fasstrack

Not a Bad November Words/music by Joel Fass Vickl Doney vocal Steve Ash piano WPAT AM NY 2:30 AM or so. I will provide a link directly I will be asleep. Those listening please advise if it was played and what you thought. Thanks.

Sure writers matter and can help. Many have helped a lot. But when they are wrong, and they are wrong often, they can really hurt. And as musicians we know what a brutal racket this is. I personally resent the fuck out of writers that turn on guys the minute they have a little financial success---usually after years of poverty and breaking their asses. Critics have slammed Wes Montgomery, Stan Getz, Dizzy, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine---the list is endless, and how fucking dare they? Walk a mile in my shoes, you know. They seem to hate, or at least resent, popularity, too, in musicians, which only rubs in their faces their own failure, since many wanted careers playing and couldn't hack it. This is far from the first time this has been said, I know, but that is only b/c it is true, and I can’t help that. I wish it weren’t, actually. The objectivity and quality of criticism would improve markedly without all these hidden beefs. As far as the actual art and content of reviewing, I don't give many of these people high grades as holding or artful writers. Never cared for the shallow verbosity of Gary Giddins (he's better than most, actually), Nate Chinen (very weak writer generally), Howard Mandel (awful), many more. DownBeat is such an embarrassment I quit reading such claptrap years ago. This is not personal toward any specific writer. Dan Morgenstern is a lovely man and friend to jazz. Giddins co-started a good and needed repertory band with Loren Schoenberg. Stanley Crouch is a friend (it's more like we're friendly) and himself unfairly slammed (though Stanley has a knack for finding controversy, to say the least). I thought Whitney Balliett was a good writer. I enjoyed reading him. Ralph Ellison wrote on jazz in an opinionated but poetic way, but didn't stay in the game long in pursuit of the inner novel, but at least he could write. As far as helping us work: well, the late Ralph J. Gleason did a lot of good with his shows and columns. He was a great man in his way. Unfortunately that did little for workaday musicians like ourselves, though it gave a great forum for names in jazz that the public needed more exposure to. Personally, I was reviewed exactly once in my life, as a sideman with George Kelly by Lee Jeske in Cash Box. I got a rave, dubbed by Jeske 'the sparkplug of the rhythm section' and not only did it not get me gigs in any sense but it pissed me off b/c it was mad disrespectful to Richard Wyands, who was 10 times the musician., and the actual sparkplug. He never even mentioned Richard, and, believe me, every head in that band turned around for every solo he played. None turned for mine as there was no reason to. It showed lack of insight on Jeske's part not to hear how much more Richard was playing than me, though I appreciated the compliment. He also averred as how I played 'heartbeat steady rhythm guitar of the kind that old-timers say don't exist anymore'. Well, no cigar on that either, since 1. I was finally asked to play 4/4 the night before by George since, nervous as hell to be on the gig, I was overplaying like mad and cluttering things up. George saved my ass and paved the way for that review, little did Jeske know! 2. There was nothing heartbeat-steady about it. I had to work for years with a metronome b/c my hands---especially the right, strumming hand, since I'm a lefty---get tired and I tend to drag. So Jeske, while complimenting me, really didn't get it. I bet if musicians were interviewed there would be many more stories like mine. I also want to get something off my chest I've been carrying for years, while we're on the subject: My guitar teacher as a teen is still around. I'll leave his and his singer wife's name out of this, since they are very dear people to me. They are also wonderful performers and pros all the way. My old teacher is one of the finest accompanists I've heard on guitar---and I've heard them all. His time is ridiculous. But they opened for James Moody once and the Great Gary Giddins reviewed them. He said that she 'moved her head around like a maladjusted barbie doll' and mocked her 'you're a lovely audience' routines. And nothing else. I have never in my years heard anything as cruel as that dismissal of such quality people, and he shouldn't have gotten away with it. I remember writing to the Village Voice in outrage. Giddins went on to enthuse about and ass-kiss Moody, which is not to say Moody didn't deserve a rave or isn't a great player but this IMO is yet another example of guilty white liberal critics doing these type of genuflecting reviews. I've read so many and am so tired of it. It’s actually racist to overpraise, but they don’t view it that way. OK. I relinquish the soapbox to whoever wants it. Just being honest and I think these things need to be said.

Rucsh used to have a record company out of the same building. Once I sent a demo, trying to get a date. He sent back an opinion, and not a good one. Said the bassist took more chances than me, and since I had the 'chops' why not? (I take chances all the time, and have not much chops) I replied by sending him a Q-tip....

