fasstrack

Especially at 17...

I guess Myers blew a golden opportunity for a follow-up...

Like I said, I guess he had his reasons. I don't profess to know any more than you what they might have been.

I'm wondering the same thing. It's a strange comment indeed. However Pepper wasted himself as a dope fiend or criminal is one thing-an argument could even be made that the later expressionist work was in part the result of that lifestyle and not as good as what preceded it, but anyone with ears would have to hear a genuine talent. I don't live or die by Art Pepper, but that comment rubbed me the wrong way. I guess he had his reasons...

Wow, did he really die? What happened? I heard him in the Hague in 2001, and met him here briefly. So young.... Wow, did he really die? What happened? I heard him in the Hague in 2001, and met him here briefly. So young.... I see that it was an apparent suicide. How horrible.

He said in the same interview that Pepper 'thought he was better than (or as good as) Bird, and that wasn't the case'.

And I'm sawing away at that limb. BTW, Geller said in an interview somewhere that Pepper in his mid-to-late-'50s prime was no great shakes in his opinion, although I don't recall whether Geller also said that he himself was a much better player. Don't get me wrong, I like Geller, although his solos do seem rather same-y after a while; and when it comes to rhythmic variety, tonal flexibility, long-range logic of construction, you name it, prime Pepper was in another realm altogether. Also, BTW, check out if you can Gene Quill's solo on "I Feel Pretty" on Manny Albam's "West Side Story" album. Remarkably loose, wild, and fluid. I think that was a Jazzwax interview, where he told Myers: 'Art Pepper didn't have much talent, but he had a lot of personality on the horn'. Weird statement, to say the least.....

Gordon Jenkins, in one of his less weepy arrangements for strings.

Thanks for correcting my faulty memory Greg. And if the guests were Carroll and the FD-both class acts-I indeed misspoke. The version I saw may have been edited down to include Rainy Day only. Or I'm getting old....

Well, sir, my reserve at the library arrived today, and I find myself well nigh page 70. In view of all the dishing re Stanley's overstuffed prose, I haven't found that to be the case. (OK, there's the fabled 'soak the bloomers' line but I was on the lookout for that. Not enough to sink the ship, I submit). The trick is to approach it as an historical novel, peppered with insights into the Kansas City of the Pendergast years. The story of McShann barmstorming the Savoy was well-handled, I thought, and read like breezy fiction-not ham-fisted at all. And now our hero is in that first romance with Rebecca and so it goes. Anyway, a pretty good read and though far be it for me to defend the other SC peccadiloes alluded to in this thread, as far as having a clotted prose style at least in this book some of you guys perhaps protest too much.

There was a TV special around '68 or '69: Francis Albert Sinatra Does his Own Thing. Most of it was as embarrassingly bad as the title implies, with Sinatra, possibly in Nehru jacket, reciting lame patter in introducing rock groups of the day, and probably embarrassing himself in song, too, also as per the title. But there was one sequence that was priceless: Sinatra alone in a trenchcoat, holding (yes, alas) a cigarette, and making one's hair stand on end singing that great (Riddle?) string arrangement of Here's That Rainy Day. Unforgettable. Anyone else seen this?

One of my favorites, too. Hall and Raney were an intense pairing, especially on "Move It" (think that's the title and think it's a Hall piece). The young Steve Swallow adds a lot to this date, as he does to the Art Farmer Quartet with Hall, and Walter Perkins or Pete LaRoca. There's at least another 2 dates with Raney/Hall: Street Swingers (alternate title: Hot Buttered Noodling) also with Bob Brookmeyer and Osie Johnson---I forget who plays bass. The other is David X. Young's Jazz Loft (Hall, Raney, Brook, Pepper Adams, Dave McKenna, Zoot Sims, many more).

Some other material from that same gig has been recently released along with the original JH Live. I write from a cell phone and can't provide a link. Perhaps someone else can? BTW the bassist is Don Thompson, the drummer Terry Clarke.

'Duke Ellington is my favorite piano player' Jaki Byard It would almost be worth sending that quote to Gopnik. Except that he probably never heard of Byard.

The thing with Priester was a hoax? I seem to recall a FB campaign to raise money either for medical expenses or so he could stay in his home.

Ugh. This has to be the worst year for deaths in the jazz world. I was expecting this, but still.....Horrible news.

This guy's life was just too inspirational not to comment on. After starting a promising career, felled by double tendonitis-assured death to most pianists-he continued. He wrote books and practiced and performed when he could. I remember Dr. Billy Taylor profiling him on his CBS Sunday Morning spot. Now that my own hands have been faltering a bit (for reasons I don't yet know) my heart goes out to him even more. There are many types of achievement and ways to have an important life.

I think it bears mentioning exactly how good a rhythm man Mr. Hall was. His 4-on-the-floor could support or carry any band. His use of 3-note piano style voicings in just the right spots has been much copied. When you add how big his ears were to the equation you realize he only did these things when needed (he called it 'superintending the rhythm section'). The compositional sense made him an unique soloist, but it was the foundation rhythm skills, the sensitivity, and listening that made him first-call player for so many. He wanted to make the leader and everyone else sound good.

I was fortunate to catch the last Mitchell-Ruff Duo performances I'm aware of (please correct me if I'm wrong) back in '95-at the Ethical Culture Center in NY.

What they said. A national (international?) treasure.

Wow. Speechless.

Yes, he was way better post-NOI than during. His perspective was more comprehensive, i.e. Pan-Africanism, and a global view of how U.S. oppression of blacks parelleled the worldwide struggles of the oppressed. What a force he would've developed into in so many ways had he not been cut down.

Gene Lees made him look like an amateur when it came to that......

as is the case with most musicians. True dat. The good ones, anyway.

Finished it. I have to say this is one of the best biographies I've read. Marable pulls no punches about Malcolm or anyone in his orbit. Thoroughly researched, it is also moving and harrowing in the chapters concerning Malcolm's death and its aftermath. A must read, especially as a counterbalance to the Autobiography. The only loose end (unless I missed it): Who took over the Wallace Muhammed faction of the NOI after his death?