Larry Kart

I see the smiley face, but while it's not impossible that Perkins was doing some stuff and stopped, it's far more likely that he (and Kamuca too) had doubts about the hipness, and even the "manliness," of their softish Pres-derived approach in the light of contemporary Rollins and then, in just a bit, Coltrane. The recorded evidence suggests this for both men, and I recall that Perkins, in a Cadence interview, speaks quite directly of the doubts he had back then and how they affected his playing. IMO, after a very awkward patch, Kamuca came out of this playing better than ever before, but Perkins, with rare exceptions like the one Jim mentioned, never really got it together again (though some of his attempts to work lots of timbral and harmonic edginess into his playing were interesting).

Haven't read it, but I certainly should: Chet Baker: His Life and Music" by Jeroen De Valk http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-d...5021885-0504620 "Deep In A Dream" made me angry. Maybe it should have been a book about Bruce Weber, the fashion photographer (he of the beefcake shots of preppy young men in Calvin Klein undershorts) who made the Baker film "Let's Get Lost"; Jim Haskins, author of "Deep in a Dream," seemed to have much stronger (albeit angry) feelings about Weber than he had about Baker -- and seemed to know more about Weber than he did about Baker too. (The basis of the anger is that Weber's work is widely felt to be homoerotic, but Weber apparently has said that he's not gay -- Haskins, something of a gay activist, finds this to be hypocritical.) P.S. De Valk has said that Haskins was well aware of the veracity of De Valk's relatively unsensationalistic account of Baker's death but preferred to take the "Did he jump or was he pushed?" route in order to pump up the volume (so to speak).

Somehow I'd missed out on this one until now, perhaps because it's short measure (34 minutes or so). Recorded in 1959 with George Shearing's Quintet, it's very fresh, committed, musically adventurous, emotionally open Lee. In fact, the two tracks that didn't make it onto the original LP -- "Nobody's Heart" and ""Don't Ever Leave Me" (the latter with only Shearing as accompanist) -- sound as private emotionally as anything Lee ever recorded. Also, dig Lee's own tune, which she wrote with one Hubie Wheeler, "There'll be Another Spring" -- especially the bridge, and the way she subtly highlights the sexuality of Carl Sigman's lyric on "All Too Soon." The whole album is special.

The zone of the "Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West" album and a few other things. He could tear your heart out.

I feel like a Medieval monk poring over a torn Roman papyrus, but here is what my ear tells me is the solo order for the first five tracks (I'm working from the 1997 French BMG CD): "Blixed" (Perkins, Cohn, Kamuca) "Kim's Kaper" (Cohn, Kamuca, Perkins) "Rolling Stone" (Cohn only) "Sioux Zan" (Perkins, Cohn, no Kamuca solo) "The Walrus" (Perkins [release], Kamuca, Perkins, Cohn) The best guide might be to start with "Rolling Stone," which should nail down Cohn of this vintage for you, and then move on to "The Walrus," where each player's traits emerge fairly clearly. Don't lose any sleep puzzling over Perkins' "Kim's Kaper" solo; the tempo seems too swift for him, and he sounds rather blurry and nondescript. I don't agree that Perkins is the least interesting of the three. These were three musical souls in motion -- each interesting (at least to me) at every stage of their careers for the quality and nature of the music being made at that stage but also interesting in terms of where they were going to go and how they were going to get there: a kind of autobiographies in sound thing.

No vibes on that Criss track, or elsewhere on the album, and besides Sonny Criss never could be mistaken for Jackie McLean.

There's a Criss "These Foolish Things" on Imperial, but it's vibes-less, unless Kenny Drew is playing the "vibories" (or however that's spelled). I'll listen and report. Or someone else can beat me to it (it's on the 2-CD BN reissue "Sonny Criss: The Complete Imperial Sessions"). Only other West Coast altoist I can think of offhand who might be mistaken for McLean is Joe Maini.

