bertrand

Good. I think there is a list of what Naima had since she tried to sell it at auction. But this is the first I am hearing that Alice had tapes, although I always assumed it.

Blue World is a different situation. No one at Impulse ever argued against its release for 25 years. They were literally not aware of it, Coltrane recorded it on the sly with the complicity of Rudy and Bob Thiele. But it is under the Impulse umbrella due to the contract. What they did not tell you is that it will probably be the last release ever of a Coltrane Impulse studio date. All the remaining unissued sessions are probably lost. Our only hope is if Coltrane had a backup copy, which we know he did for Both Directions. But Naima had that one, did Alice keep the ones from 66-67? I asked Archie Shepp, he did not get copies of sessions. Sonny Rollins did not remember that happening either. Does this prove that Rudy only ran a second recorder for Coltrane? No, it just seems to indicate that he did not do so for Archie and Sonny. I need to have a chat with Maureen Sickler about all this. Bertrand.

Yes, ultimately we can stream first and decide if we want to buy or not. I saw a press release from Blue Note calling this a 'lost' session. What a joke. Feldman's press release does not make this claim, but he is proud of being a producer of this release. The job was mostly to talk people into putting it out, methinks. It takes a certain talent, I am sure, which I would not have. Bertrand.

There are a lot of 70s Blue Note sessions that should never have seen the light of day. Not too many clunkers in the Lion/Wolff era though. There are a few that have a bad reputation, but that is subjective. I think ultimately, the issue is that this is the first, extreme, example of a decision that the old guard (Lion, then Cuscuna/Lundvall) felt strongly about that the new guard (Don Was/Zev Feldman) reversed. How much the new guard took the old guard's opinion into consideration is something we will never be privy to. I don't think this will happen a lot. This was probably the 'Lost' session with the most 'commercial potential'. The Train Wreck will remain in the vaults although it is a 'better' record. I don't want to speculate about the Shorter session. I will never clamor for it, but I am a bit curious, as I am curious about the Kenny Dorham one. Bertrand. PS: The bonus tracks to Sixth Sense were an interesting turn of events. I can't remember how they decided to reverse Cuscuna's decision to burn the session, maybe releasing only three tracks was the compromise.

If you mean the Horace Silver, that was the only instance I know of a tape being given to the artist. I never heard it was destroyed by Horace. There has always been this concern of being accused of trying to make a quick buck. 60 years is hardly quick...

Except apparently the tape on that one is missing. Some lost compositions on that one also...

Ah, they chose seven, but I got six. I did not get the Jimmy Smith, not sure why. The Blakey, Hutcherson and Reece were too notch. The three others were not as strong but still well worth having.

So now Kenny Rogers the country singer passed away at 81. The guy who did The Gambler. Just happened today. Who was this thread about? I am pretty sure the sax player who recorded with Lee Morgan died a while ago. Who was the person memorialized at Lincoln Center two weeks ago?

In the second edition, certain sessions such as the Shorter one were changed to 'rejected'. I am very curious to see if Feldman puts out a further press release about this. I doubt he will claim he discovered the session, but I also doubt that he is aware that in 1999, when we on the old BN board were asked for a wish list of unissued sessions for the 60th anniversary, this one came up for consideration but was not selected. Six were chosen: Hutcherson's The Kicker, Blakey's Drums Around The Corner, a Grant Green and the Lost Sessions. Also, I think there was a Jimmy Smith. Can't remember the 6th. I am sure he will not suggest the Train Wreck. He could never talk the current regime into its having any marketability. Remember that Natural Essence was never issued on CD in the US, I am pretty sure. For me, the interest in some of these sessions partially lies in the fact that they contain otherwise unknown pieces by some major composers. It would be nice to rescue them regardless of releasing the session. The new Blakey has a Timmons piece he never recorded again. That one was not completely lost, there was a lead sheet at the Library of Congress. Jimerick is a mystery, however. It kind of has the vibe of a Lee Morgan tune, but even though almost all of his recorded pieces were copyrighted, as well as a bunch of others, this one is not in the stash, nor was the piece called Lee's Tune from Drums Around The Corner. I assume that one was credited to Lee on the session reels. Even though the Shorter session will probably never come out since Wayne requested it, it would be nice if someone could at least make lead sheets of the pieces contained therein. If Bob Belden did so, I am not aware. It would be interesting to see, if only for research purposes, if they evolved into pieces recorded later. As an analogy, Wayne told me that parts of the piece Twin Dragon that I found at the Library of Congress were later used on Atlantis, and I can kind of hear what he means without it being overt. There is a research project for someone - what parts of Twin Dragon made it to Atlantis? Wallace Roney recorded it, but it has not come out yet. Lennie White told me they are still trying to figure out the 'logistics'. However, it can be heard as part of an NPR Jazz Night in America broadcast. Would love to hear somebody's thoughts on that. Finally, on the subject of lost pieces - a rejected track from Grant Green's Solid record recently popped up on YouTube. It's an otherwise unrecorded Duke Pearson piece, possibly called Spanish Dancer. I made an MP3 and paid a musician to make a chart. So now the piece is lost no more, but that does not mean I am putting out there, until I figure out a way to do so. It is not the greatest thing he ever wrote, but it not my prerogative to make this decision. I am sure there are many lost classical pieces that are not the greatest, but their discovery was still welcomed. Bertrand.

Yes, Don Sickler produced these sessions. Label is still TBD. I guess it could just be MP3s on his site, I would be OK with that but CDs are nice as well. He is also starting to sell lead sheets. My dream is to have a one-stop shopping site for all his music. Of course, new songs always appear. There is speculation that the song Nickels, recorded by Mary Lou Williams in 1954, is by Herbie.

