Larry Kart

And the message is? That State Farm exists, sells car insurance, has hired Aaron Rodgers to appear in their commercials, and wants to disassociate their product from geeky guys in tight-fitting suits? Hey, I'm sold.

I get that the jokes are supposed to be at the expense of Rogers' agent, but I don't get the jokes. What are they? I mean, there's some interaction between Rogers and the agent, who behaves all geeky about the double discount or something, and the agent ends up with dung on his face without quite acknowledging or maybe understanding it, but what actually happened? Kabuki theater for me, although that I said "actually" may point to my problem here. This year I've watched entire episodes of "Saturday Night Live" without grasping the premise of a single routine. I think they call it "you're 77" disease.

A perfect day in the studio.

Have liked this one for 54 years now; it hasn't dated a bit. Don Friedman, Attila Zoller, Richard Davis, Joe Chambers. A pricey CD, but If you see this one used on vinyl, don't hesitate. Friedman and Zoller were a great team, as were Davis and Chambers. Too bad that Friedman and Zoller are gone.

Nothing against "The Quest," quite the contrary (with the possible exception of Ron Carter's intonation on cello), but "Mal-1" is a message from some five years earlier, and for me its meaning is bound up with that fact. Mal, Sulieman, Gryce et al. are speaking in and from a particular place in time -- a different place from where Mal, Dolphy, et al. were located and speaking from in 1961. Such things matter sometimes.

I've seen all those State Farm commercials with Aaron Rodgers and his geeky agent many times now, and I still can't figure out what's going on in any of them.

Put on this LP again after many years and was duly impressed by Mal's writing (dig his additions to "Stablemates" and his own "Dee Dee's Dilemma") and by the excellence of the always distinctive Idrees Sulieman (this may be his best recorded work), who is nicely paired with Gigi Gryce in good form.

All solid gold, including, IMO, two of the major turning points in the music -- Nonaah and L-R-G / The Maze / S II Examples. And great credit to the man above, without whom, in most every case, they wouldn't exist.

One good sign for me is that the three version of "Bernie's Tune" there are the only three versions of that once ubiquitous tune that I've ever been able to stand. Perfect choice of tempo, for one thing, and both Art and Sonny are inspired.

Thought of raising this topic while listening to Lee Morgan's "Tom Kat." There may be a better-sounding RVG Blue Note CD, but if so its name doesn't occur to me right now. I'm particularly taken by how Lee's upper register and that of McCoy Tyner's piano come through, especially because RVG's approach to piano micing has often been criticized for lopping off upper-register info. (Having grown up on RVG's piano sound, it took me a good while to notice this, but it is noticeable on many dates, especially on the recordings he did with Biil Evans for Verve.) As for worst sounding RVG Blue Note CD, off the top of my head I'd vote for "Speak Like A Child" even in its re-mastered form, both for the way Hancock's piano sound is virtually crushed and for the lack of air around the ensemble.

My longtime friend drummer Doug Mitchell, who passed away this year, was a big fan of guitarist Lage Lund. Based on the two Lund albums I've heard, he had a point.

Had a feeling about this one and am now sampling the two dates -- one with Lou Levy, Chuck Domanico, and Carl Burnett, the other recorded on the following two days (July 30 and 31, 1978) with Russ Freeman, John Heard, and Burnett. In the notes Laurie Pepper favors the latter rhythm section, as do I, but the first rhythm section is fine too, just has a different flavor, mostly thanks to Levy's light-bright-and-skating articulation and time feel versus Freeman's darker, weightier comping and solo work. Laurie says that Freeman was more to Art's taste, but the quality of Art's playing on the first date was quite high -- as was Art himself according to Laurie (beforehand a "fan" had slipped Art a bunch of pills of an unknown sort). Both Stitt and Pepper are in fine form, and those expecting a highly competitive near bloodbath will be disappointed. Art's approach -- more expressive gestures, more venturesome that Stitt-- only serves to inspire the latter, whose ready responsiveness has a similar effect on Art. The overall mood strikes me as fresh, warm, and genial, with any number of inspired moments from both men.

