Mark Stryker

I'm sure this has been discussed before so forgive the interrruption, but have no bootlegs ever turned up of any gigs that Joe Henderson played with Miles' band?

I heard the longtime Chicago trio led by pianist John Campbell with bassist Kelly Sill and drummer Joel Spencer countless times both on their own and backing up so many visiting stars (Woody Shaw, Red Rodney, Dave Liebman, Eddie Harris and on) and it still drives me nuts that they never got recorded as a threesome, especially in the 1980s. That was a remarkably telepathic, exciting and versatile trio -- far superior than so many "national" bands in mainstream idioms -- with a very personal take on the bebop\post-bop language and an interesting repertoire that swept through a lot of piano players' best writing, from Bud Powell to Bill Evans, Chick Corea and Cedar Walton and more. I also heard them many times as a quartet with former Chicago saxophonist Ed Peterson playing Ed's music and with yet another Chicagoan, tenor saxophonist Ron Dewar, a personal hero, who on his inspired nights in those days played with a truly astounding level of iauthority coming out of '60s Sonny Rollins but WAY past imitation. I cherish the cassette tapes I have all of this that prove the point but wish there were commercial recordings. They would have turned a lot of heads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKcdWYvZB-E

Thanks for this. Was not aware this was released as part of an Icons box. Wish it were available individually.

"Intrepid Fox" -- Good Lord, the band is on fire. Not just Freddie but Junior Cook (in his Joe Henderson bag) and Michael Carvin. Actually entire rhythm section is very tight. Would love to hear more of this concert. The Cook-Henderson connection is interesting. While Joe's super loose rhythm and phrasing developed out of Sonny Rollins, I think he took a little something from Junior early on, especially sound wise (both were hard rubber mouthpiece guys and got that centered dark and reedy tone, though Joe much moreso). Later, as you can hear here, when Junior moved from hard bop territory into post-bop, he definitely picked up some of Joe's loose, slipperiness and fluttery rhythmic figures.

More video: "Ugetsu"

Hmm. Never seen that side before. Interesting set list -- populist stuff (Taste of Honey/What Kind of Fool/Sermonette, etc.) but also some very hip standards (In Love in Vain, Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out).

I thought this was pretty good list. Compiler was coming from a particular place (explaned herein) but it's a good post-war survey. http://www.sequenza21.com/carey/2012/03/sixty-postwar-pieces-to-study/

The chili house quote has always really bugged me, because it's so illustrative of the kind of shoddy history -- mythology, really -- that has been readily accepted in jazz but would never pass muster in the study of classical music. (This is something that we used to talk about a lot in Larry Gushee's class at the University of Illinois, including the chili house quote.) It's a function of the early jazz historians and critics being mostly enthusiastic fans with no real training in music or history and the tacit acceptance of the wider musical world that didn't think jazz was serious enough to demand true scholarship. The quote is meaningless in many ways on its face and what little fact there is doesn't, as Larry and Jeff note, get at Bird's innovations at all. But it sounds all music theoryish (musical truthiness, as Colbert might say) so we'll just accept it as gospel and keep repeating it through the decades... In Thomas Owens' "Bebop" there's a discussion of this on pages 38-39. Here's a link to the Google Books. Scroll to page 38: http://books.google.com/books?id=RYBZPO3oe9UC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=thomas+owens+and+bebop+and+biddy+fleet&source=bl&ots=2qiFivFpNP&sig=10m3YHEOKhBqYu_E5mTorC5fw8U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ifVnT4amAcq30AGErtWCCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false I'll let Owens do the heavy lifting but will note that the original source was actually a paraphrase by John S. Wilson and Michael Levin in a story about Bird in Down Beat in 1949, From there it got rewritten by others, who invented the "quote" as if it came from Bird's mouth directly. That's how it appears in "Hear Me Talkin' To Ya" but it's not clear from Owens if this was the first instance of the quote being rewritten or if someone else did it first. Who knows what Bird actually said -- the original paraphrase is kooky enough to suggest that the authors got whatever Bird said pretty turned around ...

Part 2 now posted: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=333428993376474

both the pianist and alto sound good (slick Cannonball bluesy trills and a reference to One Mint Julip in the first "4" with James). Anybody know who it is?

Happy 87th birthday to the true 8th wonder of the world. May he didit 'n didit 'n didit 'n didit forever.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=333396643379709 Long excerpt about Liebman's time with Miles. Great details about what the gig was like, life on the road, Miles personality, insights into the music and society at the time, drugs, etc. Also, thought this was funny: "The first specific event was June 1, 1972. I happened to be staying at my parents’ house, visiting in Brooklyn, and had an appointment at a doctor’s office in downtown Brooklyn, Hoyt-Schermerhorn Street to be exact. I think it was an allergy doctor. Out of nowhere the secretary shouts, “Is there a David Liebman here? It’s your mother on the phone.” My mother says, “Somebody named Teo Macero said you should come to the studio to record now with Miles Davis.”

