fasstrack

Is that the Nat Cole tribute where she sings Errand Girl for Rhythm and I Want the (whatever that funny food is)with....on the Side? Love that recording! And bless you for mentioning the great and nearly forgotten John Collins---one of the great men that set the standard for my instrument.

Wow. As they say 'that's what makes horse racing'. I couldn't disagree more, Larry. I love almost everything Carmen did, any period. She just ripened like a wine, and played great piano for herself, as did Shirley Horn. I think those 2 may have been the best self-accompanying singers I've heard---especially Shirley. My favorite Carmen is Bittersweet, Sounds of Silence (I think it's called) and Portrait of Carmen. I think the last 2 are on Atlantic. Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most on Bittersweet is my favorite version of a favorite song. She sings another Tommy Wolfe song, I'm Always Drunk in San Francisco, on one of the Atlantics, I forget which. The reason I love Carmen so much, besides her phenomenal musicianship, is an attitude she projects, or at least that I get, of not self-pity, but sort of 'screw the world or what anyone thinks. I'm telling you how I feel about this.' And there's a sardonic (if that's the right word) laughing-at-life and the stupidity of many people. She sounds like a really gifted survivor, who wants to 'talk' to whoever has ears to listen. Maybe this is in my head. She also can be unbelievably tender. Anyway, the combination of her attitude and amazing skills as a musician make her one of my all-time favorites. I wanted to mention IMO a great singer I've been in contact with, Shawnn Monteiro. She reminds me of (later) Carmen but definitely has her own great style and sound also. I think she's one of the best in the world today FWIW. I bring her up b/c last we spoke she was recording a Carmen McCrae tribute---speaking of tributes. It's probably in the can by now. So Sarah got one and now Carmen has one. Good news to me. Any relation to accordionist Eddie Monteiro? No. She's Jimmy Woode's daughter actually.

Wow. As they say 'that's what makes horse racing'. I couldn't disagree more, Larry. I love almost everything Carmen did, any period. She just ripened like a wine, and played great piano for herself, as did Shirley Horn. I think those 2 may have been the best self-accompanying singers I've heard---especially Shirley. My favorite Carmen is Bittersweet, Sounds of Silence (I think it's called) and Portrait of Carmen. I think the last 2 are on Atlantic. Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most on Bittersweet is my favorite version of a favorite song. She sings another Tommy Wolfe song, I'm Always Drunk in San Francisco, on one of the Atlantics, I forget which. The reason I love Carmen so much, besides her phenomenal musicianship, is an attitude she projects, or at least that I get, of not self-pity, but sort of 'screw the world or what anyone thinks. I'm telling you how I feel about this.' And there's a sardonic (if that's the right word) laughing-at-life and the stupidity of many people. She sounds like a really gifted survivor, who wants to 'talk' to whoever has ears to listen. Maybe this is in my head. She also can be unbelievably tender. Anyway, the combination of her attitude and amazing skills as a musician make her one of my all-time favorites. I wanted to mention IMO a great singer I've been in contact with, Shawnn Monteiro. She reminds me of (later) Carmen but definitely has her own great style and sound also. I think she's one of the best in the world today FWIW. I bring her up b/c last we spoke she was recording a Carmen McCrae tribute---speaking of tributes. It's probably in the can by now. So Sarah got one and now Carmen has one. Good news to me.

Did anyone else read this? I'm getting through it very slowly, with little time to read these days. But it's very good---like readable, populist history. I guess someone else agreed, b/c it came out in '82 and was reprinted not long ago.

No one other than the club owners are getting paid. This was discussed sometime last year in a thread. There should be something that will go to the musicians. I don't want to sound like a righteous saint, who I'm not, but until the artists get something, I won't join. It's only fair. the 'heroic' idea of 'keeping the music alive' wears thin after a bit. even a $20 per musician "internet tip" would be something. Allen (or whoever said this--it's confusing), you are dead wrong about this. I don't care who said what in what Internet thread. They are also wrong, period. No one, owner-wise, is 'getting paid'. Spike is operating at a loss and trying all sorts of things to keep the club alive. Musicians will share in the profits down the line, and get paid for every gig except matinees, which are door gigs--and everyone doing those knows the deal going in. That's ending anyway, b/c no one comes and it's time to try something else. There was a meeting for musicians who perform at Smalls last winter. I attended, with lots of others--including representatives of local 802. The subject was the very one of how to compensate musicians for their appearance on the web stream. Spike is a good guy and a mensch. No one is profiting off of musicians at Smalls. And if it closes there will be only one fairly priced venue, Fat Cat, for non-name but worthy musicians to play jazz in NY. And who's going to pay musicians for streaming if the public doesn't support it? Will it fall from the sky like manna? So please, with all due respect---and you know I have quite a bit for you, a little less ill-advised complaining and more support would help. A lousy $5/month isn't much to ask, is it?

