Larry Kart

If he played with Von it's probably the same Billy Wallace. If so, great news that he's still with us. It looks like Max's "Jazz in 3/4 Time" and "Live at the Bee Hive" may be Wallace's only records. Toward the end of his solos, he liked to play semi-parallel lines in the upper and lower registers. The young Denny Zeitlin may have picked up on this, though it's also possible that Denny began to do that kind of thing independently (I mention this because both were Chicago-area players, though Denny was a fair bit younger at the time, in his late teens). In both cases, there was some real in-the-moment thinking involved in this; it wasn't just a worked-out, worked-up device. I think Wallace might have been from Milwaukee originally.

Here's Zoller with Jim Hall, Red Mitchell and Daniel Humair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64nasU3XKo Some nice music, but it's annoying how much time is spent on tight shots of faces and fingers (some of them virtually meaningless and/or not particularly coordinated with what is being played) instead of, as in the Raney-Zoller video, just letting us see the guys play and interact.

Rene Leibowitz?

Sorry I screwed up the name -- it's Attila Zoller. (And now I've fixed it.) And I even met him once back in 1969, a nice guy. Here's a sweet-sad interview with him, done two weeks before he died in Jan. 1999: http://www.vtjazz.org/about/attila_interview.html

Do you know the unreleased at the time Strozier 1960 VeeJay album "Cool, Calm and Collected," released in 1993 with numerous alternate takes? Fine rhythm section -- Billy Wallace, Bill Lee, and Vernel Fournier -- and the date was recorded with exceptional presence at Universal Studios in Chicago, probably by engineer Bruce Sweiden, who did a number of Chicago VeeJay dates. In any case, Universal Studios was just a good, airy room, a la Columbia's 30th St. Studio. Arguably, Wallace is a bit high in the mix, and his instrument is not the finest, but the band is in the room with you. Some of the best Fournier on record. The liner notes oddly refer to Billy Wallace as "Wallace William" and quote Dan Morgenstern as saying this "may be his only record." If there was a Wallace William, maybe so (no blame to Dan for responding thusly to an erroneous question), but this is Billy Wallace (correctly identified on the back cover of the CD), who recorded with Max Roach among others.

Sorting through the Tubby Hayes that's on YouTube, I came across this interesting performance that finds Hayes with a Benny Golson-led big band and that features a solo by an interesting Rene Thomas-like guitarist, David Goldberg, that I've never heard of before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srXtl0QQaJM But this is astonishing: Raney, for me, is one of the best improvisers ever, regardless of instrument. Also, dig his expressions and body language here. And the last note!

Damn -- I liked that woman. She and Ann Southern had a certain kinship -- sexy, funny, a bit of a weight problem.

I agree -- she looks fresher in the face (and no less fresh elsewhere). I wonder if Marilyn later had some work done on her punim.

I've hauled in this post of mine from another list, where a review of a recent Med Flory Jazz Wave big band concert brought this to mind: Al Cohn's excellent composition and arrangement "No Thanks" from that Fresh Sound Med Flory Jazz Wave reissue ["Go West, Young Med!"] has what may be the best shout chorus I've ever heard. It sure does shout, but it's also so melodic and with some unexpected but utterly organic rhythmic anticipations/reversals. The long line of that chorus (it's virtually a single evolving thought) reminds me of Johnny Mandel, but the whole piece has that moaning feel that was among Cohn's trademarks. Wonderful to think how much artistry Cohn poured into one three-minute piece for a rehearsal band. But then that was quite a band: John Bello,, Al Derisi, Jerry Kail, Doug Mettome (tpts.), Billy Byers, Urbie Green, Milt Gold (trbs.), Flory, Hal McKusick, Cohn, Jack Agee (saxes), John Williams (pno.), Teddy Kotick (bs.), Art Mardigan (dms.). Only four tracks by them on the album, but they're all memorable. The rest are by West Coast versions of Flory's Jazz Wave, from 1956-7, plus two odd tracks for reeds and rhythm from 1959. The "No Thanks" band was New York- based, rec. in 1954.

What a shock that would be.

I don't understand about the Lytle sessions. Weren't his records fairly popular by the jazz record co. standards of the time? Or was that just his later stuff for Prestige (or was it Muse?) -- or did his stuff never sell much for anybody?

BTW Bright Moments, the girl in the photo at the bottom of your post looks tantalizingly familiar to me (as well as just tantalizing), but I can't quite place her. Is it Doris Day before she got so blonde?

At first glance I thought it was a tribute to Martin Williams.

No wonder he was so hard to bring down.

You're on.

