Larry Kart's jazz book

[AllenLowe]

Yes, and especially discouraging given that I'm using the biggest pen I can find -

[JSngry]

I suggest contacting your nearest and dearest pharmaceutical rep and asking for one of those devilish Levitra pens that are all the rage in the underground these days: http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/forum/showt...94&page=1&pp=15

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...ssPageName=WDVW

Edited January 19, 2005 by JSngry

[AllenLowe]

well, I'm getting old - just hope I don't run out of ink -

[Lazaro Vega]

I think the reasons why Evans message becomes more and more emotionally distant are clearly laid out. For what it is worth it was good to have the perspective of the first period Bill Evans -- I LOVE that music with George Russell and Mingus -- as contrasted to everything after Kind of Blue. Also the breakdown of "Tenderly" and the emotionally anamalous (sp!) tracks by his famous trio.

No, man, this book is bringing me back to Chicago. Chicago is the heart and soul of jazz; it is the place of the trans-African musical continuum; it is home of the blues. There are no other writers on either coast or in Europe who even CARE to posit the question about where is jazz music's soul or heart or self or clearly lay out the artist's "mission." (Some musicians, and Litweiller does a good job seeing out an artist's point of view, but it certainly is rare). Not the musician's mission, but the musician as artist's mission. So what is it all about, Alfie? And that is not some pretentious bullshit : it is the point, the reason for the music.

And the writing is so tight. What a standard. Anyone who's studied (or attempted) journalism knows those changes o-too well, knows the form, but getting it to read so easily is a pitched battle. "What do you mean SHORTER, Mr. Editor?" This writing is a lesson in how to make it read like a warm knife through butter (or pick your simile).

[Larry Kart]

"Dude, why can't you learn to love Bill Evans?"

It's funny, Jim, but there are some players I like a lot (Bill Carrothers, Don Friedman) or find myself becoming interested in these days (Dave Kikoski) who clearly are related to Evans in terms of being influenced by him (or just running along similar lines in the case of Friedman) -- also Carrothers and Kikoski probably stem just as much from Hancock and Jarrett, two other players who don't do a lot for me. That makes me think that what bothers me is mostly what I hear as Evans' frequent over-reliance on formulas after the death of LaFaro, plus the way his genuine fondness for the moods and habits of the American popular song tradition began to mutate, in the face of what he seemed to take as the "threat" of the avant-garde, into something defensive (and/or pastoral-protective) -- and defensive-pastoral-protective in ways that began to affect how he actually made his own music in the moment. So even though Carrothers, Kikoski, and Friedman make music that's similar in mood to latter-day Evans a fair amount of time, they seem much livelier and more interesting to me. On the other hand, I don't get at all for why there's a fuss in some quarters over Brad Mehldau. To me he's Sominex with a side order of navel-gazing.

[AllenLowe]

Larry - are you familiar with Evans's first recordings (maybe 1956) in which he's still heavily under the sway of Tristano? Though they are often dismissed, I like them very much and consider them to be very individual interpretations of that style -

[garthsj]

Larry - are you familiar with Evans's first recordings (maybe 1956) in which he's still heavily under the sway of Tristano? Though they are often dismissed, I like them very much and consider them to be very individual interpretations of that style -

Allen .... I agree with you on this. I love early Evans .... his role as a sideman in those Jazz Workshop recordings and other George Russell excursions, and his work with Tony Scott, Eddie Costa, even Jay & Kai is a joy to the ear .... But, I also agree with Larry about later Evans. Even though I tried to be an Evans completist, and acquired all of that material, including the expensive later boxed sets, I seldom listen to the later stuff when I feel the need for an Evans fix; I usually go for an early Riverside ... or one of the Verves, including some of the "symphonic stuff" ...

[Larry Kart]

Yes, I know the early Evans recordings (as leader and sideman) pretty well -- bought most of them as they came out in the normal course of things and still like almost all of them. In addition to the first two leader dates, I'm particularly fond of his playing on the George Russell "Jazz Workshop" album, Hal McKusick's "Cross-Section Saxes," and Eddie Costa's "Guys and Dolls Like Vibes" (one of those beautiful days in the studio). He's also in very good form, I think, on Art Farmer's "Modern Art," Mingus' "East Coasting" and the Jimmy Knepper date on Bethlehem, the one with "Idol of the Flies." On the other hand, about the Tristano aspect, I recall Martin Williams praising the Evans of this period for making something of Tristano or bringing Tristano more into jazz or something like that -- as though adaptation, even domestication, were what what Martin thought Tristano's needed and what Evans had accomplished. There's certainly a good bit of Tristano in early Evans, and it's put to interesting use, but I don't think that Tristano's music needed anything to be made of it, and Tristano himself was fine just where he was and as hairy as he was (or might have been) -- a more substantial figure than Evans to my mind, though there's certainly room for both of them.

