Mark Stryker

OK, you're crazy. Actually, more seriously, the orchestra recognizes the issues and is instituting a much more expansive menu of concerts in suburban areas to supplement concerts at its traditional home, Orchestra Hall, in downtown Detroit. But you can't abandon the historic hall, truly one of the finest in the country (seriously, its on par with Carnegie and Symphony Hall in Boston.) Very complicated equation with myriad of implications and complications, including the players' contract. But your instincts are right on in that broadening the audience and fund-raising base means going to see people in their own neighborhood and, hopefully, convincing them to come down and hear you in yours and if they don't, well, you're at least serving them in some way.

I don't quite understand why a Wall Street Journal column written seven months ago was posted today as if it was fresh news. Be that as it may, as a culture reporter here (as well as classical and jazz critic), I wrote a zillion stories about the six-month DSO strike, which ended in April. Here's the story about the final settlement some might find interesting: http://www.freep.com/article/20110408/ENT04/110408034/DSO-strike-officially-over-musicians-ratify-pay-cut-contract Also, for what it's worth, yours truly was interviewed on PBS NewsHour about the strike. You can watch it here (click the screen once it loads): http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june11/symphony_04-11.html

Actually, while there's no doubt that the hi-fi and jazz were integral to the Playboy Philosophy in those days, Vickers may well have been hip. According to her Wiki bio, she was the daughter of a jazz musician and late in life apparently recorded an album as a jazz singer in tribute to her parents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvette_Vickers

Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of the "Goldberg Variations" is one of a handful of recordings that literally changed my life. Sometimes the fetishization of Gould can be a problem among his champions -- I'm probably guilty myself -- but his recordings of the Bach solo keyboard works are really quite extraordinary -- the incredible clarity of the contrapuntal lines, the electricity of feeling, the personality embedded in the playing and the laser-like purity. After the Goldbergs I'd go for the Italian Concerto and the Partitas. Then there's the two books of the WTC, the French and English Suites, etc.

Cuber's "The Scene is Clean" (Milestone) is a beaut -- he really soars melodically through the largely Latin-grooves. Rewarding album. http://www.amazon.com/Scene-Clean-Ronnie-Cuber/dp/B000000XUA/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1302969475&sr=8-5

http://www.freep.com/article/20110313/ENT04/103130385/1039/ENT04/Pepper-Adams-gets-his-due-2-new-albums Apologies for temporarily hijacking this thread, but I just wanted to point out an interesting multi-disc recording project focused on Pepper Adams' compositions that's being produced by Gary Carner, an Adams champion and in-progress biographer. (His website, pepperadams.com, has lots of great stuff, including a detailed chronology of Adams' life and career.) The link above takes you to a recent review of the first two in the series, which are really nice records and happen to cover four of the compositions on "Ephemera." Now back to your regularly scheduled program ...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5DB1238F931A35755C0A96E948260 Stumbled across this review today while looking for something else and was struck by the weird instrumentation -- trumpet, alto, tuba (!) two drummers (!). Did anybody hear this group or know if Hino ever recorded a version of it, perhaps for Japanese issue? I did find this clip on youtube, with Billy Pierce, Howard Johnson, Victor Lewis and Ralph Peterson. Sometimes it sounds kinda hip, other times it's pretty much a mess. But it's unique ... would like to hear other material rather than a standard. I've always really liked Hino's playing -- raw, go-for-broke post-bop. He sounds fantastic on Hal Galper's "Now Hear This" (Enja, 1977), an incendiary quartet album, one of the great under-sung modern-modal-mainstream records. With Cecil McBee and Tony Williams. A taste: It's hard to play trumpet like that ... metal on flesh.

Beautiful clip. Stanley Cowell!! -- extremely underrated pianist, swinging his ass off here, digging in strong with his articulation and keeping the melodic flow fresh and always moving forward and developing. Also nice hat tip with that little chromatic Bud Powell figure that he works with starting in the first A section of his second chorus. Tolliver sounds strong, too, at the nexus of Freddie, Lee and Woody. Not convinced here by Pope's pitch or tone. Max on brushes under the piano creates a hot simmer and I like the way he underscores the tune on the in and out choruses. Thanks for posting.

