Mark Stryker

Sorry for the commercial, but I feel compelled to remind folks that my book "Jazz from Detroit" will be published in just three weeks on July 8 by the University of Michigan Press. The book explores Detroit's profound impact on jazz from the middle of the 20th Century until the present day. For more details -- including Playlists, various blog musings and music -- please visit my website: www.jazzfromdetroit.com. And if you'd like to pre-order, there's a discount code and link on the home page that will get you a 40% discount off of list price if you order through the U-M Press website. Re: the picture of Burrell and Flanagan. I had sought use of that photo for the book, but there were prohibitive issues in tracking down a Douglas family member to obtain rights. Even though the pictures are held in an archive at Cal State-Northridge, the university is not the copyright holder.

Moderators: Can you please remove Adam's post on the first page in which he simply copies the entire NYT's article? The post is pure copyright infringement. It also embodies part of the reason why the newspaper industry has collapsed, partly why so many of my former colleagues are out of their jobs, and in its broader effects, partly why I left the Detroit Free Press (voluntarily) in 2016. Thanks in advance.

Amazing Miles Davis interview with Don Demichael in Rolling Stone, 1969. Revealing scene setting, candid, and extended riffs on race, rock, and a bunch of other things. Also, a lot of stuff about, um ... (checks notes) ... Buddy Rich. Spoiler: Miles digs him. Excerpts: -- Miles Davis at leisure is quite different from Miles Davis at work. Gracious, talkative, humorous and warmly human, he is excellent company. When he was at The Plugged Nickel, we spent two afternoons and a night hanging out. The afternoons were spent for the most part in his Volkswagen bus (he still has the Ferrari) driving around the South Side as he talked and answered questions, a unique milieu in which to conduct an interview, it must be admitted. The night was passed at The Plugged Nickel where the Buddy Rich band worked on Miles' night off. That night Miles sat slumped at a table in front of the stand, not saying much but watching Rich like a hawk. (A good portion of the audience watched Miles watching.) Rich has seldom played better, and Miles made occasional knowing comments about what the master drummer was doing. "Did'cha notice the way he cut into the band there?" "Hear what that motherfucker did then? Just that little cymbal thing and it swung the whole fucking band." ... Before we got there, a car stopped beside us, and a man jumped out. It was Larry Jackson, who had played drums with Miles when both were boys in East St. Louis. He is now president of two Chicago locals of the United Steelworkers, a fact that Miles kidded him about unrelentingly. Rich's name came up, and Jackson said, "Miles always loved Buddy. He used to tell me all the time, 'Play like Buddy.' He always wanted the drummer to play like Buddy Rich." --- (Miles): "Buddy Rich is some different shit, man. How many Buddy Riches you got? You got one Buddy Rich. I'll tell you one thing, if Buddy's got a black audience, he plays different. You just get vibrations from black people that are swingier than from white. That's why when Mike Bloomfield plays before a black audience, his shit's gonna come out black." His own group's playing for a black audience is not much different. "There'd be just a slight change," he answered. "We'd just tighten up a little more, y'know. It's an inner thing. It's just like if you're playing basketball and you got five black brothers on the team, they got some inner shit going that you can't get from a white guy. Now, when you get a white guy in, you usually get him for strength or for some sort of shot . . . he's got a good eye or something. But that inner thing and that speed and that slick shit -- you got to have them brothers there because there are things that they do that they did when they were little kids that the white boy don't know about." Miles had hired the pianist Bill Evans, who is white, for the simplest possible reason: "I liked the way he sounded. "But he doesn't sound now like he did when he played with us. He sounds white now." But his ex-drummer, Tony Williams, a black man -- that's another matter. Williams is just possibly Miles' favorite musician. "Tony can swing and play his ass off. Tony Williams is a motherfucker. To me, the way you think about Buddy Rich is the way I think about Tony Williams. I don't think there's a drummer alive can do what Tony Williams can do. "When I play, I want whatever is going on to be going on. I don't want it to be no . . . well, to say bullshit is too easy an out. I want it to be . . . That's why I like Buddy and I like Tony, because if they do something, they're doing it. They're doing it to finish it, y'know. To end it. You know what I mean? If you were boxing a guy and he kept pressing you and you knew he wasn't gonna lighten up unless you get him off your ass by slipping and sliding, setting him up and feinting him, well, that's what Buddy and Tony are. They play the fucking drums. But they're different. They're the same, but they're different. Tony plays more rhythms and times than Buddy. "Buddy plays off his snare drum, but Tony can play all over the fucking drums -- but with a sound that matches the chords that you're playing. Buddy doesn't play any fucking chords." http://web.archive.org/web/20090126102156/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/milesdavis/articles/story/9437639/miles_davis_the_rolling_stone_interview

Why "dreaded"?

