JACK CHAMBERS

[Larry Kart]

What I have against Chambers, here and in his Miles Davis bio,  and James Gavin too, in his Baker bio,  is that their presumption of being on the inside is highly dubious and leads them to make errors of fact and emphasis that then can become part of the "real story.".I've mentioned some of these here from time to time. Also there's Gavin's obsession with Bruce Weber and gay politics.

 

[Stonewall15]

Jack Chambers biography of Dick Twardzik "Bouncin' With Bartok" is a masterpiece!

[Guy Berger]

On 7/25/2023 at 8:48 AM, Larry Kart said:

What I have against Chambers, here and in his Miles Davis bio, .

 

Here?  He’s a forums member?

[Larry Kart]

13 minutes ago, Guy Berger said:

Here?  He’s a forums member?

No, but he's become a topic of disciussion here at times.

[sgcim]

I can't believe it, Chambers squeezed out about 300 pages on Richard Twardzik, who lived to be 24, but not including a great discography, Vladimir Simosko only got 97 pages out of Serge Chaloff, who made it to 36!

That's not even three pages per year, when Chambers averaged about 42 pages per year on RT.

Of course, Chambers included  bios of everyone Twardzik ever knew, and stories about RT's dogs, drawings and other important things, but at least he got a fat book out of it!😁

 

[Guy Berger]

On 8/6/2023 at 9:36 AM, Larry Kart said:

No, but he's become a topic of disciussion here at times.

Ah.  I'm not a fan.  His MD bio is not without value, but the value is low overall and at times negative

[sgcim]

I have Guy Berger on Ignore, so I don't know what he said, but it can't be good.

I'm about halfway through this book, and because the writing is so small, the 97 pages are equal to double of that.

It's a much more objective book than the Chambers' Twardzik book. The author took the time to listen to records, air checks, concert broadcasts and private recordings that Chaloff just played section parts on. He finally reaches the "First Solos" chapter, and has a wealth of sessions that Chaloff was finally allowed solos on.

He pinpoints SC's addiction to heroin to the Georgie Auld Band, and covers Sonny Berman's OD death in  a few sentences, blaming the death on the "unevenness of the drugs" with the official cause of death as Heart Attack", with Berman literally dying in Chaloffs arms. Chaloff tried to get straight, but couldn't do it.

Already, at the age of 22, Chaloff is presented as a master musician, able to go from band to band on endless tours of one night stands, and still able to shine on every date.

[Larry Kart]

Can't find my copy of the Twardzik book to nail this down but there was a passage early on about Chaloff and Dick that stated/implied that when Serge came back to Boston he and Dick were on equal footing in the  jazz community. What nonsense. Serge was a poll-winning headliner and Dick was a talented novice who was jiust getting started.That Chambers could put the two men on the same plane meant to me that his overall grasp of the jazz world of that time was fairly dim and/or that he was so focused on Dick that his view dangerously distorted.

[clifford_thornton]

Was just looking at that Chambers book on DT online... still might check it out, and keep a healthy jar of salt nearby.

[sgcim]

3 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Can't find my copy of the Twardzik book to nail this down but there was a passage early on about Chaloff and Dick that stated/implied that when Serge came back to Boston he and Dick were on equal footing in the  jazz community. What nonsense. Serge was a poll-winning headliner and Dick was a talented novice who was jiust getting started.That Chambers could put the two men on the same plane meant to me that his overall grasp of the jazz world of that time was fairly dim and/or that he was so focused on Dick that his view dangerously distorted.

Yeah Larry, you've said this about three times already, but this time you're correct (as opposed to the "bone-fried bopper- the guy's a linguist for God's sake).

Twardzik was the heavyweight pianist in Boston at that time, but his two attempts at playing outside of Boston, in Mexico City and Florida, were complete disasters.

It was two years after Chaloff returned to Boston that he became Bird's favorite pianist (at least in Boston) and they bonded over their love of heroin and Bartok. What Chambers either meant to say or did say was that Chaloff and Twardzik were on equal footing in the jazz community of Boston; definitely NOT outside of Boston. I'll look for the passage.

One criticism of Twardzik seems to be valid. Johnny Williams said that he didn't know how to comp in a rhythm section to make a band swing. You can hear the difference in the Chaloff album where Russ Freeman plays on half of the cuts, and Twardzik plays on the other half. The band is fine with Freeman, but it dies when Twardzik takes over. As Joe Dixon used to tell me, "Pianists are assassins; that's why I use guitarists." 

So far it seems like Chambers was overly critical of Chaloff's behavior. Chaloff seemed to be a model citizen until he got hooked on heroin in the Georgie Auld band, and he just seemed to be using heroin to cope with the inhuman schedule of one night stands that he played with various bands.