BTW: regarding simulating the air column of a horn, I do it three. It's no secret that we guitarists didn't create shit in terms of vocab (except for Christian and Django). We get it from the horn players.

Yeah listening to critics in any of the arts is probably dumb. Often they are frustrated musicians or artists. Other times just ignorant but have a lot of superficial knowledge. You listen to what other respected artists have to say. Sometimes lay people that are just good listeners are the best to listen to. Right. he always said he wanted to sound like he's blowing (like a saxophone). Doug does it to. Check out the video of Doug. You see it in his cheeks: I'm pretty sure dad liked Warne's playing. I have an audio of some of the live concert from the 80s with Dad, Warne and Lou Levy I understand what you're saying. When I say restraint I mean in the sense of players who don't just jump on every idea that pops into their head. Players who use space, show thought and them come in with an even more subtle idea. I think listeners often miss the more subtle guys. There is something to be said for players that give it to you with the kitchen sink. But it's not the only way to play. In ref to listen louder. I think many players often play louder out of insecurity. Try to compensate for content with volume. Right: there's room for everyone at the table. But people are entitled to taste. I think peoples' taste and their core personalities are formed early in life and I don't see the point of always changing---since for most of us non genius knuckleheads one lifetime isn't even enough to get one style right. It's funny about writers: The guy I had it in for the most, Stanley Crouch, turned out to be a great guy once I met him, and the people I know who like him all say there's no more loyal friend. No, please G-d, don't turn this into a Stanley thread. I like the MF, OK? Get over it (I say that b/c he and Wynton catch a lotta hell here----and, contrary to belief in some quarters, they are not the same person). I don't think that many people read the critics anyway, do they? I mean people, not musicians. Though I think musicians might be people. I know 'cause I saw one once and he had opposable thumbs

I put that group together for the Chicago Jazz Festival. I have a tape of the gig. You have the tape? I'm gonna start being real nice to you from now on, Chuck .

Wow, if you or some others hear Evans as a cold player, I'm not sure what to say The guy plays ballads in such a way, with such purity that it's difficult to imagine a more moving jazz listening experience. Haunted Heart, Danny Boy, Blue in Green. Take your pick. But in terms of Lennie's influence, it's very apparent in his period from 1956 and some other recordings which require a harder edge (like George Russell stuff) but he was already transitioning out of this by 1958. The conception being the fast "single right hand line" approach influenced in part by by Lennie's famous solos such as "Lineup". I think that was on everyone's turntable for a while. Other guys doing similar things were Horace Silver and Eddie Costa. In terms of Lennie's style not being my father's bag or cold etc. You know some critic's considered my father's style a little cold. As ridiculous as that sounds. I think the term "cold" probably requires very specific language. Some people term restraint as "cold" and prefer "exuberance" which could be termed warm (Cannonball would be an example of that). For me I subscribe to my father's approach to artistry and those whom he admired, which is certain amount of latent energy. That requires a great deal of maturity as an artist. To walk the tightrope between withholding or calculating too much and overplaying or worse, delivering the obvious. His closest relationship with that school is with Lee. He knew him, respected him, played with him, was influenced in some ways by him and had some difficulties with him. Nite I'm not sure how many Gibson models he had. If think one was stolen and one was purchased legitimately by a collector. That model is featured here on my forum Doug is more on top of these things honestly because he's a little older. I am currently in possesion of his Fender and Doug his Hoffner. Hey Jon: I tried posting what I hoped was a thoughtful response re: this 'cold' business, but, alas, and piss, shit, and frickin' corruption, I lost my connection. I hate when that happens . So here's the highlights: Re Bill's influences: I think you can hear Lennie, among others in New Jazz Conceptions. I certainly hear it in the projects with George Russell---notably Concerto for Billy the Kid and Jazz in the Space Age. I think by the time of his tenure with Miles he pretty much sounded like the Bill Evans we all recognize. Re: Bill and Cannonball and their respective feels, they worked beautifully together, Bill bringing out Cannon's lyricism on the great album Know What I mean, and Cannon bringing a harder side of Bill out in Portrait of Julian Adderley (both on Riverside, I believe). Now to this thorny 'coldness' conundrum: I think a lot of players with lighter touches, i.e. the ones with physical restraint (let's say Bill, Jim Hall, Ahmad Jamal, Hank Jones for example's sake, and I guess at the other end of the spectrum would be McCoy Tyner) are wrongly branded as holding back emotion b/c they don't 'bang'. Well, music ain't banging, and that's some bullshit and a bad rap. Similarly, there are subtle ways to express feeling, and sensitivity is the hallmark of superior playing and artistry. Not the whole thing, but it's important, at least to me. I think writers---of the 'guilty white liberal' ilk especially, in othrt words, most jazz journalists---are prone to get into this branding of mostly white players and they can be destructive by misleading and lumping a lot of great players, white and black, in dumb-ass categories. By comparison, the worst a good player, even one who is cold, can do is bore or fail to excite. I played next to your dad, jamming at those aforementioned lessons at Attilla's---as close as a few feet away---and heard the man breathe, physically breathe, between phrases. If I wasn't hearing love, warmth, and passion I quit. Back to aluminum siding sales, know what I mean? He's called 'the epitome of cool' a lot too, and I wish a lot of people would get lives. And speaking of the Tristano world, I've heard Warne Marsh put down as cold also and I played with him and know that to be BS. Theres a very fine bio of Warne out BTW called An Unsung Cat, and in it a guy who knew both Warne and Lennie is quoted as saying that between the two Lennie had 'a great mind, but Warne had the talent'. Maybe, speculatively here, by that he meant more ability to communicate with his talents. Anyway, I bet Lennie didn't think he (Lennie) was cold. Neither do his staunch defenders. I personally do, also off-putting, though brilliant, and would rather hear Warne or Lee, especially earlier on. Bill I have fallen in and out of love with, depending on where I am at a given time. I think a lot of this stuff is in the ear of the beholder, and how connected the player and the listener are to each other at various times. But sensitivity and restraint are as desirable as they are rare, and have zero to do with 'warmth', but everything to do with tools to communicate, to transfer whatever emotion is there to begin with. That I believe. Emotion can be found in the subtlest of approaches. We just need to 'listen louder'.

