BillF

Really like the Winding album, especially for Brew Moore. Less familiar with the Johnson. I think I know it as Origins: Savoy Sessions. A few more anecdotes. At a private session in a friend's house leading British bassist Andrew Cleyndert seemed to hesitate at the bridge of "Four Brothers", but stoutly rejected my later suggestion that he wasn't too sure of it, while admitting that the changes moved in an unexpected direction. But when I told him that Bird had fluffed it (he hadn't heard the record) he seemed to regard it as an honorable error! The guys we're currently talking about are a long way back, so I'm pleased to have heard in the flesh Cecil Payne (in a club in Leeds in the 60s), Kai (at the Giants of Jazz concert in London in 1971) and Max (with his quintet in a Manchester club in about 1967).

Classic stuff which I bought on vinyl (of course!) in the 1960s, the only difference being that one of mine looked like this:

Bird's learning the bridge on "Four Brothers" is one of the most remarkable recorded jazz moments I've heard!

With me it was the other way round. Before I left school in 1958 at the age of 18 I was a firm Parker fan and owned 2 of a 5 Parker Savoy set on London American that looked like this: When I first heard Ornette on a Radio Luxembourg broadcast (BBC was never too keen on jazz) in the spring of 1959 I thought this was some sort of insane Bird and went around saying this is how Parker must have sounded in the Camarillo institution. However I very rapidly became a fan for both Ornette and Dolphy and bought many albums featuring them. Over all these years I never thought of this, but how right you are! Come to think of it, the Parker quintet didn't fare too well with the addition of a trombonist. Tommy Turk is a bit of a disaster on the "Passport" "Visa" session, don't you think?

Mention of Balliett sent me to my shelf where I found this, dated 1963:

Another beautiful one from my youth - beautiful both in format and the music, of course. A weakened Fats, but still beautiful. And nice compositions - I hear quite a number of covers, particularly of "Nostalgia". Who was Don Lanphere? I used to wonder. Didn't hear of him again until Organissimo days. And the perfect bop rhythm section of Al, Tommy and Max. Now all the alternative takes are available on this, but that little EP is more romantic, somehow:

Yes, the sound on those pre-Williams Parker Dials was terrible. In 1961 I was listening to them on a French label (forgotten what it was). When the Williams discs came along in the 70s I bought 5 of the 7. (I omitted Earl Coleman and the sides with Red Norvo). Tony Williams was pretty active in the 70s promoting the jazz he loved here in the UK. He brought Joe Albany to Manchester and I think the Al Haig session I went to was also his doing.

Bought this used French 10" LP in 1961. An all-star cast, I think you will agree: Moody, McGhee, Milt, Hank Jones, Ray Brown, J C Heard. Very early for Hank J. I can't think off-hand of an earlier recording by him. Always like J C H's explosive drumming. Reminds me of what they said about Krupa during World War 2: "Dropped more bombs that the U S Air Force". Is this a forgotten date? I never hear anything about it. Anyone else know it?

Although I'm an Eric fan, it doesn't come near:

May I join you in worshipping at the shrine of Bird, Fats, Allen and Ernie? So nice to see music of this era played! I'm almost tempted to start a thread titled "Playing Favourites: Reflections on Jazz of the Later 1940s", but am too lazy.

I recall Ronnie's brilliant opening: "I was born in a room over a Jewish pub in the East End of London. It was called The Kosher Horses. We were very poor. My father was always unemployed. He was a shepherd. We were so poor they had to buy my clothing at the Army and Navy Stores. There I was during the Second World War going to school in a Japanese admiral's uniform." (Quoting from memory) But for the real Ronnie story I recommend John Fordham's Jazz Man: The Amazing Story of Ronnie Scott and His Club.

A fine one which I know in this format:

Wasn't Cecil Taylor said to put pianos out of tune?

I should have heard it on Sunday, which was 02022020.