Mark Stryker

John Garvey, the legendary jazz band conductor at the University of Illinois from the late '50s until the early '90s, played viola in the Walden String Quartet, which was in residence at U of I. When Carter wrote his first quartet in 1950, he sent the score to a gaggle of of string quartets -- I think it might have literally been dozens but I can't recall -- and the Walden was the only one that agreed to play it. The gave the premiere in 1953 and then made the landmark first recording for Columbia Masterworks in 1955. John once told me that it was the first string quartet you couldn't sight read and tell if it was any good. You actually had to learn itbefore deciding whether it was a good (successful) piece or not. Glad you like the JSQ's performances of those Haydn quartets ...

All Detroit rhythm section -- Lightsey, Wright, Brooks. Smokin' is for me the best of the lot, particularly because Chet plays such a creative and expressive solo on "Have You Met Miss Jones" -- the melodic flow, swinging easy, surfing the beat. I also think it's interesting how his ear leads him astray of the changes on the second bridge to the point where he really clashes with the piano -- in the first bar he lands squarely on a B-flat (trumpet key) on beat 3, the flat seven against C Major. Then in the fourth bar on beat three he lands hard on a D natural, the minor third against the B7 chord -- and you can tell he's not thinking sharp 9 for tension -- because on beat one of the next bar he doesn't resolve to E Major but instead plays a B-flat and for the rest of the bar appears to be outlining E-flat major, a half-step "off." Only in bar 6 does his melody sync back up with the piano. Chet is technically "wrong" but it's oh so right -- sequences, internal logic, expressive melody.

The book is Producing Jazz: The Experience of an Independent Record Company, by Herman Gray, now emeritus professor of sociology at the University of California-Santa Cruz. It's a small monograph published in 1988 (Temple Univ. Press), when Gray was a young scholar interested in independent cultural production -- though much of the initial research was conducted in 1983, when Gray was a grad student. Though the writing is a bit flat and academic, it is truly a remarkable document, opening a window on a corner of the jazz record business on the ground, at a particular moment and in real time. It proved invaluable to me in writing the notes for the forthcoming Sanders set, particularly because both co-owners of Theresa, Allen Pittman* and Kazuko Ishida, are now deceased and the details of the company's history and Sanders' involvement, including direct quotes from Sanders himself, would have otherwise disappeared into the ether. I spoke with Gray in the course of writing and he was quite amazed and proud (as he should be) that after all these years, his early work was being recognized and recirculated to a wider audience. *Note correct spelling of Allen with an "e."

I don't know why they moved to RCA -- I never asked Mann that in my conversations with him -- but it must have had to do with money, repertoire, or people. Playing Mozart well is really, really hard on many levels.

FWIW -- the JSQ's Mozart recordings that I find special are the six quartets dedicated to Haydn, Nos. 13-19, which were recorded for Epic in the early '60s. The record you are lukewarm about includes Nos. 20/21 and was recorded in the early '50s and is an altogether different kettle of fish--different 2nd fiddle, different cellist, different aesthetic: the earlier LP is more tensile and relentlessly modernist; the latter more relaxed without sacrificing intensity and sometimes even charm, the latter of which, as you know, is not something associated very often with the JSQ. When you get to the later Mozart, let me know if your reaction is different. It might not be, of course, but it might be ...

