Larry Kart

Again, sorry if this has been posted before, but here's a very in-form Lester Young from 1950 with Bill Harris, Ray Brown, Buddy Rich, and a pianist who looks very familiar but whose name escapes me. The young Hank Jones? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhql0clzqEM

Sorry if I'm duplicating, but check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBNzbQIA5HA Buck Clayton, Vic Dickenson, Paul Quinichette, Billy Taylor, and Mundell Lowe playing the living snot out of "Billie's Bounce" from maybe 1956. Anyone know who the drummer and bassist are? I love the way the horns play the head.

If we're lucky, Chuck eventually will be able to reissue the four-alto, 17-plus-minutes version of Roscoe Mitchell's "Nonaah" -- rec. 1/22/77 with Roscoe, Joseph Jarman, Henry Threadgill, and Wallace McMillan and originally issued on a 2-LP Nessa set of the same name, along with an explosive solo concert version of "Nonaah" and other pieces with Mitchell solo and joined by others (Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis, Malachi Favors). The quartet "Nonaah" is a masterwork.

It isn't Beethoven, but in line with "the piano! piano! piano!" I'd suggest checking out this treat from Berkshire: Albeniz, Iberia; Espana; Recuerdos de viaje; Piano Sonata #5; Suite Espanola; Pavana-Capricho; Tango in a; Torre Bermeja; La Vega. (Esteban Sanchez, piano. Total time: 219'27') Add to cart | Price: $ 8.97 | 3 in set. | Country: DUTCH | D/A code: Analogue | Code: CD 92398 | BRO Code: 126059 | Label: BRILLIANT CLASSICS The price is right, and Sanchez is magically "colorful, intense, and poetic." Worth getting even if you have De Larrocha. No hillbilly yelps, though.

Having finally taken a look at the tape (didn't have the stomach for it before), I can see where Richards in the heat of the moment might have thought he was channeling one aspect of Lenny Bruce -- but not even close, not even close. Again, in addition to the evidence that Richards has a history of being much too tightly wound for his own good, his insistence that this was in any way a justified retaliation for being "interrupted" while doing his act is nonsense. There are three ways, at least, for a comedian to deal with such situations, which arise fairly often 1) You deliver one of many time-tested and in some cases fairly amusing put-downs and win the crowd over to your side 2) If things are really getting out of hand, you signal management to handle/defuse the situation and then resume where you left off 3) You construct some sort of semi-spontaneous bit that takes what's going on and explores it's "reality" in a way that's at once truthful, disturbing, and (you hope eventually) amusing -- this being the Lenny Bruce option. Seems like Richards thought he was going in that last direction, perhaps thinking of Bruce's old "How to relax your colored friends at parties" bit (which ain't that good anyhow, not by Bruce's standards), but first, he's no Lenny, and second, he seems to have been so primally enraged that his sheer hostility is what came through.

Youtube "Andy Kaufman Fidays" search... And it appears they had him back on the show another time!! (???!!!) Yes, for a deliberately (on Andy's part, for sure) queasy "apology" in which IIRC he gave the impression (again deliberately) that he was on the brink of tears, even an actual nervous breakdown. Without doubt the "Fridays" staff was essentially on board with all this too; after all, by this time who in those circles didn't know what kind of performer Andy was, although they might not have known (any more than Andy himself?) just how far he was willing and able to push things. I interviewed him at some length several times back then and wrote two good-sized pieces about him for the Chicago Tribune. I particularly like the second one, in which I compared Andy to Kafka's "The Hunger Artist" -- a damn close fit in my view, as long as you leave room for Howdy Doody to invade Kafka's landscape.

FWIW, in today's Chicago Sun-Times: "Comedian George Lopez told television station KTLA that he thought Richards' lack of stand-up experience may have been a factor. "The question is you have an actor who is trying to be a comedian who doesn't know what to do when an audience is disruptive," he said." Also in the Sun-Times, though I don't have the paper in front of me and that part of the story is not on-line as far as I can tell, Tom Dreesen, who was present at Richards' performance, said it was the worst such melt-down he's ever seen and attributed it in part to Richards' lack of standup experience and his resulting inability to deal with hecklers.

OK -- guess that why AFAIK means "as far as I know." Sorry if my speculations misled anyone. BTW, IIRC the Kaufman "fight" episode on "Fridays" (or "Friday") was between Andy and the show's director, former comic Jack Burns (of Burns and Schreiber). The deal was that only those two, plus perhaps a camera man or two, were in on what Andy was going to do -- break character, say that he couldn't keep spouting this lame schtick any more, and then stalk off the set, where he would be confronted by Burns, and a very realistic mock struggle would ensue. None of the cast members in the sketch was informed of what was up, and their consternation was something to see. Again IIRC Melanie Chartoff looked like she might faint.

Perhaps the gist of this -- at least in terms of how and why it happened -- is that AFAIK Michael Richards is not really a standup comic but a sketch comic and thus probably has little or no experience of how to deal with hecklers. That plus the knowledge that his career was already on a steep downslope would do it. Of course, that doesn't explain why he went where he did when he lost it, but that's probably because he's both an ---hole and bat----. In any case, dealing with hecklers -- how to control your own emotions and how to dish out reasonably effective comebacks -- is the FIRST thing any standup learns how to do.

