Iazzletter PO Box 240, Oiai CA 93024'0240 Vd 24Na 3
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GerE Lrc Ad Libitum & Iazzletter PO Box 240, Oiai CA 93024'0240 Vd 24Na 3 And his time feel, which was amazing. But what really got On Scott LaFaro to me was the interplay between him and Bill Evans. The idea of a musical conversation was not really that new but proved to be By Don Thompson the combination of Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro amagicalone and together they took that concept to a whole that gave Scotty the In the movie lt's a Ll/onderful Life,Jimmy Stewart gets to see new place. Bill had provided the setting to feel it' the world as it might have been if he had never been born. freedom to play the music however he happened freedom comes This is something everyone thinks about now and then. We all Being free is one thing but along with that to work in like to think we will have made a difference in the world but agreatresponsibilify and it takes agteatmusician had nobody ever knows for sure. that setting and really succeed on all levels' Scotty great time, In music there are people who are so important that it is everything he needed to make it work. He had much impossible to imagine the world without them. Think about extraordinary ears, a fantastic sense of form, and so into his music without Bach, Mozart or Beethoven. Think abott jazz chops he could play pretty well anythingthat came without Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker or John Coltrane. In head. He was also blessed with the gift of melody and the history of jazz there have been only a handful of real counter-melody but most important of all he had a beautiful respond and innovators on each instrument. These people have shaped the musicality and sensitivity that enabled him to them' way their instruments have come to be played' On the piano interact with the other players without playing a1l over and no matter what the list would include Art Tatum, Bud Powell, McCoy Tyner, He knew exactly what the music needed music Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans. On saxophone there would be he played, or how much he seemed to be playing, the Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and John was always his first concern and he never let the music Coltrane. On bass there would be Jimmy Blanton, Oscar down. is still Pettiford, Ray Brown, Red Mitchell and Scott LaFaro. Of that What Scotty played was amazingthen and amazing group ofbass players, Ray Brown and Scott LaFaro stand out today. His solos were technically overwhelming but melodi- my from the rest. Ray Brown personifies the bassist's role in a cally breathtaking. The solo on My Romance is one of pure melodic rhythm section. With his beautiful sound, amazinggroove and favorites and the last eight bars, in particular, is Bach-like lines, Ray was the man everyone wanted to sound perfection. who like. That is until Scott LaFaro came along. Scott LaFaro is one of a small group of musicians imagine where The first time I heard Scotty play was on Portrait in Jazz really changed the course of jazz.It;s hard to with Bill Evans. I had been playing the bass for three or four he might have gone with music had he not been taken so years but was not really that interested in it. I was playing a early in his life, For me, and probably most of today's bass the bass lot of piano and vibes at the time, so playing the bass didn't players, it's even harder to imagine the world of to the really matter to me that much. But when I heard that track of without Scotty in it. He brought a brand new concept play Autumn Leaves, all that changed. There was a spirit of bass and in doing so he changed the way people would probably the most adventure and freedom I had never heard before and all ofa it forever. Forty-five years later he is still sudden it became very important to me to really learn how to powerful influence there is on the bass. he always be a play the bass. Hearing Scotty play with Bill Evans had opened I regret never having known him but will for everything up a whole new world of music to me, and I wanted to be a part ofmy world and I will always be thankful part of it. he contributed to it. Everything about Scotty's playing killed me. His sound, Toronto his solos (which actually reminded me a bit of Red Mitchell) - Don Thompson, March2007 believe that?) an owner, can cofilmand the government to Engulf and Devour declare war on another sovereign nation to acquire its petroleum resources, at the cost of (thus far) some 3,000 of Iraqi civilian You may not know who she is, but she is to my mind and yorrg American lives, countless thousands - a nation but its history, that of Doug Ramsey, Nat Hentoff, and Gary Giddins, among lives, the destruction not only of western civilization in others one of the most important business figures in the reaching back into the dawn of jazz world.