Warne Marsh

Dick Trickle · January-17th-2004, 01:28 AM

I think he may be one of the least talked about, and most deserving of praise players of all times. I knew a little of his work from different albums and such, but I just got the Mosaic box set and I can't calm down. His playing is sublime. There is not much to say. Other than WOW! This guy could do it right on the button. Anyone with thoughts on this? Any other albums you can suggest? I'm a little blown away over my current listening so ignore the drool. Rex

saltwatersnow · January-17th-2004, 02:00 AM

i love warne marsh, just listening to lee konitz live at the half note which has marsh equally prominet and is am amazing album.

bostontricky · January-17th-2004, 11:04 AM

Anthony Braxton speaks at length about Marsh in Graham Lock's book Forces in Motion and completely flips over Marsh's soloing on "The Song Is You", off the Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre album.

The list of cited LPs at the rear of the book includes:
Music for Prancing
Warne Marsh
Jazz Exchange Vols. 1-3
Warne Out
How Deep, How High
Hot House
Warne Marsh in Norway

and also:
Chet Baker - Blues with a Reason
Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh
Lennie Tristano - Live in Toronto 1952

- - - -

Braxton is right on about Marsh's soloing on the Konitz Meets Giuffre album. I'll try to spin the Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh disc today, and hopefully offer something later. Totally underrated.

al j · January-17th-2004, 12:10 PM

If it hasn't been already, Warne's ALL MUSIC is due to see CD reissue on Nessa's label. Marsh never fails for me and that recording stands near the top.

Dick Trickle · January-17th-2004, 12:17 PM

Hey, thanks for the titles. I will see what I can get. I definately was freaking out last night... I new that I liked his playing before, but the stuff off of the Mosaic set... especialy disc 6 was full of fun for me... possibly some of the coolest and most deceptive melodic lines I have ever heard to come from a Tenor player. Definately a universe of it's own is contained in his sound. Rex

HenryMc · January-17th-2004, 04:31 PM

What does the MOSAIC set contain? We're a bit out of it down under.

I have 'Ne Plus Ultra"which I consider a classic

BFrank · January-17th-2004, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HenryMc
What does the MOSAIC set contain?

Here's the link to the site: Tristano/Konitz/Marsh

Also, keep an eye out for the Pete Christlieb/Warne Marsh Quintet album, "Apogee" - produced by Becker & Fagan of Steely Dan.

shrugs · January-17th-2004, 06:03 PM

Just spun Star Highs. The communication between Hank Jones and Marsh is worth the trip alone.

Bill Barton · January-17th-2004, 08:27 PM

Yes, it's good to see Marsh's name pop up on the board again! He's one of my all-time favorite musicians, truly a unique sound and conception.

I have a particular fondness for Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh mentioned earlier in this thread, perhaps at least in part because of the killer rhythm team of Kenny Clarke and Oscar Pettiford (originally on Atlantic, reissued by Koch.)

If you haven't already read it, Safford Chamberlain's Marsh biography, An Unsung Cat: The Life and Music of Warne Marsh is excellent, as is Out of Nowhere: The Musical Life of Warne Marsh by Marcus M. Cornelius (written in the form of a "novel," this is quite a poetic and unusual book.)

relyles · January-17th-2004, 10:23 PM

I am a big Marsh fan as well. I think the recording that hooked me was Lee Konitz' Live At The Half Note . The interaction between Marsh and Konitz on that recording is, as always, sublime. Another strong recommendation for Ne Plus Ultra and the Chamberlain biography.

shrugs · October-13th-2004, 12:01 PM

Are there any good quality recordings of any live shows that Warne did in the 70's? The warnemarsh.info page lists some very attractive set lists....

Capt.W./TX. · October-14th-2004, 12:33 PM

"Star Highs" is extraordinary!

To me, it's particularly fascinating to hear Marsh in front of a booting, aggressively swinging rhythm section (Hank Jones, George Mraz and Mel Lewis), if only because it's something that Lennie Tristano would have frowned on and discouraged in the early years.

Back in the late 40's and early 50's, Tristano seemed to discourage drummers in his groups from playing anything but strict 4/4 time; bassists played quarter-notes-nothing else!. Check out records of Tristano and his pupils (Marsh, Konitz, et al) from this period; you'll seldom hear drummers playing anything but very strictly even-almost 'academically' metronomic-time, usually with just brushes on snare drum. I have checked and confirmed this with a drummer who was around back then-Lennie didn't want to hear anything else!

The 1955 Atlantic LP ("Lee Konitz with Marne Marsh") has Oscar Pettiford and Kenny Clarke; as such, it represents a stylistic break from a typically 'Tristano-style' group sound. It might have been the first of its kind.

I've often wondered if Tristano's propensity for discouraging rhythm sections from playing more intense time-or- 'swinging too hard' (in an attempt to keep the listener's attention focused on the melodic creations of the soloist, perhaps?) wasn't the main reason his-and his students'-music was regarded as 'intellectual' and 'academic'. And, consequently, failed to achieve as large a following as some other jazz stars of that period.

Back to my original reason for posting: Marsh was an often astonishing
improviser, creating lyrical yet other-worldly melody lines; with Mel Lewis kicking him along, he shoots for the moon! "Star Highs" is easily one of the greatest albums of Warne Marsh's career!

shrugs · October-14th-2004, 04:10 PM

have you heard All Music?

J.A.W. · October-14th-2004, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shrugs

have you heard All Music?

If not, you really should!

shrugs · October-14th-2004, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J.A.W.

If not, you really should!

