Dizzy Gillespie Big Band

[thomastreichler]

I purchased two 2007 Hindsight releases by the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band online from Worldsrecords: "A Night In Tunisia - Big Band 'Live' 1957" and "Cool Breeze - Big Band 'Live' 1957". The liner notes (by John Jungklaus, never heard of him) provide no information on the exact recording date(s), recording venue(s) and personnel. According to Jungklaus the original live recordings were made by Wally Heider, the digital remastering by Joe Sidore. The track lists are as follows (the usual repertoire one also finds on the Verve twofer "Birk's Works"):

"A Night In Tunisia"

1. Groovin' For Nate

2. Left Hand Corner

3. Doodlin'

4. Annie's Dance

5. That's All

6. A Night In Tunisia

7. Whisper Not

8. Tour De Force

9. Dizzy's Blues

10. Manteca

"Cool Breeze"

1. Jordu

2. Groovin' High

3. Jessica's Day

4. Tin Tin Deo

5. Dizzy's Business

6. I Remember Clifford

7. Autumn Leaves

8. Begin The Beguine

9. Birk's Works

10. Cool Breeze

Does anyone have any idea, when and where these recordings were made and what the exact personnel was (possibly the same as on the Newport Set)? Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge.

[brownie]

This looks similar to this JazzUnlimited release.

[thomastreichler]

Might be the same concert. A track by track comparison could clarify, but that would demand me to buy the Jazz Unlimited release, what I am not willing to do, risking that I have the identical recordings twice.

[thomastreichler]

In the meantime I found time to have a listen. These are exciting live performances by the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band in great form; sound is nothing short of sensational, even better, I dare to say, than the Verve studio recordings of 1956 and the Verve Newport recording of 1957. Wally Heider was one of the best in the business.

Both cd are available at www.worldsrecords.com for $10 each. The Dizzy Gillespie Big Band of 1957 in best possible sound quality. Highly recommended!

Edited November 16, 2007 by Tommy T

[Bluerein]

CD Universe makes some sort of "Joke" with this listing....

http://www.cduniverse.com/sresult.asp?HT_S...p;altsearch=yes

Note the "starring" line underneath the main listing of Cool Breeze" CD which they list as 1967 by the way.

[Bluerein]

To further complicate matters......I have a Dutch issued CD which has also material from the US State Department Jazz Orchestra from 1957.

Here's the track listing with soloists give:

OD 001

DIZZY GILLESPIE

and his US State Department Jazz Orchestra

1. Dizzy's Business (Ernie Wilkins, arr. Wilkins)

soloists: Gillespie, Ernie Henry (as)

2. Announcement by Gillespie

3. Night in Tunisia (Gillespie, arr. Q. Jones), with introduction

soloists: Lee Morgan (tp), Benny Golson (ts), Tom Bryant (b), Al Grey (tb)

4. Anitra's Dance (E. Grieg, arr. Melba Liston)

soloist: Gillespie

5. Begin the Beguine (C. Porter, arr. Q Jones)

soloists: Wynton Kelly (p), Charlie Persip (drs), Gillespie

6. Announcement Yesterdays by Gillespie

7. Yesterdays (J. Kern, arr. Howie Kravitz)

soloist: Jimmy Powell (as)

8. Cool Breeze (D. Gillespie, arr. Tad Dameron)

soloists: Al Grey (tb), Gillespie, Billy Mitchell (ts)

9. I Remember Clifford (B. Golson, arr. Golson)

soloist: Gillespie

10. False Start Groovin' High

11. Groovin' High (D. Gillespie, arr. A.K. Salim)

soloists: Ernie Henry (as), Gillespie

12. Whisper Not (B.Golson, arr. Golson)

soloists: Gillespie, Ernie Henry (as), Benny Golson (ts), Wynton Kelly (p)

13. Doodlin' (H. Silver, arr. E. Wilkins)

soloists: Gillespie, Pee Wee Moore (bar)

14. Hey Pete, Let's Eat More Meat (Harding/Gillespie, arr. Q. Jones)

soloists: Gillespie, Jimmy Powell (as), Al Grey (tb), Wynton Kelly (p)

Barcode: 7 86497 01595 5

See www.bvhaast.nl for ordering info.

[brownie]

I have that JuazzUnlimited Dizzy big band.

Here is the tracks list with timings.

A Night in Tunisia 10:17

Doodlin' 5:07

Autumn Leaves 2:59

My Reverie 2:37

Dizzy's Business 4:19

I Remember Clifford 3:49

JorDu 3:54

Whisper Not 4:47

Birk's Works 4:58

Jessica"s Day 4:14

Left Hand Corner 2:23

Yesterdays 3:02

Cool Breeze 11:56

Any significant differences with other releases?

[thomastreichler]

I have that JuazzUnlimited Dizzy big band.

Here is the tracks list with timings.

A Night in Tunisia 10:17

Doodlin' 5:07

Autumn Leaves 2:59

My Reverie 2:37

Dizzy's Business 4:19

I Remember Clifford 3:49

JorDu 3:54

Whisper Not 4:47

Birk's Works 4:58

Jessica"s Day 4:14

Left Hand Corner 2:23

Yesterdays 3:02

Cool Breeze 11:56

Any significant differences with other releases?

Here are the timings of the respective tracks on the two Hindsight releases:

A Night In Tunisia 9:38

Doodlin' 4:23

Autumn Leaves 3:09

Dizzy's Business 4:22

I Remember Clifford 3:54

Jordu 3:45

Whisper Not 4:56

Birk's Works 4:59

Jessica's Day 4:41

Left Hand Corner 2:33

Cool Breeze 8:19

My Reverie and Yesterdays are not on the two Hindsight cd. Some tracks are very close in timing others are significantly different, so the definitive answer is left open ...

