Hardbopjazz Posted February 3, 2006 Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 This guy can play the trumpet, and play it rell well. Just wonder why he never really made a name for himself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValerieB Posted February 3, 2006 Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 i just saw him at iaje last month for the first time in decades! he was blown away when i told him that we were neighbors in the '60s in the east village. he was very warm and friendly and even kissed my hand! we also laughed about the fact that both of us have gained a few pounds since those days! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hardbopjazz Posted February 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 Nice story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randyhersom Posted February 3, 2006 Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 I met Ted in person at my college radio station, and have enjoyed his playing for a long time. The Cecil Taylor sessions that make up half of Love For Sale are a particular favorite, as is Tears for Dolphy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest akanalog Posted February 3, 2006 Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 been listening to his fontano album "urge" lately. jsangrey lauded this album in an earlier thread you could search for i bet. i always want to buy "fire down below" but never want to spend full price for such a short disc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValerieB Posted February 3, 2006 Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 I met Ted in person at my college radio station, and have enjoyed his playing for a long time. The Cecil Taylor sessions that make up half of Love For Sale are a particular favorite, as is Tears for Dolphy. that reminds me that when curson and i were neighbors, dolphy as well as bill barron also lived within a block or two of us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
relyles Posted February 3, 2006 Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 All of Curson's recordings with Bill Barron are worth hearing. "Urge" is indeed very good as are some of the things he did on I believe India Navigation - especially a very interesting trio date with Ray Drummond and Roy Haynes called "Trio". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rooster_Ties Posted February 3, 2006 Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted February 3, 2006 Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 I think it's called Plenty Horn. On vinyl it was on the Old Town label. Has seen "budget" reincarnation on CD. Well worth it if you see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christiern Posted February 3, 2006 Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 Unless one has never heard Ted play, I don't see how one can not remember him. When I knew him, he and his wife lived in New Jersey. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medjuck Posted February 3, 2006 Report Share Posted February 3, 2006 I used to see him a lot in Montreal in the early 60's. I think he must havea been living there then. I was present when they did a live recording that I used to own on vinyl but have never been able to find on cd: "Live at La Tete de l'Art". (sp?) I remember one night when Mingus sat in on piano. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted February 4, 2006 Report Share Posted February 4, 2006 And of course he's on one of the great Mingus albums of all time with Dolphy & Richmond. Essential!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcello Posted February 4, 2006 Report Share Posted February 4, 2006 I have this one on vinyl: Ted Curson- Jubilant Power - on Inner City Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brownie Posted February 4, 2006 Report Share Posted February 4, 2006 Part of the problem might be that he started so strong when he was with Charles Mingus (the Antibes concert and the Candid albums) that his later appearances - even if some of them were very good - were somehow disappointing and rarely worthy of the enormous potential he showed earlier. I like Ted Curson and enjoy many of his albums! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazaro Vega Posted February 4, 2006 Report Share Posted February 4, 2006 Been listening to that half of an album on Savoy with Bill Dixon on one side and the New York Contemporary 5 on the other, the version of the band with Curson on two cuts and Don Cherry on one (Sonny Murray playing drums). Curson was all up into Don Cherry on that session. His Cherry inspired playing on the Mingus Candid quartets is still so singable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted February 4, 2006 Report Share Posted February 4, 2006 Curson is great! I love the Fontanas especially and his work with Mingus, as well as the aforementioned Futura and the Marge (Cattin' Curson). Certainly, the pianoless quartet stuff he did in the mid-60s is my favorite, but his playing always has a lot of fire. He's kind of weird, though - very difficult to pigeonhole, for one thing, which is never very good as a selling point. To me, it's perfect inside-outside playing, but there is also a severity to it that might make it less palatable for the boogaloo set. Far more austere than, say Ornette and Don... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ep1str0phy Posted February 4, 2006 Report Share Posted February 4, 2006 (edited) Curson is great! I love the Fontanas especially and his work with Mingus, as well as the aforementioned Futura and the Marge (Cattin' Curson). Certainly, the pianoless quartet stuff he did in the mid-60s is my favorite, but his playing always has a lot of fire. He's kind of weird, though - very difficult to pigeonhole, for one thing, which is never very good as a selling point. To me, it's perfect inside-outside playing, but there is also a severity to it that might make it less palatable for the boogaloo set. Far more austere than, say Ornette and Don... I think it's that very severity that allows Curson to fit into so many different contexts. It's a fairly unique niche, especially among the inside/outside crowd--what with caterwauling in the one corner and straight-up scratchiness on the other. I've always enjoyed the fact that Curson straddles the lines, opting for fairly intelligible, full-bodied rigor where most people would just fall into one of the two extremes. The cat's got a sort of seething pathos that distances him from his peers. That's just what I hear, anyway. I've been enjoying his contributions to "The Tenor Stylings of Bill Barron"--there's sort of a Bradford-esque gravitas to his playing (I don't know if it's a sonic thing; I just feel it). Edited February 4, 2006 by ep1str0phy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted February 5, 2006 Report Share Posted February 5, 2006 Thanks - you put it very well. Rigor is a good word for it. It's interesting, because he's such an affable and kind person, a very cool guy to interview, and just so warm. His music and his personality, in a weird way, seem almost disconnected. Obviously, the man is his horn, but the tough sheen that pervades a lot of his work is not obviously present when talking to the dude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevebop Posted February 5, 2006 Report Share Posted February 5, 2006 (edited) I also spent some time with Ted as he was holding court in the lobby of the Hilton hotel during last months IAJE conference. He's taken on the appearence of a buddha, white beard, full belly, giant smile. He once told me a great story about his time with Mingus. He had just joined Charles' band, a fresh faced young kid from Philly, and they were playing a club in NYC, The Showplace, maybe? Ted was soloing and feeling very good about what he was playing and the audience response to it. He finished his solo and while still reveling in what he had just accomplished he felt Mingus' breath on his neck and a whisper in his ear, "Ted, great solo! Don't ever play it again! Curson told me he learned more about playing jazz in that one monent then he had ever learned in his life up to that point. A photo I made of Ted adorns our website. He gave me permission to use it as our logo: www.wgbh.org/jazz Edited February 5, 2006 by stevebop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Д.Д. Posted January 20, 2007 Report Share Posted January 20, 2007 (edited) New CD with Curson is coming out next month on Terronès group of labels (click on Blue Marge): Live in Paris at the Sunside Ted Curson & Alain Jean-Marie trio (Gilles Naturel et Philippe Soirat) plus Pierrick Pédron, Guillaume Naturel, July Saury, Sylvia Howard & the Four Voice Ensemble Edited January 20, 2007 by Д.Д. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest the mommy Posted January 20, 2007 Report Share Posted January 20, 2007 just re-listened to the new thing and the blue thing or whatever the atlantic side is called. great album. it's so nice to hear a band like that too-an actual "band", not just a pickup group for a session. or at least i assume that was the case with barron/curson/bushler/berk since they cut the black lion date which i don't like as much. curson has a funny quote in the liner notes for the new blue thing where he says berk is one of the only white guys he knows that can play drums and swing. something like that... but i really like the feel of the compositions, too. i do hear a severity which has been mentioned. it is not happy sounding music for the most part. it's aggressive. tough to say he never made name for himself...he played with mingus, lead his own atlantic album and his own prestige? i guess album...how many trumpeters who came up around then have had better careers??? oh and...wasn't a song from tears for dolphy used in the brown bunny soundtrack? so there's another feather in curson's cap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ep1str0phy Posted January 20, 2007 Report Share Posted January 20, 2007 The Gallo film? If so, I'm not sure that's a feather... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest the mommy Posted January 20, 2007 Report Share Posted January 20, 2007 i meant in reference to the IMO sort of silly topic of the thread as far as curson being an unknown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted January 20, 2007 Report Share Posted January 20, 2007 Surprised you aren't into the Black Lion (Fontana) date... for me, that's one of the heaviest pianoless quartet dates of the '60s. Some people are just underrated, and who knows why. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ep1str0phy Posted January 20, 2007 Report Share Posted January 20, 2007 My understanding is that a lot of it had to do with Curson not "playing ball" with the record company idea men in the fusion/post-fusion/disco era. I'm not sure that he's any more anonymous than the many other tremendously talented instrumentalists who've come up in history largely as Mingus sidemen, but he sure as hell merits more recognition than he has (especially for keeping his music straight). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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