Up to the Second Herd, he never missed a date, or even showed up late, and there's no mention of him even getting involved with any women. He was only 22, but was able to hang with musicians twice his age.

 

 

[Guy Berger]

7 hours ago, sgcim said:

I have Guy Berger on Ignore, so I don't know what he said, but it can't be good.

lol

[Larry Kart]

12 hours ago, sgcim said:

Yeah Larry, you've said this about three times already, but this time you're correct (as opposed to the "bone-fried bopper- the guy's a linguist for God's sake).

Twardzik was the heavyweight pianist in Boston at that time, but his two attempts at playing outside of Boston, in Mexico City and Florida, were complete disasters.

It was two years after Chaloff returned to Boston that he became Bird's favorite pianist (at least in Boston) and they bonded over their love of heroin and Bartok. What Chambers either meant to say or did say was that Chaloff and Twardzik were on equal footing in the jazz community of Boston; definitely NOT outside of Boston. I'll look for the passage.

One criticism of Twardzik seems to be valid. Johnny Williams said that he didn't know how to comp in a rhythm section to make a band swing. You can hear the difference in the Chaloff album where Russ Freeman plays on half of the cuts, and Twardzik plays on the other half. The band is fine with Freeman, but it dies when Twardzik takes over. As Joe Dixon used to tell me, "Pianists are assassins; that's why I use guitarists." 

So far it seems like Chambers was overly critical of Chaloff's behavior. Chaloff seemed to be a model citizen until he got hooked on heroin in the Georgie Auld band, and he just seemed to be using heroin to cope with the inhuman schedule of one night stands that he played with various bands.

Up to the Second Herd, he never missed a date, or even showed up late, and there's no mention of him even getting involved with any women. He was only 22, but was able to hang with musicians twice his age.

 

 

You need to be a linguist to tell the difference between "bona fide" and "bone fried"? Also, IIRC you seem to think that Bob Zieff actually used the phrase "bone fried bopper" in an interview, which seems highly unlikely. No, Zieff said "bona fide bopper" (the context makes that clear) and Chambers, or someone who was transcribing or transferring  the Zieff interview for him typed "bone fried bopper", and no one caught it. It does it rank high on the list of. the funniest typos ever.

 

[Big Beat Steve]

Somehow I have a hunch this Jack Chambers pet peeve might well turn into a(nother?) variation on the "take your turn at blasting Wynton Marsalis and you can't go wrong" theme. (I.e. "the target is out there and merits it - so let him have it ...")

Cases of authors trying to convey that they are on the inside of what they write about but on closer examination (by those readers passably in the know) are not aren't that rare. I'd guess if every attentive and knowledgeable reader got started on cases like this they would find a lot to quibble about in books by any number of authors and/or historians, particuarly in "our" field of music books ... Including some details that others might rate as minor errors but that might just as well undermine the reader's confidence in the author(s) once you realize that these authors apparently are liable to commit gross factual errors as soon as they stray (even minimally) off the core of their subject matter. Even if this may only be due to carelessness (which isn't the best indicator to confirm the author's diligence either)

And as for this "bone-fried" thing, it may well have been a mishap (but was it the author or some clueless typist who typed a spoken text, with the goof escaping subsequent proofreading?) but OTOH isn't it an amusing yet illustrative and understandable (to me, anyway) linguistic creation? And would it be the first case of an author making up a new term ??
A chance online search revealed, BTW, that this "bone-fried" had already been a "bone" 😁 of contention on THIS forum back in 2009 (FOURTEEN years ago! What's the fuss about through all these years?)
I've seen rather more blatant errors in written documents throughout my professional life, not to mention in my leisure readings (wonder what those inheriting my library one day will think of some of my handwritten corrections in some of my books - and therefore of me ). Coming to think of it, I might well have to pay closer attention during my future readings and/or re-check what I've annotated in the past (just because it baffled and/or grated me at that particular reading moment) - if only to put into perspective your assertion of "funniest typos ever".

At any rate, I wonder what else there is out there to correct in published books that despite these flaws are of merit anyway. To name just one example, there's one author whose books on music matters and whom himself I greatly admire for his knowledge, in-depth analysis and writing style but who could do a lot worse than to at long last take note that there IS in fact a difference between "then" and "than".
So ...?

Edited August 10, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[sgcim]

3 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

You need to be a linguist to tell the difference between "bona fide" and "bone fried"? Also, IIRC you seem to think that Bob Zieff actually used the phrase "bone fried bopper" in an interview, which seems highly unlikely. No, Zieff said "bona fide bopper" (the context makes that clear) and Chambers, or someone who was transcribing or transferring  the Zieff interview for him typed "bone fried bopper", and no one caught it. It does it rank high on the list of. the funniest typos ever.

