Gheorghe

Yeah I have known him as early as in the 80´s . After the Sweet Emma Band stuff last week we had some talking and woodsheddin´ about tunes we could play together, what tunes he might like to play with us, and I was astonished that he remembered a gig I had 40 years ago and Universitatea Veterinară which was somewhere in sector 3 of Viena, not far from a railway , I think that´s a neighbourhood where they have "rechte Bahngasse" and "linke Bahngasse" and I had totally forgotten about it. It was with a Bulgarian Saxophonist his name was Boșidar Sotirov (can´t write well ortografically) , anyway I was astonished that a guy who is mostly busy with booking and havin a label and so would remember a gig I had completly forgotten. It must have been in those years, when jazz was "in" at Universities, and kids who studied would hear jazz in those Audimax-es they had.

I heard that track now with the drums starting, what a wonderful way to start a morning (never thought I could be able to listen to music earlier than 20:00 or better in the small hours, but those drums..... oh boy !

As a jazz only player I have only side informations about pure Soul, but what I heard last Friday you Soul Fans should hear and purchase. My wife and me spent an evening off at Porgy and Bess to listen to my old friend Paul Zauner with his wonderful soul band "Sweet Emma Band" featuring the very strong singer Chanda Rule, former Harlem Gospel singer now having a solo carreer living in Viena . Have a look at some tracks and buy them their latest album on Paul Zauner´s label "PAO Records". And they have a long haird organ player from Cehoslovacia, who is really a gas. the whole band is tops and the singer too. It´s mostly Soul, some Blues, and a shot of jazz (the last tune unsually is an Ellington tune).

I don´t know what karmatateous delicacies means😄, but Billy Eckstine is my favourite singer, period. Only, as a jazz musician I prefer his work with the Band, when Tadd arranged all that wonderful stuff. I hear Billys wonderful voice in my head, but it is inseparabil connected with the fine band behind him, all those Dameron voicings and hip stuff you still can learn so much from it, let´s say if I have to comp a singer, or how I comp for a ballad..... One of my favourite songs right now is Eckstine´s version of "Love is the Thing"

Strange I have not seen that, at what venue was this ? I only heard the Cedar Walton TRIO at "REIGEN" in the 2000´s . But I think it was after Higgin´s death. So I don´t know who was on bass and drums. REIGEN was a good joint, I often went there with Serena, we could walk from our place to that venue. They had great musicians, she saw Archie Shepp , Johnny Griffin and so on with me. I also did perform there in the early 90´s. But I don´t know what has happend to the plays. When I asked Mario (Gonzi), he said better no, it ain´t what it used to be.....

Sometimes if I quote from another song in the improvised chorusses it just comes and maybe I don´t even know what song it is, but mostly if my fellow musicians quote from somewhere I know from what song it is. Contrafacts, that is the most easy thing. You hear the changes and know where it comes from. Yesterday I heard an Eddie Lockjaw Davis thing in the radio and it was one of his own compositions, and though it was a straight ahead stuff, it had the chords from "Girl Of Ipanema"......

Maybe I could afford it but I don´t want. Better go for two weeks to carribean islands to warm up my bones and have that feeling, just to escape the cold weather, and come back and be strong and relaxed for the next string of gigs. About wax removal. Good thing you told me about this. I think I am overdue. But in the years before , speaking about health asigurare I went to a medic of state who doesn´t cost since ensurance pays, I was not so pleased. He handles it quite rough and he also seems to think that he is not only ORL medic, but specialist ortoped too, since he always as soon as you come in, he tolds you that all you suffer from is from the cervical and prepares an injection. I didn´t feel too good after that injection. Now I better go to medic privat and have to pay and sometimes get some money back from ensurance.

Must be great ! Never heard about the venue "Ornithology" in Brooklyn, sounds hip.....

Really nice, that´s you and your dog ? oh, to Williue Dennis.....great ! Nice gal, somehow she looks similar to Audrey Hepburn, doesn´t she ?

