Larry Kart

Why the hell do we suddenly have a new actor playing Octavian? The first Octavian was perfect, and this guy is a stick. I'd have no problem with an Octavian who looked a bit young for what he's up to; in fact, that would be all for the better; it was part of the charm of the first Octavian's performance. Damn it!

There's a lot to like about "Focus," but at times Stan gets into that "moo-ing" bag he was prey to at that time, which (though it may be more my problem), drives me crazy. BTW, if you want to witness the often brilliant British critic Max Harrison go batshit in plain sight, check out his entry on "Focus" in "The Essential Jazz Records, Vol. 2." The entry itself is quite good, but at one point Max homes in on Martin Williams' old review of "Focus" (reprintd in Martin's "Jazz Heritage") in which MW refers to Eddie Sauter's string writing as "derivative of Bartok." Now MW's "derivative" is bit snarky; "inspired by" would be better, but an enraged Max proceeds to say "that there is no stylistic resemblance [between Sauter's writing and Bartok's] at all," which is nuts -- and Max then adds in a sneering footnote: "Bartok's influence here is like Milhaud's on Brubeck in that it can be herad by those who do not know the composer's work yet not by those who do." Only problem is that "I'm Late, "I'm Late" is clearly based on the second movement of Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste -- a fact that is corroborated in the liner notes to the CD reissue of "Focus" by Jacob Glick of the Beaux Arts String Quartet, who played on the "Focus" date. What was Max thinking here?

Oh -- you mean my girls. I'll say hello for you.

I don't know what Allen means there, but it sounds like fun.

Great Lone Hill album title -- "Tony Scott and the Three Dicks." That would be Katz, Garcia, and Hyman. Something else I owe to the Lone Hill family -- the four tracks with Harry Edison, Sonny Criss, Jimmy Rowles, John Simmons, and Buddy Rich that they've added to their pirating of the Verve "Buddy And Sweets" album (with the same lineup, plus Barney Kessel and minus Criss). The Edison-Criss date (I shamefully admit) is very good.

An '80s reissue of one of the earlier Parker novels has an intro by a writer who once was an imprisoned bank robber. He says that Parker novels were very popular in prison. Was it Albert Nussbaum? Do you remember which Parker book it was? Nussbaum also interviewd George Burns for us via the US Post Office. I'm virtually certain it was Nussbaum. Don't recall which Parker it was, but it was one of a series of '70s or '80s hardback reissues of the early set of Parkers, put out by a mystery/crime specialty imprint like Otto Penzler. All of them had intros by Westlake friends and admirers -- Lawrence Bloch, Brian Garfield, etc. BTW, the depressed ex-cop of the Westlake/ "Tucker Coe" books is Mitch Tobin.

An '80s reissue of one of the earlier Parker novels has an intro by a writer who once was an imprisoned bank robber. He says that Parker novels were very popular in prison.

My gut feeling is that Manning had problems with the rain but made a reasonable adjustment because he and the Colts had to, given the nature of their offense, but that the Bears' offensive brain trust, given the weather and the fact that they had the lead for a good while in the first half, decided to put the training wheels back on Grossman, which was a big mistake in at least two ways -- it robbed their offense, and Grossman in particular, of any semblance of variety and aggressiveness and left the Bears defense on the field to get worn down and figured out. And once the Bears de-balled their offense by pretty much taking away the possibility that they might pass, they could never get it or Grossman back in gear again. Of course, maybe this was a night when Rex was never going to get in gear no matter what and/or the Colts were just the better team, but even so, I think that Ron Turner coughed up a hairball. On the other hand, offensive co-ordinator is a very difficult stressful occupation. Another little thing that bugged the hell out of me --that play in the first half, after the Colt's first squib kickoff, when the Bears put Hester for the next kickoff at about the 30-yard-line and had Rashid Davis deep. Way too cute and nervous, and it sure didn't work. That felt to me like a significant momentum-changer.

Will Blades is the son of an old friend of mine, John Blades, for many years a top-notch features writer for the Chicago Tribune (now happily retired) and author of a very strange and funny novel, "Small Game."

IIRC in one of Westlake's Richard Stark novels -- I think it was "The Score," where Parker and colleagues try to knock over an entire town in Wyoming -- a member of the criminal crew is a jazz fan who says a few things about the music early on that subtly and accurately place him. Again IIRC, he's a guy who's too edgy and talks too much, and his unnecessary interjection of whose music he likes to listen to is a sign of this flaw, if only because we know that no one else in the crew gives a damn about this. It's not that he's a snob; rather (to over-interpret a bit), he's a middle-aged guy whose favorite music is no longer in favor as much as it used to be, and this dovetails neatly with his own sense that life has unfairly passed him by, which leaves him perpetually pissed him off and thus potentially unstable. Yeah, I think he was talking about a JATP recording from the late '40s in a novel that takes place in the mid '60s.

