The Brothers!

[medjuck]

I admit it. I can't tell who's soloing when. The liner notes give some help but not much. (They point out that Perkins sometimes sounds like Cohn and Kamuca sometimes sounds like both of them!) Can anyone help?

(Not that it really matters-- I'm enjoying it a lot without knowing which one I'm hearing.)

[AllenLowe]

Cohn - throaty moan, think Hershel Evans - Kamuca - light but some bottom, very buoyant - Perkins - whatever's left - actually, more of a plain, un-colored sound - the least interesting player of the three - hope this helps -

Edited May 6, 2006 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

I feel like a Medieval monk poring over a torn Roman papyrus, but here is what my ear tells me is the solo order for the first five tracks (I'm working from the 1997 French BMG CD):

"Blixed" (Perkins, Cohn, Kamuca)

"Kim's Kaper" (Cohn, Kamuca, Perkins)

"Rolling Stone" (Cohn only)

"Sioux Zan" (Perkins, Cohn, no Kamuca solo)

"The Walrus" (Perkins [release], Kamuca, Perkins, Cohn)

The best guide might be to start with "Rolling Stone," which should nail down Cohn of this vintage for you, and then move on to "The Walrus," where each player's traits emerge fairly clearly. Don't lose any sleep puzzling over Perkins' "Kim's Kaper" solo; the tempo seems too swift for him, and he sounds rather blurry and nondescript. I don't agree that Perkins is the least interesting of the three. These were three musical souls in motion -- each interesting (at least to me) at every stage of their careers for the quality and nature of the music being made at that stage but also interesting in terms of where they were going to go and how they were going to get there: a kind of autobiographies in sound thing.

[JSngry]

There was a time, a relatively brief time, when Bill Perkins was in a zone that nobody's been in before or since.

[Larry Kart]

The zone of the "Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West" album and a few other things. He could tear your heart out.

[JSngry]

Definitely.

[Chuck Nessa]

Then the drugs wore off and he went back to normal.

[JSngry]

So it would seem.

Except...

Somewhere in my stacks I've got a fairly recent unreleased session that Perkins did under the leadership of some Los Angeles drummer whose name I can't remember. Got it from Pete, who did a series of big band clinics with, I think, Mike Vax, who had Perkins along. Pete's got some good Perkins stories, btw. Quite a humble and unassuming man who seems to have often been one of those "I love this music too much to feel good about what I've done with it but I love it too much not to keep trying" kind of guys. We've all known at least one of them in our lives, I'm sure.

Anyway...

They're playing all Mingus material on this date, most of it of 60s & 70s vintage, and the group tales an almost Giuffre-ian (as in the Giuffre trio days) approach to the material. Lots of "stillness" in what is very "un-still" source material. It's as unusual as it sounds, but in that setting, on that day, with those people, Perkins got his zone back, only darker and deeper, and I tell you - it is something to hear.

[Larry Kart]

Then the drugs wore off and he went back to normal.

I see the smiley face, but while it's not impossible that Perkins was doing some stuff and stopped, it's far more likely that he (and Kamuca too) had doubts about the hipness, and even the "manliness," of their softish Pres-derived approach in the light of contemporary Rollins and then, in just a bit, Coltrane. The recorded evidence suggests this for both men, and I recall that Perkins, in a Cadence interview, speaks quite directly of the doubts he had back then and how they affected his playing. IMO, after a very awkward patch, Kamuca came out of this playing better than ever before, but Perkins, with rare exceptions like the one Jim mentioned, never really got it together again (though some of his attempts to work lots of timbral and harmonic edginess into his playing were interesting).

[AllenLowe]

I just never liked Perkins's sound - too steady and lacking in nuance, at least on the stuff I remember - like he was using the mouthpiece that came with the horn -

[Matthew]

Would be nice if Concord got off its ass and released Kamuca's recordings on cd. Maybe release them as Richie's Rich Love Songs. Something, you know, that would sell.....

Edit: it's its not it's

Edited May 7, 2006 by Matthew

[Quasimado]

There were very few of the Lester tenors who made it unscathed in some way through the 60's and beyond due to the prevailing musical and economic forces. Warne Marsh was one that came through musically, but he had his own agenda. Then again, it could be argued that he was never really one to start with ...

Q

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Would be nice if Concord got off its ass and released Kamuca's recordings on cd. Maybe release them as Richie's Rich Love Songs. Something, you know, that would sell.....

