Jump to content

Gillespiana


reg

Recommended Posts

i just love the Gillespiana and Carnegie hall concert CD from Verve. can anyone tell me if the live Gillespiana suite from that concert is available on CD? or anything else other than the 5 tunes on this CD.

i have the live recording of Gillespiana from salle pleyel nov 24th 1960 which is great. did dizzy record this any more times?

how do folk rate the Gillespiana suite compared to dizzy's other stuff?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you sure that Gillespiana was performed at the Carnegie Hall concert? It's certainly never been listed in any discography as an unissued performance. The unissued tracks from Carnegie Hall are: Things To Come; Ow!; Emanon; Con Alma; and I Waited For You. I'm skeptical that they did the entire 40 minute suite in addition to the 10 known tracks. I haven't gone looking for reviews of the show yet.

Also, about the date of that Salle Pleyel show - what source gives November 24? I have seen November 20 and November 25. I believe November 25 to be correct, going from Chris Sheridan's Cannonball Adderley book (Adderley was part of the JATP tour and his concert at the Salle Pleyel were issued by Pablo). It's tantalizing to think that perhaps the entire Gillespie show was filmed (the Adderley was). On November 24, the tour was in Munich and on November 20 they were scheduled for Berlin, but that show was postponed to December 2.

Anyway - Gillespiana is a great piece, but I'm more partial to Perceptions. I prefer JJ's writing to Lalo's.

I'm working on discographies of Art Davis and of Kenny Barron, so that 1960s Gillespie period is of great interest to me.

Gillespie fairly frequently played parts of the suite, don't know about the entire thing. He recorded another version of Blues with Kenny Barron in 1965 at Carnegie Hall, issued on the Limelight label but that track only on CD. I heard him do at least two movements with Sam Rivers in the late 1980s. Toccata and Blues, I think.

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i just love the Gillespiana and Carnegie hall concert CD from Verve.

how do folk rate the Gillespiana suite compared to dizzy's other stuff?

Reg: I share your love for this CD. Gillespiana is one of my very favorite Diz recordings, perhaps THE favorite. (But there are so many great Gillespie recordings, please don't ask me to choose just one!).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you sure that Gillespiana was performed at the Carnegie Hall concert? It's certainly never been listed in any discography as an unissued performance. The unissued tracks from Carnegie Hall are: Things To Come; Ow!; Emanon; Con Alma; and I Waited For You. I'm skeptical that they did the entire 40 minute suite in addition to the 10 known tracks. I haven't gone looking for reviews of the show yet.

Quoting the cd liners " Many of the musicians who recorded Gillespiana in November reconvened the following March to launch Schifrin's suite at Carnegie Hall."

With the studio version safely in the can, it is easy to imagine Verve saving money by taking a pass on the suite.

I know the author is John McDonough, but his editor was Peter Pullman. Maybe PP can help sort it out. I think I have a DownBeat with the concert review somewhere, but it would take a couple of months to locate it.

Edited by Chuck Nessa
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup - right you are.

"A concert sponsored by M-G-M/Verve records was held at Carnegie Hall Feb. 25 to premiere Argentine pianist Lalo Schifrin's Gillespiana, a suite composed for trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and a 20-piece orchestra. The work was recorded for Norman Granz last November with the Gillespie quintet augmented by Clark Terry, Joe Wilder, Ernie Royal, Frank Rehak, Urbie Green, Candido, and Julius Watkins, among others. Disc jockey Mort Fega of WEVD gave the commentary on the five movements of the suite - Prelude, The Blues, Africana, Pan-Americana, and Toccata. Other composers working on compositions for Gillespie include trombonist J.J. Johnson and arranger-composer Robert Farnon."

Down Beat, March 16, 1961 p. 10

Drag that it doesn't seem to have been recorded.

BTW, it was scheduled to be performed at Monterey in 1961 (September 23). There is a tape from that show, but again, what has been issued doesn't include the suite.

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mike, if you are researching '60s Gillespie stuff, I attended a concert at Grinnell College in the Fall of '62. The band was Moody, Schifrin, White and Collins. They were on the way to the West Coast, and Lalo told me he was leaving the group. I have some blurry photos somewhere. Diz was paid $2500 in cash. I watched the transaction. He sat on a bench in the gym dressing room counting the money. He looked up at me while counting and said "Even college boys will steal money, right".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As the world knows all too well from white-collar crime....

That's from in between the folks I'm really interested in (Davis & Barron), but I've filed it away for future reference, never know when it might come in handy. Thanks for the story and the precise reference. I think Kenny told me he joined the band in November.

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Mnytime

I have the CD of the Gillespiana Suite that was recorded live in Salle Pleyel and it gives the date of recording as Nov. 20, 1960 (6 days after the Verve version) on a label called Malaco. With a smaller group (quintet) than the one on the Verve release. Beside the Suite there is also a cover of Duke's Caravan and a Coda track of 38 seconds. The quintet is joined by Candido on the last two tracks on the Conga.

Edited by Mnytime
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, about the date of that Salle Pleyel show - what source gives November 24? I have seen November 20 and November 25.

sorry i meant nov 25th. half asleep when typing :)

same tracks as Mnytime's post from above

about the carnegie hall concert. in alyn shipton's 'Groovin' high' there's a quote from Schifrin - "My only sadness is that when the original album was released of what had actually been a three hour concert, they chopped off the last movement of 'Tunisian Fantasy'."

wonder if they recorded all 3 hours. sure would make a nice box set :)

dizzy did 'Tocatta' on Ralph Gleason's Jazz Casual DVD from january 17,1961.

Edited by reg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...