Larry Kart

Jazz Studio One was a pleasantly mellow date: "Joe Newman, trombonist Bennie Green, tenor saxophonists Frank Foster and Paul Quinichette, pianist Hank Jones, guitarist Johnny Smith (who appeared on the original album as Sir Jonathan Gasser, since he was under contract to Roost at the time), bassist Eddie Jones, and drummer Kenny Clarke. Smith sets up the 22-minute rendition of "Tenderly" with a beautiful unaccompanied solo, then the full rhythm section joins in as the individual reed and brass players take turns. The tempo picks up a good bit just prior to the midpoint, with the solos being much briefer as everyone gets a chance to blow. The second piece, "Let's Spilt," is a bluesy riff tune jointly composed by Hank Jones and Robert Shad that is also an extended performance."

I talked about this with Randy once -- he's an old friend -- or rather he talked about it with me, and IIRC the problems with the CHJB were related to Jon Faddis' ego, Faddis being the leader of the band. There also might have been some static about what the band's repertoire should be.

Was just listening to the first track of Vol. 1. The first solo is by Art Farmer, and without having listened to this album in many years, I remembered every note of the solo just as Art played them. Anyone else ever had a similar experience? Nice solo too.

Like the writing and get a kick out of one of the titles, "Poor Dr. Millmoss." It refers to a James Thurber cartoon in which a Dr. Millmoss has been swallowed by a hippopotamus. https://www.comicsbeat.com/the-perfect-cartoon/ P.S. For some reason, both the name and the playing of baritone saxophonist Sol Schlinger bring S.J. Perelman to mind. Perhaps there's another Albam piece that features Sol and whose title refers to something by Perelman.

Albam's "Jazz Workshop" is a good one -- good soloists and clever writing. Below is the original album; the music is available on several Albam compiliations.

The Kolisch Quartet performances are as you say, but I'd also recommend checking out the performances by the Fred Sherry Quartet on Naxos. They're the best "modern" recordings, better than the Arditti IMO and less expensive too..

I heard Bucky about five years ago in concert with a George Wein-led group that included a lot of would-be heavy hitters in that mainstream style -- Anat Cohen and my old friend Randy Sandke among them, maybe Harry Allen too. Bucky was by far the most interesting soloist. P.S. Randy was having an off day.

Rather disappointing IIRC. Haven't had it for years, don't know what I'd think of it if I heard it now. The Benny Goodman Trio* ‎– Plays For Fletcher Henderson Label: CBS/Sony ‎– 20AP 1438 Series: CBS Favorite Jazz 100 – Format: Vinyl, LP, Mono Country: Japan Released: Genre: Jazz Style: Swing Tracklist A1 China Boy A2 Body And Soul A3 Runnin' Wild A4 On The Sunny Side Of The Street A5 After You've Gone A6 Basin' Street Blues B1 Rose Room (In Sunny Roseland) B2 Honeysuckle Rose B3 I Found A New Baby B4 One O'Clock Jump Credits Bass – Eddie Safranski Clarinet – Benny Goodman Drums – Gene Krupa Guitar – John Smith (6) Liner Notes – John Hammond Piano – Teddy Wilson Trombone – Lou McGarity Trumpet – Buck Clayton

Tell it to Anthony Lane, who says in his New Yorker review of the film that the soldiers Frank kills are Italian. Just "following orders" fits what I thought about Frank more or less throughout; he's a semi-empty vessel waiting to be directed. Indeed, the most consequentially horrific deed he does, in terms of its effect on his life, is beat up that grocery store owner who has shoved his daughter. It is the overt, over-the-top violence of that act that alienates her from him forever, while for Frank her getting mistreated by the grocer is in effect the opportunity that he's been looking for to explode more or less freely. Young as she is, his daughter, I would say, understands that completely.

For sure, in terms of storytelling, but if that's a fairly common end for many people, I found its depiction in the film to be uncommon and moving.

Finally signed up on Netflix and got around to seeing it yesterday. Flawless it ain't, but in the end (literally and figuratively) it moved me a good deal. First, there's the fact of Frank's rather distanced relationship to everyone around him, including the members of his family, and even I would say his distanced relationship to himself, to his own feelings, such as they are, the way he accepts that in virtually every tight quarter he finds himself in during his long life he has no choice other than to do what he's told to do. Then, finally, there's his demise, with the door in the seniors home left open a crack at his request, and his refusal to the priest and to his would-be biographers to confess to any of the many crimes he has committed. What I got from this, what I think Scorsese may have had in mind, was that the film conveyed the sense of an entire life that was lived piecemeal, albeit quite eventfully at times, and then it just dribbles out, which will be the case for many of us BTW., in the WWII flashback we see Frank murdering two disarmed enemy soldiers in Italy and dumping them into the grave he has had them dig. One review said that these were Italian soldiers. I didn't take in the nature of their uniforms, but it seems unlikely to me that at any point in the Italian campaign where and when Frank was active there were Italian troops still opposing us in combat (hadn't Italy surrendered by then, so its army would have been dissolved?) and that Frank's victims more likely would have been disarmed Germans on which Frank was revenging himself. Of course they could have been Italian stragglers, and Frank just might have been bloodyminded. Any thoughts?

