Larry Kart

Just took a look at the weather radar. There's a block of heavy rain heading toward the Chicago area that's as wide as one-third of Iowa. Right now it's about to drench Davenport.

I'll probably be at this one: Wednesday, July 9th 2008 10:00PM at the Hideout, 1354 W Wabansia, 773.227.4433 ($6) A Fox Can Be Hungry : Matt Schneider, Jason Adasiewicz, Anton Hatwich, John Herndon Jeff Kimmel, Daniel Levin, Marc Riordan Schneider, leader of A Fox etc., is a guitarist-composer who blends '50s influences from guys that he happens never to have heard (e.g. Howard Roberts, Barry Galbraith) with a spaciness that's his alone. Kimmel is an excellent bass clarinetist, Levin is a cellist from the East Coast, and drummer Riordan, an emigree from Boston, is a fine, snap-crackle-and pop, listening player. Shoot me for exaggerating, but he reminds me at times of Joe Chambers.

I'm a big fan of her work, but her lyrics, as far as I can recall are not by and large vocalese: "In vocalese words (newly invented) are set to recorded jazz instrumental improvisations." Rather, Meredith mostly writes contrafacts ("a new musical composition built out of an already existing one") that are in their flow a good deal more like jazz instrumental improvisations than the song she's taking off from; but, unless I'm mistaken, none of her songs are set to recorded jazz solos by others. Because in her approach both words and music are contrafacts and are malleable by her in the workshop so to speak, and also because she so gifted in both realms, the fit between words and music is just about perfect. Also, unlike even good vocalese, her work is not about proving how hip you are. I said "by and large" above because IIRC Meredith's version of "Moon Dreams" does incorporate some of Gil Evans' arrangement; perhaps she did that a few other times too, but the contrafact approach is her main thing.

Happy Birthday! :party: You play great on the new album.

Don't want to come on like a grumpy old man, but it drives me crazy when I go to a club or bar where good live jazz (or any good live music) is being played, and the millisecond a set ends, recorded music begins, typically at a volume high enough to pretty much prevent conversation this side of shouting between people seated right next to each other. I know, I should either turn up or turn off my hearing aid.

I come to baste Caesar, not to marinade him.

Will you all be passing through a metal detector?

Sounds like a nasty recipe.

Sonny Criss in Fortune?

Stanley is no "jazz purist," even when the phrase is encased in quotes. He's a Stanley purist.

Although I prefer Goldstein's recording, Julie Steinberg's Sonatas etc. is quite good and is at Berkshire for $4.99: http://www2.broinc.com/search.php?row=0&am...p;submit=Search

Your next step probably should be Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano and the String Quartet. I have the Arditti's recording of the latter, though I have fond memories of the old original recording on a Columbia LP by the New Music String Quartet. I recommend the Sonatas and Interludes by Louis Goldstein, which at this point can only be obtained directly from Goldstein (at a reasonable price IIRC): louieg@wfu.edu In any case, avoid the Naxos recording by Boris Berman. Goldstein also made a to-die-for recording of Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories, coupled with Cage's One5, which I also got from Goldstein. Here's a review of it by Grant Chu Covell: John CAGE: One5. Morton FELDMAN: Triadic Memories. Louis Goldstein (piano). offseason productions 226 (2CDs: 65:12 + 68:59) This has got to be 2000’s best piano recording. These two discs had better garner prizes and commendations throughout the industry (we’re wild about it here at La Folia) or else Western Civilization is coming to an end. Everything comes together in this phenomenally well-recorded 2 CD set. The piano is so rich and so closely miked, and the piano’s tuning is superb (alas, the piano and the piano tuner isn’t credited). Louis Goldstein plays with such control and delicacy. There are slight sounds of Goldstein breathing and moving, but they remind us of the human aspect of performing. Each and every note unfolds as if it were the most important note in the whole piece, wonderfully articulated and well-placed. I find myself getting lost in the Feldman and wishing it would never end, savoring the resonance and reverb, and the repetitions of patterns and gestures. I need to be in the right mood to truly enjoy the Feldman as it’s much like savoring an eagerly anticipated delicacy. I will have no other recording of Triadic Memories in my collection, and several other recordings of 20th century piano music went out of the house after this one came in. This is also a set of discs that will shatter commonly held misconceptions about Cage and Feldman. Several people I know think Feldman was no more than an improviser and dabbler with graphic notation, or who think that Cage was all about silence and doing anything at all for the sake of music. These two are traditionally notated works (ok, the Cage is a little different) which performers must interpret and perform, just like any other work in the standard repertoire. These two seemingly simple works are expansive and engrossing. The Cage is just over twenty minutes, but the Feldman is a mammoth piece with precise large and small structural layers lasting over an hour and a half, requiring endurance and commitment for performer and listener. Large expanses in each of the works are single notes, and the Feldman is built from short gestures that repeat with slight modifications. Goldstein seems endlessly fascinated with the Feldman, and his playing is hypnotic as he explores the work’s wonders.

