fasstrack

I think it would be a mistake to put Hartman in the drawer w/Mr. B and that 'school'-not that anyone here is. Hagood, yeah, and the way better Arthur Prysock. But Hartman to me was great b/c he was class act enough to shun that nanny-goat, Mr. Acker Bilk wide vibrato. And he had scope and didn't want to be typecast as ballad singer. So he made All of Me, a very swinging recording. I love what he did with A Slow Hot Wind on one of those Impulse dates. A really sensual tempo in-between bossa and rhumba. The guitars brought that one way out. Also Let me Love You. There's no way anyone could call him remotely Eckstineian on these dates. His timbre is so creamy and rich w/o that distracting vibrato. Got to give it up to Clint Eastwood for exposing the American public to someone that great. He would've been proud.

I get mixed up w/those Ellison names. I remember Reinhart, though. And Tempest Bledsoe. If anyone passes through upper Manhattan there's an Invisible Man iron sculpture at 150th &RSD, east side of the street-where Ellison lived. It looks like a guy running w/empty space on all sides.

No wonder he and Jimmy (Raney, not Gourley) got along so good. They sound almost identical, to playing almost the same licks. Singer has a fuller, darker sound, but their sounds are even similar. Maybe his touch is a little heavier. Sounds good, though, for a guitarist back then. Who knows what he would've done if he lived.

I still haven't heard this guy. Barry Harris raved to me about him, too. I'm gonna go listen now.

They left my smiley out of that last one. Bastards! Lets see if it works now. Let's call Bledsoe's mother..

Maybe we should call his mother

Nah, I didn't mean anybody lied here, just a general caveat. Wikipedia isn't taken too seriously by real researchers. It doesn't seem to have much of a vetting process for what gets put up. They cover themselves w/statements like 'this article, etc. needs verification'. A real encyclopedia would get laughed out of the biz for that. So Caveat Emptor, that's all. It's OK in a pinch but I'd dig deeper for the facts.

I miss the Charlie Parker Festivals in Tompkins Square Park. They still have it in Harlem-but it's not the same. Over the years they had many greats before most died off. I used to record it. Once they had a group with Charles McPherson, Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and I'm pretty sure it was Max Roach. Guess they couldn't get anyone good! Charles cracked me up, introducing Lover Man saying 'We'd like to slow things down....with a discussion of Marx and Engels'! On another one Phil Woods's group backed Kim Parker, who he helped raise w/Chan. Some of the groups were lame, though. I remember thinking 'it's downhill from here' when they had my friend Tardo Hammer-IMO one of the finest pianists and specializing in bebop-and wasted his abilities as background for a stupid poem. Still, it was a no-miss event for years-esp. at these prices...

the good news: I'll be back in the Apple just in time! The bad news: I don't have a radio-which leads to...the good news: I won't have to endure a certain double-vowel named, uh, 'nudnick' (;

You know, on Wikipedia one can submit one's own bio-and embroider as desired. Just sayin'.

Geez, a little Phil Woods dissing going on now and again in these pages. I can only quote a story Mr. Woods tells about his old duet partner Gene Quill: a guy at a bar heckled Quill after a set: 'Gene Quill, all you do is play like Charlie Parker'. According to legend Quill handed the guy his horn. 'Here. Play like Charlie Parker'. Anyway, I hope the cats played. It would be a waste not to at least have Jimmy Heath play on a Bird tribute. Besides his own playing he's probably one of the few living people-they'd all have to be at least 80-to have either played with him or heard him live. And he ain't gonna be around forever...

The problem is just the opposite: people DO want to hear it. Stupidity goes a long way. Just ask a guy named Barnum...

I did hear of him-just don't know his music, or any of theirs, really, except Joel's tunes-which I like. I never heard the Microscopic, even though I knew Dave earlier. It would've been impossible to live in NY in the '80s and NOT have heard of a lot of those guys. They were press darlings-you couldn't open the Village Voice and not read about the 'downtown scene'. I just never checked it out. Maybe the hype made me suspicious, dunno. Anyway, I just went a different way, that's all.