Came across Milt Jackson's "Born Free" (Limelight) at a used store today but decided not to bite due to price. Now having second thoughts. Anybody heard this session and have a strong opinion on quality relative tp other Jackson LPs as a leader? On a broader note, are there any other of Jackson's Limelight LPs worth seeking out? I don't know these records at all. Here are the details for "Born Free" Jimmy Owens (tp -1/5,9,10) Jimmy Heath (ts -1/5,9,10) Milt Jackson (vib) Cedar Walton (p) Walter Booker (b) Mickey Baker or Otis "Candy" Finch (d) NYC, December 15, 1966 1. 39209 A Time And A Place 2. 39210 We Dwell In Our Heart 3. 39211 Bring It Home 4. 39212 Whalepool 5. 39213 One Step Down 6. 39215 So What 7. 39216 Born Free 8. 39217 Tears Of Joy 9. 39219 Some Kinda Waltz 10. 39220 The Shadow Of Your Smile ** also issued on Limelight LS 86045.

Stumbled across this old thread and thought I'd add to the conversation about Larry Smith, one of our everyday heroes in Detroit, the kind of bebopper that nobody -- and I mean, nobody -- wants to run into at a jam session. Swingers, ballads, blues -- old-school out of Sonny Stitt (and Bird, of course), but so authentic and so deep that when he's on his game everything comes out as Truth. An important early influence on Kenny Garrett and James Carter when they were growing up here -- he got a week on his own at the Village Vanguard in 1997, after working there with Carter. He's pushing 70 now and has dealt with some serious health problems (two strokes), the first in 2003, that forced him to stop playing for years, though he's fought back and the last I saw him, about a year ago I think, he had some great moments (and others where he was still struggling to get it all back together, yet even then you could tell he was close). He was born near Pittsburgh and settled more or less in Detroit around 1966. In 1997 I interviewed him along with a several other local alto players for a a feature. Here are some of the things he said: "The alto is bright and beautiful, and has a voice-like quality compared to the tenor, which is more like down here (gestures with his hands toward his chest). The tenor is an instrument that a lot of musicians b.s. on. They can do a thing called "booting" -- playing one note over and over again. That's why some guys stuck to the tenor, because they could play less and get more from the crowd." "I had an uncle who played Bird's records. He played all kinds of records by different saxophonists, but I always gravitated to Charlie Parker. Even as a little boy, before I could talk, I knew how to pick out Charlie Parker's records. ... You hear a lot of guys just playing a lot of notes, scales. Bird was communicating to his audience, talking to them, telling a story." "The mistakes take you to some beautiful places." "I met Sonny (Stitt) when I was 15. He came to Pittsburgh, to Crawford's Grill No. 2. They'd let me in because it was a restaurant on one side of the bandstand and the bar was on the other side. So he looks down from the bandstand and says, 'Go get your horn.' And I said, 'What?! I just came to hear you.' (Gruffly) I said go get your horn.' So the first tune we played was a blues in B-flat. The second tune was "Cherokee." He had Don Patterson or organ, Paul Wheaton on guitar and Billy James on drums. That was one of the great experiences of my life -- the first time I ever felt like I had played something. It was like Sonny breathed music into me." "No man can play another man's soul."

Wow, that is some story. When you said you decided to expose it, does that mean you wrote about it or simply alerted Stereo Review editors or did you take another tack? I'd be interested in seeing what you wrote if you've still got it in your archives. On a related front, it reminds me of the recent Joyce Hatto scandal -- the British classical pianist whose recordings were found to have been copies of other famous pianists repackaged and released under her own name. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/joyce-hatto-notes-on-a-scandal-438102.html

