fasstrack

I taped it when they did a show on John Carisi around '93 on WKCR. Loren Schoenberg interviewed James Chirillo. Carisi was gravely ill, and I could tell by their hushed tones he wouldn't be around much longer. They played that Showboat record and the 5 guitars also included Tony Mottolla I think. The rest would be a guess. They also played a Carisi piece I like a lot: Counterpoise #2. I saw the guitar part on that one at Carisi's before he got sick. I'm glad it was James, not me . He said he sweated it. I wanted to borrow the part but I don't think he had a copy. I also asked Don Leight, who was his roommate for it. Barry galbraith was Carisi's best friend and could read and play anything possible on guitar---and if it wasn't he'd tell him, and back to the drawing board. An interesting thing about Carisi's writing: he 'borrowed' a lot from himself. (Puts him in good company with Handel, etc.). He had this plagal cadence Gospel thing he used in that duo piece and also somewhere on Into the Hot (the record with Gil Evans on the cover but his work nowhere to found inside. Or was it Out of the Cool? The one with Cecil Taylor on the other side). He really liked this 2-chord thing and played over it a lot.

Aw, I bet you say that to all the nut jobs.............

Nice record. Jimmy plays nicely on Dolphin Dance and also does a very good job with Enigma. Al Haig was playing with a harder touch then for some reason but plays good for sure. They still made a good team. I think the problem with the bass was the recording, Jamil sounds fine and so does Frank. Choice recordings always sound the worst and you can't judge a group's sound by them. The music was good, and that's the main thing. That was Al's working group, I believe, with Jimmy as add-on. I should say Jamil was Al's regular bass player at a gig at Gregory's. I think Eddie Diehl was on the gig on guitar. 70s sometime. Chuck Wayne also played in that group but I'm not sure who played when. Al made another record, same guys but with Eddie Diehl instead of Jimmy. It was released as Manhattan Memories---and the tune they called Manhatten Memories was actually written by Eddie as BeBu, for Bu Pleasant, and given that title and credited to Haig. Typical. Nice record also, though: One side trio, one with Eddie. He's featured on two ballads: Nuages and My Little Brown Book and gets a nice solo on a Cedar Walton tune, but the tempo drags or sounds weird on that one as I remember. Al just sounds funny to me. Nice tunes and worth having though, as is Strings Attached. Actually, I'd like a copy. I have it on cassette. PM me please, if anyone wants to unload it or knows where it can be gotten.

Andy is very heavy. I should only be lucky to have him sing one of my songs. His band is a MF too. If you get a chance to see him perform drop everything and go. He's a master. He can swing a band with just his voice, has a great range with his falsetto, is musical as hell, has an amazing instrument. He also is a hell of an interesting piano player, and a 'wise old man' of the scene. Look into it. Andy is deep.

Way back when his writing mattered, Christgau talked about how the music we were drawn to was that which reflected what we recognized as the rhythm of life. I'll try to find the exact quote at home, somewhere is his book of 70's Record Reviews. I get him mixed up with Lester Bangs. Which one died? Maybe that's why he can't write anymore, he croaked. To quote that nonpareil actor Billy Crystal in a great and cruelly neglected dramatic role performance in the American classic tragi-comedy, Throw Momma From the Train (supported by an equally unforgettable performance by Branford Marsalis): 'She's not answering the phone 'cause she's dead! 'You don't answer the phone......when you're dead!!'

I don't know how 'marvelous' I myself am, but I am one of those people. Gonna go back, oddly enough, to teaching. Mostly to stave off having to eat Alpo when I'm 68 and shit. The 'business' is a wonderful way to die young, pissed off, and spent. That's how I knew........

