Larry Kart

"Graetinger's music holds up, imo, holds up very, very well." I agree.

Artur Rubinstein's 1965 recording of the Liszt Sonata. The more delicate passages are uncannily intimate/ incredibly beautiful.

" Some players seem to be enthralled - to one degree or another - with letting you know where the "1" is of every measure. That misses the point of Bach, imo!" I couldn't agree more.

Gould's ability (and his frequent decision) " to voice every single part independently within the texture" is among the reasons I dislike his Bach. As Charles Rosen said in his essay on Bach and Handel in the book "Keyboard Music" (Penguin), this approach is based on a misunderstanding of what Bach was up to in his keyboard music. "It cannot be sufficiently emphasized, " Rosen wrote, "that the keyboard works are written above all for the pleasure of the performer. One small detail will show to what an extent this aspect of musical life changed within thirty of Bach's death. When Mozart rediscovered the music of Bach and began enthusiastically to compose fugues himself, he said that fugues must always be played at a slow tempo, as otherwise the successive entrances of the theme would not be clearly heard. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how often Bach tries to hide the entrance by tying the opening to the last note of the previous phrase, how much ingenuity he has expended in avoiding articulation, in keeping all aspects of the flowing movement constant. Yet, though many of the entrances in Bach's fugues are, in Mozart's terms inaudible, there is one person -- the performer -- who is always aware of them. If in no other way, he can always sense them through his fingers.... [My emphasis] "The very reproach often leveled at the keyboard -- its blending, even confusion, of contrapuntal lines --made it the ideal medium for Bach's art. This inability of the instruments to make in practice the clear-cut distinctions that were made in theory embodied the tendency toward a completely unified texture and the powerful vertical harmonic force that characterized so much of the music of the early eighteenth century.... This implies that much of the calculation of dramatic effect necessary for public performance was never intended for the greater part of Bach's keyboard music -- except in the large organ works, it tends to be felt as an excrescence, an intrusion of the performer." Yes, this is no longer the eighteenth century, and some compromise between public and private modes of performance probably is necessary in our day. But for me Gould's frequent tendency, difficult though it may be, to "voice every single part independently within the texture" goes much too far. It thrusts a certain "knowingness" into the foreground, in much the same way that, say, Fischer-Dieskau could turn a Schubert song into an over-articulated lecture-demonstration on interpretation.

sgcim: You are aware that Schoenberg himself didn't always follow the "strict Twelve Tone Method" after he had formulated it. In that light, check out this from the late George Rochberg, who as you probably know dramatically and controversially transformed himself from a serial to a neo-tonal composer. Coming from Rochberg, the following would seem to me to have a good deal of weight, or at the least to suggest that blanket condemnations of Schoenberg and his sometime methods are as much or more a matter of cultural politics as they are of musical substance. "True [Schoenberg] was unable to escape the pressure of an acute historical consciousness and all the problems it raised for a composer wishing to break new ground, but on all available evidence, it is fair to say that he actually embraced the past with its richness of musical thought, considering it completely consistent with his activity as a creative musician to [also] compose works in an older style. Viz, Schoenberg in a 1948 essay: 'But a longing to return to the older style was always vigorous in me, and from time to time I had to yield to that urge. This is how and why I sometimes write tonal music. To me, stylistic differences of this nature are not of special importance.'... "Whether Schoenberg composed 'tonal' or 'twelve-tone' music, his signature remained the same. Only the approach to one spectrum or another of the pitch combination changed. Still, we can discern certain freedoms both in thought and gesture in the twelve-tone works that do not always inform the 'tonal' works of his American period.... If we compare a twelve-tone work like the String Trio, Op. 45 to the two 'tonal' works mentioned earlier [Variations on a Recitative Op. 40 and Theme and Variations Op. 43] we sre led an inescapable conclusion that Schoenberg was border and more daring. i.e. essentially more creative, in his twelve-tone works than in his 'tonal' works. We can account for this partially on the grounds of relative position of his musical consciousness to a closeness or a remoteness from past traditions. While in such twelve-tone works as the Fourth Quartet, the Violin Concerto, and the Paino Concerto, traditional precedents of formal design and articulation, phrase structure, melodic extension and continuation and metrics can be found, the String Trio is singularly free of them. The logic of a continuous through-composed music[ (of which Schoenberg was one of the last masters) is abandoned in favor of another kind of logic: a discontinuity of aborted gestures, some purely timbral, some powerfully visceral, some unbelievably lyric. What is being projected is an aural mosaic of astonishingly vivid, sharply differentiated musical images that follow each other in a totally unpredictable pattern of succession. The wonder of this work after all these years the that the repetitions in Part 3 of events heard earlier still come to the expectant ear with new vigor and freshness, still produce the magic of joy in their recognition." I would add that the String Trio, composed in a white heat after Schoenberg recovered from a stroke that almost took his life, is (as Rochberg's account above may suggest) as much 'Ear Music" as any work I can imagine. Don't know if it's real, but it sure sounds like something Uncle Arnold might have said and meant.

