Larry Kart

Wasn't this board almost shut down for lack of funds? This might be not only the perfect stamp of definition on our "little" online community, but also a great opportunity to fundraise for the board and its proprietors. Yes, it was almost shut down, in part for lack of funds, but it was our sharp, sudden awareness of that problem and our collective desire to not let the shut-down happen if possible that led to the successful fundraising -- a habit that I'm sure will continue with a nudge here and there. Clearly enough of us can afford it and are willing to weigh in. I think though that fundraising for the board and a conference are or should be two separate things. For one thing, if I know my conferences, just about every dime raised or charged to set up and run such an event will of necessity be spent then and there.

Allen -- You know that I'm your friend, and you did mention this idea to me before you brought it up here and I certainly didn't say "nay" back then, but I'm inclined to think now, having taken in and thought about the various things that are being said, that 1) the "conference" idea is not so hot, and 2) those of us who feel that way here are not really a crew of deep-rooted negative thinkers. First, let's take a look at the two most obvious things that IMO link us together -- a love of jazz and a fondness for talking about it (and responding to other people talking about it) in a relaxed, unrestrained manner and (one likes to think) knowledgable manner in this particular setting. Obviously, that's not all we want to do, nor is it all we have in common, but leaving aside the question of expenses for the moment, any sort of get-together that cuts across what we already have going for us and how we seem to like to behave is probably going to have problems. For instance -- and while I'm speaking only for myself on this point, I can imagine others having related qualms -- when we talked on the phone a few weeks back, you casually mentioned that I might speak on some subject to the assembled multitude, should a multitude assemble. But I hate to speak in public, nor do I particularly like to participate in panel discussions, though for me that would be the lesser of two evils. Why do I feel that way? Well, aside from the fact that I'm obviously batshit, I think it's because it's been my experience that the more people I'm talking to (and the more of those people I don't already know), the stupider I get and/or feel -- and the more uncomfortable too, which may account for the being/feeling more stupid part. By contrast, and just to point (or gesture) in a different direction and make it clear that I'm not merely or wholly a hermit, I remember the time a few years ago that Organissimo played Martyrs in Chicago, and I and several other board members came by to hear them. First, the band was excellent; second, we all got a chance to meet and mingle in a basically pleasant place in what seemed to me to be a quite natural, no-pressure manner (though perhaps Jim, Joe, and Randy felt more pressure that night than I did). It was -- to circle back to my original stance -- as though Organissimo the band (having taken on flesh for those of us who'd only heard the band on record) and Organissimo the board (i.e. the warm communal/casual feeling of the board at its best) had for a time become one thing. That was really fine, and it would be great if that could happen again for the band and for many more of us than were able to gather at that club on that night -- and I'm not forgetting the Reptet and other bands that are connected to the board. But ... well, do you get my drift here? A conference, in my experience, is a typically (perhaps even inherently) uptight social construction -- travel, reservations, schedules, name tags, etc. What I'm trying to say, and I could be way wrong here, is that the conference idea doesn't fit my sense of the us-ness of us. What would fit better instead, I think, is some reasonable extension/expansion of a gig that the band might normally have -- to add another connected or compatible band and also add the possibility of some fairly free-form social gathering/gatherings that were connected to that musical event. I dunno, that's for sure. But what I am sure of is that we have to begin with who we are, what we do here that feels good to us, and build outward from that, if that's possible. Hey, if we all lived within, say, a 100 miles of northern New Jersey, and Organissimo had a two-night gig there, I'm sure a lot of us would make it with little or no problem and probably stay over to shmooze. Or am I really the professional negative thinker that above I professed not to be?

Finally bought this one and am enjoying it a lot. Some of the most utterly relaxed, slyly inventive Garland I know, and Specs Wright's brushwork (backing and in solo exchanges) is so fine -- sounds like a great tap dancer. In Doug Ramsey's liner notes to the 1977 Garland double LP "Rediscovered Masters" (Prestige) -- which includes three fine studio tracks with Doug Watkins and Wright (Jimmy Rowser is in for Watkins on "At the Prelude" -- Garland says, "Specs had the most phenomenal hands of any drummer I've ever seen."

I have it, with Concerto No. 1, on LP with Konstantly Kulka and Jerzy Maksymiuk, still available on CD: http://www.amazon.com/Karol-Szymanowski-Co...5238&sr=1-6 These seem like excellent perfomances to me, but I also have a Concerto No. 1 on LP with Wanda Wilkormiska and Witold Rowicki that's absolutely hair-raising. That recording is from one of my luckiest ever used-record store finds -- a five-LP Polskie Nagranskie all-Szymanowski box, three-and-a-half discs of orchestral works, all conducted by Rowicki, one-and-a-half discs of songs and String Quartet No. 1. Is there a newer coupling of the concertos than the Kulka that anyone wants to endorse? I see there's a Naxos that's gotten good reviews, and the conductor there (Wit) has done some fine work. Don't know of the fiddler, though.