Definitely!! Everyone should buy it asap!!! Lou Levy tears it up!!!!

frankiepop · October-15th-2004, 04:00 AM

I think 'Ne Plus Ultra" is pretty tuff to beat as well....tho i am open minded....i just wish that rite of swing with tabackin&marshe would be released on cd..is it?

relyles · October-15th-2004, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frankiepop

I think 'Ne Plus Ultra" is pretty tuff to beat as well....tho i am open minded....i just wish that rite of swing with tabackin&marshe would be released on cd..is it?

I have the Tabackin/Marsh 1976 Inner City LP, Tenor Gladness. It has never been issued on CD. One of my favorite recordings featuring Marsh.

shrugs · July-22nd-2006, 02:03 PM

'The Times', Studio City, CA. March 13, 1975

this live date is great. Warne and Lou tear it up!!

Paul B · July-22nd-2006, 02:15 PM

"His melodic lines were Proustian. He was an intellectual improviser, who played intensely complex melodic lines, which demanded complete concentration and offered no over-the-counter emotions. He was never a popular player: he never courted audiences when he performed. He disappeared inside his music. He was a shy, hidden, restless man who waited for the world to come to him and, when it did, returned the compliment in full. Marsh might have been a cult figure but wasn't. Cult figures often leak; Marsh was watertight."

--Whitney Balliett

shrugs · July-22nd-2006, 02:30 PM

where is that from?

Paul B · July-22nd-2006, 03:39 PM

It's his obit for Marsh. Probably first appeared in the New Yorker, but it's reprinted in "Goodbyes and Other Messages: A Journal of Jazz, 1981-1990" published by Oxford University Press.

saxnova · July-23rd-2006, 01:35 AM

I love his solo on April off of the Live at the Half Note with Konitz, Motian, Garrison and Bill Evans. I wrote that one down while I was on the road. When I started to practice it, I realized how really unorthodox his lines are, even just physically on the horn. He was so successful at subsuming Lennie's vocabulary and stylistic bent and truly improvising in a way that was congruous with those compositions they were playing at the time. Mark Turner really made a study of him for a while, and I think it shows in very cool ways in his playing as well. Warne is a true innovator.

Felix · July-23rd-2006, 10:19 AM

"Ne Plus Ultra" was just reissued by hat, and it's really wonderful. Apart from superb tristanian tunes, there's a surprising 15-minute improvised piece called "Touch and Go" where the four musicians display a unique sense of interplay.

I'd love to find that Konitz Half Note album (I think it's OOP now).

One album I discovered recently is a Storyville CD called Warne Marsh Trio: The Unissued Copenhagen Studio Recordings, which has Marsh playing standards and a couple of bop tunes (Confirmation and Little Willie Leaps) with NHOP and Al Levitt. It's really excellent, and the sparse setting lets his sound come off nicely. Pick it up if you see it, it will make you wonder why they waited all these years to release it.

HornForHire · July-23rd-2006, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BFrank

Also, keep an eye out for the Pete Christlieb/Warne Marsh Quintet album, "Apogee" - produced by Becker & Fagan of Steely Dan.

Yes, I've got that one too. Very nice!

Dr Dave · July-24th-2006, 10:45 PM

I have "Warne Out" which I don't listen to very much, because it still sounds really strange--and I mean wonderfully strange--and I'd hate for it to lose its strangeness. I can't say why, but I find his double-tracked solos particularly affecting. It is as though Marsh is playing with a second, ghostly Marsh.

rollhead · July-25th-2006, 05:28 PM

Anyone read this book? I want to order it, but it is $42 in paper.

relyles · July-25th-2006, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rollhead

Anyone read this book? I want to order it, but it is $42 in paper.

Yes. It is excellent. One of my favorite jazz biographies.

relyles · July-25th-2006, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul B

It's his obit for Marsh. Probably first appeared in the New Yorker, but it's reprinted in "Goodbyes and Other Messages: A Journal of Jazz, 1981-1990" published by Oxford University Press.

It is also in Collected Works, which is mentioned in the Balliet thread.

Paul B · July-25th-2006, 05:52 PM

Right. Collected Works is simply a compilation of all Balliett's OUP books, including Goodbyes and Other Messages. There is a also a good Marsh profile in American Musicians ("A True Improviser"), which I'm sure is also in the compilation. It's quite a bit more substantial than the obit from which I quoted the passage above.

fasstrack · July-26th-2006, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dick Trickle

I think he may be one of the least talked about, and most deserving of praise players of all times. I knew a little of his work from different albums and such, but I just got the Mosaic box set and I can't calm down. His playing is sublime. There is not much to say. Other than WOW! This guy could do it right on the button. Anyone with thoughts on this? Any other albums you can suggest? I'm a little blown away over my current listening so ignore the drool. Rex

I played with him once in 1982, I think. He came over a friend's apartment where they used to have sessions. Marsh was living at the Bretton Hall on 86th and wasn't far from this guy on the Upper left Side.

He sounded beautiful that day, ahead of the beat but totally correct. It was the way he phrased, like one of those great brazilian singers like Elis Regina---ahead but relaxed. I remember thinking of Bird somehow in what he played but he sounded really like no one else.

We took a break and he lit some reefer in a pipe and passed it around. As a conversation developed he started philosophizing. I'll never forget he said something that he could hardly have been the first person to think of, but I agree with completely. It was sort of turning the 'penis envy' thing on its head: 'Men go out and conquer and start wars because they're jealous of womens' ability to create life by having children'.

Then he got up and played his ass off again. After the session he paid me one of the most succinct and greatest compliments of my life before or since, since we had just met.

"Yeah, man. What's your name?"