Larry Kart

Yes. Got so wrapped up I forget to add the link.

-- bassist and drummer could be Arvell Shaw and Roy Burns. Lord, how this thing comes off! Everyone in great form -- really listening to each other, very relaxed. Notice that the most recent comment is from Stafford and Paul Weston's daughter, who says that this is among the clips they watched after returning from her mother's funeral. Stafford's phrasing is so trumpet-like, a la Louis. Ella's "I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues" would convince even those who are normally indifferent to her. Too bad there's no solo space for Norvo or Wilson, though they're quite audible and playing major roles. BG and HJ are all caught up in it, too -- the latter so "in there" emotionally as well as musically.

Pianist is Milcho Leviev, a native of Bulgaria: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milcho_Leviev best-known for his stint with the Don Ellis Orchestra. Given Leviev's Bulgarian background, Ellis' odd meters were nothing that new to him.

Fine remembrance that Michael Weiss contributed to Doug Ramsey's Rifftides: http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/ I particuarly liked: "On the gig, he listened closely to the rhythm section as we worked our stuff out in our solos. He especially delighted in listening to us wrestle through a particular musical idea. During such occasions, I might look up and see Johnny with his eyes aglow and a big smile. He enjoyed the creative struggle and he was along with you for the ride. (My emphasis)

Thursday night, with a terrific roadhouse cheeseburger and fries at a genuine roadhouse that opened in 1950, Killian's Irish Red. Last night, with dinner, a glass of Gravina 2005. This morning, coffee.

Where are EDC's good wishes?

Far be it from me to explain what You Must Be is saying, but I think I understand and agree with him. Within what guys who were thinking within a "changes" framework at the time were thinking and doing, LaFaro made lots of harmonic choices (notes and phrases) that were without much if any precedent in jazz this side of, say, Bob Graettinger -- and unlike Graettinger, those choices weren't intended to (and didn't) sound weird, just right and new, and they also managed to link up well with what the other people who were playing with LaFaro were doing. The stunning nature of the best of LaFaro remains so for me; yet what he did was also, though this sounds contradictory, very much of its time and place (and also, arguably, a bit "precious"). The best evidence of this probably is the way LaFaro sounds with Ornette. Without the relative stability of framework that Bill Evans gave him (i.e. LaFaro always knew that harmonically and rhythmically he'd be to the "outside" of Evans if he wanted to be) -- or to put the other way, within the at once more fluid and more basic world of Ornette -- LaFaro's inventions just don't "speak" very well, don't have that "I'm pushing way off from this" quality that his language relies on. On the other hand, though I don't recall the source, I believe that Ornette has said (surprisingly to me) that LaFaro was his favorite bassist. About the weakness of LaFaro's sound in a club without a mike, I don't have any personal experience but that certainly sounds likely. I did hear Red Mitchell in a club in about 1962, though (Mitchell being one of LaFaro's precursors), expecting something "booming" from the way Mitchell sounded on record, and he was almost inaudible. About the "cheating" thing -- if I had to choose, I'd pick Wilbur Ware over LaFaro, but I don't have to choose. Also, LaFaro certainly wasn't trying to trick anyone by setting up the instrument the way he did; he was going for something he wanted to hear. As for whether the other guys on the stand could hear him, the interaction on the Evans Vangaurd recordings makes it clear that Evans and Motian could pretty well, somehow -- if not, they were mind readers. Another thing about the time and place aspect of LaFaro -- while his influence was vast for a good long time, affecting many thousands of bassists around the world, I don't even need all the fingers of one hand to count the players who were influenced by him or in the same bag right alongside him whose playing IMO had the quality of genuine, febrile ecstasy that was the rationale for the whole thing: the young Gary Peacock, Albert Stinson, and Russell Thorne.

The saxophone quartet (four altos) version of "Nonaah" is one of the great works of the 20th Century -- by any standard, in any musical genre. Tough you could say it is because it certainly is forceful, but it's also exquisitely efficient, not a moment that doesn't count, and it all adds up, climactically. In this it reminds a bit of Stravinsky's Octet (a work I never tire off). And there's much more here (the opening solo "Nonaah"!), some of which will be new to most everyone but Chuck and Roscoe.

Because I agree with Chuck's basic point -- this is an important book if you have any interest in the subject -- I'm not going to get into and further back and forth about whether this or that sentence or phrase in it is jargon-y. If I open my yap again, it will about other things.

On page XXX, at the tail end of Lewis's vigorous defense of his use of some sorts of professional academ-ese in writing about jazz -- this passage bouncing off a querulous review by Stanley Dance of two anthologies on jazz edited by Krin Gabbard (never thought that Dance and Lewis would meet in the same paragraph): "For me, however, the interdisciplinary approaches to black music and improvisation in the Gabbard texts -- the works of Nathaniel Mackey, Robert Walser, Lorenzo Turner, John Corbett, and Scott DeVeaux among others (as well as the references to Adorno and Barthes) were inspiring, announcing a new generation of writers on improvised music who were, first, declining to conflate oversimplification with accessibility; second, asserting common cause with intellectuals in other fields concerning the ways in which music could announce social and cultural change; and finally, seeking liberation from the Sisyphean repetition of ersatz populist prolegomena that seemed endemic to the field." I have said in prior posts why I find Lewis's strategy here to be necessary for him and mostly convincing in action, but this is a mouthful, no? Also the old copy editor in me thinks that there should be a second dash in that sentence, before "were inspiring." Sorry, Chuck, but he asked.

