Larry Kart

She's that too sometimes.

I've been hard on Evans at times -- more for the way he lured so many players down a path of semi-pastoral near-facelessness than for the course of his own development, compromised as it was by drug use. (A musician friend who is something of an Evans scholar says that you can catergorize Evans' music by what drug he was using at the time -- Heroin Bill, Methadone Bill, Cocaine Bill, and what am I leaving out? And yet if the way he played on the Vanguard albums with LaFaro and Motion was to some degree a byproduct of his belief that "romanticism handled with discipline is the most beautiful kind of beauty," who can quarrel with those particular results; they were beautiful by any standard. Few musicians reach such a level; that from there it went the way it by and large did was ... you name it. A pity? A tragedy? Inevitable? Good enough, given the odds. Whenever I revisit the music I efeel a bit differently each time.

Yes. We'll be diving into it in an hour or two.

sgcim wrote: "I can only answer the first part of that by quoting Hindemith: "We only have twelve tones in music, therefore we must be very careful about how we use those twelve tones" (or something to that effect). The limitations of Hindemith's own music, estimable as it often is, are a fairly sure sign of the limitations of his or anyone else's fetishization of "craft" and "rules." sgcim also wrote: " On top of all that, Evans would bring an improvisational genius that was unequaled during his time." Unequalled? By Rollins? By Coltrane? By Wayne Shorter? By Ornette (if you will; I would). Hell, I would say that if Clifford Brown or (working close to home) Scott LaFaro had lived normal life spans, their achievements would have surpassed Evans'.

In Peter Pettinger's Evans bio he tell the story of Russell's first encounter with Evans. Chicago singer Lucy Reed, a good friend of Evans (he plays on her first Fantasy album) fell by Russell's NYC apartment with Evans in tow. Unimpressed by the geeky look of this newcomer, Russell nonetheless showed Evans some of his music. Evans sat down and proceeded to play the beJeezus out of it. Russell said that this was a life-changing experience for him.

Long life, long list of achievements, lives changed by all he did.

Matthew Shipp: " The one person Cecil really hated was Bill Evans. In fact, after I told him how much I liked Bill Evans, he didn’t talk to me for a few years!" Allen Lowe has posted here in some detail about Tristano's influence on Herbie.

To quote myself: "Quite articulate about his music, i.n a 1964 interview Evans said this: 'The only way I can work is to have some kind of restraint involved, the challenge of a certain kind craft or form and then to find the freedom in that.... I think that a lot of guys ... want to circumvent that kind of labor.' Then there is this Evans statement: 'I believe that all music is romantic, but if it gets schmaltzy, romanticism is disturbing. On the other hand, romanticism handled with discipline is the most beautiful kind of beauty.' "Plusible words perhaps, but the value that Evans seemingly places on restraint in itself leads one to ask what is being restrained and why? Evans' "challenge of [working within] a certain kind craft or form" Is not merely an account of his own necessary practice; it lends to that practice an air of moral virtue ("I think that a lot of guys ... want to circumvent that kind of labor.') In other words, for Evans certain kinds of musical labor are not only valid but they also validate. And should an aesthetically valid outcome be reached in a seemingly non-laborious manner, that can be disturbing. Thus in 1964, after acknowledging the brilliance.ant, ludic, and completely unpremeditated two-piano improvisation that he and Paul Bley contributed to George Riussell's 1960 album "Jazz in the Space Age.," was "filled to do," Evans says, "[But to do] something that hadn't been rehearsed successfully, just like that, almost shows the lack of challenge involved in that kind of freedom." Geez, Louise -- you think it might show something else? Like maybe that certain "just like that" circumstances might lead to results and discoveries that the world of "challenges" and "restraints" (as Evans conceives the meaning of those terms) might not lead to? And why does the absence of successful rehearsals (I assume Evans meant that the Evans-Bley duo piano improvisation was not rehearsed at all rather than unsuccssfully rehearsed) equal a "lack of challenge"? Doesn't it merely modify the nature of the challenge, if you want to use that term? BTW, in that duo portion of "Jazz in the Space Age," does anyone have the sense that Evans and Bley are "merely "tossing off" what they play rather than paying very close attention to what they're doing/what's happening? Also, "romanticism handled with discipline is the most beautiful kind of beauty." What the heck does Evans think romanticism is? It was an epoch of sensibility that fueled much creativity in all the arts for a good portion of the 19th Century and has had an even longer life, especially in music, in terms of audience appeal. That I think would be accurate. But I would guess that that is not quite what Evans means but rather something ike "music that can more or less melt you" -- say, Chopin or Rachmaninov, which is BTW not to denigrate the music of those composers in any way; Chopin is a giant, and Rachmaninov's popularity should not obscure the substance of his best work. In any case, while much Bach does melt many people, by no means does Bach's music fall under the umbrella of romanticism in the first and more accurate sense of the term I outlined above.

