Larry Kart

Re Marsalis, here stitched together is the intro and epilogue to the section "("The Neo-Con Game") of my book that deals with him and related phenomena: "Most of these pieces [written between 1968 and 1986] revolve around the advent in 1980 of trumpeter/composer Wynton Marsalis and the several sorts of jazz neo-conservatism or revivalism that he and his associates began to propose--first a return to a kind of classicized version of the Miles Davis Quintet of the mid-1960s, then a series of visits to chosen styles of the jazz past (New Orleans polyphony, thirties and forties Ellington, etc.). Such impulses have surfaced in jazz before, at least as far back as the late-1930s (the so-called New Orleans Revival that centered around Lu Watters and his Yerba Buena Jazz Band), and it should not be forgotten that three years prior to Marsalis’s arrival on the scene, the similarly young and similarly revivalistic tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton made his first recording. What was different about what might be called the Wyntonian Era, though, is that never before had a return to selected aspects of the jazz past been presented--and, to a remarkable degree, accepted--as an event of central aesthetic importance. That it was not such an event is the conclusion these pieces eventually reach, but that it could be regarded as one at all is significant--not quite a sign that jazz was dead or dying (although that was one thought that came to mind at the time) but evidence that the weight of the music’s past, relative to its present and to its possible futures, was something that jazz was grappling with as never before…. "Almost twenty years have passed [since Marsalis' emergence], and it now seems clear that despite the prominence that the engines of cultural politics and publicity have given to Wynton Marsalis, his music (especially his latter-day orchestral work) is a non-issue aesthetically and has been for some time. Such Marsalis pastiches as the oratorio Blood on the Fields (1997), the suite In This House, On This Morning (1993) and the ballets Citi Movement (1991), Jazz (1993) and Jump Start (1995) seem to come from a strange alternate universe --one in which some of the surface gestures of Duke Ellington (Marsalis’s chief model) have been filtered through the toylike sensibility of Raymond Scott. "Marsalis remains a skilled instrumentalist, but he has never been a strikingly individual soloist. As for his orchestral works, their relative poverty of invention becomes clear when they are placed alongside the likes of George Russell’s Chromatic Universe and Living Time, Oliver Nelson’s Afro-American Sketches, Bill Holman’s Further Adventures, Muhal Richard Abrams’s The Hearinga Suite, Bob Brookmeyer’s Celebration, John Carter’s Roots and Folklore, and, of course, the more successful orchestral works of Ellington himself. A brief comparison between one of the major vocal episodes in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Blood on the Fields, “Will the Sun Come Out?” (sung by Cassandra Wilson), and the opening vocal movement of Ellington’s otherwise instrumental Liberian Suite (1947), “I Like the Sunrise” (sung by Al Hibbler), might be revealing. The works are comparable in theme--the subject of Blood on the Fields is slavery in America, while Liberian Suite was commissioned by the West African republic of Liberia, which was founded by freed American slaves in 1847--and both “Will the Sun Come Out?” (which lasts nine minutes) and “I Like the Sunrise” (half as long) are meditative semi-laments in which hope, pain, frustration, and doubt are meant to joust with each other. The melody of “I Like the Sunrise” has an equivocal, sinuous grace (climbing in pitch toward a point of harmonic release it cannot reach, it expressively stalls out on the words “raised up high, far out of sight”), while the key turn in the lyric--“I like the sunrise…it brings new hope, they say” is commented upon and deepened by a tapestry of orchestral and solo voices (particularly those of baritone saxophonist Harry Carney and clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton). By contrast, the three verses of “Will the Sun Come Out?” go almost nowhere in twice the span of time. The melody itself, despite Wilson’s attempts to shape it, is hardly a melody at all but a lumpy recitative that sounds as though it had been assembled bar by bar, while the ensemble’s instrumental interventions and the solos of pianist Eric Reed merely distend things further. It could be argued that within the overall dramatic scheme of Blood on the Fields, “Will the Sun Come Out?” is meant to be an episode of near-paralysis, and that the music ought to mirror this. But listen to “Will the Sun Come Out?” and ask yourself how often you have heard nine minutes of music pass this uneventfully. "Why, then, the Marsalis phenomenon, such as it has been and perhaps still is? One struggles to think of another figure in the history of jazz who was a significant cultural presence but not a significant musical one. Dave Brubeck? Perhaps, but there is no counterpart in Marsalis’s music to the lyrical grace of Paul Desmond or to those moments when Brubeck himself was genuinely inspired. Paul Whiteman? Yes, in terms of the ability to marshal media attention, but if we credit Whiteman with all the music that was produced under his aegis, the comparison probably would be in his favor. Think again of Whiteman and Marsalis, though, not in terms of the kinds of music they made but of the cultural roles they filled. In both the 1920s and the 1980s (when Marsalis arose) the popularity and respectability of jazz were felt to be key issues--the difference being that in the twenties some part of the culture found it necessary and/or titillating to link a popular but not yet “respectable” music to the conventions of the concert hall, while in the eighties jazz had come to be regarded as a music of fading popular appeal that needed the imprimatur of respectability in order to survive--and to be subsidized, like the opera, the symphony orchestra, and the ballet. Thus the tuxedoed Whiteman, wielding his baton like Toscanini; thus Marsalis the articulate whiz kid, equally at home with Miles Davis and Haydn and foe of rap and hip-hop. But while the byplay between notions of what is lively and what is respectable may be an unavoidable part of the cultural landscape, a music that springs from such premises, as Marsalis’s so often seems to do, eventually stands revealed as a form of packaged status whose relationship to the actual making of music always was incidental."