Powell sure had a sound.

Good advice. I think I may spontaneously have gotten into that mode of listening while listening to Graupner's suites and concerti.

How about Marcelle Meyer's Scarlatti? If you like her way with DS, there's a lot of it on her big EMI box.

11:56 AM (3 minutes ago) Sign that I must be losing it. Recently picked up the Peter Eotvos recording of Stockhausen's "Gruppen for Three Orchestras," a work that I'd certainly heard of but had never listened to. Chose to forestall listening after a while in order not to disturb others in the house, though what I heard was certainly novel (even after all these years) and impressive. Later on I was listening to some orchestral works by the prolific Darmstadt-based mid- to late Baroque composer Christoph Graupner (1683-1760) and damned if I couldn't hear a resemblance to the Stockhausen of "Gruppen." Graupner's works tend to go with little sense of transition from one mood or motif to another and, further, and perhaps most important, there often are three or more instrumental groups involved at once, each with its distinct instrumentation and tone colors, while each such grouping typically differs from the others not only in instrumentation but also in tempo and rhythmic framework. Also, these various differences between instrumental groups and their habits/flavors aren't that radical and thus don't usually amount to/lead to overt clashes -- rather the feeling is more or less one of fluctuating hide-and-seek homogeneity or a kind of not-literal counterpoint of groups (less so when one focuses on a particular group/thread in the fabric, more so when one steps back and regards the whole as a "whole," which in fact it may not be nor be intended to be). Was there something in the water at Darmstadt?

Interesting. More than a whole lot of music, Roussel's symphonies hit me the same way. If I'm in the right mood, I find them fascinating. If I'm not, I have to stop right there. So what's the mood factor? Perhaps it's that there's something oblique and fundamentally unsettled built into Roussel's language, and if you yourself are feeling the least bit unsettled/uneasy -- and who isn't these days? -- Roussel can tip over the hay wagon. BTW, have you heard his ballet "Aeneas"? There a terrific Erato recording by Martinon, maybe only on LP.

Never heard if it. Sure looks interesting.

Found this on the internet: "My favorite Vinnie Burke story - he had a duo gig (Hickory House?) with theory maven/ pianist John Mehegan. Apparently Mehegan was an inveterate rusher, EVERYTHING would pick up and Vinnie was getting tired of holding the fort. So one night he decided to "go with the flow"; every time Mehegan would push the tempo, Vinnie would push it even more. By the time they got to the head out, it's getting too fast for Mehegan to play so he turns over his shoulder and hisses sternly "You're rushing!" To which Vinnie, with a huge grin plasetered on his face, replies, "Yeah. How do you like it?"

Mike -- For quality of music and performance and harpsichord sound, let me recommend Genevieve Soly's CDs of Christoph Graupner's harpsichord works on the Anakleta label.

Thanks. We have similar tastes in harpsichord sound.

Donation in the mail

Very enjoyable for those of us who have those tendencies, but I found while listening to the whole thing a while ago on a long car trip that as the so to speak "West Coast" aspects/feel of the earlier dates gave way to the somewhat (for want of a better term) more mainstream modern feel of the later dates, my interest began to wane. That's not because I favor the former style over the latter but perhaps because the former style was more in tune with the arguably rather quirky/special gifts and traits of Niehaus as both player and writer. I'm thinking of his rhythmic approach in particular -- I think that very few altoists placed so many accents on what seem to me to be relatively weak beats and avoided placing them on strong beats as the early Niehaus did. One might have doubts about this approach, which could be said to either imperil swing per se or amount to a significant modification of its commonly perceived nature and virtues. But for my part, as Niehaus on those latter dates became a somewhat more conventionally swinging player, he became a less interesting one. But then, when Niehaus returned to playing jazz after his long layoff to concentrate on film scoring, and recorded with the likes of Bill Perkins and Jack Nimitz, a modified version of his early accenting on the weak beats rhythmic approach cropped up again.

"The Jazz Odyssey of James Rushing Esquire" (Columbia) is another good one. Wonder who was the "rabbi" behind those several Rushing Columbia LPs. John Hammond? Irving Townsend? Don't think they could have been big sellers.

Yes, that's what I mean. Singing (as with Rushing) and playing (as with Buddy Tate) into the next bar and beyond might be another way to put it.

That "Russian Lullaby" swings so much! Also, this is very much in the southwest blues mode -- so linear. Wide open spaces.