Lazaro Vega

Sounds like you'd have to be high just to look at those outfits. High as a 7 iron in Tiger Woods' backswing.

Isn't "Resolution" the second movement?

Well, whatever you do be sure to not make the song YOURS.

Hey! JSngry is quoted in Larry's book! In that section on Miles. Did you guys start that discussion here?

A Suitably Pyrotechnic Revisitation of Coltrane's Signature Testimony Branford Marsalis Quartet's Coltrane's A Love Supreme and Live in Amsterdam by Francis Davis January 25th, 2005 2:47 PM Branford gets it right. photo: Jazz at Lincoln Center Branford Marsalis Quartet Coltrane's A Love Supreme Live in Amsterdam Marsalis Music Released on both audio and video in one package, Branford Marsalis's live version of A Love Supreme gets it right. Coltrane's four-part suite was his religious testimony; Marsalis is chasing Coltrane, not salvation, but whereas his earlier attempt on Footsteps of Our Fathers left him panting, here he keeps pace with a display of saxophone pyrotechnics comparable to Coltrane's, though very different in character. His tone is lighter and his phrasing bluesier, especially on "Pursuance" (the second movement, and more or less Miles Davis's "Nardis" turned upside down), where his gradual ascent into the scream register shows he knows the difference between building to a climax and giving in to self-induced frenzy. And though his mano a mano with drummer Tain Watts is almost as brutal as Coltrane's with Elvin, some of the theme statements are so abstract ("Acknowledgement" 's, for example) that you recognize the familiar melodies only from Joey Calderazzo's piano chords. This is the Branford Marsalis we've been waiting for. He does honor to a classic while finally emerging as his own man.

