ListeningToPrestige

Thank you.

Does anyone have the Roulette album, Count Basie Presents the Eddie Davis Trio + Joe Newman? I'm trying to quote from Barry Ulanov's liner notes (from the discogs screen shot) and a couple of words are too blurred. He says: Little Shirley Scott is an astonishing musician. She has a big man’s power at the manuals and pedals. As the (unintelligible) pours force and the rhythmic impulse gathers force, one finds it hard to believe that this girl weighs, at most, one hundred pounds. But the power, effective as it is, is not Shirley’s most compelling contribution. It is rather, I think, the surrealist (unintelligible) with which she decorates the ballads. Help?

On one of the other days, Mike Stoller is credited on piano, so I texted his son Peter, who's a friend. It turns out Stoller produced the album, so Peter is going to run it down for me. On edit...and success! Peter has the album, there are photos from the session included. It's the right Charles Brown.

Here's the personnel from one day -- the sessions were over several days, and varied slightly. T-Bone Walker (vcl,g) acc by Marvin Stamm, Danny Stiles (tp,flhrn) Joe Farrell, Frank Vicari (ts,fl) Seldon Powell (bar,ts,fl) John Tropea (el-sitar) David Nadien, Paul Gershman, Julius Brand, Emanuel "Manny" Green, Leo Kahn, Harry Glickman, Karen Jones, Fred Buldrini (vln) Theodore Israel, Harold Coletta (viola) George Ricci, Charles McCracken (cello) and Gerry Mulligan (bar) James Booker (p) Charles Brown (el-p) Wilton Felder (el-b) Paul Humphrey (d) Hollywood & New York, 1973 Stormy Monday Reprise 6483, (G)936247758-2 [CD]

Charles Brown has all too common a name, and it can fuck up discographers. Tom Lord's jazz discographical data bass has Charles Brown who played congas on a Coltrane session, and Charles Brown who played tenor sax with the Detroit Jazz Composers orchestra, both cross-referenced to Charles "Drifting Blues" Brown, obviously mistakes. But then he has T-Bone Walker leading a group of jazz all-stars in 1973, with Charles Brown listed on organ, again cross-referenced. Another mistake? Lots of piano players also play organ occasionally, but I never heard of my Charles Brown doing it. And this is an all-star jazz band, not his normal company, although he did play with jazz musicians occasionally. On the other hand, he and Walker are both blues guys, and both veterans of the Central Avenue scene of the 1940s, so I guess it's possible, Two friends are on the session, including Warren Bernhardt on piano, and I could ask them, but they're both dead. Any ideas?

No one has mentioned Little Willie Jackson, who consistently blew his ass off in Joe Liggins' band,

My guess is that this is a mistake. Lord's discography is invaluable, but not perfect. I've caught two mistakes previously, which I've sent to him and he's fixed. One was identifying Little Willie Jackson, who played with Joe Liggins's band, as Willis Jackson -- only on one recording. The other was getting Alvin "Red" Tyler's name wrong -- again, just on one recording -- listing him as Red Taylor. I will write him about this. And, before posting this, I went and checked the site again. I had written him, just yesterday, to question the James Jackson - Sun Ra listing, and checking just now, it has already been fixed. The guy is good.

James Jackson played tenor sax on Joe Liggins's "The Honeydripper" and stayed in Liggins' band into the 1950s. Then, according to Tom Lord's discography, he shows up again in 1966 as part of Sun Ra's Arkestra, and stays with Sun Ra for quite a while. Is this really the same James Jackson? It's a pretty common name -- and in fact, Lord does list several other James Jacksons. It certainly could be the same guy, but I want to make sure.

