robviti

mabern is otherwise engaged this weekend. he's playing with eric alexander at kitano on park ave at 38th st.

maybe the joke stems from the fact that around that time previn suddenly abandoned his wife to shack up with mia farrow.

willie pickens. an incredible pianist whom i met at the jazz showcase when i was in chicago for the festival last fall. simply put, he was phenomenal. it's a great shame he's not better recognized and celebrated outside of his native city.

thank you all for the warm wishes. however, this has got to go down as one of the most difficult birthdays i've ever had. i got to bed around 3am last night. a couple hours later, i woke up and thought we were having a torrential downpour outside. what i soon realized was that the downpour was happening in my apartment! water was pouring from the light fixtures and smoke dectectors in the ceiling, and the floors had an inch of water. you could hear a waterfall running between the walls, and frankly my cat and i were very scared. i later found out that a connection in the main water pipe in the apartment above me had come loose, and the water pressure blew a hole in their wall! i won't go into too much more detail right now - i'm still kind of shaken up, and thinking about it makes me uncomfortable. suffice it to say that my cat and i are safe, and get this - my cds, my stereo equipment, and my computer are fine! i literally ran around pulling things out harm's way for an hour or so, putting them in my car and my neighbor's apartments. when you consider what might have happened, i believe I am very fortunate. maybe this was the best birthday ever after all!

i'll admit i'm one of the first guys to give spammers shit when they start several identical threads in different forums. but honestly, what did this newbie do to deserve the crap he's getting here? although it's not my cup of tea, this is a legitimate recording that falls within the scope of this board's discussions. the poster appears to be enthusiastic about a new release and wanted to share it with people who presumably have a deep respect for jazz. what's going on here isn't cool.

yes, it was released on the antilles label in 1991. it's oop and apparently goes for $35-40 used.

what does he put in his egg nog?

i've been planning to get back to the city for some jazz for the past few months. check out what's happening during the last weekend of january: Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola - Mulgrew Miller and Wingspan Birdland – Charles Tolliver Big Band Jazz Standard – Mode For Joe: A Tribute to Joe Henderson with Javon Jackson, Jeremy Pelt, Anthony Wonsey, Dwayne Burno, Joe Chambers Village Vanguard – Paul Motian Band Smoke – Bruce Barth Trio Blue Note - Will Calhoun Quartet with Pharaoh Sanders Cleopatra's Needle – Joel Forrester Quintet Kitano – Neal Smith Trio w/ Cyrus Chestnut & Buster Williams anyone interested in attending any of these shows? p.s. i might end up staying an extra night just to see more of these shows!

2005 marked the first year i attended the chicago jazz festival. i thoroughly enjoyed myself, thanks to: 1) the great performers, especially von freeman, slide hampton, charles mcpherson, and the great black music ensemble. 2) the after-festival jams at the jazz showcase, hosted by ira sullivan 3) the great weather and atmosphere in grant park and last, but not least: 4) the camaraderie of one of the other members of this board. i will be back next fall!

now c'mon folks, don't forget that this is a season of giving. remember that kenny g gave us this: how about you? what kind of gift do you want to give to kenny g? here's my present to the g-man, a dvd:

yesterday i added two titles to my holiday playlist:

i just got one today purportedly sent by safeharbor department ebay, inc. again, it's addressed "dear ebay member." bastards!

you gotta give 'em credit. someone stayed up late thinking of this one. remember, if you get an email from paypal, ebay, etc. and it's addressed to "dear paypal customer," "dear ebay seller/buyer," etc., it's a fake! legit emails always use your real name in their salutation.

pm'd you about the harris and mcpherson.

