Adam

In a couple of weeks, someone please tap me so that I can pick Horace Tapscott - The Dark Tree - vol. 1 & 2 on Hat Art, and a 3rd version of Hat's Kimus #4 sampler. That'll give any of you missing it an opportunity to obtain this great album (taht has a crown in Penguin).

Ethiopiques is great. 1 and 3 are really good, on top of 4, 8, 9, 13. Now I'm waiting to check out #17.

I like Blinks as well. I have 17 CDs with Lacy under his name (and a few more under Waldron's name with Lacy on them), and have been listening to them. Such beautiful playing. I was thinking of getting a couple more. Does anyone have an opinion on Vespers? The Rent? A Lacy story, which I think I told before. I saw him at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles in 1998 (or maybe late 97). At the time, I was trying to reach Mal Waldron, because I had put together a Shirley Clarke retrospective and wanted a comment from Waldron on Clarke and "The Cool World." I went up to Lacy after the show (eminently approachable) and asked him how I might get ahold of Waldron. Lacy just rattled off Waldron's home phone number in Brussels. Such a nice guy.

This is really disheartening. I just happened to be listening to Ray Charles Live LP, and In Concert (Rhino Handmade) over the last two nights, and I never actually saw him live. His music just consistently cheers me up in a way that nothing else does. A brief question - on the Atlantic "Live" double LP, one record has "at Newport" and the other the Atlanta show (I forget the original LP title). On teh Rhino Handmade there are two songs listed as being from Newport ("Swanee River Rock" and something else) whcih are not on the Live double LP. Were these other songs on teh original vinyl, or are they newly added to the Rhino Handmade CD?

Wow, I've got to find those Waldron albums

Probably the same one I saw in L.A a few months ago - it is amazing? The subtletoes (and not so subtleties) are just so grand - sound cues, window reflections. The humor is in the details. Given how most comedy is too heavy-handed, I could see how people might not get into it - it's a different way to watch a film. Still no Playtime on the Criterion site.

Can anyone speak to these albums? I have Nina Simon's The Blues on RCA Novus. How are the rest?

It'll happen Conn.... Five years ago I had some Bud Powell but wasn't really into it. Listened last year, and loved it all.

I think the stories on the rense page about the beheading are even more curious.

"You have no right to question him"

The thumb piano player was probably Winard Harper - he has tended to do that a little at each show I've seen of his, especially when he was with Pharoah Sanders. I've always enjoyed this band live.

He also has at least a free show at the Santa Monica Pier in July.

I saw a JSP box of Venuti/Land "Classic New York Recordings 1925-37" or something like that. A rip off from the Mosaic?

I hope for the Mal Waldron Musica albums... someday. Here's another label: Silveto. I asked Horace Silver if he intended to bring them out, and he said not any time soon; waiting for someone to make him a good offer.

Hi Brandon, I'll add you too. Hey, which Brandon Burke are you? Adam Hyman

My mother was friends with Millman in the LA jazz scene in the 50s. She has a couple of albums autographed by him, and she's told me how she and her sister would see him quite a bit, and he was always very nice.

That's a good album.

I was going to recommend Fela as well, but Africabrass beat me to it. Other must titles: Confusion/Gentlemen Coffin for the Head of State The Fela Singles (i forget what it's paired with) You can also just start with the Best Best of Fela Kuti. Others non-Fela: Cambodian Rocks - the album title; no one is identified. Cambodian garage rock from the late 60s early 70s Ethiopiques - start with volumes 1, 3, and 4 - Mixed artists - Ethiopian music from the early 70s. Vol. 4 approaches jazz if you need that. These are great for revivification.

I have the remastered single disc (original album) version. How essential is that second disc in the Deluxe Edition?

I tink you can still buy it directly from Rhino Handmade as well.

Actually, I did ask Horace about that. He said that he was consulted on the 4-CD box set, but that he has usually not been consulted or informed about the releases of his other albums. I was the first to tell him of the reissue of "In Search of the 27th Man" at the last dinner. But he does seem to be on good terms with Michael Cuscuna.