'dancing' about architecture---Frank Zappa Whoa, dude, you're pretty pissed. Gee, by any chance are you in the music business? I feel you........

Laz, how is that Hot Club group? I kind of like gypsy jazz when I hear it. Except when the guitar players try to copy Django too much---near-certain artistic death. But that stuff is real fun to hear.

Did that long ago........Old news.

Yeah, I guess that's true. It's an instance of revealing more about myself than I intended. Child of an alcoholic. Not a physically violent one, but a verbally abusive one. If you've been there, that probably says it all. If not, I'm not sure I can explain it. You learn pretty young (whether it's the right lesson is another question) that you have to hold things together for everyone, supress your own anger (or any other feelings), and choose whatever action is necessary to make the pain stop. If you can't make it stop, you do what it takes to postpone it. You get to the point where every action is designed to mollify the alcholic and prevent an explosion from taking place. You learn that passivity is far more often the better option than taking an active step. My mother had a PhD in verbal abuse. Her mouth was very destructive, and she also was wonderfully accomplished at ambivilence/sending mixed signals. My dad took it lying down. I, however, was, and am a fighter and cannot suppress. It probably has been a lifesaver, but in the bargain in self-defense I wound up having just as brutal a mouth at times. You become them---ironically become that which you fear. Now, when I go off on people---almost always in reaction to stress, as she would---and I've worked on controlling it more and more, and anyway could never be as bad as she, they learn to avoid me like touching a hot iron. It's taken me years to break the cycle and music and my talent for friendship have been critical in maintaining my mental health and also in people realizing what I am really about despite taking it dark at times. I also use that aspect of her and others I've known with repellent behavior/attitudes as negative examples and try not to do as they do. At the same time her combativeness can be a good example also---as in not taking any crap from anyone, which she didn't (Though she gave it!) and I never haver either, speak very bluntly to those who dish it out and sleeping very well at night. When she believed in something she was like hell's fury, and I sort of admire and emulate that. Go figure.........

I can't tell you how gratifying it is to have a place to talk about folks like Joe, Chuck, Jimmy Raney, and others not exactly in the mainstream of Amrican popular culture and people not only know who they are, they add stuff like that great picture of Chuck. Man, that brings back so many memories....

OK. I dig. And appreciate. But there's no way to divine the meaning of that last enigmatic sentence unless you explain it.

