garthsj

Yes, I haven't read that interview, but Pepper mentions playing and recording with Rehak during his time at Synanon. AP says the tapes were later destroyed after Synanon founder Chuck Diedrich decided that jazz was an evil music. Ghost ... I had the privilege/pleasure of doing a 2-hour interview with Frank Rehak when he moved to Houston to open a rehab clinic here in the mid-80's. This was just a few years before he died from Cancer. I thought those tapes were destroyed when the station went from all jazz to all classical, but recently one of the professors in the music department informed me that a box of tapes of my old shows had been recovered when the station turned their stuff over to the Schoo of Musicl. I need to search through there ... I also had a great interview with Jim Hall as well ... Anyway, Frank told me some harrowing stories about his addiction, including a funny/sorry story about collapsing on the stage during a Woody Herman performance, and Woody just left him lying there, stepping over him at times ... a sort of "tough love" situation as Herman was sympathetic about Frank's condition and tried to help him at times. Garth.

Just to add that all three of those LPs contain sublime music. Why they are not available is a mystery to most west coast jazz fans considering how little Richie Kamuca is actually available in a small combo setting ... I wonder if anyone has ever approached the Kamuca estate with a reasonable offer?

.. and Cher!

Allen ... I guess I should have made clear that I was referring only to the sound quality, and not meant in any way to reflect on the quality of Dave's improvisations, which are, as always, interesting, quirky, and illuminating. Damn! Sometimes the lack of nonverbals creates a problem in cyberspace. I would be remiss if I did not indicate that the overall sound is not the best. I am sure that you would agree with that. Sorry for the misunderstanding...

I have a pet peeve about this series! I have so many of these JIP CDs myself.. but it always bugs me about the cover art. Who are all of these people just sitting around at outdoor cafés? Don't they have jobs? Don't they spend time at home with their families? Watch television, listen to the radio, go to movies? Is the weather always THAT perfect so that they can just sit around all day and night drinking and smoking awful Turkish tobacco French cigarettes? It really gets to me that these people are so damned decadent. Whatever happened to the good old "work ethic"? No wonder our president has turned his back on them ... good thing too! Garth, working his butt off! This man is responsible for starting it all ....

Here is a picture of Dave Schildkraut' latest .... It is VERY disappointing to say the least ... It sounds as if he is wading through molasses ....

How about the mystery alto player .. Earl Anderza .... see his album on BN.... Whatever happened to him?? Some of us have been asking this for years ... The Judge Crater of Jazz ...

Geez Allen, You should become a blues singer! For obvious reasons you remind me of a character I used to talk about on my lamented jazz radio show .. Blind, Crippled John Horribly ...

Brownie, A friend gave me a high quality Matisse "JAZZ" calendar many years ago. I framed several of the prints, and rotated them on the walls of my office at the university. In some unfortunate manner related to "mass culture" (ref.: Walter Benjamin's famous essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility") these images have become quite ubiquitous here in card shops, posters etc. Too bad .... Are they commonly found in Europe too? Garth.

Larry .. I have always had a strong penchant for Niehaus's playing. Those early five albums he did for Contemporary really do stand the test of time, and I listen to them whenever I feel the need for a real west coast lyrical "fix." The level of musicianship embodied in those five albums is unsurpassed in modern jazz, IMHO of course. Because I grew up with those albums, it evokes a Proustian reaction when I listen to his versions of "I Remember You" or "Belle of the Ball," and oh so many others ... just wonderful stuff, with those incredibly long lines of improvisation. When he made his return to playing jazz sometime in the early 90s I had a chance to talk to him at length at one of the Poston west coast bashes. He had just played a rather rough lunchtime concert, out in the Southern California sun, but it was well received by us oldtimers, and he was elated. I told him that I really enoyed listening to the extended lines he played .. and I will never forget the beam on his face as he said, "Oh you noticed that ... thank you.." Now that he has has most, but not all, of his chops back, he still plays the longest lines of anyone in the business ... way beyond what even Konitz did in his earlier years. Just a little aspect of his playing that I still enjoy. Your comment about channeling Trumbauer by way of Berg's "Lulu" is hilarious ... as long as he does not go through "Wozzeck" ... now THAT I would object to! Garth.

