Mark Stryker

Thanks for this. I don't know the record. BTW -- Bobby Battle is a Detroiter. He makes a cameo in my book as part of a hilarious anecdote that sheds some light on the racial politics of the late '60s.

I have been sitting out the substantive debate here over Branford and will continue to do so. But I do feel compelled to say that whether you are fer'em or agin'em (or somewhere in between 'em), you really can't make an honest judgement about the state of his music today unless you take the time to listen to something recent. I see references earlier in this thread from Branford's friends and enemies to records from 2004 and 2006 and some that go back to the late '80s -- that's a LONG time ago. Branford's current band has mostly been together for nearly 20 years, and if the last record you heard was something from more than a decade ago, that's not where the band is at today (and doesn't include the current drummer, Justin Faulkner). I think Branford sounds different than he used to, and so does the band. Some may think the music sounds better, some may think it sounds worse. Some may hear the differences as nothing more than re-arranging deck chairs on the Titantic. But it is different. At this point, I'm not talking about the meta debate about whether the Marsalises are/were good or bad for jazz, or the debate over innovation vs. conservatism, or the neo-liberalism critique of the jazz business, or whether Branford's latest remarks about Miles are ignorant or insightful. I'm just talking about the music itself and what it does or does not have to offer. At the same time, I also wonder whether folks who have been so invested for 25 or 30 years in either the pro-Marsalis or anti-Marsalis camp -- for any reason be it musical, personal, sociological, capricious or the result of a carefully considered aesthetic or political worldview -- can at this point even listen objectively enough to change their pre-existing opinions. I'm certainly not immune to this reality with certain musicians. There are neuron pathways in my brain that by now have been locked into place for so long that anything I hear by some players tends to result in confirmation bias one way or the other. Dammit -- why are we all so, um, human? Anyway, here's Branford's latest record. Listen (or not). Comment (or not).

Maxine Gordon’s new biography of Dexter Gordon informs me that the Los Angeles production of Jack Gelber’s play “The Connection” in 1960 —in which Dexter acted and played tenor and wrote the score — also included these two actors: Gavin MacLeod (the captain of the “Love Boat” & Murray on the “Mary Tyler Moore Show”) and Robert Blake (“Baretta”). It’s not clear what parts either played. I find it amusing that both were in the play, but not sure what to think of this clip that I found of both actors singing on “The Dinah Shore Show.”

I don't disagree with any of this -- I think "band leading" is among the least understood and most mysterious of all things in jazz. It's an art, and Miles was as great at it as anyone ever has been.

I had a line in my original post that I deleted for some reason but it speaks to your first point re: Fille de Kilimanjaro: By 1968 certainly Miles was comfortable with whatever the band threw at him. To be clear: Miles figured that shit out. Also, Filles is 100% a Miles Davis record.

Yes, you can trust Ron Carter on this. Herbie has said the same thing to me -- which is not at all the same thing as him saying Miles gave them nothing, I don't think there's any doubt that rhythm section and Wayne were driving the innovations in terms of the details of harmony, the elasticity of form, rhythmic complexity and layers of interaction, Miles WAS scrambling to keep up with the specifics of what they were doing. BUT it was his band. He was still driving the bus, shaping all of these ideas in the presentation AND influencing how the rest of the group manifested their ideas on the bandstand by the choices he as making in terms of his improvising, tune selection, tempos, segues between numbers, his overall attitude and history and his creating a space in which the band could experiment on the bandstand -- you know, he was being a fucking brilliant bandleader. Also -- and this is where those revelatory session tapes from "Miles Smiles" are so instructive -- Miles could also be extremely hands on and detailed when he felt had to. Listen to way he shapes "Freedom Jazz Dance" by telling Tony and Ron what to play. Moreover, Miles edited the compositions of everybody in the band -- except for Wayne, whose music was so perfect he didn't touch it. But with everyone else, he often thinned out the harmony and played with the forms. So to me, there were different kinds of information and influences going back and forth (and sideways) in the band. Having said all that, I would add that when I read Branford's remarks in context -- "He didn't teach them anything, Nothing. Because he didn't know it" -- I came away thinking he was focusing narrowly on the technical shit as in the abstracted harmony and approach to form -embodied by Wayne, Herbie and Tony's innovations. That's what I interpreted Branford meant by "it" when he says "He didn't know it." I thought he was saying more or less what Ron meant by his remarks and what Herbie meant. YMMV. Carry on ...

Good points from both Jim and RiddleMay -- and that is a hell of a performance and chart on "All My Tomorrows." Thanks all around. BTW -- the original 1958 version with Riddle is in the key of G, but by 1969, Sinatra and Costa take it down a step to F -- except for the climatic last A section, where the chart modulates back up to G and the clouds part and out comes the sun. Those motherfuckers were pros.

Do we know if it was Sinatra or Costa’s idea to just use the verse of “Stardust”? THAT was inspired.

I must have two dozen vocal records with arrangements by Don Costa and all of the charts just kind of lay there. They don’t sound bad — just professional and rather dull. I hear facile echoes of lots of other writers, but nothing distinctive. Does anyone know of any work by Costa that sounds truly inspired and individual? Maybe the best i know is “Sinatra & Strings” — but that would’ve been a better record with Gordon Jenkins.

If I had to pick just one Elvin record as a leader to live with for the rest of my life, it would be "Merry-Go-Round" -- it's got a little bit of everything and nothing sounds compromised; it's all on a high level. FWIW, my two favorite Elvin records as a leader are "Merry-Go-Round" and "Elvin Jones is on the Mountain." No. 3 is a tie between "Puttin it Together" and "Earth Jones" -- but several of the other Blue Notes are right in there and I might slide one of them in on another day.