"Or ANYONE else"? Pretty big jump there. Buckley's commitment and savvy (within the boundaries of the music he knows and cares about) are not subjective matters really -- many people over the years have measured what he says and plays and have not found him wanting. But we should sit still for ANY schmoo's jazz show, in the name of what ... democracy? Also the reason 'BEZ is being held to "unceasing scrutiny" is because of things that the station has done -- during the Heim era and now. Don't you understand that THEY started this?

Listening to 'BEZ during the Heim years, especially to her own show (when I did), I got the feeling, from the music that was played and the way it was introduced and spoken about, that the underlying emotional commitment was to shaping and policing the success of the format (in terms of demographics and numbers) rather than to Heim's own involvement (or that of many of the other hosts) with the actual music being played. This to me had a deadening effect. Radio, even music-orientated radio, depends a good deal on one's sense of the host or speaker's savvy and involvement. To be more specific about how this links up to the "music being played" aspect of things, the boundaries of, say, Dick Buckley's taste are what they are, but doesn't (or rather didn't) one always have the feeling that virtually every track he played is one that he had, at one time, personally savored? Makes a big difference.

I meant to say "both well chosen AND just plain inspired..."

Just picked up "Remember." Very impressive so far. After the end of the "Full House," someone says (I think), "Pretty frightening, man." Yes indeed. Made me think of the Verve Jazz CEO thread: Here's a project that looks like it might be a bit cheesy -- a Montgomery tribute album -- but in fact the players are both well chosen just plain inspired, and in a way that at once pleases the intellect and will get to almost anyone who still has a pulse. And I gather that it's selling well too. One caveat: As one of the All About Jazz reviewers said, sound is more than a bit cloudy, but I could solve that to my satisfaction with tone controls (bass cut, treble boost).

Yes.

I heard Matana Roberts live in a mainstream-modern setting several times about eight years ago. She was into Osby (and/or Steve Coleman) and clearly was going to be something. Then I heard her a few times in the last several years with her Sticks and Stones trio. I have to say that this group in person sounded two or three times better than it does on disc. In fact, IMO neither Sticks and Stones album is what it should be/could be, both in terms of sound quality and inspiration/intensity. In any case, Roberts is the real deal.

Rosbaud, in good mono sound, '56 I think, with the Berlin Philharmonic: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000001GR...v=glance&n=5174 Chuck tipped me to this several years ago; he was right as usual. Also, you get the best Tapiola -- a great work.

Glad to be of service, as they say. And I'm sure Terry Martin would agree.

I've always liked the point made by the late British saxophonist Bruce Turner at the end of this passage from a piece I wrote back in the '80s: One doesn't want to describe bebop as more of a social than a musical event. But no matter how striking the music that emerged in the 1940s, and despite its roots in previous jazz styles, the emotional tone of the music had changed. The forthright quest for freedom that [Ralph] Ellison had found in the jazz of the twenties and thirties was transformed into a rebellion of romantic despair, an attempt to evade or tune out the “honking” of the world. And when that need to escape was combined with drugs, a great many players destroyed themselves. “We were pilgrims,” said pianist Hampton Hawes, “the freaks of the forties and fifties--playing bebop, going through a lot of changes and getting strung out in the process. And our rebellion was a lonely thing.” Obviously there had been a shift in values--in the music and in the society, too. And among those who prefer the orderliness and optimism of older jazz styles to the hectic beauties of bebop, one often hears the complaint that none of this need to have occurred. At one time, so the argument goes, jazz musicians were content to think of themselves as entertainers, not self-conscious artists. If the practitioner of modern jazz wants to please himself and his peers first and the audience second, if at all, he must endure the consequences of this unrealistic, willful act. The problem with that argument, though, as British saxophonist Bruce Turner says in his whimsically titled autobiography Hot Air, Cool Music, “is that scarcely any jazz musicians are able to recognize this picture of themselves. There are some jazzmen who are great entertainers. Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, and Lionel Hampton come immediately to mind. But they are the exception, not the rule. For the most part those of us who play jazz for a living do not know any way of entertaining an audience other than by making the best music we are capable of…. The ‘jazz is entertainment’ theory is only about money, when you boil it down. Jazz finds itself sponsored by the entertainment industry, and in return the latter feels entitled to demand its pound of flesh. Fair enough, but why in heaven's name confuse the issue? The distinction between what is done for love and what is done for quick cash is an obvious one.”