Clem, I agree that a lot of the stuff that he did for his own label and then Concord, was rather repetitious and let's say it, boring. I was NOT a lover of the Quintets he had at that time. I do not own the Mosaic set for that reason. But the much of the stuff he did for the Italian Philology label (named after him.. Geez!) is very intense although sometimes uneven, seemingly hastily put together. I would recommend particularly the 2-CD duo set he did with Gordon Beck, "The Complete Wigmore Hall Concert" on the French JMS Label; also, of course, "Musique De Bois" on Muse (with Byard, Richard Davis, Alan Dawson) is one of the best alto quartet bop albums ever recorded IMHO! I also heartily recommend "Here's To My Lady" with Flanagan, Mraz and Kenny Washington on the Chesky label, and "Ornithology" a quartet session on Philology with Franco D'Andrea (p), Attilio Zanchi (b), and Gianni Cazzola (d). Hmmmmmmmm.. now THAT should open your ears a little bit to what Woods is capable of now that he is out of the clutches of Concord! As I said previously, his delightful (nothing dramatic) album of Quincy Jones music is a current "mellow mood" favorite of mine ... I should also add that he has been recently trouring with Bud Shank to great acclaim from those who have heard this two-alto dynamo. They have cut a record and is should be available in the coming monhs.. I can't wait to hear that ... two 70 year old alto players piercing the ether!

I guess you have to be there ......

I TRULY hate to say this .. but Bill Perkins never really recovered from his exposure to Coltrane. If you listen to any of his albums after 1970 this becomes obvious. Interestingly, the only album of his that recaptured the magic he wove on one of the greatest jazz albums ever made -- "Grand Encounter: Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West" -- is his dedication to Lester Young, "Perk Plays Prez" on the Fresh Sounds label. I listened to Perkins quite often in the years before his death, and while he was incredibly energetic and well-meaning, I longed for the old Perk of Pacific Jazz fame ... God! Trane sure screwed up a lot of musicians who wanted to be him ... and should have stayed with their own beautiful thing. I feel much the same way about Art Pepper, and to some degree Benny Golson. Garth.

For background to your project, I just wondered of you have ever read the novel "Quartet in H" by Evan Hunter (a.k.a. Ed McBain)? See the following... QUARTET IN "H" -- (original Title Was "Second Ending") - Hunter, Evan. (aka McBain, Ed. )., Illustrated by Tom Dunn Painted Cover! Price: US$ 10.00 [Convert Currency] Shipping: [Rates and Speeds] Add Book to Shopping Basket Book Details Book Description: USA.: Pocket Books (#C-236). 1957. Soft Cover. Good to Very Good. Second Edition. 16mo - over 5¾" - 6¾" tall. 384 pages. (We have many Evan Hunter & 200 old Ed McBain paperbacks in stock). Story of Andy's life; Golden Trumpet, JAZZ Band, Big-time Combos, now a JUNKIE on Benzedrine, Marijuana, then HEROIN, dope addict, with monkey on his back! Hardcover was titled "Second Ending"! SCARCER under this title! SCARCE in paperback! With an illustration of a HYPO Needle crossing the "H" in the title!. Bookseller Inventory #3179-5 Bookseller: Comic World (Steinbach, MB, Canada) This was one of those seminal jazz books in my long lost youth .... and, of course, there is always "Man With The Golden Arm" ... Garth.

The interesting question about Strozier's ethnicity aside (although I am sure that many west coast jazz fans will be surprised to learn that he is black), I am fascinated by this "sudden" rediscovery of him. Where were all of these fans back in the 1960's when he was being attacked/undervalued/ignored/ by almost everyone? I clearly remember a bizarre discussion with some friends at the time of his work with Shelly Manne, and the MJT, trying to convince them that this guy was, in fact, very good! They, having grown up with Charlie Mariano, and Richie Kamuca (on tenor), would have none of it. Now, thanks to the magical rejuvenation possibilities of CD reissue programs, Frank Strozier is a new darling of the alto ... The same is, if course true (and deservedly so) of Hal McKusick. Wow! Can Dick Johnson be far behind (ref. his two great albums on Emarcy [36081] and Riverside [253] ), and Lenny Hambro just behind him? Garth.

