Yes, with Chloe van Largerveldt (his second and fifth wife).
Chloe also provides the handclaps on the opening track, Weeny Widdy Witchy.
Ruddy Yurts RIP
- Thread starter Santino
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Chloe also provides the handclaps on the opening track, Weeny Widdy Witchy.
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
It wasn't her hands, so I've heard.
In fact, apparently that experience was originally cited in the divorce papers* as evidence of emotional cruelty, but it had to be stricken from the record because no-one could agree which of them it was actually emotionally cruel to.
*the first divorce, that is - obviously their second marriage ended far more tragically...
quimcunx
imprimeo, lamino, distribuo
Are you sure? I'd heard they recorded over it after she finished for the day* with Ruby Coulter. Perhaps just a malicious rumour from those in Ruby's team after her and Chloe's contretemps the following month.
*she sure loved those quaaludes.
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
To be honest I feel a bit grubby for indulging in this gossip about her now - the less-than-savoury rumours that always seemed to swirl around van Largerveldt undoubtedly played a part in pushing her to those increasingly bizarre suicide attempts.
And we like to think Ruddy was the one who came up with lots of new ways to use a bassoon....
And we like to think Ruddy was the one who came up with lots of new ways to use a bassoon....
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
the more I think on this, the more the story rings hollow. Now I'm as big a Yurts fan as any on the boards, but let's not deny his character. That mercurial arrogance was what made him so great live. Yurts was not a man noted for his shyness and wallflower tendencies. If there was a credit to be had, he would have had it- didn't he coin the phrase 'Ruddy has played, Ruddy gets paid?' wise words from a man with that many divorces and children to pay for! No it must have been over a woman, and Cash cut him out of his due somehow.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
TBF, I think that, at the time, a lot of musicians saw this new technologies taking root and became quite fearful that they were, as it were, the next Fender, Gibson or Rhodes of its day. Many ill-advised forays into SynDrum, Moog and vocoder technologies were perpetrated by otherwise respectable artists, with varying degrees of success. Herbie Hancock appeared to have pulled it off with "I Thought It Was You"; Yurts singularly failed to do so with AutoErratic.
I sometimes wonder whether Yurts realised that he didn't need to do anything to make his mark - he had already done that, both by virtue of his style of performing, and by his choice of instrument. These constant collaborations, covers projects, and attempts to push the boundaries, on content, presentation, or just sheer bulk, bespeak, to me, a very deep and ingrained insecurity about the validity of his talent and oeuvre, an insecurity which I feel stayed with him to the end. However, had it not been for that insecurity, what might we have had? Another (albeit bassoon-led) Spirogyra? Another Herbie Hancock soundalike, or any one of a whole series of identikit 70/80s jazz performers. No, it was his drivenness and need to somehow be special that both gave us his greatest clunkers, and yet marked him out as a talent just a little different from the pack.
I'll forgive him any number of 172 minute tracks for that.
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
I think that's spot on existentialist. I think in that respect he's got a lot in common with an artiste from a very different milieu, Neil Young.
Of course, I may be being influenced in that comparison by Yurts' surprise appearance onstage with Young at the Muskogee Willow Ptarmigan Festival in 1992, and their excruciating bassoon/guitar riffing on a theme from Cortez the Killer. Thank god no-one's ever owned up to having covertly taped that performance, so it's nothing but a hideous memory in the minds of the 17 punters who were actually front-of-house for it. Jazz Grunge is one crossover the music world really didn't need
Of course, I may be being influenced in that comparison by Yurts' surprise appearance onstage with Young at the Muskogee Willow Ptarmigan Festival in 1992, and their excruciating bassoon/guitar riffing on a theme from Cortez the Killer. Thank god no-one's ever owned up to having covertly taped that performance, so it's nothing but a hideous memory in the minds of the 17 punters who were actually front-of-house for it. Jazz Grunge is one crossover the music world really didn't need
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Well there were always the rumours about Yurts' flirtation with heroin- I never lent any credence to the slurs but since some skeletons are coming out of the closet I wonder if any aficionados here know anything I do not?
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Given that the origin of those rumours appeared to be someone testifying on his wife's behalf at his sixth (seventh?) divorce hearing, I've tended not to take them very seriously. There was a lot at stake, and a lot of very nasty, very sticky mud was being thrown. And Candida De'ath, the wife in question, knew the bizarre circumstances around the end of his fourth marriage - indeed, there were suggestions that she was not entirely uninvolved, even at that early stage - and might well have felt that she could capitalise on them.
For my money, and although Yurts' drug experimentations were prodigious and wide-ranging, he tended to play it pretty safe, on the whole. I do often wonder whether a lot of the big talk about drug-taking was part of that whole business of trying to maintain a certain level of 1970s muso street cred...
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Oh dear god, twitter says there is at least 31 children born out of wedlock now clambering for a slice of his legacy. The way things are going I expect the relatively meagre capital he amassed to end up as 10p each for the beneficiaries.
5t3IIa
Registered User
Mother still isn't home! What was in the punch?? DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Some ugly scenes at the after party. Really, it was not what Ruddy would have wanted. A storming gig by all accounts, marred by a few angry bassoonists out to make trouble. Very disrespectful imo.
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
For me it's this time now, not immediately after someone's died, that is really difficult. It's like the rest of the world has moved on. I know, life always does that, and I don't really blame anyone for getting on with it.
But at times I just want to shout and scream: "Ruddy's gone! He's not coming back! How can you go fucking SHOPPING, don't you care at all?"
