sgcim

My father was a salesman, and he used to go to people's houses and try to sell them stuff. One time he went to Lenny White's house, and they were talking about the fact that he just left Chick's band, because he was sick of the Scientology BS. LW said that after each one of their performances, they were graded according to Scientology principles, and they were awarded stars if they were good Scientology boys. There are a lot of crazy stories about Scientology and jazz. I was surprised to find out that Melvin Rhyne was into it. Their line was, "Look, you can go to a shrink and pay him thousands of dollars to fix you up. Just give us a thousand bucks, and we'll get you back on your feet..."

Ask him how he put up with that doofus Al DiMeola? Ask him for any memories he has of the pianist John Jacobson. Ask him if L.Ron Hubbard is still away on research?

I was in a Stop and Shop a while ago, and this guy was whistling 'Well, You Needn't' over and over again. I stalked him for a few aisles, and then confronted him. "You know you're whistling Thelonious Monk?" "Oh yeah, I like that tune." "Are you a musician?" "No, I just like that tune.' I pondered bringing him into the lab to perform some experiments on him to account for this anomaly, but he disappeared by the frozen food aisle. Dr. Warren Kruger

I'll never forget seeing Grady at Carnegie Hall in concert with Michel LeGrand. His groove on the Phil Woods feature, You Must Remember Spring, had the audience on their feet, in a frenzy of applause. RIP, Grady. Of course, Organissimo has taught me that Phil Woods had nothing to do with that reception. After all, according to the majority of Organissimo, Phil wasn't an important, great jazz artist. And the fact that Oliver Nelson's arrangement of I Remember Bird featured Phil, well, that must've been an oversight or something. They probably just couldn't find anyone else, or maybe that Encyclopedia of Jazz guy stuck him in there. And when Oliver Nelson defied a death threat nailed on his door threatening his life if he didn't get that white, lead alto sax player out of the band, well, that must have been just a coincidence or sumpthin'...

I searched for this book here, and just found an announcement for it, and then some knee jerk sexism put-downs by the usual suspects... While there is a lot of material on the Bunnies (PF was a former model and Bunny) which I just skipped over, there''s some interesting jazz content, and a portrait of the 'Hef' as one of the few civil rights activists in the entertainment biz in the 50s. People such as Dick Gregory, Freda Payne, Aretha Franklin, Al Jarreau, Maurice and Gregory Hines and Ramsey Lewis were given their first steady, decent paying gigs and exposure to a larger white audience at Playboy Clubs, resulting in all of them becoming nationally recognized in their fields. Gregory, Payne, Hines and Lewis were interviewed in the book, and gave Hef's courage in hiring and defending them from racism, credit for their success as artists. Great jazz artists such as Monty Alexander, Gene Bertoncini, Earl May, Al Foster, Al Belletto, Larry Willis and Al Gafa were given steady gigs that lasted for years, playing uncompromising jazz. Willis would get pianists like Chick Corea, Albert Dailey, Herbie Hancock and Roland Hanna as subs if he had another gig. Jim Hall and Ron Carter recorded the groundbreaking duo album Alone Together at the NYC Playboy Club, and Bill Evans had a week's engagement there. In the South, they established a New Orleans Club in 1961, where Al Belletto led an integrated house band with musicians like Richie Payne, and Ellis Marsalis had his own trio that played there for many years. HH had two TV shows, one in 1959, where he featured Dick Gregory, and another one in 1969.where he featured Dick Gregory. The '59 show featured jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughn, Ray Charles, June Christy, Dakota Staton, Beverley Kenney, Carmen McRae, Joe Williams and Billy Eckstine. Jazz groups included Woody Herman, Cal Tjader, Dizzy Gillespie and Buddy Rich. Pianists featured were Earl Hines, Count Basie, Ahmad Jamal Eddie Higgins and Dave Brubeck. Crooners such as Tony Bennett, David Allen and Frank D`Rone plus pianist/vocalists Buddy Greco and Nina Simone were also featured. You can find some of these shows on YouTube, and Frank D'Rone's 'Joey,Joey,Joey' knocked me out, accompanying himself on guitar back in 1959!

Yeah, it was more realistic than 'A Man Called Adam' with Sammy Davis Jr., another jazz movie made around the same time about a messed up jazz musician. They were both made in gritty B&W, but the cinematography was tons better on AMCA. SLB was a much lower budget movie, taken from a novel by John Williams named "Night Song". They said they cut the movie too much, and that might account for the disjointed feel of the whole thing. Jan Murray was good as a down and out academic who bonds with DG, as they both drink and drug themselves to death. DG gave a very realistic portrayal of a junked out jazzer. Robert Hooks, in his first role, was good as a Chile Place/Bar owner who gives the messed up duo a new lease on life, by giving them jobs at his place.