- Teni Hinte was, until she got dumped, the Mesopotamia. As I wrote in Ten Ton Truck: publicity and public relations director of Fantasy Records' But aside from all the .t e is much more than that. Her dismissal by the Concord You will recall those days when, recording being done at Fantasy Music Group troubles quite a number of us. Behind jazz and high-quality pop and Capitol, there were a this lies a tale, and an ominous one. Columbia, RCA, Decca, labels doing excellent Fantasy was founded in 1949 by the brothers Sol and Max number of small independent Pacific Jazz,Dial, Savoy, Weiss with recordings by the Dave Brubeck Trio and Quartet, work, such as Dick Bock's and an upstart in Vince Guaraldi, who had a big hit with Cast Your Fate to the Prestige, Commodore, Riverside, whose first artist was Wind, andCal liader. It pioneered recording comedians live San Francisco called Fantasy, later years, Fantasy dwindled with the innovative and influentiat nightclub performances of Dave Brubeck . In a buyer of cata' Lenny Bruce, and then turned to pop music with the group as a source of new music to became Debut, Milestone (the Creedence Clearwater Revival, which was so successful that logs, acquiring Contemporary, catalog), Prestige, Pablo, and the Fantasy building at Tenth and Parker in Berkeley, Califor- old Riverside Records to rhythm and blues, rock, and nia, was known as the house that Creedence built. SaulZaentz various labels devoted Fantasy a major joined the company and then with a group of investors that pops. Creedence Clearwater ' . made generate new included Ralph Kaffel bought out the Weiss brothers. Zaentz force. If Fantasy now does little to resource in keeping avail- became chairman of the company, eventually become a major music, it was an invaluable those of movie producer, making such films as One Flew Over the able classic records from the past, including Pablo and Bill Evans on Riverside' Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus. Oscar Peterson on Evan afresh in albums The company continued to expand, buying up jazz, blues, And it did indeed record Bill sets. The Fantasy catalog is a and pop labels, including the catalogs of Riverside, Prestige, now available as boxed Milestone, Contemporary, and Pablo, becoming the largest national treasure. Fantasy in recording new independent jazz rccord label. This meant that Fantasy now Far more active than owned by a used-car dealer controlled a larger body of work by major jazz artists, among music was Concord, protested too much his them Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny named Carl Jefferson who limited to Jefferson's Rollins, and Oscar Peterson, than any company in the world' honesty. Concord's catalogwas jazz, which prompted one A couple of years ago I wrote a two-part piece called Ten conventional tastes in on that label ifyou Ton Truik, in an attempt to delineate who owns what in the musician to say you were welcome War. Its catalog includes worlds not only of jazz but publishing and communications were born before the Civil Byrd, Herb Ellis, Stan including newspapers, magazines, and television. It took me records by Ray Brown, Charlie Tito Puente, and Mel weeks to research, because the great conglomerates don't Getz, Gene Harris, Robben Ford, homogenized pop want you to know who owns what. Torm6. It also has a line of Patti Austin)' The broader significance of Karl Marx was not his pro- performers (and one brilliant singer, was sold at last to posal and espousal of communism but in his (for the time) At the end of 2004,Fantasy Music Group, which revolutionary idea that history was determined not by kings Concord, creating the Concord independent, adult- and dictators and heroes but by economic forces. And one of called itself "a new leader in Marx's contentions was that corporations would devour each focused music." purchased by Norman other until they reached such a size that governments would Concord had by then been a partnership with take them over. Marx was wrong: bien au contraire: they Lear and Hal Gaba, who entered Partners. Tailwind defines itself as "a have grown to such a size that governments aren't taking them Tailwind Capital focused on media and other over, they are taking over governments, as the recent history leading private equity firm capital of Enron (George W. Bush's friends) and Halliburton, of growth sectors," saying it "provided new equity It owns companies, which Vice President Dick Cheney is formerly (do you really to the Concord Music Group'" March 2007 merged ranging from orthopedic devices ankle braces and Concord has completed its acquisition and has - called the the like to Next Media, which, according to its own the two companies to form a new entity publicity,- "has become a key player in the media Concord Music Group, Inc.