Michael Weiss

My mistake - Phantom Navigator was issued on CD - That's how I own it. I guess I was listing favorite recordings that are just plain out of print that I thought should be reissued.

Art Blakey - Golden Boy - Colpix Buddy Montgomery - The Two-sided Album - Milestone Sonny Red - Breezin' - Jazzland Wayne Shorter - Phantom Navigator - Columbia

I don't remember what tunes were played. The singer Lodi Carr was fronting the gig. I was stuffed in a standing-room-only area and it was difficult to concentrate. This was twenty years ago. To my dismay as well as yours, I don't remember any more than I told already. I wish there was more to it than that.

I think around that same year, a friend and I called him up in Philly and asked if we could visit him, but it didn't come together. He was living in some kind of halfway house. I heard Hank at the Angry Squire with Duke Jordan. He was a shadow of his former self, but it was unmistakably the shadow of Hank Mobley! My vague recollection was that it was something pre-orchestrated with musicians not directly related to the proceedings. In other words it wasn't memorable - to me anyway.

Kenny Washington has his dates wrong. It wasn't 1993. We (Johnny Griffin Quartet) were in Seattle at Jazz Alley, May 4-9, 1987. We never worked there again. Lucky came in one night. He was very nice - friendly. Kind of evasive about what he was doing with himself, but seemed happy. I had to trade about 10 LPs for it, but I got an original copy of Lucky Thompson Plays Jerome Kern and No More. I think it was finally reissued on CD together with another Moodsville? This is a PERFECT record.

I learned Deep in a Dream off of this great record. I played it for Hank after nearly everyone had left the jam session that followed the Town Hall Blue Note concert of 1985. While I was playing he was egging me on with stuff like "yeah, come up this chord, now come down that scale." A precious memory. As most people in-the-know know Hank wasn't invited and appeared anyway. At the end of the night he apparently lost his overcoat, had no money, so Kenny Washington and I cabbed him to Penn Station and gave him trainfare back to Philly.

A memorial service for Percy Heath will take place at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem this Friday, June 10, 7:00 - 9:00pm. 132 West 138th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues. Many musicians and speakers to appear.

June 24-25 I'll be at the Knickerbocker restaurant (University Place at 9th Street) from 9:45pm. with Gerald Cannon, bass and Daniel sadownick, percussion. No Cover. Michael Weiss

I'll never see another dime from SteepleChase, so I'm not as interested in promoting that recording as my last one, which was self-produced. While I'm not displeased with Milestones, it doesn't have any original compositions of mine and was produced on a shoestring, while Soul Journey's contents are all originals and was made using the finest ingredients (studio, engineer, mastering - not to mention personnel). On my CDBaby page all nine tracks have mp3 samples. I don't know why Amazon doesn't have any samples of Milestones.

[shameless plug] Gotta keep those units moving! cdbaby.com/cd/mweiss

Having grown up in Dallas, I played with Marchel on a number of occasions, beginning with the Recovery Room in the 1970s. Coincidentally I got a call from him yesterday. But for the Jazz Under the Stars concert I brought down Eric Alexander, John Webber and Joe Farnsworth with me. That was in 1998. Haven't been back since.

Having seen them both recently, I'd love to splice together two scenes (and repeat them endlessly in a loop): 1. the parrot in the movie, The Ladykillers, bobbing up and down 2. Keith Jarrett in the Miles Davis Isle of Wight DVD bobbing up and down. Highly recommended!

If I'm not mistaken, the Carnegie Hall concert was produced by my old friend, Kenneth Lee Karpe, who passed away a year and a half ago. Kenny Karpe had a loft in the mid fifties at Park Avenue and 28th street which became a rehearsal space and hang out for a number of musicians - Oscar Pettiford and his big band, Thelonious, Tommy Flanagan, Cedar Walton, Max Roach and many others. Kenny was involved along with Jules Colomby with Signal Records. He also had some role later on in producing Ravi Shankar. Kenny was a fixture on the NY scene until he became ill a few years ago. He appears briefly in the film Straight No Chaser bumping into Monk on Amsterdam Ave.

Hank played that year at the Angry Squire (NYC) with Duke Jordan. He had a lot of trouble executing, but what did come out of his horn was unmistakably Hank, which I think everyone there was grateful to hear in person.

Students, listen up: There is not one better soloist to learn the language of bebop. Start with Hank, then go on to everyone else. If every jazz program had a required curriculum, it should be that every student (of every instrument) must transcribe 20 Hank Mobley solos and be able to play them along with the records. Jazz education would then be in a much healthier place. There would be no need for clumsy theory books. The Montmartre tapes are classic. Hank is reaching beyond, really stretching. Also, great Tootie Heath - like he plays on the Prisoner. Hank wasn't even invited to appear at the One Night of Blue Note concert at Town Hall in 1985, but he showed up anyway. After the concert, Kenny Washington and I cabbed Hank to Penn Station and gave him train fare back to Philly - he was broke (in more ways than one). Amazing that Blue Note couldn't honor one of their star recording artists.

#1 Go!/A Swingin' Affair - a tie (recorded two days apart). #2 Clubhouse and Gettin' Around - a tie (also recorded consecutive days) Both have the best rhythm sections. Best overall marks for players and repertoire.

You couldn't have put it better. You have to listen! - the composition, the structures, the solos. Sometimes it takes several repeated listenings before these things become apparent. People get distracted by the wrong things because they don't know how to listen to music. All three Columbias are great. Joy Ryder's pieces are not quite as complex but still it's a must have. Phantom Navigator's compositions, like Atlantis are amazingly detailed and complex, not to mention beautiful, such as Mahogany Bird and Flagships. Forbidden Plan-It contains some masterful counterpoint. High Life, represents to me the highest level of artistic expression - composition and improvisation - by one artist, in the 1990s.

Photo #1 is bassist, Bob Cunningham Photo #2 is Cecil Payne

Great record. A no-brainer.

The Jazztet reunited in 1995 for a European summer concert tour. Art, Benny, Curtis, Buster Williams, Carl Allen and myself.

Joe, I don't know if what I practice adds anything substantial to this discussion, but since you asked: My own time at home on the piano is spent playing classical music - *Szymanowski's Mazurkas, Four Polish Dances and Valse Romantique, Scriabin sonatas and etudes - or working on my own compositions. Every now and then I might take a little something through the keys, or blow on a tune for a while. Just playing the instrument for a couple of hours is all I need before a performance. There are several exercises I recommend to my students which deal with scales, fingerings, technique, keys, transposition, problem solving, etc. *These are some of the hippest pieces I've come across in the classical repertoire. I strongly recommend any serious pianists out there to check this stuff out. Marc-Andre Hamelin CD on Hyperion.

Johnny Griffin reunites his quartet with Michael Weiss, John Webber, Kenny Washington for an upcoming two day stint at the Blue Note, NYC, March 15 and 16.

Thanks. Glad you like them. Michael

I drop in a post now and then. I'm not interested in creating a commotion, but if I can add some useful information I will. However, I'm always willing to answer any questions posed to me. Thanks for the invite, Chuck.

To Johnny Griffin fans: Griff is returning to the US for a brief trip next month: We'll be at the Blue Note, NYC on March 15-16. The regular quartet with John Webber and Kenny Washington. Griff then plays a concert in Chicago on March 19 with the Chicago Jazz Ensemble. He hasn't played stateside in almost three years.