Not silly at all. Very different books in terms of period covered, style and content. "Before Motown" covers 1900 to 1960 and the focus is the development of jazz in Detroit with emphasis on who played with whom, the progression of clubs, names, dates etc My book chronicles Detroit's pivotal role in shaping the wider course of modern and contemporary jazz from the 1940s until the present day. The core of the book is comprised of more than two dozen in-depth profiles of key Detroit-bred musicians -- among them Gerald Wilson, Yusef, Burrell, Byrd, Fuller, Barry Harris, Hank, Thad, Elvin, JoeHen, Ron Carter, Charles McPherson, Belgrave, Geri Allen, Kenny Garrett, Gerald Cleaver, Karriem Riggins etc -- but it also includes thematic chapters that connect the dots between musicians, eras, Detroit's rise and fall as an industrial power and self-determination efforts like Tribe and Strata. The book identifies traits that define a Detroit approach the music and shows how the city became a jazz juggernaut at mid-century and then how it sustained its influence as a jazz power, even as the city lost economic power and population.

Thanks for everybody's interest. Yes, I'm doing a presentation on "Jazz from Detroit" at Newport on Friday, Aug. 2. In the original ad/graphic the billing was Mark Stryker: "Jazz from Detroit," so you could tell that it probably wasn't a musical act. But in this new Jazz Times/Downbeat ad, it just gives my name along with everyone else so it looks like I'm on the bill as a musician. Amusing -- definitely one for the scrapbook. The book will be up for pre-order soon. I'll keep everyone posted when the details come into focus. Stand by.

I know, but it's all on the 45.

The Interlude that happens at the 2:35 mark is actually an orchestration of Barry Harris' pre-intro intro on this recording of "Round Midnight."

Man, that's a helluva great performance -- she really did get better and better with age. RIP to both John and Rosemary, and thanks for posting.

"... plus unusually strong female drives."

Good question. I'm sure some people thought that, but I never overheard anyone saying it.

In Urbana in the 1980s when I was in school, there was jukebox at this restaurant hang/out called Treno's that included a few jazz singles that we played to death. One was the radio;jukebox edit of Groove Holme's "Misty." One night was must have played it 10 times in row, and finally the manager came out and yelled: "Enought!" and pulled the plug on the juke box. The other song we played all the time was Horace Silver's "Song for My Father," which was in two parts, and to save quarters we usually just played Part 2 so we could get Joe Henderson's solo. Good times. I second Jim's endorsement of how hot these singles sound. I've bought a few in recent years for giggles -- just a few bucks or less a pop and I've given some away to record junkie friends. Very plentiful in the used stores here. I love how on the some of the Blue Notes, there's RVG or Van Gelder etched into the dead wax -- just like on the big boys. When I was a kid in the '70s, I had a 45 single of Herbie's "Chameleon." I'm sure that was on a zillion jukeboxes in that era. Coda: I have an Arthur Blythe 45 rpm single on Columbia -- "Miss Nancy/Illusions." Can't recall without looking, but I think they're full tracks as on the album, not edited.

Just bouncing off Allen's initial comments about certain free-oriented players lacking certain kinds of musical development when they dip into other styles. I hear variations of this a lot today -- contemporary players that live in the world of even 8th note music so when they try to play in the tradition it sounds like they're "playing at swing" rather than actually swinging. Or players that get around their instruments really well and have a lot of harmony under their command but lack melodic or rhythmic depth. There's a lot of superficial eclecticism out there -- playing at "funk," playing at "free," playing at swing, playing at post-modern several steps removed from the source. etc.

Leaving aside the substance of the discussion, it's not true that no one has ever heard of Miller or this band. She's gotten a lot of critical attention in recent years and, beyond that, the music also opens a window into broader questions of contemporary jazz. So, yeah , it's fertile ground for discussion -- whether or not one likes or dislikes the aesthetic or execution.

This makes me indescribably happy. From New York Post sportswriter Mike Puma's Twitter feed today: "Hall of Fame baseball writer Roger Angell is getting around pretty well at age 98 here at the ballpark in Sarasota. He just mentioned that he saw Babe Ruth play in 1930."

Thanks for posting, Jim.

Do you know who wrote the Hank Mobley obituary? I can find a reference to the magazine in which it appeared -- Nov. 1986 with Eric Clapton on the cover -- but that's all the info I can dig up in a quick search. I'll look for that next time I'm at the music library in Ann Arbor.

STRONGLY recommend this 1994 book that collects a dozen pieces on jazz from the magazine: "The Jazz Musician" (15 Years of Interviews; The Best of the Magazine). edited by Mark Rowland and Tony Scherman. https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Musician-Tony-Scherman/dp/0312095007 Here are the subjects with the writers in parenthesis: Wayne Shorter (David Breskin) Ornette Coleman (Quincy Troupe) Lester Bowie (Rafi Zabor & Phillipa Jordan) Charlie Haden (Rafi Zabor) Herbie Hancock & Wynton Marsalis (Rafi Zabor and Vic Garbarini) Chet Baker (Jerome Reece) Miles Davis (Mark Roland) John Coltrane (Peter Watrous) Jaco Pastorious (Joni Mitchell) Sonny Rollins (Chip Stern) Tony Williams (Tony Scherman) Dizzy Gillespie (Chip Stern) The writers are Rafi Zabor, Chip Stern, David Breskin, Peter Watrous, Mark Rowland,

10 -- Basie, Blakey, Farmer, Gillespie, Golson, Griffin, Hank Jones, McPartland, Rollins, Silver