First, let me second the recommendation of those 1968 recordings in the strongest terms. Unbelievably great (thanks again, Jim). RE: Jim's question about when Sonny went to India. I've always been struck by the fact that the details of the second sabbatical are much less familiar than the Bridge period. I asked Sonny about this the last time I got a chance to interview him about a year ago. Here's part of that conversation, which ran in the Detroit Free Press, starting with a synoposis of the chronology that I put together from checking various primary and secondary sources, including his own not always reliable memory. It seems those European 1968 recordings, which I believe were done in Sept., were taped after he returned from India but before the really long sabbatical started. (Footnote: An authoritative Rollins biography is a book that desperately needs to be written.) ... but by 1968 he was burned out by the business -- unable to command the money he felt he was worth, unable to secure enough steady work to keep a band together and bamboozled by lawyers for Impulse Records into signing away rights to the score he had written for the film "Alfie." So he quit. In early 1968 he boarded a plane for India, staying four or five months, living on an ashram and studying Indian religion and yoga. When he returned he performed sporadically, and after a trip to California in September 1969, he disappeared for nearly two years, resurfacing at a jazz festival in Norway in June 1971. By October, Down Beat magazine trumpeted, "Exclusive! Sonny Rollins returns." QUESTION: What was the motivation for the second sabbatical? ANSWER: I was really dissatisfied with the music business. I had finished contracts with RCA and Impulse, there wasn't much happening and I was getting interested in self-development, which had started earlier when I went on the bridge. I guess I was trying to find myself. Q: Why India? A: I had been interested in metaphysical organizations and things like Buddhism, yoga and Sufism. I felt like I needed to get more into self-improvement and the greater purposes and meaning of life. I had been investigating yoga since the '50s, so I had been primed to make this voyage. It wasn't something I did as a whim. I had separated from my wife for a while, and the time was right to make that move. Having read quite a bit about yoga and various yoga masters and teachers, I took my horn, a bag or two and booked a flight to Bombay. On the last leg of the flight, I was talking to some Indian people and one fella knew something about ashrams. He suggested this particular place to me just outside of Bombay and this swami, Chinmayamananda. Q: What was a typical day like at the ashram? A: There were yoga students there from Europe and elsewhere and we had our meals and everything. When the swami came there were lectures. We studied the literature texts from the Vedanta. We studied the Upanishads and Yoga Sutras and all of these writings from antiquity. We weren't doing hatha yoga so much -- hatha yoga is the positions. We were mainly studying the texts, and when we didn't have sessions, we'd endlessly discuss things among ourselves. Q: Did you play the saxophone? A: Not really. I did do one solo concert for the people there. Q: When you finally dropped off the scene completely, were you practicing? A: I was definitely practicing, but there was a period when I was living in Brooklyn when I became the ultimate recluse. I didn't go out at all; well, maybe just to buy groceries or something. I think I had something called agoraphobia -- a phobia about going out and being among people. Q: What got you out of that period? A: I don't know. That would be interesting to know -- what happened moment by moment and day by day and how I got out of that. Q: It sounds like depression. A: I'm not sure that's apt. I had visitors coming by my house. Unless maybe I was depressed over the condition of human existence. That sounds like something I'm still depressed about. I was still practicing yoga. I was able to get into these states where I could leave my body; they call it floating. I used to do these practices to find out what was possible in life. Life is not what we see around us. It's something else. This is a screen. Behind the screen there is something else. Q: Did you find what you were searching for? A: I don't want to be so presumptuous as to say that I found it, but I found a great deal of it. It's like my music; I've found something, but there's always more. I'm closer to my self-realization, but with my music I still can't get there as often as I want to. I did find peace. This is really a more recent thing. It isn't something I found in the '70s. This is something where you keep gaining knowledge of different things and they eventually coalesce. ... The swami taught me some things. I couldn't concentrate sometimes because my mind would be flitting from one thing to another. In those days, concentration meant sitting in a lotus position, getting quiet and closing your eyes and contemplating om. He told me, "When you play your music, you're in a deep concentration. That's deep mediation." I realized it's not about sitting down and meditating. It's about trying to reach a deeper place of understanding -- especially playing jazz, because this is a type of music that lends itself to true improvisation. In true improvisation, you go to the subconscious. The process of improvisation is such that you can't think. The music is happening too fast. If you try to think and try to put in something that you practice, it doesn't work. It's a perfect kind of music for a mystical concept.

I've seen McCoy several times but the first was the best -- Jazz Showcase in Nov. 1985, with Louis Hayes and Avery Sharpe. Most memorable tune was the opening "Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit," with a ferocious groove and vamp and McCoy's right hand just roaring over the top of it. The power on that tune is still one of my strongest club memories. A memorable night for another reason too: Woody Shaw was at George's that same week (rhythm section: painist John Campbell, bassist Kelly Sill and drummer Joel Spencer) and they were burning. I heard both on the same night, starting with Shaw ("Moontrane,"Bemsha Swing," "Sweet Love of Mine," and two more that I've now forgotten.) Then a friend and I drove to the Showcase to hear McCoy's second set.

Susanna Mälkki (b. 1969) is one of the finest conductors of her generation, man or woman, that I've heard. Especially impressive in contemporary music and 20th Century fare. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_M%C3%A4lkki I've also been impressed with Xian Zhang: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian_Zhang While I haven't heard her live, I have heard good things about Anu Tali: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anu_Tali I've heard a bunch of good recordings led by Gisele Ben-Dor of Latin composers (Revueltas, Villa-Lobos, Ginastera) http://www.giseleben-dor.com/

I have this, though have only heard it once -- some very nice moments but some meandering too. Need to go through it again with full attention paid. There's studio dialogue at one point and Ornette says, "Fellas, forget the notes and get to the ideas." Quintessential.

