Larry Kart

You may not agree but I think this is a great recording, Constantin Silvestri conducting the Bartok Divertimento, rec. in Feb. 1958 with the Philharmonia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acvThC8xLQY It’s unlike any other recording of the work I’ve ever heard or could imagine — slow and/or measured, especially in the first movement, weighty, gutty, dark (the climaxs of the second movement!) — and it’s seemed absolutely right to me ever since I ran across it decades ago on an old Angel LP (see below) where it’s paired with “Mathis Der Mahler I got it again on a now OOP 10-CD Disky Silvestri box that has many other recordings of interest: Disc 1 Dvorak 7 Enescu: Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 4 Rimsky: Cappricio Espagnol Disc 2 Humperdinck: Overture to H&G Brahms: Hungarian Dances (selection) Dvorak: Slavonic Dances 1&2, Carnival, Symphony No. 8 Disc 3 Shostakovich 5 Prokofiev: Love for 3 Oranges Suite Khatchaturian: Gayne Suite Disc 4 Mendelssohn: Midsummer Night's Dream Overture Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole Falla: Ritual Fire Dance, dance from La vida breve Rimsky: May Night Overture Borodin: Overture to Prince Igor and Polovstian Dances Disc 5 Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain Borodin: In the steppes of central Asia Glinka: R&L Overture Rimsky: Scheherazade Disc 6 Dukas: Sorcerer's Apprentice (Bournemouth) Saint-Saens: Danse macabre Ravel: Pavane Franck: Symphony Disc 7 Tchaikovsky: Polonaise from Onegin; 1812 Overture; Capriccio Italien Sibelius: Finlandia Vaughan-Williams: Wasps Overture; Tallis Fantasia Disc 8 Liszt: Preludes Dukas: Sorcerer's Apprentice (Paris Conservatoire) Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements; Song of the Nightingale Disc 9 Ravel: Bolero Debussy: Afternoon of a Faun; Nocturnes; La Mer Disc 10 Liszt: Tasso Hindemith: Mathis der Maler Bartok: Divertimento

My son works at Reckless Records in Chicago. He says that the problem is awful. Lots of in-demand and/or staple titles aren't arriving.

I like everything of Rannou that I've heard.

1954.

Yes, that and the Concertgebouw album. Good clean fun, so to speak. I like OP best in the setting of that trio. Gunther Schuller, FWIW, fired off a paean to that group and its carefully worked out routines.

What Chuck said. Plus his comping either can be compulsive (e.g. one of the two concerts on "Getz and JJ at the Opera House") or kind of clunky , in the way. Why there should be such variance, I can't say. More than a few people do make that complaint, but Tatum's frequent blizzard of notes is IMO different in intent and effect than Peterson's.

Damn good.

Damn -- don't know those. All sound intriguing.

Thanks.

Original LP or has that recording been reissued and remastered?

Yes, but do you really think that was the case or was it more circumstantial -- like so many of the players of the time who fit in musically also were addicts? Also, there is a cryptic reference in Sultanof's notes to Phil Urso being fired for "insubordination on May 21, 1951" (he was replaced by Bill Perkins). What in the context of those Herman bands could insubordination have been? Then there is the famous story of Woody firing Serge Chaloff (THE demon of the Second Herd) while they both stood at a bar and pissing down Serge's leg as he did so. Another story, thought not an ugly one, via Steve Voce: " a young man arrived in the band's dressing room in New Orleans in 1952. 'Can I help you?' Dick Hafer asked. 'I've come to take Urbie Green's place,' said the young man. The sidemen fell about laughing. That night Woody pointed to Carl Fontana to take his first solo with the band. Fontana was now the solo trombone chair in the band; Green played lead."

You mean because the Second Herd probably was in the running as THE junky band?

Maybe more in a personal offshoot of a warm, lyrical, rolling and tumbling Ben Webster mode -- that's certainly true of his playing on "Sweet and Lovely." But then on the tracks I've heard so far, Flip isn't called upon to be a chief source of heat and excitement, nothing JATP-like from him. BTW, the First Herd part of the set concludes with the March 25, 1946 Carnegie Hall concert, not issued by MGM until 1952 -- from there we skip to Jan. 4, 1951 and a date backing Billy Eckstine with West Coast studio players and a Jan. 7 date with a newly formed transitional Herman band that bears no resemblance in personnel to the First Herd nor to that of the Second Herd either. The big gap came in Dec. 1946 when Herman broke up the First Herd because his wife Charlotte had become an alcoholic and pill addict and he had to minister to her. When she recovered the Second Herd was formed, but the 1951 band was, again, a different outfit.

As Jeff Sultanof points out, Flip's solo on "Sweet and Lovely" is something else.

Am enjoying Disc 1. Frances Wayne's warm vocals are a pleasure, Woody's too, Ben Webster's numerous solos are a delight, Dave Matthews' Ellington-influenced arrangements are tasty and Ralph Burns' are often exceptional. I was surprised that excellent annotator Jeff Sultanof, who notices a great many things worth pointing out, failed to mention that Burns' handsome setting of "Speak Low" begins (unless I'm somehow mistaken) with a direct quote from the intro to Ellington's "KoKo."

Mine too.

He was an editor in the features department. I said he was a colleague, but actually our paths didn't cross that much, though I knew who he was. I was a writer -- a so-called entertainment critic -- and I think his job was deciding or helping to decide what stories the features section would feature down the road, so to speak. The Trib had a top notch features section for a good while. Mark, do you know what Tom has been up to in recent years?

Yes, a good one. Tom Stites, its editor, later on was a colleague of mine at the Chicago Tribune.

Includes a particularly lovely version of "Stairway to the Stars." Nice band too: Illinois Jacquet, Hank Jones, either Kenny Burrell or Jim Hall, Milt Hinton, and Elvin Jones.

Don't have that album. What is said there? Got my "The Last Quintet" from Zoverstocks. Took a while but it got here.

Thanks. Either I was inspired or half out of my head when I wrote those notes, or both. BTW, someone who knew the Miles/Tony dynamic from fairly close up (might have been Bob Belden, who asked me to do the notes) thought that in them I was alluding to the fact that for a while Miles and Tony had had a rather contentious romantic relationship, which left Tony pretty messed up emotionally (in the aftermath he would seek psychiatric help). I had no idea of any of that.

Unbelievable! Or to quote Tom Poston's line from the movie "Cold Turkey," "Well, I believe it a little bit." Everybody plays great here.

I think this was Wynton's best work: https://www.discogs.com/Various-Conrad-Silvert-Presents-Jazz-At-The-Opera-House/release/5943354 This one too: https://www.amazon.com/Destinys-Dance-Chico-Freeman/dp/B000000YZS/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=chico+freeman&qid=1574891017&s=music&sr=1-9

A friend of mine, himself a talented composer-arranger, thinks of Florence's writing as quintessentially "white." I think I know what he means, but my attitude is pretty much "so what?"/"different strokes." Also, while some might find Florence's writing a bit bland at times, it's not at all simple-minded IMO. I particularly like the way he writes for his trumpet sections (and he always has a section of topnotch executants) as though (or so it seems to me) they were playing saxophones. When I'm following one of Florence's fairly elaborate semi-soloistic brass or reeds ensemble passages, I'm never bored.