Favorite authors of liner notes?

[ghost of miles]

Was just thinking about this as I pulled out the Charlie Parker Savoy/Dial Masters set with a sense of lament that the notes had not been done by Loren Schoenberg, as they were for the Parker Live Savoy set. I'm always happy to see a writer's credit for Dan Morgenstern, Loren, or Larry Kart on any CD or box-set that I pick up... how about you?

Edited November 25, 2013 by ghost of miles

[colinmce]

Larry Kart

John Litweiler

AB Spellman

Ran Blake

Ben Ratliff

Bob Blumenthal

Graham Lock

Kevin Whitehead

Brian Morton

Stuart Broomer

I also like when artists contribute their own notes.

As for worst ... Stanley Crouch & Ira Gitler.

[JSngry]

Always enjoyed Stanley Dance & Joe Goldberg, a.o.

And David A. Himmelstein, if only for this epic:

[John Litweiler]

2 very different writers, but Terry Martin's and J.B. Figi's liner notes read like they really live the music.

[Joe]

Nat Hentoff could pen very, very good notes when we wasn't too busy grinding axes. (E.g., Cecil Taylor's LOOKING AHEAD.)

Joe Goldberg... check his notes on Gigi Gryce's RAT RACE BLUES, among others.

[B. Clugston]

I really enjoy Graham Lock's writing—always very informative (he's written a lot about Anthony Braxton).

[Larry Kart]

Thanks for the mention. Dan's are almost always terrific. Larry Gushee's notes for the Smithsonian Ellington 1940 LP set are superb, as are his notes for their King Oliver 1923 set. Felicity Howlett contributed fine notes to the Smithsonian Tatum set; they're important because there's not much written about Tatum that talks insightfully about the details of his music. J.R. Taylor did a fine job on the Smithsonian John Kirby set. Bill Kirchner's notes for the Mosaic Thad-Mel set. Also many that have been mentioned above and many more that aren't coming to mind right now.

Worst? Maybe H. Allen Stein? A special warm spot down below is reserved for Whitney Balliett's attack on Sonny Rollins in his liner notes for John Lewis' "Grand Encounter," in which he praises Bill Perkins (who is indeed praiseworthy on "Grand Encounter") by contrasting his work with the supposed "ugliness" of Sonny's playing ("the hair-pulling, the bad tone"). Interesting that these notes were never reprinted in any of the numerous collections of Balliett's work.

2 very different writers, but Terry Martin's and J.B. Figi's liner notes read like they really live the music.

Absolutely. Jamal's notes for "Sound" are unforgettable, and they were written when that music was brand new.

[paul secor]

2 very different writers, but Terry Martin's and J.B. Figi's liner notes read like they really live the music.

J.B. Figi's notes for the Delmark issue of Bouncing with Bud are classic.

As for musician's notes, Roswell Rudd's notes for the Mosaic Herbie Nichols box are a favorite of mine.

And Buell Neidlinger's notes for the Mosaic Cecil Taylor box are cantankerous at times, but at the same time are informative and interesting.

[Leeway]

Even though he is not a liner note writer per se, and even though he has a direct interest in the record discussed, I still very much enjoy Martin Davidson's liner notes for the Emanem discs The history is interesting, the evaluation is fair (but then I am a fan so maybe predisposed to agreement), and the style is lucid.

Always happy to come across anything Michael Cuscuna wrote.

[jeffcrom]

Yes to Morgenstern and Gushee. Stanley Dance's many notes to Ellington's albums are not literary masterpieces, but his depth of knowledge concerning Ellington's world means that they are usually informative. Max Harrison hasn't written that many album notes, but when he does, the results are usually excellent. The sometimes overly fussy Martin Williams wrote some great ones and forgettable ones.

Don't know if this counts, but the notes to many American Music CDs are taken from Bill Russell's diaries, presumably edited by Barry Martyn. They're extremely interesting to me.

Among folks around here, currently active or not, I agree about Misters Kart and Litweiler. Donald Clarke and Chris Albertson have written some excellent ones. And the one set of liner notes I've read by Jim Sangrey, for Chuck's CD reissue of Warne Marsh's All Music, is, as you might expect, offbeat, original, and perceptive.

Edited November 26, 2013 by jeffcrom

[AllenLowe]

Dick Katz; he did the Teddy WIlson notes on the Smithsonian set.

just as an aside, on one of my earlier CD sets of my own stuff I wrote something like 15 pages of notes; Tom Hull of The Voice referred to them as "the manual."

Nomination for WORST WORST WORST- that British guy Bennie Green (I think that was his name) who did all the Pablos, I think it was. I hated those things then and I hate them now; it read like a high schooler writing a Masters Thesis after a bad motor vehicle accident that did real and recognizeable damage.

Edited November 26, 2013 by AllenLowe

[colinmce]

Dick Katz's notes for the Smithsonian Jazz Piano box are also excellent.

Agree that Bennie Green's Pablo notes are junk.

[jlhoots]

Not mentioned so far:

Art Lange

Robert Levin

Ralph J. Gleason

[John L]

Not mentioned so far:

Art Lange

Robert Levin

Ralph J. Gleason

I like Lange and Gleason, the latter for giving a real feeling of the time and excitement about new developments in jazz. As for Robert Levin, he wrote some of the worst liner notes that I have ever seen. I recall a racist write-up for one of the Prestige Shirley Scott albums where he laments the inherent limited emotional range of the blues, attributing it to the limited exposure to culture in the ghetto.