Here's an obituary for Dave's wife, Clare, who died in September. http://www.tributes.com/show/Clare-Holland-92297656 Very sad -- theirs was truly a great love story.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming ... Here's Jarrett responding to Ethan Iverson's prompt to talk about Bley in a long 2009 interview at Do The Math. Complete interview here: http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/interview-with-keith-jarrett.html KJ: Paul took the piano and made it impossible to disregard as a horn. And that made me feel good, because I was feeling ... I always liked piano-less groups, you know? I didn’t actually like the piano, for a long, long time. (I’m making up with it now.) But Paul was in my apartment in Boston, playing his Footloose! album before it was released, and we met in the club. An important force. Yeah, important. EI: That solo on “All the Things You Are,” on the Sonny Rollins record. KJ: Yeah. Well, that whole record, anyway. That’s crazy. My youngest son asked me, “Can you record all the things you think I should hear?” One of the first things that popped into my mind about what he had to hear was that album. Pete and Paul, and Steve and Pete together, made Footloose! extremely important for me. Sort of like Ahmad with certain kinds of drugs. EI: Also on that record he plays a solo piano version of “How Long Has This Been Going On?” that was light years ahead of where everybody else was thinking about at that moment. KJ: Yeah, one thing I’m sorry about is that he doesn’t still play on his cheap, broken down piano in his living room. Because that’s the best I ever heard him. And when he’s playing the Bosendorfers, or whatever he plays, I think, “No, no, Paul, don’t do that! It’s not gonna work. Where’s your sound? It’s not in that piano.”

I know this is a Bley-Jarrett thread but, Jesus, the solo Sonny plays after Bley on "All the Things You Are" is unreal. Totally cubist in the way it breaks the tune into parts and recombines ideas to portray the "object" from every angle at once -- from the opening trilling figure that sounds as disconnected from the tune as you can imagine to the way the stutters that comprise the meat of the first two choruses keep jabbing the form with a pick ax and then the increasing references to the harmony in the third and fourth chorus combined with these odd tangents that zoom completely out of orbit and the final reconciliation in the the bridge and last "A" of that last chorus where he locks most clearly into the basic structure but uses the same rhythmic phrasing from the more abstract part of the solo. Amazing.

Not to ignore the question of the thread, but I want to acknowledge that "Big Swing Face" was literally the first jazz record I ever owned. I heard my older brother's high school band play the title arrangement when I was 9 and it was one of the things that hooked me into the music. I still love that record, all those WP records, actually. Don't have any of the CDs but I gather I should get them for the extra tracks, yes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yJq4311qIU Eddie plays the shit of A-flat rhythm changes here on clarinet in the midst of one of Thad's greatest charts. It's just a single chorus but he says a ton in a short space. Really tells a story. Actually, everyone sounds FANTASTIC here right down the line. Jesus Christ -- to have heard this band live in its heyday ... wow. Agreed, Mark, but that was then. Encounters with recent Daniels CDs on clarinet almost rotted my teeth. I'm hip. Just wanted to drop a reminder in there about what he's done. Also, I must add: In 1997 I heard Daniels play with the Detroit Symphony and he gave a really convincing performance of the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto, a very difficult piece. On the same concert he played an arrangement of Gershwin's "Three Preludes" arranged by Don Sebesky that included a savvy improvised solo and cadenza. The encore was "Chelsea Bridge" over a Ravel-like bed of strings. I can't really comment on the records, because I haven't heard enough, but that night with the symphony needed no apology on any level. Musicians -- and music, of course -- can be complicated ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yJq4311qIU Eddie plays the shit out of A-flat rhythm changes here on clarinet in the midst of one of Thad's greatest charts. It's just a single chorus but he says a ton in a short space. Really tells a story. Actually, everyone sounds FANTASTIC here right down the line. Jesus Christ -- to have heard this band live in its heyday ... wow.

Going from memory now since the download is on another computer and the last I listened was hours ago. No. 2 -- I recall the trumpeter playing some slippery cum sloppy stuff and had a bit of a growl -- George's partner with Mingus, Jack Walrath? No. 9 -- pianist is bebop rooted but sounds like a 1960s/70s guy not a '50s guy. could be Ronnie Matthews, but he usually sounds better than this. Again, maybe it was late and he'd had a taste.

