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David Izenzon


Gheorghe

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Such a great bass player! I think he was an ideal choice for Ornette Coleman. They really played some great stuff together, and like Charlie Haden he really had the knowledge and that telepathic sense to play Ornette´s music, maybe even more than Charlie Haden, or how do you think about it?

I´m really impressed by the way he quickly changes from pizzicato to arco-passages and his arco playing (bowing) shows an immense knowledge of the instrument. I think he was a very technical bass player also.

I don´t know very much about his whereabouts after his tenure with Ornette Coleman, only that he played at Coltrane´s funeral and with a string of new thing players like Shepp, Sam Rivers, but very little else. It´s reported he was much more into teaching during his later years, but died very early, suffering a heart attack while running after a guy who had tried to steal his car, or something like that.

I think, during his short playing career he had found something like the secret key to really play Ornette´s music as spontanously as it´s supposed to be, he´s also particularly great on those tunes where Ornette is playing the fiddle, which some people hate but makes sense to me, especially when both Ornette and David are on it....

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hi Niko!

Sounds good to me from the personnel, like a dream combination. Further information about the music, please?

Gheo

just played it, i have a tendency to find piano trio records boring (i know we don't share that :) ) but this one definitely held my interest, which had quite a bit to do with izenons contibutions, lots of fine cello-like arco passages... definitely recommended!

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Look for the DVD titled David, Moffett & Ornette - Paris 1966. The company Rhapsody currently publishes and distributes it. Some nice footage of Izenzon there, and one's given some insight into the person as well. Warmly recommended.

Saw this a few years ago (on video tape). That's wild when they are doing the film soundtrack and they do this great improvisation to one of the film segments and the engineer doesn't record. I thought Moffett was going to go into the control room and kill him. =:-) You know, you hear about some of these guys being 'real assholes' and stuff, but when you see some of these documentaries, you start to get a more complete picture. Traveling around, no sleep, bad food, little money, then you have to go do some sessions or something and 'be creative' and you do it, just to have some other idiot not do his job....GEEZ!

bigtiny

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I must get that DVD!

@clifford_thornton: tape with Perry Robinson sure might sound good. What a coincidence...yesterday I listened to that ESP record Henry Grimes made with Perry Robbinson "The Call". Sure you know it, but just lets say I really enjoyed it. Listening to it I also thought that Perry Robinson and David Izenzon also would team up very well...

@Niko: Piano trios...well don´t worry, I wouldn´t say piano-trio recordings are my fist choice. It´s just that I´m one of Bud´s most loyal fans and since they recorded him with too many trio-settings (I prefer it with other hornplayers involved), I got all those Bud recordings. But besides that, very little else piano trio. The Jakey Byard thing would be worth buying....

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Do get the RVGs of the Ornette albums - much additional music on them! Among my favourite 60s albums, that's for sure!

Here's the jazzdisco.org entry of that Rollins date - one of the highpoints in Rollins' discography, I dare say:

Sonny Rollins Sextet

Sonny Rollins (ts) Herbie Hancock (p) Jim Hall (g) David Izenzon, Teddy Smith (b) Stu Martin (d)

NYC, June 11, 1964 Trav'lin' Light RCA Bluebird (F) 5634-1-RB11

- RCA Victor LPM 3355

* Sonny Rollins - After The Bridge (RCA Bluebird (F) 5634-1-RB11)

* Sonny Rollins - The Standard (RCA Victor LPM 3355)

Izenzon is on bowed bass, and of course who else could have been at the piano if not Herbie - one of the most lyrical recordings in modern jazz, I dare say... I know, a few superlatives too many, but both this and the Golden Circle albums range high on top in my book!

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The only time I saw Izenzon was with Ornette, Charlie Haden was also in that group. It was late August, 1967, at the Village Gate. A double bill - Miles Davis played the first set (Shorter, Hancock, et al), and Coleman's music was actually the more accessible!! (Think about that - Miles and Ornette, in a club, on the same bill!! Those were the days.)

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Guest Bill Barton

Would love to hear all those tapes he and Perry Robinson made.

So would I.

And I as well... Izenson is one of the relatively few improvising bassists I could listen to all day long playing col arco.

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The only time I saw Izenzon was with Ornette, Charlie Haden was also in that group. It was late August, 1967, at the Village Gate. A double bill - Miles Davis played the first set (Shorter, Hancock, et al), and Coleman's music was actually the more accessible!! (Think about that - Miles and Ornette, in a club, on the same bill!! Those were the days.)

WOW :excited:

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In 1977, Izenzon recorded and toured in a trio of Paul Motian's, with Charles Brackeen on tenor and soprano.

The album is called "Dance" and is available on ECM:

superd_1580943.jpg

I don´t know this one, but once I heard a record of Charles Brackeen with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. Brackeen sounded so much like Ornette, it was astonishing, even the compositions though it was Brackeen´s originals, sounded exactly like something written by Ornette.

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That Byard isn't that cool, IIRC. Better records in his discography for sure.

Izenzon also played some nice stuff with Bill Dixon on "Winter Song" (from the Savoy 7-tette LP). Though Bill said he (Izenzon) wasn't really that comfortable with the music at first and had trouble playing "freely" if you can believe it.

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