Larry Kart

Agree about that Cowell album and the trombone player.

Moved my post to the "Let's talk about the music" thread.

Got my set today, don't recall and can't check right now how much of it I have on LPs (most of it but not all), but I decided to jump in at what may be the deep end and listened to Opus 82. Quite an amazing feat all around (kudos to members of the four orchestras and their conductors), though I wonder what it might be like if it had been posssible to semi-totally capture in the recording process the spatial element. About the piece itself, if that's the way to put it, I'm reminded of what it was like (being about the same age as Braxton -- AB born 1945, me born 1942 -- and probably having encountered Second Viennese School music at about the same time -- age 16 or so for me) to hear that music for the first time: the making-strange effect, so to speak, being turned into the made normal and utterly sensible effect and then somehow back into both making strange AND made normal and sensible. That is, that SVS music, and perhaps even more the process of coming in touch with it at that time, somehow retains over the years its "for the first time" sensuous tangible mystery. If I'm right about this, Opus 82 might be thought of as a "fetishizing" of that process, though by "fetishizing" (normally a negative term) I don't mean anything negative at all. What I have in mind is that Opus 82 (Braxton being a remarkable musician with an equally remarkable ability to hear) not only captures and makes his own every aspect of SVS music that attracts or attracted him, but he also conveys in this music (i.e. the music of Opus 82) the power of those initial encounters I mentioned above, the meaning of the union of making strange and finding that strange to be lucid and normal. Also, but I can't explain why yet, I think this has something to do with the relatively extreme length of the piece -- evocative at times of Webern's Symphony, it's maybe ten or twelve times as long. Could it be that Opus 82 is in that respect an attempt to respond to a musical world of almost self-consuming concision by saying that it could instead expand, even (in all but the most practical recording-industry-determined terms) need never end. Finally, how to listen to it? There are two obvious ways, I think, and I spontaneously found myself trying both: (1) assume total continuity, think of every sound and gesture as a prelude to the next; (2) listen for what seem to you to be the beginning and the end of shapes or gestures and as much as you can absorb of what's in between (often that means that the "units" are fairly small) and ask in effect "What is/was that all I'm hearing?" I prefer option (2), because the answers are so rich in detail and (can't think of a better word) refreshing, and eventually there is abundant continuity too.

The Dragon Konitz LP "Sax of a Kind," mostly concert performances with Swedes from 1951, includes a 1953 Kenton aircheck of "Lover Man" (from a Swedish concert) where Lee's solo is an out-of-body experience -- for Lee I suspect as well as for the listener. In fact, assuming I'm right about the "for Lee" part, I suspect that it's such experiences (it couldn't have been the only one) that led to the somewhat more rational or rational-ized playing of Lee's next phase. To be so erruptively inspired that one might have felt afterwards something like "Was that me?" would not have been something that Lee, I would guess, was prepared to accept for long. The "me" in his playing, I think, pretty much needs to be "him" to him.

Very annoying, as I thought might be the case from records, but I had to hear what he sounded like in-person 'cause sometimes that makes a big difference and so many good people (including good musicians) dig him. Roughly, a "farther out" Joe Lovano without even the sub-interest of handling changes with some deftness, plus that hoarse, gargly neo-Trane sound that I can't stand -- the one where the player sounds from the first note like his eyes are half-shut in ecstasy. I walked. What did you think of Nasheet Waits? Good, I guess, but hard to tell because I didn't like what he was interacting with. I've liked him on record, heard him once before in person with Brotzmann. That night he was explosively loud, but it fit the situation. Heard his Dad once in person, with Billy Taylor. What a beautifully slick drummer!

"After we moved, I met Marshall Robbins, whose family also lived on the fifth floor of the [Lombardy] hotel. Marshall and I were the same age, 12. His father was Jack Robbins of Robbins Music, the big music publisher. Jack used to take Marshall and me around to see all the big-name bands in the late 1930s. I knew by then I wanted to play a horn. It had to be a trumpet or saxophone, something you kissed."