[thomastreichler]

Jazzdisco.org lists two live sessions of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band in 1957: The Newport concert of July 6 (released on Verve), and the concert in Chester PA of June 14. The latter produced 23 selections, 13 of them released on Jazz Unlimited (Dizzy Gillespie And His Orchestra "Live", Chester, Pennsylvania, June 14, 1957), the remaining 10 on Jazz Hour (Dizzy Gillespie Big Band Live In Stereo At Chester PA ).

The two Hindsight cd (HCD 282, HCD 283) combine 20 tracks overall. The following selections, listed by Jazzdisco.org, are missing on the Hindsight discs: My Reverie, Yesterdays, I Love You Too Much, Wonder Why. The following selections on the Hindsight discs are missing on the Jazzdisco.org list: Tin Tin Deo, Groovin' For Nate, That's All, Tour De Force, Manteca. These differencies suggest that the Jazz Unlimited and Jazz Hour releases on the one side and the Hindsight releases on the other side cover different live sessions. This would mean that there exists a live session by the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band not covered by Jazzdisco.org. Otherwise, i.e. the recordings on the Hindsight discs stem from the Chester concert, one would have to assume, that the respective listing on Jazzdisco.org is incomplete. So there is room for further conjecture, or rather inquiries.

[Bluerein]

And how does the Dutch cd fit in? It's in genuine stereo and good sound (a bit low on the bass side but it's the 50's).

[thomastreichler]

And how does the Dutch cd fit in? It's in genuine stereo and good sound (a bit low on the bass side but it's the 50's).

I can not determine the source of the Dutch cd, it has at least "Hey Pete, Let's Eat More Meat" that is not on the Jazzdisco.org track list for the Chester concert. The Hindsight discs have not just good but excellent stereo sound, better than a lot of the studio recordings from 1957. Seems that there exist some more live recordings other than the Newport and Chester / PA sets.

[Claude Schlouch]

Hi folks,

It seems that they mixed material from Chester & Newport. You will find below what I have:

Probable personnel: Dizzy Gillespie (tp, ann), Lee Morgan, Ermit V.Perry, Carl Warwick, Talib Daawud (tp), Al Grey, Chuck Connors (tb), Melba Liston (tb), Jimmy Powell, Ernie Henry (as), Billy Mitchell (ts), Benny Golson (ts), Pee Wee Moore (bs), Wynton Kelly (p), Tommy Bryant (b), Charlie Persip (dm), Austin Cromer (voc), Ernie Wilkins (arr)

Club Bel-Aire, Chester, PA, June 14, 1957

spoken intro by Dizzy Gillespie (a)

A night in Tunisia (b)

Doodlin' ©

Autumn leaves (d)

My reverie (e)

Dizzy's business (f)

I remember Clifford (g)

Jordu (Jor-Du) (h)

Groovin' high (false start) (i)

Groovin' high (j)

Whisper not (k)

Birk's works (l)

Jessica's day (m)

Anitra's dance (n)

Begin the beguine (o)

Left-hand corner (p)

I love you much too much (q)

Yesterdays ®

Wonder why-vocAC (s)

Cool breeze (t)

Hey Pete (Let's eat more meat) (u)

(abcdefghklmprt) on Jazz Unlimited(Swed)JUCD-2040(+).

(abcfgijknortu) on BVHAAST(Net)OD-001($).

(abdfnopqrst) on Jazz Hour(Can)JH-1029(*), Lone Hill Jazz(EU)LHJ 10107.

[thomastreichler]

The question about the source of the Hindsight discs remains unanswered. Do the Jazz Unlimited and Jazz Hour releases disclose the name of the original recording engineer?

[brownie]

The Jazz Unlimited CD has pretty detailed liner notes (by Mark Gardner) but gives no indication on the audio source.

[Don Brown]

Any chance these titles could come from the three CDs on on the Consolidated Artists label? This material was superbly recorded during the band's South American tour by Dizzy's old friend Dave Usher

Edited November 19, 2007 by Don Brown

[thomastreichler]

Any chance these titles could come from the three CDs on on the Consolidated Artists label? This material was superbly recorded during the band's South American tour by Dizzy's old friend Dave Usher

According to my sources, the South American Tour, documented on the CAP recordings took place in 1956, whereas the Jazz Unlimited and Jazz Hour releases cover the Chester / PA concert in 1957 and the two Hindsight discs say "Live 1957". Besides that the sound on the Hindsight releases is superior to the CAP recordings; the recording engineer was Wally Heider.

[Quasimado]

How are the Ernie Henry solos on (any of) these ... any recommendations?

Q

[brownie]

Ernie Henry has several solos on the JazzUnlimited CD. None is very long, but he is heard doing very nice things on 'Autumn Leaves', 'WhisperNot' and 'Dizzy's Business'.

[Quasimado]

Thanks Brownie. I'll track it down.

Q

[pepe]

I got the Night in Tunisia last week, and it's great Dizzy. He partly used the big band as a frame for his fantastic soloing, and it's lots of that here - on Dizzy's Blues he goes on for several minutes and generally he takes the major part of the solos - but there are some nice tenor from Golson and Mitchell and some good alto (from Henry, I believe, who sounds more Phil Woods here than I've heard him elsewhere).

I haven't heard the Chester, but from earlier posts in this thread I guess we can assume the Hindsights are from a different occasion that has'nt been released earlier?

Edited January 7, 2008 by pepe