 

Chambers opens up chapter seven like this:

"I wasn't a bone-fried bopster, and Dick had outgrown it," Bob Zieff told me. "He even listened to Brubeck before Miles Davis kosherized him. So there were very few of us lonelies." But if Zieff counted Twardzik among the outsiders, there were many others in the Boston arts community, including the bona fide bopsters, who counted him among the all stars, and both sides had a good case.

The fact that Chambers uses the term bona fide bopsters correctly in the same paragraph, means that Zieff liked to use word play in his speech, such as "kosherized" and "lonelies", and bone-fried bopster is just another example of that, as far as I can tell.

Also, when Chaloff comes back to Boston after the Basie Octet broke up, and then re-formed using another Bari sax player than Chaloff, Chambers made it very clear that Chaloff was a widely known musician, and Twardzik was a little known (outside of Boston) eighteen year-old who Chaloff took under his wing, because he recognized the amazing talent Twardzik had when he heard him playing in a club.

[Larry Kart]

Having met several bone-fried bopsters in my life, I love the term. As for it being a piece of deliberate Zieffian wordplay, all I can think of, if so, is  that it would refer to someone who exists totally within the more or less cliched bop lifestyle. But I think we've exhausted the topic. 

[sgcim]

2 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Having met several bone-fried bopsters in my life, I love the term. As for it being a piece of deliberate Zieffian wordplay, all I can think of, if so, is  that it would refer to someone who exists totally within the more or less cliched bop lifestyle. But I think we've exhausted the topic. 

Agreed.

[Big Beat Steve]

Exhausted or not - thanks very much, sgcim, for bringing up the exact quote. I did not remember the exact context either (I read the Twardzik bio after it came out but have only browsed certain sections here and there since) but now see why it did not strike me as an oddity or a mistake at the time. I must have intuitively understood it in the sense of "hardcore" or "dyed in the wool" (which made perfect sense to me, particularly if you consider that figurative/illustrative terms are coined in colloquial lingo all the time).
Interesting to see that it does seem to have been a Zieffian creation and not a mixup after all.

[clifford_thornton]

I mean, errors happen. It would be great if they didn't, but they do. I have found three in my own book (or 2 and a half) and I'm sure there are others that have escaped notice. But making broad assertions off of something that is at its foundation is erroneous is another matter. And no, I haven't read the Chambers book but I'm very Twardzik-curious so it's on my list (even if it's got a fair amount of looseness).

[sgcim]

6 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Exhausted or not - thanks very much, sgcim, for bringing up the exact quote. I did not remember the exact context either (I read the Twardzik bio after it came out but have only browsed certain sections here and there since) but now see why it did not strike me as an oddity or a mistake at the time. I must have intuitively understood it in the sense of "hardcore" or "dyed in the wool" (which made perfect sense to me, particularly if you consider that figurative/illustrative terms are coined in colloquial lingo all the time).
Interesting to see that it does seem to have been a Zieffian creation and not a mixup after all.

Yes, that's the weird way Zieff speaks. Thank you for your support in this case of Kart vs. Chambers in Organissimo Court. My defendant had a tough time of it, but he's a hard-working, honest linguist/jazz writer, and though I've never met him or heard of him, I'm sure he thanks you, too!

[medjuck]

8 hours ago, sgcim said:

Yes, that's the weird way Zieff speaks. Thank you for your support in this case of Kart vs. Chambers in Organissimo Court. My defendant had a tough time of it, but he's a hard-working, honest linguist/jazz writer, and though I've never met him or heard of him, I'm sure he thanks you, too!

I have met him.  I taught at the same university but met him at a Duke Ellington conference.  He's aware that there are some errors in his Miles biography but the publishers of the 2nd (1 volume) edition wouldn't allow him to make changes in the body of the book. However they did allow a new preface in which he points out how much Miles lifted from it for his "autobiography".  He also makes the claim (which I don't think I agree with)  that in his last years Miles put more artistic effort into his paintings than his music. 

[Larry Kart]

Yes, Chambers certainly was the victim in the case of Miles' autobiography. But I'd point the finger at "collaborator" Quincy Troupe. As you may know, Dan Morgenstern asked Miles what he thought of  the autobiography now that it had been published, and Miles said, ":I don't know -- I haven't read it."

[T.D.]

1 hour ago, Larry Kart said:

Yes, Chambers certainly was the victim in the case of Miles' autobiography. But I'd point the finger at "collaborator" Quincy Troupe. As you may know, Dan Morgenstern asked Miles what he thought of  the autobiography now that it had been published, and Miles said, ":I don't know -- I haven't read it."

Strongly agreed. I always thought Miles's involvement with that autobiography consisted of speaking into a tape recorder for a few hours.