For those in Southern California, "Portrait of Jason" is actually screening soon at the LA County Museum of Art, as part of a great "jazz film" night of sorts, with "Pull My Daisy" and "Shadows." "Shadows" has a score by Mingus. This is probably the first public screening of "Portrait of Jason" in L.A since 1998, when I included it in an Shirley Clarke tribute. http://www.lacma.org/ Click on Films, click on the "America of Diane Arbus" series Friday, May 7 7:30 pm Pull My Daisy (1958/b&w/30 min.) Scr: Jack Kerouac; dir: Alfred Leslie, Robert Frank; w/Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Corso, Larry Rivers, Alice Neel, David Amram, Peter Orlovsky. Pull My Daisy is a beat-era time capsule about a drunken literary gathering in a Bowery loft, shot silent and featuring improvised voice-over narration by Jack Kerouac and an “all-stars of the beat generation” cast. When the film was first released in New York, it was double billed with Cassavetes’s Shadows. 8:00 pm Shadows (1959/b&w/81 min.) Scr/dir: John Cassavetes; w/Ben Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni, Hugh Hurd. Restored print courtesy UCLA Film and Television Archive. Shadows may well be the film that has defined American independent filmmaking for nearly fifty years. The film is a partially improvised story of interracial romance, and its naturalistic scenes strongly evoke the French New Wave, the culture of the beat generation, and the jazz music that fueled it. Shot entirely in gritty New York locations—and despite costing a mere $40,000—Shadows won the Critic’s Choice Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Its style and subject matter represent a spirit of candidness that had not been present in previous American films. 9:35 pm Portrait of Jason (1967/b&w/105 min.) Dir: Shirley Clark; w/ Jason Holliday. Restored print courtesy MOMA Film Archive. Long unavailable for screening and made pre-Stonewall, Clarke’s legendary feature-length interview with a black male hustler in New York City was an audacious and provocative use of the new cinema-vérité technology to explore the hidden and taboo corners of society.

What Michael said. Horace did mention that he has finished the book, but it is currently being edited, rewritten, etc. But I don't think he has a publisher yet.

He seemed reluctant to mention any of the players until he had confirmed them all. I noticed this the one previous time as well, when he spoke of potential players on his next album. I haven't asked him about contributing directly; I don't think he would. He's a really kind and gentle soul, doesn't drink alcohol. I don't know him that well. But here's the story in brief. At a jazz convention a couple of years ago I met a man named George Schmid (who produced Horact Tapscott's The Dark Tree and a couple of other records for Hat, and who has been seeing shows since the 50s). George is friends with Bobby Bradford, Horace Silver, Andrew Cyrille, etc; was also friends with Horace Tapscott, etc. Every two or three months George, another friend of mine, and I have an "avant-garde jazz" listening session. Between the three of us, we have a great array of stuff, particularly George, who gets every single Hat Art. Add lots of Okka Discs, Ememens, etc. Evan Parker, Paul Rutherford, Brotherhood of Breath, Brotzmann, David Murray. Whatever catches our fancy. So we spend the afternoon listening to out jazz, then have more straight stuff mixed in (as George and I also will gladly throw in a Johnny Hodges, Duke, or what have you.) And George will occasionally invite one of his friends as an additional guest for listening & dinner. Bobby Bradford came another time. Horace Silver doesn't care for the "out" stuff, so he comes later, at 6:00, for dinner. So this dinner on Easter, for example, was just the five of us: George, his wife, my friend, myself, and Horace Silver. Per Horace's request, we listened frst to a side of Jimmy Lunceford, then there was some of Mulligan & Desmond; some Kenny Dorham, etc. It's very nice & casual. Horace takes a bit of time to warm to my friend and I, but George is much better friends with him, and is great at getting him to warm up. I asked him if there was any likelihood of the issuing of the Silveto albums. He said not for now. He owns the masters. He won't issue anything unless he is properly compensated. George has asked him if Horace would do an album for Hat Art, because he could arrange it, but Horace says that Hat is too small. I asked how many LPs there are, and he said 7 or 8. So I think it would be a good Mosaic box. He didn't mention a new album this spring at all; just the "Rachmaninoff" disc. But none of us asked him about it either, as we didn't know that there might be one. He didn't ontribute a lot of information about his current activities.

Just thought I'd give Horace Silver his own all-encompassing "corner." Especially with some live shows coming up. I was lucky enough to have Easter dinner 2 nights ago with Horace, listening to some great stories about his early days, the people he's thinking of getting for the Blue Note gig (all local NYers). He will be doing a free show at the Santa Monica Pier in July, for those of us in So Cal. It was news to him that United States of Mind would be coming out later this year. So I hope some of you have heard some of his music. Any thoughts?