Old School Two approaches to the dawning problem of expanding jazz repertoire, one of them novel by Francis Davis January 24th, 2005 4:13 PM Don Byron Symphony Space January 8 Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra A Love Supreme Palmetto Inasmuch as subcultures have a way of first surfacing via oddball chart hits, novelty and innovation can amount to the same thing in pop. Itself once a novelty, jazz is supposedly a different story now, protected from aberrations like fusion and frippery like smooth by a hundred years of evolution beginning with ragtime and continuing through . . . well, there's the catch. With evolution on hold since Coltrane, maybe novelty is our last hope. Or so I'm tempted to conclude after being blown away by Don Byron and the Sugar-hill Gang at Symphony Space earlier this month and left cold by Wynton Marsalis's big-band arrangement of Coltrane's A Love Supreme, the new CD by Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Admittedly, one thing has nothing to do with the other. But both Byron and Marsalis are tackling the problem of expanding the jazz repertoire beyond derivative "originals" and a handful of distressed standards, and Byron's more novel solution seems to me at least as valid as tweaking the canon—it all depends on the results. A typical jazz repertory concert resembles a college survey course, with the bandleader as prof. Even when Byron is comparing Earth, Wind & Fire to Schoenberg, as he did in introducing "Shining Star," his shows are more like mix tapes—a breezy assortment of stuff he enjoys and wants you to hear the way he does. Following a Stravinsky trumpet fanfare nobly delivered by James Zoller and Ralph Alessi, Byron's Symphony Space Adventures Orchestra—nine pieces plus singers DK Dyson and Gordon Chambers—covered EW&F, Henry Mancini, Sly & the Family Stone, and Herb Alpert. It didn't even matter whether you ever liked Earth, Wind & Fire or the Tijuana Brass. These sounds are part of our DNA, and the arrangements by Byron and his band members captured the panache of the original recordings. The fun was in listening for affinities in songs not usually included on the same playlists. Byron even took Mancini outside, cuing improvisers on "Futter's Ball" like a cross between Bugs Bunny and Butch Morris. Although he never touched his clarinet, he wailed on baritone over juking horns on "Let's Groove Tonight." Euphoria kicked in with what Byron, who grew up in the South Bronx around the time of Kool Herc, called "for me, the Kunta Kinte portion of tonight's concert"—Sugarhill Records revisited. Along with the West Street Mob's "Let's Dance," the band also did Sequence's "Here Comes the Bride" and Wayne and Charlie's "Check It Out," supposedly the only rap record by a ventriloquist and his dummy (talk about conceptual art!). This wasn't nostalgia, because obscurities like those last two, which few remember, appeal to memory only if there were such a thing as generic Sugarhill, which Byron conclusively proved there wasn't. What was novel about Sugarhill back in the day were the raps. Byron helped call attention to the boundless riffs and countermelodies behind the toasts and pilfered basslines. Yes, these were great party records, but they also turn out to be sturdy pop songs in the grand convention—for Chrissake, "Here Comes the Bride" even has a bridge. For the climax, he brought out Wonder Mike, Big Bank Hank, and Master Gee to do "Apache" and the inevitable "Rapper's Delight." With the horns pyramiding behind them, the Gang showed they still have it—especially the charismatic Wonder Mike, whose doofy rhymes about spoiled food and such always were nimbler than most scat singing, not to mention the sullen raps of today's truculent thugs. But there I go showing my age and/or my pallor. Back in '79, the dancers in the audience might have bum-rushed the stage. The women dancing in the aisles in this older and whiter crowd waited for Wonder Mike to wave them up, and by the end the stage looked like closing night of any recent Democratic National Convention. Again, so what? This music belongs to everyone now, including jazz performers who approach it honestly and respectfully. Reviewing a 2002 Symphony Space concert at which the Adventures Orchestra played only Sugarhill, Ben Ratliff of the Times objected that these were recordings that were never intended for live performance. Although I disagree on general principle, a vaguely similar objection could be raised against JALC's A Love Supreme, the original 1964 version of which even most of us old enough to have witnessed Coltrane in the flesh know only as a recording (he performed it in concert only once, at a French jazz festival the following year). Singular and totemic, A Love Supreme is unsuitable for big band because what's sacrificed if an arranger orchestrates Coltrane's solos for the entire saxophone section, as plenty have with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, is the sense of one man's quest being responsible for the work's urgency and religious aura. This doesn't stop Marsalis from pointlessly letting all the horns take turns with Coltrane's tenor chants on both "Acknowledgement" and "Psalm," the opening and closing movements. This isn't Marsalis's first A Love Supreme. His problem in 1993, when he performed the entire suite with a quartet featuring Elvin Jones at Lincoln Center, after recording a truncated version with Jones in Japan the previous year, was that spiritual to him meant churchy. But at least he sailed blithely over the opening movement's Latin cross-rhythms. Everything about this new version is misguided, despite the alert Eric Lewis-Carlos Henriquez-Herlin Riley rhythm section. Unlike in classical music, where a composer's score is regarded as definitive and the goal of interpretation is transparency, jazz takes it for granted that a musician will impose his own sensibility on the material he chooses. This being Wynton, Coltrane winds up sounding like Ellington, right down to the trombone wah-wah. But not even Wynton's crush on Duke explains the twee flutes. "Most of [Coltrane's] innovations were not in what was written, but in how his band played," Stanley Crouch points out in the liner notes. Exactly. So why bother revamping A Love Supreme? Because it's in the syllabus, I guess.

Still don't know how WKCR is getting around the restrictions on web casting as imposed by congress...If you do more than three cuts by the same artist in a three hour period you're outside of the statutory web casting license and are liable for royaly payments based on your audience size. The majors are not granting blanket waivers to this rule so anything on Blue Note, Verve, OJC, Columbia, are all -- most likely as I don't know how they're getting around it -- liable to these fees. That $700,000 might seem like peanuts if RIAA ever catches up to them. In the mean time, yes, it is cool to have their plea for cash here as they have a truely international audience. It's not merely that they're available, they're listened to. And the talk radio version of jazz sounds really dull. Would rather hear the music. Maybe if Phil wrote out what he wanted to say in advance, boiled it down to the point, and kept his talk sets as long as the music he plays (around three minutes, so, three minutes of talk, three minutes of music, etc.) he'd have more listeners and still get his point (points) across. Of course he won't.