just put on my first holiday recording of the season: An Uptown Christmas God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen: Claudio Roditi I'll Be Home for Christmas: Johnny Coles, Frank Wess The Christmas Song: Kenny Barron, Rufus Reid We Three Kings: Charlie Rouse Santa Claus Is Coming to Town: Richard Wyands Santa Baby: Maria Muldaur, Frank Wess Jingle Bells: Walter Davis, Jr. Winter Wonderland: Carl Fontana, Al Cohn White Christmas: Barry Harris, Rufus Reid Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: Jack Sheldon, Barry Harris Silent Night: Sahib Shihab The Christmas Waltz: Tommy Flanagan

true, but if you buy more than one item from the same half.com seller, shipping is a dollar less for each additional item. there is no such discount from sellers in the amazon.com marketplace. to that end, if you're thinking of buying one or more of drummond's arabesque recordings, you might check to see if the seller also has available some titles by charles mcpherson, art farmer, or charles sullivan on that label (see below). again, the asking price for sealed copies of these cds often is quite low.

i wanted to bump this thread up because recently i have been thorroughly enjoying two of ray drummond's arabesque releases: excursions and vignettes. there's so much to enjoy here: great compositions, thoughtful arrangements, and exhuberant solos. i'm not a fan of john scofield, so i'm passing on drummond's continuum. however, i just placed an order on half.com for his last arabesque release: one-two-three-four. a sealed copy for $3.83, including shipping! if you've ever thought of purchasing these titles, please don't hesitate. they're that good!

any chance this commercial can be found on adult swim's website? if so, maybe you could provide a link to it and then we'll have a better chance of helping you out.

ham sammich?

I saw a listing on the Vanguard's website for the Paul Motian Band from January 24 - January 29. Does anyone know who is included in this outfit? Thanks in advance.

this outfit its recordings have been discussed elsewhere: sf jazz

here's one i enjoy: Tracklist: Disc 1: 1. Over The Edge 2. From The Heart 3. Answer Without Question 4. Sippin' At Bells 5. Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most 6. Tempus Fugit Disc 2: 7. Lush Life 8. Desafinado 9. Girl From Ipanema 10. Alone Together 11. It's You Or No One 12. In Your Own Sweet Way 13. Blood Count 14. Medley: Desafinado/Girl From Ipanema Stan Getz - Tenor Saxophone Jim McNeely - Piano Marc Johnson - Bass Victor Lewis - Drums Recorded 1983 at Robert Mondavi Winery, Napa Valley, California.