Definitely poetic, at its best, but there's also a repetitiveness in that realm with RM that can make things a bit unreal at times if you think about it too much. You want to say to Lew Archer, "Don't you remember the shape of your last three cases? Everything goes back to Windsor, Ontario, or to what someone did in the Navy in WWII, or both." Also, I get the feeling that Kenneth Millar (i.e. RM) spent a fair amount of time on the couch; some of his themes, potent though they are, feel like they've been transferred too neatly from the analyst's office to the page. On the other hand, RM at his best is superb. I'm especially fond of "The Zebra-Striped Hearse" (the revelation of the key clue/piece of evidence in that one is a real "whoosh") and others of that era.

I don't deny Westlake's expertise when he writes under his own name; I just don't care for clever/wry, and in some cases outright comic, crime fiction. In the same way, I like Lawrence Bloch's Matt Scudder novels but don't have a taste for Bloch's clever/wry books about burglar Bernie Rhodenbahr. BTW, Westlake under another of his pseudonyms (abandoned since the mid-1970s) Tucker Coe, wrote very well in yet a third way about a deeply depressed (with good reason) ex-cop, Mitch ... somebody. Mitch was almost as tough as Parker (and/or he lived in a world that was almost as tough as Parker's), but the Coe novels are largely free from on-the-page violence, and Mitch tends to think things out in a near-Nero Wolfe manner. Haven't read all the Tucker Coes -- I believe there are five of them -- but I assume that at the end of the final one, Mitch more or less rejoins the human race, thus resolving the theme or preoccupation that led Westlake to create him. Also BTW, one strange thing about the Richard Stark-Parker novels is that Westlake wrote a whole bunch of them from the early '60s to I think the early '70s, and then stopped, only to return to Stark-Parker in the late '90s. About a 20-year gap. And the late Stark-Parkers are very good -- the later Parker being a logical continuation (in character and life circumstances) of the man of the early Stark-Parker books, though if you went back and tried to figure out how old Parker would have to be by now (he's said to have been a young WWII vet in one of the early books), the present-day Parker wouldn't make sense age-wise. Also, in the later Parkers especially, Westlake sets himself some plot puzzles that are quite bizarre if you step back from them a bit, though they feel perfectly natural and necessary in the reading and are resolved in the same manner. You could say that the "poetry" of the Stark-Parker novels is in the plotting -- i.e. the rhythms of what happens next -- which is a really unusual thing in modern fiction of any sort, at least in my experience. About those plot rhythms -- Westlake/Stark makes an interesting contrast with Michael Connelly, who is also a "'poetry' is in the plot" writer. In a Connelly/Harry Bosch novel, typically you feel about 60 or 80 pages from the end that the plot is just about wound up, but it certainly is not -- and that is where and how a lot of the poetic "whoosh" hits you (by "poetic" I mean that there's a sense here that a lyrical vision or image of the world is being conveyed to us by this plot shape, one that is beyond our ability, and that of the characters', to grasp rationally). In a Stark/Parker novel, typically you feel about 6 or 8 pages (!) from the end that the plot can't possibly be that close to being wound up, but it is. And that where and how a lot of the poetic "whoosh" hits you etc.

At least two of Westlake's screenplay credits are pretty impressive: The Grifters (1990) The Stepfather (1987) (screenplay) (story) And several notable movies (with screenplays by others) are based on books that Westlake wrote under his own name or under one of his several pseudonyms, Richard Stark: The Outfit (1973) (as Richard Stark) The Hot Rock (1972) Point Blank (1967) (novel The Hunter) (as Richard Stark) Made in U.S.A. (1966) (novel The Jugger) (as Richard Stark) That's right, the Godard "Made in U.S.A." BTW, the Stark novels, all about a career criminal named Parker, may be the best hardboiled crime fiction there is. To relieve possible bewilderment, in Godard's "Made In U.S.A.," the Parker character is played by Anna Karina. Robert Duvall in "The Outfit" is a bit more like what one imagines Parker to be. Lee Marvin is great in "Point Blank," but he's angry to the point of being nuts as he seeks revenge, which makes for a great movie but is not true to Westlake-Stark's book. Parker seldom if ever gets angry, and when he does, he knows he's made a mistake; in one sense, he just a problem solver.