A small self-effacing anecdote .... One bright sunny day in 1995, (I remember the year because I was living on the top floor of the Holiday Inn in Burbank that year while doing research at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), I was in the venerable Larry Edmunds bookshop in L.A. checking out some older books on film. While I was chatting to the guy at the check out counter, lo and behold someone turned up with a copy of one of my books (Film: The Democratic Art, 1976) under his arm. Totally elated and full of hubris, I introduced myself as the author of his acquisition and offered to sign it. He looked at me and said, with a perfectly straight face... "Hell, no! I don't want any writing in my book!" .... I guess there really isn't more I can say .. right? I have never offered to sign a book since ... I entertain requests to do so, but I never volunteer! Squelched, Garth.

I guess it depends on how you define "heirs of bird"? .... I am almost tempted to say that all alto players are, I think unfortunately, compared one way or another to Bird. So Konitz is always defined as being "on a different path to Bird" or Woods as "from the Bird school" ... Parker's stamp was so profound that this is inevitable, but it also obscures the individual contributions made by these players. Just this past weekend I was listening to one of my newly acquired OJC "replacements" ... "Sugan" (OJC 1841-2) with Phil Woods with Red Garland, recorded in 1957, and I was struck by the fact that I do not recall any real discussion of Woods in my time in this forum. So your decision to start this thread is very welcomed .... Woods has turned out a lot of albums over the years, probably the most ubiquitous alto player of the last fifty years ... but his artistry is still amazing. As I listened to this album I was impressed with his total command of the instrument. So many alto players (I used to be a struggling one myself) seem tentative on their instrument, and this can be part of their appeal (Pepper, for instance), but Woods just let it all hang out there, and with no hesitancy to try new ideas. And he has been doing this for all these years ... time give him his due recognition, I believe. His recent album of music by Quincy Jones was a constant on my CD player this holiday... Also, let's not forget Bud Shank who is now playing with more fire, and a wider range of ideas, than he did fifty years ago! I must admit I follow the accolades given to many current alto players like Kenny Garrett and Steve Coleman, and I am forced to wonder whether the fawning critics ever listen to people like Woods, Shank, Jesse Davis, or recently Dave Gasser (a real iconoclast who deserves much wider recognition). There are some great "oldtimers" out there still making wonderful music. ... but then we don't want to get into the critical argument about whether "newer is better," do we ... ? Garth.

Mike .. Wasn't Michel Ruppli doing a discography of Art Farmer at one time? He published it in the International Records News (Now whatever happened to that interesting journal?) What I have only goes up to 1961 ... Garth.

Don't forget Art Pepper .... almost 17 years!!! 1960-1977 .. Garth, I forgot that Pepper was in prison for much of the 1960s, but was he in at all during the 1970s? I'll have to go back to STRAIGHT LIFE, which also has lengthy ruminations on his stay at Synanon. I discussed some of this in the AOTW thread recently. I am not sure of the exact date of his release, but it was sometime in 1964. He was arrested again, and was released in 1968. The sad part is that he did not start recording again until the mid 70's ... he did a few gigs with Mike Vax's and Buddy Rich's big bands, but then Lester Koening relaunched his career with the "Living Legend" album on Contemporary, recorded on August 9th, 1975. That was fifteen years after his last recording as a leader, "Intensity" on November 23, 1960. Garth.

A VERY HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON TO ALL! From a snowy Houston .... Garth.

Don't forget Art Pepper .... almost 17 years!!! 1960-1977 ..

For those of us working in the field of popular culture, Martin Williams was always a very helpful source at the Smithsonian. I met him once on a research trip related to a "comic strip" project, and he was pleasantly surprised that I also had an avid interest in jazz. His edited collections (together with Michael Barrier) "A Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics" and (with Bill Blackbeard) "The Smithsonian Book of Newspaper Comic Strips" with their short essays are classics in the field. I have used his television collection in my class on "Television in American Society," but I believe that it is now out of print. Garth.

I ordered this, but I think that I used to have this album on a Phillips LP ... and the featured artist was Johnny Griffin ... is this the same one?

CONGRATULATIONS CHUCK! A well deserved accolade for a great album ... and it sounds even better than the LP did! I am sending you a box of "Afternoon Tea" for you to use in your celebration .. it calms the nerves... Garth.

Is that why I hate tea? Actually tea is good for you; far better than coffee .... try it, you might like it ...