[JSngry]

What I like about early Evans is that he's trying to hide the sap that he wants to be (or maybe doesn't want to be!) somewhere inside, and would later so often become. He does so splendidly. There's a tightness, a tension, to that early work that to me sounds like a man who knows all too well that the room is too hip for him and that he fears for his life that the secret will get out. So he beats them at their own game, in a way, playing the idiom by reducing it to a series of nervous feints and jabs that a lot of times add up to more than the sum of thier parts. The nervous commentary on the action becomes an action of its own, and a fascinating one at that.

A guilty conscience works wonders.

[Nate Dorward]

Martin Williams is curiously belittling of Tristano's legacy in that dialogue with George Russell reprinted in The Lydian Chromatic Concept--holding Tristano up as an example of how innovation in jazz won't really work/catch on if it's only at the level of harmony rather than rhythm or other elements. (This seems to me odd in the extreme given Tristano's innovations in the use of compound metres, oddnumbered rhythmic subdivisions, &c, but I take it it's a glance at the "passive" timekeeper role of bassist & drummer on a lot of Tristano sides.)

[AllenLowe]

Yes, Williams definitely had some real blind spots - also he, like a lot of other critics, tended to regard something as less important if he didn't think it was broadly influential (of course Tristano WAS widely influential, but not in the same way as Bird, Prez, Armstrong etc). This is a real problem in a lot of histories, as musicians tend to be ignored if they are not part of the template, in the conventional sense. I got to know Evans a little bit, through his wife, after 1980, and he had two personalities that I saw - one in which he was open, friendly, generous and articulate, and another in which he was self absorbed, addicted, and self pitying. With a little bit of a stretch I think you might say that these two sides of him were reflected in his up and down musical efforts -

Edited January 20, 2005 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

And just to add to the above - Williams also felt in a similar away about someone like Lee Konitz, and in this he also missed the boat on influence; I remember thinking this when Julius Hemphill told me how important Konitz was to his playing -

[Larry Kart]

I think Martin thought of Tristano and Konitz (and Marsh too) as a pack of self-consciously progressive/intellectual/isolated musical "scientists," and of course they were white. In fact, there were, arguably, some guys like that around at that time -- Teddy Charles, Teo Macero, John Laporta, Gil Melle et al. -- but Tristano, Konitz, and Marsh were in a different place. Also, as his writing before and after the advent of Ornette makes clear, Martin felt strongly that the state of jazz in the mid-'50s cried out for something really new to be done, but he was convinced that none of the available "progressive" paths (except for George Russell's and Mingus's) were likely to lead anywhere worth going because they weren't in tune with jazz's earthy (for want of a better term) essence, especially in terms of rhythm. Thus, I imagine, the advent of Ornette was almost literally like a dream come true for Martin. Too bad for him that the mindset that let him hear Ornette so well seems to have prevented him from hearing Lennie, Lee and Warne for what they were. Typically, as I recall, Martin was among those who hailed Lee's Milestones label album where he hooked up with Roy Eldridge, Ray Nance et al. as a big and necessary step forward for Lee. There are some things that work OK there and IMO some things that don't, but it's not like Lee was some damn apostate wandering in the wilderness.

[JSngry]

Martin felt strongly that the state of jazz in the mid-'50s cried out for something really new to be done, but he was convinced that none of the available "progressive" paths (except for George Russell's and Mingus's) were likely to lead anywhere worth going because they weren't in tune with jazz's earthy (for want of a better term) essence, especially in terms of rhythm.

Just curious -

If the "earthy essence" was so important to him, why the lack of regard for Gene Ammons, to use an example previously mentioned elsewhere?

And speaking of Konitz Milestone albums, isn't it a typo that gives the review of SPIRITS as being from 1969? I wasn't in high school in 1969, and it wsa in high school where reading that review over and over and not paying attention to the history teacher got me in trouble ione day.