The rumour is that Concord does not hold those rights any more. Supposedly, they reverted to, or never left the estate's control. I've been trying to get someone (like Mosaic) to reissue those dates for years.

Kevin

[fasstrack]

I feel like a Medieval monk poring over a torn Roman papyrus.

[fasstrack]

Then the drugs wore off and he went back to normal.

I see the smiley face, but while it's not impossible that Perkins was doing some stuff and stopped, it's far more likely that he (and Kamuca too) had doubts about the hipness, and even the "manliness," of their softish Pres-derived approach in the light of contemporary Rollins and then, in just a bit, Coltrane. The recorded evidence suggests this for both men, and I recall that Perkins, in a Cadence interview, speaks quite directly of the doubts he had back then and how they affected his playing. IMO, after a very awkward patch, Kamuca came out of this playing better than ever before, but Perkins, with rare exceptions like the one Jim mentioned, never really got it together again (though some of his attempts to work lots of timbral and harmonic edginess into his playing were interesting).

Wow, Larry. I'm a musician and I don't even take this stuff that seriously. No offense, I really like your writing and everything, but why not just say 'different strokes' or something and be done with it?

Music stops being fun when you pick it apart too much IMO. Analysis is in order when studying, of course, but I think you perhaps over-analyse what, after all, was probably just a fun day for some great players who themselves were probably so 'blind' they probably didn't even remember what they did the next day.

Edited May 7, 2006 by fasstrack

[AllenLowe]

Fasstrack - Larry doesn't over-analyze, he analyzes, so spare us the anti-intellectualism - I'm a musician and I DO take this stuff seriously - as did Bill Perkins, John Lewis, et al -

[Larry Kart]

Fasstrack -- I'm not sure I'm following you here about "probably just a fun day in the studio." I was taking the presence of Cohn, Perkins, and Kamuca on this date to talk a bit about how and why two of those three undeniably Pres-based players changed over the years, which they surely did. I mean, to take two of the most obvious examples that stare any jazz fan of our era(s) in the face, aren't you interested in how and why Coltrane or Bill Evans' music changed so much over the course of their lives? Also, I don't think of it as "picking things apart" -- I think of it as thinking and talking about stuff that I love and that fascinates me, which I couldn't stop doing if I tried. I could see, though, where someone would say, "That's too much talking about this for me -- you have picked it apart." If I felt that way myself, I'd stop -- and there have been times when I have for a while.

About Perkins (and as proof that I'm not making this stuff up) here are some excerpts (slightly edited) from that Nov. 1995 Cadance interview: "[Asked about Whitney Balliett's notes for "Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West," on which Balliett praises Perkins and compares his playing to the "bad tone" and "ugliness" of Sonny Rollins, Perkins says: "[M]y playing was based on a beauty of sound, Pres, and so forth, and that was a very lyrical period in my life. Ironically, in recent years, I've come much more to appreciate people like Sonny Rollins; I don't consider it ugly. I don't think I might have [then], it's just that I didn't understand it in those days, but people like Sonny Rollins and Wayne Shorter have become favorites of mine... When I think back on those years, my so-called peak years back in the '50s ... it was rarely that I was pleased with what I did. I was usually either just once in a whole happy but most of the time disconsolate, and that's not a good way to go through life. The sound, I guess, was my main objective, and I just worked endlessly with reeds and mouthpieces to get a sound. I must admit, although I've completely done a 180 from that approach to playing now, the sound I got was quite amazing. Even I look back on this and say, 'My goodness how did I achieve that.... [W]hen the conditions are right ... I can play that way [today]. But normally the world doesn't play that way anymore. The surroundings -- political and otherwise -- are such that, and we do respond quite a bit to what goes on.

I hear too many tough tenors. I [would] feel like a fool to go up there and play like I did 30 years ago....

"I had a big opportunity. [Dick Bock of Pacific Jazz] set up a chance for New York City with Bobby Brookmeyer, and I chickened out. This was about 1956 or '57, and I think it was just fear.... The one time Dick got pretty disgusted with me was when he set up an album for me in 1958, and in essence he wanted a repeat of what I'd done before. Now at that time I'd started to veer away from that approach to playing.... I was too stupid. I should have said [to myself], 'Bill, play good music within this thing, don't try to play like Sonny Rollins.' But I sort of played a half-baked imitation of Sonny Rollins without getting into Sonny Rollins, and Dick was really disgusted.... And the album never came out.... I was starting to hear the Sonny Rollinses of this world, well actually there's only one, and trying to play like that, but I had no idea what they were doing. Now I think I have a very good idea of what they're doing....

