Larry Kart

While we're waiting for the correct answer on Garbarek, I have a jazz question ABOUT a jazz question. Back in 1955-6, the speciality of one of the contestants on the hugely popular TV game show "The $64,000 Question" was jazz. I, of course, at age 13 or so, followed his progress toward the top with great curiosity and competiveness -- certain that I could blurt out the correct answers before he did. As I recall -- and here's where things get a bit blurry -- one of two things happened at, perhaps, the $32,000 level. The question was, "Who were the original 'Four Brothers?'" My memory is that either the contestant gave the wrong answer and was eliminated, or he gave the wrong answer and it was accepted as correct. In either case, What was the right answer? And -- for all the money now -- What was the incorrect answer? While, as I said above, I'm not sure whether the contestant's incorrect answer was accepted or rejected, I am sure what his incorrect answer was. You're in the isolation booth and have 60 seconds. Correct answer: Incorrect answer: P.S. Yes, back in '55-'56, I got it right. Never bet against a adolescent jazz geek.

Boots Randolph?

Another review of the Talmor-Swallow disc: http://www.onefinalnote.com/reviews/s/swal...du-clochard.asp

Haven't heard the new Konitz nonet, but I was impressed by Talmor's writing for an album of Steve Swallow pieces, with Swallow in the band: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=14461 Some of the same players are in both bands.

That Chicago Jazz Fest Monk Orchestra performance with Mal on piano is one of my favorite memories. Not only was the music great, but I was out on the far edges of the crowd for some of the set and could see that quite a few perfectly ordinary people (as in, no signs of aggressive hipness) were absolutely galvanized by what they were hearing. I particularly remember two kids of about eleven or so who reacted to the opening figures of "Bye-Ya" as though they'd been hit by lightning bolts. I felt the same way myself. About Mal, one little moment. In the late '70s or early '80s, when the Jazz Showcase was located on Rush St. beneath the Happy Medium disco, Mal and, I think, two of Joe Segal's Chicago regulars, made up the rhythm section for Sonny Stitt. (I'm pretty sure that Mal wasn't traveling with Stitt and that the pairing was Joe's doing.) It seemed like it might be an oil-and-water thing, but in fact Mal's loving, thematic, SERIOUS comping inspired some of the best and appropriately serious Stitt I'd ever heard. Between sets I went up to Mal, introduced myself, and said how fine I thought he sounded, what a pleasure it was that he was back in the U.S. for a visit, and how good it would be if he could be here more often. I don't recall exactly what he said in response, other than it was direct, no-bull, and left me feeling very good. In that respect, Mal was no Art Pepper (who in my experience could hardly bear to be told that he'd played beautifully and left you, if you'd said or written that, feeling like you'd f------ with his mind).

I don't know any more about the Rodby-Pepper story, but I do remember a time later on when Lee Konitz played the Jazz Showcase with a Jodie Christian-Rodby-Wilbur Campbell rhythm section. Lee wanted them to play as freely as possible within his concept of freedom (the "ten levels of paraphrase" thing), and by the final tune of the first set, they were definitely on level ten, with Rodby more than holding up his end. I heard him a good bit in those days; he reminded me of the young Steve Swallow, when Swallow still played acoustic bass.

Bud is in topnotch and very feisty form, and Hawkins replies in kind. All the horns are great to hear, but the Freeman-Hawkins thing is special. And that's one heck of a rhythm section, with special credit to Gus Johnson and Billy Bauer, who as I recall once stated that he was very proud of his work on this date, felt that it was a privilege to be there.

Blakey in piano trios -- also, I now see, Kenny Drew, Paul Bley, Bud Powell (Norgran, 1955). As far as I can tell, except for the Monk Black Lion material from 1971, an offshoot of the Giants of Jazz tour, the '55 Jordan date was the last time Blakey was in the studio as a piano trio sideman.