I think you are being very generous in your interpretation here. As far as misappropriated by the Right - if the shoe fits... Sometimes the idea of 'progressive aesthetics' can be co-opted to provide the 'aesthetic-poetry' for 'survival of the fittest' 'social' ideologies - from where Rand was undeniably coming from. Leni Riefenstahl used fascist aesthetics to similarly create the visual poetry to support the Nazi ideology. She also has her defenders who try and separate her power as a visual organiser, from the fascism it sought to enable. One of the aims of Post-Modernism wasn't merely appropriating - but also to deny artists the ability to get away with such things 'merely in the name of Art'. Artists had to begin to take responsibility for the meaning of their work, and what that work represented beyond the aesthetics. I'll give Rand the benefit the doubt and say that perhaps she had 'the trickle down effect' in mind. But I doubt that. I think we're also falling down a common intellectual trap door: thinking I can speak as an artist\servant\self-expresser\communicator---the last the most important to me---who plies his craft every day. The more I think the less I play---b/c the less focused I am. I think these discussions are fine--I started this one, right? They are postmortems, though. I think it's not my place to give my philosophy to people except by playing. If it's happening and has feeling they'll know---just as if I'm blocked and the flow is blocked. Through the years I've learned to trust peoples' higher capabilities. Though I'm disappointed often when they act low something always brings me back to the way I need to think to be successful at what I'm trying to do. The main thing is: the 'thinnin', Babalouie, is cool---but is best done after, not during. Way less baggage that way,

I think you are being very generous in your interpretation here. As far as misappropriated by the Right - if the shoe fits... Sometimes the idea of 'progressive aesthetics' can be co-opted to provide the 'aesthetic-poetry' for 'survival of the fittest' 'social' ideologies - from where Rand was undeniably coming from. Leni Riefenstahl used fascist aesthetics to similarly create the visual poetry to support the Nazi ideology. She also has her defenders who try and separate her power as a visual organiser, from the fascism it sought to enable. One of the aims of Post-Modernism wasn't merely appropriating - but also to deny artists the ability to get away with such things 'merely in the name of Art'. Artists had to begin to take responsibility for the meaning of their work, and what that work represented beyond the aesthetics. I'll give Rand the benefit the doubt and say that perhaps she had 'the trickle down effect' in mind. But I doubt that. And the people who rose to the top of the USSR party and the satellites corrupted the ideas of Karl Marx ----can Marx be blamed for that? There are always going to be users and corrupters. I thought Rand was a good storyteller, and at the time I read the Fountainhead--early 20s---what I indicated is what I got from it. Maybe I'd view it differently now.I doubt it, though.

I met him a few times. A doll, and a pioneer on my axe. Eddie Diehl got to play w/him, lucky dog. Tal was his hero.

He married a woman with money-not a judgement but a fact, and it gave him some breathing room. I thought Tal was a great man.

Inner Mongoose! I'm stealing that-guaranteed. You get a co-write though. Make sure ASCAP has your address (; Inner Mongoose! I'm stealing that-guaranteed. You get a co-write though. Make sure ASCAP has your address (;

Of course you're right. Creative people are better off in the business world anyway, where at least you get paid, than the snake pit of the arts world. It's a MF out here, and you have to be really committed-or ready to BE committed. A hard road, to quote a John Mayall title of yesteryear. But FWIW you remind me that Tal Farlow was a sign painter. They said in the biz that a well-done sign had 'snap'. Tal said the same is true of music-it either has snap or it's not quite there. Great quote, I thought.

Lester Young still sounds modern to me.

Good thing there's no pictures. JSNGRY, DON'T YOU DARE!!

To the last 5 or so posters: You guys have a hell of a nerve discussing Fred Hersch again. What kind of thread drifters ARE you anyway? (;

I don't find Ayn Rand's ideas 'vile' in the least, just glibly misinterpreted by many-and misappropriated by the right. She was anti-collectivist (also anti-God) but the me-against-the-world piece is overplayed. In The Fountainhead Roark wasn't out there by himself. He was sometimes in harmony with and sometimes opposed to some strongly individual people with their own motives and conflicts. Ultimately it took a collaboration to design and build the Wynand Building and in the end Roark's sticking to his guns was not only a victory over the herd mentality and its manipulators but led to the actualization of the Dominique Francon character. But everyone who tried to take Roark down did it by calling him an egotist making himself and his buildings above the people he served. He wasn't. He was an independent thinker willing to collaborate with like minded thinkers on projects bigger than any one idea or ego, that served the public anyway. Not collectivist or tyrant, but a 'collaborationist'.

