Larry Kart

One big flaw in the movie (among many virtues) IMO is that it's vital to the plot, as I recall, that Dexter's character, Dale Turner, be in less than vigorous shape physically and, above all, musically at one point, then get himself together and play with considerable strength before his final decline and death. But Dexter, at the point in his life when the movie was made, could only play one way, even if he had wanted to first sound a bit weak, then much stronger -- and that one way, however good it might be to hear, was definitely not on the strong side. Thus, what we heard from Dale Turner in the movie didn't match what the movie, and the people in it, said we were hearing from him. Also, while I'm sure that everyone here can tell the difference between the Dexter of the soundtrack and, say, the Dexter of "Go," I don't think that would be true of a whole lot of viewers any movie, including this one -- thus it might have been a "mistake" in movie terms to build the movie around a dramatic shift in behavior that most of the audience couldn't grasp unless it were spelled out (or cued in) for them in some extra-musical manner, like those films in which we know that Chopin's music is sensitive and fraught because he's coughing up blood all over the keyboard.

About Michael's point that the recorded sound of LaFaro might not be what one heard in a live setting from him, while I never heard LaFaro live, when I heard in a club setting (Shelly's Manne Hole) back in 1962 or '63 a bassist (Red Mitchell) whom I'd assumed from recordings had an unusually big sound, I was astonished to find that in a normal rhythm section with horns setup he was almost inaudible--and by that time in my life I'd heard lots and lots of bassists in live settings. FWIW, I've always assumed that Mitchell was LaFaro's chief stylistic model -- or at least that's the way it seemed to some of us at the time -- though LaFaro certainly was his own man.

Don't believe that there are many (if any) literal, fully worked out fugues on Duane Tatro's marvelous "Jazz For Moderns" (OJC) but Tatro's writing is full of fugal textures, handled with a organic inventiveness and air of necessity that is rare in jazz writing IMO. By contrast, check out the contemporary work of Tatro's fellow West Coast-based composer Jack Montrose, which is not without interest but where the fugal textures too often seem like bids for classiness and/or extra credit.

About the "rock star lottery," I thought of that Thursday night when I caught a bit of Harry Connick Jr.'s Christmas special and heard guys like Jimmy Greene playing with and beside the jaw droppingly out-of-tune singing of Connick Jr. At least Connick Jr. introduced the soloists by name, including a trumpeter named LeRoi (or LeRoy) Jones. Does A. I. Baraka know about this?

I knew that Ries was part of that Southern Michigan/Northern Ohio scene but didn't know that he and Margitza are friends or that they were on Maynard's band together. I've got a fair number of Ries' albums and particularly recommend, if you can find it, what may be his very first one: "Imaginary Time" (Moo) -- Moo is a Japanese label--with Randy Brecker, Scott Wendholt, Scott Colley, Joey Baron, Billy Hart, Franck Amsallem et al. I'm not saying that Tim hasn't grown as a player, but this sounds like it was just one of those great sets of days in the studio where everything clicked. If you have the album or can get it, check out Amsellem's solo on "Jasia."

Interesting how echoes of Mecca, Joe Cinderella (both Gil Melle guitarists) and Billy Bauer are cropping up in the work of several younger players, e.g. Liberty Ellman and Jeff Parker. I know that Parker is a Bauer fan, but it's also quite possible these days for people to "invent" stuff that was in fact invented 50 years ago, without the younger players ever having heard the stuff they seem to have been influenced by.

I only have "Heart of Hearts" of the ones he's made under his own name, and think I chose it over "Memento" after listening to both. Miller and and Blade are the bigger names, bit it seemed to me that Calderazzo and Ian Froman were a bit more tuned in to what what makes Margitza different from a lot of other players in the same general post-Trane/Wayne bag. I agree about the sincerity -- its presence or absence so difficult to quantify but definitely there in Margitza. Also, without being flashy, he's one hell of a fine saxophonist in purely instrumental terms -- a la Getz, perhaps, it sounds like he's making the whole the horn ring, could probably fill a large room without a mike, and yet is capable of very subtle shadings of volume and timbre. And his intonation is spot on. Another player who strikes me the way Margitza does is Tim Ries, though Margitza is a bit more openly or overtly "spiritual."

Speaking of Shafi Hadi/Curtis Porter, any ideas about where his highly distinctive style came from, especially those almost literally speech-like patterns of accentuation? The only biographical information on him I know is in Robert Levin's liner notes for "Hank Mobley" (Blue Note 1568), where Hadi/Porter mentions Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray and Benny Golson as inspirations and says that his current favorite tenorman is Charlie Rouse. It's not impossible that what makes Hadi/Porter so distinctive is all his own invention, but my guess is that Hadi/Porter, who spent some time in Detroit, also might have been listening closely to Yusef Lateef.

