Erroll Garner

[Mark Stryker]

New Erroll Garner stuff coming next month. I riffed a little bit on his prolific but often overlooked compositions in this piece for WBGO.org 

http://wbgo.org/post/considering-erroll-garner-composer-exclusive-premiere-nightconcert#stream/0

 

[Gheorghe]

Very interesting issue about Garner´s talent as a composer .

I have a video of Garner which was done probably in Paris in 1970 maybe 1971 where he plays one tune that might be his own, and it´s called something like "Errol´s tune". That tune is a medium tempo B-flat minor stuff, and from the melody and the chords it´s very similar to a strange Bud Powell tune called "Ups ´n Downs" from his last recording date for ESP a few months before he died, and which was reissued on Mainstream Records in the early 70´s (another take of it is titled "Caravan Riffs") . Since there is also some Garner on Mainstream, it´s possible Garner "borrowed" some ingredients of that strange and forgotten Bud Powell tune. While Bud plays the theme in an attempt to do it "latin", Errol plays it with his trademark "Garner beat".

Edited June 15, 2018 by Gheorghe

[Teasing the Korean]

Years ago, I made a bossa comp consisting of bossas  - or more accurately fake bossas - that appeared on otherwise non-bossa LPs.  I included an Erroll Garner bossa from a soundtrack album he did for Mercury. 

PM me if anyone is interested in my track listing.

Here is the track:

 

Edited June 15, 2018 by Teasing the Korean

[JSngry]

Garner on Mainstream? My memory is failing on that, please advise/assist?

[Teasing the Korean]

I love this Garner original.  When I was a kid, this album cover seemed to me like this idealized version of adulthood.  I imagined that the parents had someone else looking after the kids, and they were having cocktails and a picnic outside.

 

Edited June 15, 2018 by Teasing the Korean

[Mark Stryker]

16 hours ago, JSngry said:

Garner on Mainstream? My memory is failing on that, please advise/assist?

I don't think there's any Garner on Mainstream. I just checked the Tom Lord discography and there are no Garner/Mainstream listings of either original or reissued sides. Lord does miss stuff on occasion, so it's certainly still possible. 

[Ken Dryden]

Obviously there is no such thing as a complete jazz discography anywhere. I reviewed one CD-Rom edition of Lord's Jazz discography and bought a couple of later editions and there's always going to be older stuff that is missing or incorrectly listed. For example, when I wrote liner notes for Jaki Byard's The Last From Lennie's, the CD producer sent me all of the leftover music that was not placed on the CD or on the earlier live releases (Live! Vol. 1 & Live! Vol. 2, plus the compilation Live!). None of it was present in Lord's discography at that time.

[Teasing the Korean]

Mambo Garner:

 

[Teasing the Korean]

 

[Mark Stryker]

22 hours ago, Ken Dryden said:

Obviously there is no such thing as a complete jazz discography anywhere. I reviewed one CD-Rom edition of Lord's Jazz discography and bought a couple of later editions and there's always going to be older stuff that is missing or incorrectly listed. For example, when I wrote liner notes for Jaki Byard's The Last From Lennie's, the CD producer sent me all of the leftover music that was not placed on the CD or on the earlier live releases (Live! Vol. 1 & Live! Vol. 2, plus the compilation Live!). None of it was present in Lord's discography at that time.

Well aware of this: In writing my forthcoming book on jazz musicians from Detroit, I was in and out of Lord a lot and I was surprised at how much stuff was missing. 

Edited June 17, 2018 by Mark Stryker

[mikeweil]

When I prepared my Tjader discography for Duncan S. Reid's book, I never trusted Lord. The Tjader data he displays are still the same as in the old Bruyninckx disco. He seems to have his people for some musicians, but others are shamefully neglected. I always check with other sources. 

But, to be fair, it is impossible to get everything in such a project. Even in a discography on a single musician, you never can be complete. You'd have to audition every record to confirm every detail, which is extremely hard to achieve. 

If he had a way of letting specialised discographers work on his database, similar to Wikipedia, that would open up a lot of possibilities.