[sidewinder]

Agree that Bennie Green's Pablo notes are junk.

He came across much better on TV and especially, radio and was a pretty capable tenor/baritone player.

Of the current writers of liner notes, I really enjoy the ones written by Simon Spillet for Tubby Hayes reissues. A heck of a good tenor player too.

Edited November 26, 2013 by sidewinder

[BillF]

Agree that Bennie Green's Pablo notes are junk.

He came across much better on TV and especially, radio and was a pretty capable tenor/baritone player.

Of the current writers of liner notes, I really enjoy the ones written by Simon Spillet for Tubby Hayes reissues. A heck of a good tenor player too.

The first Parker album I bought - in 1958 - had totally pretentious notes by Benny Green that wittered on about the novels of Thomas Hardy.

The upside in British note writing in those days was to be found in the expert, well judged and beautifully expressed contributions of Alun Morgan.

[king ubu]

Hentoff and Morgenstern are the first two that come to mind ... definitely Dick Katz, too ... and Bob Belden for all things Miles.

And James Gavin, too, when it's about singers! He did some fabulous reissue notes for those Capitol Vocalist reissues some years ago (Julie London, Chris Connor etc.)

I didn't pay too much attention to liner nots for a looooong time (that is with the exception of ones for historical reissues like Mosaic boxes - and yeah, Larry Kart's fine notes on the T/K/M set were the very first I read in that respect ), assuming they're more about promotion than actual comment or analysis ... obviously pretty often that rings true at least to some exent, but reading liners like the ones (already mentione of course) by Figi on Roscoe Mitchell's "Sound" can be both highly-entertaining and very thought-provoking (actually these things usually fall together pretty much in my book anyway, not being a fan of dumbing down entertainment that corporate America has been colonializing the rest of the world with in the past couple of decades).

And I tend to agree re: Benny Green. Some of his notes just seem endless ... Bob Blumenthal took a lot of flac her for his notes to Blue Notes' RVG series - but I usually enjoyed his no-bull-factual-notes (while Green's often fall in a similar category, though using more flowery language ... but they are going on, and on, and on, and oh, there's one more page in the CD booklet, really? Now gimme a break!). Actually Blumenthal nearly makes my favorites list, too - he did some good Mosaic notes. And I do have a hunch I'm forgetting some others who provided great notes to Mosaic boxes, mostly those of older styled jazz ...

[jazzbo]

Chris Albertson, Dan Morgenstern and Michael Cuscuna are probably my favorites.

[ghost of miles]

Always enjoyed Stanley Dance & Joe Goldberg, a.o.

And David A. Himmelstein, if only for this epic:

Thanks for posting this--maybe someday they'll make the movie!

Edited November 26, 2013 by ghost of miles

[BillF]

In my youth my friends and I always used to chuckle at Ira Gitler's excesses: "Meanwhile Horace mines a vein of silver", etc.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

DZONDRIA LaISAAC!!!!!!!!

He used to write sleeve notes for Duke/Peacock in the sixties.

I can't cut and paste from Word...

WTF?

MG

Now I can

INTERESTING NOTES - ABOUT THE SLEEVE NOTE WRITER

All who read the sleeve notes of Dzondria Lalsac know, feel intimately within themselves, that here is a man/woman of coterminous stature in the fraternity of sleeve note writers. Almost, on might say, was the word “HYPERBOLE” invented for Dzondria. Nor was syntax, and to a greater extent than few others.

An artisan of commensurate ease with pen or pencil, Dzondria’s magic comes full circle on the typewriter, to swiftly enable you to completely ignore the music on the record. And this through methods of great simplicity!!!! - unerringly misplaced puntuation, seducing the eye into visions. of structure, and meaning never again, to be so magnificently fulfilled, if at all, BLOCK CAPITALS to strike the mind and fills it with enthusiasm.

Lalsac is not merely a writer but someone who puts words together. If they gave a Nobel Prize for sleeve note writing, he/she would surely be their first protagonist.

In the end, of course his/her achievement is the result of solid TEAMWORK and the incomparable backing of the DUKE/PEACOCK staff of just insufficiently diligent proofreaders. For years they practised together until at last they got it wrong yet again! !!!

MG

[Larry Kart]

Pretty sure Dzondria was a woman. I remember in particular some notes she did for a Bobby Blue Bland album.

In the plus category, I forgot the notes that James Patrick did for the LP-era Savoy Charlie Parker set.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I was always pretty sure Dzondria was a pure invention. SOMEONE was writing that stuff and putting the name at the bottom

MG

[medjuck]

George Frazier. I remember particularly liking some very personal things he wrote for what I remember being a Billie Holiday Lp but I'm not sure.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Seriously, I greatly enjoy a lot of sleeve note writers - including particularly: Bob Porter; Ira Gitler; Chris Albertson; Dudley Williams; and W A Brower, who wrote the note for Gator Tail's 'Bar wars' (don't know if he did any others, but that one's enough).

As for musicians writing their own, Freddie Roach gets my vote every time.

MG