Another facet of Spahn's career. According to veteran Chicago sportswriter Terry Boers (formerly of the Sun-Times, now co-host of a sports-talk radio show on WSCR), Spahn had one of largest schlongs in the history of professional sports. Perhaps that helped him to keep his balance during that high-leg-kick windup--either that or it's why he needed to use that windup inm the first place: to get some clearance.

"Stella By Starlight" -- always disliked that tune, sounds like the musical equivalent of a cheesy chrome-played bathroom faucet.

"Prez and Teddy" and "Jazz Giants '56" had a big impact on me, partly because I'd seen Young with JATP at the Chicago Opera House in 10/55 -- the concert was recorded and issued as "Blues in Chicago" -- and was bewildered, even disturbed, as a 13-year-old near-total novice who had heard no Young at all before this by the strange watery sounds that this seemingly enfeebled (in fact, on the verge of a nervous and physical breakdown) man was placing next to the muscular fervor of Jacquet, Flip Phillips, Eldridge, and Gillespie. Of course, Young recovered and made these wonderful albums in early '56. Hearing them, especially "Jazz Giants," was a lesson-and-a-half, though I still don't have the words to say what was taught.

Woke up in the middle of the night with the thought that it might be Jimmy Jones, not Oscar Peterson, on "Ben Webster And Associates." Whatever, it's a clotted, crippled rhythm section IMO, and their work infects the horn players. (Usually I like Jimmy Jones BTW; his quirky solos are the main point of interest on that H. Edison Verve two-fer referred to above.)

I have (or have had) all the Felsteds, and IMO only "The High and Mighty Hawk" is top drawer. Usually there are a couple of things awry in each case (one or more guys who weren't up to snuff that day and/or hadn't been in a while [e.g. Buster Bailey, Wells on "Bones for the King"]). Perhaps Dance was too much of a worshipful and/or hands-off producer -- compare for instance the Felsted Budd Johnson to the Swingville one, or the Buddy Tate to any of the Swingville dates on which he appears. Also, I'm puzzled by the raves for "Ben Webster And Associates." The lineup looks great on paper, but as I recall, the rhythm section, and thus virtually the entire date, is sabotaged by the mechanical (even by his own grim standards) comping of Oscar Peterson. I would love to get my hands on "Jazz Studio One." Haven't heard it in years, but I remember in particular some choice Bennie Green.

"Back To Back" with Ellington, Hodges, a noble and virtually cliche-free H. Edison, Les Spann, Al Hall, Jo, Jones. Died and gone to Heaven music. About T. Flanagan on those Swingville dates, not being a big Flanagan fan (too bland by and large on most modern dates IMO), I think he's often just what's called for on Swingville, as he moves back in the direction of Teddy Wilson and puts some spine in his style. Certainly the relatively modern backing Russell gets on "Swingin' with Pee Wee" has a lot to do with the success of that date. On the other hand, I can certainly see that Sir Charles Thompson would have/should have been a first choice.

Another Swingville gem now on OJC -- Coleman Hawkins' "Hawk Eyes" with Charlie Shavers, Ray Bryant, Tiny Grimes, et al. The fours between Hawkins and Shavers on the title track are one of the great moments in jazz. Another from the same source in a similar vein -- Hal Singer's "Blue Stompin'" with Shavers.

"Swingin' With Pee Wee," with Buck Clayton (in great form), Tommy Flanagan, Wendell Marshall, Osie Johnson and sublime Russell. Originally on Swingville, it's now on OJC, with another Russell date added. Just listened to it this weekend, and it's as hot and fresh as ever.

"Larry, from your final description, it may be fair to dub Griff the Robert Rauschenberg of the tenor saxophone." Joe, I can see it now, the famous Rauschenberg construction with the stuffed goat's head attached to the canvas, except in Griffin's case it would the head of a donkey singing "The Donkey Serenade." I once heard JG play a very convincing solo on "Happy Birthday" and some 15 years before had heard Roscoe Mitchell and Kalaparush Maurice McIntyre do the same thing. Maybe it's a South Side Chicago sensibility at work.

