Zoot39

Mike Bisio (b) on the right. Not sure about the guy with a drop down mustache. I did hear from Julia. All she could do is point me to the streaming files Peter Friedman posted, which I already have. Next step (I guess) is to poke around in the Japanese music sources.

Julia the vocalist=Julia the lobbyist. https://tinyurl.com/2ry4exj5

I had the same experience. IIRC I was tipped to Croscrane through a comment here. I have the same sessions that you list, purchased directly from Croscrane through the Internet. There are 4-5 others listed in Fitzgerald that I neglected to get at the time - Gemini Club Vols 2,3 and 6, and At the Falls - and those are what I was inquiring about. There's a vocalist named Julia Donnaruma who's periodically active, whom I assume to be Walter's daughter. I believe I was in touch with her at one point and she advised that there would be no further pressings of the J.R. sessions. There's a woman by the same name who has been active as an Albany lobbyist working for Manatt Phelps & Phillips, a national law firm based on the West Coast; I'm guessing she's the same person.

I think these are the private label releases that Fitzgerald cites in his discography.

Can you pls resend? Nothing’s arrived. Thanks/Zoot39

You could have made your retirement nut simply by buying a house back then and reselling it today. Housing prices are over the top. There’s a dramatic need for additional housing - some college employees had to commute from Rutland VT, a good hour each way. Not quite the Currier & Ives pastoral paradise it might seem.

I wasn't aware that he had. He was born in Utica, but most of the Croscrane material was recorded while he was living and playing in the Albany area. Jazz musicians in residence at college always reminds me of Lucky Thompson. In 1970 IIRC, he was in residence at Dartmouth College. I cannot imagine more of a misalignment - Dartmouth, at that time embroiled in a battle with uber-conservative alums who were supporting the exclusionary fraternity system; the campus entombed in a snowbound and icy Hanover NH winter - and Lucky, Maybe he was a closet skier.

April-July 1980, per Jazzdiscography

Either will work. I have hard copy for 5 of the releases. BTW: When I ripped the files to FLAC format and tested them with Spek and auCDtect, readings indicated that the files had been transcoded. But, what’s the alternative? (Other files I’ve ripped tested very accurately, so I don’t think there was a problem with my ripping software.) I believe the Croscranes were released under the aegis of Walter Donnaruma, the pianist on most of the dates. He was also a practicing lawyer fwiw, since deceased.

Does anyone know of a source for the JR Monterose sessions on Croscrane? I was able to buy a number of the releases some years ago, missed a few but Croscrane is defunct, and Julia Donnaruma says there will be no further pressings. I was in touch with Michael Fitzgerald and Joop van der Leij and neither seems to know where they've gone. Also, JR and Hod O'Brien recorded in Woodstock VT at one point, but Joop said the tapes were in bad shape and were ultimately junked. Stephanie O'Brien doesn't seem to know if anything survived. Do any members know anything further about this? I realize this is a long shot, but it's worth asking. Thanks/zoot39

Thanks Onxidlib - mystery solved. No-one else was able to ID them. I'll pass this on to other interested parties.

Many years ago, a client who wasn't particularly well informed about jazz gave me a series of pen and ink drawings of various jazz figures. At the time, he told me that they were created by a devoted jazz fan cum artist who frequented the Vanguard. He didn't have much more information than that. The provenance has always puzzled me. I can't find similar artwork anywhere on the web. There's a surrealistic, somewhat psychedelic cast to the artwork. This suggests to me the possibility that they may have been created in the late 50s or early 60s, when acid was everywhere.(Warning - some of the images are by today's standards racist. I provide them here only to give the reader a view of the imagery and perhaps a lead on the artist.) I've posted them to private blogs I belong to. Same result - even though heavily populated by knowledgeable jazz fans, no-one recognizes the work. Given the reference to the Vanguard, I inquired there, and they were quite responsive. According to the Gordon family, the artist was Jutta Hipp, who of course was educated as a graphic artist in addition to her piano work. In a way, that deepened the mystery. If you examine what little Hipp artwork is available online, or in the Cool box set, it's completely dissimilar to what I have. I tried to probe a little further, but with the same response - it was Jutta Hipp. That led me to post it here. You can find a few examples of the set, which contains 25-30 separate images, at https://sites.google.com/view/jazzimages. You can enlarge the images simply by reopening in a new tab. If anyone knows more about where these came from, I'd welcome the information. And, apologies for the lower quality images - if anyone would like something a bit better, please let me know.

Some years ago, I came across a lengthy interview with Idrees Sulieman in IIRC a St. Petersburg newspaper. I neglected to save a copy and now can't find it anywhere. The present Tampa St. Pete paper can only come up with his obituary. The article went into his work with Oscar Dennard in greater depth than I recall seeing elsewhere. Does this ring a bell with any of you? The usual web archives come up empty. TIA for any leads you can supply.