'BIll Evans gave several generations an excuse." Interesting that you should put it that way. That was precisely the point I made in my infamous Bill Evans piece, reprinted tin my book.

SOUND -- more or less the start, and it's as great now was it was back then.

Got mine yesterday. Listened to Disc 1 last night. Absolutely fascinating. And the text is excellent and enlightening.

And the replacement for Russell with Shelly. Didn't Donald Garrett take over on bass for Russell initially? I know I heard Garrett with the trio at a club on Sheridan Rd. near Loyola and heard Joe express his preference for Garrett's playing over Thorne's. Lord that group was a psychodrama.

Back in the day I was good friends with a superb Chicago singer-pianist named Shelly Litt. Talking about bona fides, for a while she was the girlfriend of Joe Daley Trio bassist Russell Thorne (his "Knell for Shel" is dedicated to her) -- they were a volatile couple to be sure. At this distance in time and having no recorded evidence of how she sounded, (Shelly and Judy Roberts went to the same high school, Shelly a year or so older, and Shelly said that Judy copped her style from her, but Shelly was in a different class) I can only say that she was a jazz singer through and through, and that there were (thinking of what you said above about Jacy Parker) virtually no places, no managers, no club owners that would or could make room for her to do what she could do. Shelly married another talented bassist Clyde Flowers (not a happy union I believe) went off to LA with him and eventually I lost track of her. Last time we talked sone years ago (on the phone) she was singing in L.A. area retirement homes; I think just doing so as a volunteer. Sic transit gloria. P.S. Flowers was a musical associate at one time of Bill Mathieu.

Jazz pianist Larry Novak. Eric Hochberg Chicago jazz pianist Larry Novak, a fixture of Chicago’s 1960s club scene, died Sunday at age 87. “We lost a giant today,” bassist Eric Hochberg, who recorded with Novak, wrote on Facebook. Novak led a trio that performed at Chicago’s London House from 1961 to 1963, and then at at the storied Rush Street club Mr. Kelly’s, where he also was music director. He worked with a who’s who of musical greats, most extensively with Peggy Lee and Pearl Bailey. In a 1964 Sun-Times profile, he described a night at the London House when he was heard by Don Trenner, a music exec who asked him to send tapes. “I thought he was just being polite,” Novak said. “So I didn’t even bother sending him anything. But two or three weeks later he called and said he wanted to cut an album. I was floored.” That trio album, “Larry Novak Plays!,” was released in 1964. Not until more than a half century later did he put out a follow-up, “Invitation” (2015). Novak, who grew up on Chicago’s West Side, also was an instructor at DePaul University. On a personal note, I'll add: The recently deceased Chicago-based pianist Larry Novak -- long resident at Mr. Kelly's and London House -- was as Dan Morgenstern has said "a very dear man." When it came to harmonic subtlety, delicacy of touch, and knowledge of thousands of tunes, Larry had few peers. My favorite memory of Larry is perhaps a rather odd one that speaks both to his fundamental decency, his professionalism, and his ability to deal with both the sweet and sour aspects of accompanying artists of, shall we say, varying levels of ability. The inimitable Pia Zadora, backed by her wealthy husband's desire to turn her into star, was giving a concert at a Chicago-area venue whose name I don't recall. Less incompetent than she was the first time I heard her -- as an opening act ar the Mill Run Theater, where patrons actually lined up at the box office during intermission to ask for their money back -- Zadora was still no bargain. If I recall correctly, at this second Zadora performance I approached Larry afterwards in an attempt to briefly commiserate for the "challenges" he'd just dealt with. The consummate pro, aside from a near invislble wink of acknowledgment, Larry would have none of this -- it was all part of the job, to make things sound as good as possible. And in fact that is what he had done that night to a remarkable degree.

Jacy Parker!