Something of my own devising: a third-of-a-pack of Trader Joe's frozen chicken strips (defrosted, of course), covered with Trader Joe's Rustico pasta sauce, then all this heated up, with some Trader Joe's peas on the side. (There seems to be a theme here.) The chicken strips-pasta sauce combo gives you the satisfying feeling of a heaping bowl of pasta but with a good deal less calories and carbs. And some Italian red wine to wash it down -- Umbria Sangiovese 2006.

Funny, but when I posted that I thought that someone else would be doing the same thing at the same time.

What is this? The world needs to know! Dimitri Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues

Check out these videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNHPw6qVTtY Allen is on fire, and the whole band cooks. I especially like that chugging, driving rhythm section -- pianist Cedric Heywood, bassist Squire Girsbeck, and drummer Alton Redd. And don't miss Redd's fierce vocal on "Shine." Ory is in pretty good shape for a 73-year-old; Allen was only 51! 14 years younger than I am now -- damn.

Lord have mercy --- before Edie Adams, Pete was married to Betty Hutton! (No wonder I thought of Harry James and Betty Grable.) The gory details follow. I particularly like the fact that Pete and Betty "planned a six-month honeymoon," that they were divorced twice, that Betty charged in one of the divorce proceedings that Pete "never took her out to dinner," and that Betty said in an interview that the secret of her marriage's success (??) was: "My husband and I don't spend the night together." Betty Hutton's Fourth Marriage Betty's fourth marriage was to Pete Candoli. After a rocky start, Betty thought her marriage to Pete was going well until she heard on the radio that it wasn't. Born: Elizabeth "Betty" June Thornburg: February 26, 1921 in Battle Creek, Michigan. Walter Joseph "Pete" Candoli: June 28, 1923 in Mishawaka, Indiana. Died: Betty: March 11, 2007 in her apartment in Palm Springs, California at the age of 86 from complications from colon cancer. Betty's funeral was on March 14, 2007 at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City, California. Wedding Date: After being friends for 12 years, Pete and Betty were married on December 24, 1960 at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Las Vegas, Nevada. The wedding ceremony was performed by the Rev.Richard L. Sowers. Betty was 39, and Pete was 37 when they married. Honeymoon: Pete and Betty planned a six-month honeymoon in Europe. Marriage Issues and Divorce: In April 1961, Betty announced in London that she was getting an annulment. They separated August 10, 1966. Betty and Pete were divorced twice. The first time was in Juarez, Mexico in September 1966. Deciding she wanted a U.S. divorce, Betty filed for divorce on March 23, 1967 charging Pete with causing her mental and physical suffering. Betty testified that Pete was jealous of her as a performer, argued with her in front of others, and never took her out to dinner. Their divorce was final in California on June 18, 1967. Pete's Other Marriages: Prior to his marriage to Betty, Pete was married to actress Vicky Lane from 1953 to August 1958. Pete and Vicky had one child, Tara Claire Candoli. After his divorce from Betty, Pete married actress Edie Adams in June 1972 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, California. Edie and Pete divorced in 1989. Children: Betty and Pete had one daughter. Carolyn Candoli: Born in 1962. Occupations: Betty: Actress, comedian, singer, dancer. In later life she worked as a cook and housekeeper at a catholic rectory in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Pete: Jazz trumpet player, composer, and actor. Quotes About the Marriage of Betty Hutton and Pete Candoli: Betty after marrying Pete: "I should have done this a long time ago." Source: The Ada Evening News, December 26, 1960. Betty on the secret of the success of her fourth marriage: "My husband and I don't spend the night together. He goes home at night to his own pad. Pete likes to write music at night and he can't stand the baby making noise. And I can't stand the scrambling for the bathroom in the morning. Besides I like the whole bed to myself. Pete and I weren't getting along. We separated for a while. We tried this to make it work and it has. He comes to breakfast. I see him as much as any wife sees her husband except at night." Source: Press-Telegram, December 19, 1969. Betty about learning that her marriage to Pete was over: "That's the thing that cracked me. I thought we were happy. But one night when I was getting ready for bed, I turned on Rona Barrett and she said Pete Candoli is engaged to Edie Adams. Then I took a whole bottle of pills and said the hell with it." Source: Chicago Daily Herald, September 15, 1980.

Works for me.

I wanna see her and the bari player gazing soulfully at each other. Or maybe one of them is gazing and the other has her eyes closed. Or... BTW, assuming these people can play at all, how sad it must be to be a young female student in a jazz program and know that you even though you can play rings around one of these Anna Nicole Coltrane's, you're not pretty enough.

"Paradise Lost," opening lines: Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth Rose out of Chaos....

Yes, but I also think it might have been along the lines of Betty Grable and Harry James.