Larry -- yes. In the third hour of the Saturday morning jazz program, so between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Chuck, I've actually sat in the parking lot at Interlochen after a concert and listened to Blue Lake (90.3 FM, folks). That was such a great quote, Larry, and I had to. Here's the hour (including some music by request for Chet Baker). By the way, Larry, where's the tip jar? Miles Davis -- Deception -- Birth of the Cool Chet Baker -- Duet for Chet and Zoot/I Married an Angel -- with Strings Chet Baker -- Dots Groovy -- Big Band Ken Vandermark 5 -- Full Deck (for Jack Monterose, author of Dots Groovy) -- Sympatico Jazz Datebook (concert announcements) Charles Mingus -- West Coast Ghost -- East Coasting Larry's rap. Sonny Clark -- Cool Struttin' -- Cool Struttin' Jazz Profiles preview: Miles Davis Kind of Blue Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers -- Ecaroah -- Jazz Messengers Thanks for passing along your friends message. I'm happy to know people are really listening.

Nelson Algren and Charles Bukowski. Not trust fund babies. And Kerouac was from a working class background, Lowell on the railroad earth and all that.

Thanks Jim, er, raisin day eater.

Cornelius, went back and read through and I think I was responding more to Dan's stuff than yours. Excuse, please. I see what you mean about dynamics and hard bop: Blakey could really bring it down before blowing up in your face. But I'm not hearing Mobley as a pattern player. Was just checking out "Oleo" from Live at the Blackhawk and if patterns come up it they would be at that tempo. Could you provide a couple of examples where he plays the same thing on two different recordings? The theme of the book comment specifically, "IMO, Jazz hardly needs the convoluted meanderings of one man's guesses about what an artist does or what motivates him or how he goes about his work." Jazz in Search of Itself. If Dan can't follow Larry's "convoluted meanderings" how are we to believe he can follow Mobley's?

wordy and convoluted. Not. He's the empitome of concision. In fact his writing fits the dictionary example: "the commentary is exemplary in its concision and lucidity."

"1. I did not challenge the reason for the book." Only by implication. The book's main theme is challenged by some criticism you laid out before. "Mobley sometimes played whole routines that are basically the same from one performance (even on different compositions, but especially blues) to another. So, there's a lot that is improvised, some that isn't, some that's improvisation of nuance, but it's not true that his solos are completely without pre-determination. One thing that interests me is how Mobley makes even planned routines sound tentative. " Maybe choosing between the mix of pre-determined ideas and more spontaneous ones...I'll have to check out which performances you mean about his routines -- I know musicians do that, I just hadn't caught too much in Hankster. Though I don't transcribe and all of that...

Yes, "Jordu" in the hands of Max Roach and Clifford Brown helped define the genre, but even that is much more subdued than "Walkin" or "Moanin." "Jordu" reminds me of something Benny Golson would do -- just real subtle dynamics, whereas "Sandu" seemed more unequivocally hard bop. Hard bop pianists -- Horace Silver, Bobby Timmons -- seem to put more sweat in their playing. Look at some of Duke's later tunes, too, "Midnight Moonlight" and stuff he wrote in the 70's or 80's. Very lovely. Jordan with the premier hard bop drummer, Philly Joe Jones, got pasted on that Steeplechase record. I mean Philly ends up playing the head on "Ladybird" on that one if I'm not mistaken. Which may have been arranged, or Jordu might have just been pushed aside! "Lemme do it!" That's a great record, by the way. Whether he is or isn't a hard bop musician could be debated (yes he was active then), yet Duke isn't definitive in that genre, though he was in bop, painting with lighter colors than Bud.

