Mark Stryker

Whoa! major news -- some outstand records among the Muse Shaw dates, particularly "Little Red's Fantasy," which I wrote about once a while ago for Jazz Times http://woodyshaw.com/OLD%20SITE/littlered_review.htm and "Love Dance," which I have always loved too. Like Chuck, I'm hoping some serious magic happens sonically with this reissue, 'cause the originals pretty much sucked when it came to the recorded sound.

What is the source of this quote? I'm skeptical. It was from a Down Beast magazine interview. I don't know the date, but I gave up on them back in the 70s, so it might have been in the 70s. I heard they used to be a pretty good jazz magazine... Hmm. It's just not consistent with any language I've ever seen Stan use or consistent with the warm feelings he had always expressed for Chick. I did a quick search of the old interviews I remember in Down Beat with Stan -- Aug 76 and Jan 78 -- and nothing like that is in there. The character of the quote suggests it would had to come post-1980 or so when Stan ditched all the electronics. I couldn't put my hands on any Down Beat interview with him post-78 but there must be one -- I may not have the issue or maybe I missed in the quick sweep I did. Sorry to be distrustful, but it doesn't ring true. I got trained by Larry Gushee at the University of Illinois -- I want to see the document.

What is the source of this quote? I'm skeptical.

The entire subject matter though is just not covered in an American university history survey class covering many years of history, which is what the initial poster said he was going to be teaching. No one would expect it to be, or want it to be, in my experience. I agree with that. I think that in an American history class in an American university, if you used maybe a 10-15 seconds snippet of music up to three times in a semester, at the beginning of class sessions while everyone was taking their seats, as a seque into your first sentence of your lecture, that might work. More than three 15 second pieces of music during the entire semester would be too much though, I think. Even if you used a 10-15 second snippet of music three different times during the semester, you would become known as the weirdo professor, most likely. I was an American history major at the University of Illinois at Urbana in the early 80s and one of my main professors was Robert McColley, who specialty areas were the colonial and early national periods and the founding fathers. He taught the second half of the freshman American history survey that I took, picking up with reconstruction and continuing to the present. He was a serious classical music guy -- some of you may recognize his name from Fanfare, for whom he reviewed records for many years and was their resident Brucknerian. Anyway, he had music playing before every class as people were taking their seats, the pieces and composers always tied to the topic or time period at hand. I would have to go back to my notes from the class -- yes, I still have them; weep for me -- to see what all he played. But I know for a fact that the first time I ever heard Charles Ives was in his class. Made a big impact on me ...

Baker did study cello with Starker and wrote his early cello works for him, including the Sonata for Cello and Piano, which premiered at Carnegie around 74 and appeared on LP a couple of times, including in the multi-volume Black Composer Series on Columbia. There's also a chamber piece called "Singer of Songs/Weaver of Dreams" for cello and 17 percussion instruments that was recorded by Starker and percussionist George Gaber on "Starker Plays Baker" http://www.amazon.com/Starker-Plays-Baker-Singers-Weavers/dp/B000007QLG And there's a Baker Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra from 1975 that Starker commissioned and that was also performed in NY. Haven't heard these in a long time but recall them all as good pieces in a flexible third stream idiom

The great cellist and teacher Janos Starker died this morning in Bloomington, Ind., at age 88. Not all things in all repertoire but an imposing musician who deserves his spot in the pantheon. Not long after I arrived in Detroit in 2005 I heard him play the following program with the Detroit Symphony -- Hindemith Concerto, Brahms Double Concerto, Beethoven Triple Concerto. All on the same concert (!) He was 71. It was superhuman. Everything was terrific, especially the Hindemith and Brahms. I grew up in Bloomington and Starker was the house cellist in town He had an ego. Funny story: A friend once stood behind him in a line at a bank. The teller asked him for ID. Indignant, Starker replied: "I'm the world's greatest cellist!" RIP http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/24173.html

Actually, no. She turns 57 in a few days and I'm 49 (50 in August). But as I've gotten older I've gotten "colder" in the sense of needing more heat in the house in the winter or spring. In the summer, I don't want it freezing but I need cool air circulating. Basically, I'm pretty high maintenance

I saw this item last week and was intrigued because it's always seemed to me that jazz musicians have overlooked the possibilities in Sondheim. It's true that much of the material is not in standard form and is through-composed in ways that make the songs less ideal for blowing vehicles in the way of older standards. The harmonies have similar challenges with their roots in Britten, Rachmaninoff, Ravel. Still, with all the searching in recent decades for "new standards" these would be untapped resources by players willing to create arrangements with multiple sections, vamps, pedal-points or structuring different grooves for different soloists. I asked Sondheim once why he thought his songs hadn't been explored by jazz musicians all that much and the way he put it was that they aren't easy to "open up" for improvisation unlike -- and this was the example he pulled out of the air, "How HIgh the Moon." He did say that he always liked the record "Color and Light," which was comprised of his tunes and he was especially complementary of Herbie Hancock -- he seemed to really appreciate the creativity and freedom. http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Jazz-Sketches-Sondheim/dp/B000002AUC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366986365&sr=8-1&keywords=sondheim+and+hancock+and+sony