Johnny Griffin - Way Out! (click here to buy) The AOW for Nov. 30-Dec.6 is Johnny Griffin’s "Way Out!" recorded 2/58 for Riverside with Kenny Drew, Wilbur Ware, and Philly Joe Jones and available on OJC. I bought the Riverside when it first came out and apparently memorized almost every note (and with Griffin that’s a lot of notes) because listening now I find myself anticipating most every phrase, though that doesn’t diminish their impact one bit . (I replaced the old Riverside with a great sounding Japanese LP reissue of it in the early or mid-‘70s, so I can’t speak to the quailty of the OJC transfer--hope it’s good because "Way Out!" was a pretty decent sounding date by Riverside standards, a but dry and tight on PJJ’s cymbal s, but clear and in balance.) Some quotes that may help to set things set up: "[Chicago has at its core] an open and raw beauty that seems either to kill or endow one with the spirit of life." -- novelist Richard Wright "Beauty will be convulsive, or it will not be at all." -- The first line of Andre Breton’s surrealist novel "Nadja" Griffin on himself: "We were always striving to get a big tone. We’d practice in the park, figuring if you could be heard there, you could be heard anywhere. The competitiveness, that was because of all the jam sessions. The club owners would come, and the guys they thought were the best were the ones who would get the gigs. Now I’ve learned how to relax, how to pace myself and use space a little better. But for a long time trying to prove that I could play as well as my contemporaries was always uppermost in my mind. Sonny Stitt really made me study my horn. He used to come to sessions and drive everybody crazy. When I was in the service and had plenty of time to practice, I would stand in the corner and play, thinking about Stitt. I’d imagine I was back in the States, working in a club, and he would would walk in, and I’d invite him up on the stand and hold my own. It worked out like that, too…. "I don’t think my playing has changed much over the years, but I do feel a little more relaxed. But then I never was that relaxed in the first place. Music always excited me so much that it was all I could do to keep from exploding." This is a perfectly programmed album, I think, unlike some other Riversides (e.g. Clark Terry’s "In Orbit" with Monk, as I believe Chuck Nessa once pointed out ). The flow of tunes and tempos is great, with that blindingly fast "Cherokee" as the nodal point (and now even that track doesn’t seem frantic to me), and the tunes themselves (particularly the two somewhat Dameronish lines by John Hines [a pianist I believe] , the gospel -tinged "Sunny Monday" and "Little John," and singer Teri Thornton’s hip blues, "Teri’s Tune) are almost hook-like and set the tone for everyone’s solos. There are four Ware solos here, some of the best ("Teri’s Tune" is a strong candidate for THE best) he ever recorded. If you don’t know this master of oblique primal simplicities, "Way Out!" is essential. That the earth gave birth to both Ware and Monk! I love this rhythm section (some put down the funkier side of K. Drew, but I think they’re wrong; it’s not added on but a logical outgrowth of his boogie-woogie roots). On every track the rhythm section makes all sorts of spontaneous "orchestral" adjustments (like S. Clark, P. Chambers and PJJ do on the title track of "Cool Struttin,’" where every chorus has slightly different "strut" to it, but here the shifts are more mercurial, because Griffin himself is). I don’t know if anyone ever asked PJJ, but the recorded evidence suggests that his musical kinship with Griffin was the tightest he had with any horn player. During their fours on "Sunny Monday" and "Little John" the way they imitate and feed on each other is something else. And on "Cherokee" there’s a passage toward the middle of Griffin’s final chorus where he and PJJ reach such an eerie peak of drum/horn fusion/ecstasy that hey have to take it down a notch-- as though the whole damn performance, which already is teetering on the edge, were about to come loose, like a seaside boardwalk in a hurricane. I admire the mostly tasty Griffin of his Galaxy-era albums, but it’s the lurid Griffin-- full of tonal distortions and outrageous, and outrageously jammed-in, quotes --that I love most (though his quote here on "Cherokee" from "Fascinatin’ Rhythm" is very tasty). Once in a fanciful mood I wrote this about JG: "A Griffin solo is like a construction made of fused-together pieces of cultural-physical debris--a cracked juke box, a smoking truck tire, some buzzing neon tubong and maybe a 1953 Buick Skylark grille and bumper. The title? ‘Ugly Beauty.’"

Clunky -- I think I know what you mean about the music on "Bird Lives" having an unsettling effect. I'd say it was supposed to. Not only were highly individualistic masters or near-masters involved (Ira, Hill, Jodie Christian, Donald Garrett, Wilbur Campbell, Dorel Anderson), but this music was being made (March, 1962) in a post-"Coltrane at the Vanguard," post-advent of Ornette world i.e. all the musicians involved, boppish though they all may have been in their points of origin, to some extent had taken account of these happenings and were being affected by them--and affected perhaps in more personal, quirky ways on Chicago's scene they would have been if this had been NYC. Things feel looser, freer, and also at times more wild, even frantic (Ira is so full of ideas that it sounds like his mind is on roller skates), and there's a lot more toying with the given language than there would have been from the same players a couple years before this--although bassist Donald Garrett always was a player who would push things in an earthy "out" direction. Now that you mention it, I think that the unsettling affect here (and some of the moves these players made) is a definite forecast of the effect of the Miles-Shorter-Hancock-Carter-Williams Quintet, which was about two years down the road.