This was posted on another jazz board, and some European guy got very upset, saying that what we hear is a mis-translation of the original German (you think?), and that Hitler et al. are not a fit subject for comedy.

No, it's that "colored people" were one market by and large and "white people" were another in 1951, and if you could corner a fair portion of the former (and such cornering was possible, or easier to envision as possible, for an independent label like Savoy), you could make a good living. Examples abound.

Very annoying, as I thought might be the case from records, but I had to hear what he sounded like in-person 'cause sometimes that makes a big difference and so many good people (including good musicians) dig him. Roughly, a "farther out" Joe Lovano without even the sub-interest of handling changes with some deftness, plus that hoarse, gargly neo-Trane sound that I can't stand -- the one where the player sounds from the first note like his eyes are half-shut in ecstasy. I walked.

Carla, our daughter was there too and said it was a great show. She said she saw Kart and Tesser, went at the break to greet them and you/they were gone. Darn. On the other hand, I was so tired I might not have been able to put two sentences together.

Tonight, if I have the energy: 10:00 PM at the Hungry Brain Tony Malaby's Tamarindo, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Nasheet Waits

So can we expect jazz rock to be deployed in the war on terror? I think they used (or tried to use) those techniques some time ago on Noriega in Panama.

The thing about Miles and loudness in his comeback period was the prevelence of low, low frequencies from Marcus Miller. I recall a 1981 concert in Chicago at the Auditorium Theater during which, part way through, I was alarmingly overcome by a sudden wave of deep depression (utterly novel to me). A while later I mentioned this to Martin Williams, who said he'd had a similar experience with that band and added that a CIA guy he knew had told him that the CIA had determined that large doses of ultra low frequency sounds (below the level of audibility) can cause sudden onsets of depression, and that the CIA had (or planned to) make use of these techniques.

What ejp626 said. It was great to meet him and Rachel and to see the guys in the band again, though there little time for them to talk between sets, and I was too tired to stay for more than one. Reinforced my longtime feeling that this is a band that can make its points with and over virtually any talky audience but can be listened to at whatever level of subtlety you can and want to bring to them. Stuff is happening all the time -- not unlike vintage Horace Silver that way -- and it leads (no small matter) to internal group zest and satisfaction.

Sorry, make that 1978 or so. See, I still haven't recovered.

Ted Nugent at the Chicago Stadium in maybe 1968. I had to cover it, had not heard many rock acts, and didn't know from earplugs. Didn't regain normal hearing for several days.

Organissimo!

Let joy be unconfined!

I'll probably be there on Sat. night.

Yes, Earl Palmer. From the Earl Palmer discography: 1966 Ray Charles Let's Go Get Stoned, Jackie De Shannon I can Make it With You, Tim Hardin It'll Never Happen Again, Misty Roses, Neal Hefti Batman Theme, Marketts Batman Theme, Brenda Holloway Where Were You, PJ Proby Niki Hoeky, Righteous Bros. Soul & Inspiration, Ike & Tina Turner A Love Like Yours', River Deep - Mountain High.

I see/hear what you mean and take it all back. That thing is f------ insidious, and what you point out is a big reason why. I wonder who the drummer is. Earl Palmer? He's a big part of it all, IMHBO.

I saw Eager twice in the '80s in Chicago. The first time he was hopeless; the second time, with Al Cohn, was better. The feel of that second gig was strange; Al seemed to be angry/exasperated at Allen -- in part (my speculation) because Allen had squandered so much of his talent, in part because (my speculation again) Allen back in the early days had been so damn good and had made no bones about lording it over the other first generation Pres-based guys on that scene, like Al. In any case, Al played with remarkable ferocity that night, which seemed to boost the level of Allen's playing a fair bit. A strange evening. BTW, I can't be sure now, but I believe that my speculations above were based in part on some things that Ira Gitler told me afterwards when I described to him how that night had gone musically.

Unfortunately, we talked over the phone.

As others have said elsewhere, this account is baffling, perhaps even a put-on. Yes, the toy-like feel of the "Batman" theme is just right, but musically it could hardly be more simplistic, no?

Got one on the way.