Excellent question. In terms of recordings, nothing comes to mind and this Joe Henderson discography lists nothing with Hank. http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Artists/Henderson/JoeHenderson.html On the other hand, I'd be shocked if they didn't share the bandstand somewhere under some all-star circumstance.

Never made this connection, but after listening to Trane's solo, I assume you're talking about the very opening phrase that mirrors what I think of as the "swinging bridge" melody of "La Fiesta." Has Chick ever acknowledged the link directly? Another example: Trane's "Like Sonny" is from a Sonny Rollins phrase -- Sonny plays it on "My Old Flame" (I think) from Kenny Dorham's "Jazz Contrasts."

Spalding is likely to become a "popularizer" more than a "creative force", but I'm ok with that. Anything that makes "wider" musical constructions sound less "weird" to the mainstream is ok by me. The arguments of "artistic merit" are for another place, at least for me. Right now, there's somebody bringing the 64 box to school instead of the 8. I'll not be the one to discourage that. I agree with this. The issue of raising the quality of music available in the mass marketplace, or to put it another way, making higher quality music more available in the mass marketplace, is an important, serious and worthwhile goal in itself. As much as I wish we lived in an environment in which "Take Five" or "Song for my Father" could sneak onto top 40 radio, those days are long gone. This isn't about the future of jazz or whether Spalding is a creative force in the way any particular subset of jazz fans would define it. When Herbie wins Best Album or Spalding wins Best New Artist, it's good not because it means "jazz is back" or it promises a new era of popularity for jazz but because the next day after these things happen America feels just a little bit hipper than it did the day before. Granted, the base line measure is really, really square and, yeah, in the long run it may not make any difference. But I'm for anything that's a victory for helping more people find their way to a greater variety of quality music of whatever style or genre.

A jazz musician could be "precocious," "gifted" or "precociously gifted" at 20. But by the time that musician is 26, he/she could still be described as gifted, but given historical precedent, no longer precociously so. Having said that, and leaving final critical evaluations aside, I might be inclined to cut the writer some slack in this instance. He was writing on deadline and "precociously gifted" is the kind of phrase that rolls off the tongue without you really comprehending the full implications or inconsistencies implied. I've certainly been there. Let's blame the editors along the way for not questioning whether 26 is perhaps too old to be considered precocious as a musical performer in any genre. (Interestingly, painters and novelists could still be considered precocious at that age.)

Porcy is from Rome, maybe he's willing to translate? This is the Google translation which I edited slightly to get rid of a few idiotic translations: Thanks -- scrolling down at the link there appears to be a detailed bio but perhaps too much to to deal with going through a Google translation, at least too much for me to deal with tonight ...

Here's an article Liebman wrote about his time with Miles. http://www.daveliebman.com/earticles1.php?WEBYEP_DI=1

A Nexis search turns up only three hits for Enrico Merlin. One is from a St. Louis Post Dispatch story from 1996 about the second "Miles Davis and American Culture" symposium at Washington University organized by Gerald Early and Elizabeth Kellerman of the University's American Culture Studies Institute and the African and Afro-American Studies Program. Deep in the story there's this: "The European scholar/musicians Enrico Merlin and Laurent Cugny each presented a detailed lesson in active listening as they analyzed Davis' musical evolution, work that will surely contribute much to "Davisology." The other hits are references Merlin's "Sessionography, 1967-1991" in Tingen's book, but from the web I found this: Anybody speak Italian? http://www.riminibeach.it/eventi/enrico-merlin-e-debora-lombardo-quartet I haven't read it but the other book I'm aware of about late Miles is "The Last Miles" by George Cole. http://www.thelastmiles.com/

http://www.freep.com/article/20110131/NEWS01/110131020/New-owners-rescue-Baker-s-Keyboard-Lounge-fulfill-dream?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE The beginning of a happy ending we hope ...

http://www.freep.com/article/20110129/ENT04/101290319/Baker-s-Keyboard-Lounge-scheduled-auction-bankruptcy-court?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

I will say that the quartets are like the late Beethoven quartets in that they are so rich and reward so many different interpretive ideas. I wouldn't necessarily count any single performance as definitive (though that certainly doesn't mean that all are created equal either). I may hold the Juilliard in special regard, but I have a gaggle of different versions and listen to them all -- this is really music where different recordings reveal different truths.