To me, putting what's pretty much the same thought a bit differently, it's that melody and rhythm (and harmony, and let's not forget timbre/tone color) are always potentially talking to each other. Further, in jazz especially, any thought or act that's arguably melodic, rhythmic, etc. in origin/inspiration can be transformed into/flow into a thought/deed in one of the other "realms." In any case, if the pulse ain't in potentially open dialogue with some or all of the other realms, then my bottom will be moving with the bottom, That's pretty much what I feel: melody and rhythm are the main event. The guy walking down the street ain't whistling the changes. But they're important too, don't get me wrong. The average listener can tell if you're playing the right changes or are in the wrong key. They won't know how to put it into words neccesarily, but they'll feel vaguely uncomfortable and maybe say something like 'that sounded off-key'. But if you go to any Latino community where live music is part of everyday life, if a band speeds up or slows down the tempo, or isn't groovin'----asses can and have been kicked over that. There's a corallary to this larger theme of modal/simplicity vs. 'progress' (read: resolving) harmony in classical, anyway: after what many considered the chromatic excesses of late-romantic composers, notably R. Strauss and Wagner, you had a change in direction in Impressionism to scale-based and more coloristic---but definitely harmonically more static---compositions. Also the interest in Oriental materials such as certain pentatonic and other scales was prominent then. I'm not sure when they actually began in Western music, maybe someone can clue us in. But to me classical harmony has always been way in advance of jazz and after around 50 years of digesting this stuff it began to surface in jazz in pentatonic-based materials. Actually whole-tones were very big in even the 30s (Chant of The Weed comes to mind, and many others). I wish they would bring that one back. I think they stopped b/c it's just too hard to improvise on that after a while. It wants to 'land' somewhere, that's what our Western ears seem to be used to. Pentatonics were here from when they first started writing melodies. The famous examples like In a Sentimental Mood and Someone to Watch Over Me (same exact melody, actually, for the first 7 notes) show that those things were pretty common as early as the 20s/30s. It's just that players started taking it 'out' a bit more later. And naturally thought they were hipper than hip for doing what Mr. Debussy did in like 1903.......

Listened to Lotus Blossom (Flower?) yesterday. Nice recording. Good tunes and energy. Woody's sound (all trumpet, no flugel) is bright and I always dug the way he uses vibrato. It's also nice to hear a quintet w/trumpet and bone. I never was knocked out by his choice of tenor players, anyway. Too much of that modal stuff and they didn't sound like they knew tunes. Also checked in with Moontrane in the last week and I like that also. That was a working band so that made it a real document. If you listen to Tom Harrell's first leader date, called Aurora and reissued as Total, you can really hear the influence on his playing and also with the use of percussion, etc. At least that's what I hear. I like Aurora a lot, BTW.

You sound good. Good to hear.

Yes to all. Musicians crack me up when they think they are special. We need music in our lives. We also need someone to take away the garbage and candy wrappers. That's 'creative' too, since it creates a nicer environment. As far as those guitar players go, they are better off. I won't even go into why, but I figure having wrote it you'd know.......

Johnny Smith is a class act. I learned Golden Earrings copying from his LP as a kid. On Verve, but I can't remember the title now. CRS kicking in, or maybe it's horseradishes.....Had the guitar sticking out from a cut-out on the sleeve. That guitar just gleamed, and to a 17-year-old kid...... Try doing that on a puny CD...... Johnny Smith has to be one of the top people ever to play and record on my instrument. And he walked away from it. Usually guys just drop dead. But beside his amamzing technique and taste in tunes, the transfer of classical repertoire like Sevilla to pick-style guitar, etc., he just presented the guitar with so much class. I can imagine how he felt when the guys with 18 Marshalls came along. Probably why he split.

Thanks. Funny, at first I thought you meant Louis Armstrong had trouble with Giant Steps. That would make Trane like 190.......... Are you talking about a guy named Cogswell? I met that guy, but he's the curator, that's his title. I really do miss the personalities....and all those cats. More than I could say here.

I'm getting a beer now. And it's 11 AM. Does that answer your question?

Drag. He was living in Westchester, looked a little raggedy but playing very good. He made a nice recording as a leader not that long ago. Ballads mostly, and possibly w/strings. Always sad to lose one of the good ones.........

A MODEST PROPOSAL? A MODEST PROPOSAL???

Uh huh. But me, I think of melody and rhythm as equal partners. Harmony got a little cocky lately and I think we have to put him in his place and put melody back---well---on top. Just my opinion. As Phil Woods said, getting a little too emotional at a HS clinic Q&A: 'Thank you for my life'.......