He was also in a jazz movie, loosely based on bird's life, in 1967, playing an alto player named 'Eagle' Stokes. George Coleman did the ghosting for him, and Mal Waldron composed the score. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062325/

Yesterday

Joe Masters was another obscure, white pianist who played a few gigs with Art Blakey. He recounted the story of his first gig with AB in one of his taped interviews in The Jazz Loft Project. JM said he'd take the gig, but he couldn't handle any of the burning tempos that were characteristic of the AB Quintet at that time. AB said not to worry about that, because he wouldn't call any fast tempos that night. On the night of the gig, the first tune AB called was off the metronome! Masters turned around to look at AB, and AB had a big smile on his face, and said, "I was lying..."

You could say that Bill Evans' choice to take the gig with Miles Davis was proof that EH probably made the right decision. Sure, it put him on the map as an important jazz musician, but the racism he encountered from black audiences, and even members of the band, made the gig unbearable. He could only last about nine months before he had to split the band, but not before acquiring a habit he never really recovered from...

Maybe we've found the problem with jazz today; Bird's not around to recommend anyone anymore!

Johnny Smith- "The Man With The Blue Guitar"

He wrote a nice tune with Chico called 'Autumn Landscape' on one of CH's records. I always got it confused with another tune when i played it with my trio eons ago. Whichever tune I played, I called it AL, because it sounded more artistic, and ya wanna sound artistic when your 18 years old...

I'm still looking for one track OP played with Eddie Costa, "Taking a Chance On Love", although I doubt it's on this compilation. I know it's on OP's LP, "Discoveries", but that has only been released on vinyl, and it's both hard to find, and very expensive, considering I just want ONE track. I've heard it was an extra track from the "Winner's Circle" LP, which I finally found. It would be ideal if someone put that out on CD with the extra Costa/Pettiford track, because the sound on the LP is terrible.

There's a great you tube video of the Master live with his old buddy Johnny Smith, plus Ray Pizzi, Alan Dawson, Bobby Shew, and Larry Lappin. Just enter Johnny Smith Live, and look for the 27 minute version of a great jazz clinic concert they had, back when Wynton didn't have to approve you to teach jazz... Twenty minutes into it, George is featured playing a composition of his called 'E.K.E's Blues, written for Duke, and originally played by Harry Carney.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. It's great to see that he's still doing jazz gigs in London, and playing concerts with Caravan at the age of 79!

I just heard Jimmy Hastings' great flute solo on 'Binoculars' on the National Health album, 'Of Queues and Cures'. I was able to find one song by Caravan (Love Song with Flute) that featured JH on flute, but are there any other albums by Caravan or preferably more jazz-oriented people like Phil Moore, Dave Stewart, Humphrey Lyttleton or any others that featured JH on flute? TIA

I found a copy of Winners Circle for $3 at Planet 9 in Richmond VA. It has some great playing by Trane, Donald Byrd, Rolf Kuhn, Kenny Burrell, Eddie Costa, Oscar Pettiford,, Philly Jo, Frank Rehak and Gene Quill. Supposedly, a trio recording of 'Taking a Chance on Love' featuring Costa, Pettiford and one of the two drummers on the session, Ed Thigpen or Philly Jo, came out of this session. It's available on Pettiford's "Discoveries", but that's a hard one to find. I also picked up Philadelphia legend's Joe Sgro LP, "A Guitar and a Girl", which features a picture of a nude woman with a classical guitar covering her privates on the cover. She is looking straight at me, promising me many pleasures of the flesh, yet they have failed to materialize yet... Sgro, a devout Jehovah's Witness, plays with only vibes, bass and drums. He plays a few standards, and then some of his semi-classical arrangements of things he calls 'Rachmaninoff and You', Tchaikovsky After Hours', Ravel After Hours, Tcaikovsky Sits In, and The Lady Likes Chopin. He plays solely in what guitarists call 'chord melody' style without any single string improvisation, with the vibes doubling the melody in octaves; a variant of the 'Shearing Style', as if to say, "We don't need no steenking piano". On Harlem Nocturne, the last number, he finally lets loose with some single string improvisation, and sound quite capable. Another $3 special.

You can say that again! Paul Shaffer said in a recent interview that Letterman told him not to play any jazz, because he (DL) hated it. You can say that again! Paul Shaffer said in a recent interview that Letterman told him not to play any jazz, because he (DL) hated it.

No man, it didn't happen; it's all in your mind. No man, it didn't happen; it's all in your mind.

Some jerk re-used the tape that had all the great jazz musicians Steve Allen had on the first season, and wiped it out. My obsession is to find any video of Tal Farlow in the period 1954-59, his peak period IMHO (maybe some Eddie Costa, too). There are some Norvo trio tapes on you tube, but they're just accompanying singers in film shorts. The one exception is "Keep It Cool", a 1955 short film featuring several bands.The Norvo trio with Tal and Red Mitchell play one tune , How Am I To Know?.

Yes, Atlantic City.

Benny Golson was there, and describes the event in detail in his autobiography.

I liked the fact that a great guitarist like Dick Garcia only made one record as a leader. Then he got into a Zen Buddhism thing, and has been in seclusion for the last 50 years.