Great to read that someone gives some love to Moses. Indeed a great drummer who had an unhappy live since I had heard that he had been stabbed which affected his kidneys and he was on dialysis and died very young of kidney failure. I love all stuff he played, I think the first stuff I heard was some Dolphy with Woody Shaw from the early 60´s, and some Blue Note recordings, maybe with Andrew Hill. And he was Bud Powell´s last drummer ! His drumming on the sets that survived recorded from Birdland is a highlight, he together with John Ore where a perfect rhtythm section. And I like drummers who really play and stretch out, not just doin´ brushes in a trio context. Play it LOUD !!!! YEAH !

About the Monk Prestige Album you posted : I don´t know different versions, as in so many cases, my copy is one of those 2 LP albums from Prestige, that you could purchase easily in the 70´s . I had one with Rollins, one with Monk, one with Davis or so..... Just let me say, that the record you posted was a MILESTONE in my musical developement as a pianist. This version of "Sweet and Lovely" is just INCREDIBLE, listen to Monk´s cadenza , or Bemsha Swing, Trinkle Tinkle and so on, I just love to play those songs. Even one of my own compositions that wil be out on record in the near future, though it´s a waltz, has some little glimpses of Monk´s style. I´m sure the individual CDs are as great as my old two-fer album, maybe they even have more tracks....

Was there more music from that event recorded ! I think once I heard an incredible all star setting, that played "April" and maybe "Caravan" with Diz, Dex, George Benson, Herbie, Ron, Tony Williams ?

Such a wonderful film, such a wonderful family and music !!!!

Thank you for showing this. So sad, I remember how I cried when I saw that. Due to lack of infos over here in Europe we still thought that Mingus is active and playing. I think "Cumbia" came out right that spring and I recognized to great suite I had witnessed live less than one year before. So the death of Mingus literarly shocked me......

I like those two BN albums Miles made, though they may not be his most representative albums. I think I remember the first volume has mostly Dizzy associated bop themes, and the second has Horace Silver on it. My wife did like very much the track "Weirdo" , that kind of super cool blues. She said it sounds like a soundtrack for one of those old, really old policefilms series in black and white..... I think I have the first one and I had bought it when I was still almost a kid. It was a good model for me to learn to play solo piano, I think I played some of those if I had to play solo, maybe a last encore, something like that Eddie Heywood arrangement of "Begin the Beguine". Stuff like that goes very well for a last tune in the small hours, just for some friends who still are in the venue....

I think I have some but have not listened to them for many years. It is mostly Charlie Parker. I think on from Bohemia is nice, where they play mostly the standards that otherwise were recorded with strings, just as a quintet with Kenny Dorham. Others are not so fine, I don´t really listen to those, where the other instruments are cut out . Others I think I already had from the British Spotlite label. For live recordings of Bird I prefer the CBS from Birdland, the Carnegie Set with Diz, and the Massey Hall.

Yes, Freddie Waits and Mickey Roker should get more love. But at least, Mickey Roker got much exposure as Dizzy´s drummer for many many years. I saw and heard him with Diz from 1978 on, and again at a very special Dizzy Allstars, Diz with Phil Woods, Steve Turré , Cedar Walton, Rufus Reid and Mickey Roker, great thing ! And of course you got me with Tony Williams´ "Spring" . I love it and I love Tony Williams. He is among my very very favourite drummers,

I would have been to small to attend that concert, I just had entered my first year of primary school, but one of my earlier mentors, the late great Fritz Novotny from Reform Art Unit ("RAU") was there and told me, that especially the first part of the Concert (the Max Roach Quintet) was a dissaster due to unprofessional behaviour by Freddie Hubbard and James Spaulding . Anyway you hear Freddie cursing the audience after some high notes from his solo cadenza on trumpet. The Sonny Rollins part was wonderful, especially such an all star occasion with Roach and Merritt. I only had the LP which he spinned for me and I taped it on cassette. Now, reading the Eytan Levy Rollins bio, there are even some pages about that event and it´s described, what a desaster it was with Hubbard stone drunk and later arrested. I don´t understand why he was arrested only for saying some mutha.....words on stage, he hadn´t hurt nobody physically . And as much as I heard from the record, his playing still was strong. It was not like those "Bird at the Loverman Session" kind of music...... About speed on records: Anyway, having perfect pitch, such things are annyoing for me, but when I was still a kid and didn´t know about recorded at to high speed if I heard somethin in an "unusual key" I took it mot a mot and started to play it myself in that key. Because I didn´t read music and played things how I heard ´ em , and if the blues meant in Bb appears as B natural on the record, I would have thought okay, that´s what it is meant to be, so I must play it also in that unusual key. At least, that less of knowledge lead me to be more open for playing the same tune in different keys....

