BillF

Here's a local contribution to this topic: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/2981145.stm

Bill Crow Jean Rook Glenda Slagg

Courtney Love Venus Williams Aphrodite Ramsbottom

John Williams is a great choice - fine, distinctive pianist and certainly overlooked. Did some marvellous work in Zoot Sims groups in the mid-fifties. Did I read somewhere that he quit music soon after? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSR3nSnJ0q4

Tuesday Weld Sidney Torch Enoch Light

The perfect jazz biography! Impeccably researched and high levels of intelligence and judgement applied to the findings.

Daddy-O Daylie Knights of the Round Table Everton Weekes

Elton John Little John Maid Marion

Misleaded by the name - but: Dexter Gordon on piano in Awakenings with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro ! Ronnie Scott was in the habit of announcing Joe Henderson as a forthcoming attraction at the club and then adding "Joe 'Mr Piano' Henderson, that is".

Pal Joey Jackie's Pal Palle Danielsson

Joe Henderson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoLcWiEcUw0

Two pianists I rarely hear mentioned here are Rossano Sportiello and David Newton. I was lucky enough to hear them in May in a duo at a private party in Cheadle, a few miles from where I live. Here's a clip from the session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWk1mHSP6rE

Bud Powell's "Oblivion" from this - particularly Barry Harris's solo:

Audio technology, as a whole, has come a long way since 1959. Anyone with a smart phone and even the most modest set of earbuds are getting sound quality that is far better than anything ever delivered by cassette or 8 track. That is my experience.

Bones Howe Boney M Marty Napoleon

Salford, 1964 City of London skyline seen from Heygate Estate, Elephant & Castle

One of those events where you remember where you were, etc. I was outside Leeds Town Hall and read his obituary in a newspaper. I had followed his career pretty avidly from about 1959 when I first heard "Bakai" on Prestige up to Love Supreme, but had then lost touch with his later music as it didn't appeal to me.

Needed that after Shawn's shots of LA earlier. I could not live without green. Enjoy it while you can. The frackers have got their greedy eyes on it :-(

Aldous Fuxley!

Forest of Bowland, Lancashire

B Ware Lemmy Caution Amber Rudd

Pleased he's still active. Saw him a looong time ago - with Max Roach in the 60s and Woody Shaw in the 70s. I'm jealous - have never seen him. I REALLY would have liked to see the Strata East reunion in London earlier this year! STRATA EAST LIVE SOUNDS SUBLIME AT BARBICAN Cowell and Tolliver are clearly long-term associates. They were both in that Roach group I saw in the late 60s - along with Odean Pope and Jymie Merritt. To turn the clock forward a good deal, Harper and McBee from the Strata East gig also toured with The Cookers which I saw at The Sage, Gateshead in April. Wouldn't have been Pope in that Roach group. He was still here in Philly playing with Catalyst. Pope and Tyrone Brown (who belongs on the list of overlooked bass players) from Catalyst ended up with Roach a couple of decades later. Cecil Bridgewater completed the 80's Roach quartet. Gary Bartz was on the Roach album with Tolliver/Cowell/Merritt. It certainly was Pope. Roach made a point of drawing attention to what he called the "old English names" of his group, suggesting a complicity in slavery on the part of the English audience.