Lazaro -- As for the latter part of "Maybe Eddie Harris was an influence on the straight ahead guys around Chicago because of the frequency of his playing there, and his inside/almost outside approach (do you think any of that method came out of Pharaoh?). I'm pretty sure that Eddie H. was Eddie H. for a good stretch of time, maybe eight or more years, before he or or anyone else outside of Little Rock had heard of Pharoah -- besides I don't hear much resemblance anyway, certainly not to Pharoah with Coltrane. Also, I'm not sure who you're referring to by "the straight ahead guys around Chicago" that Harris might have influenced. I don't believe that Harris had much influence on local players of his generation or even the one that came after (as I recall, they were into the guys that everyone else around the country was at the time, with the AACM players being the exception in that regard when they came along). If I'm right about Steve Coleman (b. 1956) being the first somehat notable Chicago-based guy to have picked up on Harris (though it may be that for Coleman it was more Bunky Green, though it kind of comes down to the same thing), that would be a gap of 22 years (Harris b. 1934), i.e. three jazz generations at the least. As for '"So you're saying Harris trick bag, however hip, may have limited him from attaining the fullness of the freedom principle?," I don't think of the "freedom principle" quite that concretely -- it's just that Harris seemed to me to be one of those players who liked to build his own special world (musically and commercially) and more or less seal it off as much as possible. The semi-forgetten might have been master from the Chicago scene of that time IMO was tenorman Nicky Hill (d. circa '65 I think, of the usual causes). Out of Mobley, Wardell, Stitt, and maybe Harold Land in spirit, if not in terms of actual influence, he had a way moving ahead on primarily melodic principles taht allowed him to respond to Ornette in a way that almost no one of a similar background and generation in any city did.

Jim -- A couple of Joe Farrell stories (I used to like the way the played when he was still in Chicago, less so after he got to NYC, but the thing he came up with that arguably was so influential was, I believe, something that he'd pretty much learned (or extrapolated) from Chicago tenor guru Joe Daley. First story (a secondhand one but from a reliable source, a friend of the drummer who was involved): When Farrell was a student at the U. of Illinois in the late '50s, maybe '57-'58 (a flute major), the MJQ played a concert there, after which there was a session at someone's house that involved just Farrell, Percy Heath, the drummer and an audience of three young women (probably Farrell and the drummer's girlfriends, plus someone Heath had met after the concert). In any case, for reasons that I don't entirely recall (controlled substances might have been involved), it seemed a good idea to all that the music continue but with all parties (including the audience) disrobed, and that things went on that way at a very high musical level for some time, I think devolving into non-musical activity later on. In any case, the picture of a tall, wiry nude Percy Heath and the nude, chunky, sort of John Belushi-like Farrell is not an easy one to get out of my mind. Second story: At some point in the mid-'80s, probably within a year of his death in '86, Farrell came back to town to play at the Jazz Showcase with the house rhythm section, which included Wilbur Campbell. (Wilbur had been the drummer of choice when Farrell was [or was trying to be] one of the young lions at late-'50s Chicago sessions.) It seemed to me that Farrell was in very good form -- that in particular, though this is in retrospect, some of his steely "method" was yielding to openness because he was feeling the effects of the AIDS-related stuff that would kill him, and he knew that he didn't have a lot of time left. In any case, in the middle of a tune in the first set, Farrell stopped for a few bars in the midst of really good solo and said loud enough for the crowd to hear but as much or more to himself: "Damn--I finally learned how to play with Wilbur!" Lazaro -- I'm not sure what you mean by "because the straight ahead players in Chicago heard all of Eddie Harris?" But it's interesting that two of the guys from that scene who reportedly have had a great belated influence on a lot of players in the Osby-Steve Coleman orbit (Harris and alto man Bunky Green) were not as I recall regarded as being at the top level of the musical food chain by their Chicago colleagues/peers -- Harris mostly because he had his "method," which was cool but still a method, no matter how hip; Green partly for that reason too but mostly because he was kind of a lightweight, flightly player no matter what, one of those guys who might get into something but then would almost always take things in a direction that seemed a bit or a lot too mechanical and cute, i.e. not as serious as his own best ideas had implied things might go. Also, it was hard not to compare Green with the somewhat similar-sounding Frank Strozier, whose stay in Chicago preceded and partially overlapped Green's presence on the scene and who seemed the more substantial player -- and even Strozier wasn't at the level of Ira Sullivan on those occasions when Ira chose to play alto.