I both went to school (after starting gigs way before) and played with at least one of those on the list (Jaki Byard). I also have observed people on the scene for a long time. It's funny you mention Jaki. He made most of his living teaching at NEC and I think BU). To further clarify, I also had great individual instruction from my heroes that was tremendously useful. I'm still working on what certain people told me years ago..... I came on the scene in the earliest 80s and just squeaked by to catch the very tail end of what you are talking about. Those guys---that generation (the people I had exposure to other than Jaki were C. Sharpe, Pat Patrick, Chris Anderson, Tommy Turrentine, Percy France, Vernell Fournier, and to a lesser degree Clifford Jordan---all on the scene and accessible to play and hang with in NY then) all learned it on the stand and from hanging with their idols. I couldn't say who went to school or not, but I know the real goodies they got came from hanging and musical ass-whuppings----the old-school, sink-or-swim type. Chris also sat in movie theaters as a kid and, being blind and amazingly sensitive, pretty much memorized, if not the scores, all the tunes. They also were all personalities and it came out. I believe that is what you are talking about. And, critical to my point, they had to be personalities back then----or would've receded into the furniture. I think that's what you are talking about too. I think there are fallacies on both extremes: All the knowledge in the world can only help what you have, and what great players teach you. I think Wynton is right about a lot of things---especially that, and a great teacher probably. But he also has a lot of road years. I remember one night at a toilet called the Star Cafe a guy was heckling everyone on the stand, finding one nasty thing to say about everyone---and these were not slouches up there. He concluded his tirade by saying "MFs go to Julliard, and ain't got no feeling". OK, that's a dumb-ass cliche from a non-musician, but a lot of guys used to buy into that. But knowledge of 'syntax', rules, etc. also can't make you play. There are a lot of sound-alikes these days, and it is disconcerting. I think Jim's point is also well-taken about 'where the hell will they work to apply this theoretical knowledge?'. I don't think that school is a bad thing at all. I had great teachers all down the line from elementary, and I remember many and many shaped me and others. In the end, though, you have to shift for yourself in life. If you don't know the tunes or can swing or have a sound anyone wants to hear what the hell good is a degree---unless you want to teach? You eventually have to shit or get off it----school or no school. Just like if you can't get through life without crutches of some type or 'bruises', you'd better stop and figure out what the hell you aren't doing right. But, no, education not a bad thing at all, taken with empirical knowledge and self-awareness.

What does that mean: 'the bottom is where it's at, not the top'? Do you mean the melody is less imporant than the groove? I didn't quite get you.....That sentence was a bit dense. I'd like to hear what you really meant, it's interesting.

Great points above, but what I said was different: "if the rhythmic accents you'd make weren't outright dictated by the changes, they often were suggested by them -- the rhythmic implications of the harmonic framework were frequent and always potentially present." In fact, given the fluidity with which the various aspects of music can interact, it may have been as much a taste for more planed-down or "straighter" rhythms that led to more planed-down, "open" harmonic frameworks as it was the other way around. OK, but my head hurts now Thank God I don't think about this shit when I play............I'm already half shot

What are those other LPs w/Stitt called? I had one reissue called Look Down Tha Lonesome Road. Double album, bought it years ago. It's not all with Barry, but a lot is. The other one is called 12, I think.