IIRC he's fine form on the Getz album "Nobody Else But Me," with Gary Burton and Joe Hunt.

I imprinted on "Shulie-a-Bop," encountered it at age 13 or so on a 1950s 12-inch EmArcy sampler that was among the first jazz records I owned. Can anyone tell me what was on the rest of that album? Charlie Ventura's "East of Suez" with Jackie and Roy is another track I can recall, and I think there was one from a Harry Carney-led, sax-section date on Keynote. Assuming, in my naivete, that I was listening to a reasonable cross section of the music, that sampler left me kind of pleasantly mixed up. I recall, in particular, how weird "East of Suez" seemed. Eventually I realized that it was supposed to sound weird, as in be-boppishly exotic, but at that point I had no musical or social frame of reference for it.

Sorry, the ""onomatopoetic or nonsense syllables" part I borrowed from Jazz Grove. Just thinking about the things that Sarah Vaughan comes up with on "Shulie-a-Bop" makes my knees feel watery. As for successful vocalese lyrics, I think Jefferson's here are just about perfect: MOODY'S MOOD FOR LOVE (He:) There I go, there I go, there I go There I go.. Pretty baby, you are the soul who snaps my control Such a funny thing but every time you’re near me I never can behave You give me a smile and then I’m wrapped up in your magic There’s music all around me, crazy music Music that keeps calling me so very close to you Turns me your slave Come and do with me any little thing you want to Anything baby, just let me get next to you Am I insane or do I really see heaven in your eyes? Bright as stars that shine up above you in the clear blue skies How I worry about you Just can’t live my life without you Baby come here, don’t have no fear Oh, is there a wonder why I’m really feeling in the mood for love? So tell me why stop to think About this weather, my dear? This little dream might fade away There I go talking out of my head again, oh baby Won’t you come and put our two hearts together? That would make me strong and brave Oh when we are one, I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid If there’s a cloud up above us Go on and let it rain I’m sure our love together will endure a hurricane Oh my baby Won’t you please let me love you And give a relief from this awful misery? (She:) What is all this talk about loving me, my sweet? I am not afraid, not anymore, not like before Can’t you understand me? Now baby, please pull yourself together, do it soon My soul’s on fire, come on and take me I’ll be what you make me, my darling, my sweet (He:) Oh baby, you make me feel so good Let me take you by the hand Come let us visit out there In that new promised land Maybe there we can find A good place to use a loving state of mind I’m so tired of being without And never knowing what love’s about... James Moody, you can come on in man And you can blow now if you want to (Both:) We’re through. What could be a more perfect fit to the sound and emotional aura of Moody's solo than: "Am I insane or do I really see heaven in your eyes? Bright as stars that shine up above you in the clear blue skies"

Yes, but even though I like King Pleasure's famous 1949 hit recording of "Moody's Mood for Love" (which preceeds the one on the album above by about a decade), the hip, clever lyrics King Pleasure sings on MMFL are by Eddie Jefferson, who seems to have originated the whole vocalese concept back in 1940 by setting words to Coleman Hawkins' solo on "Body and Soul."

First sentence of Holden's review of L, H & R Redux: "At 86 the visionary musical sage John Hendricks, who along with Ella Fitzgerald and Eddie Jefferson originated the jazz style called vocalese -- the setting of swing and jazz instrumentals with playful scat lyrics -- is as voluble as ever." Vocalese and scat singing are two different things, no? In the former, words (newly invented) are set to recorded jazz instrumental improvisations (e.g. "Twisted," "Moody's Mood for Love," the L-H-R stuff). In the latter, onomatepoetic or nonsense syllables, not words, are used, and the singer, depending on his or her skill, improvises on the framework of the given song as much as an instrumentalist would. I would think, then, that no vocalese performance would have "scat lyrics" -- scat lyrics being an oxymoron anyway. Further, Ella of course did lots and lots of scat singing, but I don't recall a single vocalese recording from her; thus she could not have "originated the jazz style called vocalese," right? Or am I forgetting something? And even if I am, vocalese and scat singing are still two different things.

Kinda thought it might refer to your wife in some way; now I know it's homemade.

Now that you mention KAL, I don't know what LTB means.

I'm stoned -- what's your excuse?

Sorry, I screwed up and posted Hamelin's Sonata Reminiscenza twice. Here's the Gilels:

Swinging Swede, your gift for this scares me, as I may have said before. On the other hand, it is a genuine gift. Nobody else here has it. P.S. That Phil Woods cover is utterly bizarre, in its own quiet way. Lord, does he look uncomfortable. On the other hand, the Shank cover (William Claxton photo, I assume) is a period gem.

Hadn't planned on it to coincide with the Fourth, but I've been reading Stephen W. Sears' "Gettysburg" and thinking of necessity of what so many thousands of men on both sides gave up during those three days in July (1-3), 145 years ago. To encounter in detail what happened in that battle is almost more than mind and heart can bear. Sears' book is the best account of a battle I've ever read, alongside Richard Frank's "Guadalcanal."