Never heard of any of 'em except for Horvitz-and he moved to Seattle, so he might as well be dead (insert 'wink' icon here, while I up and run for cover).

I know you're not being serious, but the tragedy there was that even he realized, and admitted candidly, what a fool he'd been and all he threw away for drugs. But the ship had already sailed.

Yes, Don, I will. Thanks for the info. Seems like I saw that Clowes guy interviewed on a NYT cable show. Maybe it was someone else but the obsequeousness ass-kissing of the host and smug self-importance of the guest were a bit much-so I tuned away. That's got nothing to do w/talent, though-assuming that it was in fact Clowes. Everyone connected with this movie has a world of talent, and every artist I've admired wasn't a saint...

Dave Hofstra was my old mate in Marshall Brown's Wednesday sessions. Also in that band: Gene Allen, Hod O'Brien, and the late Wade Barnes-who I grew up in jazz with. Did us all a world of good. Marshall was a great teacher. Last time I saw Dave he was playing duo w/Joel.

I have a confession: I don't care much for vide vibrato. That includes, so sorry to report, those of Mr. B, and Sidney Bechet. And I never cared much for Mel Torme, just like this. Oh, wait! It's a DI-gression thread. Er, NEVER MIND!!

Forrester? Good, quirky composer. Good stuff. I think bios of musicians ARE important, if only so people would know what we go through-and then possibly understand, if not appreciate. Also for the humor and life. It's not the many stories, it's the telling, by mediocre writers or poor researchers. Or they insinuate themselves in the story unbidden-sorry to say like the late Gene Lees, who I found superior, pretetentious, and annoying-not to mention w/several bugs up his ass (mostly a silly obsession w/white players getting no credit or something). Anyway, some time ago a writer was going to write a collective bio of sidemen in jazz. What, he wondered aloud, became of that?

This gets better with each layer...

Lance Armstrong would be better off in the US if he WERE Bird. No one would have heard of him or gave a shit (beyond us weirdos), ergo no scandal. Some guys got no luck

Crumb, about R. Crumb? That figures. I loved that.

I'm in Southern Fla. w/lots of time to kill, so I scooped up a bunch of DVDs from the library. Never heard of it or any of the principals-but I found it quite good. I won't give away the plot, just to say a young kid in art school goes to extremes to get both the girl and a kind of fame. It resonated personally b/c it spoke to a lot of my own jealousies and less appealing feelings re the music-jazz world. Everyone wants 'recognition', it takes a lot of will sometimes to say 'fuck you' to that and other stupid and flow-breaking distractions from the process, not to mention the effect of one's work on its viewers, listeners, etc. With young, sensitive people, like in the film, everything is magnified-especially one's self-importance-and the sense of drama that comes with that. Though meant as a dark comedy I actually found the young man's machinations plausible in real-life, and for many professions, etc. Society (ours, anyway) puts such a premium-and pressure to attain 'success'.

Forgive me, I'm senile and bad w/names. I remember his playing well, though-and like it very much. A guitarist friend, Vincent Koning, played a recording when I first went over in 2001 and he was a fresh, pure improvisor. I like Ferdinand Povel a lot too (tenor). Well, Vincent played me a recording last tine. They both sounded great but Vim was more in the moment. Povel knocked me out when I heard him w/Benny Bailey in Amsterdam. I stupidly blew an opportuity to play w/him last time over. Great player.

I think he was perhaps an unhappy man-in the sense of all artists having to live in the real world. I base this on the scant evidence of two early '80s incidents: a radio interview that wasn't bitter exactly but disappointed w/the world and its ways. And he stumbled into a long-defunct NY piano bar, the West Boondock, so drunk he could barely walk. I think Duke Jordan was playing. Hartman did not sing. However things worked out for him in his view he had plenty to be proud of: the stuff w'Trane is the best-known, but I prefer the Voice That Is and Just Dropped by to Say Hello, but especially All of Me-where he swings with a big band, throwing off the chains of the balladeer stereotype. I'm glad for those ballads, though. He owned them.