- show quoted text - Symphonies No. 4 & 5, Edward Serov, Odense Symphony (Kontrapunkt). No. 5 (The Elements) either is or is close to a masterpiece. Four movements (Air, Earth, Water, Fire) each beautifully characterized, not a foot put wrong. In the notes to the earlier Jan Lanthham-Koenig recording of No. 5 (also on Konrtrapunkt, have it now but haven't yet heard it) Norholm says: "It is not so strange that the antique Greek conceptions of the four elements ... fire, water, air, and earth -- which were considered to comprise the entire material reality, could be used as images or as analogies for a music which could be respectively lively, fluent, airy, and heavy." About the masterpiece suggestion -- there is a certain game-like quality to the work, a lack of table-pounding or hand-wringing if you will, and some require those qualities if the term "masterpiece" is to be bandied about. I don't. No. 4, (Decreation) while quite impressive in purely sonic terms, otherwise remains more or less incomprehensible to me at this point because it sets at length (44:15) an elaborate and seemingly rather abstract text by Danish poet Paul Borum, with added material drawn by Norholm from other sources, and this compound text, rendered by chorus and vocal soloists, is not translated in the accompanying booklet. Again, based on the intensity and quality of Norholm's music here, one feels fairly sure that the relationship between music and text is lucid and intense, but without a translation (or knowledge of Danish) one is left to guess as to what that relationship is. More when I've heard more Norholm. I already have heard and been impressed by Symphonies 7 and 9. Norholm's idiom, based on what I've heard so far is quite personal and rather hard to describe -- does a mix of Webern and Sibelius sound possible to you? Webern for Norholm's frequent penchant for delicate airy textures, use of space and slience and chromaticism (how literally dodecaphonic Norholm's music is at times I can't say for sure), Silbelius for his occasional dramatically sweeping brass and strings outbursts -- all of this not in a bits and pieces manner but quite integrated and, again, personaL Seemingly peculiar to Norholm is his fairly frequent and masterly writing for timpani; none of this in what one might call a "bombarding" manner but as though the tymps were in Norholm's view a section of the orchestra, even a potentially lyrical one, that had not yet received its due. Tympanists must love his music. Norholm early on was a Holmboe student FWTW -- though aside from scrupulous craftsmanship, I don't see any link between latter-day Norholm and his teacher.

And Miles substituted his own, simpler bridge.

It depends, I think, on how much power you need to drive your headphones properly versus how much power your amp's headphone jack puts out. There's a way to tell that upfront I'm sure (someone here will know), but if your headphones sound fine to you when plugged into your current amp's headphone jack (some, maybe many phones will), then you probably don't need a separate headphone amp, though I'd bet they'd make any headphones sound better. In any case, the Schiit Magni 3 amp was not expensive, IIRC maybe $100. I got the Schiit amp upfront because my son had the same headphone amp/headphones pair and said that was the way to go.

mjzee (above) describes what I do. Actually, I plug, via RCA cables, my amp's "rec out" jacks into my Schiit headphone amp for the reason mjzee stated. Then I plug my headphones into the headphone amp. There's a volume control on the headphone amp (though the volume control on my regular amp still functions as before) plus a switch on the back of the Schiit amp that takes you from "low" output to "high" output. My Sennheisers prefer "high."

I don't use my computer as a sound source. I run my regular amp's rec out signal through the head phone amp and then plug my headphones into the headphone amp. This is necessary/worth doing because my while my new Sennheisser 655 phones will work with my regular amp's headphone jack, they sound a whole lot better when they're plugged into/powered by Schiit's Magni 3 headphone amp.

If you're in the market for an amp, or anything else in the sound reproduction realm, my son, an audiophile, swears by the Schiit line of products. They're elegant, compact, and great value. I recently got a Schiit headphone amp, and it's excellent.

I had a similar problem with an amp of about 15 years vintage, a good one too. i did what Daniel A has suggested and it worked. One preliminary test that might give you a clue. With the amp on, and the volume control at or above a normal level, vigorously work back and forth the various controls that Daniel A mentions. If the problem you're having alters at all as you do this vigorous twiddling , then it's a sign that oxidation or some other internal build up of crud is at fault. I attacked the rubber sheath around the volume control, which is where the problem seemed to be, with oxidation fluid and, ultimately (figuring what the hell) a knife, eventually peeling away almost all of that now gunky rubber sheath. Intemperate I l know, but the problem vanished and has yet to return after about three years.

But the tone of your "Oh, so he was a victim, then?" -- especially that rather snotty "then" -- was that I was out to give him a pass while you, the SCOTUS judge of all things moral, was made of much sterner stuff I. certainly was not giving Evans a pass, nor do I see how you could have read what I've posted on this thread and think that I was doing so. That's not who I am and it bugs me some that, after all the time we've spent yakking to each other here over how many years now, you'd think that I was that kind of guy.

"Oh, so he was a victim, then?" By "at the mercy of," all I meant was that Evans seemed to have little control over over this shit, not that he was a victim. BTW, when I wrote for the Chicago Tribune a highly critical piece about Evans, I overheard in a record store an enraged local bass player say that he wanted to kill me. I felt vindicated in part because one of my points in the piece was that Evans' music of the time (this was the mid-'70s; the bassist worked with pianist-vocalist Patrica Barber) gave an air of legitimacy to their own IMO rather wishy-washy "lyricism." I was less happy to discover that an excellent Chicago pianist whose name I won't mention wanted to punch me out. Around then, and maybe still in some quarters, Evans worship was serious stuff.