Even while with Bird, Duke Jordan had a prettiness to his playing (all those lovely intros) that were far different than the harrowing music of Bud Powell. Duke was a bopper, yet his aesthetic seemed to arrive from the sunnier mood of the swing era. I'd buy that Allen. Corn and co. here are challenging the reason for the book: Jazz in Search of itself. These days the music really aught to be considering such a search, i.e. the 'why' of it, not the 'how,' which the jazz in schools movement has made part of 7th grade curriculums, you know, the 'how' is being covered. To look at the music as an art form which ultimately communicates the condition of the soul in its human condition, even if that communication is of an imagined soul or a soul personna, puts jazz into the arena of art in general and, you know, many people don't want that responsibility, don' t want to consider the personal process of music, see it as entertainment or a means of making a living, and it is much easier to deal with as product, as a thing. So if someone says Von Freeman, for instance, uses his ability to play inside or outside the changes according to the emotional demands of the song, that makes sense according to the music, and process, but it makes no sense according to "proper" means of playing a solo as taught today. So there it is: the difference between "music" and what everyone else is doing. Hank Mobley's music lets you into a world of his own imagining, and that world is coming into being as he ties his note choices for creating melody to some very subtle rhythmic responses to his musical surroundings. So I can see Larry's point. Nothing is a foregone conclusion as he's soloing. There are not excessive patterns, and his riffs seem more about a celebratory declaimation than cliches. Who plays like that today? With the codification of every phrase huffed out by all the jazz greats, many musicians have become schooled, studied and highly skilled players, but what do they have to say? That isn't a complicated thing. Lester Young said of Trumbauer, "I like the stories he tells." In today's jazz world, that epigram wouldn't fly. "Stories, you mean music?" All the while missing the point that the music is telling stories. And that is not an empty thing at all. Ultimately, the music tells you, and years of listening do count: in fact, it is the one huge thing that is not being taught about jazz right now. Listening is what jazz is all about. To discount that... in the name of what?

I think the reasons why Evans message becomes more and more emotionally distant are clearly laid out. For what it is worth it was good to have the perspective of the first period Bill Evans -- I LOVE that music with George Russell and Mingus -- as contrasted to everything after Kind of Blue. Also the breakdown of "Tenderly" and the emotionally anamalous (sp!) tracks by his famous trio. No, man, this book is bringing me back to Chicago. Chicago is the heart and soul of jazz; it is the place of the trans-African musical continuum; it is home of the blues. There are no other writers on either coast or in Europe who even CARE to posit the question about where is jazz music's soul or heart or self or clearly lay out the artist's "mission." (Some musicians, and Litweiller does a good job seeing out an artist's point of view, but it certainly is rare). Not the musician's mission, but the musician as artist's mission. So what is it all about, Alfie? And that is not some pretentious bullshit : it is the point, the reason for the music. And the writing is so tight. What a standard. Anyone who's studied (or attempted) journalism knows those changes o-too well, knows the form, but getting it to read so easily is a pitched battle. "What do you mean SHORTER, Mr. Editor?" This writing is a lesson in how to make it read like a warm knife through butter (or pick your simile).

