Tom Storer

Iverson's discussion was a discussion of Tristano, about the musician, not about what has happened in the last 10-20 years. He had thoughts about that particular aspect of music and how it was operating in Tristano's time, so he wrote it up. What you seem to be saying is that he shouldn't have written that article, he should have written another one.

That's the kind of insider detail that makes Organissimo indispensable!

Whenever and wherever there's leeway for people to take advantage of a system, they will. In Europe, this means that people who really are sick can take sick leave for it not based on how many days they are arbitrarily allowed, but on whether or not they're sick. It also means slackers and malingerers will game the system. In a tougher system, slackers and malingerers won't be able to get away with it, but people who are sick will be more likely to go to work anyway for fear of being thought a slacker or malingerer, or because they've used up their "sick days" already. Personally, I prefer to let honest people get proper allowance for sickness, even though others will cheat, rather than make it really hard to cheat even though that will end up screwing the honest sick.

Just watched that "Cherokee" solo and found it terribly boring. He's played that tune a million times, it's just a crowd-pleaser; he sounded to me like he was on auto-pilot. Once upon a time he had Tain Watts, Marcus Roberts and Robert Hurst behind him and they'd play pretty interesting things together with a vibe of friendly competition and trying to find new things to play for each other. Now he's just performing it as a circus act. Wynton's solos never have memorable melodic invention. That's my impression, anyway.

Ratliff was born in 1968. In 1984 he would have been 16. When I was 16, in Westchester, right next door to Rockland County, live jazz was certainly available to me. Me and my pals would go to jazz clubs in Manhattan and were never carded. But maybe things had changed in the ten years separating me from Ratliff, age-wise, or maybe his family moved away earlier than that.

I've given up. I buy a CD now and then, sporadically and on a whim, but I no longer have a must-buy list, or even try to keep up with what's new. I have so much stuff already that I need to listen to more, not to mention emusic downloads that I haven't even gotten around to listening to yet!

Where should I start? Can somebody make a list of Donald Westlake's greatest?

Without even stopping to read the article, I must contribute (perhaps not for the first time) this classic: You say Carmeena, I say Carm-eye-na, You say Burayna, I say Burahna, Carmeena, Carm-eye-na, Burayna, Burahna, Let's Carl the whole thing Orff!

Edward R. Tufte's "Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative." Wonderful discussions of the visual design of information display.

Those lyrics sound great when Sheila Jordan sings them on their studio ECM album, "Playground." Seriously. She also does "The Zoo." That's a fantastic record.

Good points, John.

And precisely what Wynton is not about. My impression is that he feels he owns the truth about jazz (which I think he learned from Albert Murray and Crouch and committed to memory) and about its relationship to the black American experience, and his mission is to spread the word. He is not interested in having open discussions that challenge his hard-won preconceptions, especially with people who are not famous and celebrated. If you had won a Nobel Prize, appeared regularly on NPR, or been an arts establishment insider for decades, I think he would have debated with you much more readily. I suspect that he filters out the hoi-polloi, as does Crouch.

That's much the impression I have of Wynton - that he has deep and sincere convictions that are on the order of religious beliefs. He is willing to be open to the sinners who disagree with him (as long as he has the pulpit) but not for a minute to the sin of their disagreement. And not, I think, just because they disagree and he hates to have people disagree with him. I think it's because of the nature of the disagreement - you can't disagree with him about jazz and not expect him to take it as heresy. He will talk for four hours to Ethan Iverson, an especially diplomatic person by all accounts, because Iverson is not challenging him, but deferentially asking questions, bringing up a variety of things and letting Wynton express himself. When you, Allen, try to criticize his views, then it's get thee behind me, Satan! It's kind of like if you had a priest or minister in your community who was warm and kind, generous with his time and energy, ran the soup kitchen, helped the poor and was a true spiritual leader to his congregation. If you sat down with him to talk about your religious doubts and your sins, you'd have all his attention and benefit from his godly advice, freely dispensed. That's kind of like Iverson interviewing Marsalis. But if you said, "C'mon, all this superstition about supreme beings and stuff - you don't mean to say you believe in all that guff, do you?" Or try to convert him to Islam. That's kind of like you, Allen, interviewing Marsalis. Or so I imagine. It's interesting what you noted about the anti-intellectual reaction vs. the commitment to education. Over at that other jazz board, a couple of years ago there was a thread about Crouch in which Crouch actually participated. He was distinctly authoritarian, in that his sole defense against criticism was to say "famous figures in the arts have praised me, that is the proof that I am great." And that was really it. Marsalis reflects that influence somewhat, being, as far as I can tell, wholly dedicated to a nostalgic worship of the accomplishments of older generations and dismissive of any effort to wrest attention away from their example. "They are great, we must strive to be like them. That is how we can be great. End of story." His educational efforts are all about exposing children to classic jazz and its heroes, and teaching people how to play - fine efforts to be sure. He's opposed to rank ignorance and incompetence, as are we all, I hope, but in favor of imposing "the canon" and defending it against all reassessment.