Performers doing their bit in society.. Bingo! To that I would only add get rid of that antiquated European fabrication, the stage. Let the performers have no partition or physical elevation from the audience. (Fat Cat in NY does this, and for me it's relaxing and basic to work there). That way they start out equals-and an egotist would have to dig deeper to feel above the crowd. Get up close and personal, and don't pen off audience or performer. Place the musicians in the center of the action, not apart. What Miles Davis called 'social music'.

There was an interesting on-camera interview w/Ellington where he responded to a question re whether he gets tired of playing Satin Doll or A Train: 'I suppose I could get the guys together to play my more complex things-in a REHEARSAL BAND' I guess he was saying the same thing as Tony Bennett answering a similar query on San Francisco, that he was grateful to the public. The royalties from the hits and tickets sold subsidized the band and his own composing. The thing about audiences is the same as w/any endeavor involving other people: get them to like and trust you and they will listen. If you change direction some listeners may feel betrayed, but new ones will be gained. That's life-risk and growth. The main thing: esp. in the performing arts no one creates in a vaccuum.

His statement speaks for itself. Anyway, no music w/o listeners. Tree falling in the forest, etc.

Lord, deliver us from 'hipness' in the jazz musician that 2-5s everything to death, often messing over beautiful original harmony in these songs. Add to that guys so 'creative' they don't bother to learn the correct melodies, and let's not even discuss lyrics b/c almighty self-expression is the be-all. Then their imitators try to out-hip THEM. The great ASB players like Pops, Zoot Sims, Jimmy Rowles, etc. Were secure enough in their personalities to play a beautiful song as is. If they made changes it was from the heart and ears-never forced. For all the wild excursions Chris Anderson went on in reharmonizing and reimagining songs I know for a fact that if you asked him to play the original sheet music or score version he would flawlessly and respectfully. THAT IMO is where creative license comes from, or should. Do your thing, yes. But KNOW what you're doing it on.

BTW I found out from the horse's mouth-the guy handing over the cash-that Terry (see earlier post) and his guys, called the Gotham City Jazz Band, DO get paid for that gig! Justice served. I'm taking an angel in my life to hear them Sun. I know she'll have a great time.

No, I'M deep in YOUR debt, as are all the people you are decent enough to shell out that nominal fee for. Since asked I think my own next spot will be a Mon. night solo guitar affair. Could be Dec. I'll post it when I know, and close to the date. And be on my toes w/y'all listening (; Bless you for the thread. Send a link to Spike. He'd want to see it and perhaps comment. I'm sure he's grateful.

As a member of the rotation of paid performers at Smalls (I'm proud our friend alic.. the OP told he joined the webstream subscribers after a gig of mine this past May) I urge people to take Spike Wilner's ridiculously low offer. It's going not only into operating costs but eventually into we cats' pockets. A recent weekend had regular performers Bucky Pizzarelli/Ed Laub, Tardo Hammer Trio, Johnny O' Neal. C'mon, give up $5. It's to keep an important NY resource viable, growing, and paying performers a decent salary as we do what we've sacrificed much for. Support a good cause for $60/yr!

No slam on KJ's music, but to me egomaniacs like him and others-so MANY others these days-is what is killing the jazz business. The I'm the shit and you peons are lucky to be here, sit quiet and drink in my genius approach. I'm opposed to it to my marrow. If you think you're better than the paying customers that give you not only a living but spiritual sustenance-b/c audience and performer give EACH OTHER something, then stay home and play into the mirror. Paul Bley (who I've heard KJ got a lot from) made my skin crawl interviewed in a book of Lee Konitz quotes, saying 'FUCK the audience! They're just along for the ride'. OTOH Dizzy Gillespie told an audience 'your applause (meaning I think positive feedback) is food for the artist' Perhaps the answer lies somewhere inbetween-but htmility is in short supply nowadays. I made up a joke: a jazz fan did bad things, so bad that instead of hell he had to spend eternity in a Pullman cabin w/KJ and a guy endlessly crinkling a candy bar wrapper...

Johnny Mercer, esp. w/Arlen, Harburg, Koehler, and Rodgers himself wrote very good lyrics. I looked up Loads of Love, thinking Hart wrote the lyrics. Rodgers!

I also like Hammerstein's 'everyman' quality, where Hart was inside and Porter clever. They're all giants to me, the poet laureate being Berlin. Simple, direct poetry with not a word or note wasted.