Category: Features

Gary Bartz, John Coltrane, Jazz At Lincoln Center

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So the other day I’m sitting home working and I get a forwarded email from The Lovely Mrs. JC about a John Coltrane Festival taking place in New York between October 18 and November 3 and on that very night there will be something called a “listening party” with the saxophonist Gary Bartz and it is free and it is three subway stops away at Jazz At Lincoln Center at Columbus Circle. So I do a quick search on the Internet and it turns out that Bartz has a new album out called “Coltrane Rules: Tales of a Music Warrior,” and at this listening party he will discuss the album and play some tracks. Now I am a big fan of Gary Bartz, ever since I saw him three nights running at Bradley’s down on University Place at least 20 years ago and was blow away by his sensitive, passionate and inventive playing, the closest thing on alto to Sonny Rollins. So, I went down to Jazz at Lincoln Center and I went to the listening party and it was terrific. There were maybe 30 people in the place, a small studio with folding chairs, and at the front there were Bartz sitting on a chair with Read more

Sonny Rollins: “Jazz is a Meritocracy”

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Somebody sent me this interview of Sonny Rollins by Dave Pehling that came out today in SF Weekly. I will skip the intro, figuring anyone here knows enough about Sonny’s history, and go straight to the interview, in which Sonny is quite open and thoughtful

Q: You initially played piano and alto saxophone before settling on tenor, but from what I gather, that was because an alto horn just ended up in your household?

Sonny: No, my mother bought me an alto. I was an aficionado of the rhythm and blues band of Louis Jordan, and he played alto. He played tenor too, but mainly he played alto. So at that time I just wanted a saxophone, and it didn’t really matter until a few years later when Coleman Hawkins’s “Body and Soul” was the big sensation. Then I wanted to play like Coleman Hawkins. I wanted to get that tenor sound.

Q: Had you played piano much before you got your first horn?

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Granz, Farlow & The American Recording Society

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Here’s a little tidbit that comes courtesy of my friend Dan Axelrod. Dan, as faithful readers of Jazz Collector know, was a great friend and protege of the guitar legend Tal Farlow. Dan sent me a note last week asking the following question: Why did Norman Granz farm out the first issue of The Swinging Guitar of Tal Farlow out to a record club? My first response was surprise. He did? I didn’t know that. Turns out the first issue of this record — my favorite of all the Farlows — was issued under the auspices of American Recording Society. I’ve had a few records issued by ARS over the years and, if I recall properly, they didn’t have hard covers. The ones I recall owning were Billie Holiday records, but I didn’t keep them because I had the original Verves. I, of course, suggested to Dan that we post the question here at Jazz Collector, but before either of us got around to posting, he did some research and came up with the answer. Here it is:

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A Convention of Jazz Record Collectors. Really.

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I saw a note that the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors is meeting this weekend in New Orleans. Sounds like it may be fun, with classic films, live jazz and, of course, dealers selling records. I’m not a member of the organization and I don’t know anyone who is. Seems kind of funny, I guess, that I do this site called Jazz Collector and there’s an association of jazz record collectors and I don’t know anything about it. The explanation, I think, has to do with the way I’ve always approached this lovely hobby and the way most of you in the Jazz Collector community seem to approach it as well, and that is: We seem to enjoy the thrill of the hunt, and the hunt tends to be a relatively solitary endeavor. I remember when I used to go recording hunting with my friend Dan and there was always a battle for the best records: Who saw it first, who wanted it most, who just had to have it, who would be willing to pay more. At some point I  realized it was more fun to go hunting by myself and then tell him about the scores after the records were safely ensconced on my shelves. The idea of joining an association of collectors never had that much appeal. Here at Jazz Collector we can share

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Check It Out: Satchmo At The Waldorf

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I saw a terrific new play last night called Satchmo at the Waldorf. The play is by the Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout, who has been cited before at Jazz Collector for an article he wrote several years ago called “Can Jazz Be Saved?”  This is Teachout’s first play and he’s done a remarkable job of piercing through the public persona of Armstrong and giving us a portrait of the man and musician. Teachout’s writing is aided considerably by the performance of John Douglas Thompson in a dynamic solo effort in which he plays Armstrong as well as his long-time manager Joe Glaser and Miles Davis. The play takes place backstage at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York just several months before Armstrong’s death in 1971. I would hope and expect that most of the readers here at Jazz Collector recognize the genius of Armstrong and his seminal contributions to jazz even though we don’t write about him very often. Indeed, he is not part of the “Jazz Collector Era” we talk about and his records are not often among the collectible Blue Notes and Prestiges that make up the bulk of our postings. But none of the music we love and cherish here happens without him coming first, right?