In today's Wall Street Journal there's a piece about Sonny Rollins and his new home. He complains about the draftiness of his previous farmhouse and says in the new place he kept the heat at 80-82 degrees this winter. Maybe it's something about saxophone players. I always turning up the heat at home during the winter (only to have my wife turn it back down in another battle in a never-ending war ... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323809304578430733765013790.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

"Rooms have sound—a note, if you will. My living room is an E, and to a lesser degree an A-flat. When I play an E in there, it resonates more than any other note—filling the space and lingering in the air. E is a good note, but I'm an ecumenical guy. I have nothing against any of the notes. Sometimes they have stuff against us players." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323809304578430733765013790.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

Long interview with former Chicago trumpeter with many stories about Von Freeman, Lin Halliday, Red Rodney, Chris Potter, Eddie Harris, others. Also some video of Von with Jodie Christian, Rufus Reid, Jack DeJohnette. http://goteamband.com/blog/2012/11/16/brad-goode-interview

I spoke with Roscoe Mitchell today -- I was interviewing him for a piece I'm working on about Gerald Cleaver -- and he said something about himself that bears repeating: "I still consider myself a student." I've heard essentially the same thing from Barry Harris, Hank Jones, Sonny Rollins, James Moody, Elliott Carter, Yo-Yo Ma and Charlie Watts and surely others I'm forgetting. The idiom doesn't matter; the attitude does: How can I get better? What can I learn today to make me better tomorrow? An inspiring lesson.

This was new to me. Apology if it's been posted before -- and I know it's not an album but had to put it somewhere. Stan in 1968 with Stanley Cowell, Miroslav Vitous and Jack DeJohnette accompanying a, um, French fashion show and trying not to laugh. So great on a zillion levels. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntvZfg4M9Do&list=UUR8J-RPLmQMEAkT78v1ymBA

Happy birthday to Bunky Green, who turns 78 today. Came across this curio -- a Chicago TV news piece about the 6th World Saxophone Congress at Northwestern. There is brief footage of Bunky playing with Dexter Gordon's rhythm section of the time -- Kirk Lightsey, Rufus Reid, Eddie Gladden. (Also, some brief teaser footage of Dexter with the group.) Also an interview stuck in there with Fred Hemke, longtime classical saxophone guru at Northwestern. I wonder if a bootleg exists of Bunky's entire performance ...

A good day yesterday at various used record stores yeild Kloss' "Sky Shadows" from 1968 with Martino, Byard, Cranshaw, DeJohnette. Don't know the progression of the earlier LPs that well, but this certainly feels as Kloss was turning a corner -- all his originals (one by Martino), one in 9, one in 7, one in 6 -- harmony opening up, lots of interaction with the rhythm section, some anchored freedom, some eccentricity but not excessive (is there any more of a wildcard in jazz than Jaki Byard?) and a lot of stuff in the arrangements and solos that really sounds improvised in the studio. Kloss sounds good on alto and tenor -- right in there.

Detroit is pretty heavyweight too, though more along the the bebop to post-bop to funk continuum without much free/post-free. In roughtly chronological order: Al McKibbon Paul Chambers, Doug Watkins, Ron Carter, Cecil McBee, James Jamerson, Michael Henderson, Ralphe Armstrong, Jaribu Shahid, Bob Hurst, Rodney Whitaker. Among the secondary line: Ernie Farrow, Ray McKinney, Ali Jackson Sr., Herman Wright

Completely new to me too -- intriguing! But I don't understand the idea that Sony won't touch this for fear of retribution -- from who and for what? If Sony/Japan bought it outright then they own it and can do anything they want with it. The surviving sidemen might be pissed that they never got paid, but their beef is really with Vitous who would appear to have gone behind their backs. I guess a question would be under what contractual circumstances did everybody participate in the first place and who paid for the session. But in any case, Sony owns it and since when do they care about retribution if there's no legal ground for opponents to stand on? Frankly, they probably wouldn't care if there was legal ground if there was real money to be made by reissuing. More likely they won't touch it because nobody but, um, us and a few our friends would buy it. Might be different if there was a horn player here with some marketplace value (Wayne Shorter? Joe Henderson?) or perhaps if the more saleable Chick Corea were in place of Zawinul. Just speculating.

A favorite recording for reasons you elucidate -- it's got passion, linking (rightly) Webern within post-romanticism and implying all of the stuff Webern distills into those pregnant gestures rather than treating them as thin/empty pieces of whispy rhetoric. At the same time, there's plenty of modernist clarity -- Abbado doesn't pretend this music is actually Mahler but remembers it is informed by Mahler.