A veteran jazz critic who shall be nameless told me that each time he's gone for a colonoscopy he's checked in at the front desk of the gastro unit with the words, "I'm here to get high."

Reminds me some of Tom Brady. A good deal of potential, I'd say, and obviously lots of poise already. Hard to see why he wasn't drafted.

To correct my own misinformation -- Sonny Cohn's lovely feature on that Basie Jazz Icons CD is "Stella By Starlight." The soloist on "You Are Too Beautiful" is tenorman Eric Dixon.

DB reviewers, at any point in that mag's life span, were a very mixed bag -- some trustworthy and at best quite insightful, others close to or utterly worthless. Do you know the name of the reviewer in this case (or perhaps this was when they went by initials only, e.g. D.C. for Dom Cerulli, M.W. for Martin Williams)? As a faithful reader of DB in that era, I could give you a pocket estimate of that reviewer's competence and prejudices.

Yes, but at that time wasn't it a good deal rarer to find those "saxophonistic ways of altering pitch & timbre through fingerings" being done on alto than on tenor? Also, I definitely feel that while sometimes Jenkins begins to side-slip in the soon to be more familiar, and more explicit/codified, manner of Strozier and Henderson, for the most part he leaves such impulses at the level of directional gestures (via shifts in pitch and timbre) "within the note." As for "instinct" vs. "planned out," one of the reasons I think of Jenkins as an instinctual player was that he seems so raw, perhaps tempermentally so. That is, I get the feeling that often he wasn't quite on top of the stuff he wanted to be on top of but instead was half-stumbling through it, though in doing so he ended up in some interesting places. That's one of the reasons "Alto Madness" intrigues me -- by contrast, Jackie sounds much more polished/finished than Jenkins does, and who would ever think of circa 1957 Jackie in those terms? On the other hand, as I said here and somewhere above, Jenkins' rawness/awkwardness/whatever at times leads him to places that in effect find Jackie saying, "Damn! I'll have that too."

I mean that the impulse to side-slip is taking the form of sharpening or flattening the note at hand (and/or altering its timbre) such that the desire to move to an alternate harmonic plane is implied rather than (or more than) -- as I think it is with Henderson and those he influenced so heavily -- actually moving to a note that is from that alternate harmonic plane. (Or do I not know what I'm talking about here?) As for "from the gut," I mean that Jenkins strikes me as a fairly raw, instinctive player (a la Ernie Henry, perhaps, or C. Sharpe?), while I think of Henderson as an unusually "heady" one -- someone with a method who worked out a lot of stuff beforehand. Nothing wrong with that, other things being equal, but fairly often they're not.

"Poetry finalists are Louise Glück for Averno, H.L. Hix for Chromatic, Ben Lerner for Angle of Yaw, Nathaniel Mackey for Splay Anthem and James McMichael for Capacity." Don't know Hix, Lerner, and Mackey, so I'd guess they'd be the unusual, refreshing ones? Gluck gives me a pain; McMichael I admire/respect a lot. I have a copy of "Capacity" but haven't yet been able to/been in the mood to really get it, if I ever will. I know what you mean about Jenkins' "shrinky-dink messing" around with his intonation/embouchre. That's one of the things I was thinking of by "odd knots and whorls." It's like maybe he has in mind the kind of side-slipping that Joe Henderson would get into several years further on, but Jenkins is moving toward that more from inside the note (and, I would guess, from the gut), which makes a big difference. Sad what Gitler's 1981 postscript suggests: "Jenkins has completely disappeared from view. When I'd run into him in the Sixties he'd sometimes be working as a messenger.... He was a shy person, with eyes that spoke more than his tongue." Ira was/is a soulful guy.

Late -- The Prestige 1981 LP reissue I have is in mono and has the whole date, so I'm cool. Also, Jenkins' line "Pondering" is a nice example of how, as you say, things seem "crafted" here at times beyond what was the norm on a Prestige blowing date. Jim -- Fine way to put it. In that vein, perhaps, every time I hear Jackie cutting his own path through that dark lovely dangerous forest, it kind of chokes me up. On the one hand, it was a tremendously urgent task (for him, his musical colleagues, and for us and for the world as a whole, if the world as a whole knew or cared); on the other hand, who outside those initial smallish circles knew or cared? Strange how this is analogous in a way and up to a point to someone like Willem De Kooning, who wrestled and labored for decades without anyone but himself and a few colleagues and (if you wish) a few "fans" being the wiser, and then it somehow explodes into a marketplace, where the work is now worth what about what it costs to build a nuclear weapon.

