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Reunions that are still possible.


Hardbopjazz

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  • 9 months later...

Sonny Rollins with Henry Grimes and Pete LaRoca!

Yeah, too bad Grimes isn't doing any straight-ahead gigs. Maybe it's something to do with the green bass juju...

Never mind! Just feel time is being wasted :( This trio reunion would be kicks for everyone involved :)

Edited by brownie
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Recording: McLean/Moncur/Hutcherson/Ridley/Haynes

I'd say the "Dialogue" or "Components" Hutcherson bands, but Freddie's chops are on the outs... :(

Then again, there's always this group (from New Africa):

Moncur/Mitchell/Burrell/Silva/Cyrille

-One of those groups that should have had a shelf life. C'mon, guys!

-And does anyone know if Don Ayler still has his chops?

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Sonny Rollins with Henry Grimes and Pete LaRoca!

This trio reunion would be kicks for everyone involved :)

I hear ya - we can dream, can't we?

It would be great to see Grimes play some bebop - I almost prefer him in that context (save with Cecil).

Edited by clifford_thornton
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I don't really see the points in these "reunions" of bands that may have existed only for one album (sure, the BN guys played together in different groupings all the time, but...) - same for Mwandishi - what's the point? You can't go back in time...

Propositions like having Rollins together with some real good musicians again for a change, make much more sense (not to diss Anderson & Scott, but hey... they're just not in his league - and Cranshaw, whom I never found the most interesting bassist anyway, has to be one of the worst electric bass players in jazz... utterly boring is a kind judgment of his contribution to Rollins' music).

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I don't really see the points in these "reunions" of bands that may have existed only for one album (sure, the BN guys played together in different groupings all the time, but...) - same for Mwandishi - what's the point? You can't go back in time...

Propositions like having Rollins together with some real good musicians again for a change, make much more sense (not to diss Anderson & Scott, but hey... they're just not in his league - and Cranshaw, whom I never found the most interesting bassist anyway, has to be one of the worst electric bass players in jazz... utterly boring is a kind judgment of his contribution to Rollins' music).

There isn't really a point - all of this is just daydreaming and fantasy (nothing wrong with that) - unless someone on the Board hits the lottery and decides to put together a "dream session". That would be great.

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I'd have to agree with Rollins, Grimes and LaRoca but the one I've always wanted to see was "It's Time" Jackie McLean, Charles Tolliver, Herbie Hancock, Cecil McBee and Roy Haynes. Roy Haynes came to hear the Tolliver big band (with McBee on Bass) a while back and I remember thinking OK, three out of five but that's probably as close as it would get. "The All Seeing Eye" is still possible I guess except for the track with Alan Shorter.

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I don't really see the points in these "reunions" of bands that may have existed only for one album (sure, the BN guys played together in different groupings all the time, but...) - same for Mwandishi - what's the point? You can't go back in time...

Propositions like having Rollins together with some real good musicians again for a change, make much more sense (not to diss Anderson & Scott, but hey... they're just not in his league - and Cranshaw, whom I never found the most interesting bassist anyway, has to be one of the worst electric bass players in jazz... utterly boring is a kind judgment of his contribution to Rollins' music).

Trying to come to terms with a "real" point is sort of antithetical to a thread like this. Again, idle dreaming for consumer/aesthetic interest. If the "Conference of the Birds" group recorded a new joint tomorrow, I'd be in line to buy it (although that ensemble was never so cohesive as, say, the Coltrane quartet, these are consummate musicians we're talking about). You're right--there is no way to go back in time. I'm not sure anyone wants to--on a permanent level, anyway (I think one album/a couple of gigs is enough--which isn't, on some level, that far off from the BN-polygamy back in the day).

And your contentions definitely hold for Mwandishi; judging from a number of Herbie's remarks, there's really nothing for that group to "say" anymore. This doesn't mean I wouldn't like to hear Hancock/Maupin/Henderson/Priester/Williams/Hart/Ndugu (etc.)... they just couldn't be "Mwandishi". Throw six or seven old friends into a room and tell me they won't have something to talk about.

