AndrIH we're proud • to esay... ^ Previn• records for Contemporary ANDRE PREVIN & HIS PALS SHELLY MANNE AND RED MITCHELL! ANDRE PREVIN & HIS 1PAL DOUBLS E PLAY! ANDRE PREVIANDRN 1 E PREVIN 0. DIICC CDCnUAM ••"•'•>••• plays songs 1 CONTEMPORARY C3B4S K A the swinging modern jazz 9 tunes: from easy swing to the first modern jazz 2 piano the pianist's first solo work — version of music from the funk to up-tempo to haunting album: "a listening ball"— a singular undertaking in the Academy Award motion pic- ballad — Previn's special dish Down Beat. 8 tunes by Andre jazz world. 10 of Duke's won• ture! C3548 and Stereo S7020 of tea. M3543 & Stereo S7543 & Russ.C3537 & Stereo S7011 derful compositions . C3558 with Shelly Marine & His Friends SHELLY MANNE & HIS FRIENDS Shelly Manne & his Friends r Andre Previa and ANDRE PREVIN & RED MITCHELL modern jazz performances of songs from Leroy Vinnegan»Modern jazz performances of srt£ Shelly Manne & his Friends songs from I '1 BELLS ARE RINGING <z*s***v-cibs modern jazz performances LI'L % of songs from MY A8NER FAIR ^ a LADY5 K% the latest jazz version of a "Previn at his best...just "...one of the most completely the first modern jazz perform- Broadway show . "collabo- about the last word in roman- engaging moments in the ance of a Broadway show rative genius" say the Bells tic jazz playing" — Saturday careers of Andre and Shelly" — a best seller for over 2 solid authors.M3559& StereoS7559 Review. C3533 & Stereo S7019 -Metronome C3525 years! M3527 & Stereo C7527 and for SFM(Society for Forgotten Music):ERNEST CHAUSSON's PIANO quartet IN'a MAJOR, SFM1003 and Stereo S70H Monophonic albums, $4.98 each; Stereophonic albums, $5.98 each —at dealers everywhere nationally advertised manufacturer's suggested list prices 8481 MELROSE PLACE CONTEMPORARY RECORDS LOS ANGELES 46, CALIFORNIA LETTERS ARS GRATIA ARTIS IN OUR BACH DOOR REISSUES FROM ENGLAND I was very gratified and appreciative to SOMEDAY I read with interest the Rudi Blesh re• view of the booklet, Recorded Jazz: A read Ralph Berton's review of The Book The February issue of J.R. shows signs Critical Guide, by Messrs. Harris and Rust. of jazz in the April issue. The review did of improvement, but you've still a long what all record and book reviews should ways to go. The historical articles are Mr. Blesh rather overstressed the posi• do, though few ever manage to—it ex• worthwhile and certainly commendable. tion in saying that "the number of jazz amined what the book set out to do and The technical material means nothing to records available in England is small com• analyzed its successes and failures in terms me as I'm not a musician. (How many pared with our Lucullan repast." In fact, of that objective. J.R. subscribers can appreciate these arti• I imagine that the number of issues avail• able here of all types of jazz compares I understand from Ralph that some seri• cles? ) reasonably well with the position in your ous cuts were made in the original review, The record reviews are tiresome. The country. Certainly, we have managed to as a result of which many of the quotations sheer volume of text devoted to reviewing retain as representative a selection of early supporting the theory 1 advanced in the recordings which I may never hear, let recordings as is currently available in the book concerning the birthplace of jazz were alone purchase, is exhausting. home of jazz! deleted and a musical example was omitted, Hentoff's "Jazz in Print" rambles on and as a result of which one segment of the on. If he is trying to prove that he reads However, the point made by Rudi Blesh text became almost meaningless. It seems every word printed on the subject of jazz, that many records listed in the booklet unfortunate that whoever edited the review well man, I'm convinced. are only available in Britain might be evidently tended to edit it in terms of his Occasional attempts at humor (a $10 reasonably answered if you will grant us own preconceptions, since there were many offer for "Zulus' Ball") are the heavy- a slice of free publicity. passages in the review that could easily handed efforts of humorless individuals. Any of your readers interested in pur• have been cut without affecting Mr. Ber• No, my interest in jazz has not lessened. chasing discs listed in the Penguin book ton's main points. I spend more on records than ever before, can do so at best export prices by ordering and enjoy reading Down Beat as much to• Incidentally, I should like to go on from this company