Larry Kart

About jellybeans and the like, we should ask Von Freeman, who as I recall dotes on hard candy.

Just to be specific about the relationship between Coltrane's struggle to stop using narcotics and the advent of his new style/new level of mastery (you can put the first "new" in quotes if you feel that the newish ideas were mostly there beforehand but the ability to execute them was, for the most part, not), Lewis Porter's Coltrane bio quotes Jackie McLean, who was working with Art Blakey at the Cafe Bohemia in April 1957, opposite Miles, that Trane "stopped using drugs at the beginning of that job ... but he came to work every night being sick. Of course he was drinking quite a bit and trying to fight it [withdrawal symptoms] off. [Eventually] he was feeling better and from that moment on, he played really awesome." I would say that if you listen to the seven recording dates (five for Prestige, one each for Blue Note and Riverside) that Trane did from March 22, 1957 to May 31, 1957 (the "Straight Street" album, first one under his name), it's clear that on the first of these, "Interplay," he's not the same man, idea-wise, who recorded with Dameron on Nov. 30, 1956 (his last previous date before the "Interplay" session) and that the firming up of ideas and execution ascends fairly steeply to the May 31, 1957 date. I would say that the Trane of the latter part of '57 can be heard close to fully formed on the date just before that, "Cattin' with Coltrane and Quinichette" (May 17, 1957). How Trane sounds on the other date recorded that day -- with Idrees Sulieman and Sahib Shihab -- I can't say for sure; I used to have that one but don't seem to anymore.

Two things about '57-61 Trane in the context (musical and social-commercial) of those times as I recall them 1) He was the first widely known/highly respected player whose music virtually proclaimed (in the nature and emotional tone of his specific peak performances and in its rapid and often surprising evolution) that some sort of major upheaval was in the works -- this being evident at least from the time of "Blue Train." 2) He more or less laid the ground work, in that regard, for the already evolving/existing music of Cecil and Ornette to be accepted, to the degree that it eventually would be. Note, for instance, the way Trane's presence was used by the producer of Cecil's "Love for Sale" album (Tom Wilson?) in attempt to place Cecil inside the circle of the extreme but legitimate/acceptable. All I'm saying is that if Trane's music hadn't been telling us that underneath the soil of Hard Bop etc. there were deep pools of superheated magma at work, those like Cecil, Ornette, and Ayler who had different but related things to tell us might have had an even harder time being heard. In fact, it's not hard for me to imagine that in a Traneless-after-1956 world, the music of Ornette and Ayler might never have been heard outside of L.A. and Cleveland. It's not like either of those guys had a self-generated publicity machine inside them, and I think the history of how they emerged into the national limelight (in Ornette's case via Lester Koenig, the Lenox School of Jazz-John Lewis-Martin Williams-Nesuhi Ertegun et al.) suggests that those key early steps on the road to exposure took place in a world that was conditioned to some significant degree by Trane's music to think that, again, upheaval was on the come.

That no Trane after '56 "What if?" question is one of the few of that sort that really leaves me scratching my head. At this point, I'd say that things would have been VERY different if that had been so -- and I'm old enough to have been listening to '55-'56 Trane at the time and in the context of what else was and was not going on then. Further thoughts in a few hours. About McCoy, I think he did go on for a good while after '67 to do strong important stuff, but eventually IMO the vein got played out.

On the Tyondai Braxton link above, there's an MP3 file that can be listened to. Didn't get through all of it, but on first encounter it sounds like some seriously hairy stuff. Good for him.

Have two nagilas, have three or four.

Braxton's son is Tyondai Braxton, known to his friends as Ty. Google him under Tyondai Braxton and there are lots of hits. Here's one article about him: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feat...Tyondai_Braxton And here's a picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kittenclaw/54.../in/set-394835/

The same goes for Anthony Braxton's son. I haven't heard Braxton's son's music myself, but my son -- a member of the Chicago-based rock band Crush Kill Destroy http://www.crushkilldestroy.net/rock/ckd/ -- has and says that his stuff is excellent.