At least two of Westlake's screenplay credits are pretty impressive: The Grifters (1990) The Stepfather (1987) (screenplay) (story) And several notable movies (with screenplays by others) are based on books that Westlake wrote under his own name or under one of his several pseudonyms, Richard Stark: The Outfit (1973) (as Richard Stark) The Hot Rock (1972) Point Blank (1967) (novel The Hunter) (as Richard Stark) Made in U.S.A. (1966) (novel The Jugger) (as Richard Stark) That's right, the Godard "Made in U.S.A." BTW, the Stark novels, all about a career criminal named Parker, may be the best hardboiled crime fiction there is.

Check out Dan's "Lester Leaps In" piece, p. 491. There's some deep writing and deep feeling there.

That Miff Mole solo is something else.

Ouch.

Clem -- You confused me 'cause you said p. 236, and that Balliett remark is on p. 237.

Clem -- If you mean Dan's disparagement of the avant-garde in 1964, when the piece was written, I say no big deal and/or what else do you expect from him at that time. On the other hand, I find Evan's remarks on that page about "freedom" re: his duet with Paul Bley on George Russell's "Jazz in the Spaceways" album to be .. not arrogant but very revealing, and not in a good way. Here's something I wrote about that passage from Dan's interview with Evans in my book: Quite articulate about his music, in a 1964 interview Evans said this: “The only way I can work is to have some kind of restraint involved, the challenge of a certain craft or form and then to find the freedom in that…. I think a lot of guys…want to circumvent that kind of labor….” Then there is this Evans statement: “I believe that all music is romantic, but if it gets schmaltzy, romanticism is disturbing. On the other hand, romanticism handled with discipline is the most beautiful kind of beauty.” Plausible words, perhaps, but the value that Evans seemingly places on restraint in itself leads one to ask, What is being restrained and why? Evans’s “challenge of [working within] a certain craft or form” is not merely an account of his own necessary practice; it lends to that practice an aura of moral virtue (“I think a lot of guys …want to circumvent that kind of labor….”). In other words, for Evans certain sorts of musical labor are not only valid but they also validate. And should an aesthetically valid outcome be reached in a seemingly non-laborious manner, that can be disturbing. Thus in 1964 , after acknowledging that the brilliant, lucid, and “completely unpremeditated” two-piano improvisation that he and Paul Bley played on George Russell’s 1960 album Jazz In The Space Age “was fun to do,” Evans says: “[but to] do something that hadn’t been rehearsed successfully, just like that, almost shows the lack of challenge involved in that kind of freedom.” That last sentence from Evans seems really weird to me, for reasons that I try to explain in the paragraph above that one.

It's true.

Rosco -- This doesn't definitively answer your question about "Nardis" but may flesh out the context a bit: In Peter Pettinger's Bill Evans bio "How My Heart Sings," Pettinger writes (p. 58) of the Riverside album "Portrait of Cannonball, "...the session was important for the first performance of 'Nardis,' specially written for Adderley and this session by Miles Davis."

The answer to the original question is Richard Carpenter, of course.

I'm late to this party, but doesn't this come down to, Who will be making the decisions at Mosaic from now on or down the road, and what will those decisions be? If the advent of Mosaic Contemporary means that the Mosaic we know can spruce up its bottom line and thus be better able financially to keep putting out the kind of sets it has, fine with me. As Jim said, the presence of an Earl Klugh compilation doesn't bother the Chu Berry purchaser in me. But what if Matt Pierson, or the force or forces behind Pierson (if such there be), wrest control from Cuscuna and Scott Wenzel, and we get fewer, or no, Chu Berry-type sets anymore -- if only because Mosaic no longer would be run by people with the knowledge and the imagination to know what can and needs to be done in those realms. Then we got a problem. I guess I want to know what the inside story is here, if indeed there is one.

Info from Stats Inc. (a Chicago-based but non-partisan outfit that does statistical analysis for a lot of sports franchises) that suggests a Bears' victory may be in the cards: http://actasports.com/sows.php

All this stuff about how much higher Manning's QB rating is than Grossman's -- neither man is playing against the other; Manning is facing the Bear's defense, Grossman the Colts' defense. I'm not saying that Rex and friends will prevail against the latter more often than Peyton and pals will against the former, but it's far from impossible. In the same vein, and perhaps at least as important -- these teams haven't faced each other but once in recent years, and that was when Urlacher was injured and the makeup of the Bears' line on both sides of the ball was rather different. What happens when those those offensive and defensive lines butt heads is something you can't know beforehand, especially when there's so little track record. And the outcome of those contests will likely determine who wins.