Larry Kart

Here's a link to the cover of "Collaboration": http://singinandswingin.blogspot.com/2007/...dre-previn.html The colors are a little washed out, though.

Was RCA doing LPs in 1951 or before? RCA Victor began issuing LPs in 1950. Nice to see another Flora cover. Wish I still had my old LP of the Andre Previn-Shorty Rogers "Collaboration." IIRC its cover was a Flora masterpiece and perfectly suited to the clever-goofy music.

Lord Buckley recorded "The Naz" and other routines on two LPs for the Vaya label in 1951. He also recorded a 10-inch LP for RCA before that. One cut, The Lord's version of Marc Antony's funeral oration ("I came here to lay Caesar out, not to hip you to him..." etc.), was re-issued on a RCA comedy compilation album. Don't agree Lehrer was only "singing short songs." His act was those songs and the persona they created.

Don't know about Mosse recordings from Europe. All my LPs are inaccessible right now, but memory tells me that "Tickle Toe" is the best Mosse on record; he's fully digested and refined his second-generation Pres legacy. On his earlier recordings IIRC, on he sounds a bit shy at times, if you know what I mean. The very best Mosse I know, though, by a slim margin (or maybe it's just different, a bit more on the muscular side), is a very-good sounding cassette tape I made in a Chicago club in 1969 of him with pianist Stu Katz (on electric piano) and drummer Wilbur Campbell (this was among Wilbur's first gigs after returning to the scene from prison). Don't have the cassette in my possession right now, but it's a joy. And Wilbur is in great form too.

ISRAELI MDS CALL HALVAH ARAB PLOT Claim population will be too obese to fight Sesame industry issues firm, tasty denial

The first Tom Lehrer album ("The Songs of Tom Lehrer") came out in 1953 and was a sensation in some circles.

Thanks -- yes I am. Just need to find things that catch my attention, like a 1992 Buck Hill album, "Impulse," where he plays clarinet on three tracks in a non-sensational but unique and deep manner. Hard to describe, but he sounds great and different from any other clarinetist I know, though he certainly is in tune with the character of the instrument and not just laying his saxophone conception on top of it. Does anyone know of more Hill clarinet work on record? The liner notes touchingly mention that these clarinet performances came after "fifteen years of self-taught teaching" on the instrument.

Both Sandy and Cy are in fine form -- the former reminding me as much of vintage Allen Eager as of Al Cohn, Cy probably a better player in '81 on a good day like this than he was 25 years earlier at the time of "Keester Parade." Sandy, who didn't have much time left, played his heart out. If you don't know him, he needs to be heard if you dig personal offshoots of Pres. Long, long, melodies, full of real choices. A few diffuse moments (some tracks, e.g. "Alone Together," are a bit too long), but lovely, soulful, swinging music. Slight glitch in the liner notes/credits. The former refer to Cy as the composer of "Keester Parade"; it was Johnny Mandel's tune. Compounding that, the tune is on the album under its later title "Centerpiece," and credited to Harry Edison and John Hendricks. As Dan Morgenstern recently explained, Sweets, who was on the original Touff/Kamuca "Keester Parade" recording, copped the tune from Mandel and retitled it "Centerpiece" for a recording under his own name a few years later, Mandel not minding because he liked Sweets and didn't need that bit of extra dough himself. Hendricks, still later, wrote words to "Centerpiece" for a LHR version.

The Chicago Jazz Fest had significant sponsorship from one of the major tobacco companies when that was still possible IIRC. Chuck and others will no doubt remember which one. And of course there was the Kool Jazz Fest in NYC.

from today's NY Times Business section: "Black Caucus Seeks Limits on Menthol Cigarettes"

I like this recording of Lennox Berkeley's three string quartets: http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.570415 In fact, while Berkeley is not a "great" composer, I like every work of his I've heard -- and I've heard a lot.