Thanks for this. That's great stuff. I don't know this record at all, so I'll be on the look out. FWIW, I wrote a little about Joe a couple of years ago. https://www.facebook.com/mark.stryker.35/posts/771557693009068

Roy's issues were common knowledge in Detroit, but pretty much off the radar of the wider jazz world, especially back in the day. The stories can be tough reading but they are sensitively done.

Hey gang, Dropping in here to remind everyone that I'm posting regular journal entries relating to Detroit jazz history on the Musings page at the website for my book: All kinds of cool stuff. If the spirit moves, please have a look. Yes, this is a shameless attempt to drive traffic to the site. https://jazzfromdetroit.com/blog

News. https://news.allaboutjazz.com/nobusiness-records-begins-sam-rivers-archive-series-with-a-previously-unreleased-trio-recording-from-1971.php?fbclid=IwAR2fX4NfF3LxBd0NpYERsbTQFYxJ8M_yXQFNlfsh7VEowuFhMljsZfZztio#.XOLE8eQ8n-g.twitter

This happened 52 years ago today. The Nessa Juggernaut has been rolling on for a long time ... Old/Quartet : Art Ensemble : Lester Bowie (tp) Roscoe Mitchell (as,hrn,whistle,tamb) Malachi Favors Maghostut (b) Phillip Wilson (d) Chicago, IL, May 18, 1967 Old Nessa N-5, NCD-27/28 [CD], NCD-2500 [CD] Theme statements - - Slow theme - - Bell song - - Fast theme - - Chinese song - - Tatas matoes (rehearsal) - - Quartet No 1 (group improvisation) - - Note: Nessa NCD-27/28 [CD] titled "Old/Quartet Sessions"; a 2 CD set. Nessa NCD-2500 [CD] titled "The Art Ensemble 1967/68"; a 5 CD set; according to the CD box "Roscoe Mitchell billed his group as the ART ENSEMBLE for a concert .on Dec 3 1966. This name was used for performances until June 1969 when the quartet of Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman & Malachi Favors Maghostut was advertised as the ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO.

That photo of Wayne on the street was taken in April 1964, the same month he recorded "Night Dreamer" -- so I assume this was a shoot for the cover and then the design went in a different direction and it never got used. Amazing photo. Wayne in the wild.

Washington Post has a story; https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/to-think-it-has-come-to-this-kenny-burrells-journey-from-jazz-legend-to-gofundme-appeal/2019/05/15/c57fb07e-7701-11e9-b7ae-390de4259661_story.html?utm_term=.83dc6228df38 Pat Metheny is quoted in this story. (BTW -- I had noticed his name a few days ago on the GoFundMe site as a contributor -- a generous gift of $2,500.)

The two volumes of "The Uncollected Doris Day" with the trio are tremendous. https://www.amazon.com/Doris-Day-Page-Cavanaugh-Trio/dp/B001LK2QWS

Almost certainly that's Ronnie Matthews in the photo. Sonny and Max were on the same concert bill in Graz, Austria on November 12, 1966, and Matthews was the pianist with Max's band on the gig. Matthews wore glasses in those days -- see the cover of his "Doin' the Thang." That's Freddie Hubbard on the right holding the trumpet -- he was also in Max's band on the concert. (BTW, there is a bootleg of Sonny playing three tunes with Jymie Merrit and Max from that night. One of them is "Lover" at a super-fast tempo, though it sounds even swifter on some of the issues I've heard because the tape is running so fast that at times Sonny sounds like he's playing alto. Caveat emptor.) Coda: The pianist on the video is Coleridge Taylor Perkinson.

I'd be happy for anyone to take up the cause.

Real skills as a singer -- seriously underrated. From 1950, with Harry James on trumpet.