To be clear -- my thought is that while Warne did say that, it is a yawn to take what he said as settling anything other than that was Warne's personal opinion. Others share it; others do not. While Warne was a brilliant musician, he was not Moses or Buddha or St. Augustine. And , Sgcim, I know of your history with S's music and its influence in the universities when you were coming up. BTW, I wonder who Warne's second worst crock of them all was. Hindemith? Yanni? Kenny G?

Yes, a big yawn. But it's been treated here by some as a big ex cathedra reveal.

Geez, I've baffled JSngry, Mr. Cryptic himself. Mosca and Grimes had to do with what I said earlier in that post -- "I've learned not to be surprised by almost any jazz musician's lack of familiarity with almost anything outside of his relationship to his instrument and similiar matters [as in Warne's possible lack of familiarity with Schoenberg's music, despite his IMO flippant putdown of it -- to me the flippancy suggesting lack of familiarity]. That BTW was my response to your "I really find it hard to believe that a musicIan of Warne''s time and inclinations did not have a basic familiarity with Schoenberg, some basic exposure. Maybe he didn't, but how would that have happened?" That is, if it didn't happen, what I said was my guess as to how it didn't happen. And I offered two examples, one of them right from Warne's world (Sal Mosca), of the sort of self-aborption/isolation that might have been involved. But, again, I can't prove a negative. Let's ask K.C. Marsh. OTOH, I love Warne's music and Schoenberg's music too. If Warne really thought that Schoenberg "managed to write music to death," that doesn't change my mind about either of them.

I can't prove a negative, but I've learned not to be surprised by almost any jazz musician's lack of familiarity with almost anything outside of his relationship to his instrument and similiar matters. The opposite too, of course, in some cases, but the former often enough. Speaking of Tristano-ites in that regard, Sal Mosca, some years after IIRC Oscar Pettiford's death, had no idea that he had passed and said he was looking forward to playing with him. Nor did Henry Grimes, many years down the road from the event, know that Albert Ayler was no longer among the living.

From an Alex Ross New Yorker column: 'In 1933, Schoenberg arrived in America.... He Americanized himself with surprising alacrity, going so far as to listen to football games on the radio and to adopt the expression "Take it easy." In his new home, Los Angeles, he befriended Charlie Chaplin, played tennis with George Gershwin, became the celebrity's celebrity. In 1938, he was invited to present an Oscar for best music (the winner was the Deanna Durbin movie "100 Men and a Girl"), and although he fell ill just before the ceremony, he took pride in the fact that his short speech in praise of film music was read aloud. He entertained the idea of writing for Hollywood himself, and once met with Irving Thalberg at M-G-M. Thalberg had heard "Verklärte Nacht" and had complimented Schoenberg on his lovely music. "I don't write lovely music," Schoenberg snapped. Thalberg asked him to write a score for a film adaptation of [Pearl Buck's] "The Good Earth".... Schoenberg agreed, on the condition that he receive fifty thousand dollars and control of every aspect of the production, including the pitch levels of the actors' voices. The negotiations faltered.' Then there's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_Suite

Lots of people were in LA when Schoenberg was. "..[H[e was the rst composer that managed to write music to death,” again, strikes me as flippant and not a sign of much familiarity with the music on Warne's part. Also, even if familiar with it and not liking it, that's not the same as saying S "was the rst composer that managed to write music to death." The latter -- not a novel notion BTW and probably a received one -- almost certainly refers to the supposedly complex to the point of incomprehensibility nature of S's music -- factors that supposedly would be inclined to alienate many listeners and thus lead to its death. Funny in that many listeners found Warne's music to be, in its own way, highly complex to the point where it bordered on the incomprehensible and thus dismissible. In this -- IMO, and I'm sure in yours too -- those listeners were mistaken. Warne on S was too, or so I think.

I was thinking about it as a meaningful or meaningless remark about Schoenberg. About Warne himself, it would depend on how much Schoenberg he knew. The flippancy of the remark suggests that Warne didn't know much about S's music.. In any case, without further explanation, it amounts to nada in either direction I would think.

Without, or even with, further explanation on his part, Warne's words about Schoenberg are pretty much meaningless.

OK --- now I kinda get what Jim meant. But I don't think that's what my friend was doing. First, he's not given to such categorizations; rather he was finding a way to accurately express (by his lights) his apparently longstanding and somewhat disparaging estimate of Warne's rhythmic concept. I was and still am baffled by why he felt that way and why he chose to put Warne in THAT category; the only Swing Era tenorman who is at all like Warne is Lester Young, and Pres himself was rhythmically sublime and didn't much resemble other Swing Era tenormen in that respect. If my friend had doubts about and/or just couldn't hear Warne's rhythmic conception, why didn't he put him in the "Oh, he's just a Tristano-ite" category? That would have been accurate up to point, albeit unintelligent. In any case what I should have said was -- "Leaving Pres aside, name me one Swing Era tenorman whose rhythmic concept is akin to Warne's." Sgcim: I once expressed similar feelings about Joe Pass in a review of a latter-day Pass solo performance; if I recall correctly I said that he had become a "self-hypnotized navel gazer" or something of the sort. A talented Chicago guitarist then sent me a death threat --- I'm not kidding.

