Of those listed, Dolphy's always been the one that I think may have been the greatest loss. His intelligence and range of interests seem to have been especially enormous--who knows where it may have led? And the years following 1964 may have been especially promising for whatever he developed to take root. (btw, some ten years earlier, I think Clifford Brown may have been a similarly great loss).

I think a lot about what Booker Little might have done. He was so young -- 23, I believe -- at the time of his death, and you can hear how close he was to grabbing the brass ring on his Candid and Bethlehem dates, as well as on Max Roach's PERCUSSION BITTER SWEET. I'm not sure there's been a trumpet player like him since: his tone, his harmonic understanding (advanced but also VERY idiosyncratic), his compositional sensibility... I'm not really sure what Little would have done, but I'm sure it would have been important.

And Herbie Nichols is still so important to me. Anyone who has tried to make it in "the arts" can empathize with Nichols' frustrated, missed-it-by-that-much career. To read his life story is to read a tragedy; to hear his music, however, is to have one's faith renewed in the complexity of the human condition. I know part of the romance that is attached to Nichols' reputation derives from his relative obscurity, but his obscurity in turn is due to the fact that you can't really fit his music into any conventional paradigm. Nichols was THAT unique.

there's a pretty funny article along these lines at:

http://www.thehighhat.com/Marginalia/001/marginalia001_bangs.html

it's a review of the new Lester Bangs anthology, with the conceit of interviewing him in heaven in 2003. it doesn't touch on jazz musicians, but from the rock world:

"The scene’s gotten so fucking insular, and truth is, practically nobody’s as good as they used to be. You bios make me laugh - that’s what we call the living up here, ‘bios,’ little rock-crit double-entendre - with all your blather ‘bout how much great music you’ve been deprived of when so-and-so died. Well, guess what? God had his plan, I guess, ‘cause they all suck now. You should hear the shit Hendrix has been spewing out -him and Morrison. Christ, man, it’s like Mantovani meets McKuen. John Denver fucking laughs at those guys. David Byrne was right - nothing ever happens up here."

thanks to Phil Freeman's blog for pointing this piece out to me...

Jon, thanks for posting that Bangs link from Phil’s pad (a place I’ve been frequenting fairly regularly too).

Definitely didn’t mean to limit imaginings to the few I listed. Lets roam far & wide.

Herbie Nichols- amen to that. His is a case of an early demise compounded by lamentable obscurity while he was alive. Insult to injury, as it were. I’d like to believe that had he lived, the larger jazz audience would’ve caught up with him far sooner.

What about folks like Richie Valens & Janis Joplin? These are cases, I think, were the intrinsic tragedy of dying young far eclipses any attendant musical contretemps. Would Buddy Holly fit here too?

Cardew was supposedly thinking about rejoining AMM when he was killed in the early eighties. that would have been interesting to watch develop.

Maybe Lady Day would have done a guest episode on "Eight is Enough" and Dolphy would have done the music for "SpongeBob Squarepants"?

C'mon Walt, you can do better than that in your sleep.

Well, Marilyn Horne guested on "The Odd Couple" and the main guy from Devo has been doing the music to "Rugrats" for over 10 years. So who the hell knows?

Actually, maybe E.M. Forster would have known. Ever read "The Machine Stops" (1909)? Very prescient. But don't ask me...I never would have predicted back in 1970 that Morton Feldman would be considered cool by 20-year-olds in 2003.

By the way Derek, you haven't told us just what alternate realities you had in mind for, say, Iron Man and Dr. Strange.

Don't read too far into this, but I was thinking a great idea for a screenplay (and later a Miramax movie) would be an indie record label owner who gets fed up with the amounts of back catalog in his closet, garage and attic and decides to take a proactive approach to the careers of his/her artists and starts knocking them off one by one, which of course contributes to their 'taken from us too early/genius' while simultaneously causing a windfall in demand.

Dr. Strange was born to be a guitar hero. Or he at least has the wardrobe for it...

the above post by "Jon" was written by the good Mr. Morgan, not myself, to differentiate between two cranky indie label owners who are both desperately looking for ways to sell enough CDs to stay in business and who share a common first name.

along the same lines, I like to joke that I'm not interested in music at all, my master plan is just to build up my collection of original Keith Rowe paintings until he hits it big.

Julian Schnabel gave a big boost to Van Vliet's artistic career IIRC, maybe Rowe could use some torque from that corner.

BTW, I think Jon M's screenplay has great potential!

Funny that you should ask Walt. I’ve been watching quite a bit of pbs lately (alas, no cable at the Taylor Ranchero), mostly Jim Lehrer and locally produced home improvement & cooking shows. So I’m reinvisioning millionaire industrialist Tony Stark as the CEO of a chain of Home Depot style stores. His alias: Aluminum-Siding Man.

Dr. Strange is no longer a Master of the Mystic Arts and instead Dr. Jen-Air Range, Master of the Culinary Arts: a formidable presence on the travelling chef circuit going mano-y-mano with the likes of the Naked Chef and Iron Chef for the coveted Cosmic Cooking Crown. Now for the revised costumes…

Jon (Abbey, that is), it happened to Ivo Perelman, so maybe Rowe’s next? Keep those canvases safe & sound and they might pay for a bungalow in the Bahamas some day.

Jon M. Welcome aboard. Someone call Tarantino on that script idea, he might bring just the right sort of pulp nihilism to the project.