by the looks of it, the dvd you mention is the first disc of this 2dvd set: Here are the specifics: GREATEST JAZZ FILMS EVER Disc 1: Jammin' the Blues (Hollywood, CA, August-September, 1944): Harry Edison (tp); Lester Young (ts); Illinois Jacquet (ts); Marlowe Morris (p); Barney Kessel (g); Red Callender (b) or John Simmons (b); Sid Catlett (d) or Jo Jones (d); Marie Bryant (vocals); Archie Savage (dance) 1. The Midnight Symphony (ad lib) 2. On the Sunny Side of the Street 3. Jammin' the Blues (ad lib) Charlie Parker: TV Stage Entrance Show (New York, February 24, 1952): Charlie Parker (as); Dizzy Gillespie (tp); Dick Hyman (p); Sandy Block (b); Charlie Smith (d) 1. Hot House Jazz at the Philharmonic (Early September, 1950): Harry Sweets Edison (tp); Bill Harris (tbn); Charlie Parker (as); Coleman Hawkins (ts); Lester Young (ts); Flip Phillips (ts); Hank Jones (p); Ray Brown (b); Buddy Rich (d); Ella Fitzgerald (vocals) 1. Ballade 2. Celebrity 3. Ad Lib 4. Pennie from Heaven 5. Blues for Greasy The Sound of Miles Davis (New York, April 2, 1959): Miles Davis (tp); John Coltrane (ts); Wynton Kelly (p); Paul Chambers (b); Jimmy Cobb (d); Ernie Royal (tp); Clyde Reasinger (tp); Louis Mucci (tp); Johnny Coles (tp); Emmett Berry (tp); Frank Rehak (tbn); Jimmy Cleveland (tbn); Bill Elton (tbn); Rod Levitt (tbn); Julius Watkins (french horn); Bob Northern (french horn); Bill Barber (tuba); Danny Bank (bass clarinet); Romeo Penque (woodwinds); Eddie Caine (woodwinds). 1. So What 2. The Duke 3. Blues for Pablo 4. New Rhumba Jammin' the Blues (Bonus performances not used in original movie - see above for personnel): 1. Sweet Georgia Brown 2. If I Could Be with You One Hour Tonight 3. Blues for Marvin (ad lib) 4. Jammin' the Blues (ad lib - alternate take) Disc 2: THE SOUND OF JAZZ: Count Basie All-Star Orchestra: Roy Eldridge, Joe Newman, Joe Wilder, Doc Cheatham, Emmett Berry (trumpets); Vic Dickenson, Dickie Wells, Benny Morton (tombones); Earle Warren, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan (saxophones); Count Basie (piano); Freddie Green (guitar); Eddie Jones (bass); Jo Jones (drums). 1. Open All Night (a/k/a 'Fast and Happy Blues' - Composed and Arranged by Nat Pierce) Order of Solos: Coleman Hawkins, Dickie Wells, Gerry Mulligan, Joe Newman, Count Basie. Red Allen All-Stars: Henry 'Red' Allen (trumpet and vocal); Rex Stewart (cornet); Vic Dickenson (trombone); Pee Wee Russell (clarinet); Coleman Hawkins (tenor saxophone); Nat Pierce (piano); Danny Barker (guitar); Milt Hinton (bass); Jo Jones (drums) 1. Wild Man Blues (Louis Armstrong/Jelly Roll Morton) Rosetta (Earl Hines/Henri Woode) vocal by Henry 'Red' Allen 2. Rosetta Count Basie All-Star Orchestra: Roy Eldridge, Joe Newman, Joe Wilder, Doc Cheatham, Emmett Berry (trumpets); Vic Dickenson, Dickie Wells, Benny Morton (tombones); Earle Warren, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan (saxophones); Count Basie (piano); Freddie Green (guitar); Eddie Jones (bass); Jo Jones (drums). 1. Dickie's Dream (Composed by Lester Young and Count Basie; Arranged by Nat Pierce) Order of Solos: Count Basie, Ben Webster, Benny Morton, Joe Wilder, Gerry Mulligan, Vic Dickenson, Roy Eldridge, Emmett Berry, Coleman Hawkins, Dickie Wells, Joe Newman, Count Basie. Thelonious Monk Trio: Thelonious Monk (piano); Ahmed Abdul Malik (bass); Osie Johnson (drums). 1. Blue Monk (Thelonious Monk) Count Basie All-Star Orchestra with Jimmy Rushing Same personnel as above with Jimmy Rushing (vocal) 1. I Left My Baby (Composed by Andy Gibson; Arranged by Nat Pierce) Order of Solos: Jimmy Rushing with Ben Webster, Count Basie, Dickie Wells, Roy Eldridge (flugelhorn); Coleman Hawkins, Jimmy Rushing with Vic Dickenson. Billie Holiday with Mal Waldron and the Count Basie All-Star Orchestra: Billie Holiday (vocal); Roy Eldridge, Doc Cheatham (trumpets); Vic Dickenson, (tombones); Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan, Lester Young (saxophones); Mal Waldron (piano); Danny Barker (guitar); Milt Hinton (bass); Osie Johnson (drums). 1. Fine and Mellow (Billie Holiday) Order of Solos: Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Vic Dickenson, Gerry Mulligan, Billie Holiday with Doc Cheatham, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Billie Holiday. Jimmy Giuffre Three: Jimmy Giuffre (clarinet); Jim Hall (guitar); Jim Atlas (bass) 1. The Train and the River (Jimmy Giuffre) Pee Wee Russell/Jimmy Giuffre Quintet: Pee Wee Russell and Jimmy Giuffre (clarinets); Danny Barker (guitar); Milt Hinton (bass); Jo Jones (drums). 1. Blues My Naughty Baby Gives to Me Ahmad Jamal Trio (1959): Ahmad Jamal (piano); Israel Crosby (bass); Vernell Fournier (drums). 1. Darn That Dream 2. Ahmad's Blues Ben Webster Sextet (1959): Ben Webster (tenor saxophone); Buck Clayton (trumpet); Vic Dickenson (trombone); Hank Jones (piano); George Duvivier (bass); Jo Jones (drums). 1. Chelsea Bridge 2. Duke's Place btw, this same set is currently available from the bastards courtesy of the dubious folks at disconforme:

okay, i was willing to believe this was another dan gould. until i read this portion of the article: "I was absolutely gutted when I saw it because of all the time and effort that's been put into it. It was my little baby. I only took it out now and again." now that made me think it might really be our dan...if the baby wasn't a car, that is.