"Chasin' the Trane" would be a Coltrane recording that could stand in for the Sept. 1961 Coltrane live performances in a Hollywood club that inspired John Tynan's "anti-jazz" review of the band in Down Beat, which then led DB editor Don DeMichael to invite Coltrane and Dolphy to reply in an article, which they did. See Lewis Porter's Coltrane bio (pp. 193-4) for details.

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.

, but you forgot to tell interested parties how to purchase it... it's not obvious from Mr. Jackson's website, and I couldn't find it on Delmark or Dusty Groove. So that's why those dimes haven't been rolling in.

Forgot to mention that I get 10 cents for each album sold.

Since Ghost brought it up, here are the liner notes: One good way to grasp how rich and diverse the Chicago jazz scene has become over the last ten years or so would be to place the album at hand, tenor saxophonist Keefe Jackson's “Fast Citizens,” alongside the music on another Delmark album, “Several Lights,” that three of these musicians (Jackson, cornetist Josh Berman, and drummer Frank Rosaly) made in 2004 with Swiss tubaist Marc Unternährer under the name Chicago Luzern Exchange. All of the music on “Several Lights” is, as we have learned to say, “free” -- improvised from scratch, more or less measureless, and without pre-determined harmonic and structural frameworks. By contrast, the music on “Fast Citizens” swings very hard when it wants to (which is often), and the album's seven pieces -- five by Jackson, one each by cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and alto saxophonist Aram Shelton (the remaining Fast Citizen is bassist Anton Hatwich) -- present both players and listeners with relatively songlike frameworks that tend to stay in place, harmonically, metrically, and structurally. But I wouldn't say -- and this touches upon what may be the core identity of this Chicago scene -- that the music on “Fast Citizens” is one bit less “free,” in effect, practice, or intent, than the music on “Several Lights” or any of the other widely varied sounds to which this scene keeps giving birth. The common thread here, that core identity, is genuine compositional thinking -- a practical, unpretentious drive to make music in which every part has a significant structural and expressive role to play. And in the music on “Fast Citizens,” who plays what role and when does seem to be determined quite freely (whether on paper, in rehearsals, or on the run) -- by unusually acute, friendly-competitive ears and sensibilities, not through executive fiat or mere habit. (These are, by the way, the ears and sensibilities of musicians who know both their Ornette Coleman and their Sidney Bechet, their Morton Feldman and their Ruby Braff, and so forth and so on; one of the best things about this Chicago scene is how naturally -- and, again, how freely -- the pasts of jazz and related musics are being played with/sorted out in the present.) Jackson formed this band in 2003; it played frequently in 2004 at the aptly named (because it's hard to find) Chicago club The Hideout. With the exception of Lonberg-Holm, who is 44, all of these musicians are in their late 20s or early 30s; and all of them, with the exception of Berman, are not Chicago-area natives but arrived here from elsewhere -- Arkansas (Jackson), New York City (Lonberg-Holm), Florida (Shelton), Iowa (Hatwich), (Arizona) Rosaly -- from 1995 on. This flow into town of remarkable, like-minded players and their subsequent further flowering is something one has come to expect. Some examples, now, of that aforementioned compositional drive in action. Notice during Shelton's solo on “Blackout” (his own piece) how he proposes a fluttering, tremolo-like figure at about the 5:25 mark, which is swiftly echoed by Lonberg-Holm's bowed cello -- with alto and bass then discussing and remolding what might be said to lie under their fingers until Shelton's solo line rises in pitch and emotional heat to a near explosive level of intensity … and then out. In effect, that initial moment of mutual invention/recognition/response has become the basis of the entire