"I admired [Richie Kamuca] a great deal, and I think he admired me; he admired my sound. Richie had the fingers, I had more of the sound. I was inept compared to Richie when it came to playing the instrument....

"Bob Cooper is a total hero of mine. Almost saint-like gentleman, totally mature. His playing just kept getting better and better, right up until the day he died.... He chose to follow a different path in his playing, he just perfected what he had, whereas I sort of went out into left field and a lot of times didn't make it."

[fasstrack]

....aren't you interested in how and why Coltrane or Bill Evans' music changed so much over the course of their lives?

Yes I am somewhat, but it's all there in the music. The words are afterthoughts---not without value, but afterthoughts nonetheless.

You know that old saying "Don't look back. Someone might be gaining on you"? Well, I'm not nuts about the second part but I'm trying to learn how to do the first. Ain't easy.

[fasstrack]

Alan: To explain: It's just that, without revealing too much personal info, I've been through the thinking game when it comes to playing and found that for me it really doesn't help. Relaxing on the stand, going with the flow, and listening do----for me. If that's anti-intellectual, then it is.

When one wants to take remedial action on one's own craft then the thinking game is necessary, even key. But the hardest part for me (I'd like to speak for others but seem to offend people when I do)is letting go of things. I really believe it holds us back from the current moment, where life is lived, as opposed to in our heads. So that's where I'm coming from, and I'm sorry, Larry, if if that came off as preachy. We're both big boys. It's just the way I feel.

Edited May 7, 2006 by fasstrack

[AllenLowe]

I understand, and hope I didn't over-react - it's just that I've also felt that the distinction between intellect and feeling is really false - I don't think anyone can truly separate the two, can really ever say, this is something I am expressing by intellectual association, or this is something I am just pursuing on instinct - I've always felt that the intellectual and the instinctive were two sides of the same coin - of course, everyone has their own ways of doing things, and I am, musically speaking, analytical by nature; that's how I taught myself. But I do think that the satisfying thing about the analysis of something like Larry Kart is that, when I read it, I realize how amazingly well he distills the process from all sides -

Edited May 7, 2006 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

Fasstrack -- Of course, it is or can be different for players. But while many who play feel the way you do, others who play don't. It seems to be both a function of what you do and what your temperament is. Some guys can, and really like to, spend a lot of time thinking and talking about all sorts of things that are connected to the music and then still manage to stay in the moment when the moment is upon them; others can't do that or just don't like the feeling of talking about what they and other musicians do at all, let alone listening to other people talk about that. And there are also people who don't play who are deep into the music and don't like how it feels to pore over it verbally either. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

[medjuck]

I saw Perkins at a club in Santa Barbara a few years ago and he seemed to have reconciled his 2 tendencies pretty well. (Did he die fairly recently?) Also the Kamuca I'm most familiar with is his playing on "Shelly Mann at The Black Hawk" where he's much more agressive than he is on this recording. That's why I was surprised by Allan's description of his work.

[Larry Kart]

By the "Manne at the Blackhawk" dates, Kamuca had really gotten it together -- not as wispy and choppy as he could be early on, and not queasy-awkward, as he is on a Fresh Sound live date with Scott LaFaro from, I think, '58, which captures him trying and pretty much failing to work Rollins and Trane into his pre-existing style. (BTW, I like the early wispy-choppy Kamuca, in part because that was the genuine state of his soul at the time). He's even better IMO on the "Manne at the Manne Hole" albums from 3/61 than he is on the "Blackhawk" series. Kamuca's latter-day Concords are excellent, and his tribute to Bird album on Concord on alto is a shock. He may get closer to Bird's rhythmic mobility/ fluidity than anyone this side of Dave Schildkraut. I wouldn't be surprised if one of Kamuca's key models, in addition to Lester Young of course, had been Allan Eager, one of the Pres disciples who was most attuned to Bird and bop.

[AllenLowe]

maybe I've missed some Kamuca, but, though I loved his plaing, I never heard it as edgy - there's also the LP Drop Me Off in Harlem, which I love and found very Prez-like, as I recall -

[AllenLowe]

and I think I'll bow ot of this thread now, as I gotta admit I never liked Perkins's playing -