But at times I just want to shout and scream: "Ruddy's gone! He's not coming back! How can you go fucking SHOPPING, don't you care at all?"
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I feel that way every time I hear a Cbdim9#13 - "how can you play that chord and NOT sob into your absinthe".
In honour of his passing, I sang a fragment of his Elegy In F# Mixolydian as my vocal warmup before the choral concert last night.
In honour of his passing, I sang a fragment of his Elegy In F# Mixolydian as my vocal warmup before the choral concert last night.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Craig Charles Funk & Soul show last night played an acid jazz cover of Yurts 'rhapsody in melon'. Quite good. Six music remembers.
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
Kate Bush apparently sang a couple of bars in a reference to Yurt's work whilst submerged in a huge vat of custard at her Hammersmith gig tonight.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
sometimes it is quarter to one am on a schoolnight and you just think 'fuck the world, I'm playing a Ruddy Yurts album'
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
Nice.
Libertad
Sparking up a rollie in the Reichstag
I was attempting to outline to a friend, who is a soi-disant jazz-buff, the importance of the career of Ruddy Yurts. My friend said that he had never heard of jazz's foremost bassoonist and I pointed him to Wikipedia for more info but it seems that there isn't a Wiki entry at present. He googled Ruddy on his phone and strangely this thread was at the top of the page.
I was surprised at this and wondered why there was no Wiki entry, legal reasons? It seems such a shame that a talent like Ruddy's is not more widely celebrated. I really miss him and was playing 10,000 Gigayurts last night into the small hours until the neighbours begged me to stop.
I was surprised at this and wondered why there was no Wiki entry, legal reasons? It seems such a shame that a talent like Ruddy's is not more widely celebrated. I really miss him and was playing 10,000 Gigayurts last night into the small hours until the neighbours begged me to stop.
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
I noticed this the other day - it's shocking how absent Yurts is from the internet. I believe it's incumbent upon us Yurts afficionados to rectify this, by discussing him as widely as possible online
8ball
As seen on TikTok
I noticed this the other day - it's shocking how absent Yurts is from the internet. I believe it's incumbent upon us Yurts afficionados to rectify this, by discussing him as widely as possible online
There will be no more legendary Yurts performances and frankly a lot of the recorded stuff leaves me cold* compared to the real live, living, breathing Yurts when he was in his element.
The recordings are a gateway to the memories for me and they're not making the memories any more.
* - especially that series of 8 albums that you need to play on 16 stereos arranged in a dodecahedral arrangement around the listener with variable delays based on the Fibonacci sequence - it will no doubt be sacrilege to many on this thread, but to be honest I felt it was bordering on gimmickry
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
There will be no more legendary Yurts performances and frankly a lot of the recorded stuff leaves me cold* compared to the real live, living, breathing Yurts when he was in his element.
The recordings are a gateway to the memories for me and they're not making the memories any more.
* - especially that series of 8 albums that you need to play on 16 stereos arranged in a dodecahedral arrangement around the listener with variable delays based on the Fibonacci sequence - it will no doubt be sacrilege to many on this thread, but to be honest I felt it was bordering on gimmickry
I know where you're coming from, but if we don't spread the word we're denying a new generation of people the opportunity to discover Yurts as we once did, even if only in debased, recorded form. Remember that moment of discovery? Hold that in your heart: we mustn't let jazz purism deny that sensation to new fans, as it did with so many other one-time greats:
Dick Chickory
Leon Chleb
Jack "Chops" Drover
Sandy "Maestro" Pervez
Lacy Nasmith
Oscar Chirivia
Who now remembers any of them as more than a footnote in jazz history? Must there always be such a list?
Dick so-called Chickory (or Montgomery Ermintrude Richard Chick-Bartingly, Viscount Pimmley, as his parents named him), has no place on that list. A hack, a plagiarist, and a terrible card cheat. It is well known that all his recorded banjo parts were actually played by a session musician (on one occasion Ruddy Yurts' wife, Vanessa Töorteeb), and his instrument was rarely hooked up during live gigs.
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
Ironically, you have fallen prey to mistaken identity as I did on the very first page of this thread. Rick Chickory is indeed a fraud. Organist Dick Chickory, one of the largely unsung heroes of the proto-jazz funk movement that germinated in Omaha, Nebraska early in 1963, knows that as well as anyone, having had to deal with this confusion over and over during his long career.
Here he is demonstrating his versatility, providing an unexpected mute trumpet solo during Ulli Gatzmann's stand-out set at the Bucharest Jazz Festival of Romania back in 2002:
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DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Ironically, you have fallen prey to mistaken identity as I did on the very first page of this thread. Rick Chickory is indeed a fraud. Organist Dick Chickory, one of the largely unsung heroes of the proto-jazz funk movement that germinated in Omaha, Nebraska early in 1963, knows that as well as anyone, having had to deal with this confusion over and over during his long career.
Here he is demonstrating his versatility, providing an unexpected mute trumpet solo during Ulli Gatzmann's stand-out set at the Bucharest Jazz Festival of Romania back in 2002:
Thats a wonderful photo- really catches the evocation of the jazzman at his point of apotheosis
Theres apparently a glossy coffee table tome celebrating Yurt's life, love and music coming out- hundreds of never before published photos and stills from his ill-fated big screen outing 'Yurts on Fire'.
The text won't contain any information unknown to readers of Shannon O'Keefes four part biography 'Intensely Yurts'. But the photos alone surely make it a must have for Yurts afficionados
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