second half of the piece. And much the same tremolo impulse resurfaces more briefly and in a rather different guise on Lonberg-Holm's “Pax Urbanum” -- the cello now pizzicato, while Shelton's side of the duet is fittingly cool, delicate, and precise. In fact, and he can laugh at the likely incongruity of this, throughout “Fast Citizens” Lonberg-Holm seems to me to be playing a kind of Django Reinhardt meets D'Artagnan role -- sweeping in over balustrades to add fantasy, fire, and wit. Berman is a virtual composer in himself; as much any brass player of his age, he has his own sound and personality, with one of his key traits being the way his lines typically seem to think again about what they've just said, in a wry “Did I mean that?/Yes I meant that” manner. But on Jackson's “Signs,” with Rosaly and Hatwich cooking behind him, it would be hard to think of the climactic passages of Berman's brilliant solo as a solo per se -- what we have here, by about the 3:20 mark, is a virtual cornet-bass-drums trio; that it was arrived at spontaneously makes it no less concrete. Speaking of Hatwich and Rosaly, while they aren’t the only gifted bassist and drummer on the Chicago scene, it would be hard to think what things would be like without them. A virtuoso who never thrusts his virtuosity at you, Hatwich has great time, a rich, woody tone; a marvelous, “abstract” ear; and is – that phrase again – always thinking compositionally. And the at once calm and effervescent Rosaly – let’s just say that he’s my favorite drummer since Joe Chambers and leave it at that. As for Jackson, as soloist and principal composer, I was struck at first by the habañera-tango feel of “Signs” and “Saying Yes.” But no deliberate Latin or Spanish strains are at work here. Instead, Jackson explains, the gliding, brooding moodiness of these pieces may be an oblique, accidental offshoot of his onetime interest in Eastern European music in general and Klezmer in particular. “I was pretty intense about Klezmer for a while,” Jackson says, “playing the clarinet and transcribing all of those tunes, listening in particular to [clarinet virtuosi] Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras. Years later, I suppose, melodies with those intervals we associate with the East [must be] floating around in my head.” Jackson modestly solos on only four of the album's seven tracks, but each one is a gem. The first three (on “Ready Everyday,” “Saying Yes,” and “Pax Urbanum”) all come from one side of Jackson's musical spectrum, I think -- these nearly unbroken lines, absolute in their linear logic, also seem to outline in their sober rise and fall other “shadow” melodies, as though the changes Jackson plays over or implies were, in effect, ghosts. From another side comes Jackson's solo on “Course” -- steaming and expressionistic, it virtually glories in its ability to weld disparate voices and parts into a whole. The first time I heard Jackson's music, some four years ago, I felt sure that he was someone special; the only question was whether a certain diffidence of temperament would prevent all that he had to give from getting out. Jackson is still the same thoughtful, soft-spoken individual, but the music on “Fast Citizens” speaks loud and clear.

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.

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."

no, i think "passport" (two different songs with the same title) along with "visa" from two sessions in 1949 where titled in anticipation of bird´s flight to europe in may 1949 to the paris jazz festival. but i don´t know if bird himself choosed the names of this compositions or norman granz. (have to look at the bird at verve box). bird was later in bellevue hospital. keep boppin´ marcel No, I meant that Mingus might have interwoven the lines of his own "Hellview of Bellvue" and Bird's previously composed "Passport" (these being the component parts of Mingus's "Lock "Em Up") as an allusion by Mingus to his own desire to get out of Bellevue. Of course, Bellevue had nothing to do with the titling of "Passport" by Bird.

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.