[AllenLowe]

Williams was a great critic but he did have certain blindspots, IMHO - he did not like Nat Cole's playing, and was very lukewarm about Cannonball; he did, sometimes (and this is from my readings; I knew him only briefly) tend to miss out on the emotional element of the music unless it was accompanied by a certain kind of rigorous intellectuality, conscious or not. Hence, I think, Ornette attracted him, Ammons/Adderley/Cole did not. But one finds that one has disagreements with every critic, no matter how much one admires that critic. Also, note that with Ornette, Williams was dealing with earthiness as it related to a kind of progress that he saw as innovative and advancing - this is not true with Ammons (whose playing I love, btw) -

Edited January 20, 2005 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

well, he might have been right for the wrong reasons - I love Mugsy's playing - and, if I added the musicians that I dislike, I'd probably get run out of this forum -

Edited January 20, 2005 by AllenLowe

[ghost of miles]

What's the consensus here on the Marsh/Konitz/Evans date from the Half Note in 1958? Wasn't this Evans sitting in for Tristano's, er, "working group" of the time?

[Late]

What's the consensus here on the Marsh/Konitz/Evans date from the Half Note in 1958?

Very worthwhile, particularly for the saxophonists' work. Evans' playing doesn't seem to draw a lot of attention to itself, but he turns in some unexpected phrases here and there. I'd give it a strong .

[JSngry]

What's the consensus here on the Marsh/Konitz/Evans date from the Half Note in 1958? Wasn't this Evans sitting in for Tristano's, er, "working group" of the time?

Quantum mechanics meets jazz, and I say that with nothing but awesome wonder.

One of the essential items of recorded jazz, afaic. There's a fair number of those, to be sure, but this is one of them.

Now, if you can ever find the two Revelation LPs (THE ART OF IMPROVISATION - Vols 1 & 2) that consist solely of Warne's solos from this gig, pay whatever you have to pay to get them. They are documents of Warne at absolute peak form. The Verve CD gives you 12 complete performances, but the Revelation albums give you 34 different pieces. Just Warne's solos, but I tell you this - greater music has not been made. Which is not to say that music as good hasn't. But not a whole helluva lot of it.

[ghost of miles]

What's the consensus here on the Marsh/Konitz/Evans date from the Half Note in 1958?

Very worthwhile, particularly for the saxophonists' work. Evans' playing doesn't seem to draw a lot of attention to itself, but he turns in some unexpected phrases here and there. I'd give it a strong .

I haven't listened to it in several years (this thread will make me pull it out again, however), but I have the same recollection--that Evans was pretty much in the background on this one, but that I enjoyed the moments when he popped out.

[Larry Kart]

Jim -- I think you're right; that review must have run in 1970 because I don't see it in bound copy of DB 1969. Couldn't have been any later than that, though, because I was gone from there in '70 at some point. So glad I got you in trouble in high school -- wait a minute, that doesn't read right!

Martin wanted "earthy" plus "heady" plus "new," and he defintely didn't want "showy" or "prepackaged." Jug, if Martin had even been paying much attention to him, thus would have been pretty much crosswise to what Martin liked or desired, however mistaken he might have been even by his own lights -- Jug pleased the people, but he was damn serious abut his music. I'd say that if Martin, circa 1958, had been asked to pick a young-mature player who exemplied what he dug or was looking for, it might have been Art Farmer.

[AllenLowe]

Interestingly, there's a late album by Ammons, live in Sweden or somewhere else, in which his playing shows a real post-Coltrane influence - not really a Coltrane thing, but the effects of that loosening of the harmony -

[JSngry]

You mean that Enja thing w/Horace Parlan? Yeah, that's good stuff.

[Chuck Nessa]

Konitz' Spirits was recorded in 1971 and issued in 1972.

Senior moment?

[Cornelius]

Larry,

Regarding the Hank Mobley chapter:

* You wrote that Mobley was "relatively untouched by the stylistic upheavals that mark the work of major contemporaries, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane." But Mobley's work in the sixties was very much influenced by ("addresses," one might say) developments in Coltrane's music, especially modal improvising and Coltrane's hard tone. Modal improvising might not be a stylistic element, but if it's not, then what are the stylistic developments that don't reach Mobley? And the advent of Coltrane's tone is probably not an upheaval, yet your comment seems misleading even if not literally untrue.