I know that "After Hours" isn't a blues-ballad in form, but its hook is very blues-ballad in feel, no? -- noodling boogie figures devolving into a song-like sense of release.

Erskine Hawkins, perhaps? There's "After Hours," after all.

Way back when it first came out in 1957, Mingus' "East Coasting." I'm not sure of the actual release dates of the material that Mingus recorded around that time for Atlantic ("Pithecanthropus Erectus," "The Clown") and RCA ("Tijuana Moods"), but I'm pretty sure that all (or almost all) the Mingus I'd heard by that point was the more "progressive" material he'd previously recorded for Debut and Period. The writing on "East Coasting" and the playing by Clarence Shaw, Jimmy Knepper, Shafi Hadi, and (yes) Bill Evans was a revelation, and it still hits me the way it did the first time.

The factual background to Non Skeddo": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Gilbert_Graham

Michael: It was on Lennie's first full album, "The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce" (Fantasy), rec. 1958. The title of the bit is "Non Skeddo Flies Again" -- that's "Non Skeddo" as in "Non Skeddo Airlines." It can be found on at least one Bruce CD compiliation and probably can be listened to somewhere on the 'Net as well. As I recall, you can hear in places on "Non Skeddo" the mixture of shock/delight/relief/release that Lennie could inspire in an actual audience and that is such a crucial aspect of who he was and was up to IMO. Having once been in a member of one his audiences when he was in his prime, I can tell you that the feeling was unique -- and I've seen and written about a lot of comedians over the years.

what do you mean? I mean that her playing, while aware of those aspects of the jazz past that strike her as attractive, is rooted in the musical present as she sees it and also seems to me to have a basic newness to it language-wise. In particular, she's never struck me as one of those players who makes a gesture in the direction of "the tradition" as though that ought to earn her some extra credit.

Really? I thought it was pretty feeble compared to the version of the routine on the original recording -- in part because there he was performing in front of a responsive audience, in part because it was still fairly fresh to him. Here he seems tired of the material and also perhaps distracted by the whole idea of how to present himself on TV in a way that would get the thing aired. As I recall, he was much more at ease on his "Playboy Show" TV appearance with Hefner, where he could play off being the potentially disruptive guest.

Frankie -- Based on what I've heard, I don't think of Roberts as a big "harkener back."

Thanks, Randy -- I thought you might be able to find it. Some of the writing seems a bit moist to me now, but Willie sure was in great form that night.

Leaving it at Mitchell for the moment, I'd say that both "Solo 3" (Mutable) and "The Bad Guys" (Around Jazz) -- with Smith as a sideman -- are top notch, and "Song For My Sister" (PI) isn't far behind. I've also heard Mitchell live on more than a few occasions since 2000 and have always been impressed, to say the least.

Roberts' tone, as I recall it from live performance, was exactly as you describe it, Red, and that's what wasn't captured on the two recordings I've heard. I think I tried to to buy a copy of the Utech record but wasn't able to, for reasons I no longer recall. Roberts has a blog: http://blog.myspace.com/matanaroberts

I heard Roberts several times about 12 years or more years ago (when I believe she was a student at DePaul U.) at a regular Hyde Park area Sunday night jam session hosted by an old friend of mine, drummer Doug Mitchell, at Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap. Roberts already was very impressive in a more or less Steve Coleman bag, and it seemed likely she would become a special player. Caught her several times in recent years on visits she's made to Chicago with her trio Sticks and Stones (drummer Chad Taylor and bassist Josh Abrams), and she was in very good to superb form each time -- definitely a major young player IMO and more interesting than a whole lot of players of any age. On the other hand, the two albums of hers that I'm aware of (one on 482 Music, the other on Thrill Jockey) don't come close to capturing what I heard from Roberts "live," again IMO -- in part because of less than ideal sound, in part perhaps because making a record that captures what one can really do is often not easy.

