Larry Kart

Don't know those two, though I've liked what I've heard of LeDonne. You might be amused by this YouTube clip (it's the first one): http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...p;search=Search which shows a very young LeDonne on "Perdido" with Panama Francis and the Savoy Sultans. Interesting tenor solo there from George Kelly, who definitely had his own thing.

Francis the Talking Mule Frankie Laine Buck Clayton

Man Mountain Dean Thomas Mann Magic Johnson

Little Lulu Louise Brooks Alban Berg

Lennie Dykstra Tallulah Bankhead Harrison Bankhead

Ward Cleaver Meckie Messer Lotte Lenya

Jim Belushi John Belushi Bob Woodward

Checking around, it seems like what I might have heard is a track from Sanborn's "Pearls," which is all or mostly standards (but "Laura"-less).

Again, my experience is limited and random, if only because I only listen to things that I decide upfront are going to be worth paying attention to (sometimes I'm disappointed, of course) or to things that just happen to be around and grab my attention. In the latter vein, I've heard in particular a fair amount of Sanborn over the years, just because that's almost unavoidable, and once on the radio there cropped up a Sanborn version of some standard I think -- maybe "Laura"? -- that seemed a quantum jump beyond what I was used to hearing from him, not at all in style but in the realm of conviction/intensity. I would hunt down and buy that track if I could -- not only to dig it but also to think about how and why it's different, if in fact it was.

I'm pretty much of an outsider when it comes to this particular aspect of this whole big topic, but I ask in all innocence about "If you really want/need to play instrumental popjazz..." -- "need" I think I get, but give me a recent notable example of "want" in this realm? And how do you yourself make that distinction between "need" and "want" here and/or assume that other music-makers are making it? Not sure what you mean by notable example, Larry. Gerald Albright? Someone who CAN play his guts out but doesn't. He's making a choice but I don't know what his motivations are. MG What I mean, I guess, is someone who in some respect CAN play -- as you say Albright can -- who gives us some instrumental popjazz (and I assume that would mean some instrumental popjazz that is in fact fairly popular) because, as Jim put it, he really wants/needs to. To my mind, this suggests that Jim (and perhaps others) might be making a distinction between really "need" and really "want" here? If so, I think I want to know more about that.

I'm pretty much of an outsider when it comes to this particular aspect of this whole big topic, but I ask in all innocence about "If you really want/need to play instrumental popjazz..." -- "need" I think I get, but give me a recent notable example of "want" in this realm? And how do you yourself make that distinction between "need" and "want" here and/or assume that other music-makers are making it?

A tasty drummer. Not too fond of his saxophonist brother, though.

Interesting point. When and if you feel like it, please amplify.

I did a longish phone interview with Ahmet when Atlantic came out with its excellent "The Erteguns' New York Cabaret Music" box in 1988, he and Nesuhi having been the producers/instigators for most of those recordings, which had been recorded 30 or more years before the box came out. He was delight to talk to; his enthusiasm for the music was vivid and deep, and while his classiness was quite evident, there was definite foxy strain to him as well.

For the Mahler 4th, I'll go with Horenstein and Klemperer. For Brahms, in a kind of Alpha-Omega parlay, Weingartner and Jochum.

Clem -- Either you have one hell of a record collection (even by the standards of the near life-long addict I am in that sphere), or you have one hell of a memory.

I've read the Tristano book in its original form as a PhD. thesis and also in galleys. It's very good, though a bit on the trees side in the forest/trees equation when it comes to talking about the music. On the other hand, the trees are dealt with welcome precision. Also, there's much interesting material from Tristano students about his teaching methods. The author worked under the great Larry Gushee at the U. of Illinois.

Perhaps because I associate it with a very pleasant young female clerk I met in a shoe store about four years ago at this time of year, I have positive feelings about "Jingle Bell Rock." To explain a bit, as she was totaling up my purchase that song was playing in the store, and she was semi-unconsciously bouncing her head a bit to it in a way that seemed to rhyme with her own genuine amiability and whatever else it was that allowed her to get through the day and the season with soul and body in one piece. Whatever -- it just hit me that way then, and it does every time I hear the song. As for "The Little Drummer Boy" and "Silver Bells," hand me my Uzi and plastique.

But then I don't get a vote.

Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album Up From The Skies — Music Of Jim McNeely The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra [Planet Arts Recordings] The above has my vote; I wrote the liner notes.

Sure could be Little, but at odd moments I was reminded of Ray Copeland.

I heard Tal live in the mid-1980s, and believe it or not he'd gone a fair bit beyond anything I'd ever heard from on record in terms of fluidity/rapidity/subtlety of thought and execution. It was like listening to Tatum -- it felt like the music was close to or beyond my ability to take it in in real time.