Her fondness for Organissimo is probably the sole example of her good taste there is.

In line with this -- or rather running alongside it at times and at oblique angles it to at other times -- I just picked from the library what so far seems a fascinating new book, "Gauguin and Impressionism" (Yale U.P.) We all know the sort of paintings Gauguin is famous for and that he painted them in Tahiti. Turns out, though, that prior to that Gauguin was closely associated with the Impressionist movement as (at first) an amatuer painter, that he had been raised (after his parents died) by a wealthy financier who was a major collector of Modern French painting (which allowed Gauguin to see lots of excellent cutting-edge paintings on a daily basis in the home), that Gauguin himself as a young businessman became a collector of/successful investor in Impressionist paintings while producing canvases of his own in abundance (some of them without doubt Impressionst by any standard, some strikingly divergent in manner in ways that were unique to him, many arguably so damn good that they'd be regarded as masterworks if it weren't for the familiar great Gauguins to come -- all of this (so the authors convincingly show) an example of an artist who was in one sense a member of the audience an d part of the zeitgeist (and who for some of this time had yet to define himself as an artist) but also was peering fiercely at/going to school on specific canvases by specific artists (esp. Pissarro and Cezanne), including paintings of theirs that he actually owned, in order to find out how he wanted to/had to paint and, in fact, whether he was going to try to do it at all seriously. In any case, while Gauguin may have been extreme example in terms of his intense access to/fraught in terms of self-definition relationship to the prevailing great art of his time, his traceable to the point of being undeniable relationship to specific older colleages and specific paintings of theirs (which, again, led to strong paintings his own that were his alone stylistically) ... well, I wonder if this kind of thing is a heck of a lot more common in almost every art than we might think.

I have a vast, old, on-line bio of Ayler somewhere in my files, but as I recall, he had a holiness church background.

I know that it's supposedly not easy to draw the line, but I think that the core of Ayler has much more to do with Gospel than R&B. Specifically, I heard some Gospel saxophonists on a local Sunday morning Chicago TV show in the early '60s that sounded very Ayler-esque and not very R&B-like -- a blizzard of ecstatic overtones and a similary ecstatic, rhapsodic-rubato-speechifying approach to time. (Hmm--Tyrone Washington, anyone?) Later on, I mentioned this to a Gospel fan who also enjoyed jazz, and he seemed to know what I was talking about and gave me the name of a few Gospel sax players, but none of them rang a bell. Maybe not many of these guys, if there are that many of them, have made it onto record or made it that big. BTW, if I recall correctly, the most striking and the most Ayler-esque of the guys I heard on TV played a capella. Also, he was fairly young, probably still in his teens.

Another possible billiard shot connection. I assume that the drummer in that photo, Noal Cohen, is the same Noal Cohen who co-wrote, with the esteemed Michael Fitzgerald, the Gigi Gryce biography "Rat Race Blues."

Didn't know that this was where Larry Combs, principal clarinetist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for many years, got his start.

I don't see any reason to do without Sahib Shihab and Cecil Payne -- both in vintage shape of course. Their timbres, in particular, seem to me to be what Dameron was hearing in his head. On tenor, the Dexter of the Capitol sides would be a good fit.

Sorry -- Deluxe, then National (with their ghastly pressings), were the labels the Eckstine Band recorded for, not Musicraft. Also, reading Ira Gitler's liner notes to the Savoy 2-LP reissue of the Eckstine National material, I see (as I thought) that DeVeaux was skating on thin ice factually when he wrote: "But the differences between the two men [Ecstine and Herman] were as stark as black and white. One might say that the the blues chose Billy Eckstine, but Woody Herman chose the blues. Once Eckstine showed an aptitude for singing the blues, he had no choice but to continue doing so.... Herman sang and played the blues because it intrigued him." Gitler (who was there) writes: "In the Earl Hines band, where he had made his reputation in the years 1939-43. B sang all kinds of material but blues like 'Jelly, Jelly' and 'Stormy Monday' were his biggest hits. Primarily, however, he was ... a singer of romantic ballads. With Hines he was celebrated for 'Somehow,' 'I'm Falling For You,' and 'Skylark,' among others." But then facts tend to get bent when you're thinking ideologically.

