mingus@sfsup.UUCP (Damballah Wedo) (09/05/87)
> rupp@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (William L. Rupp) (in <814@cod.UUCP>): > Well, I am only a long-time (since junior high school in mid-fifties) > fan, not a jazz expert, so I accept your comments on the West Coast > crowd as worthy of consideration. I know that the early fifties Gerry > Mulligan, Shorty Rogers, Dave Bruebeck, Chet Baker approach to jazz is > not highly thought of in many quarters, but it's one of my favorites. I reject blanket statements condemning West Coast jazzers as a bunch of white wimps who, in Sonny Stitt's phrase, "don't even sweat." First, they were not all white; see Hampton Hawes and Harold Land and Buddy Collette, for starters. Second, there is nothing wimpy about Mulligan's sound. You can have Chet Baker, and you can definitely have Dave Brubeck, but you absolutely can't have Art Pepper, a brilliant alto saxophonist. Pepper is not too well known because heroin addiction and subsequent prison and hospital stays kept him off the scene for 15 years. There are many others. A recent article in the (New York) Village Voice spends several pages detailing the Los Angeles bebop scene, *before* Charlie Parker went to California in 1947 (and had a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized, which led to "Relaxin' at Camarillo" and "Cool Blues", to provide some run-on trivia). -- Marcel-Franck Simon attunix!mingus Min pouki sa tout moun ap mande'-m' ki sa siyati-moin vle' di?
rupp@cod.UUCP (William L. Rupp) (09/08/87)
Yes, the West Coast is the Best Coast! Well, maybe not the best, but pretty good. One slight correction. Bird came to California for the first time, I think, in 1945. It was at Billy Berg's that Diz and Bird got a cold reception. Anyway, Bird's sojourn at the Camarillo mental institution was in 1946 following a troubled recording session in L.A. Anyway, that's the way I read it. Being just 4 years old at the time, I was doing very little be-bopping, even though I lived in the area. Bill ====================================================================== I speak for myself, and not on behalf of any other person or organization .........................How's that, Gary? ======================================================================
wjh@wayback.UUCP (09/15/87)
In article <2000@sfsup.UUCP>, mingus@sfsup.UUCP (Damballah Wedo) writes: > > I reject blanket statements condemning West Coast jazzers as a bunch > of white wimps who, in Sonny Stitt's phrase, "don't even sweat." First, > they were not all white; see Hampton Hawes and Harold Land and Buddy > Collette, for starters. Second, there is nothing wimpy about Mulligan's > sound. You can have Chet Baker, and you can definitely have Dave Brubeck, > but you absolutely can't have Art Pepper, a brilliant alto saxophonist. > Pepper is not too well known because heroin addiction and subsequent > prison and hospital stays kept him off the scene for 15 years. > Marcel, I'm surprised at your continuation of the stereotyping of (geographically) west coast jazz musicians as musicians who play "west coast jazz." Although Hampton Hawes and Harold Land were geographically west coast musicains, I don't think either usually played west coast jazz: Hawes was one of the finest straight bop pianists in jazz (check out his 3 volume All Night Session, a quartet date featuring Jim Hall, just released on a 2 CD set); Harold Land was a member of the prototype hard bop quintet, the Clifford Brown-Max Roach quintet. What about LA's Chico Hamilton? the early quintets were definitely west coast, but the groups from the early-mid sixties with Charles LLoyd certainly weren't. What about LA's Dolphy, who could play west coast with Hamilton, but certainly wasn't when he was with Mingus or Coltrane? What about our mutual favorite, Mingus, who grew up in LA? Some of his rare, very early "experimental" music was related to west coast jazz, but not much of the later work was west coast. What about Stan Getz (geographically, east coast), who played some good (althoough derived) bop in the early fifties, but later played a lot of the best west coast jazz? The point is that west coast jazz as a jazz style is distinct from bop, hard bop, avant garde, New Orleans, etc., but the musicians who played "west coast jazz" are not the same as west coast musicians. West coast, like bop, avant garde, etc. was played by easterners as well as westerners, blacks as well as whites, musicians who came from bop as well as musicains who went into bop. The distinction was looked down on by many musicians in the 50s (heyday of west coast jazz): the real distinction (as has been said ever so often by the best jazz musicians) is between good music and bad music. As you pointed out, there was a lot of bad west coast jazz, just as there was a lot of bad bop (why aren't the bad beboppers put down the way the bad west coasters are), but there is also some great west coast jazz (not necessarily from west coast musicians: weren't Miles Birth of the Cool recordings really the first west coast recordings). Bill Hery