One nice Collette ballad/mood piece -- "Crystal" -- plus his charts on "Sophisticated Lady" and Hancock's "Theme From 'Harlem Nights," the first and the last of these featuring Collette on tenor. Also, there's his fine setting of "Satin Doll," which reminds those (like me) who can't take that tune that it depends on what you do with it. Again, while Collette is his own man, as a composer-arranger his grasp of the Ellington and Strayhorn universes is special. About the Lab Band Mafia thing, perhaps I should have been more explicit above, but this is largely an African-American band with a few exceptions -- alto man Ray Reed, tenor man Steve Carr, trumpeters Ron King and John Swan, and guitarist Al Viola -- and you can tell the difference. There's a warmth to the timbres that no neo-Kenton crew would go for, while the execution is top-drawer. Speaking of the Lab Band Mafia again, though I can't imagine any conceivable Lab Band could play this stuff, I also picked up on a whim the Fresh Sound/Jazz City 2-CD collection of Pete Rugolo's Mercury material from 1956. Some of it is a bit silly, but overall the elan of the playing and writing is quite striking -- gorgeous Don Fagerquist, and there's a feature for Frank Rosolino, "Don't Play the Melody," that may be the most delerious thing he ever played. In fact, delerium is often the word that comes to mind here, and Rugolo courts it with eyes wide open.

Picked this up on a whim at a Borders during their recent three for two jazz sale and am very pleased/intrigued. Rec. 1990 but issued in 2006, this features one hell of a distinctive sounding (warm-toned, almost Ellington-esque reed section), beautifully rehearsed, 20-piece, L.A.-based band (Bobby Bryant, Red Callender on tuba, a fine trombone section -- Thurman Green, Garnett Brown, George Bohanan -- Al Viola on guitar, et al). playing 78 minutes of mostly Collette compositions, plus Ellington material and H. Hancock's "Theme from 'Harlem Nights.'" The band itself is special, as is Collette's subtle, Strayhorn-ish writing, and his tenor playing is a bit different than what I recall from Chico Hamilton days -- kind of half-way between Lucky Thompson and Benny Golson, but he's his own man. His flute work of course is excellent, and he also takes a nice clarinet solo. Only possible drawbacks are a Betty Roche-ish vocalist, Cheryl Conley, on two tracks (she's fine, but some people don't like Roche-ish vocals), and the fact that the sound IMO calls for a substantial bass cut and treble boost. I need to go back and find some more latter-day Collette. The label for this one is UFO Bass: www.ufo--bass.com the man behind the scenes apparently being bassist Richard Simon.

Here's a report to a friend on an August 2006 Herculaneum performance. I've heard them since and feel better disposed toward McDonnell and liked everyone else even more, Ryan especially: As for Herculaneum, I'm not a fan of one of the horn soloists, Dave McDonnell (whose one of those "How hot can I get how quickly" altoists, though he was a bit less that way than last time), but I do like Broste and what little I've heard of Newberry, who combines a formidable technique wwith what seems to me to be a thoughftul, relaxed, unflashy temperament. I need to hear more to be sure, but he may be special. The main interest, though, is Dylan Ryan, in his mid 20s I'd say, who is a fair bit different than any other drummer I know, with the possible exception of New York-based Dan Weiss. Ryan has two tom-toms, one of them rather small and high-pitched, and typically he spends a lot of time on it, on its rim (especially), and on cymbal crowns, creating a continuous, multi-pitched, timbale-like chatter. This sounds like it might be annoying and intrusive, but in fact Ryan is very much a listener and/or, in this more or less comping role, the virtual leader of the band -- a la Horace Silver from the keyboard. My only doubt -- and this may be lack of understanding of what he's up to, having only heard him twice -- is that Ryan can seem a bit sloppy, not in terms of time but of cleanness/crispness of stroke (though in his style, how much cleanness/crispness would be right?) I see from the group's new CD "Orange Blossom" (482 Music), which I bought last night but haven't listened to yet, that all the band's pieces are by Ryan, so I guess he is the leader. P.S. Yes, Ryan is the de facto leader. I like "Orange Blossom," but the onstand impact of Ryan's drumming is not really captured there.

Moving, very candid reminiscence from Brecker's friend since their Indiana U. days, trumpeter Randy Sandke: http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/

Caught Como live in the late '70s or early '60s at the Mill Run Theater in Niles, Il. He had very good time.