I saw this article in the most recent issue of the Boston Phoenix and thought some of you might be interested: New standards Is jazz catching up with contemporary pop? BY JON GARELICK A soprano sax squeals into its farthest upper reaches, descends into bluesy cadences punctuated with Bechet-like vibrato and shake, then does some fancy arpeggiating. A soulful organ chord enters with a drumbeat and cymbal smash; then everyone shifts into a slow groove with a backing vocal chorus: "Do-do-dowee-oowee, do-do-dowee-oowee, wee-ah!" It sounds eerily familiar . . . could it be? No! But yes, Virginia, it’s all too true: Pavement’s indie-rock slacker anthem "Cut Your Hair" played as an instrumental (not counting the oowees) by a jazz band. And not just any jazz band. This is multi-reed monster James Carter with pianist Cyrus Chestnut and the rhythm team of bassist Reginald Veal and drummer Ali Jackson. The saxophonist and the pianist have been jazz stars since the mid ’90s, Veal is a long-term Wynton running buddy, and Ali Jackson has just taken the drum chair in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. "Cut Your Hair" is one of eight tracks on the new Gold Sounds, the first release on the New York–based Brown Brothers label. It’s the brainchild of Brown Brothers honchos Jake Cohn and David Elkins, who came up with the idea of bringing expert musicianship to bear on a band known for brilliant songwriting and sloppy execution. In the process, two audiences would meet on common ground: the jazz snobs and the indie-rock purists. If you think the idea sounds like a hopeless critics’ equation (Pavement nerd rock meets Wynton-era jazz perfection), or as one of my colleagues put it, "middlebrow," you’re not alone. Rolling Stone quoted Gold Sounds’ liner-note question, "What album would we want to buy which doesn’t exist?" and concluded, "If your answer is ‘hot young jazz players covering a grab bag of Pavement songs,’ you probably don’t exist yourself." But the existence of Gold Sounds (none of the players previously knew who Pavement were) dramatizes a larger issue in the jazz world: the absence of new "standards." That is, contemporary pop songs adapted by jazz musicians as standard repertoire to improvise on. The drought of such standards is, at this point, about 50 years old. The wealth of what’s become known as the Great American Songbook of the pre-rock-and-roll era once served, in critic and songwriter Gene Lees’s phrase, as the "lingua franca of the art form." Everyone knew, if not the lyrics, then the melody and the chord changes to "I Got Rhythm," "How High the Moon," "I Can’t Get Started," and a gazillion others — the pop music of the day. But rock was not the stuff of jazz improvisation. The simple three- or even two-chord harmonic patterns just didn’t provide enough fodder for an improviser to dig into. So the Great American Songbook gradually became the equivalent of the standard repertoire that classical musicians rely on. Which isn’t to say there’s no new material in jazz — jazz musicians of all stripes are writing new music, from mainstream to avant-garde, and instrumental pieces by Ellington, Monk, Coltrane, and others have themselves become standard. But as Lees points out (his essay is in the Oxford Companion to Jazz), popular song was one of jazz’s links to the popular audience — the familiar with which jazz musicians led that audience to the new. Think of Miles Davis’s transformation of "Bye Bye Blackbird," or John Coltrane’s take on Rodgers & Hammerstein’s "My Favorite Things." But except for Miles’s effective take on Cyndi Lauper’s "Time After Time" in 1985, or Chet Baker doing Elvis Costello’s "Almost Blue" late in his career, what else was there in new standards after 1965? And yet, the trickle has grown lately. In 1998, Joshua Redman mixed American Songbook masters (Berlin, Gershwin, Kern, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein) with rock-era icons (Dylan, Lennon & McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Prince) on Timeless Tales for Changing Times (Warner Bros.). Don Byron recorded boogaloos by funk outfit Mandrill and played the Four Tops’ "Reach Out" in concert. Singer/pianist/composer Patricia Barber has done the Beatles’ "Blackbird," Bill