Off the top of my head, if I had to pick one it might be this:

Excellent. The actress who played Jo! The whole ensemble in fact. And it was a real movie, not a Masterpiece Theater thing.

Mozart K. 617 Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola, and cello, played here by Ensemble Baroque de Paris on celeste (Robert Veyron-Lacroix), flute (Maxence Larrieu) , oboe (Pierre Pierlot), violin (Robert Gendre), and bassoon (Paul Honge). Lovely performance of a relatively brief (9:47 in this recording) hauntingly beautiful work. It's in Mozart's Masonic music vein. Rec. 1975, Denon, o.o.p. Rest of this CD -- J.C. Bach, Quantz, Haydn, etc. is excellent too. These were superb players, and they picked very good pieces to play, BTW the use of the celeste rather than the glass harmonica is all for the best IMO; the sound of the latter instrument can make your fillings ache.

Glancing insight, perhaps a pseudo insight, into Art. He was at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago in the '70s, when it was located beneath the Happy Medium nightclub on Rush St. I went to review the first night, Art was superb, and I said so in the next morning's paper. I went back the next night, and I think Chuck pointed me out out to Laurie (don't think I'd met her before, but she had seen the review and probably shown it to Art). She said to him something like, "Here's the guy who said all those nice things about you in the paper," and Art just stood there looking at me much as does in the photo, like a zombie. Not that I expected or wanted anything from him on an interpersonal level, and Lord knows there would have been many ways to take this, based on whatever Art's physical and emotional state of being might have been at the time, but my immediate impression was that being on the receiving end of praise, especially from a stranger/would-be critic, placed him in an awkward, even impossible position -- perhaps a la, "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member."

Picked that up at the gig. Haven't listened yet.

caught Josh Berman, Keefe Jackson, Jason Roebke, and drummer Bill Harris at the Hungry Brain. Excellent. Harris, new to me, is a find -- very tasty, big ears. Now that Frank Rosaly is in Amsterdam, the Chicago scene needs a drummer like Harris. Everyone was in top form, playing pieces from Josh's Delmark albums "A Dance and a Hop" and "Old Idea." Josh's cornet sounded so rich and golden that I asked if ff he had had work done on it, He said, "No, just lots of practice." Keefe, with his gruff warm tone, was swinging so hard at times that I once again had the thought that he was as an admirer of Don Byas. Mentioned this to Josh, and he said, Oh., absolutely."

Martin Williams had a negative view of Sheldon too, probably based on Jack's work with Curtis Counce. IIRC, it went something like, "He imitates Miles but puts the climaxes in all the wrong places." One knows what aspect of Sheldon c. 1956 Martin was referring to, but while some of the sudden sotto voce moves that Jack liked to make back then could be rather coy, Martin didn't get that they were also a function of Jack's sense of humor.

A very good latter-day Sheldon album: BTW, the Sheldon--Lester Bowie story I asked Chuck to tell. Bowie was at a concert or gig in the Boston area IIRC. Sheldon came out onstage and said something like: "You may notice that I look a bit different these days [a reference to his good-sized belly]. Well, I've been f---ing a lot lately, and I got pregnant."

Another top-notch Berg Chamber Concerto recording, maybe the best I know, is Libor Pesek's rec. 1965 (Quintessence LP, origjnally on Supraphon) with Zdenek Kozina piano and Ivan Straus violin, coupled with an excellent recording of the Berg Violin Concerto, with Josef Suk and Ancerl, also from 1965. Kozina really nails the piano part. Above all, everyone on the Pesek Chamber Concerto recording plays out -- on the Boulez Columbia recording with Barenboim, for example, the players in the ensemble sound like they're afraid to make a mistake. I would say that a certain Central European juiciness is what's called for, as though the work were Mozart's Gran Partita k. 361.

Gaillard (2) fan here. Do you know Lillian Fuchs' recording on viola?

You should tell the Lester Bowie story about Jack.