I was impressed by this album and also by live performances by Sexton with other players on visits he's made to Chicago: All About Jazz review: Fur Natural History | Skycap Records (2005) By Chris May In which genius guitarist Joe Morris picks up the acoustic bass, forms a trio with two unknown musicians half his age, records just under an hour of totally improvised music... and blows us away with beauty. Pretty much everything about Fur is a surprise. Morris himself, a guitarist born out of the splintered-note, rocket-speed intensity of Coltrane's late period, who took up the acoustic bass seriously only five years ago, stays much closer to the inside tradition here. There are no high velocity splatter gun runs—not a sustainable practicality on the instrument anyway, unless you're an Olympic athlete—but instead a measured delivery and a more leisurely exploration of sound and texture. Then there's the band, featuring two unknowns in their early twenties, of whom at least one—tenor saxophonist Joe Sexton—is surely destined for a big future. Sexton's influences—Rollins, Ware, Shepp, and Sanders—are unmistakable, but so too are the first steps in a personal direction. Staying mainly in the middle and lower registers, and heavy on multiphonics and guttural textures, his sound is soulful and spacious and lyrical, a beguiling of the senses rather than an assault on them. Sexton is on mic almost throughout the album, except for brief bass/drum duets and solos. Drummer Croix Galipault plays a less prominent role—he could actually do with a more forward position in the mix—except for short solos on “Flow Field” and ”Personality Motor.” The former is quietly remarkable: understated, not afraid to employ silence, and very melodic. Watch out for Galipault, too. Morris' presence is strong throughout the album, but it never excludes the other two players. He sets the tempo and structure of each improvisation—each of the five tracks has its own distinctive character (check out the astonishing arco-driven adventure of ”Things Of That Nature” or the almost balladic vibe of “Flow Field”)—and prefers to dialog with saxophone and/or drums, rather than take centre stage. The album is in fact as much Sexton's as it is Morris', and you feel Morris—at 55 a towering and hugely experienced master musician—is always concerned to help the young saxophonist shine. There's a heap of beauty in this trio's music right now, but also the promise of even greater things to come. You probably wouldn't press Morris' guitar trio masterpiece Age Of Everything (Riti, 2002) on someone who thinks jazz innovation stops with Blue Note, but you could present them Fur with the reasonable expectation that they might love it.

A Frenchman, born in 1903, who settled in the U.S. in 1926 and died in 1998, Ericourt was a fabled Debussy interpreter who recorded the complete piano works for the Kapp label in the 1960-62. I'd heard of these recordings but never heard them, then noticed that they were at Berkshire on Ivory Classics: Debussy, The Complete Solo Piano Music. (Daniel Ericourt) Add to cart | Price: $ 19.96 | 4 in set. | Country: AMERICA | D/A code: Analogue | Code: 73006 | BRO Code: 123558 | Label: IVORY CLASSICS So far, they are a revelation. Ericourt tends to be on the dry and clear side, so be forwarned if you like your Debussy cloudy and dreamy, but having said that I'd claim that Ericourt's approach is not a matter of taste (as in, how do you like your Debussy?) but of insight. Seldom have I had the feeling to this degree (Jascha Horenstein would be another case) that music that I thought I knew well was being understood so truly at the level of compositional intent, after which it's more or less a matter of chops, and Ericourt has them. In one sense, this is particularly evident at the level of drama/storytelling, and Debussy has that level -- witness his request to Marguerite Long, when she was working on Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the rain) with the composer: "More sun please! It is about children dancing around in the Luxembourg Gardens. The rain stopped. Now there is beautiful sunshine." For example, in Ericourt's reading of Dansueses de Delphe (Dancers of Delphi), from Preludes Book I, the dancers are simply (in fact, not so simply, in terms of execution) right there -- the sense of limbs being extended, feet planted, turns executed, etc. is palpable -- while in Youri Egerov's lovely, hazy, then imperious reading, it's all about graded shadings and textures at the keyboard; the approach is painterly, little or no sense of dance. Similarly, in the first of the Etudes, Pour les 'cinq doights (d'Apres Monsiuer Czerny), a key question is what is the composer's attitude toward the Czerny exercises that are being sent up here. Yes, they're being "sent up," but what happens dramatically in the piece, what are the impulses and reactions and their effects? Not that one needs to be literal, but Ericourt's plot goes something like this -- one's mind and fingers are irritated by the familiar, drudging dogmatic exercises; this translates explosively into rebellious anger, which then energizes/hurls the mind and fingers into triumphant/delirous fantasy. Again, I apologize for the literalness of this; but in Ericourt's hands, the realization of this story in sound clearly IS the germ of the piece (or so I'm convinced), especially when one hears readings, no matter how digitally adept, in which the interpreter's (actually, of course, the composer's) attitude toward the Czerny material is left unformed dramatically or never even comes up. The only drawback to this set is that it's dubbed from LPs -- the original tapes are not and probably never will be available -- but the bits of surface noise I hear are no problem for me. BTW, speaking of Horenstein, Berkshire now has this: Ravel, Piano Concerto {w.Monique Haas}; Bolero. Mahler, Kindertotenlieder {w.Marian Anderson}. Barber, Violin Concerto {w.Lola Bobesco}. Beethoven, Egmont Overture; Symphonies 1, 7, 8, 9 {w.Lorengar, Hoeffgen, Traxel & Wiener}. Roussel, The Spider's Feast. Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra. Sibelius, Symphony #2. Stravinsky, Firebird Suite; Symphony in 3 Movements. Debussy, La Mer. Strauss, Death and Transfiguration; Metamorphosen. Mozart, Don Giovanni Overture. Mendelssohn, Symphony #4. Brahms, Tragic Overture; Symphony #1. Janacek, Sinfonietta. Haydn, Symphony #100. Prokofiev, Symphony #5. (French National Radio Orchestra/ Horenstein. Broadcast performances, 1952-66) Add to cart | Price: $ 26.91 | 9 in set. | Country: AMERICA | D/A code: Mono | Code: CD 1146 | BRO Code: 131978 | Label: MUSIC AND ARTS I've just begun to listen, but what I've heard so far -- The Spider's Feast -- was remarkable.