Withers’s "Use Me," Sonny Bono’s "The Beat Goes On," and smatterings of Joni Mitchell. Singer Karrin Allyson has won approving reviews for her 2004 Wild for You (Concord), with its soft-rock mix of Cat Stevens, James Taylor, et al. Brad Mehldau keeps returning to Nick Drake and Radiohead. Bill Frisell has his C&W outings. And of course there’s the Bad Plus, with everything from Nirvana to Queen in their book. In the wake of all this, Gold Sounds might represent a watershed moment. Right behind it is Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey’s The Sameness of Difference (Hyena), with Hendrix ("Have You Ever Been to Electricladyland") and the Beatles ("Happiness Is a Warm Gun"), among others. And Rolling Stones saxophonist Tim Ries has released The Rolling Stones Project (Concord). The problem is that whereas earlier jazz masters subverted pop with their innovations, the current batch of covers tends to be conventional and tame. Miles’s "Bye Bye Blackbird" was an ultra-hip take on a 1926 hit for Eddie Cantor. Coltrane’s 1960 "My Favorite Things" (which, as Lees points out, was then being sung on Broadway by Mary Martin) was one of his boldest experiments. "The weird cover," as Don Byron once told me, is a radical "act of jazz." Even the accessibility of Coleman Hawkins’s 1939 "Body and Soul" was deceptive. Hawkins later recalled that he continued to get requests for something with "melody," like "Body and Soul," even though, as he was quick to point out, "We didn’t play the melody once" in that record. The "weird cover" may have been an "act of jazz," but subversion didn’t mean desecration. These musicians were, as the composer George Russell has said of his own music, trying to make "a classical music from the rhythms of our time." So now we get a big band called the Björkestra, which to judge by the few recorded examples I’ve heard makes perfectly fine, perfectly conventional big-band jazz out of one of the most idiosyncratic singer-songwriters in pop. The most audacious appropriation of contemporary pop repertoire comes from Sinatra-protégé crooner Paul Anka. His Rock Swings on the Verve jazz imprint makes you sorry that the Chairman never lived to do his own lounge-lizard take of David Lee Roth’s "Jump." The album’s arrangements of big band and strings are state-of-the-art, and on the whole I think I prefer Anka’s version of "Black Hole Sun" to Soundgarden’s. Anka’s most notorious remake, though, is "Smells like Teen Spirit," which for a while you can almost believe. "I’m worst at what I do best/And for this I do feel blessed," he sings, nailing those sibilants in true Frank fashion. It almost makes you want to forgive him for mosquito and libido — but then, of course, he has to elide those final screams of "a denial!" And there’s the rub. You can turn anything into "jazz," but will it still mean something when you’re done? David S. Ware’s "The Way We Were" is harrowing. The Bad Plus and Sex Mob (with their James Bond/Albert Ayler routines) are passing off novelty as relevance. Barber, on the other hand, knows how to adapt pop to her urbane irony, and to "smarten up" pop songs, as she once told me, in arrangements that work for jazz improvisers. Drake and Radiohead are perfectly suited to Mehldau’s dense, brooding romanticism. Ries, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, and the Gold Sounds gang at least for the most part make real jazz without going schlocky. About Timeless Tales (which had its own little "Favorite Things" tribute in its soprano-sax waltz of "Eleanor Rigby"), Redman said, " I’m not trying to hold up these songs as standards that jazz musicians should play . . . I do believe that there is a lot of modern popular music out there — or at least a little modern popular music out there — that is completely valid for jazz interpretation. In that sense, the validity of the music is determined by the musician’s creativity and by the musician’s desires, not by any kind of artificial standard of what is or isn’t proper material." But a "standard" after all, is something that gets played regularly, by a community of musicians. And I don’t know anyone who’s heard even Redman play "The Times They Are A-Changin’ " lately. Issue Date: November 18 - 24, 2005