Larry Kart

It ain't so much the back of my head that's the problem.

When you get to be his age -- this was 2004 or so, when Sam was in his mid-70s -- lots of strange things can happen in the realm of appearance/grooming without the person involved being that aware of it. I mean, on those deliberately rare occasions when I look at myself in a three-way mirror at TJ Maxx, I think that there's no way the guy I see there is me.

Heeere's Sandi! http://www.talsanmusic.com/photos/pages/Sandi_Vic.html

Yes, we must have the annual Shoemake Award. First prize is a night with his wife Sandi. Second prize is two nights... (sorry -- it's an ancient joke, but I couldn't resist).

Dizzy himself is on record more than a few times making very similar, hell, damn near exact statements about himself and bebop in general. There's (at least) two levels of reality going on in all this. There's "minstrel" as in historical reality, which Allen certainly knows about and accurately notes was a time of incredible cultural/artistic cross-pollination. Then there's "minstrel" as an oppressive/regressive set of business/cultural expectations. Which one is "real"? Hell, they both are, as are their legacies. And can't no amount of protestations on/from either side change that. And, as you of course know, Dizzy himself used a lot of minstrel-related shtick in arguably un-oppressive, un-regressive, game-playing ways -- though some fans (Black and white) have always felt otherwise about that stuff, for a variety of reasons.

Also, see this post from EI's blog about the AACM Versus "The Marsalis Juggernaut": http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/20...n-old-feud.html Crucial to EI's point of view here is his negative assessement of Steve McCall's drumming on Air's "King Porter Stomp" from the album "Air Lore." He includes an excerpt from the passage he has in mind and then adds this: "Clunky, sloppy drumming when played with great time is one of the great pleasures, but I’m not sure if McCall’s time is quite good enough to pull it off. I don’t think it’s amateurish, exactly...but I do think that I should not have to wonder about it." I couldn't disagree more. The point of this passage, as it was conceived and executed (and this is true of much if not all AACM music), is that one should have to wonder about it along just those lines. EI yearns for the security of what might be called "the norms of craft professionalism" and feels insecure, uncertain when its clothing presence is in doubt but he himself does not then feel secure in tagging the musicians involved as "amateurish, exactly." I could write a book about this (George Lewis beat me to it), but the doubt that EI feels here is a dramatically expressive, intentionally created, playful doubt or ambiguity about one's relationship to/attitude toward (in this case) certain musical habits from "the past" -- not the same thing exactly as, say, Mahlerian irony, but come on, this kind of thing hasn't been unheard of in music for at least a century now.

I've had some pleasant, mutually fruitful interactions with Ethan Iverson, who is very nice guy and a fine musician, but at times the tone of this interview seems to me to border on the abject. A few excerpts: EI: I’m eating this up, by the way.... [At this point in the interview, Wynton and I had been going non-stop for over four hours. He invited me to join him while he took his kids outside for a minute and bring my tape recorder if I wanted to keep talking. We went over to a nearby open-air basketball court where Wynton hangs out all the time. (He's lived in the same place for about twenty years; I suspect everybody in the area knows him. By name he greeted the doorman, the people on the corner, a grocer...I felt like I was walking next to the Mayor or something.).... EI: I feel a certain anxiety about people knowing something about jazz and the jazz tradition. I’m a white guy born in Wisconsin in 1973. Everything I know about jazz is just because I had this passion for it for some reason – but no culture. Jazz culture wasn’t part of my upbringing. WM: Yes, it was. You're an American. You heard the blues somewhere. EI: I don’t think so, man. Only modern country and radio rock, that's all I knew, or would have known if I didn't go get it myself. I feel tension about how little people know and respect some basic shit about jazz. And, compared to someone like you, I’m not even involved! I can only imagine the tension and frustration you feel sometimes about trying to get the message through.

A quote from Part 2 of EI' s interview with WM, WM speaking of Dizzy's recording of Strayhorn's "U.M.M.G." with the Ellington band: "When Dizzy was a boy, he looked up to Duke. He saw a film with Duke on it and Duke was clean and he was like, "Damn, I want to be like this." Duke meant a lot to black people at that time. There wasn't any minstrel shit. That meant a lot. Kind of what Miles Davis meant to people in the late 50's and early 60's. He kind of had that feeling of the younger musicians. This was a guy, early modern and getting far away from the minstrel thing."

My PM to Cliff: I'll ask Terry and John, but AFAIK it's not available anywhere. I might have a copy myself; if I do, I'll ask the guys if it's OK to make a copy for you. But I'll report back in any case. My memory may be awry here, but I think that the interview was fairly brief because Warne was not very verbal about music (at least not that day -- and he was talking to two very simpatico people), and that the parts I quoted were about it.

Not to be pedantic, but I've edited the topic title to take account of the fact (previously mentioned above) that it's "JR," not "J.R." -- his given name is Frank Anthony Monterose Jr., and the "JR" comes from there; it's not initials.

That one goes back to the 1957 Scott/Knepper session(s), actually. It's also on "New Jazz Conceptions" from Sept. 1956.

