That tune was written for John Coltrane. I knew he was on the date the next day. The way the setup was in those days, they’d tell me who was on the set and then they’d tell me to write six or seven compositions for the date. So I had to stay up all night long and write the changes, and next morning I’d come in to Hackensack, N.J., and make the records, then I’d go home and write some more music for the next date.https://tedpanken.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/two-interviews-with-mal-waldron-on-the-86th-anniversary-of-his-birth/
Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD (5th Edition), page 311 give The Prestige Recordings of John Coltrane a grade of ***(*)! [See my previous post regarding parenthetical matters.] These are my last words on Messrs. Cook& Morton.
I am spending today with, among other music, the music of the Jackie Gleason recordings featuring Bobby Hackett and others - nota bene one can't say the music of Jackie Gleason; when asked about The Great One's role in the recordings, Hackett commented that Gleason brought the checks. Bobby Hackett's trumpet on these recordings knocks me out. Hidden in the grooves of my Gleason vinyl recordings are solos by Nuncio "Toots" Mondello, Lawrence Brown, Charlie Ventura, and Roy Eldridge - knockouts all.
Next, I spent some time will the militaristic ballads of Carl Loewe (1796 - 1869) performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Baritone and Jörg Demus, Piano. Loewe fits in with my recent, renewed, interest in the lieder of Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Wolf, Mahler, and Die Neue Wiener Schule.
Next up were the Clef and Norgran recordings of Stan Getz, with the wonderful Bob Brookmeyer (vt), John Williams (p), Teddy Kotick (b), and Frank Isola (d). I wore out my Interpretations By The Stan Getz Quintet #2 vinyl Norgran disc during my high school stay which ended in 1959. A couple of really important Highland Park High School (Michigan) items are to be noted below.
Jazz & Basketball. My high school stay was consumed by jazz music and basketball. I subscribed both to Down Beat and The Jazz Review. At the time I read Down Beat for the gossip; although even as a young impressionable jazz fan I found the magazine's malevolent reporting of Billie Holiday's arrest at her hospital bed for drugs possession disconcerting. After my high school years I never read Down Beat much - it's racialism and philistinism disagreed with my sensibilities. Compared with The Jazz Review, Down Beat was infantile.
The Jazz Review began with its November 1958 issue and ceased publishing with its January 1961 issue - four volumes in all. All of the issues are now available on the internet through the offices of one of the journal's co-founders, Nat Hentoff. The late, and very much missed, Martin Williams was the other co-founder. So it will be worth one's while to peek at the online Jazz Review and see what grown up music journalism and criticism looks like. To wit:
http://jazzstudiesonline.org/?q=node/923
Highland Park High School in Michigan was a Class A basketball power in the 1950s and 1960s. Among its important luminaries were George "Baby" Duncan, George Lee, John Trapp, Terry Duerod, and (most importantly) Bobby Joe Hill. I direct the readers' attention to the online item that treats Texas Western's and Bobby Joe Hill's 1966 NCAA championship season among other important things . To wit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sesYdBm6j9Q&feature=email
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