Yes, that's the one. There's also an interesting latish (1987) Bert-led album with Jordan, Ray Drummond, Mel Lewis, Carmen Leggio, and Jerry Dodgion on Fresh Sound, "The Human Factor." It's a mixed bag -- recording quality is a rather claustrophobic, and balances are not ideal (Drummond is boomy, Lewis is distant, piano sounds brittle; date was recorded in someone's Long Island living room) -- but Jordan gets a lot of solo space and is in fine form, seemingly delighted to tackle material, mostly originals from arranger Ed Bonoff Jr., that is new to him. The leader and the too seldom heard Leggio are in fine form too. It's a nice changeup from Jordan's excellent string of Steeplechase albums, which are built around him and his own pieces for the most part. Speaking of that Savoy/Denon Jordan, what a great trio drummer Blakey was! Too bad that aren't that many opprtunities to hear him in that context -- Jordan, Monk, Herbie Nichols, Horace Silver, who am I forgetting?

F--- me. And I used to have the original LP too. How and why it went away, I don't recall, though I do recall that album and jacket were not in great shape.

Ornery, often hacked-off (not that there aren't good reasons for a jazz musician to be hacked-off a lot, but Jordan was felt by some, maybe by many, to exceed reasonable limits). I also recall Sheila saying he was a complete dick to her and their daughter Tracey at times, but that might have been drugs, or lack of same, talking (i.e. talking to Duke). On the other hand, nice guy Eddie Bert apparently got along with him well; he used Jordan as a sideman (and vice versa) fairly often over the years and spoke of him as a friend. I've never heard a Jordan solo that was less than excellent, and the best of them are sublime. A favorite of mine is his Signal album from 1955, "Flight To Jordan,"with a trio of Jordan, Percy Heath, and Blakey on one side; second side adds Bert and Cecil Payne. Side one highlights are a great reading of "They Can't Take That Away From Me," Duke's "Forecast," and a haunting solo version of "Summertime." Side two includes the first version, I think, of the title piece, "Scotch Blues," and "Two Loves," dedicated to Sheila and Tracey. RVG was at the controls. This came out on a Denon CD titled "Trio & Quintet in 1991.

Difficult, troubled man, so I've been told (and quite capable of making trouble for others, too), but one of the great pianists, I think. Unfailing melodic freshness.

Bechet, Lacy, Lucky Thompson, Roscoe Mitchell, and Bill Kirchner are five that come to mind -- a very mixed bag to be sure. Bechet and Roscoe just gorilla their thing(s) out of the instrument; Bechet's thing might seem to have more to do with the instrument itself than the way Roscoe turns it into a blowtorch, but then Roscoe on soprano is certainly distinguishable from Roscoe on alto. (BTW, I should also mention Johnny Hodges, who was of course inspired by Bechet and who gave up the horn in the early '30s, but boy did he sound good.) As different as Lacy sounded from Bechet, he was akin to him in that the musical daemons of both men virtually required the soprano for their expression ("virtually" because Bechet also was a great clarinetist, but his approach on clarinet was close to his approach on soprano). Thompson and Kirchner are similar too in that they both more or less tame the beast, make it roll over on its belly and purr. In their hands, the soprano is still a soprano, but it's never nasal, or recalcitrant, or honky, and they can make the topmost notes sing and soar. Also, they have (as the others I've mentioned do in their ways) genuinely soprano-ish ideas.

Me too -- the funky, squiggly yellow-on-black designs especially. They seemed, in their "Who cares?" squiggliness, to say, "We're over in this other place, and we're confident that it's a good one."

It would depend, no?

I think "The Musings of Miles," the Prestige quartet date with Garland, Pettiford, and Philly Joe, bought about the time it came out.

A veteran Von watcher (in fact THE veteran etc.) told me that Von's performance last week in Millenium Park in Chicago was magnificent. Ane he played some things that the watcher hadn't heard from him before -- e.g. "Hi-Fly," "Four," "Georgia On My Mind." Rhythm section was the same as the record but with Von's regular guitarist in the place of Wyands, who apparently was supposed to be there but didn't make it.