Ethan Iverson has writen an in-depth interview with George Walker, the first African-American composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for music (1996) that dissects in detail a number of his works. I contribute a guest post that anthologizes/digests a number of my own pieces from the Detroit Free Press that touch on Walker's music and/or issues related to black classical composers. Ethan also has sidebar about Walker's compelling memoir. http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/interview-with-george-walker.html

BTW, since it hasn't been mentioned yet, 2013 marks the centennial celebration of "The Rite of Spring," which made its debut May 29, 1913.

Don't necessarily know the overall critical consensus on Boulez/Cleveland but my own recollection -- haven't listened to this one in a long time -- is that it was typical Boulez, which is to say meticulous, precise, super-transparent and emotionally cool. I like lots of Boulez's work as a conductor but find his "Rite" too dry without enough heat and primal energy that makes the piece really come alive. He's more interested in delineating structure and establishing it's central role in development of modernism. Ok as far as it goes but not to my taste.I once heard Boulez lead Cleveland in the "Rite" one week after hearing Neeme Jarvi conduct it here in Detroit and much preferred the almost jazzy rhythmic pop and sense of freedom that Jarvi got out of the piece, even though the ensemble playing was not nearly as "perfect" as in Cleveland. As an aside, I've heard Boulez conduct both Cleveland and Chicago live and while on paper you might think his approach would be better suited to Cleveland since that orchestra has always been known for its chamber music-like clarity and precision, I always enjoyed the Chicago performances more because the more muscular, brassier sound of Chicago brought Boulez out of his shell a bit and he tamed their worst excesses -- the creative tension led to an interesting meeting in the middle, whereas with Cleveland the reinforcement of similar qualities led to impeccable but pretty dry performance, though this is generalization and some repertoire (Ligeti, Messiaen) benefited from the marriage. Coda: I love that early Bernstein recording for its unbridled passion; a contemporary account I like a lot is Gergiev/Kirov -- primal, brooding, very "Russian"

Even harder: Single most definitive Blue Note LP of the 50s? '60s? You almost have to break it down by genre: bebop; hard bop; soul jazz; post-bop; avant-garde. Awfully hard to not just make it a list of faves and I could see inumerable variations. Here are two approaches avoiding perhaps some of the more famous records ("Moanin', Maiden Voyage, Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers). Bebop: Monk's "Genius of Modern Music" or Bud's Amazing Bud Powell Vol. 1" Hard Bop: Mobley's "Roll Call" or Horace Silver's "Horace-Scope" Post-Bop: Shorter's "Speak No Evil" of Tyner's "The Real McCoy" Avant-Garde: Cherry's "Complete Communion" or Eric Dolphy's "Out to Lunch" Soul jazz: Jimmy Smiths "Back at the Chicken Shack" or Turrentine's "Blue Hour" . Wlid card: Rollins' "A Night at the Village Vanguard" (in my top 2 jazz albums of all time.)

Hey, I just learned from Oliver Lake's twitter account (seriously) that today is Freddie Hubbard's birthday. So in honor of Freddie and this thread ....

With respect to Brownie and leaving aside matters of personal taste, I'd say that objectively speaking Freddie Hubbard would be the defining Blue Note trumpeter of the '60s, for the number, quality and stylistic variety of his appearances and his ultimately sweeping influence.

As a newspaper man I completely understand the world Larry is describing, the characters therein and the meetings so described. Discerning the motivation of critics is slippery of course, and what's conscious or sub-conscious is equally slippery. What Larry is describing in terms of strategic tempering of opinion certainly happens, but Jim's take can also be true. I would only add this: Though the level of celebrity was completely different, we had a similar situation here in Detroit between the movie critics at the Free Press and News: Highly competive market, writers who did both reviews and features and competed fiercely in the same manner for exclusive interviews. And there was always a feeling in both newsrooms that the other critic, when praising a consensus dog of movie by a big name director or actor, was just angling for an eventual interview. For me, if Ebert played with this line on rare occasions, it wouldn't change my basic opinion of him or of the trustworthiness of his work. (On a personal note, as someone who functions as both a critic and reporter, I would add that negotiating the issue of always being truthful with your own opinions and honest with readers but also knowing that, for example, the same music director you blast as a dork in Mahler on Saturday you're going to have to request an interview from on Monday, is one of the biggest challenges of the gig.) I have tremendous admiration for Ebert on many fronts, but one thing that's worth noting beyond the actual work are the many stories of his professional courtesy and generosity toward writers, editors and critics who were much lower on the food chain than himself. That's exceedingly rare in the world of big-time journalism, and a reminder that one key measure of a person's character is not how they treat people above them but how they treat those below them.