That's the Puma-Wayne story I remembered. Chuck was the greatest to me. Treated me like a son. He used to drive me home to Brooklyn from Gregory's---going out of his way on the way home to Staten Island. I was proud enough to burst when I finally got good enough to sit in there and he let me. He had become somewhat bitter about his relative obsurity in the biz, compared to other names, after all he did for his instrument (we are talking about perhaps an all-time great player of the instrument, aside from his place in jazz guitar history) but toward the end of his life he and his wife became born again. It worked for him and I'm happy it did. I called him when he had gotten sick, after no contact for quite a few years. His voice was frail and his breathing shallow, but I also heard peace. It's a shame those two couldn't get along. They really played different enough (though with similar roots and taste) to make it work, and that duo was well-received. When they improvised two guitar counterpoint, I thought that was their highlight.

......thread, so here's one. Very underrated player and unnessecarily forgotten not a decade after his death. He knew every tune, played with wit, melodicism, and swing---and was a dark, hilarious character to boot. A few stories: I ran into Puma last time in 1997 when I went to hear him at a joint called the Red Eye Grill on 56th Street. It's still there. He knows me a little and asked how I was doing. Trying to be clever, or something, I answered that I was trying to play a little and stay 'a step ahead of the sheriff. He turned, looked at me hard, said: 'You better watch out. The sheriff might play better than you'. A little later they were playing a CD on break. It sounded good. I think it was Vic Juris. Puma turned and asked if that was me. 'I think it's the sheriff' I said* When I was 21 (it was a very good year, and...) I used to hang around Chuck Wayne a lot. This was when Puma and Chuck used to have a guitar duo. I heard it ended after a few years of arguing when they finally were driving to Florida for a gig and had a fight over whether a diminished scale is a 7 or 8 note scale. It reportedly ended with 'f*&k yous' and silence through several states. I remember when they first started they sat together, with amps on the far side. By the end the arrangement was in reverse. So Chuck couldn't make a gig at Stryker's, ca. 1975. Joe got a great tenor player, maybe Carmen Leggio, I can't remember, but a MF player. Like the little idiot I was I expressed my disappointment in Chuck not being there by directly walking up to Joe and asking where Chuck was tonight. He fixed a hard gaze and replied 'as you get older you'll like my playing better'. Stinging and deserved, yet prescient. I'm older and I do like his playing better than Chuck's. Chuck is one of the greatest guitarists ever, who invented his own systems on guitar, and a stylist, but Joe swung more IMO and just appeals more to me musically. The funniest line I walked into and invited (I should've been his straight man or a softball practice pitcher) was when I, at around the same age, repeated some bitter babble Chuck ran down to me about this and that guy being an 'opportunist'. Joe just smoked from his ears after about ten minutes of this malarkey and finally looked at his watch. 'I'd like to take this opportunity to go back on the stand and play. But first I think I'll call a couple guys and ask if it's alright'. A link to some recordings: http://www.answers.com/topic/joe-puma * No, I didn't, either, but have been conning people into thinking I did ever since. But if anyone uses the sheriff retort again damned if I ain't ready.......

The problem is that, like most institutions, they are too big. They may even mean well, or the staff individually mean well, but the organizational wheels are operating on the same chassis but each going in its own direction.

What do we call that, 'thread nostalgia'? Sounds like a longing for darning needles and the joys of crochet . (I always reach for the 'crazy' smiley b/c I don't have to open the emoticonc box and allow my slow-as-shit given-to-me-as-charity computer to freeze). This message has been brought to you by your friendly insane guitar player. Now back to our regularly scheduled Jimmy Raney American Masters special. But first: Yeah, thread(s)---and nostalgia---ain't what they used to be. And I have to get a life. Thank the Lord I go back to work today.....