From the Chicago Tribune -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NONFICTION An impressive, edifying anthology of jazz criticism By David Bloom. David Bloom founded Chicago's Bloom School of Jazz in 1975. He has just released a CD, "Duende," co-written with Cliff Colnot Published January 16, 2005 Jazz in Search of Itself By Larry Kart Yale University Press, 342 pages, $35 When jazz saxophonist Johnny Griffin was asked the meaning of "improvisation," he replied, "the excitement of not knowing." That may sound perplexing coming from a major jazz artist. A musician at Griffin's level certainly sounds like he knows what he's doing and what he's going to do. But that's the beauty of great jazz: searching for truth in the moment. And it's ironic that the greater the player, the less he knows, beforehand, about where he is going. That's what drew veteran jazz critic Larry Kart--and many of us--to the music in the first place. The premise of Kart's book, "Jazz in Search of Itself," is that jazz is, among other things, " `a form of self-enactment in sound.' And the music provides us with any number of instances of the need to keep writing openly and honestly in the book of life." Kart has amassed an impressive collection of his reviews and interviews, originally published in Down Beat magazine and the Chicago Tribune (where he was a critic and editor) over his 40-year career, as well as liner notes and other commentary. Kart reveals edifying and interesting insider information on more than 70 jazz musicians, singers and composers. These range from the familiar (Griffin, Billie Holiday, Sonny Rollins, Tony Bennett, Stan Getz and Sarah Vaughan) to some of the more obscure players known only to jazz aficionados (Herbie Nichols, Al Cohn, Tina Brooks, Hank Mobley and my old bandmate, Chicago's own Wilbur Campbell). Amplifying Griffin's quote on improvisation, Kart makes a strong argument that all great jazz has the quality of newness--whether you're listening live in the moment or years later. He quotes music historian Carl Dahlhaus: " `Newness is also an aesthetic factor. . . . What is seemingly most transient--the quality of incipient beginning, of `for the first time'--acquires a paradoxical permanence. Even half a century later it can be felt in almost undiminished form, and as an immediate aesthetic quality at that." That's why, when you listen to a John Coltrane record, his playing sounds like he just discovered what you are listening to right now, some 40 years later. The sound of musical discovery can never be dated or dull. Kart never shies from questioning popular notions, as in his effective article distinguishing trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' virtuoso technique from the qualities demanded for inclusion in the pantheon of jazz. (I found it interesting that in his interviews with Marsalis and with guitarist Pat Metheny, I felt more heart and sincerity from their words than I do from their music.) In "The Marsalis Brothers Further On," a 1984 review of a performance by saxophonist Branford Marsalis (Wynton's brother), Kart writes, "What Coltrane left behind was not a `hip' style but a drive toward ecstatic transcendence; and when Marsalis fiddles with Coltrane's techniques while he holds the implicit emotion of the music at arm's length, the results can be distressing." Kart not only delivers an incisive critique of Branford Marsalis' musical effort, but in doing so he describes a generation of jazz musicians who are excellent instrumentalists but who don't maintain the urgency, intensity, emotional commitment and individuality necessary for them to be included in the pantheon of jazz innovators. Unfortunately many of these players use their technique to hide their feelings rather than to show them. Their music may wow you, but it will never move you. Kart's reviews of Mobley, Campbell and some of the other unheraldeds are respectful and interesting. It is refreshing that he awards some degree of justice to the many fabulous players who may not have been innovators but were high second-tier players and have received little or no press recognition. One minor criticism: I don't feel Kart places McCoy Tyner in the right echelon. Tyner not only influenced thousands of piano players, he was perhaps the last major piano innovator. His numerous masterful solos on Blue Note recordings as leader and sideman, and his brilliant playing with Coltrane, show he was on the cusp of first-tier jazz greatness. In jazz writing it is easy to get carried away with romantic images while giving short shrift to analysis and intellectual scrutiny. In his essay "The Jazzman As Rebel," Kart traces the mythologizing of jazz musicians as "[r]enegades, rebels, outsiders, outlaws" back to the notions that "jazz is a `noble savage' phenomenon whose practitioners break all sorts of musical and social rules in order to let some fresh air into our overcivilized world" and that the jazz musician is "a darkly romantic hero, a descendant of Shelley and Keats who wears social rejection as a badge of honor." Kart mixes a strong historical awareness with insightful observations about aesthetics and the psychology of jazz players. His writing is well-referenced and reverential. He doesn't mask an unadorned love for the music and the musicians, but he is no sycophantic pushover. Indeed, it is clear that in interviews Kart could only have brought out the musicians' feelings, confessions and astute observations by making his interviewees confident that he was, in a way, one of them. The result is sort of a de-deification that highlights the pure humanity of highly revered jazz artists with such skill that even those who haven't yet heard these musicians will be able to relate to their soul. As a jazz educator, I found it particularly interesting to read Kart's commentary on the movement of the jazz scene from the street to the classroom over the last 40 years. In the book's final piece, "Jazz Goes to College," Kart visits classes at two of the most prestigious jazz schools in the U.S. and concludes that jazz can, indeed, be taught. But, he writes, "if, as Coleman Hawkins said, the mechanical aspects of the music can be taught, is its nonmechanical side also open to instruction?" That's a fundamental question. Can you teach emotion, creativity, imagination, curiosity, individuality or point of view? Kart says no. He quotes Tom McKinley, composition and jazz instructor at the New England Conservatory: " `Those who have succeeded will always tell you the same story--that they lived and breathed what they believed in, even if they had to go through some pretty hard times.' " And Kart beautifully illustrates the external and internal forces that can sabotage the making of jazz. Kart observes, however, that jazz innovation has slowed in the last 40 years, compared to the art form's first 60 years. With the passing of the great jazz players--and with seemingly no new innovators to step into the masters' shoes--it is questionable if anyone will create a similar aesthetic impact, as opposed to a commercial or public-relations impact. "Jazz in Search of Itself" deepens a reader's respect for and appreciation of jazz players, their lives, their search and what their journey can teach all of us. Kart makes an undeniable case that the defining characteristics of great jazz are the overpowering emotional commitment, imagination and, above all, vulnerability of musicians who regularly--and always in the moment--wear their emotions on their sleeves. It's a primer not only for jazz lovers but also for anyone who wants to live his or her own life as an individual. All it takes is to embrace "the excitement of not knowing."