Allen, do you think you'll ever eat lunch in New York again? That whole series of articles Iverson did - the interview and the stuff on the Young Lions of the 80's, etc. - is very interesting, perhaps especially for us old folks who lived through it.

Kuhn did some very nice live trio albums with Ron Carter and Al Foster: - The Vanguard Date (Owl, 1986) - Life's Magic (Blackhawk, 1986 - from the same Vanguard concert) - Live at Birdland (Blue Note, 2007) I also like a 1995 duo with Steve Swallow, Two by 2, on Sunny Side if it's still in print.

On Saturday I saw Sheila Jordan with a very good Paris rhythm section of Frank Avitabile, piano; Thomas Bramerie, bass; Aldo Romano, drums. Sheila is 80 years old and is still great! She sang with wit and energy, spontaneity and swing, her voice as expressive as ever and still under her deft control. Hippest singer on earth (well, her and Andy Bey). Go and see her if you get the chance, it's not too late!

I read that first sentence and had images of you firing out the window in a drive-by. Good video!

Yeah, how did the interview come out? I mean, you said it was "strange" on your thread "New Project: Looking for Suggestions," but that was about it. Meanwhile, Ethan Iverson, pianist for the Bad Plus and not always popular as a blogger here at Organissimo, has posted a lengthy interview with Wynton complete with sound clips. Not uninteresting! Bashers, get out your flamethrowers; defenders, don your asbestos suits: http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/20...ders-guide.html

Sorry, Jim, I didn't get a chance to ask Konitz your question. There was a big crowd of people waiting to kiss his ring and he was looking like he just wanted to go back to the hotel and go to sleep, so I figured I'd let him off easy this time. Had a very nice time listening to him. He doesn't have quite the chops at 81 that he did at 75, but he's still doing it. Same old standards, he steps up and sees what comes out this time. Nice piano player with him named Dan Tepfner, 20-something with movie star looks. Unannounced surprise: Ben Street came up and joined them on bass for a part of each set. Things got a bit tighter when he was playing. I love Konitz's sense of humor: - Towards midnight a certain number of people were apparently anxious to make it home on time, so at the end of one tune a few got up and hurried out. Konitz said, "That tune made six people leave." - At the end of one number, just as Tepfner was finishing a pretty conclusion, someone knocked a glass on the floor, where it shattered loudly. There was mixed laughter and glares at the guilty party. Konitz said to the guilty party, "Don't be embarrassed, that was a good ending!" - When Konitz brought up Ben Street the first time, he said, "Ben and I just finished touring Spain with Danilo Perez, playing stuff we don't know." - To explain an unexpected second encore at the end of the last set, Konitz said, "I haven't played all my licks yet!"

I'm going to see Lee tomorrow night, in a duo with pianist Dan Tepfer. Konitz is my hero.

Thanks, TJ. I'll give that a try.

Niko, your girlfriend may not share all your tastes in music, but as a musician herself she is obviously far more musically sophisticated than the average listener! Most hardcore music fans would not be able to engage in such detailed conversation about the nuts and bolts with their S.O. Consider yourself lucky!

The beginning is close. But to this: I prefer this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnRqYMTpXHc

NASCAR collectibles, gun collection, poker, jazz, it doesn't make any difference what it is. If, as you say, the relationship is healthy, then each party respects the other. I get to talk and be listened to on a regular basis, you get to do your thing on a regular basis; I listen to you when you need to be heard, I get to go off with my pals when I need to reinforce those bonds and let off some steam. Etc. etc. And when you're in a situation where one party feels he or she is not being respected--shit, can't I ever listen to my CDs in peace?; damn you, you only pay attention to me when it suits you--then either it can be fixed through sincere negotiation, or it can't, and you part ways. But it's important not to assume from the beginning of such conflicts that one is blameless. Usually there's a certain amount of cluelessness on both sides.

That goose sounds scrumptious. When I was a kid, back in Americkay, we occasionally received a fruitcake as a holiday gift. But it was never a home-made fruitcake. It was purchased from some kind of mail-order catalogue and sent by some distant relative. These fruitcakes were heavy, overly sweet, and studded with the kind of candied fruit that, if you buried it in the backyard, would be unchanged if unearthed a century later. No wonder fruitcake got a bad name. In Ireland the Christmas fruitcake is called simply "Christmas cake" and, although you can buy them from bakeries, the homemade kind is often served with pride and eagerly devoured. They are dense but richly flavored and have an almond-paste frosting. No relationship to the much-decried American-style atrocity.