In Satchmo at the Waldorf Teachout takes us backstage after a performance. He uses the device of Armstrong dictating his life story into a tape recorder, but Armstrong realizes he is in the more comfortable setting of talking directly to an audience. A lot of the play covers the complex relationship between Armstrong and Glaser, which provides some of the dramatic tension that brings good theater to life. There are more than passing references to Armstrong’s relationship to the boppers, particularly Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, and the deep pain and injustice he felt at being called an Uncle Tom.

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Is There a “Jazz Collector” Era?

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What are the points of demarcation for the era of jazz that we love and write about here on Jazz Collector? When people ask me about the jazz I love, I generally characterize it as the period from around 1945 to 1964 or 1965. Not that there hasn’t been great jazz — and great jazz records — before or after that period, but those are the years I use to describe the era of jazz I collect and love. The 1945 starting point is pretty clear — the birth of bebop and the first bebop recordings. But what about my arbitrary end point point of 1964/1965? I was thinking about that today and three things came to mind: 1. A Love Supreme was recorded in 1964 and in some ways, that’s the end of the era for me. After that Coltrane went way avant garde and his recordings started to veer away from music I could relate to. To me, A Love Supreme kind of feels like a coda musically to the period that started with Bird and Diz and the other boppers; 2. Blue Note was sold to Liberty in 1965. Talk about the end of an era! The third reason hadn’t occurred to me until now, but I think it has to do with The Beatles and the dramatic changes taking place in pop and rock music. The jazz guys started thinking they had to cross over to make money and be relevant and the music began shifting as well. I look at the DownBeat covers from the late 1960s and by then pop music had even usurped jazz in the industry’s leading jazz magazine. Anyway, it was something I was thinking about while fishing on the lake today and I was curious what others think. Others?

Guest Column: Treasure Hunt — Prestige

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Miles Davis at Prestige in New York

So Don Lucky was asking me offline about something to do with Prestige, and I suggested he contact Rufolf, and Rudolf replied with this fascinating tale of how he ended up at the Prestige warehouse, and Don Lucky and I said Rudolf you have to write this up  for the rest of the Jazz Collector audience, and Rudolf said sure, and here it is. Enjoy.

Treasure Hunt — Prestige
How a Courtesy Call Turned Out to be the Discovery of the Cave of Ali Baba

By Rudolf Flinterman

In the ‘50s/early ’60s a simple catalog of say Prestige, Blue Note or Contemporary could be of invaluable worth. Without, one simply could not know what was in the market. There were no discographies like Jepsen and Ruppli and no Internet, of course. At the time I would regularly write to Prestige, Pacific Jazz, Blue Note, Atlantic and Contemporary requesting to send me a catalog, which they all did. Lester Koenig always wrote a kind letter. Nesuhi Ertegun of Atlantic was so kind to send me copies of deleted items, for free!

In 1959 Prestige sent me an offer to become a free member of their Jazz & Folk Record Club in Teaneck, N.J. The formula was simple: Pay for two, receive three. Especially for New Jazz, with a list price of $3.98, that was an interesting proposition. I still have the box of the first shipment from Prestige. For three records I paid 2-X-$3.98 plus 89 cents postage, i.e. $2.95 per album, which was the equivalent of 10,75 Dutch florins. At the time the list price in Holland was 18 Dutch florins. No wonder that I became a frequent buyer at Prestige throughout the ‘60s, despite the fact that the sea transport and customs took more than two months.