I've been jumping around in the book....Yeah, Larry, it reads exactly like that: the verisimilitude of looking through the window at a Hurricane. Believe it! Zappa's last tour, nearly if not last concert, came to Muskegon, Michigan. Jazz from Hell. His guitar solos that night created sounds in shapes as opposed to "lines." Oh, there's a trapazoid. For real. He only came to Muskegon because of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. He said so from the stage. At that time the Muskegon Chronicle was the only paper the criminal in Jesus' name was speaking to. Zappa asked in allusion to Jim Baker, "What is it that creates such a person? Is it the air, maybe the water, or is it just THE DIRT?" The band, which included the Fowler Brothers and some wicked bad ass mallett players, played "Stolen Moments." By the way, guys, have your ass examined. Zappa should still be with us. (He died of prostate cancer if I'm not mistaken. If not, forget the previous literalism). Did you catch his allusion to the Fascist Theocracy in the Crossfire clip? How prescient was that?

Having the band member's disagreeing with him in the article worked very well. Funny and pointed. Enjoyed your quick, concise description of Varese, too. I'd always thought of Cage as being the "composer" to put noise into music, yet here is a better example. In this video clip of Zappa on Crossfire he's just a model on how not to take the righty bait -- though as your article makes clear when he says on this show that "I'm a conservative," you know he wasn't joking.

Larry, is the Zappa chapter on-line anywhere? That was a great piece. Here's Zappa on Crossfire. http://www.ifilm.com/viralvideo?ifilmid=2658805

Nice. No wonder so many people went to jazz festivals: look at the rosters. Hard pressed to find something like that today. The strength of Herman, Getz, Stitt, Vaughn, Joe Williams and the audiences they bring with them -- what even approaches that kind of drawing power now?

Had the chance to hear this music twice, once in Chuck's basement, and then again last fall as we drove down to Ann Arbor to hear Ornette. There's so much to the experience, as you said being a witness to history -- but the music is fresh at that point in their careers. Hearing a part of the arrangement of "Salt Peanuts" which never made it past this peformance on to record; or comparing some of Dizzy's solos here with the Massey Hall versions; and to hear the response Sid Catlett gets when he sits-in really puts the newness of Diz and Bird in perspective: they were not the stars that night, they were the opening act. Who could even imagine that today, that Bid Sid would get a huge round of applause as Max steps away? It really is too bad that the Garner Estate won't play ball because that quintet with Buck Clayton and Don Byas coming out with the Bird and Diz music would make this an even more amazing snapshot of time. As it is, however, to dwell on what isn't at the expense of what is there would be too typical of the time we live in now.