The McLean/Hutcherson/Moncur triumvirate has reunited several times over the years--with varying levels of musical "success," I imagine. There's obviously something to be said about these relationships, whether or not the music still has the "fire" or the "purpose" or the "timeliness"--these are people, friends, and artists, too... not just record grooves (eh, you get my point :) ).

Edited by ep1str0phy
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Dave Holland, Sam Rivers, Anthony Braxton and Barry Altschul

I recall reading an article in one of the major jazz magazines of the time about the breakup of a Sam Rivers group which had Barry Altschul on drums. The article alluded to something major and negative that occurred between Rivers and Altschul, without specifying what it was. Whatever it was, the article made it sound like about the worst thing of all time. So I do not know if they would work together now or not.

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last time i saw jim hall he mentioned he and rollins were trying to arrange a concert for peace......

Now here's a reunion that I'd like to hear! But get Cranshaw off the bandstand or buy him an upright bass, PLEASE!

@ Epistrophy: thanks for your considerate answer to my grumpy remark... still, I stick with the general points I made, but I was a bit out of line with regard to this being merely a day-dreaming thread. Sorry for that.

Now, about those Blue Note reunions: somehow these do bore me on paper, already... I've heard some live recordings of the likes of Jackie Mac and Woody and Booby getting together again, and it doesn't work for me, I'm afraid. It's just not the Blue Note years any longer - that is now not a statement meaning travelling back in time is impossible, but rather a statement implying that nowadays this music (or these musicians?) have lost a lot of their relevance and - I dare saying that - fire. I know this is unfair, but it's just not the same anymore, if after 30 or 40 years they hook up again... all of them had been at or close to where it was happening in the mid sixties, but nowadays it's ye good ole mainstream, I'm sorry to say, and just fails to really grab my attention. Ok, Ornette can still bother people, sure Cecil can do so as well, *but* all considered, what they're playing is by now mainstream, too!

I hope this comes not over as just another grumpy rant.

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last time i saw jim hall he mentioned he and rollins were trying to arrange a concert for peace......

Now here's a reunion that I'd like to hear! But get Cranshaw off the bandstand or buy him an upright bass, PLEASE!

@ Epistrophy: thanks for your considerate answer to my grumpy remark... still, I stick with the general points I made, but I was a bit out of line with regard to this being merely a day-dreaming thread. Sorry for that.

Now, about those Blue Note reunions: somehow these do bore me on paper, already... I've heard some live recordings of the likes of Jackie Mac and Woody and Booby getting together again, and it doesn't work for me, I'm afraid. It's just not the Blue Note years any longer - that is now not a statement meaning travelling back in time is impossible, but rather a statement implying that nowadays this music (or these musicians?) have lost a lot of their relevance and - I dare saying that - fire. I know this is unfair, but it's just not the same anymore, if after 30 or 40 years they hook up again... all of them had been at or close to where it was happening in the mid sixties, but nowadays it's ye good ole mainstream, I'm sorry to say, and just fails to really grab my attention. Ok, Ornette can still bother people, sure Cecil can do so as well, *but* all considered, what they're playing is by now mainstream, too!

I hope this comes not over as just another grumpy rant.

I hear what you're saying, and agree. Cecil and Ornette are mainstream today, but hearing them in 2006 is similar to what it was to hear Ellington or, perhaps, Ben Webster in the 1960s. I wonder if Ornette and Cecil will be the last of our giants. (Sonny Rollins is no doubt another, and that story has been hashed and rehashed in another thread.) I do think that musicians such as Von Freeman or Roswell Rudd (there are certainly other names to be added to these two), who endured long periods of being ignored, and perhaps partly for that very reason, have been able to retain that fire you speak about, and still play with it today.

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