fasstrack

C. Sharpe was his own mobius strip, part Bird,part Bud, part his own version of space is the place. He also was the loosest musician I've known, in terms of flowing from chorus to chorus commenting on the preceding ones with no trepidation or anxiety. You had to know the guy to know what a special artist he was. Recordings were only the tip of thn iceberg.

I think the popularity of their artists (i.e. Hancock, Turrentine, especially Silver) was their best investment. Those records sold well years ago and are still selling.

With no bitterness, only love and forgiveness.

There's some good insight into Ray Brown in Gene Lees' Friends Along the Way.http://www.amazon.com/Friends-Along-Way-Journey-Through/dp/0300099673

A nice recent (2006) recording with Roker: Eddie Diehl's Well, Here it Is.http://www.lineagerecords.com/cds/eddiediehlwellhereitiscd.htm

Sounds promising. We're all trying to get to that place. It happens too rarely.

Anyone wanting a nice long drink of C. Sharpe can go here: http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/105-minutes-with-legendary-clarence-c-sharpe/ I'm thrilled that this thread exists.

Not to mention a brilliant soloist......

Carmen Leggio was born in the same year as Getz (1927) and died 18 years after Getz (2009). It was the fact that he played with the Herd some years after Getz that threw me. Thanks for straightening it out.

And the answer is indeed Carmen Leggio.

Let's give someone else a chance before letting the cat out..................................

We were buddies. I went up on the roof with him in '84 and we played Someone to Watch over Me for 45 minutes. I wish you could have heard the bass lines on alto he played behind me that day----let alone the solos. He was underrecorded.That Archie Shepp album, Poem for Losers, has his solo on I Got it Bad (sung by his wife, China Perrault) all but obfiscated by Shepp's obnoxious obligatto. There's a date with a Japanese drummer, Monkey, and something with another saxophone player named Ted Harris. They are probably hard to get. There were in the display case at Barry Harris's Jazz Cultural Theater, where he regularly performed. He worked a lot in the 70s and 80s and had superstitions about recording. He talked a lot about 'the music that goes into the air'. He went to Paris to play a show opposite Phil Woods and others in the late 80s, but his health (cancer) declined after that. We lost him in early 1990. I think of him a lot. Beautiful soul, great player.

....a great tenor player, deceased 5-10 years, maybe 10 years younger than Getz. Lived in Westchester (Tarrytown), according to one account in his car for a time. Recorded a beautiful album with strings before he passed. Played with Woody, Kenton, Maynard, Buddy Rich, Doc Severinson. Any takers?* *Fair disclosure: The name finally came to my addled brain late last night. Still it's a fun game for you to get it with those scant clues----which are all I have. Bet one of you nails it and fast.

What, pray tell, was it?

Yes.

Thank you, thank you, and again thank you. Most people here know I'm Jewish by my ethnic horseplay. When I was a car service driver a few years back I often went through Borough Park---which was like being dropped into a 19th century shetl. People in a totally insular world, wearing garb and doing daily rituals unknown to the larger world (though not too unlike the Pennsylvalia Dutch in many ways). Once I picked up a passenger and we got to talking. He asked about my family and was aghast to learn I had no children. Making the mistake of telling him I regarded my compositions as my children I saw him look at me in a way that probably indicated he thought I was insane and, more to the point, no way could I be a Jew. Nurture, not nature.

Primarily of interest to guitarists: the OP video shows Django doing something I have long suspected, i.e., making a ninth chord (which requires three fingers) with his index, third and 'dead' fourth finger. He made his runs and most chords with his index and third. Intuitive ingenuity at its best.

I don't know if there's a thread already. If not, here it is. I was just watching a sort of ridiculous video which is yet a historical gold mine. It shows the Hot Club Quintette on a train, smoking and playing cards, except Django who is playing. Grapelli picks up the tune and soon the film cuts to the group in performance (possibly in Den Haag?). Django plays this astonishing chromatic run (I'll post a link, I'm too excited right now) with his two working L.H. fingers. I played it over and over and am still wondering what I did when I was seventeen (yes, it was a very good year....): How is this much genius humanly possible? I love Grapelli too, and the joie de vivre that group achieved. Favorite Django tracks? Stories? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQVVD0b-wBg

Sorry, but this doesn't ring true, and, respectfully, I wonder if you've confused Hentoff for lobbing a grenade when the odds are he was on the receiving end of it (more on that in a sec). First, Morgenstern: I have two Brown LPs for which he wrote the notes, "Three Giants" (the 1963 reissue of "Sonny Rollins Plus 4") and "The Quintet, Vol 1" (a 2 LP set of the Brown-Roach recordings). Morgenstern is highly flattering of Brown in both notes, painting him as both a musical and personal angel. There is not even a brief suggestion of a caveat carved out for relying too much on his technique. In "The Quintet" notes, in fact, he writes, "His technique, like that of all great jazz players, was inseparable from his music." Morgenstern is also one of the universally liked men in the business, so it's hard for me to imagine a context in which someone would take a shot at him like that in a set of liner notes. As for Hentoff, who is no doubt not lacking in the chutzpah department, I can't recall another example where he took a fellow jazz writer to task by name over a musical opinion, although I do know that he wrote that George W. Bush had a tin ear for civil liberties. Now, in the back of my mind, I do have a similar memory of Ira Gitler accusing Hentoff of having a “tin ear” about something in liner notes somewhere – at least I think it was Gitler doing the accusing and Hentoff being accused and liner notes being the forum. But I can’t be sure and to do the requisite research would be needle-in-a-haystack stuff. Mark, I swear I read it and it was Hentoff. I seem to remember it was on a twofer, if that helps.

Some of the titles on The Legendary point to eccentricities and an oddball sense of humor: Off my Back, Jack....

Wow -- where did Nat say that, and how the heck did he have the chutzpah to do so? On a Clifford Brown liner note, can't remember which one now. Nat has plenty of chutzpah.

I was amazed to find only one reference, in passing at that, to the great Elis Regina. Maybe it's too obvious a choice but her contribution cannot be overstated. A recent compilation from the early '80s is Vento de Maio. Then there's the classic Elis and Tom. My memory gets hazy on other titles, one with Lennon and McCartney in it. You can't go wrong with anything with her name on it, though.

I like Kate McGarry also. Very personal and brave in her choices.

I always thought Ben Webster was unfairly denied a throne in the middle of those occupied by Bean and Pres---holding his own and occupying the middle ground. As for Russell, he strikes me as an idiosyncratic player and similarities to Webster or others may be coincidental. Some of his best work was in quartet with Marshall Brown.

Had a nice time and meal at a local Baptist church. I'm surveying places in the Bronx to start my own jazz performance/education scene at. More as the story develops. I hope you all are safe, full, and thankful.