Report from last night: As the instrumention suggests, the basic reference point for Matt Schneider's group is a kind of '50s thing -- Chico Hamilton crossed with Shearing, perhaps -- but the material (all Schneider originals) was quite active and tough harmonically and structurally varied too, thus something that the models I've mentioned (if they are in fact models for this music) usually did not possess. There was room for improvisation but the nature of the pieces themselves was always there. Adasiewicz played with much elan (he hears changes like crazy---the more forbidding the better), and Schneider himself sounds like an unlikely cross between Raney and Howard Roberts. Cellist Tameka Reed was an asset; in fact, this was a genuine, happy to playing this music band. 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 Newbery, 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/crsipness 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.

Probably (in Chicago): Sunday, 6 August 2006 The Hungry Brain 10:00 PM | Matt Schneider's Straight Six Matt Schneider - guitar Tomeka Reed - cello Jason Adasiewicz - vibes Anton Hatwich - bass Nori Tanaka - drums 11:00 PM | Herculaneum Dave McDonnell - saxophone Patrick Newbery - trumpet Nick Broste - trombone Greg Danek - bass Dylan Ryan - drums

Fasstrack -- John Beal used to be (and no doubt still is) one hell of a player. I'm particularly fond of his work with the old Rod Levitt Orchestra. A track, "Vera Cruz," from one of Levitt's RCA Lps was played for Miles in a Blindfold Test some 45 years ago, and while Miles had his doubts about the writing (I don't), he singled out the bass player for well-deserved praise.

Fasstrack -- Damn, I had that Strozier record (along with his other Jazzland, March of the Siamese Children), and now I don't have either one, apparently of my own free will at some time or another. What an idiot I was. I also used to have a copy of Inverted Image, but it somehow got warped to the point where it was unplayable. There's seems to be a pattern at work here.

Don't anyone take this the wrong way, please, but when I saw and heard Chris at off-night sessions in Chicago in 1957 or so, he was so fragile (someone had to carry him to the piano stool and carefully place him there) that I (and I know a good many others) didn't expect him to be alive much longer. That he's been around for 49 more years and counting is astonishing. BTW, I wish I had a tape recorder between my ears; in-person back then he was something else.

One city (Chicago), and only part of the scene, but the youngish (mostly under 35 -- musicians' age, that is) semi-avant garde scene that coalesesced around Vandermark in the early to mid'-'90s but that has IMO gone far far beyond him musicially and stylistically also seems to be in very good shape in terms of live music -- lots of good places to play, decent to very good crowds most nights, "payment" often comes from "donations at the door" and the like (for legal reasons, depending on whether the venue has an extertainment license), but I get the feeling that on most nights the band isn't dragged by what they end up with. The audience BTW consists for the most part of people who are (with the exception of a few old farts like me) of the same age and background as the players. To use a ghastly term, all of this seems to me to be synergistic. First, Chicago is a city where (right now) the people who like to play this music can find places that can afford to to live in that are in reasonable proximity to each other; thus rehearsals happen without much hassle. Likewise, some of the places to play are really nice -- in particular, a neighborhood bar called The Hungry Brain and an art gallery. Elastic, upstairs from a Chinese restaurant -- happily both these spots have fine acoustics. Second, the scene is genuinely communal and welcoming; players who would benefit from working with other simpatico players (people flow into town from places like Iowa, Nashville, Boston et al. on a semi-regular basis) find themselves working with those players sooner or later and tend to grow by leaps and bounds as a result -- typically, guys like cornetist Josh Berman, reedman Keefe Jackson, trombonist Jeb Bishop, drummer Frank Rosaly, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, vibist Jason Adasiewicz, bassists Anton Hatwich and Jason Roebke are in as many as four or more bands at the same time. Also, there's lots of writing going on. And the audiences listen. I suspect that the crucial factor here is aesthetic -- kinds of music are being made here that are sufficiently novel and good, and the players and audiencies agree on this. A version of the pleasure principle in action. And if all the other things I've mentioned don't necessarily follow from this, so far we've been lucky.

His father, yes -- way far out along those lines. But I thought that Mel himself, and/or his people, had made strenuous attempts to differentiate father from son.