This is a tough one because I don't really know the NYC scene from the inside out, though I know and have known some people who are or were part of it and have a sense from knowing them of how much of their selves they've invested in the longstanding notion that NYC is the ultimate place of judgment and testing as far as jazz is concerned, which means (to get a bit circular, but that's the way I think it is) that there have to be generally agreed upon "tests" or "standards" by which the judging can be done. Also, in Chicago after a certain point I don't know that there were that many jazz gigs for the sort of "topnotch professionals" who could also do demanding (in some sense) studio work etc. of various kinds, thus one possibly key element of the kind of divided (if that's the way to put it) "Hey, but I'm a pro!" musical mindset that seems to characterize the NYC scene wasn't in place and maybe couldn't be. And in the time when there were such "pros" around Chicago--well, I can't think of one of them who also had the sort of credibility in the jazz community that, say, a fair number of the Vanguard Orchestra-associated guys have had over the years. One possible example of one of the things I'm groping toward would be the late Chicago drummer Wilbur Campbell, a great player. But as a great as Wilbur was, one aspect of the "professional" mindset didn't apply to him in my experience, and it may be have been inseparable from the gist of his greatness. The pro will never fall below the "professional" level; if the music isn't happening that night for reasons beyond his control, he will do what he can and then try to wall off the problem and keep ticking. Wilbur's humane openness, however, could leave him open to ... not failure but if things we're falling apart around him through no fault of his own, he couldn't wall that off and to some extent would get infected by it -- not infected a whole lot neccesarily, but if over time you charted Wilbur's best nights against his less than topnotch ones, there'd be a gap that was greater than there would be between, I don't know, Osie Johnson's or Ed Shaugnessy's or Joey Baron's high and lows. But the thing that Wilbur and Von Freeman (l recall a famous jazz critic telling me that he couldn't listen to Von, maybe even that he doubted he was competent, because he played sharp) and a host of other guys had or have going for them is, potentially at least, that openness -- or perhaps it's just their sense that the risk must be risked and in your own way, if you think it's worth it, that there are no self-protective secret handshakes. As the poet Frank O'Hara said: "You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.'" On the other hand, if there is that downside to the NYC scene -- to me, Chris Potter is the current standard model of what Jim S. was talking about -- think of all the guys over the years (George Duvivier is one of many who comes to mind) who were part of it and were walking breathing archives of deep experience, knowledge and personal skill, and who could play things that would make your heart stop.

To be specific, that's the last two bars of the bridge of "Sophisticated Lady."

Jim -- I know of and can sort of hear the Konitz-Henderson connection (and not only because Lee did a duo with him on that old Milestone LP), but for me Lee never met any sequence or situation that he couldn't turn into a real melody. The contrast is especially striking on that Steeplechase album that pairs Lee and the heavly JH-influenced Rich Perry, "RichLee." It's a terrific album because Lee is in A+ form, as is the very sympatico to him rhythm section (Harold Danko, Jay Anderson, Billy Drummond), but it's fascinating to hear Lee's unstoppable, in-the-moment melodic flow (his "Moonlight in Vermont" solo is especially fantastic) alongside Perry's non-stop "phweedling." You'd think Perry would have to hear the difference and try to do something about it, and actually I think he does at times--though it sounds like it's almost painful for him to just play the head of a standard tune, or a like-minded variation on it, without putting enough "phweedly" spin on it. On the other hand, the notes say that Lee is a great admirer of Perry's playing, so what do I know? Seems to me that a lot of this comes down to, or springs from, the craft-union aspect of the professional jazz musician's world (or a fair percentage of it), especially in NYC and environs. That is, unless you can do X,Y, and Z the way we all agree (at least at this time) that X,Y, and Z should be done, then you can't belong to the club. I recall from somewhere a remark by Phil Woods that epitomized this -- that no jazz musician who couldn't properly play that notoriously tricky (harmonically) part of "Sophisticated Lady" deserved to be called a real jazz musician. Of course, one should be able to do that, but that doesn't in itself necessarily mean that P. Woods (or anyone else who gets those changes right) is then going to play something interesting, there or anywhere else.

Lazaro--Yes, I listened to a bit of an Open Loose disc in a record store, and it gave me the same feeling, but I wouldn't say that I heard enough to feel certain of anything, just enough to know that I didn't want to buy it that day.