Remember Tony Stark is a recovering alcoholic. I see "motivational speaker" in his future, Oprah appearances, a best-seller with a title like "The Drunk in the Iron Mask: My Battle agsint Substance Dependency and the Skree".

Here’s one: what if mild mannered optometrist Rudy Van Gelder had stuck with his initial vocation and never invaded his parents Hackensack, NJ living room with recording equipment? The repercussions of such a shift in the serendipitous forces of fate are almost too dire to contemplate.

(going back to the original post): perhaps the early death that leaves me most saddened is Larry Young's. For early jazz figures, you could name Berigan, Beiderbecke & Lang as notable casualties who were denied the chance to develop their work further. Fats Navarro. Yes, Dolphy & Little & La Faro & Coltrane & Ayler & Kirk, that goes without saying. Hampton Hawes could have used a few more years tacked on to his life. Grant Green (I suppose one has to add Wes Montgomery, despite the decline into commercial pap--who knows if he'd have continued that route once jazz's fortunes picked up in the 1980s & 1990s). Willie Dennis. Booker Ervin. Tony Williams. Carl Perkins. Jimmy Blanton. Charlie Christian. Frank Rosolino & Sonny Criss, two real West-Coast tragedies.

& Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Keith Douglas, Frank O'Hara & Clere Parsons, though they were writers of course.

You think Ayler would have come back from New Grass with something decent? I admit I gave up on him long before that; basically once he moved from ESP to Impulse!, I stopped caring. But still...you think he had more good music in him?

Totally have to disagree about post-ESP Ayler. The GREENWICH VILLAGE set on Impulse is among his best work IMHO: beautiful string-heavy ensembles & crisp live sound (a vast improvement fidelity-wise over the ESP stuff). Lorrach on Hat is also extraordinary (especially in the most recent Pfister remaster). Then there’s THE COPENHAGEN TAPES on Ayler Records, which really expands on the legacy of the Peacock/Murray trio, again in very inviting sound. I listen to all of these far more often than BELLS/PROPHECY or SPIRITS REJOICE. Even LOVE CRY has it’s moments.

I like to think that if Ayler had been able to get his shit together & his support network had been stronger, he would’ve dropped the ‘commercial’ inclinations & built prolifically instead on his early folk song base. Definitely think there was far more music left in him.

I agree with Derek. I feel that the live Greenwich village recording is Ayler's strongest, and feel the music he made in that period documented on the Hat release (although I haven't heard the remaster) and parts of Love Cry are great. I feel like Impulse would have dropped him after one more crossover attempt, and invariably he would have ended up going back to what made him unique. Which makes me think also stroke and death aside that Roland Kirk would have benefitted from not being on Atlantic after the Inflated Tear, and maybe Blacknuss. Some of those Kirk Atlantics are dreadful.....
But my problem is for every Fats Navarro there is a Bob James and Gato Barbieri (just to continue with an ESP theme) who might still seem cool had they died after their ESP projects.
I'm more intrigued by The Wizard on Black Beings...what happened to him?
Jon

Jon, I thought "The Wizard" was either Ramsey Ameen or Leroy Jenkins, so maybe that answers part of your question.

Yup, those Greenwich dates are the worm. But then again, I'm hot and cold with Ayler. It was with the Greenwich dates that I realized his palette was a little broader than the however-many-handful of versions of Ghosts, Spirits Rejoice and traditionals in his bag. Hard to say what direction Ayler would have carried on into, even had he 10 more years to work with. I've felt that his playing often seemed a direct reflecton of who he was sharing the line with. He seemed much more aggressive with his brother than with Cherry, who seemed to push him far more lyrically.

All that said, I tire of Ayler fairly easily. There are the times where only his horn will do the trick, but then not again for months.

>I tire of Ayler fairly easily. There are the times where only his horn will do the trick, but then not again for months.

Total agreement from this corner. I don't listen to Ayler very much at all. I go to him when I want screaming, but still want to stop short of pulling out Buncha Hair That Long or Alabama Feeling.

The Wizard is none other than Raymund Cheng, who also plays on Lester Bowie’s ROPE-A-DOPE. So sez Frank Lowe. Al, didn’t know you were such a fair-weather Ayler fan :)

"Jon, I thought 'The Wizard' was either Ramsey Ameen or Leroy Jenkins, so maybe that answers part of your question."

From what I have read, "The Wizard" is actually Raymond Cheng, who also appears on Lowe's FRESH and Lester Bowie's ROPE-A-DOPE.

http://www.jazzweekly.com/interviews/flowe.htm

Joe, how 'bout that for synchronicity

Derek -- so, whatever did happen to Raymond Cheng?

"Derek -- so, whatever did happen to Raymond Cheng?"

Leroy Jenkins ate him.

Derek- small doses, man. Small doses. Speaking of Impulsinated tenors whose work I preferred prior to migration... Listening to the new reissued Shepp on Hat. Lord knows I didn't want to hear an 80's Archie playing covers, but this is really good.

Joe, I did a few half-hearted net castings & came up with bupkis on Cheng. Maybe we should ask Frank directly?

Al, I’m with you on I KNOW ABOUT THE LIFE. Just crossed the final ‘t’ on a review for Dusted & have to say it’s one damn fine album. Not as good as STEAM, but head & shoulders above a lot of his 80s stuff. Love how he & John Betsch tear it up on the reading of Trane’s “Countdown.”

Oops, it's "Giant Steps," not "Countdown." My memory's kinda hazy this morning. Too much Cuervo last night.