None of which I'm aware. I'd have to ask my friends Lars Bjorn and Jim Gallert -- the guys who wrote "Before Motown" -- to know the current status of the the Uptown CD. My instinct tells me that it would appear to be a long-shot at this point in time -- but don't take that as gospel.

Hey gang -- lots of daily content going up in the Musings section of my website, www.jazzfromdetroit.com. So far there have been posts about Joe Henderson, Elvin Jones, Tommy Flanagan & Ella Fitzgerald, Oliver Jackson and Kenny Burrell, Hank Jones and Duke Ellington, and today's post about a recording made 63 years ago today in which Kenny Clarke corralled four young cats from Detroit -- Kenny Burrell, Pepper Adams, and Paul Chambers, Some great music embedded in the posts too, from a rare, never-reissued single c. 1954 featuring Burrell, to today's "Cottontail" with some super-sophisticated chord substitutions. https://jazzfromdetroit.com/blog/jazzmen-detroit?fbclid=IwAR2qRkT3Q5EJrs-7ujSy42BedDSCdxvJ8WNO_avvhuIqsErCCGvOli_ZrEY

Good Junior Cook here. One of the sides where you can start to hear the Junior-Joe Henderson connection -- not as much as on "The Tokyo Blues" 14 months later, but it's there.

The discount will remain in effect until publication date (July 8) at which point it will either be reduced or eliminated -- that's still being decided. So you can order anytime. I will say that from the author's perspective, the earlier you pre-order the better it is for me, because pre-orders help determine how large a print run of hardback books they'll do initially. If they see a large demand, that's good for me. But that doesn't mean you have to order immediately ... I appreciate your enthusiasm. Thanks.

Advertisements for Myself Lots of news today about Jazz from Detroit. First, the publication date is officially July 8 and it's now up for pre-order. And have we got a deal for you -- a 40% discount off of list price if you order at the University of Michigan Press website. That takes the price from $39.95 to $23.97. Just type in the promo code UMSTRYKER on the checkout page. Here's the listing page. https://www.press.umich.edu/4454129/jazz_from_detroit Second, as part of announcing the book, WBGO has an exclusive excerpt up at their website -- the chapter about Regina Carter. https://www.wbgo.org/ Third, the book has a website at https://jazzfromdetroit.com/ Please visit and have a look around. There's background on the book, including the Table of Contents; a bio of your author and friendly proprietor; press photos (and other cool photos to see); links where you can pre-order (plus the promo code for the 40% discount); and a section called "Musings" -- basically a blog, whose inaugural post celebrates Joe Henderson's birthday today with a brief taste of my chapter about Joe and some representative music. (The "Music" section itself on the site will be populated with Playlists and the like in the coming weeks and months.). There's also some generous advance endorsements from Pat Metheny, Sonny Rollins, and others. Onward.

Maybe jazz would be more than popular if we said “jazz” more like this:

New to me. Thanks

Fascinating stuff here, folks. A tape of Mike Brecker as a college sophomore (age 19) playing "Night in Tunisia" and parts of "A Love Supreme" with just bass and drums on a gig in Bloomington, Ind., in the fall of 1968. It's wild to hear him in a raw state, with a a ton of technique but before he had his machine-like precision over chord changes really together. At times a late-Trane spirit wanders in and almost takes over on "Tunisia" -- in some ways, I wish more of that openness and looseness would have remained in his playing. I think he literally practiced those elements out of his conception. Late in his career he tried to reintroduce some of them back into his playing, but it was not easy by then to break out of the box because certain fundamentals were too deeply embedded in his DNA,Iin terms of his pure sound, the core of Brecker's identity is certainly here in 1968,. "Night in Tunisia" starts at the 52:42 (timer counts backward). The trio plays part of a "Love Supreme" starting at 40:22. At the 11:55 mark is a rather infamous tape of the Randy Sandke Septet with Michael Brecker from the 1968 Notre Dame Jazz Festival. Also, did you know that one of Brecker's classmates in high school in suburban Pennsylvania was ,,, (checks notes) ... um, Benjamin Netanyahu? Seriously.

Just saw Billy a couple of weeks ago in Detroit with David Weiss' band The Cookers and he was sounding as strong as ever at 76.

Thanks for the tip.