Wow!

OK -- but I don't see that this necessarily contradicts what I've said above. In particular, a fondness for Bird's pieces, especially if one has been playing them night after with Supersax (and the "All Music" rhythm section) doesn't preclude Warne's possible feeling that his own rhythmic acuity was least in the same ballpark as Bird's. Again, for me it's apples and oranges, but Warne's rhythmic imagination was sublime, and I think he knew it.

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but my impression was that, a la Tristano himself, Warne thought the most rhythmically advanced players of that ilk (and that in my view and perhaps in Warne's too would be Warne) were the most rhythmically advanced players there were. Shyness has little or nothing to do with it; rather, I would guess, it was that Warne heard what he heard and was quietly secure in that. Also, re: Bird, whose rhythmic acuity was in one sense or more quite boundless, I'm reminded of Konitz's feeling, which Warne might have shared, that this was to some degree a byproduct of sheer heat of emotion/execution on Bird's part, and that given such factors, the results produced by an inspired heated Bird might need to be discounted a bit. There I would emphatically disagree, or at least say "apples and oranges -- who says one needs to chose?" But I'm just trying to explain/speculate on what Warne's attitude toward overt Bird worship might have been,

Sorry -- I don't know what you mean by "Because Category Or It Doesn't Exist?" I would say though that he certainly didn't/couldn't have meant Lester Young, whose rhythmic approach often was mindbogglingly subtle. He might have been thinking of someone like Chu Berry. I love Chu, but that's nuts. OTOH, my friend's reaction had nothing to do with ego -- for one thing, he didn't play tenor; for another, player that he is, he also teaches jazz history and takes a very learned, objective approach there, though he's a wee bit prey to what I think of as NYC jazz locker room thinking e.g. if you can't comfortably take over a chair in, say, the Vanguard Orchestra, you're a lesser being musically.

I have a friend, a very talented veteran saxophonist, who IIRC feels that Warne's rhythmic approach was more or less that of a Swing Era player. This seemed so at odds with abundant evidence to the contrary that it baffled me. I should perhaps add that this musician, perhaps like many others of his sort, regarded the relative isolation of Tristano-ites from the jazz community at large as a dubious thing. OTOH, he was a great admirer of Lee. Go figure. OTOH, I did barrage him for a while with claims/evidence of Warne's stunning musical virtues; perhaps he was just tired of me.

Despite his Warne blind spot and his resulting misbehavior toward Warne, Med was a good guy with a terrific sense of humor. I interviewed him while trying to assemble info on Don Joseph for a set of liner notes that never got done, nor did the album they were to be for, and his stories about the denizens of the bebop era were down to earth, wise, and priceless. BTW, my sense was that Med was something of a professional tough guy; I would think that his attitude toward Warne sprang from a) Warne's not being like that and b) perhaps from Warne's implicit sense of musical superiority to those who worshipped at the altar of bebop, which was the very rationale behind Supersax. I think that would have set Med off.

I like the stories by and large; some of them are near magical. The novels don't work so well for me, kind of shaggy at times; I think his imagination benefited from the compression of the story form.

Picked up today this 1961 album (not released until 1980) by Pierce’s rehearsal band and was very pleasantly surprised by the writing and playing. I’ve thought of Pierce the composer-arranger as something of a journeyman, but his writing here recalls Al Cohn at his most inventive (very subtle arrangement of “Melancholy Baby,” of all things), while the three-part title suite is quite Ellingtonian. Personnel: Tpts: C. Terry, Burt Collins, Danny Stiles, Jerry Kail; Trbs: E. Bert Jim Dahl, Jimmy Cleveland, Bill Elton; reeds: Dick Meldonian, Keith Zaharia, Paul Gonsalves, Paul Quinichette, Marty Flax; Rhythm: Pierce, Sonny Dallas, Turk Van Lake, Mousey Alexander. Both Pauls and Hafer, all in top form, are featured. Here's the only track I could find on YouTube; the chart and piece are by Gene Roland, not Nat. Hafer follows Gonsalves, then it’s Terry, Stiles, and Collins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6SlPlunFVA Also, FWIW, here's Nat with Buddy Rich, Sweets, and Ike Isaacs in 1959, on a Lenny Bruce-hosted TV show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqpuFk9FaGA

Having spoken to him at least once, my recollection is not very tall -- maybe 5-7 (my height) or 5-8.

My Bruckner breakthrough continues with this, a great performance of what is commonly regarded as his greatest work -- i.e. Symphony No. 8. I have five recordings of this work -- Skrowaczewki's, this Horenstein, the old Vox Horenstein, Michael Geilen's, and Gunther Wand's Lubeck Cathedral live recording, and while the two Horensteins are similar in approach, the others couldn't be more different from Horenstein's BBC recording (haven't listened to his Vox 8th recently) or from each other.