Here's a Down Beat review I wrote of a 1969 performance by The Lost Quintet at the Plugged Nickel: Outside of Charlie Parker’s best units, I don’t think there’s ever been a group so at ease at up tempos as Miles Davis’s current quintet. Their relaxation at top speed enables them to move at will from the “hotness” up-tempo playing usually implies to a serene lyricism in the midst of turmoil. This “inside-out” quality arises from the nature of human hearing, since, at a certain point, musical speed becomes slow motion or stillness (in the same way the eye reacts to a stroboscope). Yet the group doesn’t move into circular rhythms wholesale. They generally stay right on the edge, and, when the rhythm does seem ready to spin endlessly like a Tibetan prayer wheel, one prodding note from Davis or Shorter is enough to send them hurtling into “our” time world, where speed means forward motion. Recent changes in the group’s personnel and instrumentation have had important effects. Chick Corea is playing electric piano, and while this move may have been prompted by the variable nature of club pianos, Corea has made a virtue of necessity, discovering many useful qualities in the instrument. In backing the horns, its ability to sustain notes and produce a wide range of sonorities frees Holland and DeJohnette from these roles. Corea is now the principal pattern maker in the rhythm section, a task to which Ron Carter and Tony Williams previously had given much attention. As a soloist, Corea has found a biting, nasal quality in the instrument that can be very propulsive. I heard a number of first sets, and each time it seemed that the rhythm section really got together for the night during Corea’s solo on the first tune. As mentioned above, Holland and DeJohnette don’t often set up the stop-and-go interludes of Carter and Williams. Instead, they burn straight ahead, creating a deep, luxurious groove for the soloists. Holland is as fast as anyone on the instrument, but it is the melodic and harmonic quality of his bass lines one remembers, as cohesive and austere as Lennie Tristano’s. Shorter, in particular, responds to this kind of musical thought, because it so closely resembles his own. At times it seems as if he and Holland could improvise in unison if they wished. Tony Williams had a greater range of timbres and moods under control than DeJohnette does, but the latter is just right for this group. He sounds something like Elvin Jones with a lighter touch, and he really loves to swing in a bashing, exuberant manner. Wayne Shorter’s approach to improvisation, in which emotion is simultaneously expressed and “discussed” (i.e., spontaneously found motifs are worked out to their farthest implications with an eyes-open, conscious control), has a great appeal for me. The busyness and efficiency of a man at work can have an abstract beauty apart from the task. Of course, Shorter’s playing has more overt emotional qualities of tenderness or passion which can give pleasure to the listener. The problem with such an approach lies in keeping inspiration open and fresh, maintaining a balance between spontaneity and control. Here, Shorter’s recent adoption of the soprano saxophone is interesting. A master craftsman of the tenor, he already has great technical control of the second instrument, and its newness seems to have opened areas of emotion for him on both horns. Often, while Davis solos, one can see Shorter hesitate between the soprano and tenor before deciding which to play. It’s a fruitful kind of indecision. Shorter once referred to his soprano as “the baby”, and I think I know what he meant. About Davis there’s not much new to say, except to note that he is to some degree responsible for every virtue of the group’s members mentioned above, and that he uses all of them to achieve the effects he wants. He is the leader in the best sense of the term. Playing almost constantly at the limit of his great ability, he inspires the others by his example. There is no shucking in this band, and if Davis occasionally is less than serious in his improvising, as he was one night on “Milestones,” mocking the symmetrical grace of his mid-fifties style, one soon realizes that he is serious after all. With this version of the Miles Davis Quintet, one aspect of jazz has been brought to a degree of ripeness that has few parallels in the history of the music. Now let’s hope that Davis and Columbia decide to record the group in person.