The one with Freddie and Jim Hall is quite nice for all parties; the date with Zoot is a misfire IIRC.

You can say that again, even though I've never met him face to face. And he's damn smart too, and with a big heart. The next senator from Illinois!

If he got his hands on that time-machine, who knows for sure?

Herbie Nichols Tristano-Konitz-Marsh Mingus

My favorite set of wishes so far is John Ore's: 1) To be able to play -- play well. 2) To be all over the world, in good health. 3) To have a time-machine. Also, on p. 133, "Julian Yuell" should be Julian Euell.

Leafing through the book, the photo at the bottom of p. 26 identified as of "Kenny Clarke and Art Taylor" is on p. 116 correctly identified as of Taylor and bassist Henri Texier.

I've run into Leukaufe's wife a few times over the years at pottery sales -- very nice person who clearly had borne a good deal of weight on her shoulders over the years. She remembered a review I'd written of a group with Carl and Tommy Ponce in maybe 1979. probably because that was one of the few times Carl had been written about. At about the same time I also wrote something justifiably enthusiastic about Jack Noren's bebop Baby Dodds-ish work with a quintet led by trombonist Bill Porter. Guess I was catching them, and Lin too, on some good nights -- there were other nights.

Got this from the library today, and it looks fascinating. But reading through Gary Giddins's foreword, I found this: "A handful of respondents [to Nica's question of what your three wishes are] are little remembered. Al Doctor once played alto saxophone with Ted Curson; Jothan Callins played trumpet with Sun Ra,... etc. But who were Sonny Nevious, Lynn Holiday, Paul Wheaton, etc.....?" As John Litweiler might say -- Jeebus! Lin Halliday (1936-2000) certainly was not the most famous of jazz musicians: http://www.jazzhouse.org/gone/lastpost2.php3?edit=949493038 but he did make four albums for Delmark with the likes of Ira Sullivan and Jodie Christian, all of which are still in print. Halliday had only one wish: "I'd be satisfied with a steady gig with Miles!" IIRC he did work with Miles briefly, after either Coltrane's first or second departure. Halliday also took Wayne Shorter's place on Maynard Ferguson's band when Wayne left to join the Jazz Messengers.

don't overlook the weston and sims! sims is one of my favorite cds actually That's my favorite period for Zoot, and that is one of his best of that period. Gus Johnson and John Williams really kick that date along.

Ha, yeah, probably should've started this earlier. :\ Thanks for the mentioning the song, I tried sending the instructor a couple songs that I thought would work well, but he said they wouldnt work as they lacked too many of the more jazzy elements, like the ones in the song you mentioned. Are you familiar with 'Jazzy Interlude' by Billy Munn? I was wondering if this one would also be viable for the paper, not sure if there's improv in that song or if its just a solo. The school is UW-Marathon County. In Wausau, Wisconsin, where I lived for a time. I would use the "Work Song" suggestion for your paper. It is clearly correct for what you need. I am quite a jazz fan and I have never heard of "Jazzy Interlude" by Billy Munn. You might also try allaboutjazz.com for this type of question. There are a lot of jazz musicians there who discuss technical musical issues all day on that forum, and they may be familar with "Jazzy Interlude" by Billy Munn, if you need to try to use it. More on Mr. Munn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Munn Certainly seems like an off-the-wall choice.

Wonder what, if anything, Gourley's passing means about the fate of the tapes he was supposed to have of otherwise unrecorded genius Chicago guitarist Ronnie Singer, who committed suicide with his wife in the early '50s. See pp. 268-9 of Ira Gitler's "Swing To Bop." Gitler heard him and was very impressed. The last time I heard of the tapes, a year or two ago, it sounded for a while like there was a strong lead there -- that Gourley did have them and was negotiating to have them released -- but nothing since. Comments on Singer: "Fantastic. Great talent. He would have been one of the all-time greats." (Lou Levy) '...a great player. He was saying as much as Jimmy [Raney] was at the time." (Gourley) "He had a spirit, a sound that reminded me of Charlie Christian, that kind of raw sound and power." (Gitler) '...he had something special." (Lee Konitz)

Good question about Newton. He was recording a lot in the late 1970s and 1980s and seemed to be rising to the level of a regular jazz recording star, in the way that anyone can become a jazz recording star these days. Then at some point he seemed to become less well known, and to have fewer high profile recordings. The Beastie Boys did him in: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4701570 I knew about that unfortunate story. But why couldn't Newton also continue to record albums while he struggled with the Beasties on the side? I don't know that his suit against the Beastie Boys affected Newton's career as a recording artist -- I was being somewhat snide. On the other hand, I think Newton was left holding the bag for considerable court costs, which certainly could have had an effect on his career; in addition, there was the no doubt dispiriting fact of losing a case to which he clearly had devoted much time and energy, as well as money, and in which he felt that right was very much on his side.

More about the interesting issues in the Newton/Beastie Boys case from an IMO objective source (see from the middle of page 103 to the top part of p. 105): http://books.google.com/books?id=KTRA-Ag5g...esult#PPA103,M1