I found it The indie labels followed Decca, which at the time was one of the Big Three majors. Capitol was to become a major, but at that time was newly formed. https://downbeat.com/news/detail/the-petrillo-ban-of-194244-past-future-at-war?fbclid=IwAR38DqwvZgr1fW6Q00zektvxzmJVJvO0NKZwj8kfRwKAPukqgr0daaDaCEQ

How were independent labels affected by the Petrillo strike of 1942-44? I know most of them started up after that, but there were a few -- Blue Note was already around, Savoy and Exclusive/Excelsior started in 1942. Did they make a separate peace with the union earlier than the big labels?

So much misinformation. Wikipedia and a bunch of other sources (probably all lifting from Wiki) have him born in NYC. Discogs and the liner notes to his first album have him born in Jamaica (liner notes unspecified location, Discogs says Montego Bay). Some discographies have Arriba! recorded at Van Gelder Studio, but this is likely wrong. Joe was produced by Lew Futterman, who tended to stay out of Bob Weinstock's orbit. Others make it Regent Studios, NYC.

Does anyone know where the Club Allegro was? Was it a club Jackson regularly played at?

I'm amazed at how little information about Abdul-Malik there is online. Why did he stop recording?

"Gravy Waltz" was written by Ray Brown and Steve Allen, and became an instant standard, thanks to Allen playing it on his tv show. 17 different versions were recorded in 1963 alone. But secondhandsongs also lists "Gravy Waltz" by Ray Brown, written in 1961. So what was Steve Allen's contribution?

https://opusforty.blogspot.com/2021/12/listening-to-prestige-600-gildo-mahones.html

There weren't very many 1600s, and most of them were reissues of the 7000 and 8000 series - I'm trying to understand why there was a 16000 series at all.

Thanks for the link. I couldn't find it on Spotify. Their search engine leaves a lot to be desired.

Thanks. Damn shame. What a great album.

Was Eastern Moods of Ahmed Abdul-Malik ever re-released on CD, as part of Original Classics or any other way?

Prestige only released a handful of records in its 16000 series. And they don't seem to have any unifying characteristics. 16001: Gumbo! (Pony Poindexter, Booker Ervin) [6/27/63] 16002: Trumpet Giants (Fats Navarro a.o.) [same as 8296] 16003: Eastern Moods (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) [6/3/63] 16004: I'm Shooting High (Gildo Mahones) [2/4/63, 8/15/63, 9/3/63] 16005: Look Out! (Johnny Hammond Smith) [not issued; same as 8288] 16006: Soul Street (Jimmy Forrest) [not issued; same as 8293] 16007: Dameronia (Tadd Dameron) [reissue of 7037] 16008: Clifford Brown Memorial (Tadd Dameron a.o.) [reissue of 7055] 16009: Trotting (Zoot Sims) [reissue of 7026] 16010: not issued? 16011: Ezz-thetic (Lee Konitz a.o.) [reissue of 8295] Anyone know the rationale behind?

https://opusforty.blogspot.com/search/label/Willis Jackson Listening to Prestige on Willis Jackson.

Yeah, this was the Gator's working band, and they worked. He always had a gig somewhere. And these guys could play -- Carl Wilson smokes it on organ. But they didn't go on to record with anyone else that I've been able to find. The one guy in the band who did make a name for himself was Pat Azzara, only the name wasn't Pat Azzara. He later changed it to Pat Martino. A boss band, but it's hard to top the earlier ensemble with Jack McDuff and Bill Jennings. Jennings is a tremendously underrated guitar player, and the work he did with the Gator may have been his best.

Anyone know anything about Carl Wilson, organ; Frank Robinson, trumpet; Joe Hadrick, drums, all of whom appeared on a few Prestige albums with Willis Jackson in the mid-1960s?

On the Oliver Nelson/Jimmy Forrest tracks on Forrest's Soul Street, there's a Chris Woods on piano. Is this alto sax man Chris Woods showing some versatility, or another guy altogether? If the latter, I can't find any other credits for him.

On the personnel listing for The Chant, he's listed as Willie Gardner. But Billy Taylor, in the album's liner notes, refers to him as Billy Gardner, so maybe it is the same guy.