* Sonny Clark is suggested as the hard bop equivalent of Duke Jordan. But wouldn't Duke Jordan be the hard bop equivalent of Duke Jordan?

* You wrote that Mobley recorded Soul Station while with Miles Davis. My recollection might be incorrect, but I somewhat recall seeing a Miles Davis chronology that lists Mobley joining Davis after the recording of Soul Station.

* Mobley's career as a recording artist is divided by you into "three rather distinct phases": '55 - '58, '60 - '61, and '63 - '70. This omits 1) Recordings as a sideman beginning in '53 (and even earlier if some discographers' listings of Mobley as having recorded with Paul Gayten are accurate), 2) 1959, 3) the 1972 date with Walton, 4) The 1980 date with Montoliu.

I offer these periods:

'53 (or earlier) - September '54. Formative.

Nov '54 - '58. Classic.

'59 - '61. Resurgence.

'63 - '65. Extensions.

'66 - '72. Late.

'73 - '86. No commercial recordings except '80 date with Montoliu.

For me, the three periods spanning Nov '54 - '65 are prime Mobley.

* You wrote that Mobley offers a "melancholically quizzical musical universe." You mean that Mobley suggests curiosity that is imbued with sadness? I've not noticed people having that kind of curiosity, so I'm not able to imagine it in Mobley's music. Or do mean that Mobley's music is odd and imbued with sadness? I feel sadness, wistfulness and bittersweet in some of his ballads, but don't think of his music in general that way.

* If you think this quote is too long for fair use, I'll delete it:

"As James [another writer] suggests, [Mobley's] best work of the period is so spontaneously ordered and so bristling with oblique rhythmic and harmonic details that its sheer adventuresomeness seems inseparable from the listener's - and perhaps the soloist's - burgeoning sense of doubt. That is, to make sense of Mobley's lines one must experience every note - for there are many points of development, each of which can inspire in Mobley an immediate response, that the ambiguities of choice become an integral part of the musical/emotional discourse.

And that leads to the genius of stage two for as Mobley gained rhythmic and timbral control, his music became at once more forceful and uncannily transparent - as though each move he made had its counterpart in a wider world that might not exist if Mobley weren't compelled to explore it."

Say what? What is the "as if" counterpart of each move? How can the existence of a world be contingent on one's compulsion to explore it? Do you mean that by exploring, Mobley created? Okay, but how is that a metaphor for greater transparency? Why must one experience every one of Mobley's notes to understand his music any more than you'd expect to have to listen to every note of any jazz musician? Because the listener has a sense of doubt? A sense of doubt about what? About the adventuresomeness of the music? Do you mean that the music is so adventurous that there's doubt whether the musician's choices of notes will turn out to be good ones or what adventurous gambit they'll embody? But what is meant by "ambiguities of choice"? Is there an ambiguousness after the choices have been made?

I'm not necessarily averse to open-ended, free-associative writing about jazz, nor even to bringing ontology into an appreciation of a soloist, nor do I expect unreasonable literalness, but writing such as quoted above just leaves me cold: I don't know what it means, what I'm supposed to take from it, and, without cogent (or even any) discussion of specifics regarding the rhythms, harmonies, and musical choices mentioned, I don't know whether it's even worth my effort trying to figure it out.

Regarding the chapter that includes Donald Byrd:

You wrote, "The first Donald Byrd was a clear-toned trumpeter with a gift for light and graceful playing over the chords [...] in succeeding years Byrd used fewer notes, a brassier tone, and attempted to assimilate more blues feeling, but these were changes of costume rather than changes of heart."

He didn't just try to bring more blues sound into his playing, he did bring more of it into his playing. And you might find certain passages in his later playing as brassy, but, overall, I think his playing became less brassy in the early sixties (which, I surmise, is the period you have in mind, since this is when he began to simplify, slow down, and express more blues feeling). You wrote that Byrd was unable to find a musical voice. I think he had a clear and beautiful musical voice. I don't find his stylistic development in the early sixties to be at all phony. I don't like the particular album (Slow Drag, recorded in '67) that gave rise to your review of his career, but he made a bunch of fine albums in the early '60s, as well as magnificent work in the '50s. I think you've underestimated a beautiful musician.

Edited January 21, 2005 by Cornelius