In 1969 I made my first trip to the U.S. We stayed for one week in Manhattan. I travelled with the then-Mrs.-Rudolf. The first day we made a boat trip with the Circle Line to have a general idea of the city. I then proposed to her to make a courtesy call to a certain Mr. Bob Weinstock – “who would be most happy to make our acquaintance,” I assured. She could hardly object to this great idea. So the next day she found herself in the bus at the Port Authority to go to Bergenfield, N.J.

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An Old Jazz Collector Tribute To Charlie Parker

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This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. When I was breaking in as a journalist my first job was as the jazz critic for the Syracuse New Times, an alternative newspaper in Syracuse, NY. I did a bunch of interviews — Charles Mingus, Chick Corea, Larry Coryell, among others — record and concert reviews and other features. I once posted my Mingus Interview here at Jazz Collector. Most of the articles are long gone, not in my files, certainly not saved in any digital format — this was the early 1970s, nothing was digital then. However, I did save a copy of an article I wrote about Charlie Parker, which was timed to coincide with the 2oth anniversary of Bird’s death in 1975. I recently dug up the article and painstakingly retyped it into my computer and now it will be saved digitally forever and ever. And now, when people do a search of Charlie Parker and Al Perlman, I will forever be associated with Bird. It’s enough to put a big smile on my face, that thought. Me and Bird. I like it. Anyway, it’s a pretty well written article, if I must say so myself, but there are clearly youthful indiscretions and probably a little too much borrowing from Ross Russell’s Bird Lives, including the opening scene and some idle speculation that Bird got his nickname because he loved fried chicken. There are many stories to go with this article and how it got published — and how I got away with using the word “motherfucker.” But those are for another day. Oh, and I didn’t put that stupid headline on the article nor did I get to approve it. I’ve attached the article as a PDF to download for simple viewing. Here it is: Charlie Parker Article. I’m also going to see if I can post it below here without screwing up Jazz Collector and, to prove there really was an article to begin with, we have a picture of the original, from April 13, 1975. If you are going to comment, please be kind. I was only 22 years old at the time. Read more

Pining (Again) For Record Store Days

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Here’s an article about another record store closing: Cutler’s record store in New Haven closing after 64 years in business. It’s not necessarily news anymore when a record store closes, but this seems to have been a pretty popular store. The real news would be a record store opening. Not much chance of that, is there? I’ve never been to Cutler’s in New Haven, but I’ve been to many record stores in my  day, all around the U.S. and a bit in Europe as well. Of all the things I love about collecting, the think I miss the most is being able to go into a record store and going  through the bins searching for that one record or two or even, hopefully, many more that are sitting there with great music, great covers and an affordable price. You know that feeling of rifling through the bins, record by record, passing all of the Herb Alperts and George Bensons and Al Jarreaus and, boom, there it is, an original Fats Navarro on Savoy or Stan Getz on Verve or, on the best days, a Jackie McLean or Lou Donaldson or anyone else on Blue Note. The business of collectible buying and selling has moved to eBay, with good reason (at least for the sellers), but it’s certainly not nearly as much fun. Is it?

 

European Vs. U.S. Pressings

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I recently picked up a batch of European — and South African — pressings of original jazz records from the ’50s and ’60s. Being American and a New Yorker at that, I’ve always had access to the U.S. pressings and, frankly, never had interest in the European pressings. I’m now listening to a Brubeck Columbia, CBS actually, with the heavy vinyl, red label, deep grooves. It has the soft cover and, now that I look at the cover, is actually from South Africa. There’s a note at the bottom: “Everyday is somebody’s biirthday. Give a national record gift token exchangeable anywhere in Southern Africa.” I just took off the Brubeck and am now listening to Ella Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook. All of this is leading to a point and some questions. For those who follow these things closely, is there a noticeable difference in sound quality between the American and European pressings?In listening to the Ella record now, the pressing, quite frankly, sucks. Really bad. The Brubeck was much better. How do you feel about the soft covers? And for those of you who were actually buying records in the era — Rudolf? Michel? — were you content to have the European pressings, or did you focus on the U.S. pressings? Just curious. Not sure what I’m going to do with these European pressings I now own. There’s something nice about having them, knowing they were issued at the same time as the U.S. versions, but I do have U.S. pressings of most of these. Oh,the challenges of being an obsessive collector. I hate to get rid of anything, even if I have it.

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