or, for that matter, any day as I did twenty years ago when 1 record concerning his theory in answer to other reputable mail order house. bought my first copy. The trouble here my own point about the blues scale. Ralph's seems to be that you fellows are not com• We will gladly supply details to inter• analysis is highly perceptive and I am in• municating very well. ested readers. clined to agree with him that the alphabet Ken Lindsay, manager, Agate analogy I made does not stand up in re• How does one go about successfully & Co. Ltd., 77 Charing Cross lation to the matter of musical intervals. communicating? Well, I've just finished Road, London W.C. 2, England In other words, he is right and 1 am wrong. rereading "The Hot Bach" by Richard 0. Boyer, the reprint of the 1944 Neiv Yorker P.S. Incidentally, we at Dobell's Jazz The minor errors in the book which series on Duke Ellington, which appears Record Shop, and this associated company, Ralph pointed out, such as the typograph• in the new volume. Duke Ellington, His consider your magazine a very welcome ical mistakes and the reversion of the facts Life and Music. Boyer is a good writer, addition to available jazz literature. concerning the E-Flat alto sax, were all and the articles are immensely enjoyable. corrected before the appearance of the (I suppose that some of the hippies in paperback edition. The latter was published your crowd object to anything being writ• TEMPS PERDU about the same time as Ralph's review of ten in a manner that all can comprehend.) This past week, I was at Lester Young's the book, though no mention was made of To close with a suggestion, I will stay funeral, and it is mainly about Lester that it in The Jazz Review. The publisher of with the subject of Ellington. I think the I write today. I didn't attempt to approach the paperback edition is Meridian Books. fine Coral album under the leadership of anyone at the chapel because I felt too Finally, I must point out that I dig son Mercer, may be something of an his• badly about Lester, and I wasn't sure that Ralph's .sense of humor and honesty in torical milestone. At any rate, the possi• anyone would understand the rather per• admitting something that is never admitted bilities are intriguing. May Duke continue sonal feeling I had for Lester (I can do by any critic who takes himself too seri• for another 15 years. But the fact that without the "Prez" bit), and to an outsider, ously, namely that any critic who credits Mercer may carry on in his father's foot• this interest can seem rather maudlin at another critic with "keen judgment" merely steps, is certainly gratifying. I wish you times. means that the latter's views agree with would interview him for some of his I first heard Lester in 1938, at a debu• his own. I don't think there is a critic thoughts on the Coral session. tante party at the Pelham Manor Country living (including all the musician-critics) I. L. Jacobs Club in Westchester (I crashed). It was of whom this is not true, hut Ralph is San Diego, California my first taste of Basie in person, although the only one I've ever known to admit it. I had heard him on the Make Believe Leonard Feather YOU CAN'T FORCE THE BEAT Ballroom. (What a wonderful show that New York, New York An item on page 49 of The Jazz Review used to be!) Not only was I completely reminds me of an incident on the history taken with the band and its wonderful of jazz in Russia told in a book, Taming shouting quality, but when Lester stood up, INTELLECTUALIZING THE cocked his horn up at an angle and began INTANGIBLES of the Arts, by J. Jelagin, a refugee who, 1 think, is playing in a symphony orchestra to blow those wonderfully loose, legato pas• Your magazine really does an excellent in Houston. He describes an attempt by sages (forgive any technically misused job! You've upheld certain ideals in this the Kremlin in 1938 to "fit jazz into its phrases) which were so out of place in art form plus doing something that's musical scheme and create a jazz band those days, when tenor men were so con• needed—verbalizing certain aspects of jazz which would be Soviet in spirit." The scious of the beat that they tried to blow that people in the past have passed over finest Russian composers, including Shos• a note for every one, 1 was completely won by saying, "Man, you've gotta feel it!" takovich were ordered to write music for over. From that point I followed the band Of course you do, but 1 love this magazine the band of 43 drafted musicians.