From jazzleadsheets.com. I was at the first session last year!!! One year ago today (January 3, 2019) we were at the Van Gelder Recording Studio celebrating Herbie's 100th birthday with his family and pianists Frank Kimbrough and Glenn Zaleski. Both Frank and Glenn each recorded a previously unrecorded Herbie Nichols composition, on the same piano Herbie played for his Blue Note sessions. These were the initial recordings that started my new project, the Herbie Nichols Solo Piano Summit. Today, January 3, 2020, on Herbie's 101st birthday, we're announcing that as soon as possible we will be releasing, not just the above two recordings and lead sheets, but 24 previously unrecorded Herbie Nichols compositions recorded by 23 different great pianists (encompassing eight generations!) in our special Herbie Nichols Solo Piano Summit project. All were recorded at the Rudy Van Gelder Studio on the same famous Steinway B piano that Herbie and so many famous jazz pianists (Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and many others) recorded on. As a producer, it was a great honor for me to work with these 23 pianists, who, in turn, all said they were honored to get to pay tribute to this great pianist/composer Herbie Nichols. I'm anxious for everyone to get to hear these new, previously unrecorded Herbie Nichols compositions. Look for more announcements about the specifics of the project from jazzleadsheets.com. Herbie Nichols is a classic example of a visionary jazz composer whose music was way ahead of its time. His life story and music have some parallels to those of Thelonious Monk, whom he knew well. Like Monk, Nichols wrote music in the 1940s and '50s that was much more advanced and idiosyncratic than the mainstream of jazz at the time. However, whereas Monk's music became widely known later in his life, Nichols did not live long enough to see such recognition. During his lifetime, he was mostly known as a Dixieland, rhythm and blues, and swing pianist and as the composer of Lady Sings The Blues, a classic ballad that Billie Holiday added lyrics to and recorded in 1956. Only after his death (at age 44) did the larger jazz community start to discover more of his music. Nichols recorded only seven sessions as a leader. The first was in 1952, later released on the Savoy label; this was a quartet session of standards and blues and included his first recorded composition, Who's Blues. The three instrumental tracks from this session only happened because there was time left over after the main two vocal tracks were recorded (bassist/vocalist Chocolate Williams and the Chocolateers). In 1955 and 1956 he did five sessions for Blue Note, his best-known recordings. Almost entirely comprising original compositions, these sessions featured Nichols in trio settings with Al McKibbon or Teddy Kotick on bass, and Art Blakey or Max Roach on drums. These recordings, some of which were not released until the 1990s, are the definitive examples of Nichols' playing and composing styles. His songs are playful and endlessly inventive, while mostly keeping AABA-based forms. The melodic and harmonic language is at times quirky like Monk's, but often bluesier and not as jagged-edged; many of his melodies are quite singable. However, Herbie also had tremendous "chops" and could really fly over the keyboard. Nichols' soloing on these Blue Note recordings is quite unusual: not purely improvisation, most of the time he simply plays variations on his melodies—something Monk would also do, but not as much as Nichols did. Nichols' last recording as a leader was the Bethlehem album "Love, Gloom, Cash, Love", recorded in 1957 with George Duvivier on bass and Dannie Richmond on drums. In the 1980s and '90s, several musicians started playing Herbie Nichols' compositions. Trombonist Roswell Rudd, who knew Nichols in the '60s, published a book of some of Nichols' songs that were not recorded in his lifetime. Rudd recorded these, as did the Herbie Nichols Project, a group led by pianist Frank Kimbrough and bassist Ben Allison which recorded three albums in 1995-96, 1999, and 2001. Others who have recorded and/or performed Nichols' songs include Steve Lacy, Vijay Iyer, and Julian Priester. Many of Nichols' other compositions, however, have yet to be recorded. Don Sickler: I first read about Herbie Nichols in A.B. Spellman's great book, "Black Music." Later, when Herbie's grand nephew Lawrence Sealey came on the scene, I learned a lot more about Herbie from Mark Miller's fantastic portrait, "Herbie Nichols: A Jazzist's Life."

Wayne was not given the tapes to destroy, I guarantee you. I was hoping he would remember the 5 compositions that were on the session. It was in 2006. He was 73 at the time. And he still remembers his music today at the age of 86. It was Matt Pierson. I asked a couple of people who heard it. Not a funk record by any stretch.

I believe Horace got the Pep's tapes, but Shorter did not ask for his session. When I worked on the composition appendix for the Shorter book, I tried to get more info on what the 5 songs actually were. Wayne's response was that he did not remember the record at all! I remember that comment about Pearson, and I am trying to figure out more about Wayne's relationship with Duke. Duke produced four Wayne sessions for Blue Note, I am not convinced Wayne was not happy with his work. Joe Chambers told me Duke was very hands off, almost invisible, at the sessions, so how could he mess it up? Lots of loose ends to tie up...

The website is not a reality yet, but just to get things rolling I started a Duke Pearson Research group on Facebook. Would love to see some board members. My friend, the great guitarist Steve Herberman has dug up a lot of great newspaper articles. Steve also moderates an AMAZING Wes Montgomery Facebook Research group.

Now I really, really want to hear the Dorham. It's like telling a kid not to put his fingers in the light socket. Not quite true. When Blue Note asked those of us on the old board for archival release suggestions in 1999 for the 60th anniversary, this one came up and was dismissed. Now it's the 80th anniversary and they have new management. Typical of the business world, no way around it.