Well, I recently gave myself some berth here and ranted about my own phony-baloney problems----which certainly not to say yours are. It didn't change anything per se, but it is gratifying to know that people are listening, responsive, and have often had similar experiences. My father suffered a serious stroke in Spring 1993. He was at the time in a shithole of a hospital for the mentally ill called Gracie Square, being 'treated' (don't even ask or I'll rant for pages) for a serious agitated depression which was intermittently ongoing and robbed him of much of his life. While at Gracie, I realize in retrospect, he had at least one or more TGIs. He had been placed in a chair with a lockin top b/c he evidently had been falling down. No one on their staff ever called either myself or my two siblings to tell us anything. He kept getting worse and more unresponsive and I assumed it was the depression, combined with age and perhaps Alzheimers. He was just 71. One Sunday I came to visit and he was lying in bed immobile. I went to the nurse's station and demanded a doctor right then. One came and all he said was 'we're moving your father to Lenox Hill. He seems a little weak.' Once the paras got there one took one look and knew what these morons never bothered to even look into. 'Your father had a stroke', he said, and showed me glaringly obvious classic symptoms. He never pulled out of it and remained at Lenox Hill for a while, since he had no living will or plan for contingency. Finally he wound up in a nursing home in Manhattan, where he spent a horrible year and a half aphasic, unable to swallow, talk, move except his left arm, eating through a tube b/c he had no gag reflex. I doubt he knew where he was or what happened, but pain and discomfort were written in his face and the few unpleasant sounds he could still make. Finally, mercifully, he died. It always killed me that he died in Manhattan, since he was a Brooklyn boy and had spent his entire prior life there, except for the Army. When he first arrived at Lenox Hill I had the thought of aphyxiating him with a pillow, a la Over The Cuckoo's Nest, to put him out of his misery. I couldn't take how pitiful he looked, lying there like a semi-squashed bug. It's a sight I'll never forget. At the guardianship hearing his shrink from Gracie covered his ass, lying as I expected he would. He continued seeing my dad at the hospital even after I ordered him to stay away. I had in mind to sue Gracie for negligence, but by the time I was ready no attorney seemed willing to take the case since it's hard to prove. I just let it go, b/c I had to let go and move on. The guardianship hearing, the familial strife having to deal with emotionally disturbed siblings---I won't get into it----but it was raw and took years to get over it. My advice, and no one generally wants advice, but you did put this public so you must at least want viewpoints, is let it go---and as soon as possible. Whatever it takes: therapy, getting drunk or laid---let it go and move on. The bad will towards the people who did wrong will do no good and not bring her back. I understand the self-absorption of such pain BTW, b/c, seeking help/sympathy, I called Sidney Zion at home after I read about his daughter's case. He was in such pain he could barely listen. I did manage to get the attention of the late, great Flo Kennedy, and at least I got to spend some quality time with her, so some good came out of the pain. Let it go. Let it go. Life is too short.......

Finally I work full time. It may be too late for this landlord but I am resolved to the path of least resistance---whatever that may end up being. But never again---whatever it takes---will I put myself in these straits. I sincerely thank everyone for their good wishes.

As the great bard Johnny Carson might say 'that is funny, funny stuff'. That shtick with the clarinet and the piano going nuts reminded me of another youtube vid: Woody Allen sitting in w/the band on the old Dick Cavett show. He started playing a blues and kept stopping and making salacious faces, shaking his mop around, rolling his eyes like 'that was nothin'---wait til you hear this', then started again. Very funny, indeed.

Killin'. The real, raw shit w/Stan, Horace, Jimmy, Tiny Kahn, (I think Al Haig) on some things. They were really on. Jimmy's sound is so raw it sounds like his amp was picking up alpha waves! ROY. G. BIV come in.... Stan is fierce, like I said. He's somehow more extroverted than on Storyville, though that stuff is great too. Unless I am mistaken it would be Live at Birdland in 1952 w/Getz. Starting from April until August 1952 Stan's band played Birdland quite often and luckily we have this music. Of course Stan Getz at Storyville is much more well known. But maybe because this is a bootleg it is less available. I searched the Stan Getz discography and Jimmy did not play with Stan at Birdland in 1950. I just love Stan's band at Birdland. Jimmy of course is there. Either Duke Jordan or Horace Silver and even Charlie Mingus in August 1952. Absolutely a must. Denis '52. I, er, Stan corrected....... I played it so much it grew hair. Finally shit-canned it b/c it practically would smack my hand saying 'leave me alone. I got nuffin' left. Nuffin', I tell ya....'

It disappeared---up and gone. Yahoo constantly updates its news and it got bumped, I guess. In case you haven't heard this was a video about that teen who robbed a Dunkin' Donuts, felt bad, returned the money the next day. For his change of heart and candor he got locked up. If anyone can find the video, post it please.

Seriously, I hope they go easy on the poor kid. But it did strike me as funny somehow. His apology note probably gave his English teacher a stroke, for one thing. My favorite part is when he tried to hug the clerk. Also, what ever happened to 'honesty is the best policy'? Guess stuff like the beginning of 'Psycho' only happens in the movies.........

http://www.yahoo.com/ scroll to robbery suspect story. (Probably you've heard this one by now.) You'd think they'd give him some Munchkins, at least, on his way to the Big House. Bastards..... :

Killin'. The real, raw shit w/Stan, Horace, Jimmy, Tiny Kahn, (I think Al Haig) on some things. They were really on. Jimmy's sound is so raw it sounds like his amp was picking up alpha waves! ROY. G. BIV come in.... Stan is fierce, like I said. He's somehow more extroverted than on Storyville, though that stuff is great too.