The fun part is that Bell for some time unknowingly played the same violin that had Gordon played. Even more fun (for snarky former-journalist me) was the sentence that Weingarten writes after he mentions this fact: "For 11 years, Bell's fingers held the same ancient wood." Truly, the conventions of corny feature writing don't change. But shouldn't Weingarten have written: "For 11 years, Bell's fingers caressed the same ancient wood"?

What Jim said. Your move, Morehouse.

Don't mean to ignore Matthews' solo work, but his comping on Teddy Edwards' "Ladies Man" (High Note) is special: http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/.../Ladies+Man.htm Actually, at times (especially on the ballads) it's more like he's soloing alongside and underneath Edwards, in perfect sympathy/empathy. Almost an orchestral effect.

That's not a big hat at all.

Oops -- that one too.

I agree and would add "Boston 1952" on Uptown, the date with Dick Twardzik, Mingus and was it Roy Haynes? Equally brilliant and more relaxed, though the extreme tension/intensity of the Washington Howard Theater material is part of its appeal.

I remember a Jarman performance at Ida Noyes Hall at the U. of Chicago in maybe 1966-67 where he wrapped several female dancers in large sheets of aluminum foil.

After trying to watch some of his later HBO specials I sort of feel the same way. I think he started to take himself too damn seriously and stopped being funny in order to play the role of some kind of "courageous" truth teller. Most self-conscience truth tellers are usually bores as are the people who cheer them on. And that, friends, is what we call irony. How so? Yes, I'm also interested to hear this one explained. Eeesh... here we go. It's simple, I, obviously, do not agree with the initial post and felt it was in questionable taste. The follow up post supporting that post makes the statement, "Most self-conscience truth tellers are usually bores as are the people who cheer them on." I felt (and feel) you were the pot calling the kettle black. Not trying to start a flame war, but you asked. No problem. I thought you meant that Carlin the "self-conscious truth teller" was himself being ironic when he adopted that role, and I couldn't figure out how that could be.

Have to work by periods, but for Period One Mobley I'll take (off the top of my head) "Nica's Dream" with the Jazz Messengers on Columbia. Such a great track all around, and when I heard it, at that time, it probably was the first Mobley solo that told me he was a great, unique player.

After trying to watch some of his later HBO specials I sort of feel the same way. I think he started to take himself too damn seriously and stopped being funny in order to play the role of some kind of "courageous" truth teller. Most self-conscience truth tellers are usually bores as are the people who cheer them on. And that, friends, is what we call irony. How so?

Swinging Swede -- Your ability to come up with these is beginning to scare me.

Lenny Bruce died when he was 41. Do you think that had anything to do with it? No. Besides, Carlin IMO stopped being funny long before he himself was 41. Larry, With all due respect, I guess it depends on how you define the word "funny". To my way of thinking, "funny" can run the gamut from a pie in the face to what Carlin was during the second phase of his career. I don't think his rant on religion was funny in the classic sense of the term, but it was humorous in its point of view and, to some, insightful. I like The Stooges because they don't make me think. I like Carlin because he does. Both can be amusing in their own way. Up over and out. While I agree with your point that there's a big subjective element in what anyone does or does not find funny, what I was thinking is more along these lines: While not everything that's funny provokes actual laughter, the fact of laughter is really important because genuine laughter is an involuntary response, a step into another realm. Again, not all humor actually steps into that realm, but all humor that works at least refers to its basic principles (two of them being economy of movement [i.e you get somewhere more swiftly than you expected to] and obliqueness [where you end up is not where you though you would] -- actually those two principles pretty much are one). For instance, the weather forecast of Carlin's Al Sleet (I quote from ancient memory): "Tonight [a musing pause] dark ... turning light by morning." By contrast, there is the shaggy dog story, which is kind of a joke about joking, in that the economy principle is denied. P.S. I see what Al Sleet said was: ""Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning."

Lenny Bruce died when he was 41. Do you think that had anything to do with it? No. Besides, Carlin IMO stopped being funny long before he himself was 41.

He ain't new, but I find John Stowell pretty scary in the sense Joe meant: http://www.johnstowell.com/