I too, thought Chaloff was Jewish, so maybe both our memories are playing tricks on us. Probably Russian, not Russian-Jewish. Also, Margaret is the name of a saint -- not that all Margarets were or are now named after the saint, but back then I believe that many Margarets were. In any case, not too many Jewish girls named Margaret, at least not of Margaret Chaloff's vintage. Also, now that I think of it, not too many Jewish boys named Serge either.

William Stenhammar's concerto (coupled with the Berwald and one by Tor Aulin -- all played very well by Tobias Ringborg): http://www.amazon.com/Swedish-Romantic-Vio...0303&sr=1-1 The Piston concertos (both this and the disc above are inexpensive, on Naxos): http://www.amazon.com/Piston-Violin-Concer...0357&sr=1-1 The Frank Martin concerto (on a mid-priced two-disc set with a lot of other interesting Martin): http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_m/103-99...p;x=16&y=15 Don't see an in-print recording of the Othmar Schoeck concerto, which is special IIRC. Schoeck wrote it for the same female fiddler Stefi Geyer for whom Bartok wrote his long-unpublished first concerto. Both Bartok and and Schoeck were in love with Geyer, who apparently was quite the thing, but Schoeck was really ga-ga over her, as he seems to have been over many women in his time. Schoeck's numerous songs are special too.

If you like the Walton, you’ll probably like the Alan Rawsthorne concertos: http://www.amazon.com/Rawsthorne-Concertos...5304&sr=1-1 I’d also recommend Dutilleux’s concerto, L'arbre des songes: http://www.amazon.com/Henri-Dutilleux-Orch...5589&sr=1-3 Both of these recordings are good and inexpensive. Your no Schoenberg, no Shostakovich influence inhibits me some, but there’s the Stravinsky concerto, the Samuel Barber (some would say that it might as well have been written in the 19th Century, but I disagree), the Nielsen, Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Concerto Funebre, and a lot of others that I’ll add as I think of them/look further. Also, and I hope EDC isn’t reading, I was more impressed by the John Adams concerto than I have been by any of his other works. Also, there's a remarkably ecstatic concerto by the late American composer Paul Cooper (b. 1926); it’s a CRI cutout at Berkshire: http://www.berkshirerecordoutlet.com/cgi-b...=AND&RPP=25

Could be, but would Getz's tenor book be anywhere as difficult to reconstitute as the bari book? Also, the story -- which certainly may be apocryphal -- fits Chaloff's personality much better than it does Getz's. (Stan certainly could be evil but not I think in that confrontational manner, at least not with a male figure of authority like Herman.) Finally, the story as told segues nicely into the familiar tale in which Woody pisses on the semi-zonked Serge's leg while both men are standing at a bar.

Haven't heard the others EDC recommends, but I have a three-LP Panocha set on Supraphon (earlier performances -- mid-1980s -- than are on the CD set, I believe), and it's some of the loveliest string quartet I've ever heard of anything. Especially striking IIRC is the sense of transparent "grain" in the textures/timbres; Dvorak string quartet performances that shove sleek vibrato down your throat are not desirable IMO.

From Steve Voce (poached from the Jazz West Coast list): Woody reportedly broke up the Second Herd when, fronting it on the bandstand one night, he turned around and found that half the horns had fallen asleep. Serge Chaloff used to sell drugs to the rest of the band from behind a blanket on the band bus. Eventually, because he was the source of the disruption, Woody fired Serge. But, since he was not a harsh man, Woody told Serge he could stay with the band until they reached Boston on their tour (this was Serge's home town). One night before that the band played at a place whose name I forget. It was something on the Charles, a local river. They played on a pier sticking out onto the river. At the intermission Serge asked Woody to come out on the balcony. 'Look down in the river.' Serge told Woody, 'and tell me what you see.' 'Nothing,' said Woody, 'except a lot of pieces of paper floating about.' 'That's the band's baritone book,' said Serge, who knew the book off by heart. 'Now you can't fire me.' He was right. Woody had to keep him another year before he could get rid of him. My story (by way of a white-haired fellow -- a friend of Joe Segal's -- who might have been dubbed the be-bop vampire): Pianist Eddie Higgins is a student at a college near Chicago (either Northwestern or Notre Dame, don't recall which); the Second Herd is playing the Panther Room at the Sherman Hotel. Higgins wants to do an interview with Serge for the school newspaper, reaches Serge on the phone and is told to come by Serge's room tomorrow at 3 p.m. Higgins arrives, knocks on the door, no answer. Knocks again, louder, finds that the door is slightly ajar and pushes it open, while at the same time he thinks he smells smoke. There on the floor he sees Serge sprawled flat, completely stoned, his back resting against a plush armchair. His right arm is flung limply behind him; his right hand holds a lighted cigarette that has burned a good-sized smoldering hole in the seat of the chair. "Mr. Chaloff," says Higgins, "the chair -- it's on fire!" Serge gazes over his shoulder, takes in the scene, turns back to Higgins and says, "I'm hip."