I think I know what you mean, Allen, but it seems to me like some of the ways that Lewis has learned, and even likes, to think are these ways (relatively new-fangled and frequently dubious, at least in tone, to the likes of you and me), and further that he is not then really "working to justify himself to them" etc. at all -- rather (and I certainly haven't read enough to be sure about this, but it's what I think so far), it's almost as though he's playing the "dozens" with this choctaw, though with a much straighter face than "dozens" implies. I know the above sounds weird and double dubious itself, but when I actually see him at work here on material that really needs to be worked on and worked over, I feel that the work is being done -- more comprehensively and soundly than I thought it could be. Also, I don't recall a moment yet where a major point in the story has been bent the wrong way around (IMO) in order to serve any external academic body of interests that was visible to me.

Here's an email (it's very close to Red's view, perhaps with a twist) that I sent about this problem to a friend of mine several weeks ago, thinking in particular of the particularly dense Lewis sentence in defense of dense academic writing that Red cites. Unfortunately, I've had to put the Lewis book on hold for a while, in the face of library books that seem to demand immediate attention, but will get back to it eventually: "Have finally begun to read G. Lewis' book. I see that quite early on he mounts a firm (or at least vigorous) defense of his use of what some might call academic jargon -- implicitly linking it to his view that there can and should be no stylistic "jazz world" restrictions on the nature of "Black experimental music." I bridled a bit initially at this justification for jargon and don't like some of the jazz studies authors and texts he cites, but in practice so far I'm coming to see his point. If nothing else, that is what George himself feels, intellectually and emotionally, the stance that he's arrived at over the course of his life, and because it's vital to the life of the book that he be fully present in every reasonable, appropriate respect, there it is; for him to have adopted any pose of disguise in this area would have been a big mistake. In any case, while I might demur at this or that touch, overall so far I find it gripping, immensely informative, thought-provoking, etc."

From memory: The flowering plum out the front-door window sends whiteness inside my house -- Charles Olson, excerpt from "Maximus Poems" Also from memory, though I had to look to see where the dashes go and what words are capitalized, what I think of as Emily Dickinson's Bix poem: I would not talk, like Cornets— I'd rather be the One Raised softly to the Ceilings— And out, and easy on— Through Villages of Ether— Myself endued Balloon By but a lip of Metal— The pier to my Pontoon— I would not paint—a picture— I'd rather be the One Its bright impossibility To dwell—delicious—on— And wonder how the fingers feel Whose rare—celestial—stir— Evokes so sweet a Torment— Such sumptuous—Despair— Nor would I be a Poet— It's finer—own the Ear— Enamored—impotent—content— The License to revere, A privilege so awful What would the Dower be, Had I the Art to stun myself With Bolts of Melody!

If you mean Yusef Lateef, the net is being cast pretty wide. Why not throw in Lockjaw?

I mentioned Ammons and Wardell. I would disagree that the guys who followed the so-called "light" side of Pres and also were just-plain good were not in touch with the nuances/inflections as well as the tone. Yes, there were ways to get a lot more muscular with it than, say, "Long Island Sound" Getz did, but to take Jacquet for example, what he did was meld Pres and Herschel Evans. Likewise, Von Freeman has stated that he tried to amalgamate (or whatever) Pres and Hawkins, which is hard not to hear in him. Ammons, I would guess, might have dug him some Chu Berry. Hey, has anyone mentioned Stitt? Lots of Pres in him. In any case, I think what the "light" guys got (at least for a while) was kind of Pres to the exclusion of a whole lot else in music or even in life -- as though Pres were a form of enlightenment, a new religion. He was, right? The thing was, to perhaps touch upon what Jim is saying, a lot of these guys were in need of enlightenment (as in relief/release).

Herbie Steward Spike Robinson Ammons, of course, but a la Wardell he was pretty much his own man from early on, though owing a big debt to Pres. Sandy Mosse Ted Brown Dick Hafer Bob Hardaway

Lee Konitz on Stan Kosow: http://books.google.com/books?id=PYBVxJdbp...8&ct=result

Al Cohn on Turner: "I consider my two influences on saxophone to be Lester and Charlie Parker. After that, my taste broadened a little bit. I like Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster. And there’s a fellow that was around New York years ago. Nobody’s ever heard of him—his name was Ray Turner. He was a pretty big influence."

A picture and some words about Ray Turner here: http://www.gregwarnermusic.com/Frame-2-bio...h=1170398617147

They're the next half-generation along, but Richie Kamuca and Bill Perkins were absolutely drenched in Pres in their mid-'50s heyday. Eventually, both left that stance behind to try to sound tougher, along Rollins-Coltrane lines. This was momentarily disastrous for Kamuca, who then righted himself and arguably became better than ever. For Perkins the shift was pretty much disastrous all the way, IMO and in that of many others, though he did make some successful recordings in his later years with Lennie Niehaus. Another good candidate for the title would be Allen Eager. Wardell Gray also should be considered, though he perhaps was too much his own man to qualify. The same might be the case for Al Cohn. Worldwide, there must have been several hundred worthwhile Pres disciples, maybe several thousand or more. Lord knows that when his influence was at its peak, you could find really interesting but fairly obscure Pres-drenched players all over the U.S. -- e.g. Angelo Tompros in Washington, D.C., Ray Turner in the Bronx.

When I brought it up, I didn't know that was her daughter.

Perry Como -- now there was a nasty dude.

Father Time, plus (perhaps) unwise attempts to defeat him. Also, looks like her friend has a moustache. Further, is that a salmon-pink copy of the Kabbalah? If so, that might be the root of her problem.

Weird, but on the album cover, it looks like Wynton's body and head don't belong to the same person. Wait a minute...

That will go on my tombstone (if I get a say), along with a similar remark from Rich Perry. I said hello during a break at a Rufus Reid gig and mentioned that he might recall an email I had sent to Bill Kirchner several years before that went on at some length about what I thought was afoot in Rich's playing and that Bill had then passed on to Rich. "Yes, I remember that," he said. "Very astute."