Interesting point and way to put it. What I mean is it's a less 'loping' 8th note, and maybe straighter. Closer to a Latin feel almost. Tom Harrell does this too, to me---and I love both he and Woody. Tom is really closer to bebop than Woody to me, but that's a choice I think he perhaps made). I think it has to do with the time they came up in, a different approach to swing perhaps, possibly b/c of rock/funk/R&B influences that weren't around as much in the 40s-60s. Sweets Edison perceived 8th notes from a different point of view IMO. Woody, Tom, Joe Hen., and other great recent players came of age in the 60s-70s. They did different type gigs and were exposed to different type time feels possibly. If I understand what you're referring to, and I think I do, my guess is this change came about from playing more often on more or less modal material versus tunes of the Standards era and originals that had a similar fairly active style of harmonic movement. In the latter two cases, if the rhythmic accents you'd make weren't outright dictated by the changes, they often were suggested by them -- the rhythmic implications of the harmonic framework were frequent and always potentially present. In more or less modal settings, that was much less the case (harmonic events being less frequent and more ambiguous) and one tended to lay a "burning" rhythmically straighter line on top of what was a much more planed-down harmonic backdrop that dictated, and/or suggested, rhythmic responses much less frequently, though one could argue that for some players such rhythmic suggestions as were there became in practive even more insistent, just of a different character and spaced further apart. I don't happen to agree with your basic premise, that rhythm is dictated by changes, but the whole modal thing you open up is food for thought. But regarding rhythm itself, every period has a rhythm---I mean every historic, not only musical period. I think things changed up in the 60s in music rhythmically with people like McCoy Tyner/Trane and many others. That music was dependent more on endurance/energy/spirit of the moment perhaps, rather than the song form discipline which immediately preceded it in bebop, and swing before that. The thing that decides something's 'lastingness' to me is if it's built on what preceded it and has use to practitioners and, in this case, listeners. Time will tell about modal/energy. But we still can make a few declaritive statements perhaps, and one is that the eight note changed---to my ear anyway---in the 60s. It got straighter, less 'loping'. Just like bebop 8ths were different from swing, but based on them. I think the real challenge in modal playing, and one that is troubling to me personally from an artistic viewpoint, is that it may be a dead end musicially in many cases. I think people like Miles, Bill Evans, Cannonball (as per 'Know What I Mean') may have risen to the occasion more than many who followed. There was a certain lyricism, a certain dicsipline in the use of those scales to my ear that was on a higher musical level than what followed, with hog-wild superimposing scales on one chord for marathon lengths of time. I think that tends to wear ears out and maybe people grew tired of it and voted with their feet, since the jazz audience dwindled. Strong opinions, I know, but ones come to after years of observing the scene and people's reaction to what has been placed before them on bandstands. I think there's no way of getting around the basics of swing and song. Vamps are great, but just that, vamps. IMO if you make your whole thing a vamp you'd better be pretty damn resourceful musically, and most guys just aren't to me. To get back to Woody Shaw, to me he was on to something. Harmonically he was an explorer, and---again---it had roots. It doesn't bother me that it came from classical, shit, that's where Western music lives, you know? As lonmg as the roots are there you can take it somewhere valid, and he did, plus his work had beauty to me. He was an informed avant cat, and there are plenty of the other kind, in other words bullshitters---the kind that want to 'take it out' but can hardly get through Happy Birthday. Rhythmically I would say he was a product of his era---the straighter 8th note period. Joe H. was too, but to me just had more rhythmic balls, a value judgement I know, but just the way it strikes my ears. I place Woody as a real innovator, though, and as such eminently worthy of study. There are a couple of 'harmony-first' cats who remind me personally that maybe I just check them out and perhaps add to the arsenal a bit. Besides Woody they include Richie Beirach, the late Mike Brecker, and Dave Leibman. Thanks for your thoughts, Larry (and Jim).

This recording, which I listen to once and I while,, usually 2x in a row and with a big grin, is a total delight. It's great to hear the master in a small group. He always was a favorite pianist of mine. Joe Pass just plays his tits off. He's so swinging, bluesy, and exciting with his chops and ability to always mix it up playing double time. Ray Brown's sliding figures and blues-based solos make me want to take him home. The drummer, if memory serves, is Mickey Roker, and he fits right in. It's also so off-the-cuff you can hear Duke call out changes to Pass on the Hawk Talks. I don't think Joe knew a lot of these tunes, but his ears are so fast it really doesn't matter. These aren't Duke's hardest tunes, anyway. If this ain't what jazz is about I quit. Back to selling storm windows..........

Barry Harris Plays is a solo recording with the tune Louise (could it be Louise...that spreads disease----Charlie Callas). The Harold Land someone mentioned with Wes is beautiful. Great tunes by Land also. I like Ursula. Nice to hear Wes as sideman. The Live in Tokyo from '76, with Macpherson and Raney is fine, too. Try to get Barry with Leroy Williams. Good rappoire. You want 'underwater'? Try anything on the defunct Choice Records. A well-intentioned home of many noble projects---and the worst sound in recorded history. Except perhaps Chesky.........

Interesting point and way to put it. What I mean is it's a less 'loping' 8th note, and maybe straighter. Closer to a Latin feel almost. Tom Harrell does this too, to me---and I love both he and Woody. Tom is really closer to bebop than Woody to me, but that's a choice I think he perhaps made). I think it has to do with the time they came up in, a different approach to swing perhaps, possibly b/c of rock/funk/R&B influences that weren't around as much in the 40s-60s. Sweets Edison perceived 8th notes from a different point of view IMO. Woody, Tom, Joe Hen., and other great recent players came of age in the 60s-70s. They did different type gigs and were exposed to different type time feels possibly.