy Homemaker show. Her superficially ever-cheerful demeanor belies her true, man-chasing nature. She is particularly attracted to Lou Grant. BN show regulars: • Bob Newhart as Dr. Robert Hartley, psychologist • Suzanne Pleshette as Emily Hartley, his wife, a school teacher • Bill Daily as Howard Borden, their next-door neighbor, an airline navigator • Peter Bonerz as Dr. Jerry Robinson, Bob's friend, an orthodontist • Marcia Wallace as Carol Kester, their receptionist

Yes, certainly nothing obtrusive, and editing would be part of the meaningful fluidity I'm talking about. Also, though I'd have to look again to be sure, I would think that for reasons of economy alone, edits were/are less plentiful in sitcoms than in movies, that the flow of incident from one moment to the next was handled mostly on the set -- by the performers themselves and through the movement of those performers within the sitcoms' relatively familiar, given spaces. About performances, though, there was nothing about Newhart's performance on the episode I saw that was less than topnotch, but the relative clunkiness of the direction seemed to preclude much flow from his work into and off of the work of the other characters, although most of them were old hands on the show. On that MTM episide, by contrast, everything seemed to bounce off of everything else.

Stumbled into those reruns back to back last night -- MTM first, then Newhart (his early sitcom, where he's a psychologist) -- and while both episodes were typically well-written and performed, I was kind of stunned by the fluidity and economy of the direction on the MTM episode, camera work but also the rhythms of line delivery and the overall "musical" pace/ebb and flow versus the relatively stolid clunkiness in those respects of the Newhart episode. Now the MTM episide was a pretty good one to begin with -- the one where Rhoda and Lou begin to go to Minnesota North Stars hockey games together because they both like the sport, and the newsroom (and especially Mary) begin to think they have a "thing" going on, with Moore playing/revealing her jealous possessiveness of Lou in a scene of marveleous comedy that also cuts fairly deep. (Great work there by a surprisingly subtle Valerie Harper and Ed Asner, too.) In any case, I'd never really been aware before of how great a role good directing could play in a sitcom. (And again, despite its relative clunkiness in those respects, the Newhart Show episode was still nice.) Has anyone ever taken a close critical look at sitcom directing? Also, while it's obviously like feature-film directing in some respects, I'm sure it's also rather different in others -- because of the serial nature of the medium, the 30-minute length of episodes, the relative smallness of the screen, the fact that sitcoms are seen in homes and apartments rather than in movie theaters, etc.

Not that I disagree, but which label is the pre-eminent jazz label??? Obviously, Fresh Sound/Lonehill, etc.

Lee Wiley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX5f8U79Btc...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv9oDdQQoxc...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TouM4yed-xE...feature=related

Prell apparently is still going strong: http://birdbeckett.com/ Also, IIRC, he eventually was a member of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

Maury Dell was a pianist (though the name sounds like it should belong to a standup comic). Don Prell was a bassist, member of the Bud Shank Quartet, IIRC.

My copy says George Avakian & Augie Blume. Do you know differently? And who is Augie Blume? That name sounds familiar... My mistake; it was Augie Blume.

He also produced the Joe Daley Trio record.

Yes -- but make what KINDS of effort? Lincoln Center will fall of its own weight and essential aesthetic irrelevance (or conceivably it won't), but any effort that's aimed at bringing it to the ground will, if successful, almost certainly generate another sort of Lincoln Center. By and large, in the world one doesn't wrest away in order to give away or even to distribute. Moreover, the nature and structure of such outfits is what gives them access to what might be distributed; take away the former, and very soon there will be nothing left except the condos. I'm happy that Rutgers for one exists, but Rutgers without Dan Morgenstern or someone like him? It's not that I'm rejecting academia wholesale -- I certainly don't hate it but merely would prefer to evade it (that you say you do hate academia more than most is not necessarily a good sign). It's that I'm not kidding myself about the difference between actual work and the circumstances under which it seems to me to be done, and the world of "prizes" and "gifts" -- of that which is bestowed or wormed out of, rather than exchanges based on common curiosities and interests. Also, though I shouldn't say this until I finish reading George Lewis' book, his apparent belief in a kind of burgeoning "replacement academy" -- well, to me that seems self-defeating.

OK -- " EXAMINATION of the work and perpetuation of the work" simply means, or should mean, USE of the work -- and this will only happen if other people actually find it useful to themselves. For myself, I've had plenty of that here (and in some other places, too, from people that I think of as friends, even if I don't actually know them face to face), and it feels and is quite different from "a institutionalized understanding of the work." Not that real use can't arise in an institutionalized setting, people who make their ways there are people too, but an "institutionalized understanding" that leads to real use would I think demand that the institution turn itself into something that it is not and probably cannot be -- a savannah, say, rather than a zoo with cages and keepers. Again, my old friend Teddy Adorno (a.k.a. Linus Van Pelt) had a good fix on this: "Anyone who takes up a position in the so-called humanities ... is inspired by hopes for the intellect, for something different, something unspoiled, ultimately something absolute.... But his profession will drive out all hope. not simply because of the necessity of submitting to the hierarchy ... but also because of the nature of scholarship itself, which in the name of scholarship negates the very spirit which it promises.... Resentment as the basic attitude of the university teacher is therefore objectively determined and almost unavoidable. The solo compensation [in Germany, in the mid-1960s] is the social prestige of the university professor, which still survives, a factor that may have led to his choice of profession in the first place." I don't think you can INTERNALLY "reform" outfits like the NEA or the academy in general (not the same things, I know). There are pockets, thank the Lord, but pockets is what they are and probably must remain. Lying behind this, perhaps, is a additional simple fact: We're talking about more or less communal musics that are now more or less without communities. That certainly doesn't negate their value, nor does it mean that we shouldn't pay all the loving attention to them that we can and want to, but it does or should mean that we do this without illusions -- and the dreams and resentments that so often fuel them.

Thanks for the kind thoughts, Allen, but speaking for myself -- "official recognition," bleah! As my old friend Theodor Adorno (or was it Linus Van Pelt?) once put it: "The more I get a taste of success, the more thoroughly I become aware [that] one's own existence then becomes a function of success."

Zeitlin set arrived today -- have listened to the first four tracks. Fine remastering job, working with what has to have been fine original material (30th St. studio, this date engineered by Fred Plaut). BTW, Plaut and his wife, soprano Rose Dercourt-Plaut were great friends of Francis Poulenc. Poulenc dedicated a song to Rose ("Nuages"), Fred worked on Poulenc's CBS recording dates and took many photographs of Poulenc, some of them particular favorites of the composer. Back to Zeitlin -- was he ever full of piss and vinegar (in the best sense) at age 25!

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.