Am working my way through a recently purchased (used) copy of the 1981 LP reissue of this material (sadly, it's the only version I know of that includes the 10:30 version of "Bird Feathers" that originally appeared on a separate New Jazz anthology album of that name -- the OJC CD of "Alto Madness" lacks that track). In any case, this was a somewhat rough but very intense day (May 3, 1957) in the studio. Jackie is in top form for that time, in part I think because Jenkins has some Jackie in his own playing, filtered though his own sensibility, and when Jenkins comes up with something that Jackie might have thought of but didn't, Jackie finds this challenging/stimulating. It's not exactly a cutting contest -- in part because that's not quite the way these guys were wired, in part because Jackie is just a stronger, more together player than Jenkins -- but it is pretty intense. Nice rhythm section too -- Wade Legge, Doug Watkins, Art Taylor (who on this day was as plugged in to Jackie as he ever was on record IIRC). Jenkins, as Ira Gitler says in his nice notes, is more fluid and overtly Bird-like (sometimes quite formulaically so) than Jackie, but he has (perhaps half stumbles into) some odd/interesting knots and whorls that are different from what other stylistically related players were coming up with at the time (maybe some hints of Frank Strozier, who Jenkins must have run across back in Chicago). Also, it seems as though Jenkins' relative melodic flightiness on some of the longer tracks inspires some of the most structurally iron-clad playing from Jackie that I'm aware of before, say, "New Soil." The title track is quite an odyssey -- 38 blues choruses of alternating solo work (including eight chorus of "fours" and two of "twos") from two guys who are not always easy to distinguish unless you're paying close attention, which is worth doing IMO. All in all, some fine music plus a strong sense of these men living and playing in that place in time.

As I recall, most Xanadu albums (even those recorded by Paul Goodman) were compromised soundwise to some extent because this was the era of "the dreaded direct bass" (pickup) -- as Delfayo Marsalis used to say on the back of albums he produced for one or another of his brothers.

On that new Jazz Icons "Count Basie -- Live on '62" DVD, Cohn is featured in lovely form on "You Are Too Beautiful." Stays pretty close to the melody, but his tone is a story in itself -- like a mountain stream.

Jim, thought you'd like this quote: "Ethel Waters once said, 'Mel Torme is the only white man who sings with the soul of a black man.'" Of course, Waters forgot to say which black man.

Jim -- If you haven't already, you really need to read Torme's autobiography, "It Wasn't All Velvet," which no doubt will confirm every thought you've ever had about him. In particular, there's a story about Mel and his longtime pal Buddy Rich that revolves around a valuable antique pistol that Mel owned (Mel was a gun collector), and that is so sad, bizarre, and sado-masochistically twisted (not hard to guess the roles each man played), that I could hardly believe what I was reading. What the hell -- the story IIRC goes like this. Buddy is visiting Mel's house when they're both mature (hah!) adults and is eying Mel's collection of antique pistols, which are on display in the den. Buddy either asks Mel which one is the most valuable or points to one that's caught his eye and is told that it's the most valuable gun that Mel owns -- a flintlock pirate pistol, or something like that. In any case, Buddy's response is to say "Give it to me" or words to that effect. And it immediately becomes clear that by this Buddy means, "Hand it over for good -- I want it." Mel protests that it's his favorite, the gem of his collection, but Buddy insists and Mel finally gives in -- either rationalizing it as a thing where Buddy really covets the pistol that much, or is testing Mel about how deep their friendship really is, or it's a thing where Buddy is just seeing how far he can push or bully Mel, or God knows what. So Buddy walks off with the pistol, and maybe sixth months later Mel sees it listed for sale in a gun collector's catalogue. Buddy has sold the damn thing (and for a good bit of money too) -- his only interest in it, apparently, was that it was Mel's precious thing, and Buddy wanted to see if he had the power to strip that thing away from him. Really twisted all the way around, or so it seemed to me.

Because Don Schlitten was a producer with a clear vision, at least when it came to music. Not quite - I've been told he wouldn't use RVG's studio because Rudy let him smoke marijuana. which is why most of his productions are engineered by Richard Alderson, who didn't mind. MG Did you mean "because Rudy wouldn't let him smoke marijuana" in the studio? Otherwise, I don't see how "Alderson...didn't mind" makes sense?

The trombonist in the final scene was Kai Winding.

At first, I was thinking you were being a smartass, because Nat was really getting, uh... "unhinged", and Sammy was portraying it pretty well, I thought. But then Mel Torme started singing, & Pops started looking like he wandered in from the set of "Imitation Of Life", and hey, it went off the hook with stunning rapidity. Much love to Pops, but I'll say it again, just because I feel it so hard - FUCK MEL TORME. I know what you mean about Sammy portraying it fairly well at first, but when the "unhinged" thing begins to go on and on, with those increasingly insane audience reaction shots, and then Sammy falls flat on the floor (!!) -- well, I could only think of solos I've listened to in real life where I wished that what happened there had in fact happened. Also, I don't know whether this is what the film intended, but as Sammy's playing begins to get "unhinged," are the audience reaction shots meant to convey some doubt as to whether he's going batshit or is instead playing something that's possibly great but really far out? That the latter dilemma was present on screen, even for a moment or two and/or only in my twisted mind, is a big part of what cracked me up.