Yes, but from the cover photo it's clear that Manne has no clue. About Hawes and Mitchell, you can't be sure, though both are in (seemingly posed) positions that are potentially compatible with a decent swing if one did get to those places while actually swinging a club. Kessel is pretending to putt and looks awkward.

Huh? My CD copy presents The Fox as a Harold Land album. Sorry -- you're right. And I reviewed "The Fox" for Down Beat when it first came out; you'd think I would know better. On the other hand, Al Hirt on trumpet there certainly sounds unusual.

Sir Charles Thompson was an excellent golfer. I believe Ray Brown was too.

I've known some drummers who should have signaled for help with sticks. "Stranded in the snowy California woods for three days after losing their way while searching for a Christmas tree, a father and his three children fashioned a 'Help' sign out of twigs on a nearby unpaved road, according to the helicopter pilots who found them. "The four sought shelter from the snow in a culvert and removed their sodden socks in an effort to stay warm and dry while they waited for rescue, the pilots said.... "Frederick Dominguez and his children -- Christopher, 18; Lexi, 14; and Joshua, 12 -- were reported missing Monday night by Dominguez's former wife and the children's mother, Lisa Sams, according to police in Paradise, California, a town of 27,000 people about 90 miles north of Sacramento. "Police vehicles equipped with snow chains rumbled up mountain roads to help conduct the search, which also involved a snowmobile and dogs. More than 80 searchers scoured the woods Wednesday until the four were found about 1 p.m." Etc.

There were some players in Welk's band. Off the top of my head -- trombonist Bob Havens, trumpeters Dick Cathcart and Warren Luening, clarinetist Peanuts Hucko, bassist Buddy Clark. However, the Bobby Burgess who worked with Welk was a dancer, not the former Kenton trombone player. If it had been Kenton's Bob Burgess, I think we might have had the real-life template for Lenny Bruce's jazz-musician-meets-Welk routine ("We like animals in the band").

That was my guess, although some Internet searching suggests that the guy who posted that comment on You Tube is an utterly sincere fan, a big admirer of Patti Page and Joni James and thus unlikely to have meant what I was thinking he did. On the other hand, that flamingo thing! Also Ms. Nevins apparently was another of the female singers whom Welk unceremoniously dismissed, a la Alice Lon. The full story is not within my grasp as yet, but apparently Nevins missed (or "missed") a tour stop, and that was it.

I find her singing far more strange than her trombone imitation. Also this You Tube clip elicited a potentially ambiguous response from someone who seemed to be familiar with the band: "Natalie was always so eager. How she managed to remain so perfectly coiffed and groomed will forever be a mystery." Eager? Hmm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgTvKk8PV1g

Carmignola and friends playing the presto from "Summer" on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_vvecNmvCg Looks and sounds like they're having a good time.

Or you could add a MacIntosh computer to the setup and call it the APPLE KART. But the whole thing then might be a bit top-heavy and ... easily upset.

"Harold in the Land of Jazz" is a special record. And don't miss its first-cousin, Elmo Hope's "The Fox."

That was 1954, Kiner's next-to-last season. He'd been acquired by the Cubs in June 1953, in a 10-player trade, which led to Pirate GM Branch Rickey's immortal line (to Kiner, a hero in Pittsburgh): ""We finished last with you; we can finish last without you." Sauer hit 41 home runs for the Cubs in '54 (a lot in that era), Kiner (I think) about 22.

I remember the year the Cubs had Sauer in left and the also near-immobile Ralph Kiner (acquired from the Pirates) in right. The unfortunate centerfielder IIRC was Frankie Baumholtz, a decent ballplayer who probably shortened his career a good deal that year. Probably no centerfielder in the history of the majors had to try to cover more ground.

Bobo Stenson sounds like the name of a Cub -- maybe a slow-footed, strikeout-prone, power-hitting outfielder, like Hank Sauer.

Sounds like you've got quite a partner there; give her my best. And thanks for taking my word that my question was an honest one.