I LOVE this summer project!! I've spent a lot of time with the JSQ over the years on record and in person. I don't have all the records but I have a LOT of it on LP -- and I heard them live fairly consistently from the mid 1980s until almost the present day; I also spoke on more than one occasion to Robert Mann, Joel Krosnick, and Sam Rhodes for various stories, and a decade ago I moderated a post-concert panel with the group after it played Elliott Carter's First Quartet. Don't have time to get into it all here, but I will say that for me the real sweet spot as an ensemble is between 1956-1966 -- that's where you have the most rewarding balance between a unified ensemble but with each player allowed maximum freedom as individuals, and where the interpretations mellow a bit from the sometimes relentless modernism of its early years into a more pliable expressionism that captures the full measure of any and all repertoire. Of course, there's great stuff from before this period and after, though from the mid '70s going forward the playing gets more inconsistent. But when everybody was on, they could still bring it. Coda 1: The second Bartok cycle was recorded in 1963 and released as individual LPs but may not have appeared in a box until the late '60s. I can't recall all the release details. Fantastic cycle. Coda 2: The Mozart "Haydn" quartets on Epic are truly amazing -- maybe the surprising of the Juilliard's great recordings given the ensemble's pedigree. All the standard rep recorded by the group in this period is pretty great. Coda 3: The RCA Debussy/Ravel remains my favorite recording of these works. Coda 4: The late Beethoven quartets recorded for RCA are also peak JSQ, as is the Berg LP. Onward. ...

I love Pharoah in this period, and there is a LOT of fantastic music here. Full disclosure: I wrote the notes for this set -- all 10,500 words of them -- and, modesty aside, I think they bring a depth of insight and analysis into Pharoah's music and clarity to his elusive biography that I hope brings new perspective to the discourse about him in general and sparks a reassessment of the Theresa recordings in particular. Carry on.

Jazz Times is reporting that Al Foster has died at 82. A unique sound and groove in any idiom. A HUGE loss.

We've noticed.

Terry Gross devoted her first show back after Francis' death with an extended and loving tribute to her late husband. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/01/nx-s1-5382583/terry-gross-francis-davis

Core trio here is Herbie, Ron, and Mel Lewis. Herbie solos at 3:38.

A great Sinatra small group version from 1954.

Tucker's "The Early Years" is excellent, but it is written by a musicologist and full of analysis and notated musical examples, so it might not be the best fit for Felser's original query seeking books for non-musicians. However, I'd recommend it if one can at least read music. However, Tucker's "The Duke Ellington Reader" can be recommended enthusiastically without caveats. It's a tragedy that Tucker died so young -- at 46, from lung cancer, in 2000. He would have been the scholar to give us the Ellington biography we want, the culture needs, and that Ellington deserves. On a related front, "The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington," edited by Edward Green is mostly excellent. Mostly scholarly but easily readable for non-musicians, though there are a number of essays with notation/analysis.

Obituary by Nate Chinen for WRTI in Philly. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/16/g-s1-60556/francis-davis-jazz-critics-poll-obituary?fbclid=IwY2xjawJspwJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHowZSmqcyS5X-RVEBMZt9tMiiJkTzyCEvYzzMdzZ4rWpyeLAvnfhYdHuPT_-_aem_1IW8_mmM32fUYPcxGfBRsA

I reviewed this record (loved it) for Cadence in the August 1989 issue, not long after it was released. Some of my earliest published jazz writing. It was just Joe's second album as a leader and he was under the radar enough that I could write: “He plays changes with an authority that should make a few more well-known tenorists nervous.” After the review was assigned to me but before publication, Joe apparently had some things he wanted to say to the writer, so the magazine gave him the number at my parents’ house in Bloomington, Ind., where I was living (post-grad school but pre-first newspaper job at the South Bend Tribune). I was 25. So one day the phone rang, and my mom answered and called over to me: "Somebody named Joe Lovano wants to talk to you." I’ve forgotten the details of the conversation, but my recollection is that he just wanted me to know how personal and important a project the recording was to him. A musician of his stature today would never make that kind of a call to a critic — though I hasten to add that in 1989 I was young and still green, and Joe was seasoned but not famous. I combined the review of Joe's record with a review of a Houston Person record and on the same page is my review of the third Quest record (Liebman, Beirach, McClure, Hart). Also, for the record, Joe's call to me in fact came after I had finished the review and had just sent it to the editor, on a floppy disc by snail mail in those pre-Internet days. So the call did not influence the writing in any way. The moral of the story is that I’m getting old.