Which one ? Anyway, hopefully someone who will concentrate not only on early or middle period of Mingus, but later concert or festival appearances......

This together with "The Real McCoy" are my favourite albums of him before the Milestone Years. I have those two and some of the Milestone albums. I think the coby of Time for Tyner that I have is also a japanese reissue. I´m not interested in anything but the music itself, but I think those mini-LP-Cover reissues where quite typical for Japan reissues then. They are ok for me but if I would have liked to read the liner notes it is impossible, it´s too small, but anyway, the music speaks for itself. Great drumming on this one. Isn´t that Freddie Waits ? Lesser known than other drummers from that era, but he has it all and as Elvin Jones on "The Real McCoy" that´s what matters to me. And since I am not too wild about classic piano trios, those two each have a congenial partner , here Bobby Hutcherson, there Joe Henderson.....

Goin to see "Sweet Emma and Band" on Friday at Porgy´s especially because my old friend Paul Zauner (tb and bookings) plays with them and I wanna see him again .

I saw him with Dave Liebman, maybe in the late 70´s, it was also Adam Nussbaum on drums, Terumaso Hino on a Don Cherry like pocket trumpet, and young John Scofield. It was Scofield who helped me to get through to Liebman to get may copy of "Drum Ode" signed by the master..... Great band then, but there was two drunken japanese girls in the front row who wanted to flirt with Terumaso, he was not amused....., but fantastic music... Though I am not a real fan of Oscar Peterson, I can find him okay when he is not too overwhelming. I have...also from Montreux one of Jaws with OP which is nice, so this one might be nice too. Eldridge is my favourite pre-Diz trumpet player and he was so much ahead his time. Recently I heard some astonishing Roy in a pure bop setting (Giants of Jazz minus Diz who missed it, where Roy and Clark Terry do the trumpet part, and Roy is so great ! Of course Terry tooo !

I must admit that ......as is the case with almost all historic jazz albums....I´m more a kind of "selecting fan", and never had the urge to buy all what is out from a certain musician. Mingus had an enormous influence on me becoming a musician. When I was in my early teens, the 3-LP set of Mingus with Dolphy and Byard etc. in Paris 1964 was my second to first listening experience of jazz and it has remained one of the most important records to me. And then the times I saw the Mingus Band live from 1975-77 or 78 or what it was, with Walrath, Ricky Ford and so. I have heard one from the earlier 60´s on which Mingus often leaves the bass and plays piano and don´t like it as much as the records where he leads the band from the bass. That´s what Mingus always has been for me: One of the greatest composers of the 20th Century, and one of the most exiting artists on his instrument, the bass, if not the most exiting. There is so much energy in re-issuing or redischovering of very old stuff, but very little effort to issue more concert recordings from the bands with Adams/Pullen and Ford/Neloms.. The studio albums of Cumbia and Three Four Shades of Blues are too overproduced, the quintet versions I witnessed live sounded much better.....more energy, more emotion, more of Richmond....

Sometimes late at night I like sounds like this one. Hipsippy Blues, Close Your Eyes, and all that stuff. The Blakey Sound for me is the sound when I just want to get some of that pure energy, when I am to tired or to lazy to figure things out..... And Blakey was one of my first musical heroes......

I don´t remember right, but didn´t they work together when Dexter´s Film "Round Midnite" was made ???