Chuck Nessa

More of "talking Serge" can be heard on "Boston 1950", a dandy Chaloff Uptown release.

WTF!

Freddie was always trying to get me to use him on a jazz date. I heard him a few times in jazz based groups he led on the south side and he sounded more like Sid Catlett or Cozy Cole than PJJ. Damn fine drummer and good spirit anyway. By coincidence I used his old partner Louis Myers on a Wadada Leo Smith date later.

You working on a Zadora bio now Chris?

Some time ago I was ridiculed for liking Morning Train!

I have a Flying Fish cd called "Squeeze This!" by Those Darn Accordians. Favorite tracks include Fire, Pump It Up, Sing,Sing,Sing, and The Story of Lawrence Welk.

Best guess is 6 months.

Nobody said he looks childish. Best guess so far is Lon's Freddy Jenkins.

Not Jabbo, he had a longer, thinner face.

Maybe Blakey said it directly to Michael.

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

It may be a great album. No value judgement on the recording in my post, but players with styles set in the '40s and early '50s, while grafting on modal styles from the late '50s, recorded in the mid seventies are conservative to me. Had nothing to do with what I recorded. I don't expect/demand players change, I do expect a clear headed view of the evolution of music.

Don Byas too.

Eight guys, eight balls - cover looks right to me.

For 1977 this certainly meets my defination of conservative.

Hey, Iowa was the birthplace of Bix, Art Farmer and Glenn Miller.

Believe me, I don't mean to kick dust on the Pablo label BUT it is musically conservative. Nothing beyond Johnny Griffin/Zoot Sims stylistically. The label also released a bunch of mediocre or worse dates. There are many treasures in the catalog, but be careful. Pay attention to recommendations.

Al Jarreau was in grad school at the University of Iowa. He performed about one Sat. night a month at the Trap, which was in Cedar Rapids. I rode to the gig with him a few times. He was then a Mathis/Hendricks inspired jazz singer. Everything in his later "popish" style was in place at the time. He made a record for Studio 4 in 1965 with a Tender Trap rhythm section. It was not issued at the time but was issued on vinyl by Bainbridge around 1980. The Iowa City jazz scene was interesting at the time. Dale Oehler, the pianist on the JR record has/had a career as arranger/producer in LA (run an AMG search to see all the credits). John Wilmeth, JR's IC bassist also played trumpet and you can do an AMG search on him too. The regular drummer was Rusty Jones (nephew of Isham) who later toured with George Shearing for a few years. He later became a staple in the Chicago club scene. Paul Smoker had his own scene going on at the time, as did a dandy tenor player named Kent Kohea. As I was about to leave the university scene, JR was talking of moving to LA and the rest of the guys enticed their friends Dave Sanborn and a fine drummer named Tom Radtke to transfer from Northwestern to Iowa. You all know what happened to Davie, but Tom became one of the two "on call" studio drummers in Chicago. All of these people made it into AMG, I see.

The Message is a very fine recording but by the mid sixties I think JR had moved to another level. This phase may not have lasted long since nothing I've heard since then compares.

Never had the chance to catch Baby Face in person.

All I can say is I hope Rudy doesn't quit before he does a couple more projects for me. If he's totally deaf, I'm sure they will sound better than the alternatives including the TOCJ guy.

I started at the University of Iowa in the summer session of 1962, lasted a year before they told me to take a year off (flunked out - could be reinstated in a year). Got married, moved back to Iowa City in the fall of 1964 to try school again. In the meantime, JR, on the road with Jay and the Americans, sat in at the Tender Trap (key club in Cedar Rapids), felt at home, quit the road and became the star attraction at the TT. JR's motive was to kick his smack habit. In Action was recorded during that year. By the time I moved to IC JR had moved there and had pressings but no covers. I gave him 5 bucks and he promised a cover later, which he did give me. We became very good friends - my wife (Ann) was back home trying to sell her business, and I was BROKE. Each morning JR would drive his MG Midget to my place and we would go to the Airline Bar and have 2 Bloody Marys to start the day. Then we would get in the Midget so JR could watch the chickies and sip on his bottle of codine cough syrup. This would take about 2 hours. Then we'd go to "Little Bill's" the local club he played (Mon -Sat plus afternoons on Fri and Sat). The rhythm section was hipper than the Studio 4 record. John Wilmeth on bass and Rusty Jones on drums. Anyway, for 6 months, part of JRs deal at the bar was that I always had a plate of food and a beer in front of me. I ate 2 meals a day at Little Bill's for 6 months thanks to JR. The point I was trying to get to: Studio 4 recorded a second album with the Iowa City quartet and it was FAR SUPERIOR to the issued date. I remember a great version of Out of This World. The tapes are lost. Tons more JR stories, like going to hear Trane's quartet at the Plugged Nickel, but I'm tired of typing.

Some years ago I helped our local NPR station write a recommended listening book. I said Face To Face was the reason God let Mr. Hammond desecrate the organ.

The old Chess studio may have been a dump, but the studio McDuff recorded "The Natural Thing" in was state of the art in 1968. I did some sessions there and wish it still existed. The Chess studios were called Ter-Mar after the 2 Chess kids, Terry and Marshall.

Sound engineers with the greatest loss of high frequencies were working in the '70s and '80s - heavy coke use dulled the auditory nerves. Most of them were under 40.