Yes, Larry, especially in the music of Sun Ra -- "The "Magic City," for instance -- the structure seems to be spontaneously arrived at. What is the principle organizing element of a performance when song form, harmonic pathway, meter and dynamics are open to the myriad interpretations "free" implies? "Holding" isn't the right word -- structures supporting the music is more to the point. And whether that's the bit of theme in Ornette's "Free Jazz" or Coltrane's "Ascension," or Cecil Taylor's "Unit Structures" concept, all of those methods seem particular to the leader (and yes, they are "mere" starting points which ultimately are driven by the improvisations). Thus the quandry, and perhaps the troubles you and Allen are alluding to, much to Chuck's delight: how is one influenced by this music? You touch on that in the Bill Evans chapter, somewhat -- how people avoided the issue of dealing with the breakthrough in Ornette's music, et. al. Man, I'm really enjoying your connectedness to the artist's emotional message throughout this book. Believe me, how many times have listeners called to rant about "a cat walking on a piano" (No man, he's playing with his hands and sometimes forearms, but I'm pretty sure that cat was sitting down), or "that's a duck call" (in response to Interstellar Space) or "a third grade band could play that" (in response to Albert Ayler)? Heard it all at some point (thankfully followed by the curious calling to find out more). So I hear what you're saying about Freedom and shucking. Even at its best the music is misunderstood by the business minded culture we live in. p.s. Your comment some months ago about Malaby playing nothing that resembles a melody (a paraphrase at best) where instead he jumps from harmonic node to harmonic node isn't born out by some of the encounters I've had with his music, especially "Adobe" (Sunnyside), a trio date with Paul Motion on drums where he plays "Humpty Dumpty" beautifully. In an interview he did with us here at the station during a live hit (with his wife Angelica Sanchez on Wurlitzer keyboard and drummer Tom Rainey) he mentioned some of the music in that band was based on "interval studies" as well as their long playing history (6 years and going). They really came on like a band. Perhaps the "all-star" attitude premeates every style of jazz and in those situations there's just nothing to go on except politeness. Not that I'm making an excuse for what you were talking about above, but so much of jazz these days seems made for being accepted at dinner parties, and the musicians come on like that. (Alphonse and Gaston by Cootie and Rex -- now that shit was funny!).

I remember reading some of these pieces in the Trib, Larry, and the brevity of your writing, the compression of the ideas and the smoothness of jounalistic process at its best comes back to me as the highest standard. "Listening to him [Philly Joe Jones] is like watching someone weave lace out of barbed wire..." Sounds like you had some interesting Grand Parents, there, Larry. lol. Damn, that's a great image. "Holding the improvisations." When the music reached the point after Ornette and Miles where "anything was possible," the challenge to the ensemble was what structure will be designed to "hold the improvisations" and how will that structure be arrived at? (Basic Nessa observation, by the way). Same thing happened in Europe when that intellectual plateau was reached, except they had a more or less agreed upon system with 12-tone and it evolutionists. In jazz there's a multiplicity of answers and processes to the challenge -- and those are the guys who you mentioned, the top drawer artists of the so-called avant-garde. The example they set, above all others, is if anything is possible first be yourself. A self informed by history and education and group interplay of ideas, but ultimately the music you make should sound like you. Which is a sort of oblique lesson if you're a musician looking for some licks to cop or some other form of influence (i.e. the emotional message you point out). Emotionally and musically it would seem those great musicians of the post-'59 era still have much to offer "the tradition." But in today's commerce drivin world those lessons appear mystical or cryptic. Just some thoughts here during "nap time." LV

Good question, Allen. Would be interested in reading that, too. Recall seeing a downbeat review of a Muhal Richard Abrams Delmark recording by Larry where he notices that after the head the solos have little relation to it. In any case, Larry, there were a few paragraphs of response I had down when the power went out here. Now the kids are up and my attention is frequently interrupted. For instance the baby just pulled about a 50 piece puzzle off the shelf and all over the floor. Really, on New Year's we had two other kids over from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and then spent the next three hours picking up. Fell down on the couch, opened up some champagne and toast -- Happy New Year! It was a RIOT. There were grass skirts involved, Frankenstein hands, and big long horn blasters. But, no, the idea was not yours. However, it did seem to fit with what you were asking about where does one go emotionally from Roscoe? The notion of "holding" an improvisation comes from something I really can't write about right now. Got to go stop a fight.