I'm new to this game, having never participated before, but was talking to Michael Weiss this afternoon who said I should give a listen. I downloaded part one and have been sending him responses. At his urging I'm posting my comments. I haven't peaked at previous posts but I'm about to since No. 3 is bugging the shit out of me since I know I know it. Anyway, here's what I've got: Alto player in No. 1 sounds like Arthur Blythe. The whole thing has almost more of a South African sound than a traditional calypso feel, so not sure who the rhythm section is. Tenor a mystery too. Something about the piano suggests Don Pullen – ooh, he just did a glissando, so pretty sure that’s who it is. No. 2 is obviously a Mingus song – “Self Portrait in Three Colors”? George Adams in the tenor soloist – what a unique sound and personality. Always liked his sense of wild abandon. Not disciplined but very expressive. Don’t know the band. Assume it’s a Mingus Dynasty kind of record. No. 3. Everything about "Autumn in NY" in familiar, from the tenor to the chart but it’s on the tip of my tongue. I’ll get it eventually. Stand by. Meanwhile, No. 4: “Robin’s Nest” – Like that swing-to-bop kind of feel in the band, generation straddlers abound. Tenor sounds like a southwestern guy – Buddy Tate, Illinois Jacquet or Arnett Cobb – probably Tate ‘cause it’s not quite as heavy as Cobb and its more tasteful and less vibrato than Jacquet. Buck Clayton on trumpet – wow, can really hear the Louis Armstrong in there; interesting. Not sure of the other guys. Process of elimination suggests Charles Thompson but that’s educated guess; I don’t really know his playing. No. 5: No clue on the singer. Skipping for now. No. 6: Sonny Stitt! Never heard this. Playing some of the same stuff on this “Star Dust” as on another record I have. Horrible live recording. Sounds like a concert hall with big echo, though the fired up crowd suggests a club. Maybe the tape machine was in another room. Wow, Stitt could SING a melody on alto, and he does that Bird thing where all the double-time ornaments are around the melody rather than replacing the melody, so anybody could follow this, even the unhip -- jazz could use more of that attitude: do your hip shit but play for the people too. Rhythm section is plodding a bit, but that may be because the piano sucked and whoever is playing it is pounding the hell out of it to get a sound. Lot of Stitt’s diminished shit in the coda. Interesting that the crowd reacts with applause after just a few notes of the intro – everybody knew “Star Dust.” A song of the people. Would you get that kind of reaction today? Doubt it. No. 7. "Every Time We Say Goodbye." A lick player on soprano. Not sure who it is yet. Kind of a pinched sound and pitch is a little funny Wondering if this is a tenor player doubling …hmmn, just played some repeated George Coleman-like arpeggios. Is this a trick? I like the way the piano is coating the saxophone with flowing curtains. Reminds me of how McCoy plays for sure, so two guys that come to mind are John Hicks or Harold Mabern. There’s something soulful there for sure. Kind of homegrown. No. 9. "When Sonny Gets Blue." Wow. Tenor playing those long notes with absolutely NO vibrato and that gives the whole thing a very blunt, dark sound. I like the little melodies in the tenor improvisation, but the sound is quirky and that's getting to me a bit -- and for me that's saying something since I'm Jackie McLean's No. 1 fan. Who could this be? Junior Cook possibly. Maybe Charles Davis. Maybe Frank Foster. I'll go with Junior but it's not quite as slippery as he sometimes plays. Piano starts out cool but now he's kinda vague with his lines and time and a little clumsy. Um, maybe it's late in the night and he's had a few. Maybe they've all had a few. Mickey Tucker? Bass plays a nice little solo. Double time in last bridge could be Louis Hayes splashing away back there.

Sonny Rollins' first recorded a cappella performance is "It Could Happen to You" from "The Sound of Sonny" (Riverside, 1957) Really exquisite playing, especially the introduction and second half of the first full chorus, although the whole thing is a remarkably sustained performance. Also, Dave Liebman has made at least two solo records -- "The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner"(he overdubbs too) and "Distance Runner" (live concert)

Had fun working on this tale of a 1913 mechanical organ that provided music at a beloved Detroit area amusement park early im the 20th Century. The instrument is up for auction with a high estimate of $2.5 million. http://www.freep.com/article/20120218/ENT04/202180393/Former-Boblo-Island-music-machine-may-draw-up-to-36-2-5-million-at-auction?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Brief interview with composer, arranger and Ellington scholar David Berger who is conducting a big concert of Duke's sacred music on Sunday in Detroit. http://www.freep.com/article/20120216/ENT04/202160341/Five-questions-with-Duke-Ellington-expert-David-Berger

Always enjoyed hearing Jodie -- a true individual, and, really, there's no higher praise in jazz. Met him only once and recall him as soft-spoken, warm, a man at peace with himself and the world. (Coda: some exceptional writing in Larry's review above, especially this about Konitz: First came “Invitation,” within which Konitz found a groove that is his alone--a kind of muttered-out gracefulness that seemed at first to be built upon the scattered rhythms of ordinary speech or the scuffling pace of a stroll down the street. But larger patterns soon began to take shape, and finally the whole solo stood revealed as a single unit, an event that had coalesced right in front of one’s eyes.)