BillF

Hank Mobley, Hi Voltage (Blue Note) With Blue Mitchell, Jackie McLean, John Hicks, Bob Cranshaw and Billy Higgins in 1967.

Interesting! This one has passed me by. (I've owned Taylor's Tenors, a great album with Frank Foster and Charlie Rouse, since the 1960s.)

Yes, Club 43 was the name of Garside's first jazz club - in Oxford Road, Manchester - and IIRC he kept the name for its successor, where I saw Mobley, in the now-disappeared Amber Street.

The new book mentions this gig - presumably at "Club 54" in 1968. Arranged by Pete King of Ronnie Scotts' Productions after Mobley's residency there. Yes, 1968 sounds right.

ah, that's where the info was from (despite this missing detail i still recommend the other Baker bio by Jeroen de Valk); what i find remarkable is that Dameron remained the composer on so many of these (partly new?) compositions; was it because he (and his tunes) were more famous than Mundy, did this happen when the tapes were sold to prestige, was it because he had a stronger standing against Carpenter? or because he arranged Baker's recording with Carpenter; (or are others of his compositions issued as Carpenter's)... Gavin says that Carpenter had become manager to Dameron who, of course, had serious drug problems and was prepared to sell his record royalties to Carpenter for fifty dollars, as well as relinquishing to him the rights to all of his tunes. Also included in the Baker/Coleman/Lightsey sessions were Sonny Stitt tunes on which Carpenter claimed coauthorship. Looking through my records, I estimate that of the 32 pieces recorded, only 5 were standards on which royalties were payable. The sad irony is that, out of such despicable business practices, came superlative music!

James Gavin's excellent biography of Baker, Deep in a Dream says that Carpenter was a corrupt entrepreneur who had many musicians, including the drug-dependent Baker, in his thrall. On these sessions we get : "Jimmy Mundy sat in the control room,anonymously churning out songs for which Carpenter took credit. 'He was writing the next tune while we were recording the tune before,' says Lightsey .... Carpenter sold the tapes to Prestige who spread them out over five albums."

Interesting that your Baker/Coleman/Lightsey album is called On a Misty Night. Mine is on Prestige and is called Boppin' With The Chet Baker Quintet. it's not the original album, the five(?) "...in' with the Chet Baker Quintet" albums were reissued by fantasy on three CDs called Stairway to the Stars, On a Misty Night and Lonely Star... Thanks as always, Niko, for your discographical input! I have five CDs (each of LP length) on Prestige called Boppin', Smokin', Groovin', Comin' On andCool Burnin'. Before the music is forgotten, I'll just add that they are so good, I felt I had to have all five!

Interesting that your Baker/Coleman/Lightsey album is called On a Misty Night. Mine is on Prestige and is called Boppin' With The Chet Baker Quintet.

When I used to see him play - around 1960 - he was very much the "guv'nor" figure. People spoke of his "military bearing", referring to his neat clothing and upright stance. This control was very evident in his drumming, too, and the body language always spelled authority, whether or not he was the group's leader.

Try his mid- and later-sixties albums (The Turnaround, No Room For Squres, Dippin', A Caddy For Daddy, High Voltage, Far Away Lands), where he uses a harder tone (as well as more economical phrasing). Thanks for the recommendations Bill, I probably will. I heard Mobley play in our home city, Richard, in the late sixties at a club owned by Manchester jazz promoter, Ernie Garside, which stood near the site of the present Shude Hill Metro station. Hank was accompanied by a local trio led by the very talented bop pianist, Joe Palin (recently passed away), who chose not to make it on the national scene. What I remember was the staggering beauty of Hank's tenor sound, something of which seemed to go all the way back to Lester. He was clearly high, giggled a lot and wouldn't stop playing in the interval when the trio went for a break. Records were put on, but he just kept on blowing along with them!

Very sad news. I saw him play many times in his Ronnie Ross/Tubby Hayes period.

Try his mid- and later-sixties albums (The Turnaround, No Room For Squres, Dippin', A Caddy For Daddy, High Voltage, Far Away Lands), where he uses a harder tone (as well as more economical phrasing).

Those Blue Note recordings of the sixties secure his reputation for ever!

Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, Let the Good Times Roll (Ace of Hearts)

Lee Morgan, Delightfulee (Blue Note) Two Morgan sessions from 1966: 1) with Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner Bob Cranshaw and Billy Higgins. 2) with orchestra playing Oliver Nelson arrangements. As is so often the case, I bought this after hearing a track on the radio. Sonny Buxton played "Zambia" on his KCSM show on Saturday and Lee's opening phrase after Tyner's solo nearly blew me out of my chair! The album was a bit of a surprise with the very different big band sides, but at nearly 70 minutes with no alternative takes, it's unusually good value for a Blue Note album.

As the only Brilliant Corners I know is the Riverside vinyl which I've had for decades, can I ask what the extra track is?

A bit of history, Chris, since you're interested, but no photos of my own. Thatcher came to power in 1979 on a wave of anti-unionist feeling (not wholly unjustified at the time). She wanted to break the unions. A good deal of legislation went through to reduce union immunities and recruitment/negotiation rights. The miners were the most extreme left wing union in Britain - many Communist and other extreme left wingers among them at grass roots and senior levels - also the most militant and mutually solid. It had been a miners' strike that had brought down a Tory government in 1974, so Arthur Scargill, boss of the union and a leading member of the Socialist Workers' Party, was no 1 on her hate list. A further strike was instigated in 1984 by proposals to close 20 mines and, after a long, bitter struggle, with a good deal of social disorder (there were fears at one time that the Government would call out the Army), the unions lost. But that 20 was only the first of many closures. Michael Heseltine closed most of what remained of Britain's deep mines in 1994. Effectively, the Thatcher government closed the industry prematurely, using North Sea oil, not to fund much needed infrastructure investment, but to replace coal, in order to break this union. There were about 600 coal mines in South Wales in the 1920s. From about the 1890s, Cardiff was the world's busiest coal port and had the only Coal Exchange in the world (that's why it has the world's oldest record shop). Only one deep mine remained open in South Wales after 1994 - Tower Colliery, Hirwaun in the Cynon Valley - and only because it was bought out by the miners themselves, forming an Anarcho-Syndicalist Workers' Co-operative (it closed a couple of months ago, having been worked out). South Wales is still producing energy. The mines have been replaced by windmills. This is the view across the valley from our estate. And now a couple of references: Miners' strike 1984 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3494024.stm Tower Colliery http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/sites...rcolliery.shtml Oh, so there IS one of my pictures MG Fascinating stuff, MG! There's nothing in Manchester suburbia that can match the epic history of your district or Bev's, but I'm 100% with you where Thatcher is concerned.

Kenny Dorham, Whistle Stop (Blue Note) With Hank Mobley, Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones in 1961.

A couple of days ago I checked Amazon's price for the DVD of Clint Eastwood's Charlie Parker biopic, Bird. Today, under "Customers with similar searches purchased ...", it's trying to sell me Bird: the Ultimate Illustrated Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe, Garden Birds, RSPB Pocket Guide to British Birds and a "window bird feeder". Do you get idiotic responses, too?

Hope you already have the one simply called Coltrane with "Out of This World", etc.

Crescent - right there in the top rank of Coltrane albums!

Bebop Spoken Here from KBCS. Now listening to: J. J. Johnson playing Monk's "Misterioso".

Is it the equivalent of the "Like Sonny" CD on Roulette ? Well, I don't know, but "Simple Like" from the Roulette disc has the same melody as "Like Sonny" from Coltrane Jazz, although, of course, these are different recording sessions with different personnel. The three cuts from the Roulette LP, along with an alternate take of "Exotica", are on the Like Sonny CD. That CD is filled out by a Wilbur Harden LP originally issued on Jubilee. Don't know if the Morgans have ever made it to CD. Thanks for the information, Paul.

Is it the equivalent of the "Like Sonny" CD on Roulette ? Well, I don't know, but "Simple Like" from the Roulette disc has the same melody as "Like Sonny" from Coltrane Jazz, although, of course, these are different recording sessions with different personnel.

wow, that's a strong assessment (not knowing how you like other coltrane)... are they available on cd? I don't know if they're available on CD. I'm sure someone will be able to tell us. As to my liking for/familiarity with Coltrane, I have 10 LPs and 3CDs and - yes - those three tracks are the ones I'd grab if the house started burning! I have a musician friend who knows his Coltrane well and he's of the same opinion.